MY EXPERIENCE IN ENGLAND-by Paloma Macazaga

MY EXPERIENCE IN ENGLAND

The first time I visited England I was seven years old, and I loved it from the very beginning. I went with all my family to pick up my sister who had been staying in a boarding school called Leweston. When we went to her school I was amazed by it. It was enormous! I loved the endless and green gardens, the old looking buildings and the modern ones (the boarding house, the science and music buildings, the health centre…) and all of the sports’ facilities (the swimming pool, the hockey and the football pitch, the tennis and netball courts…). I knew I was going to go there in the future and I couldn’t wait. The next year I went back to Leweston but this time I was alone. I was eight years old and I was very scared to be away from home for a month. At first I didn’t enjoy it a lot because I couldn’t understand much, but once I got used to England I started liking it a lot better in there. I came back to Spain very happy and I already felt like I had learned a lot. When I was 10 I went again for half a term, and I did the same the next year. Both of these times I learned a lot more and my English was definitely not perfect, not even near that, but I could understand most of the things people told me and communicating with others was a lot easier. Most of the time I knew what I had to do and where I had to go, and if I didn’t, there were always teachers and gappies who helped and took care of us. The other girls from my year and others were very friendly and helped me with anything I needed.

All of these times I’ve been to England I’ve had loads of fun, but my favourite one is for sure the last time I went, which was last year. I stayed for a whole term at the same school. I was in year 9, which is an important year in which a lot of things change. We moved from junior house to middle house, and so we had more freedom. Also a lot of new girls came to the school and I made many friends. Because my English had improved since the last time, I was able to communicate with others very easily, which I think made it more fun because I didn’t have to stress when I couldn’t understand others. We had different trips every weekend which I think was a great way to get us to go outside. The best places we went to, in my opinion were the Harry Potter studios, a theme park and quad biking, but I had fun every single weekend. Everyone was very good at sports and I had to do at least three after-school activities, so I decided to play hockey, swimming and football and I enjoyed doing those a lot.

 I basically loved every single thing about Leweston, it was an amazing experience! I learned a lot, not just the language, but also I learned about their culture, the way they live and things about other countries too because there were girls from all around the world. I miss it very badly and I really hope I can go back sometime.