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TAC 2012 Freutsch ReQuest | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Bjorn Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4866 days ago 244 posts - 286 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: German, French | Message 73 of 105 01 July 2012 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
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Have a nice trip.
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| ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5030 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish | Message 74 of 105 09 July 2012 at 1:08pm | IP Logged |
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London entry coming soon, it's enormous and I want it to be a good read. But London was great !
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 75 of 105 09 July 2012 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
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Glad you enjoyed London, it is a beautiful city. And I'm looking forward to your huge
post :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5030 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish | Message 76 of 105 10 July 2012 at 5:34pm | IP Logged |
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I was away for 5 days, and you'll be surprised how much activities my school managed to squeeze in this little amount of time.
Day 1: The first day was a traveling day, from our hometown to Callais and then with the boat to Dover, and then to London. We had to go by boat because the train over the channel was already booked full, due to the Olympic games. We arrived in West Wickham, a neighborhood in London, where we were going to sleep with host families. We had to wait in bus till our "family" arrived, the women, where my and 3 friends were staying, took quite long and when she finally came, she had to drive 2 times because she had a tiny car and we couldn't fit in it all at the same time. Apperently, she thought is was very late already, cuz she was in such a hurry that I coudn't even introduce myself, which I thought was quite strange... Then in her house, she made dinner, no conversation, what so ever, she had already eaten, and she just went away, leaving us with the spaghetti, the cat and her whole house alone, to pick up her daughter. Again, a bit strange. When the 2 of them came back, we had installed ourselves in the living room, the daughter just popped in for a second, said "hi" and dissapeared again, her mother suggested, we should watch a film in our room, so we did. Again, no contact what so ever, no conversation at all. Day 2: Now when we drove to the gathering point the nex morning, we did had a conversation with the woman, for the first time, and we got to know her a little better. At the gathering point, we went into the bus again, and we drove to the nearest tube entrance. The tube btw is amazing, it's very efficient, fast, every city should have it. from that entrance, we headed for St. Paul's cathedral, and I'm not religious, but it's a really beautiful building, and it's history, and it's engineering is really interesting. We could choose between a tour, in the cathedral or climb up to the top. I did the latter, and the view was wonderfull, despite the rainy weather. Every tuesday at around 11:15 to 12:00, there's a changing of the guards, at Buckingham palace, now since the majority of our class was still in St. Paul's at around 11 o'clock we didn't really made it on time, but we were close, and honestly it's not all that interesting. It's really crowded, hard to see anything and what you can she is just a couple of people in red uniforms. Our host families were of course also providing us food, so they made lunch packages, which were really really awfull :P, dry bread with a strange kind of butter, orange cheese, or fish spread. "Not my cup of tea". After eating these real treats, or rather throwing it away and going to the Mac. we went to the British Museum, which is a very beautiful museum, but not so much "British" rather the Museum at which we display all the art we've stolen from other nations. It's just weird that the biggest Greek art collection is in London. Sure some Greek art could be present, but so much? Next was a photo-assignment, we had to go to 3 of London's landmarks and take a picture with it, in groups. We went to Oxford Street, some arch and Covent Garden. Now I loved Covent Garden, the whole atmosphere breathes creativity, we saw some really good performances there! We had dinner that day in a nice pub close to Trafalgar Square, and although I'm no fan of British food, it was quite good. Back in the house of our host family, we finally had a real conversation, with the daughter of the house. We talked about all kinds of stuff. I did notice I kind of adjusted my speech, which I think sounds American, to sound more British, leaving t's out or not turning them to d's e.g. that->tha' beder->be'ah (better). though I mostly left the R's in and didn't really use the aaaa vowel like in class. (I said cleasss (the american way), and than classsss (the british way) for the second time for clarification) Day 3: The Globe, the recreated theater of Shakespeare, was our first stop this day. We had a really funny guide from Ireland, who was really good, he explained everything very clearly and with loads of humor. Windsor Castle is the oldest still inhabited castle in Europe, and was also our second stop this day, now Windsor, of course is not in London. So it was quite the drive. The castle sure is impressive but not really that interesting, you get a lame device with you, which tells you where to go, and acts as a guide at the same time. And I thought it all kinda looked the same, if you had seen 1 room, you'd seen them all. And graves of dead kings aren't all that interesting either. Windsor itself is a nice town, it's a nice change after the busy city of London, and feels really cosy and pleasant. Now this day wasn't that intense so after windsor we went back to our host families, which felt like a jail a bit, all you could do there really was watching dvd's or staring at the cat. So we asked if we could go out for walk, which wasn't allowed apparently but the woman let us go either way, but we only couldn't tell the organizers of the trip. So we went out and surprise bumped into our teachers who were eating in a restaurant we passed. We said our "house" was close by and that we only went to the supermarket (which was true). But then 1 teacher called us , but luckily nothing was wrong, he just thought, that since we stayed so close, we could come to the gathering point walking rather then with the woman's car, cuz she had to drive 2 times because of her tiny car and this was slowing the whole trip down. When we got back in her house, we again were kinda forced to go upstairs with a DVD. I think she really only does this for the money. She runned our stay more like a stay in a bed and breakfast rather than a host family, cuz it wasn't a that "familiar". Day 4: The last day. This day was a "free-day", we could really do what we wanted after a small obligatory programm, which wasn't bad either. Before we went to London we had to pick 1 museum out of 4, to which we would like to go to on this day, I had chosen, The Imperial War Museum, which is really nice. There are a lot of planes, tanks, guns, bombs etc. but also a exibition on the holocaust, and almost every war since the first world war is present. So if your a history freak like me, you should go there. We then walked to the eye, the Eye of London of course and went in, the Eye provides a really nice view of London, and this time the weather was better (unlike when I stood a-top St. Paul's) and the view, again was amazing, really. The thing, is that one round takes a little bit too much time, and when you've seen everything, and made photos of everything, it gets kinda dull. The rest of the afternoon, was for us to fill in, and we went to some shopping streets, bought some souvenirs and stuff and finally had a proper meal at a Bella Italia's. In the evening our school had booked a musical, which was my first musical, we went to "We Will Rock You", and I liked it, I guess it wasn't really a "musicial musicial", meaning that it propably wasn't a hardcore musical, but the songs (of Queen) were great, the musical was funny, had pretty standard story though. Well anyway I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't go to a musical again, I guess, I'm not a musical type. Day 5: On this day we just travelled back to the Netherlands, so not really interesting to write about here. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 77 of 105 10 July 2012 at 8:49pm | IP Logged |
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Really glad you enjoyed it. I was in host families in England twice and I was always
lucky but some (actually quite a lot) of my classmates experienced the horrible lunch packages and some even the not nice families. And it is usually quite suspicious if one family takes more than two students, actually. It's always about luck. Fortunately the rest of the trip went well for you. Bumping in teachers when you are supposed to be at home, I experienced that too :-) These trips are wonderful, I wish I could have gone to more or rather to have such an easy opportunity now. I thought of going somewhere this summer but it is quite expensive and it is hard to find something really good. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5030 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish | Message 78 of 105 10 July 2012 at 10:57pm | IP Logged |
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Yes traveling is expensive, though I think we're lucky to live in Europe, everything is so close, relatively speaking.
But this year is also extra expensive because of the crisis. There are a lot less last minutes available actually. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5030 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish | Message 79 of 105 13 July 2012 at 9:02am | IP Logged |
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Diese Sommer werde ich mich mehr mit Deutsch beschäftigen, weil ich finde, dass mein Deutsch nicht so gut ist wie ich wolle. Auch habe ich das Gefühl, ich rede wenig gehr Deutsch wie andere Sprache.
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| ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5030 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish | Message 80 of 105 13 July 2012 at 2:33pm | IP Logged |
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I can get my hands on Harry Potter in German, so I might wanna read that.
Also I've found some Sidney Sheldon novels in English, I've already read some of his work in Dutch, and loved it, so it'll be nice to read it in the original this time. Now I just need to find some stuff to.read in French (and maybe Spanish). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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