Staying away from home

First of all: Never to listen to Åke Bengtsson, teacher in Geography.
Going to Whitby with my classmates is something I’ll never forget. You learn so much about everything; England, British pupils, your own classmates and even yourself. Though I must say that going to Whitby from London on the bus probably was the most fun we had. My dad’s research says that the critical mass to give rise to music is three music students together, imagine 30!
Well, we got to Whitby and were picked up by the families we where living with for the coming week. Kate, who I was living with, lived with me in Sweden so we kind of new each other already. But I was so nervous about living alone in an English family for a week using my crappy English. I was really embarrassed every time I spoke, Kate’s sister always stared at me. But after three days she finally told me why. “I can’t understand how you can speak two languages”. And after that I felt a lot more confident. Another problem I had, and I wasn’t the only one, was that I hadn’t brought any warm clothes because someone had told us it would be really warm in Whitby (Åke Bengtsson, teacher in Geography). I had to borrow clothes from Kate in order to avoid freezing to death.
The week was packed with stuff to do, I didn’t have a minute of peace. We went on tours in Whitby, a day trip to York and movie nights at friends’ places. And on top of that we got to play music with each other every day.
The bus trip back to London wasn’t as loud as the first one. We had a farewell party and lots of tears where spilt that night. Most people slept all the way to the airport. Except when we where singing off course.
I still keep in touch with Kate and we are planning to see each other next summer. She’ll be in Sweden for a week and I, in turn, will visit Whitby. So even if some of my classmates never talk to the English students again, most of us made friends for life.