A Trip to an Unfamiliar Place

Adwoa A Adu
10/1/12
English 101
Final Draft A Trip to an unfamiliar place It all started when I was called to see the principal of my school (high school), we were actually five girls involved and we were travelling to England because we had an exchange program with a school in Kent, England called the Weald of Kent Grammar School for girls. I was so excited because it was my first time travelling outside Africa and it did have a good impact on me. In all, we were about thirty students chosen and these students should be good academically and also have good morals. Before we left for England there were a lot of preparations we did while we were inn school, we learnt some new dances, poems in French and other dialects in my country Ghana, this part of learning dances was funny because it was so hard for since I am not a good dancer but I made it through at the end. We also learnt other cultures because we were going to have some presentations in the school and we didn’t forget diseases that are killing Africans like Malaria, AIDS, Tuberculosis and so on, we did researches on these when we went back home on vacation. We came back to school from our vacation with our luggage ready to leave for England. From school to the airport was very boring, it was about an hour and thirty minutes’ drive, we left school around 6pm and arrived at the airport 8:30pm our plane was taking off at 12 midnight so we hanged around the airport for a couple of hours. My dad was there with so was other parents with their daughters. I had mixed feelings at the time my dad was there till he left because I was sad and the fact that I was leaving him and happy because I was travelling to a place I had never been before. We checked in at 10pm and the plane took off at 12 midnight. It was boring in the plane so I slept from Ghana to Morocco where we made a transit and we took another plane from Morocco to London Airport where the Weald of Kent girls picked us from they took us to their school and we met the families we were going to live with I met my own family too and we went to their house. My first day with them was a feeling I can’t really express with words but I will say I was very shy because I hadn’t come into contact with British or the Whites before but after my third day I got along well with them and felt very happy living with my new family, they were very wonderful people. Except for weekends, every morning I went to school with Laura and Laura was the student I had come to live with her family. My first day at Weald of Kent Grammar School was exciting because first of all, I was marveled at the site of the school beautiful building it was and the grass are kept short and clean. Classes with them was great, we had a Social Studies and Japanese classes and I loved it I learnt some new words in Japanese language. We had classes the first week from Monday to Friday and on the weekend I spent at home with my family. The next week we went with the principal of the school to tour the city of London we went to the Buckingham Palace where the Queen of England lived, there were a lot of people around because a parade was being held in front of the palace. From there we went on to see the London Eye it’s a huge Ferris situated on the River Thames in England, we also cruised on the River Thames it was fun and a good experience. We also took some pictures in front of the Westminster Abbey this is a collegiate church of St Peter, a very large one situated in the city of Westminster my friends and family loved the pictures when I showed it to them back in Ghana. There were a lot of great thing we saw like the clock Tower in Westminster, the Tower of London, very beautiful malls where we shopped in fact I really enjoyed myself with my colleagues. In the second week, Thursday precisely, we went back to school and I attended a French class which we watched a movie we were to analyze, I loved it so much and the reason that made me enjoy their classes is their way of teaching and learning, it’s marvelous, very easy to follow the teacher, very easy to understand and it’s ok to ask questions. They have a lot of facilities that makes learning easier compared to my school in Africa where we don’t get such opportunities but if we adapted such strategies will make going to school fun and easy. On Friday night, a farewell ceremony was held at the school premises because we were leaving the next day on that night we did some African dances, recited African poems, some cultural presentations and they also gave us some performances since it was an exchange program. When I got home that Friday night, I packed all my stuff ready for tomorrow I was very sad but I spent some time with the family we talked about Ghana compared to England and the wished to visit one day. The next morning we all met at the school and a bus took us to the airport, indeed this trip was a very memorable one which is always in my memories especially because of the way the teachers at the school taught and how they taught us to learn changed my perception about learning and that was a very good impact it had on me and I wish to go on a trip to England the second time.