Liverpool 27 th Sept to 2 nd October 2011
Tuesday
We met at the airport Berlin Schönefeld at 3.15 pm. Checking in took little time. The security control took a little bit more time. In the waiting hall of the airport, was a little shopping mall. There we stayed for half an hour. There you could buy some drinks, toothpaste, jewelry, bags, toys and a lot more. But the highlight was Burger King. In front of Burger King, the basketball crew „Alba Berlin“ was waiting too. I took one photo with two of the players. Basti got three autographs. After ends of waiting time, we had to show again our tickets and our identity cards. The inspector checked my identity card, looked into my face and blinked. When he saw Robert, he just turned up his nose. At the next passport control point, the inspector smiled when he saw me. The speaker, who had to wish every passenger a good travel, asked me if I wanted to translate his words into German. We got on the airplane at 5 pm. Fifteen minutes later, we had to turn off our mobile phones. Robert sat between Adrian and me. I sat next to the window too. When we were in the air, I could enjoy the great view. We recognized Lake Rangsdorf and even our school. Our flight took two hours. But the time ended rapidly. We landed on the airstrip of Liverpool at seven pm, timezone United Kingdom. After getting our baggage back, we waited again some time. Following that, we took the bus to our youth hostel.
Ms Lieberg and Ms Ille explained us the house rules, and than we could do everything we wanted to. Most of us went to Mc Donalds. Basti ordered a „Mc Sunday“ (Ice cream). The salesperson asked him, “ strawberry or toffee?“. Basti looked at Robert and me and asked, “Was heißt Caramel auf Englisch?“. I answered, “Basti, Dein Ernst? Toffee.“ We laughed a little about Basti’s good English knowledge. At 11 pm we had to be back in our hostel.
Wednesday
We woke up early at six o‘ clock, German time seven o' cock. Breakfast was at eight o‘clock. I ate some potatoes with bacon, ketchup and orange juice. Then we went to Albert Dock at Liverpool harbour. There Tobias Gave the talk about Liverpool 'From trade city to European cultural capital. Then we did a trip on the City Explorer Sight Seeing Bus. Afterwards we had free time. Most of us went to a big shopping street. I walked with Adrian, Alexander, Basti, Valentin and Robert. We visited all game shops. In the afternoon, we all got together at Albert Dock again. But Adrian and Basti were too late. We waited 20 minutes long, but no one had their phone numbers, but they had Ms Lieberg's phone number but did not call her. Here Viviane and Tao talked about music groups and styles. We sat on stairs and listened to the talks. After that, we went to the museum “The Beatles Story“. Now Adrian and Basti were back, too. We got some headphones. We could choose between the languages German or English. Most of us chose the German language, because we wanted to understand every word. We heard the whole story about the Beatles. How it started, which leaders were in the group, which where their no 1 hits and so on. Do you know that the Beatles played in Hamburg, Reeperbahn? Or that they met Elvis Presley? In the museum were the yellow submarine and the pub where they played. They very nice to look at. After the visit in the museum, we went back to our hostel, where we ate dinner. Then we had free time. Adrian, Alexander, Basti, Robert, Valentin and I visited Chinatown. Everyone could choose what they wanted to do. But most of us just hung around in their rooms and listened to music.
Thursday
Our breakfast was the same like the days before: apple or orange juice, toast or croissants, bacon, eggs, potatoes, sausages or cornflakes. After that we went to the Anglican Cathedral, where Kerstin talked about it. At the end of her talk, we climbed up the tower of the Anglican Cathedral. We had a very nice view over Liverpool. We saw our hostel, the museum of Liverpool, Kings Dock, Albert Dock, the area, the Liverpool Eye, our favourite shopping mall, the Metropolitan RC Cathedral and a lot more. Then we went back into the cathedral. The Anglican Cathedral is the longest church in Europe. In the middle of the cathedral was a shop and a restaurant too. We looked around. On the floor sat some students who drew some part of the church. They were very good, we saw every detail. The guide who showed us the church talked a little about the church and showed us some parts. In one room, he looked at my bracelet made of perls and of my shinning ring. He asked me ”Do you have such a rich boyfriend who gave you that?“ Later at the end of our tour, he asked me again „Are you here in Liverpool to find a rich husband?“ Then we went to the modern looking Metropolitan RC Cathedral. It was built in the 20th century. Stella told us that it was built before the Anglican Cathedral. But it looked a little bit like a space station. Then we went inside and looked around. Maybe ten minutes later, we had free time and we went shopping again. We bought ourselves very nice things at Primark, which is a department store with a lot of clothes, shoes and so on, it’s like H&M, but better. A highlight for us girls were the shoes. There were a lot of shoes with high heels for only 16 pounds or sometimes one cost only four pounds. We spent all our money at Primark’s. Also Niklas and Julian bought very nice trousers, a jacket and T-shirts.
Back in the hostel: The other boys, like Robert, Alexander, Adrian and Basti went to the “game room“. But Adrian and Basti weren’t so often in that room, they spent a lot of time in the centre of Liverpool. They played computer games the whole time, Mario Kart on DS or Locoroco and more on playstation portable 2. Valentin bought a computer game for less than 10 pounds, in Germany you would pay 40 euros and you would have to be 18 to buy that game. But in the U.K. you can buy and play games with 16 years, which in Germany are allowed to be played only at 18 years,. Alexander also bought some games and was very happy that he bought two for twenty pounds. After our shopping trips, we went back to the youth hostel and ate dinner. The food was okay. The cakes always looked so delicious, but most of the time you couldn’t eat the cakes. There was a great difference between looks and taste.
Friday
After breakfast, we went to the port of Liverpool. When we arrived there, we went to the Liverpool port centre, where we bought the tickets for the harbour tour. We bought the tickets with our 3-day-visitor cards. After we all had our tickets, we sat down in front of the port water. There we had a little break and Julian told us something about the port. When he had finished his talk, we got on the ferry. All of us sat on the sun deck of the ferry, because we had beautiful weather. We went by ferry to the docking sites. The harbour tour took one hour. During the port tour we listened to a tourist guide. The tourist guide explained everything we could see on the banks. After the port tour we divided up our group into two groups. One group went with Ms Lieberg to the Liverpool Museum, and the other group with Ms Ille to the Liverpool football stadium. The Liverpool Museum was really interesting. It was about the history of Liverpool, the music, sports, festivals and culture in Liverpool. It was so interesting, because you could take part at quizzes and other activities. Thereafter we had free time. Most of us went to Liverpool One. Liverpool One is a big shopping area. At 5 pm we had to be in the youth hostel. Where we had also free time until 7 pm, because at 7 pm was dinner time. When all had finished dinner, Sebastian and Adrian told us something about the lifestyle of the youth in Liverpool. They asked teenagers self-made questions about their free time. Then we had, like every evening, a little meeting where we talked about the day, what we liked, and what we didn´t like. We also talked about what we would do the next day. After the meeting we had free time until 11 pm. At 11pm we had to be in our rooms and at 12 pm we had to sleep.
Saturday
After finishing breakfast, we went to the Liverpool train station. We went by train to Southport station. Southport is a famous bath town. When we arrived at Southport, we searched a place where Valentin couldd perform his talk about the history of Southport . So we went to a church yard, because there it was quiet. Afterwards we sat down on park benches, where we had a little break. Then we went to an ecology center. In the centre we learned a lot about ecology. We had to answer questions using switchboards on the walls of the centre. Then we went to a park where we had our lunch. We sat down on a meadow in front of a pavilion. Some of us played football, and the other talked, listened to music or took pictures. After lunch we went to the Jubilee Trail. The Jubilee Trail is a trail along the coast and to the beach. We had to walk through the dunes. At a small place, where we could sit down, we listened to Alexander and Robert. They told us something. about the flora and fauna of Southport. When we arrived at the beach of Southport, we all were disappointed of the beach, because there was not really a beach, it was only a promenade. As a compensation we all got ice cream. After we had eaten the ice cream, we went back to the train station and went by train back to Liverpool. When we arrived in Liverpool, we had free time again. After dinner we had a meeting. We talked about what we liked and disliked during this school trip. Most of us liked the big amount of free time. Also most said that they liked the field trips except one. That was the trip to Southport. We also talked about the departure. At 12 pm we all went to bed.
Sunday
At 8 am we had breakfast. After breakfast, at 9:30 am, Ms Lieberg checked all the rooms, if they were clean. At 10 am we went to the bus stop. We took the bus to John Lennon Airport. At the airport we had to wait to check in, so we bought food or changed the pounds that we had left into euros. After we checked in, we went to the many shops which were at the airport. We also played games in the games' shop. So the time we had to wait was not so boring. After the 2hr flight we arrived at Berlin Schönefeld Airport. After we got our luggage, we went to our families and drove home.
Every day we had beautiful weather, only on the last day it rained. The youth hostel was OK, the rooms were big enough and the bathrooms are also OK. The only thing I didn't´t like were the meals at the hostel. They taste very bad. The field trips were really nice, we had a lot of fun and learned so much about Liverpool. I liked most field trips. Only the trip to Southport was really boring. The trip that I most liked, was the trip to the Beatles museum. The free time was the best time of the school trip. We had so much fun, when we shopped or when we were in our rooms and talked. I think the school trip was very nice.