To London!

I have just come back from my school trip to London and, as always, it has been an amazing experience.

DAY 1

I had to wake up very early in the morning so the journey turned out to be quite tiring, but when I finally arrived my weariness immediately disappeared. The morning hours were the most boring cause my classmates and I had to stand in the hotel’s hall for nearly an hour, leaving a deposit and filling in some paper stuff. Then we went to Covent Garden’s where we had lunch: a friend of mine and me decided to have our own at Pizza Hut and we both regretted it.

The afternoon was spent in the British Museum: it has a huge collection of art pieces, and it’s very interesting, especially the ancient Greek art.  Anyway, after two hours and a half, I had been having enough of it.

Back to the hotel I tried not to sleep (the bed seemed so comfortable after the day’s efforts) by having a quick shower. After dinner, we went for a night walking to Piccadilly Circus: I’ve found it as chaotic, as I remembered, but I was nice.  I once had the impression my teacher wad daltonian,  'cause he never crossed the street with green light on; plus, he didn’t walked at all: he trotted!

When we went back to the hotel I spend some time with my mates  and I enjoyed it for probably the first time in five year. They made me taste Guinness  beer but I don’t like alcohol so I can’t tell you if it’s as good as people say.

DAY 2

This was the first serious exhausting day: from Bloomsbury we moved to Westminster, Buckingham Palace,  Harrods and Hyde Park. Oh, did I mention that we’ve never  travelled using public transports? It was very hard at first, but then I became kind of used to it, if not addicted (no I mean, seriously! Now that I’m back at home I miss all the walks,  and I feel like my days are empty, with nowhere worth going).

Some of my classmates and me visited Westminster Abbey, and it was a wonderful experience. It’s such a huge and amazing building that you can perceive a sense of history when entering it.  Passing in front of many tombs made me revise all the English literature’s programme of the past two year:  it was impressive how many notions I could remember. My favourite part, however, was  the so called poets’ corner: when I reached T.S. Eliot’s slab I said "Please Eliot, pray for us!".  My mate looked at me weirdly  XD
When we went to Hyde Park i had an encounter with a nice hungry squirrel that nearly scared a friend of mine sitting near me on a bench.

Along with few classmates and two teachers, I went to a walk to the river Thames's bank in night time. They took lots of pictures, all amazing and extremely detailed (want ‘em!). We were able to hear the Big Ben’s  strikes: I just stayed speechless listening to that beautiful sound that once rolled the whole city.

I also received some unexpected compliments from one of my class mate  about my recent improvements in English. It was very kind of him: nobody has ever said something like that to me, apart from my English teacher, but he never told me directly.

DAY 3

We must have been walking for kilometres! From Bloomsbury we moved to the City, the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge, then we went back till we reached the Tate Gallery. We stopped there for lunch and for a quick visit.

When I finally sat down at the cafe, I just wanted something to fill my empty belly. While my friend was ordering a sandwich to the waiter, my English teacher appeared behind us, obviously scaring us. Do you know what did he want? An umbrella! He came to London without even packing an umbrella. Shameful! When I think about it, it always makes me smile.

Then came my favourite part: the National Gallery. Well, call it national might be considered a paradox, because the only “national” painters were William Turner and John Constable, both extremely talented, by the way. One of Constable’s pictures attracted me particularly: there was a stag in the middle of a wood with a kind of tomb near him. It was very well done and conveyed me such a sense of rest and peace that my tiredness immediately disappeared. I also liked the huge painting of Whistlejacket: very simple but extremely detailed.

Night time was such a shame though! My classmates wanted to sit in a pub and have a beer, but, since there were people from the other class who were under 18, we ended up in a kind of squalid bowling/ penny arcade.

DAY 4

Relax! We practically did nothing! My classmates went shopping in Piccadilly Circus, while a friend of mine and me just entered a book shop: I’ve bought a marvellous (also heavy!) book about animation, “The Animator’s Survival Kit”. It’s very nice, with some animation’s tutorial and, at the end, some circles. After that, we’ve been sitting in a Starbucks coffee bar for about 2 hours, doing nothing but chatting…and having something of course!

In the afternoon I sadly had to say goodbye to London. We took the coach that would have brought us to Gatwick, but the driver decided that it would have been nicer taking the way to Heathrow instead! We’ve run the risk of losing our flight, but I wasn’t so worried, unlike my friend who was kind of pissed off and would have taken the flight alone, leaving the rest of us alone, cause he didn’t care and just wanted to come back home. I would have kicked him. He’s so selfish! He pissed me off! Every time he spoke he complained about something: "I’m tired, Italian food is definitely better, it’s impossible to walk so long distances without even stopping, I have to use the toilet, I have to sleep and so on". I think I would have joined the trip more if I didn’t have him around.

Anyway, in the end, we succeeded in arriving at the airport just in time; well, we did all the stuff in a rush, but we departed without any problems.

I don’t want to deal with the arrival because it wasn’t so happy and it made me regret leaving UK and thinking about coming back there.

So this is the end! (Finally). What else can I say? As you see, I’ve really enjoyed my time in London and I’ve had the chance to establish a better relationship with my school mates.




Ps: All the photos you see (except for the one of John Constable's picture) were taken by me and... yeah, the quality sucks, as well as my photographical skills.