At 2:30 on Thursday April 7, 2011, two purple Volvo buses left the campus at Drottningborg to take the school’s third graders and American exchange students on a tour of Europe, highlighted by several days in Paris. I spent the morning doing some last minute packing to get ready to go, then I said goodbye to all of my friends who were in the second grade. We had lunch at the usual time, and I talked to some friends, and also talked to Kristine for a little while. She is one of the student’s who is coming to our school next year, and she wanted to ask me some questions about America and school. The bus that we got is really nice. It is large, and is brand new. The other bus is 4 years old and smaller, but was also nice other than the fact that its DVD player did not work.
We started out driving to Kristiansand, where we caught the ferry to Hirtshals, Denmark. While we were waiting to get on the ferry, we were fed calzones. Those calzones were quite good. I did not really know what to expect from the ferry, but it was not what I expected. It was really big, and reminded me of a small cruise ship. We boarded that, and I spent some time talking to people. Once we got going, a group of us went to walk around the ship. After we finished, I went outside with another group of people on the deck. I really enjoyed the deck. It was fun. I had never been on the ocean before, so it was an interesting experience. The boat ride was a little bit more than three hours. As we got close to the end, we went below deck and boarded our bus. We then spent three hours watching “Saving Private Ryan.” When the movie finished, we stopped at a gas station/rest area. We had a late dinner of leftover calzones, bread, and various spreads including liver, butter, and chocolate. By the time we finished eating and loaded up again, it was 12:30. After that stop, Frode, who coordinates the exchange program and works at Drottningborg, took over driving for a fair part of the night. At this point, I fell asleep, only waking up every now and then for about seven hours. All in all, I got between five and six hours of sleep, which is not bad on a bus full of high schoolers.
When I woke up, we were in Germany. I had a fun time watching out the window for an hour or so. Then, we stopped at a rest area, and had breakfast. The meal was exactly what we had the night before, only without the calzones. After eating, I went inside and changed clothes and freshened up. In Europe, it costs to go to the bathroom. Here, it was about $.75. We then continued on for several hours, watching the latest Narnia movie until we got to the museum at Waterloo. This was in Belgium. That was the site of Napolean’s last battle between his French forces and the allies, led by the Duke of Wellington in 1815. We watched a few movies. After the movies, by movies I mean 10 minute educational films, we climbed the stairs to the top of a monument at the battle site. At the top of this hill, there is a statue of a lion to commemorate peace. From here, it would only be 7 more hours before we made it.
We continued driving throughout the day. We stopped a few times, but not often. It was not too long before we were in France. Towards the end of the drive, we watched “Dumb and Dumber.” That was an interesting movie, one which I had never seen before. We finally get to Caen, near Normandy. We go to a narrow street by the hotel. In the process of parking in front, we cut off a line of traffic for some time, because two city buses are not able to squeeze by us. Our bus had not yet unloaded, but the other had. Then, we realized that this was the wrong hotel. After spending some time trying to sort things out, we figured out that we were heading for a town a little ways away. So, after 20 more minutes of driving, we ended up at the hotel.
The rooms are fine, but they are small. The shower is kind of weird. When we first got to our room, the heater was on at a very high temperature. With some help, we finally got it turned off. There were not a lot of options for food in the vicinity of the hotel, so we ate at McDonald’s. The food there was fine. Afterwards, six of us went to a bowling alley that we had seen. Four of us decided to actually bowl, and we had fun. After that, I came back to the hotel and talked to peope. I am going to go to bed pretty soon, because I am kind of tired, and I need to be up tomorrow.
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