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Studienfahrt nach Nordengland und Schottland
12.-21.September 2005
Travel Report
Monday, 12th September 2005Finally time had come, it was Monday, 12th September and the adventure could start. The only problem was that it should really become an adventure, and not only be (as some had expected) a good possibility to enjoy ten more days without school. At 6 o'clock in the morning we left Augsburg: 35 pupils, our teachers Mrs Nestler and Mr Dirr and Miss Deisenhofer, a student teacher. Everybody was tired but also very excited. Our destination: Great Britain.
It took us 12 hours to reach Zeebrugge, the ferry harbour. During the bus ride it was raining all the time and we cared strongly about finding "toilets for free" along the way. But soon it turned out that this was much more difficult than we had thought. Those of us who followed the slogan "Geiz ist Geil" had to let go their intentions already. Time passed quickly and so we arrived in a pretty good mood (singing loudly and after having watched the movie "Grasgeflüster" in English) at the ferry harbour Zeebrugge. This was going to be a long evening which included even a cold buffet. There were many different decks on the ship, decks you could dance on, for example, as an experiment showed quite fantastically. But there were also interesting shops, a lounge with a piano man playing and a "disco".
Everything invited us to go shopping, to chill out and to have fun. And then the evening got to its culmination: The Quiz. We all went to the "disco", where an entertainer tried to tame the crazy crowd by asking his questions. Nobody was really successful, neither us nor the other passengers. This was no miracle because the questions were quite difficult to answer. Due to our new English friends "Wigan" we achieved at least eight points out of 20 (although we hadn't understood some of the questions).
Tuesday, 13th September 2005
This day began with a first-class breakfast on the ferry and the feeling of having finally reached England. Our first destination on the island: York. We were all walking quite a lot that day, armed with our questionnaire and a lot of money for shopping. We walked on the old city wall and asked the inhabitants of York to help us answering our question sheet. No citizen could escape.
Even the weather was good, we enjoyed the sun during our hot dog lunch outside our bus.
Afterwards we checked in the Youth Hostel, being very glad to get our luggage back and therefore finally being able to change clothes.
Soon back in town centre, we first visited the old gothic Minster of York with the whole group. Then we split up in several smaller groups and spread into different directions in order to buy dinner. That was the chance for some of us to go for another little walk on the city wall. In the evening we all met again in order to experience this day's big event: The "Ghost-Trail of York", which was presented by an old Englishman in a dinner jacket. "We laughed, screamed and we will never forget". That is what we were told about the most well-known ghosts and other phenomena of the night. Later we went back to our Youth Hostel an the fight about the three showers broke out. In the end everybody was clean and happy. We went to bed being very, very tired from the first day on British ground. This is how the interesting and funny day, which we all had enjoyed very much, ended.
Wednesday, 14th September 2005
The day began early in the morning with a tasty breakfast at the comfortable York Youth Hostel. Full of new energy and motivation we continued our tour to our next stop: at a large historical mill called Quarry Bank Mill.
During the next few hours we learned a lot about the sight and its importance during the industrial revolution. Cotton had already been produced in the mill since 1784. Our nice guide Mr. Graham explained the whole production procedure of cotton very competently and interestingly. He told us, for example, what a regular day in a mill worker's life must have been like: He had to work for 14,5 hours a day and earned only one pence a week!
After having visited the mill, we went to the "most luxurious" place in Manchester: Owls' nest, the notorious "place in the country" belonging to Manchester Grammar school. The small house was built many years ago on a hill in the countryside around town. You have a fantastic view of the city of Manchester from up there. After our arrival, we unloaded the bus by forming a long chain of people right into the only bedroom of the house. Everyone had to sleep in that big room, some pupils even had to stay on the floor underneath the table tennis courts, because there weren't enough beds to sleep in. We had to use an outdoor toilet. For dinner a great lasagne had been delivered by Mr. Dobson, the German teacher of Manchester Grammar School. We spent the rest of the evening outside where we sang some songs and played guitar.
Thursday, 15th September 2005
When we were woken up because of some little spiders running over our faces, we didn't know yet what would be waiting for us that day: rich boys, strange museums and folkloric dances.
But let's begin with the story in the morning: "Aaaaaaaaaaah, a spider!!" Simone was screaming loudly. But today no spiders could annoy us because we were going to go to a wonderful place, a place like paradise, a place being crowded with boys (whose parents are rich enough to pay over 7000 £ for a school year...and therefore soon our Dior dresses...): The place was Manchester Grammar School for Boys, the school we have had an exchange for many years. Having arrived at MGS, some girls in particular became rather excited about all those boys. After the morning assembly, a very serious business, it seemed, which was presented by the school's headmaster who looked like Dumbledore, we were shown around the school by some very nice English students. Facilities and equipment we could only dream of! Then we enjoyed a real school lunch. After this short break, we had a guided discussion in small groups with our English partners. Apart from other things, one result was the sentence: "Ilk been blood!" (That was the only thing Andrew, our discussion partner" could say in German.) Unfortunately we had to leave soon and our bus took us to the next stop: Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Being honest, we have to admit that this was very boring, because we had already seen most of the exhibits one day before. After this "great" experience, we headed for our most favourite hobby: Shopping.
In the evening we were back at the Owls nest and Mr. Dobson, the MGS German teacher who had guided us during the day joined us together with his wife for Kässpatzen dinner.
Afterwards we danced old folk dances which Mrs. Dobson taught us. During the action she suddenly looked around for a dance partner and there was Serkan. "Seko, Seko, dance with me" she said. (You should know that Serkan asked us 5 times to mention him in our report...)
Serkan and Mrs. Dobson danced together through the whole room. After this exciting evening we went to bed. We were very tired so we slept very tight although there were some little spiders in our beds...
Friday, 16th September
At 6.30 a.m. we all got up very slowly because it had been quite a noisy night. Another reason for being slowly was the chilly room temperature. It's not a clever idea to make tired students prepare breakfast :-) it will to take ages. After breakfast it was time to get ready for cleaning up the Owls' nest, which had been very tidy before :-) Mysteriously all pupils disappeared when it was time to clean the toilets, especially our outdoor facility... (Remark: The number of victims who hurt their fingers in the bathroom door was constantly rising...)
10.21 a.m. While some students were already sitting in the bus (being more or less awake) the others were feeding the donkeys across the street. Some unknown people called them Mr. and Mrs. Dobson...
Here comes an important advice for teachers on a bus ride with us: Try to relax, even if your pupils are singing or shouting for music. If you're not able to relax, you will soon be desperate. Our favourite songs are: "10 kleine Fische, die schwimmen im Meer, blubb blubb blubb blubb,...", "Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder" (yeah, much better than "besoffener Elch") The beautiful landscape during the bus ride was very exciting and interesting *ggg* especially because of the sheep, cows and hills.
We finally arrived at Hadrian's Wall where we went for a little walk along the wall and took a lot of pictures. The Wall was supposed to be a barrier against Bavarians...ehm barbarians. In former times the wall was very helpful to protect the Roman Empire. This included security for the poor, the women and children who lived in the border area. But today? MTG-student: "Mrs. Nestler, where's Hadrian's Wall???" Mrs. Nestler: " Hrmpf, you're standing on it!!!"
Before we were sent to bed, our teachers had the honour to listen to our singing and guitar playing. You could be sure that the teachers wished to be alone soon, so we went to bed. But the next day was going to come soon...
Saturday, 17th September
Before we continued our trip while slowly approaching Scotland, we had a very good breakfast in Wooler Youth Hostel. We carried our luggage in a great hurry back to the bus and left England's most northern youth hostel in order to finally conquer Scotland.
After having had a small stop in Kelso, a wonderful, very old town with an abbey, we crossed the border of England and Scotland. In contrast to the small, peaceful border city Wooler, Edinburgh seemed to us like a metropolis. When we saw the reception of our youth hostel, which was located right in the city centre, we looked hopefully into our future, because there was even a very big flat screen. The rooms were very nice, but the boys were not very lucky, because they had to share their room with our teacher. The whole group got the chance to discover the city soon after the check-in, which turned out to be very exciting. The shops were wonderful and so was the architecture of Edinburgh. A very funny incident was when a Scottish man who wore a traditional kilt showed us that not everybody is wearing underwear. Now, that our biggest question about the Scots had been answered, we headed for a lovely dinner at McDonalds. At the end of this exciting day, we all slept very well.
Sunday, 18th September
After the wonderful night in Edinburgh Youth Hostel, we got up at 7 o'clock and had a short breakfast at 8 o'clock. Our first sight for today was Edinburgh castle, which is one of the most famous castles in Scotland. We enjoyed looking at the Scottish crown jewels, the stone of Destiny and the oldest building in Edinburgh: St. Margaret's chapel built in 12th century.
We were also impressed by the dungeon, the giant medieval victory canon called "Mons Meg" and the room in which Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI. All in all the visit of Edinburgh castle was an interesting experience.
Afterwards, we walked only a few metres to a museum called "camera obscura" This is a very modern museum which shows different, very unusual views of the city of Edinburgh. There were three floors, all packed with amazing optical illusions. We had a lot of fun on the first floor because there were big lenses, shadow walls, colourful, giant kaleidoscopes and our favourite objects: The bendy mirrors and a computer that could change your look into baby or a monkey. The second gallery was the light fantastic floor where we could look at 3D pictures.
The third and last gallery was called Edinburgh visions. Here we had the unique experience to enjoy our funny guide entertaining us with stories of Edinburgh's exciting past. Due to the object "camera obscura" we could even spy on people in the streets and "picked" them up with our hands... This museum was the funniest and most interesting sight of the whole trip so far. The last stop before reaching the Youth Hostel was Falkirk Wheel. Basically this is an rotating arm with gondolas on each end. It turns like the sails of a windmill and is able to lift or lower boats in the gondolas from one level to another and therefore connecting two canals. It was a pity that we didn't have enough time to take a ride with one of the tourist boats. That would have been nice because of the beautiful view and the great weather.
After that wonderful day, we took a ride to our next youth hostel in Glencoe, had a great dinner and fell into our beds.
Moday, 19th September 2005
After having woken up in one of the most beautiful landscapes of our journey, we had breakfast in the Scottish youth hostel in Glencoe. This village is located in the Highlands next to the tallest mountain of the United Kingdom - Ben Nevis. After breakfast Mrs. Nestler explained today's route. First we were going to go shopping to buy food and souvenirs for our families. We had one hour in Tesco-supermarket to find all the things we wanted to buy. Most students chose the typical Scottish cookies called "shortbread". Then our bus driver Günther took us to Loch Ness. On the way we saw Ben Nevis and a whiskey distillery, which we wanted to visit after having been to Loch Ness.
When we arrived there, everyone was really excited about the Nessie legend and started looking for the monster. It's a pity that we couldn't see it, but we were told that in the past a few people had been able to catch a glimpse of the frightening animal and even take a picture. But we didn't have enough time to check their mysterious observations because the guided tour at the whiskey distillery was going to start at 4 o'clock and we didn't want to be late. Günni, the world's best bus driver drove fast enough so we could make it in time. The guided tour started with a very unprofessional short movie about the whiskey legend.
The main character was supposed to look and behave like a Scottish barbarian in ancient times and spoke with a very funny accent. We could only understand a little bit but all in all it was a funny movie. Afterwards the distillery guide explained the production procedure of the original Ben Nevis Whiskey. The first two steps of the progress are just like beer production. The third step shows the difference between the drinks, but here are three varieties. First the "low wine" with low alcoholic percentage, the tone with 80%-90% alcohol and the third with 40%-50% alcohol. Only the last one is used for whiskey. After the tour we went to the shop where we could buy whiskey for our parents. The opinions about the distillery differed a lot. Back in the bus some students decided to go for a walk to Loch Leven, because they wanted to see more of the beautiful Highland nature. The other pupils went back to the hostel, where they prepared dinner: they cooked curry sauce and rice and a very tasty salad.
Tuesday, 20th September 2005
The next day we got up earlier than the days before because we had to take the English test at 7 o'clock. After the test (which hadn't been that bad after all) the long bus ride from Glencoe to Hull, where we entered the ferry to Zeebrugge. But during the bus tour there were some stops. The first one was at the popular Loch Lomond where the sun was shining and we had a wonderful view over the lake and the mountains. We took a lot of pictures and enjoyed the landscape. When we finally reached the ferry we were very hungry and decided to eat as much as we could in the four season restaurant on board. After 5 plates of food and the satisfying service of friendly Asian waiters, we listened to live music in the "disco" of the ferry. Saturated and happy we went to bed at 12 p.m. The next morning we could watch an unbelievably beautiful sunrise while we were having breakfast.
