Two weeks at Hastings language school with Student Agency
The journey to Hastings was long, way too long for my liking - from door to door it took almost 30 hours. I had to take a bus from Prague to London, because I had ordered the stay with Student Agency just a week before the school was supposed to start and it was impossible to get an inexpensive air ticket. Luckily, the whole journey wasn't in-one-go and there were some breaks on the way, e.g. I had about four hours in London before my train to Hastings was scheduled. I used it to walk around familiar places near the Victoria station (The Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey etc.).
When I came to Hastings I headed straight to my host family. I went to the wrong house first and was sent next door. My host mother welcomed me warmly and so did my new housemate who had come just a few minutes earlier. Her name was Carolina - a wonderful girl from Italy. We hit it off immediately and we had a great time staying in the same house. Our host family consisted of three members. The host mother’s name was June and she struck me as a really friendly lady - helping and communicative. She showed me in and told me a few house rules. We met Alex, her son, but we saw him around very rarely. There was also June's husband in the house but we didn't see him because he had undergone a serious surgery and he was recovering in his room.
On Monday I showed Carolina the way to school. It was about ten minutes from our place, which was very convenient. When we arrived at school, as the first lesson we took a tour around the school premises lead by Debbie and Sue, who also familiarized us with a basic school rules. Apart from other important information considering the lessons we were introduced to school facilities and the staff. Then there was time the new students could get to know each other a little bit by the means of several simple games. Altogether there were about 10 of us - newbies. After a break we parted and went to the classes according to one’s particular levels. I was put into the advanced group and I welcomed with a great pleasure that it was relatively small the first week (5 people) and got even smaller in the second week (3 people).
I don't want to waste too much space by describing what it was like in the lessons, let's just say all of the people in the group were amazing - Louis (S. Korea), Mirjam, Nadja (both Switzerland) and Ryu (Japan). We had a lot of fun together, also thanks to our lovely teacher Danny, who kept us focused and entertained through all the lessons. I enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere in the class immensely and beside learning some useful phrases, new words and revising the tough spots of grammar, the thing I appreciated the most was the opportunity to practice the conversation in abundance. I was also grateful for the way Danny corrected our mistakes - he took notes while we were speaking - and corrected them later.
I didn't pay for afternoon lessons, so I and a few other students were free after lunch. Because we didn't want to go straight home and spend time individually, we decided to go to the town center to get a cup of coffee, cappuccino or stuff and chat while enjoying it. We realized that it would be a waste of time to separate and it was much more beneficial that we could practice our speaking skills in real everyday conversation. Then we (Carolina, David and Michal) went back to our host families for dinner. The dinner at our house was at 6 o'clock and we ate together with June. For dinner we usually had different types of meat (pork, beef) with potatoes (roast, mashed, boiled) and boiled vegetables (carrot, cauliflower, marrow or peas). After that we always had a small dessert.
Every Monday there was an event organized by school - Welcome party – where “old” students met the new ones and showed them the ropes, gave them useful information about the school, places that are worth seeing and much more. While chatting and drinking, students could engage in playing different games such as Shove Penny, darts or pool. Thursdays', on the other hand, were devoted to those who were leaving the following weekend. Students gathered in the town center and enjoyed each others' company - talking, remembering stories, etc. However, for most of the students the proper Bye-bye parties were on Fridays, when once again students met in the pubs for saying their last good-byes and farewells. Quite often they ended up in some music clubs.
Hastings is a place where there are many places to see and visit. I, however, having been there for the third time, had had discovered most of them during my previous stays I looked for other adventures. The first Wednesday, for example, a group of students organized the trip to London to see a musical - Billy Elliot. I was in at once, looking forward to seeing it even though I hadn't seen the movie and didn't have many references. We (two fantastic Spanish girls Iria and Marga, Carolina and David) set off to London right after Wednesday's lunch break. We enjoyed the journey as well as short exploring tour around Victoria station. There we met another group from Hastings and together went to see the musical. The piece was wonderful. A lot of singing and dancing. Truth be told, I didn't understand much of what they were saying (especially while singing), because they used rather strong Manchester accent. But I enjoyed the show big time anyway.
We needed a plan for the oncoming weekend and we decided to go to see London. Creating two groups of four helped us to get cheap train tickets. We arrived in London at 11 am and straightaway we headed towards the Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of Guards. Unfortunately, the place was overcrowded, and we couldn't see much. Then, we continued through the St. James's Park to the Whitehall. We made a pit stop at the Downing Street, passed the Big Ben and found ourselves at the Westminster Pier. Having bought the discounted group ticket for our bout trip we embarked and off we went. The river cruise on the Thames was not only spectacular but educational as well. The guide on board gave us plentiful interesting information about different places we were passing by. The first stop was at the Tower Bridge and after about an hour we got off at the Greenwich. The good weather contributed to our enjoying the cruise even more.
I wanted my friends to see a Prime Meridian in Greenwich so we went up to the Royal Observatory. Unfortunately, the main road was closed, so we had to take a detour which took at least three times longer than the shortest way. After visiting the Royal Observatory we took a picnic in the Greenwich Park. On our way back we walked through the tunnel under the Thames. We walked all the way up to the Tower Bridge and Tower of London. Watching and taking pictures of these landmarks while the sun was slowly setting was both beautiful and romantic. Then, we went on and passed St. Paul’s Cathedral and Trafalgar Square as far as we got back to Victoria Station where we totally unexpectedly met the two Spanish girls that we had said goodbye a day before at the bye-bye party. It had been a long day and we were all very tired on the train. We had a great time, though.
Sunday was declared a rest day. A few girls and | went to the Hastings's shingle beach and soaked up the sun. Just lying, chatting and chilling was all we needed. As it was really hot that day, some of my friends ventured to go into the sea. If I had a swimsuit with me I would have gone in there too, at least for a while, because the water was pleasantly lukewarm. After that we decided to have a coffee in the Hastings's Old Town and along with it I ordered a locally popular cream tea. Boy, was it delicious! Then we returned home for dinner and came back to the Old Town later that evening to play pool in the pub called Pump House.
I don't know what happened to the time in Hastings but it went damn fast. Maybe, The Timekeeper envied me the great time I was having there and pushed the clock forward without any compromise. It seemed to me that the second week was even shorter than the first one. I tried to savor every minute while being there, filling it with many activities such as: went to the cinema, couldn’t resist to some shopping, laughed a lot in and out of classrooms and most importantly: gathered every night with other students and went out to both practice English and enjoy ourselves. Monday - welcome party, Tuesday - The Pump House. On Wednesday there was a school activity with Debbie - we went to play mini golf in the afternoon (Crazy golf – hey, I happen to win), then have a cup of coffee at the beach. In the evening, after dinner, we went to John Lodgie Bard (pub where I met a Czech bartender).
The week drew to the end very quickly and as every Thursday there was the time of the first Bye-bye party, this time for me and couple of other students. I enjoyed it immensely with all my friends (Kathrin, Valja, Katja, David, Mirjam, Veronika and many others). On Friday it was even better and worse at the same time because it was the real and very final Bye-bye party. First, we went to our traditional pub - Walker's and at midnight the „hard core“ (Beatriz, Mira, Kathrin, Michal, Dita, Carolina, Valentina) moved to the music club (French's) where we could danc our heads off.
On Sunday morning I finished my packing, had the last breakfast, gave the farewells to my dear friend and housemate Carolina and was taken by car to the railway station. There I thanked and said goodbye to my host mother and met with Valentina and Veronika - my fellow travelers to London. On the train we talked, remembered what we had experienced and pitied that we couldn't have stayed longer. In London, we went for a picnic to the Hyde Park, where we laid on a lush grass and breathed in the last particles of English air. Later afternoon we parted with Valentina and got on the bus heading to Prague. The journey back to the Czech Republic was tiresome but the memories of pleasantly spent two weeks were fresh and still went through our heads so at least this helped to ease the discomfort of long traveling.
If you want to see some more pictures, you can find them on my FB page:
Link 1 (parties), Link2 (London), Link 3 (school), Link 4 (activities), Link 5 (panoramas)
