Living the London Life

        History/Geography Trip to London 

         

  The much anticipated History/Geography trip to London had arrived on Thursday 14th of April with many TYs who are taking History and Geography for their leaving cert heading to London in order to learn about different elements of History and Geography that would be coming up on the course. 

           

We arrived at the airport on Thursday morning at 5.30am and set off to London at 7.00am. Even though it was a very early start, I didn’t even feel tired because I was so excited and the atmosphere was buzzing amongst us, especially the teachers who couldn’t wait to get out of the country for a bit! Immediately when we arrived to London we got a taste for the London life and we travelled in style on the tube or underground - England’s way of  transport (similar to the dart or luas just underground). It was great fun flying along underground and scrambling for a seat whenever someone would get off the tube. After about a 40 minute trip on the tube we arrived at our base for the three days, The Melinger hotel. We didn’t stay there for long though, just dropped our suitcases in and reassured that our rooms would be waiting for us when we got back at 11.00am. With Mr Mulholland leading the group our first stop was to be the National History Museum where myself, Aimee and Amber went around the museum admiring the constructed dinosaurs and various exhibitions. 

                We had had no breakfast that morning as it had been too early to eat so we sat in The National History Museum’s beautiful cafe and ate blueberry muffins and drank lemonade. Laoise and Amy joined us for our break as we took in the interesting exhibitions that surrounded us.

                 

After about an hour in The National History Museum we headed to a Science museum where we had lunch and wandered around looking at the very cool Scientific objects on show. When the Science museum came to an end we walked to The London Dungeons which was just beside the London Eye and Big Ben. I have to say, The London Dungeons was one of my favourite parts of the trip. We made our way through scary, and I mean terrifying dark corridors experiencing the journey Jack the Ripper himself took. The actors in The Dungeons were absolutely amazing, so believable and had us terrified yet having lots of laughs while still learning about Jack The Ripper. At the End, there was a ride that was so thrilling and nearly made my heart leap out of my chest! Then we set off for the Cable carriages which were literally little carriages made of glass that went high up into the sky and over the River Thames. The view was fabulous and we could see everything from The 02 arena to the Shard. It was honestly breathtaking and another favourite of the trip. On the way over on the cable carriages, Mr Jennings and Ms Waters were in the carriage with some of the girls and Mr Jennings decided to play a game to see if we could make the other passengers wave back at us in their cable carriages. We each took a turn and everyone got their carriage to wave back except Mr Jennings which was very funny and he wasn’t too impressed!! 

                   Our destination from the cable carriages was to The Crystal, 

The Crystal is a sustainable cities initiative by Siemens, the world's most sustainable events venue and the largest exhibition on the future of cities. To be honest, The Crystal was my least favourite place we had visited but that was probably because I am not taking Geography for the leaving cert and I find that sort of thing quite boring anyway nonetheless it was still a nice place to get to by cable carriages. Soon our stomachs started to rumble so we set off for the Giraffe Restaurant where we had a lovely dinner. After dinner, re-energised, we set off on a Jack the Ripper tour with a tour guide around parts of London. This was an insightful tour with gory details that kept us hooked until the end. We finally headed back to the hotel via tube and I was in a room with Aimee, Amber, Laoise, Nat, Iona, Catherine and Caroline. I must admit, the room was way better than i expected it to be and I was very very impressed.

                     That first day was a huge success and we settled down to sleep straight away. The next two days were also huge successes and we visited places like The Imperial War Museum, The Shard, Churchill’s Downing Street basement  and The HMS Belfast which were all very interesting and informative. The best part of the trip though was our boat ride on a rib along the Thames. This was a very exciting experience, with the wind in our hair and music blasting out of the boat, I felt like I was in a James Bond movie. It was very cool to see all the sights while being on The River and it was very thrilling with the boat speeding along and zig-zagging along. I loved every minute. 

                           London was a fantastic experience and I really feel like it will definitely help me with my History course in the Leaving Cert. Just being able to see course materials in a museum really strengthened my interest and knowledge into different historic events such as The Holocaust. As well as learning loads, I also had great fun with everyone on the trip and got the opportunity to get to know others a bit more. A huge thank you to Ms Waters, Mr Jennings and of course Mr Mulholland for organising the trip and accompanying and supervising us.