Paris Trip 2008

This year, from January 30th to 3rd February, a group of students who study French travelled to Paris to practise speaking French and to get a taste of the French culture. The trip was organised by Mrs Davies and Mrs Rose who were both awesome!

We travelled to Paris by coach and Euro tunnel; firstly we had a five hour coach trip from the school to Folkestone, where we boarded the Euro tunnel. It felt really weird knowing we were hundreds of metres under the sea! We were in the Euro tunnel for about 45 minutes. When we arrived in Calais, we began another five hour journey to our hotel in Paris.

L’Hôtel

During our trip, we stayed in the Hotel Ibis; it was an amazing building with a mirrored exterior. We were all spread out over 3 of the 15 floors with three people sharing a room. The rooms were really nice with an ensuite and a TV. Best of all was the view; you could see the Eiffel Tower from many of the rooms which was spectacular at night. Breakfast was provided by the hotel and it was fantastic! We got to eat French bread, croissants & pancakes EVERY DAY!

Euro Disney

On our second day in Paris, we went to Euro Disney! It wasn’t all fun though as we ran into some trouble when we had to order our food in French! It was really fun when we got talking to a shop assistant called Pierre in one of the shops, we were practising our French on him and he was practising his English on us! Euro Disney was definitely one of the highlights of the trip!

French Tourism Conference

On our third day in Paris, we attended a conference in the centre of Paris which was ALL in French! It was all really interesting as it explored tourism in France. As it was all in French, it improved our listening skills immensely! The best speaker of that day was a representative of Thierry Mugler- creator of Angel fragrance, the tester that they passed around smelt really nice!

Landmarks of Paris

During our stay, we also managed to see most of the landmarks of Paris. We went on The Seine river cruise and we saw landmarks such as Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. The cruise had a commentary as well, so we also learned about the history of the landmarks.

Another place we visited was the Louvre which is a really famous museum in Paris. We saw the Mona Lisa and The Venus De Milo. Many of us went up the Eiffel tower where the views were amazing! We could see everything, but it was very cold! We also saw the Sacré Coeur which is a very pretty church with fantastic views.

Innocent Little Things (and more)

We attended another conference on day 4, this time it was in English with 3 different speakers covering different topics. Firstly was a really intriguing presentation on World War 1 which tied in with our GCSE History course. Another presentation covered the topic of Global Warming. Our favourite speaker by far was a guy from Innocent Smoothies who gave an excellent presentation on his business and how little things make a big difference. There was also a lady who explained career opportunities abroad which helped us think about our future career prospects.

It's not all frog's legs...

Some people find trying new things to eat a bit scary but it is well worth it. The first two nights involved either pizza or burgers and steak and chips in “Buffalo Grill”. The following two nights were a bit more adventurous. People tried snails, onion soup and goat’s cheese salad.

The best restaurant was a small restaurant called Maison Verlain in the Latin Quarter. The food was very good and the desserts were even better! We even had entertainment from a singing guitarist who made everyone join in with “Sweet Chariot”. Heather set a napkin on fire (by accident) so Tom and Robin stamped it out. The staff were really nice about it so we gave them a BIG tip, although they weren’t so nice when a lady set fire to a towel and threw it downstairs into the kitchen!

The overall standard of the food and restaurants were very good!

When we finally had to travel back, we took the same route via the Sacré Coeur and with only a few delays made it back to school at 10:30 pm.

Overall the majority of us year 10’s favourite day was Disneyland but we also found conference 2 really fun and informative.

We had loads of fun, especially on the river cruise and REALLY want to go back next year!!

Despite a few incidents, the trip was absolutely AMAZING!

by Carys Spencer, Heather Chick, Alice Roebuck, Rebecca Davis, Liz Parker & Anwen Hamer (14/03/2008).