My Trip to Normandy
Our trip began at school when we met everyone in our group and group leaders. We were all eager to get on the coach.
We got on our coach for the first leg of our journey to Portsmouth. Once at Portsmouth we boarded and were brought to our lounge (lounge 3 deck 7). When we were given permission we could have four hours of freedom. The first place we all went to was the arcade! Dinner on the ferry was very nice – lovely crème caramel!
Six to seven hours later, we docked at Normandy and disembarked the ferry. We got back on to our coach to our centre. The centre we will be at was used to train athletes around the world!
We arrived at our centre and were told who we were sharing rooms with!
The First Day
It was announced that on the first day we would go to the market! We got on the coach to the market. When we got there, we were set free to buy souvenirs or food to eat. We even got to practice our French! When we were done at the market we went to a 360 cinema and watched a clip about the Battle of Normandy. The film was very moving especially as it was 360; it put you in the centre of everything.
We then went to a museum and learnt about Mulberry Harbour which was a harbour secretly built from the Germans to supply goods for soldiers.
When we had finished having learnt loads in the museum, we headed back to the center. We had dinner, then played football, rugby and volleyball before bed. I played volleyball!
Second Day
The second day was just as good – probably better. The day started with going to the German battery where we learnt about how the allies attacked and what weapons they used. We saw massive cannons and shelters they used.
We got back in the coach and on our way to a theme park! Once we got to the theme park we were given five hours to do whatever we wanted! The even better thing was that only locals went so there was pretty much no queuing!! Even though this particular theme park was quite small the rides were excellent! There were two rollercoasters and one goes vertically downwards! Along with the rollercoasters there were water-rides and St Mary’s.
For evening activities we went to the beach and played in the sand.
Third day
Last day before we set back off to Hemel. Our groups split up so we all did different activities at different times but we still all did the same things. My group started off at the snail farm. We went to the area where snails grow before being cooked. In that average sized field there were roughly six thousand snails. We also saw how the snails shelter from the sun. Then we went to the reproduction room. We saw what the eggs look like. In the eggs we could see the eyes of the snails moving.
To finish the snail farm, we did snail tasting! The snail was in a crispy shell (made of waffle) and the snail itself was in garlic butter. To be honest, I was dreading the snail at first but then I found it was actually quite nice. We left the snail farm on the way to the goat farm.
When we got there, we were greeted by a baby goat called Carmen. We were then greeted by the owner of the farm. He said he has four male goats and forty female goats. We were brought to the barn and saw all the goats relaxing and lying in the sun. Once we were given a talk about the goats we could go and stroke them! The baby ones were so cute! We were then sat in a line and were chosen to brush and milk the goats! It was really funny when the owner of the goats squirted milk from the udder on us. We watched a video on how to make goats cheese! From the shop I bought a goat figure.
To finish the activities we went to the supermarket and bought some snacks (I bought some crepes). Then we were brought back to the center for the last time. We packed our bags and went to bed earlier.
The last day
5.00am we were woken up and driven to the ferry. I can’t tell you much about the ferry because I was asleep! We had a last leg home!
For a Year 7 I would definitely recommend this trip. Trust me on this one. It’s fun.
Matteo Mariano 8H