Our language week in Colchester

On Sunday we arrived by plane at Stansted Airport and then we travelled by bus to our host families.

Our language course started on Monday, and we had four lessons every day at CESC, (Colchester English Study Centre), the language school of Colchester. It was very nice, because the teachers were friendly and it was interesting to hear the real English accent. We learned a lot, for example some parts of the phonetic alphabet, which is very important for the pronunciation. We played language games and had a drama lesson.

But going to school wasn't the only thing we did. In the afternoon we often did some shopping and we visited some sights, such as the Town Hall and Colchester Castle with the wonderful park and the squirrels.

We went to London twice: On Tuesday we went by train. We crossed the Tower Bridge and walked along the banks of the river Thames to the Tate Gallery. We also crossed the Millennium Bridge and saw Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Then we took the tube to Leicester Square. For many of us it was the first time we travelled by underground.

We went to London again on Saturday. This time we had a guide who showed us the most important attractions of London, such as the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament with the Big Ben, the Changing of the Horse Guard at Whitehall, Downing Street (where the prime minister lives and works), Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey.

In the evenings we sometimes went to a pub. Once we went bowling, which was very funny.
Our host families were very nice and helpful. We often talked to them and they were very impressed by the history and culture of South Tyrol. The only thing we didn't like so much was the food because it was so different from ours.

But the very best of our trip was that we saw George Clooney and Renèe Zellweger: on Tuesday,when we went to London for the first time , there was world premiere of"Leatherhead", the new movie starring these world-famous stars at Leicester Square. And we were there,too! 

Ines & Silvia