My journey to England

I have already been writing about traveling quite a lot but up to now it was all rather theoretical and to be honest only daydreaming. Because of this I thought about writing about a trip I actually did so you guys don’t think I’m just sitting at home picturing my perfect journey (though lately that’s about all the traveling I do).

So about two years ago my class went to Oxford with a day trip to London. Differently than going by plane which would be the most convenient and logical way to get there, we traveled all the way by coach. Yeah, you read right, by COACH which took us almost a whole day. Though, the whole journey was very wearying it was a very unique experience and we got to see a lot of different landscapes since we went through Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and finally France until we got to the ferry to England. (A little advice: If you use the restroom at a service area on a Belgian freeway, make sure you don’t forget to pay the fee and don’t even think of just sneaking by. Chances are pretty good that you get yelled at and even hit by toilet paper by a rather grumpy guy sitting at a table in front of the washroom. I’m not kidding, this really happened to one of us. XD)

After we took the ferry to England we continued our journey towards Oxford where we stayed at host families in groups of two to three students each. I was a little worried at first since I didn’t really know what to expect but luckily the host family I stayed with was very nice and already had some experience since we weren’t the first exchange students staying there. There were also staying two other students with us at the same time and our host-mom was very friendly and talked a lot with us, unlike some of the other hosts who just communicated to say dinner is ready.

 

 

While staying in Oxford we did a lot of sightseeing to near places and visited Stonehenge, Stratford upon Avon where Shakespeare’s houses are located and last but not least the world-famous Oxford University where we had the opportunity to take a guided tour to all the scenes which were used in the Harry Potter movies. We also went to see Madame Tussaud’s and their wax figures of famous celebrities such as George Clooney, Johnny Depp, and Marilyn Monroe.

One day we paid a visit to London where we had some free time to explore the city on our own. My friends and I turned this opportunity into a brief sightseeing tour of the most important places like Big Ben, London Eye and Buckingham Palace as well as a quick shopping spree.

  

 

 

 

All in all, it was an incredible experience to get to know the culture, people and significant places of Oxford and London better and if I ever got the chance to go there again, I’d say yes without any hesitation (but probably I’d take my classmates with me again ;))