There and back again...

(By the way, the title is in The Lord of the Rings (Bilbo Baggins´ self created name for his adventures in the first part, The Hobbit), and I thought it is the best title for this resume of our week in London!)

Hi everyone!
First of all I would like to thank the kids from 7c one more time - never have I experienced a more independent and reliable group on a tour like this! Well done, folks.

Secondly, the time in London would never have been as entertaining without my partner Christina Spaller, who asked many a question I would hear again only a few minutes later - so I was always well prepared!

So were the kids when they had their presentations about some of the sights we saw during our stay! Thanks a lot, Gudrun Mitter!

And, last but not least I would like to compliment and thank Lieselotte Sapp for her great guidance of 7c through their school life so far and I hope, they will be as well behaved and good in the last 1 1/2 years here as they were in London throughout the last week!

Well, back to the story.

On Sunday, early morning, we bade London farewell, hopped on the bus and went to Stansted Airport. We got there right on time and everything went just as swommingly as expected - phew! It was a great feeling when everyone was on the plane and on the way across the Channel - the relief for a teacher is really quite a big one! ;-)
Everyone was picked up by their parents or partners and so, most of the students were at home at around 5pm. Finally a proper shower, decent healthy food and some rest - alone!
I hope most of you made it to school today and everything will be alright with your chemistry test on Wednesday and the Hesse book your had to read in German!
At last, I also would be very happy if this blog continued to exist - but it´ll be up to you to continue writing in it - I will sometimes comment and so on, and I´ll putmy best pics on this - but it´s yours now and whatever you want to do with it you can do!
So, I´d better go, have bored you with my sentimentality enough!

Cheerio, see you tomorrow,

Ernst Fischer

Last day in London - say Good bye to Hollywood...

Our last day in London was an eventful one. From finding our way through the busy streets of Nottinghill and Portobello Market to the silence in St. Paul's Cathedral, from taking a peak at WW II warship HMS Belfast to checking out the Aquarium and the huge variety of fish offered to NOT watching a great football match and going shopping - the last day has really nicely finished of the experience of 7C here in London.
But... tomorrow it's good bye. At 9.30am we'll be picked up to be taken to our last stop here in England, Stansted Airport. There we hop on the plane at 1.25pm and, hopefully, our parents, relatives, friends, whoever, will pick us up at Linz Hoersching @ around 4.30pm, when we land with our Ryan Air flight from over here!
More pictures will follow soon, as everybody from the class will put some on here, and besides, as to be expected, there will be some reports written by the students as well... alas, it's time to say good bye for me. Cheerio, thanks for looking!
ERF

Friday... only 1 day left!

Our Friday brought an adventurous trip to Cambridge... here's the report:

At first we went to kings Cross Station to hop on the train, then had to walk into town from the station in Cambridge... that's about an hour and by the time we got there, many had already become quite nervous - well, their bladders had. ;-)

Then we went past several of the oldest university buildings in Europe, Queen's College, King's College, and Trinity College, group pic below:

Really magnificent buildings, filled with hundreds of years of history... but, our students were more interested in the street market that was going on next St. Mary's Church, as to be expected... girls will be girls. Alas, there was one student, who felt inspired by the spirits of the likes of Lord Byron, Sir Isaac Newton, Wordsworth and so on.... T' was Cherry, who halted to retreat from the busy world outside and turned to himself - thoughtful youngster, thou thinkest not in vain! (Shakespeare?) In the afternoon we had the chance to try punting on River Cam ourselves, thereby discovering the beauties of the surrounding colleges and halls of residence. Must be great to be a student there. Anyways, back from Cambridge we went to the London Eye, we had the tickets from our visit to Mme Tussauds - it only took 10 mins and we were underway, experiencing London from above - outstanding views, especially of the Houses of Parliament. See Julia's pics here:

After the London Eye Sight (who gets the pun?) we returned to our hostel and had a rest... after the rest, many of the students did not want to leave anymore. Everybody is getting very tired. Fabian sprained his ankle on the way down from the 5th floor and it's badly swollen now. But he is (pasta) cool about it, so hopefully it'll be better tomorrow.

Good night, London needs a rest! But it is amazing how fast paced life in London is... it's been 5 days already and we're nearly back home as well... what a shame! Nite!

ERF

Thursday in London!!!

Today's first stop led us to Camden Market. That's a street market in the north where there are many different shops and stands with cheap and fun clothes, jewellery, pictures, and so on and so forth... so everyone had a fantastic time wandering around looking at goods AND people - especially the girls went crazy, to be honest... ;-() Here's a picture...

Afterwards we went to the British Museum, a huge free national treasury... loads of historical souvenirs from the once so gigantic British Empire can be found there, and there are free guided tours as well, so Paul, Georg Reiter and Prof. Fischer joined one of them to learn more about the peoples of China - others went for food or checked out the whole museum... there's too much to be seen for one afternoon...

Now, during their last lessons at the EC London language school, the kids are doing more communicative games and tasks... oh, bz the way, the teachers are very impressed by their level of language as well as their pronunciation AND behaviour - very good!

Afterwards, it's back home for half an hour until everyone is off to go to the musical... apart from "Kirschi" and Herr Prof. Fischer, who are invited to the Globe Theatre by an old friend from their times at Benenden and three other students, who prefer going to the cinema to watching the musical "We will rock you"!

Click the different names for more information, and see you again tomorrow!

ERF

Mme Tussauds and the Ghost Walk

Today was full of exciting events for the students - at first, in the morning we went to Baker Street to go to Mme Tussauds. We did not have to wait for very long, normally there are crazy queues there, and got in at about ten... we took a lot of pics, some of them will be on the display underneath...
Then, after some entertaining lessons, where the pupils had to think of ways of "killing" their teachers and getting away with it, we did a Walk Of Haunted Places with an interesting London character called Chris. He showed us some really beautiful places

where terrible crimes once happened and where there have been alleged ghost sightings - it was a real laugh, to be honest, quite intriguing and fun. Here you can see Frau Prof. Spaller in front of the only Austrian restaurant in London!!!

Nice, ey?

He bought a round of drinks for us in the end, and then - after having dinner, of course - we went home to the hostel. A long but intense day has ended.
Tomorrow, we'll be going to Camden Market; there's a famous street market there with lots of cheap and interesting things AND people to look at. Then, in the evening, most of us go to see the musical "We will Rock You" - to be continued

First entry - Class trip to London I

Hi everyone, it's done! The blog of class 7C has come into existence! ;-)

The first couple of days have been ravenously mad but great fun as well, I guess, and the students will be here to tell their tales soon...

Ok, I'll leave, but I won't leave without leaving one pic on this site for today:

Tower Bridge, which we went over and past today, on a double decker as well as by boat!

Cheerio,
ERF