Language trip of the 4RHET, 2-7 October 2023

What is the purpose of a language trip? To practise using the language of course, you may be thinking. But there is much more to it: culture, history and social interaction. Let us take a look at two diary entries, written by students during this language trip, to get a feeling for such a journey’s true value.

Ben’s diary entry of Thursday, 5 October: Dear Diary, my day started at around 8.15am. I had breakfast at 8.45am. We were supposed to meet in the lobby at 9.30am. By subway and partly on foot, we made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral, where today’s walking tour started.

From there, we walked across Millennium Bridge, past Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and arrived at Borough Market, where we had an hour to eat and drink something. I treated myself to an orange juice. At around noon, we continued our journey to the Sky Garden. 

After a short wait at the entrance and a security check, we were finally able to enter the building. We took the elevator up the 30 floors and arrived at the top at about 12.30pm. We spent the next hour enjoying the breathtaking view.

At 1.30pm, we went for some lunch. We ended up at the restaurant Nando’s, where I ate a chicken burger. After lunch, we joined our teachers at the metro station. We then took the Tube to the train stations St Pancras and King’s Cross. There we visited platform 9 ¾ and went to the Harry Potter shop.

Next we took the Tube to the last destination of the day, the escape room, where we arrived at 5pm. There we had an hour to escape from a room that was based on a Harry Potter theme. To do this, we had to solve a lot of puzzles. To be honest, this was one of, if not the coolest, hour of my entire stay in London.

After that, we went back to our hotel before my roommates and I went to Leon, a fast-food restaurant, to have some dinner. The day ended at midnight, when my schoolmates and I celebrated my 18th birthday with a piece of cake.

Elias’s diary entry of Friday, 6 October: After getting up, going for breakfast and getting ready for the day, we met in the lobby. The first destination today was Little Venice, where we got on the London Waterbus. This was a boat that travelled on a canal much smaller than the River Thames. London’s canals have existed for decades and were used to transport goods and were drawn by horses, which would be riding along the waterway on the towpath.

After that, we went to Camden Market. There I looked for some tasty street food, which I found at a Taiwanese food stall. Beforehand, we had to do a street interview with other tourists. Then I mostly looked for souvenirs.

Then we went to Hyde Park, where we started a walking tour. At the beginning of this walking tour, we interviewed two residents of London. Back in school, we are supposed to turn these interviews into a podcast. Next we went to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and finally arrived at Parliament Square.

After that, we went to the London Eye, from which we got a nice view over London. The line there was not even as long as I had expected.

Finally, Nico and I went to the shopping centre Harrods, where everything was pretty expensive. But the salespeople were really nice to us. They explained many things, of which I didn’t even understand half of them. They even gave us some scent samples of expensive perfumes, which I hadn’t expected either.

Accompanying teachers: Patrick Flaßer, Markus Pein

We would like to thank the BULME Parent Association for financially supporting this language trip.