New York 2018!

Monday 12th February 2018. On this day, a group of 29 students ventured to the great city of New York! The humanities department at Eltham Hill School hosted this trip to enable the students to broaden their knowledge of the wider world and to aid them further in their GCSE studies.

We got to school for 06:10am (latest), barely awake, in order to depart for Heathrow at 06:30am. This was very exciting and still completely surreal for almost everyone!

After a long and exhausting 8hour and 30minute plane ride; we were in New York! Only then, to be faced with another long coach trip to our hostel.

Immediately after unpacking, settling into our rooms and finding our bearings, we walked to Times Square for dinner and then headed to the Empire State Building for a glorious night time view of the city. What a first day!

Over the one week period, we packed in almost everything there was to do in this amazing city, including:

-The Broadway show Aladdin

-Ground Zero, 9/11 memorial

-Visiting various iconic landmarks

-Walking tour

-Natural history museum

-UN Headquarters

-Shopping (of course)

And this is just the tip of the iceberg!

I spoke to a couple of the students who attended the trip and they claimed that “It was very hard work and exhausting” but “the Broadway show was good”. They explained that they “enjoyed having the experience with my friends”.

Another student said  “My favourite part was probably the night we walked over Brooklyn Bridge but I enjoyed almost everything/ part of the trip”, and “Yes I would go again!”

As well as making memories through all of these trips to famous landmarks, there was a whole bunch of unforgettable things that happened at moments that were least expected. For example, teachers had their own nicknames and embarrassing moments (especially when singing their line to “New York, New York”); singing was an extremely frequent occurrence.  We even had a hilarious encounter with a street artist who had written his own song.

So, after this week of fun, embarrassment and an introduction to American culture, we came home on Friday the 17th February and got back to school for roughly 09:30 on Saturday 18th . Reunited with our family and friends to share our stories.

From all of the extremely lucky students who where fortunate enough to go on this trip, thank you to all parents who emptied your banks for us and to all of the teachers who somehow managed to survive a week without killing or ‘accidently’ losing someone. Thank You very much. I can speak for everyone when I say; this has been a dream come true!

Ellie Gray- Eltham Hill School.