MONDAY, 10/31/11

Museum of London

Well the last day started again with a visit at a museum, this time the Museum of London. It was presented by Sebastian, Julian and Lukas. The Museum of London is a very modern one and shows the whole  history of this great city. Actually we should be very interested in learning more about london, but we were very tired and not really in the mood for anything. Because we all were quite sad about leaving London and also we all could not expect to go shopping at the oxford street. So we were all like running through the museum, sorry for that Seba,Juli and Lukas ;) But all in all the museum was great, especially the rooms showing the modern times.

Oxford Street

Finally our shopping tour began at the Oxford Station. And WOW it was amazing, so many people and huge shops and shining streets. It just looks like you know it from movies and can´t believe that now you are in middle of this all. I think we all had a shopping frenzy. And we all just had eyes for buying something. Leila and I just walked through shops like we were hypnotised. It was quite creepy. 

But in the end we arrived at the hotel with each 2 huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge bags. Lisa was like "oh my god, what the hell is wrong with you? How do you want to pack this all?!"

And so our torture starts and we tried to pack our luggage. But shopaholics manage all just to keep their bought things ;-)

In the evening

Well in the evening we met as usually at the hotel and this time we visit a pub near Lord Jim´s Hotel. I liked this one but it was strange that the first we got were flyer about keeping an eye on your stuff because there are many snatchers.

Leila, Lisa and I decided to visit the London Bridge, because we were not there and it was our departure to walk over ot one time. So we leave the group and few minutes later we were standing in front of a huge sign shows " LONDON BRIDGE". It was great to stand on the London Bridge and see the Tower Bridge at night. Like in the video of Fergie called "london bridge".

So we took leave at london and through a penny in the River Themse. That means that someday we come back again!

SUNDAY, 10/30/11

Speaker's Corner, 11:00

We started the day with a spontaneous trip to the popular Speaker's Corner in the north-east corner of Hyde Park. It's an area where open-air public speaking, debate and discussion are allowed. Speakers there may speak on any subject they want. On this day there were 3 different persons speaking: The first told us his version of the story of "Adam and Eve" and the function of Adam's penis. It was a crazy but funny old man. The second man tried to convince everybody of believing in Islam by reading out loud different verses of Koran. In contrast, the third man told everybody that Jewishness is the one and only religion by badmouthing the other religions. It was interesting and funny to compare these three different persons and their different way of telling their opinion.

The National Gallery, 12:00

In this museum Alexandra, Lisa and Leila were responsible for the guidance. Unfortunately it was impossible to visit the whole museum because it includes over 2,000 paintings. So each of them picked one famous painting and explained it to the group. After that we had free time on our own for looking at the other paintings and listening to the audio guides.

Following we discovered Trafalgar Square (sitting on the lion statues, making photos of the impressive fountains, etc.. ) and visited the popular Hard Rock Café which was also creepy decorated.

Madame Tussauds, 16:00

The final place to go on this day were Madame Tussauds. But not everyone of us visited this "museum" because a few have already been there before. We just entered the main hall and looked straight into the eyes of Zac Efron, Christina Aguilera, Brangelina, Robert Pattinson.. The building was structured in Sport Stars (David Beckham, Christiano Ronaldo, Muhammad Ali, ...), Royalty (Prince Charles, The Queen, Lady Diana, ...), Pop Stars (Rihanna, Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, ...), World Leaders (Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Angela Merkel, ...), Hollywood Stars (Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, George Clooney, ...), Bollywood Stars (Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, ...), Cultural Figures (Albert Einstein, Charles Dickens, ...), Fashion (Kate Moss, Posh and Becks, ...), Characters (Captain America, Jack Sparrow, Sherlock Holmes ...) and also a little chamber of horrors in which we  screamed our minds to the heavens - just like the other half of the group who visited at the same time London Dungeon and its dark history.. Happy Halloween!

SATURDAY, 10/29/11

The British Museum, 12:00

Annika, Vanessa and Micha presented this museum. It was a huge building with a great entrance hall. It was divided in seven galleries: the gallery of Asia, America, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, Middle East, Themes like living and dying and exhibitions and changing displays. We participated a tour guide in the gallery of Asia and learned a lot about their history and why special things and person are praised up to the present day. After a short tour on our own through the British Museum, we even came across the medals for the Olympic Games 2012.

Football match, 15:00

Millwall FC VS. Ipswich Town

At first we had a few problems to get to the arena. Because it was the Halloween-weekend there were certain metro lines closed including exactly the lines we needed. So after a short bus ride and about 3 miles of walking we finally arrived at the "The Den" arena 20 min delayed. We heard bawling of the people in the arena and noticed that we already missed 2 goals. When we eventually sit on our places in the second row, it was exciting. But it seemed more like a rugby match because the footballer as well as the fans acted quite aggressive and loud.

It was a very interesting and we were engrossed in the match until the end when our favourite team Millwall FC won 4:1.

While a half of the group enjoyed the football match, the other half visited the markets.

dinner, 19:00

The Anchor Bankside

In the evening we met again in the whole group for dining together. The Anchor Bankside was overly decorated with spiderwebs and other creepy stuff. But the food were unfortunately not as overly portioned as the decoration. Especially Lukas were disappointed because of his little serve (joke).

FRIDAY, 10/28/11

The National History Museum, 10:00

Vroni, Svenja and Sarah presented this museum to us. In this museum you can see everything that has to do with evolution. Dinosaurs, fossils, padded animals... It was very interesting there. The exhibitions are shown in a very big and very old building and they are devided into four zones which show different themes. The red, the blue, the green and the orange zone.

Lunch timeAfter visiting the museum, we had time to have lunch somewhere in London. Some of us went to Piccadilly Circus, others sticked around the museum. After 2 hours we met again in front of the museum.

Science Museum, 14:00

In the afternoon we visited another museum. The Science Museum. It was presented by Miriam, Lena and Martina. Unfortunately some areas of the museum were inaccessible so we didn´t stay there very long. Anyhow it was interesting, too. You can see everything that has to do with the history of science, including medicine, locomotion and Engineering Technologies.

Soho, 7:00 pm

In the evening we went to Soho, which is the party hood of London. There are many pubs, a lot of cool people and everything is lighted with colourful lights. We wanted to go to a pub but not all of us are over 18, so we weren´t allowed to go to pubs. Finally we found a pub owner, who wasn´t interested in our ages.We stayed there for about one or two hours and then we went back to the hotel.

THURSDAY, 10/27/11

Morning:

After having breakfast, we left the hotel and took the tube to get to a bus station. From there we startet the big bus tour. That is a sight seeing tour through London whith a big red bus. It stops at every important sight and you can deside either to get off and visit the atraction or to stay in the bus and go on to the next sight. We got off the bus several times, e.g. at Buckingham Palace, at Piccadilly Circus and at Covent Garden. After the tour we had some free time and Leila, Alexandra and I had lunch at Covent Garden.

Evening: The Lion King

In the evening we met in the hotel again to get to the musical together. Unfortunately Leila, Alexandra and I were a bit late and so our techer, Mrs. E., decidet to go to the musical with the rest of the group and we tree should get there together with the other teacher, Mr. P. later. Needless to say it didn´t work. We got lost on our way to the city. When we finally arrived at the theatre, the musical had almost already started and Mrs. E. was a bit angry.
The musical „The Lion King“ was absolutely fantastic! The costumes and the stage setting looked very beautiful and the actors were amazing!
When the musical was over we went to a pub to have a drink. Then we went back to the hotel and finally slept.

WEDNESDAY, 10/26/11

The journey, 13:00 – 17:55

We met in front of the Johann-Michael-Sailer Gymnasium at 1:30 pm. After a busdrive, which took us almost 2 hours, we arrived at Stuttgart airport. Our departure was at 5:15 pm (german time) and we arrived at London Heathrow at 5:55 pm (english time).

The Hotel „Lord Jim“

To get to the hotel, we had to take the tube. It took us only about 20 minutes to get there. The Earl´s Court tube station was very close to our hotel, what made us very thankfull after travelling all day long! I liked the hotel very much. I shared a bedroom with Leila, Alexandra, Sarah and Svenja.We had more or less enough space for our luggage and the room was clean (thanks to youtube we expected to find bedbugs there which was the case in the room of some of our classmates). Every morning we could have a very tasty breakfast there, too. Furthermore the stuff was very friendly and cooperative.

The evening: Walk at the Southbank

In the evening we took the underground to get to the Thames. We had a walk there and had a beautiful view on Big Ben :) It´s lighted by night which looks awesome!