The Study Tour So Far

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Thursday

Everybody got to the airport on time and check-in went very smoothly. Air New Zealand is a great airline with excellent service, entertainment and legroom. No complaints at all. The trip from Heathrow Airport to the hostel was long, hot and tiring but all went well and we eventually got to the hostel safe and sound. The hostel is a hostel - nothing luxurious but for 20 pounds a night in London, we can’t complain. At least it is safe and conveniently located.

For our first evening I took the students to a traditional riverside pub and then we walked to a local Tesco supermarket to get some dinner - roast chicken, fresh salad, fresh strawberries and delicious cherries - yummy J

We all went to bed about 10pm - 5am body clock time - and everybody seemed to sleep ok, except me, who woke at 3.30am local time, arghhhhhh. I got up and walked to Tower Bridge. The weather was/is at the moment amazing but is scheduled to deteriorate during the day. This weekend is Wimbledon tennis finals and it’s traditional for it to rain J

OK, students are now up and eating breakfast and soon we will walk to Tower Bridge - my second time today, and then head to Borough Fruit and Vegetable markets, the best ones in England and made famous by Jamie Oliver.


Friday

I’m sitting in the lobby of the YHA - it’s Saturday morning and just gone 6am. At least I slept longer this time and would have slept even longer if I hadn’t been woken by an advertising call from HK. We all went to bed quite early after a long day walking. I don’t think the students have ever walked so far and so much in their lives. Basically we walked the length of the London Thames Southbank - from about 2 miles downstream of the Tower as far as the London Eye. The students were able to learn about the importance of the River Thames in British history, explore some of the tiny cobble-stoned streets around Tower and London Bridge, learn that what they think is London Bridge is, in fact, Tower Bridge, see skateboarders and trick cyclists at Southbank and enjoy the performances of the many buskers along the route. Later on the in the day we caught the very fast city clipper to Greenwich and learnt about the Meridian and GMT. All in all, a very long, a very tiring but hopefully a very enjoyable day for everyone.

Today we’re off to see The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard.


Forgot to mention we also went to Borough Market which was amazing and we were incredibly lucky to be going under Tower Bridge when it opened. It's very rare these days for Tower Bridge to open and most Londoners have never seen it. So we were amazingly lucky.

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Comments

[John Man]

Walk, walk and more walk...
Jet lag is for old man only, young people are usually not affected. They can sleep through everything, lucky guys. I'm pretty sure they'll all enjoy the trip even they've joined other tours. It's so different this time.

[Emily Chiu]

Skip this if you don't feel like reading it!
From: a long lost person! Dear Mr. Croft, I read about the students having trouble with their flight reservations with Oasis since they wound up. I was a bit concerned about the amount of people and the value they might have had to compensate. Looks like everything went well by reading from your blogs and I am very impressed by your dedication towards my old school for all these years. It's good to know you enjoy teaching here.