For a long time I had waited for the moment of the beginning of our stay abroad. Concerning the whereabouts we were offered to choose between between London and Belfast in Ireland. At the end, I chose London because of my relations to the city from earlier visits, a friend studying there, my Godfather coming to London sometimes and having lived there, England itself and Cambridge.
Two years ago I had a stay in Cambridge with the aim to improve my English language skills. In earlier times of my life I did not see the sense of learning English. By the time, on secondary school my English became worse and worse. At the same time, I focused on school the most time so that there was less free time. Especially I feared to loose the continuity if I went to a stay abroad. And I admit that I did not dare to have such a stay on my own that time. As times change, one year and more after school I felt ready to discover a totally new and so far unknown environment with all its circumstances. I spent ten weeks visiting a language school for foreign people like me while I stayed in a lovely host family with up to five host siblings. And at school teachers and the other students were so nice, helpful and polite to each other. At the weekends and nearly every working day’s (late) afternoon they offered us some trips to either find out Cambridge itself or other towns and cities. Thanks to that time my anxiety about speaking English disappeared completely. Probably I also improved myself in some skills like grammar topics.
Hence, I was looking forward so much that finally – everything was prepared to midnight – the journey to London could begin and I felt myself all in all ready.
At about 7:45 German time I arrived at Schönefeld airport SXF looking for the right terminal for luggage check-in. Later on, at the security gate my two rucksacks were checked. One rucksack was taken besides by a security staff member for me to be unpacked. Guess why: Actually I thought of my solar panel. Since it is my leisure time rucksack it is packed with belonging stuff. Although I had unpacked the rucksack before I gave all my goods into it I must have forget to somewhere. So they detected a pocket knife. I feared that it would need leave the knife there. Surprisingly, however, after measuring the knife comparing it to the width of his card holder he said it is all right and let me go. During the flight in the sardine tin, pardon air plane I was sitting on Gunnar’s window seat while he sat on mine next to the aisle. I totally understood his aim to place the legs into the aisle. A really matching random was that because of my pocket knife I was able to cut an apple and offer my apprenticeship mates a piece. However, Kinder chocolate offered by Nickolas overweight apple. With a hard landing we reached London Stansted airport.
At the arrival we needed to wait for our agency to pick and bring us to a crossroads next to the agency. From there our host families collected two of us each.
A friend of my host family, Jacque, took us with his car to drive to their house.
When we arrived the fifteen year old son welcomed us. We talked a bit about our backgrounds and the reason for us to visit London and a foreign country at all. Later, daughter Mia, thirteen, came home too.
My host sibling Pascal and I admired the cold temperature in the house. In our bed room it felt similar.
A couple of hours later our host mother Annie arrived. Annie told us to be from Cameroon and that she is living in England for about ten years. She directly found out that mysteriously the central heat had shut down. Soon the radiators were becoming warm and we felt way more comfortable.
Before the dinner Pascal and I walked to our train station Abbey Wood which is also the name of our quart. There we bought an Oyster Card and continued to a super market.
Eating a pizza and preparing for bed we ended our day of arrival.