We did Eng­land for five days – that is, three year-nine clas­ses and four overta­xed tea­chers (they had fun too, don’t you fret). The jux­ta­po­si­ti­on of food­s­tuffs bet­ween the two nati­ons stuck out like a sore thumb and was ban­died about as sus­ten­an­ce for our con­ver­sa­ti­ons during our odys­sey (we were depri­ved of our natio­nal culina­ry offe­rings and given Wal­kers crisps to masti­ca­te. They were medio­cre.), deter­mi­ned that it rai­ned far too much than it ought to in the month of May, lear­ned that oysters were the real deal and that the con­fec­tion­a­ry ais­le of Eng­lish super­mar­kets was sim­ply ter­ri­fic (and, bli­mey, put ours to shame). In other words, we beca­me avo­wed anglo­phi­les in the five days of our stay.

Our coach jour­ney the­re took a jot lon­ger than it should have; after blea­ry tood­le-oos at seven o’clock at the Hal­le am 2. Ring, we made it to Calais, whe­re we were told that our fer­ry had been delay­ed by four hours and that we’d have to busy our­sel­ves by our dri­ver, a man who dwar­fed us all and foa­med at the mouth when he found crumbs on the seats (he deve­lo­ped a sen­se of humour on Day 5, after all the shou­ting had been done and all thre­ats voi­ced, and we ado­red him for it. He joked that our fer­ry had been delay­ed by four hours yet again and we’d have to busy our­sel­ves. He was one of a kind.). We amu­sed our­sel­ves during the­se four hours, by run­ning back and forth to the toi­lets in a gale that near­ly blew us off our feet. The tem­pest con­tin­ued while we were on the fer­ry and seve­ral times I thought we would all go the way of the dino­saurs, but soon we were taking pho­tos on the deck which more or less took my mind off things. Litt­le later we were in Her­ne Bay and picked up by our host fami­lies. Love­ly things they were. Though I will again arti­cu­la­te my dis­ap­point­ment at Wal­kers crisps being the thing Bri­tons can’t go wit­hout. The next mor­ning Wal­kers: Beef and Oni­on accom­pa­nied me to North Green­wich, Lon­don. We took a boat along the river, then hop­ped off it to view the Tower of Lon­don on solid ground as well as Tower Bridge with it’s glass flo­or — in short, all cor­ners a tou­rist finds joy in vie­w­ing. We spent Wed­nes­day in Whitsta­ble (dreadful wea­ther if I may add). We were given free time (what we did? Spent more money than we should have in Sainsbury’s. On con­fec­tion­a­ry.), then met again as an assem­bla­ge of seven­ty peo­p­le whe­re Mr Nut­ter, our plump, bus­hy eye­bro­wed tour gui­de, han­ded us oysters to eat on the beach, as wind and rain las­hed our faces, and the­re­af­ter a quiz to com­ple­te about the town. Our plan to visit a cast­le on a cliff was can­cel­led due to the relent­less rain, so our dear coach dri­ver park­ed in an area near Broad­s­tairs whe­re the­re were huge shops and depart­ment stores and we spent yet ano­ther few hours chil­ling in Sainsbury’s, sip­ping non­cha­lant­ly on cof­fee. Thurs­day we spent in Lon­don again, and the wea­ther was mar­vell­ous. We did the Lon­don Dun­ge­on or Chel­sea Sta­di­um (depen­ding in which group we were in) and Buck­ing­ham Palace for ano­ther spell of tou­ris­ty cul­tu­re and then hea­ded to Bond Street whe­re all seven­ty stu­dents were set free to do the shop of their lives. On Fri­day, it was Canterbury’s time to shi­ne. I deci­ded to go all the way and visit the cathe­dral; and attrac­tion that only piqued the inte­rest of two other stu­dents of the seven­ty (in all fair­ness, they had wrap­ped it up snug in scaf­fol­ding and bil­lo­wing white pla­s­tic for reno­va­ti­on, so it wasn’t in the prime of life). Then we had more free time, which we, a three-man­ned group, spent pot­te­ring round the lanes pee­ring into shop win­dows and final­ly sett­ling down in Water­sto­nes for me to spend far too much money on his­to­ri­cal non­fic­tion books. YOLO, I guess. From 6pm onwards we dro­ve (and sai­led) back to Wies­ba­den. Natu­ral­ly most of us did not sleep a wink that night owing to the fact that the­re was a par­ty going on at the top end of the bus (the choice of music was dia­bo­li­cal), so we exi­ted the coach at six-thir­ty loo­king like a hor­de of zom­bies. Truly.

By Char­lot­te Stier, 9d