Auf diesem Blog könnt ihr mein Auslandsjahr in England verfolgen.

16. Mai 2015

Holidays/London

One week after I arrived at my new family we got two weeks of Easter holidays and because I kinda came on short notice they parked me at Kathy’s (my contact person).
I was a bit alone so I went to the revision sessions that my school offered (smug!) for the first week until I got picked up again.

Stela was gone for most of the time but we decided that we would make a trip to London on the Friday before we would have to go to school again. It could only be one day because the rules of my organisation don’t allow us to stay somewhere overnight unless we have got someone with us that is at least 25 years old which is a shame but we went for it anyway.
We found a deal online which would allow us to take the train to London and back and use all busses and subway in London itself for less than 30£ which is extremely cheap and gives you quite a lot of freedom.

The next morning we woke up at 6:45 (earlier than for school) took the bus to the Hovertravel and then took that to the mainland. There it turned out that the train station wasn’t as close by as we thought it would be and asking the woman in the Hover station made us discover that we just missed the shuttle bus to take us there. But there would be another one in a few minutes. There was but when it came there were only a few minutes left until our train was going to leave too. When we arrived we only had like 4 minutes left and still had to print of our tickets, find out our platform number and get there in time. Frankly we ran to the station and got a bit stressed when the man at the ticket machine in front of us had technical issues. When we finally had our tickets we broke into a run again, thankfully found our platform immediately, hopped onto the first waggon and had just about enough time to catch our breath before the train left the station.

When we arrived in London I was positively surprised how uncomplicated the Subway system is and by how often the Subways come! (Both on the island and at home in Germany I live very rural, don’t judge me.) We made our way to Madame Tussauds but there were too many people already so they told us a time when we should come back. We decided to use the waiting time and made our way to the Hyde Park where we had lunch. Afterwards we took the bus to the Buckingham Palace, we couldn’t see the changing of the guards, we came too late for that, but there were two guards standing in front of the palace and then three others came and…had a chat with them separately? Don’t ask me.
Sherlock Holmes Statue
Hyde Park
Buckingham Palace
Victorial Memorial in front of the Palace
Two guards having a private conversation so the company of the
one guy had to stay out of earshot? I don't know what is going on.
You can't say they didn't warn you.

Afterwards we went back to Madame Tussauds and it was amazing. The figurines looked so real! The lighting in there was not ideal so the pictures are not as good as the real life experience.

Me and my new best friend Tom Cruise (yes, I am one of those peasants)
They had set up an area where the staff would take a picture of you with (the old) One Direction.
Katnis, with the four note whistle playing on repeat.
A part of the royal family.
Careful, this one is actually alive!!!


There was a little behind the scenes area as well.

When we left the building again we still had some time so we took the Subway to the London Bridge but it wasn’t until we had left the station that I realized that what I was looking for was the Tower Bridge and that they were two completely different bridges. So we went straight back down and tried again. This time we took the right exit and found the right bridge. We then walked over the Tower Bridge and crossed the Themes before it was time to get back to the train station to go back home after a great day in London.

The Fortress of London. This is where the Crown Jewels are kept.
Tower Bridge
Stela and me

2. Mai 2015

I changed Hostfamily...again


Do you remember that I told you about me changing out of my first family? Well, now I got out of there again. But whereas I really liked my first family and have visited them several times since I moved out, this is less likely to happen with the second family. I actually went back once to return a towel that I accidentally took from them. But that is different. It had been foreseeable for a while in advance, I spent an evening with the family that said they could take me (I had been at theirs before) and then I moved pretty soon after that.

I am now back in a big family. This one consists of the parents Jac and Janice, Slovak exchange student Stela (who I went to Bush craft with) and daughters Olivia (10), Chloë (7) and Morgandy (1). There is also a dog named Jasmine (just like one girl in my first family) who is a little less than a year old. So she doesn’t look like a puppy anymore but still kind of behaves like one. And she is so fluffy!
I now also live where I started my England adventure again, literally five minutes by foot away from my first host family.

I feel like I have to make a point about this being my third family now. Some people reacted rather shocked to this fact, so I am just going to say it: I got out of the first family out of health reasons and am still in contact with them and will keep in contact. And the second change…sometimes a family and a student just don’t match. That doesn’t have anything to do with the student or the family being incapable or inadequate.
There is no point in staying in a family where you don’t feel comfortable in. Now, about a month later, I don’t regret changing out of the family, I don’t regret changing into that second family, I only regret that I waited so long when I knew for far longer that I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my year there.

I know that people thought “Anna, it is only for three more months, pull yourself together”, but no. And I am glad that I didn’t do that. So if you are an exchange student that is facing the end phase of their time abroad: get out of that family that you don’t want to stay in, even if it is just for the last month. No matter if you are in your first or fourth family. All those other people don’t have to live there. You do. So do whatever you have to do to be happy.
(I am sorry that that got a bit cheesy in the end there.)