Enjoy this read. It will be long but it is eventful.
Friday March 29th – Arriving in London
4:00pm
It was good to see that some of my travelling advice was remembered by the students. While waiting in Changi Airport in Singapore, the boys told me they all grabbed Subway for the flight so they didn’t have to eat the airline food. Some of them were walking around in the plane and others decided to grab some more sleep. They’ll pay for that later.
As we cleared customs and met our tour guide, I saw a plethora of students grab their tuques and gloves before they were to enter the wildlife that awaited. The were greeted by a nice wall of weather in the range of 4-6 C. Poor Kym and Gemma hugged each other behind their wall of luggage to black the wind in order to stay warm.
8:00pm
We were able to settle into our hostel easily so that we could begin touring the sights down Kensington and High Street. The kids were able to do a bit of shopping on the way to Kensington Palace near Hyde Park. Notable moments include the sights of British and their inability to adhere to traffic rules, as well as Gemma and Kym’s request to call me Mitch for the duration of the trip.
“But sir, Mr. Schneider said we can call him Mal.”
“Fine, but as soon as we are on that plane for Singapore you’re switching it back.”
No sooner had I given this permission did they both use it liberally and with some emphasis as well.
“Hey MITCH, where else have you travelled? MITCH, did you want to stop in here to get gloves?”
I’m sure they’d appreciate me shouting their name as well. I made a joke of that and they seemed to enjoy it. We headed back for an early night. I say early because the lag got the best of them. 8pm was the moment their bodies said go to bed.
Saturday, March 30th – Mind the Gap!
8:00am
Today was a big and busy day. Our priorities were to ride a double decker bus around the entire inner city passing St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Tower, London Bridge and even Buckingham Palace. After we had purchased our group tickets Mal began to organise tickets for the London Tower. In doing so he provided some delay for the whole group to board the bus. It wasn’t like he planned the next interesting event, but it was funny to see some students look confused as a driver pulled away with half of us. I got him to stop and we waited for everyone to get ready and board the next one. Not that I’m complaining, but students shouldn’t shudder in the cold if they arbitrarily chose the top part of the bus for their seats. It provided us with some good photos but that wind was brutal.
10:30pm
We ended up stopping in Trafalgar Square where we broke into our groups and visited some of the landmarks before heading to the London Eye. Those backpacks were a good idea. Even though my height allows me to keep track of the students in my care, seeing the bright green with the All Souls logo kept them close by as we pushed through 8 million people. After a quick coffee break we all grabbed some photos of the lions in the square and headed to the Eye, stopping at Big Ben and Westminster Abby along the way.
RIDING THE TUBE - 11:30
Another joy of the big cities is to take public transportation. A small inconvenience is using the subway while keeping an eye on 27 people. Some of the joys of travelling is to allow the students to learn the fine points of problem solving on their own. Tom Clerc provided most of us with the routes we needed. Eventually, many of the students were able to read the maps correctly.
They’ll need that if they venture off to Melbourne or Sydney.
12:30pm
We arrived safely and promptly to the Eye and ran into a familiar face. Using the wonders of Wi-Fi and Facebook, Martin Roberts (an ex-GAP staff member) found us in line for the ride. The kids gave him a warm welcome and kept him busy with a multitude of questions which he plainly answered to the best of his knowledge. Ironically enough, he didn’t know much about the inner city as he lives farther out of the centre. Mal and myself did not pay for the Eye in advance so we snuck out with Martin to watch the opening of the Manchester United vs Sunderland game. We witnessed the only goal as Man U won, 1-0. The place was called “The Wellington”
1:45pm
The final moments of this day concluded with everyone heading to London Tower. Again, the adults split up with their group of students. My group was Sydnee Baskett, Amy Shadforth and Hayley Jones. We coined Sydnee as our map-girl and guide of which she performed her task quite well. The downside of that tower was the line for the crown jewels and the torture chamber. We walked around and read as much as we could before we realised that we missed the Jack the Ripper tour at 3:30pm. Many of the groups actually missed it too. I’m sure they can Google it sometime in the future.
5:00pm
The reason for the title is simple. When leaving the tube there may be the chance for someone to misplace their step and fall through a gap in between the car and the platform. I won’t tell you the inside joke about “minding the gap” but your male students know what it means through the benefits of social media. Every stop was met with the loud speaker reminding us all to mind the gap. At one point my group met with the boys and Mrs Metyard. We had to get to Covent Markets and to do that we needed to board a train heading to Cockfoster. Jake Kelly made sure to take a photo of the LED sign that stated we needed to “mind the gap to Cockfoster”. I’m not making this up, I swear. Please know that every attempt to point out maturity has been made. Yes, the play on words is interesting, but it wears out quite quickly.
6:00pm
The day was not all fun and games. Kym Lyon, Gemma Cusack and Martin went shopping instead of going to the London Tower during the day. As we were waiting for Sam Kelly to meet us and divide us into our show groups Kym noticed an unfortunate circumstance. She lost her wallet. Sam calmed her down by stating it was just an annoyance. She had her passport. Cards can be renewed or cancelled. Money can be given to her by staff. Lucky for her, there was one man who was set for a good deed.
An Italian boy by the name of Fredrico had stumbled upon her wallet on the walkway of Covent Garden and called the police. They instructed him to call the hostel as he noticed a card key in her possession. Unfortunately, the receptionist was Dutch. Having an Italian and a Dutch person communicating would be equivalent to a German speaking Swahili. It didn’t really work out too well. She told him that there was no one by the name of Kym on the computer. This was because we were booked as a group.
So by this time, I had taken the only three girls who did not go to a musical/show in Covent and we arrived safely to the hostel where the girls simply shut down for the night. I was on the phone with the police to see if we could get this man’s contact information so he could come back to the hostel. She arrived just as I got off the phone with the police. Apparently the man contacted the group through the emergency contact card we all received before we left in the morning. Too bad her Italian isn’t that great as the mother of the boy who picked up the wallet hardly spoke English. By saying that, how lucky were we to have a Dutch woman speak a bit of Italian?
8:30pm
The hostel redeemed themselves through the earlier mishap by allowing us to locate the Italian boy and meet him to grab the wallet. We had a 30 minute window to get to Brixton to pick up the wallet. All was well and Kym was reunited with it when she came back from the show. I have said it before: “Travel is the only investment that yields a meaningful profit.”
She will hopefully be able to take better care of her belongings. It happens to the best of us, but as long as we all learn from our mistakes we are better for it. Whether it’s learning to ride the rails or finding some lost property in a city of nearly 8 million people, the best life lesson you can learn is this:
If a problem is fixable then there is no need to worry. If a problem cannot be fixed then you still shouldn’t worry because you won’t fix it. Life has no real reason to stress or worry about that which you cannot change.
Take care of your valuables, enjoy the sights, grab hold of a neon green backpack and always mind the gap.
Till next time,
Mitch and Co.
