As we arrived in Paris there were rabbits on the runway at the airport and there were escalators everywhere inside the building. We got our luggage and went out to the bus which was going to bring us to the hotel we were going to stay at. On the way to the hotel we went sightseeing around Paris for a while. We saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the Arch of Triumph. In the evening we were supposed to eat at McDonald's, but they frickin' closed before we'd ordered our food (hey, we'd been in line for an hour, dammit). We went to an Arabian restaurant down the street where the food was great. The next evening we even went back.
The second day we went shopping at the Galeries Lafayette which is a huge mall, we ate crêpes (hehe - pancakes) and we didn't find Champs Elysées. Well, Paris was cool and the Metro was crowded so one could hardly breathe in there.
We were on the boat over to England after being in Paris for about two days and we arrived in Ramsgate, England in the middle of the night. We went by bus from Ramsgate to Paignton, and at the first stop we bought food (chocolate bars, mineral water, cookies, more chocolate and some magazines, etc.). After five hours we were in Paignton, which we thought was Torquay, but later found out it wasn't after all. We had to wait outside for over an hour for a taxi because they only had four taxis or so in Paignton. It was freezing outside although it was in June.
At about 4:00 a.m. we arrived outside our home for 4 weeks, and we met our "mom". She seemed very nice. About the first thing she asked us when we got inside the house was: "Are you afraid of snakes?" Man, I almost shat my pants. There were two snakes in "my room", which I was too afraid of to look at, so I stayed in "Monika's room" for the first night.
The next day we met the English group leader at the YMCA in Paignton, which was where we had our English classes. Later that day we went to Torquay to explore. We had loads of fun and did some shopping in the "exclusive boutiques" of Torquay.
One of our first nights in Paignton we were going to take the bus home. Earlier we had either gotten a ride home or taken the bus - in the opposite direction. After about 10 minutes we got off, as Monika thought it was our stop because the houses in our neighborhood looked a lot like the ones that were around us at that time. What she hadn't noticed was that every English house looks somewhat the same. But after all, we had only been there for a couple of days, we couldn't know this wasn't our stop. As we didn't find our street we asked a boy for the directions. He nearly laughed at us because we were that far from home. We had taken the last bus, so either we had could catch a cab or we could walk home. We decided for the latter (as there were no cabs or a telephone around) and he explained the directions to us. We failed at the attempt of walking home - we ended up near a high-way. We tried to stop a few cars and ask the driver for directions, but hardly no-one stopped, and the ones who did, didn't know where Roselands was. We didn't want to wake up our family, Monika called for a cab instead. It all was a load of mess. Us not having a clue where we were, and we didn't have much money either. While Monika was on the phone, calling for a cab, I saw a man going past us, and I asked him if he knew where Roselands was. He brought us back to his work and a security guard at the reception called home for us. After a while our host father came and picked us up, and said that if something like that happened again, we shouldn't hesitate to call.
One Saturday our group went to Plymouth to go shopping. There were a couple of nice shops there, even a Miss Selfridge which we didn't find, but we spent most of the time at Top Shop where I bought a new outfit for the evening. EF (the organization we were traveling with) was holding a party at the English Riviera Centre in Torquay and everyone from all the language courses were invited. They played better music than the DJs at Face 2 Face, so that was positive. They threw inflatable bananas and stuffed animals out from the stage, and I got a stuffed dog.
We met loads of new people from the other courses, including this very handsome Belgian boy, Antoine. When he and his group were leaving (a week before our group), Monika, Miriam and I went to say good-bye to them....at five o'clock in the morning. It was so much fun! Miriam and I decided that we would meet by the traffic lights at 3:45 a.m.
At 3:30 a.m. Monika and I snuck out of the house to meet Miriam. What we didn't know, was that our host family actually saw us sneaking out of the house, they just didn't want to interrupt us in our important plans. They're so cool! We met Miriam, surprisingly, by the traffic lights at 3:45 a.m. I'd never thought she's make it - getting up that early and sneak out, but she actually did (thanks to Rannveig who woke her up when Miriam had fallen asleep after turning off the alarm-clock). We had to walk to the Coach Park where they were leaving from which took us about 45 minutes. First we were going to call for a cab, but we figured out that would take too long time. We started walking, and we didn't even know the way to the Coach Park, but that didn't stop us. Eventually we found it, and we went over to the huge group of host families and EF-students. We said a last good-bye and took some pictures. It was very nice. We hung out in Paignton for a while before we started on the long walk home. We we're really happy we'd done it and we enjoyed ourselves very much.
When we got home the son of the house, Matthew - who was only 6 at the time, was up and he was extremely shocked that we'd been out at that time of day. In the morning (about 10:00 a.m.) Matthew told his parents that we were sleeping, and they thought we were supposed to be at school at 9 o'clock. They made up a story about the whole family being terribly ill and that we couldn't go out of the house, in case the EF school teachers called. Luckily for them we didn't start until 1:00 p.m.
We had to get up at 5:30 in the morning and only had the chance to say good-bye to our host father as the rest of the family was asleep. He drove us to the Coach Park where we met the rest of the group, said good-bye to our host father and got on the bus.
It took us five hours to get to London from Paignton. We slept on the bus, naturally, because we hadn't gotten much sleep that night. When we got to London we went bus-sightseeing and then drove to the hotel. We left our suitcases at the hotel and walked all the way from the hotel in South London to Picadilly Circus. This took us 45 minutes - ever heard of the underground? We ate lunch and went shopping and in the evening we went to Rock Circus, which was kind of boring. When we got back to our hotel I dyed my hair red. (It was supposed to be redish, but it turned out Angela-Chase-red.) On the way back from Rock Circus we lost two of the group members who got to see some of the the terrible areas of South London and were very upset when they finally arrived at the hotel in a cab an hour or so later. The group leaders were angry at them for not paying attention to where the rest of the group was walking, but the leader was frickin' walking 50 km/h.
The last day in England Miriam and I went shopping for about 4 hours (too little time, in such a huge city) and I spent loads of money on my mothers credit card. Ouch. Miriam and I went to Neal Street in Covent Garden, where we visited the Buffalo shop and Apple Tree, etc. We also went to Plum to buy Eastpak backpacks, but we didn't find the ones we wanted. We did find them in Oxford Street, however, where we bought one each. We also went to Miss Selfridge and Top Shop and some other shops. I truly love London. On our way back to the hotel we had to ask several people for the direction, because we had walked the wrong way when we got off the underground. It was hilarious.
At the airport we went tax free shopping and I bought this huge bar of chocolate (1 kilo or something). Yummy. We took the plane directly back to Oslo, Norway. The parting was very sad. I cried a lot when I had to say good-bye to everyone I'd got to know over the past four weeks. We took pictures and exchanged addresses, and I still keep in touch with several of them.
A special thank you goes out to my host family who was absolutely lovely during my stay in Paignton, England. I would also like to take this opportunity to say hi to everyone: Monika, Rannveig, Miriam, Kaja, Kari, Cathrine, Hanne, Maren, Tone, Nina, Linda H., Hilde G., Janne, Camilla, Ania, Silje, Kristine, Berit, Monica, Mari H., Preben, Birgitte, Børge, Rita, Anne, Linda Ø., Mari M., Signe, Heidi, Eystein, Felix, Ellen, Hege, Hjørdis, Antoine, Diane, Valerie, Robert, Steven, Ryan and Joe. Thanks for the memories!
The summer of 1997 my friend Monika and I went to Torquay, England on a language course. We were going to Paris and London, two days in each city, plus three weeks in Paignton, England. We met our group at the former airport, Fornebu, here in Oslo, and everyone seemed really nice. We got to know a few people on the plane over to Paris and we already knew one girl, Miriam, who we'd met at the information meeting earlier that spring.
Some evenings we went to Face 2 Face (a disco) in Torquay. It was very humid in there, we could hardly breathe and the music was lousy. They played Equador by Sash! a million times and YMCA by the Village People. C U When U Get There, I'll Be Missing You and Fire by Scooter reminds me so much about Torquay.
I got up at 3:00 a.m. and I had to be very quiet so I didn't wake up the whole house. I knocked on Monikas's door (once or twice) but that didn't wake her. We'd been arguing the night before, so I didn't bother much to wake her up, and to be sincere, I didn't want her to come with us). 5 minutes before I was ready to go, Monika came out of her room, fully dressed and ready to go. I was angry with her because I didn't think she would be going, and I had to write a note to our host family to tell them where we were.
The last night in Torquay and Paignton was loads of fun. First we went to Torquay where we met some Swedish boys. They were very nice we hung out with them for a while. After that we went to Face 2 Face to say good-bye to some people and as the last bus left at around midnight, we went back to Paignton and stayed there for the rest of the night. Rannveig, Monika, Miriam and I we went to the beach and as we sat there, two English boys came along carrying a table and two chairs and put them in the sand on the beach. We asked them what they were doing and they answered that they just wanted to sit on the beach - but in proper chairs. We wanted to join them, and they went to a closed restaurant and got four chairs for us as well. We were sitting on the borrowed chairs, and as we sat there, the police came. They asked us where we'd gotten the chairs and the table and the two English boys told them they'd gotten them from a restaurant at the other side of the road. The police asked us if we'd like to get arrested or to put back the table and the chairs. We chose the latter. We hung out at the beach for a while with these English boys, and when we were going home another boy, Steven, walked along with us and it turned out he lived right by us and he had even been to Norway.
"Remember the trees. Remember the grass. Remember me, the pain in the...oh never mind." -Hilde
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