Last Weekend to London

20-22 March

Jeroen:

Friday:

This was the day my father came to London to visit us for the weekend.
This friday morning we woke up just for registration. The irritating thing was we had the first two hours free. And we couldn't sleep till our first lesson. The first lesson we had was economics. The nice thing was that we could go away, because the class had to do some test we didn't need to do. So actually we had the first 5 periods free, because the fifth period we had already a free period. We watched some films in the free time and did some dutch homework. Our first lesson before lunch was physics. After we ate chips and hamburger at lunch (the food that we always have on a friday lunch) we had chemistry, our last lesson for that day. After school we packed our stuff for the weekend. And we waited until my father would come. At about 5:30 my father arrived at Reeds with the taxi. We quickly had to get in the taxi and the taxi drove us to the Hilton hotel near Cobham. It was a beautiful hotel on top of a small hill between the trees with a view on a meadow. When we came their, we first unpacked our stuff in our room. Next we went downstairs to have a drink. We ate our dinner at the hotel restaurant. I really liked to be with my dad again after such long time. I saw him for the last in the christmas holiday. At dinner we talked about our stay here in Reeds. My dad also told me about his work. That he is searching for a new job, because he isn't needed in Cairo anymore. He said he applied for some new jobs already, also a job in Moscow. That was very interesting. After such a delightful dinner we were quite tired. so we went to bed early.


Saterday:

This morning we could sleep a little longer. We had breakfast in the hotel. For Breakfast I ate a nice english pancake. With the taxi we went to Weybridge station. I took my video camera with me to film. At the station my dad bought three day tickets, for the train, bus and underground. When we waited for the train to come, we met Tom, a boy from the boarding house. He was going to his family. At an other station another swedish boy from the boarding house came on this train. He was going to London too, to make pictures of buildings. He did this for a project of photography, another subject on Reeds. The train took about 45 minutes. We arrived at waterloo station. From there we walked past the Shell-building to the London Eye. This time my dad bought tickets and we went in the London Eye. Although the queue looked very long, it went very quick. The London Eye was beautiful, you had a magnificant view over london. With its height of 135 metres, it rises over every building. Except the buildings in Canary Warf, which you could see easily. I filmed many things. Something funny was, that there was a guy and a lady in the cabine in front of us. The man asked the lady to marry him and everyone in our cabine started to clap, because it definitly that the lady said 'yes'.
When we were down again we walked further along the thames to the westminster bridge. We went past the Big Ben, to the Westmister Abbey. After that we went with the tube from Westminster station to Bank station. There we went to see the St Paul's Cathedral. In the cathedral we could take the stairs all the way up. The heighest part you could go to was about 90 metres. It wasn't as high as the London Eye, but you could still see much of London. It was even as fascinating as the London Eye. When we were back down we went to have a drink in the starbucks. It really was a splendid day, quite warm and much sun. Then we took the tube to the Tower Hill station. There we saw a sort of show in front of the Tower. People were shooting with a catapult. We walked to the Tower Bridge. And there we saw the exhibition of the Tower Bridge. I liked it, you saw the machines which lift up the bridge. It was very interesting. After this we went to the Regent Street with the tube, because my father wanted to buy some new Bose earphones. We walked on to Picadilly Circus and further to Leicester Square. There my dad bought the tickets for the musical that evening. We went to Trafalgar Square. In the middle of the square is the statue of Nelson. When we came there, a show was just starting. We thought that would be very interesting, because we saw he had diabolos, juggling clubs,a unicycle etc. But when he started off with diaboloing, we were so annoyed that he got very much attention of people, while doing the easiest tricks. He even said the tricks he did were very difficult, while we knew they were not. So we walked away. We ate dinner in a Italian restaurant. I ate a delightful pizza with pepperoni. After dinner we went to the theatre. We were going to see the musical 'Les Misérables'. This musical is the longest performed musical, already since 1980. The musical takes place in the end of the 19th century in France and it's about the life of Jean Valjean. We really loved the musical. In only 20 minutes we just made it in time to get in the train back to Weybridge at Waterloo. Back at the Hotel we went to bed.

Sunday:

We woke up very late, about 10:00. After breakfast the taxi drove us to Reeds school. Arrived at Reeds, we gave my dad a tour around the school.
Then I had to say goodbye to my dad, although I will see him soon again. Sunday evening after dinner we had a special church service. This was only for all the boarders and it was obligate for all the boarders. So this was the end of our last weekend at Reeds.