Trips, Visits and Events
A week in York
by Daisy De Montjoye
Each student who participed to the York trip in May 2006 kept a diary on the week’s varied programme of activities, from sampling life as a monk at Fountains Abbey to investigating the daily lives of inmates of a prisoner of war camp in World Wars One and Two. As well as gaining an insight into certain periods of British history, some unexpected learning went on too... Here are some extracts of Daisy’s.
Wednesday 24th May
After having had a cooked English breakfast (at last), we took the bus to Fountains Abbey. There we all dressed up as monks. We could not make fun of others because we were all the same. Mr Black was a very good monk; he really had the characteristics of one. I thought what the lady was telling us was fascinating. Because she had a big smile when she spoke, you really wanted to listen to everything she was saying.
I got to pretend to have committed a “crime”: “I fell asleep during the first service, Brother Blandine had to nudge me to wake me up.” The lady supposed I was an old monk. She told us where the elders went when they got too old and how there life was different than in the Abbey.
I thought the abbey was beautiful. We were lucky because it was sunny. The abbey has no roof left, so we could see the blue sky. The grass was also very green so it made it impossible to believe that it had a roof before. It would be freezing cold, with a stone/mud floor etc...I was really disgusted by the fact that washing four times a year was considered clean.
After lunch, we went back in the bus to Eden Camp. Eden Camp was a prisoner of war camp during WWI and WWII. You could visit the actual huts where prisoners were kept, which had been turned into a museum. We learned about the world wars: during the Blitz, the Shelters, U-Boats, what prisoners would make to occupy themselves (paintings, puppets, dominos, doll house furniture, trays...), the allies, Hitler, letters sent to friends/families.
We only had one hour so we had to hurry, but for what I did see, it was very well made and organized. I thought hut 3 (the U-Boat) was terrifying. It was just me and Yuval in it. It was silent except for a ticking noise. There were faces at a fake window which made Yuval scream, and made me scream even though I hadn’t seen anything.
Unexpected learning in York, by Michele May... |
Finally we arrived at Whitby. The walk up to the graveyard was very nice and peaceful, looking around at all the typical English houses, shops and streets. Up in the graveyard, it was very windy and funny! Everyone was pretending to fly, or acting the scene from Titanic. We even had Alix singing: “I believe I can flyyy, I believe I can touch the skyyy!!”
Then Blandine and I went around the graves, looking at the dates. Here are a few I can remember: 1608, 1698, 1766,1823,1847,1896. How long has this graveyard been there? Sometimes it was very sad because a lot of graves had the ages 12, 13 and 16 engraved on them.
After that, we went to eat fish and fhips (well, nugget and chips actually). Of course, Yuval didn’t like them. I admit it wasn’t the best meal, but we are in England so we eat English food!
When we had finished eating, Blandine, Yuval, Thibaud, Steven, Thomas, Paul, Junior and Simon and I all went on a wall. It was wonderful: view of the sea, wind in our faces, all of us completely crazy! We all sang: Yellow Submarine, We will rock you and all kinds of other great, old songs. Then, the Chaville girls, Luna, Audrey, Nomsa etc. all joined us but on a smaller wall.
This is my best memory of York!
Friday 26th May
NOOOOOOOOOo !!!!Today, we leave York...for a long trip back to horrid boring France! I really, really enjoyed the trip! It was great fun, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Vicki, Mrs. Cellier, Mr Black, Pat Short, Miss May, Miss Jones, Helen Mangani, the mother who accompanied and all the others who helped to plan the best trip in the world!
Dernière modification le 06-05-08 par
