Die achten Klassen machten sich dieses Jahr  – nach Corona endlich – wieder auf nach Eastbourne. Hier folgen ihre aufgezeichneten Eindrücke einer ereignisreichen und beeindruckenden Fahrt: 

The journey begins

The 8th grade of the Goethe Gymnasium went on a school trip to Eastbourne in England from the 8 May to the 13 May. England provided us with a unique opportunity to communicate with native speakers.

On the 8 May, we met at the GGE at 5 am to be picked up by our buses. On our journey, we passed through France and Belgium. Of course, at times it would get quite loud and rowdy. What else would you expect if you cramped 50 teenagers into a bus for a whole day? After arriving in Calais, we had time to enjoy the breathtaking view of the English Channel. We boarded the ferry at around 6 pm and departed for Dover. There were numerous arcade machines, cafes, and restaurants. We even got a free meal and drink. At last, we arrived in England, after which we drove another two hours to Eastbourne. We finally met our host families and were glad the exhausting drive was over.

On the next day, we drove to a school, where we’d be taught English by native speakers. It was interesting seeing how differently they spoke compared to our German English teachers. After this, we had planned to go on a coastal walk along the Beachy Head, but it was too foggy, so our teachers decided to postpone the walk to Thursday.

Back in Eastbourne, we did a rally to get to know Eastbourne. We explored historical and exciting places in small groups and handed our rally forms in at the end of the day. Then, we were finally dropped off with our host families.

Overall, the journey was long and arduous, but the first two days were without a doubt great fun and only the beginning of an even greater week.

Text: Michael Wang, Mara Shahriari, Sarah Jentzsch, Leo Babinsky, Klasse 8a

Our trip to London on Wednesday

On Wednesday we went to London. As we were driving to London by bus, we had to wake up very early – at 6 o’clock. The drive took 2 hours. In the beginning, we went on a boat trip on the River Thames, it was really exciting and from the boat, we saw all the famous sights, for example the Tower Bridge, the London Eye and Big Ben. It was a very different view than from land. The Tower Bridge was impressive because it was really huge and beautiful. All the sights that we saw looked much better than in the pictures. After the trip on the River Thames we walked to the famous London Eye. We went on the London Eye and it took us about 20min to go round. The view from the top was amazing. You could see almost all the famous buildings from the London Eye and we took a lot of pictures. Then we had a small break near Big Ben where we could eat our lunches that the host families had made for us. After the break we saw the Horse Guards at Whitehall. Afterwards we went to Buckingham Palace. Our teacher told us that if you can see the British flag, the royal family is not in the Buckingham Palace, but if you can see a special flag the royal family is home. Finally, we took the Tube to North Greenwich on the Jubilee Line. It was a new experience to go by Tube. Then we walked to the coach park where we got on the bus. At last, we drove back to Eastbourne by bus where we spent the evening with our host families. We really enjoyed our first day trip to London. 

Text: Hannah Bischoff, Klasse 8b 

London trip day 2

On the last day of our school trip we went to London. My day started at 5:45 am, even though we were supposed to wake up at 4 am to pack our suitcases. As you can guess, we overslept and had to be there at 6 am sharp. 

Somehow we still managed to get to the bus and said goodbye to our host father Stewart. Many people tried to sleep on the bus from Eastbourne to London.

When we arrived in London we took the tube to Camden Lock Market and this time nobody got lost (unlike last time, when we tried to travel by tube on Wednesday and lost half of the people in our group…) 

At Camden Lock Market we went to Starbucks and got some drinks (They never spell my name right) before walking around and buying souvenirs in the many shops there. 

After some time (in my opinion we had too little free time) we had to go back to our group and we went to the British Museum. To be honest, I can’t tell you much about it because instead of looking at stuff we sat down and ate lunch. There were some funny-looking statues though. 

After that we walked to Chinatown. The weather in London was so weird, because one second it was really warm and the next there would be so much wind you’d feel like it’s -10°C. We didn’t stay long in Chinatown and walked over to Covent Garden, which was surprisingly near and were we had 1,5 hours of free time. 

Me and my friend went back to Chinatown where we looked at many different shops with cute stuff. Later we decided to buy some steamed buns because there was a Kung-Fu Panda poster in front of the store. 

Back in Covent Garden we also walked past interesting shops and watched some random man perform on the street. I don’t know what he was actually trying to do, but it looked funny. 

After that, we went back to the tube station and took the bus to the ferry that would take us back to France. 

On the ferry there was lots of wind so it would sway around which got many people feeling sick. Me and my friends didn’t get seasick for some reason so we were outside on the deck trying not to get swooped away by the wind. 

By the time we got back to land it was probably 8 pm. Now that we were already in France on our way back home almost everyone tried to sleep a bit.  

Text: Amelie Bohnert, Klasse 8d