MY PILGRIMS DIARY 11^th - 31^st Juli 1999

Today I got up at 4.45am to travel for the second time in my live to Pilgrims. I started in Bensheim at the station, my parents brought me there. I went to Köln where I changed for Oostende and then to Dover Hoverport (by boat, of course) and the way to Canterbury again with the train. That was it how I had planned to do it.
In fact there were several problems: I could not sleep in the trains (it was too overcrowded), also I had always to look for when I had to go out of the train to not miss the station.
Another problem was that the ferry took a long time (longer than it should have to) and I arrived too late in Dover to get the train to Canterbury, so I had to wait for another hour to go to Canterbury. When I arrived there I just took a taxi to Keynes College, but the driver did not know how to get there, so I had to walk for another time, but not far.
The summary: this travel was terrible, next time I will go by plane like last time, it is much more comfortable.
When I arrived in Keynes College I was welcomed by some teachers (Arthur). He gave me the key to my room (for a safety of £10) and showed the room to me. The rooms here are single rooms, with a table, a bed, a chair and a wardrobe in it, they are really nice.
Next I brought my ticket to the office, there I met the course director, he is the same like two years ago at Kent College with the teenagers: Jon Taylor. He remembered me and said he was very happy about the diary I sent to him the last time.
After I went to have dinner. Therefor we got tickets for lunch- and dinner-meals. The food is typically British, but I am used to it, so that it was no problem. Later I met one by one the other people of the course. In total here are 63 pupils, one third of them are Italians, the others from many other countries all over the world: China, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Spain, Israel, Portugal...
I think I will have much fun here and will learn a lot, especially English (that's what I am here for).
In the afternoon we had a meeting at the Junior Common Room (JCR). Ingrid, teacher, played games with us to learn the names (as always in new groups): we sat down in a circle and introduced ourselves to the group, then we had some activity games like walking around and remember names. About half of the group was there.
After we went out to talk, we were about 15 people telling about their countries and culture. It was very interesting. Gradually it became colder and darker so everybody left and went to bed, so I did.
It was a very exciting and especially exhausting day, I went to bed at about midnight.

July, 12 - Monday - First Day

I got up at 7.30am because we had a meeting very early at 9am and before breakfast at 8am. At the meeting Jon checked if everybody has arrived and sent us to the test forming the groups (classes). After the test (I had ~75%) he told us about everything about Keynes College and Pilgrims, like fire alarm, bedtimes, classes...
Then we had again a break of an half hour (breaks always take an half hour) and then we met again and we were told which class we are in. I am in the class 4, our teacher is Mark. We are 14 pupils: 3 German, 1 Italian, 2 French, 2 Taiwanese, 2 Spanish, 1 Turkish, 1 Korean, 1 Japanese, 1 Portuguese.
We played several games to learn each others name like: throwing a ball and say: 1^st: the own name, 2^nd: the name of the person you throw the ball to and 3^rd: the name of the person having thrown the ball to you.
We told about our hobbies and odd things we had experienced. It was interesting.
Then was lunch and a break and again class (with Mark, but normally we have another teacher in the afternoon, but today was is the first day).
Mark dictated several sentences and we wrote it down like: "I live in England" and we had to correct it for us. He collected the sheets. After we thought of a question, which we asked everybody. I had "What do you think about capital punishment?" We collected the opinion of everybody (other questions: "What does the year 2000 mean to you?", "Which country do you want to live in?"...)
Then we got a person's name and we should collect all the information that everybody had asked before. With these sheets we wanted to make posters, but there were no big papers.
After class we normally have options but because it was the first day we had not, we were just explained what options is and then we had free time until dinner.
The food here is really good (at least the today's, we will see how it is the next days). Today we had barbecue chicken. It was really spicy!
After dinner, at evening programme we had a "Welcome Party", where all the staff and teachers were introduced. Then we got cocktails and Emre (from Turkey, he is in my class) was the DJ and played songs. Everybody (nearly...) danced, later we just talked and then, at about 11pm I went to bed.

July, 13 - Tuesday - Second Day

This morning I signed up for "swimming options" which took place in the early morning at 7.50am.
We met at the entrance hall (Frank (from Hong Kong), me, Ingrid and Will (teachers)). With four persons we started to the local swimming hall down in Canterbury. Before we had some chaos because we had to pay for it but we did not have any money so that we had to go to get some first. The second problem was that we did not have a car so that Will looked for the keys everywhere.
We arrived ten minutes later at the swimming hall than we wanted to, but it was no problem, we had enough time there. After swimming we came just in time back for breakfast, we used the staff entrance to get to the dining hall.
Then we had our first lesson with Mark. He gave us several daily newspapers ("Sun", "Guardian", "Daily Telegraph"...). We formed groups of three or four and analysed the newspapers: the content and the style they are written and the language that is used and similar things, then we changed groups and told about our opinions. Afterwards every group had to find a question form it's newspaper and ask the other persons to see what their newspaper has written about the same topic.
After the break, we had the second lesson where we collected ideas for things we could do over the next three weeks: we had the four sections "trip", "show", "classes" and "projects". We had again groups and thought about what we could do.
Ideas we had were: make a video, make a questionnaire and similar things. We exchanged our ideas by changing groups and talking to others.
Then we had lunch break and third lesson with our other teacher, this is Shay. Everybody introduced himself that she learns the names then she read a story about a "strange hobby": she told that she likes to do handstand in public places and that she did it first in her garden where people could see her and then she did it at the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument where many people could see her. Then she told us to think in pairs about an own strange hobby and tell a story about it. I have been with Stephen and we told a story about our "eating-flowers-hobby", like "we eat them only with chocolate sauce" or "they are very healthy (vitamins)" and similar things.
After class we had options, I chose "Dancing". It was with Ingrid, she showed us how to do the "Viennese Waltz" because she is (half) from Austria, I learned it really, within one hour!
We had finished early, after one hour, but options normally last for 1.5 hours, so that I went just outside to the other group having "Painting"-option. They were up to make something that represents their country, the Germans and the one Austrian (Stefan) made a large map of their countries, I helped them.
Then we had dinner and after we had "Challenge Night", which means that we had four teams, each with one teacher (Arthur, Fiona, Ingrid, Will), who all have any senseless name. I am with Ingrid's team, our name is: "Ingrid Idiosyncratic Imbeciles", or just: "Ingrid's Idiots".
We played several games like throwing eggs an high as possible and clap hands as often as possible and catch the egg again. Do the whole thing three times. I was named as a volunteer by my team, but my egg broke so that we got no point.
The second task was also an egg-game, the eggs had to be thrown between two persons and the two move more and more away from each other.
Third game: there was a bread hanging on a cord and the players had to eat it without using hands. But before they began honey was poured over the bread.
The next game: "The drunken sailor". People put their forehead on a badminton-racket and run round it ten times and then run back.
The last game was the best (of round one): The players had to eat an apple out of a bucket of water and then picked out as many drops as possible out of a mountain of flour. It was very funny (for everybody else...).
Then we had a little break and went inside. the games we had now were:
Opening and eating a Mars^TM -bar without using hands; eating as many beaked beans a with a cocktail-stick as possible; eat as many Cookies one by one as possible within one minute.
Then was the last game: the "Funny-Bunny-Marshmallow-Game". That is the most ugly game of all. I played it: we had to put as many Marshmallows as possible into out mouth (without eating them!) and say "Funny Bunny" after each. I won! In total I had 17 or 18 in my mouth. Ugly!
At the end, the Idiots won, our team!
After we cleaned and tidied up and talked. I soon went to bed.

July, 14 - Wednesday - Third Day

I haven't been swimming because I did not know that this option is every day. I slept until three minutes to breakfast, but I was in time to class (of course!).
First this morning we worked out several questions for a questionnaire we are going to ask people from Canterbury. I was (or: I am) in a group with Charlotte (France) and Elisa (Italy). Our questions were like: "Which languages do you speak/ do you want to learn?" or: "Tell us three famous people" or: "What do you think about the Euro?"... We worked out about seven questions.
In the second hour Mark gave one sentence which was part of a story to everybody and we had to put it into the right order, then we got a "Crazy Questionnaire" with questions like: "Would you ever pick you nose in public?" and some like that.
Then we had lunchbreak and after we had a lesson with Shay. She wrote six topics on the board: 1. Things you do in the toilet; 2. Sex/ Relationship; 3. Death; 4. Mental Illness; 5. Racial Issues; 6. Drunken Behaviour. We had to do several things with these topics: first we spoke about them in groups of two, then we had groups of four and got some sayings we hat to put into there sections like: "I am a bit tipsy" or: "They've consummated their marriage". The next task was to make dialogues with this sentences (in groups of two) the last thing for today was that we read out the dialogues and instead of the sentences we said: "blank" and the other groups had to guess which one was used.
Then we had freetime and thereafter options. I did not sign up for options yet and I wanted to do "Drama", but there were only three participants so it did not take part. Instead of it I went with some people down to Canterbury City to go shopping. I bought some postcards and walked with the others along the Shopping Street. Then we went back by taxi and straight to dinner.
The afternoon programme today was "Quiz Night". We had again the teams from the challenge night and we were asked about 50 questions. We were not the best team this evening, but we won because we had several points over from the last competition. After the quiz we sung and Jon played the piano, Rob played the bongo and Mark the guitar. It was very nice.

July, 15 - Thursday - Fourth Day

I went swimming this morning again, but we had several problems: we did not have the keys for the car, so we just walked over to Kent College, where we asked the housekeeper for the permission to use the pool. We got it and swam for about 10 minutes, it was much more refreshing than the normal swimming hall (the water was much colder and without chlorine). We returned very quickly to breakfast and ate very quickly and arrived just in time in class.
Today we went out to Canterbury to have a class-trip. We had our questionnaires and asked people the questions. Some were very friendly and helpful, but others did not want to be interviewed. It also would had been interesting to collect the people's excuses like: "I have to go into that house." or: "I have got a boyfriend!" or: "Well, actually, I am not from Great Britain so I do not speak English, you know?" and other similar ones.
We had meeting every hour with Mark an the beginning of the shopping street. In total I asked nine people, later, when I was tired of asking I bought a book by "Nostradamus" for only £1.99.
We went back to the College by taxi, but we got the money back from Pilgrims, so that is was no problem.
Then we had lunch and a break (like every day) and then we had afternoon class. Shay dictated us some questions and we had to put them into a chart with the columns "I would ask this: My girlfriend", "My mother", "My best friend", "My favourite star". These questions were like: "How much do you weight?", "Do you love me?", "How old are you?", then we discussed about it, why we would ask a person this questions or why would not.
After lessons I choose "Drama" as option. It was with Rob, he is an actor at the theatre. First we had a "warm-up", we did several things for our body, our voice and our mind:
We had two people just acting anything, then they "froze", what means that they do not move. Then one person was exchanged and played a whole other story. It was not easy but very funny. Next we played a story with three persons: one person had to lie down, one to sit and one to stand. If one of them changed by any reason, the others had to change, too. The story: there were two friends who are in love for one girl, but they do not want to say that to each other. One night at 4am one boy went to the room of the girl and found her with his best friend...
Later we performed a sausage-producing-machine in groups of four, that was very interesting and funny. Then Rob told us about the status you can have (0-10), which means how self-confident you are. We hat another piece with this new aspect, in groups of 5-6 we played a circus group.
This option took about two hours, it was the longest ever, we just finished right for dinner. Today we had a barbecue (BBQ) outside, I had tough chicken wings and a delicious burger.
After dinner we met for "LaserQuaser". That is a game where you wear a waistcoat with sensors on it and you have to shoot your opponent's one with a lasergun. I played very well, I became two times third! (The second time I paid for my own, also five others played a second time.)
Bad news: I lost my jumper there: I gave it to Mark, he passed it to anybody else when he went to play and so on..., so that it was not there when we came back, one said me, that Will got it.
We went with Arthur (he had also played for a second time) to McDonald's for a drink and then we called a taxi to bring us back home to the College. When we arrived I straight went to bed.

July, 16 - Friday - Fifth Day

I got up that morning at 7:30 to go swimming. I have been at the entrance hall by 7:50, also Frank was there, but no teacher came. We waited for 15 minutes, but there was absolutely nothing like a teacher around. I decided to take a shower instead and went to breakfast. There we met Ingrid. She said that her alarm did not work because she sat it to the wrong time.
But on the other hand I had enough time to breakfast...
With Mark we did today some things with "borderlines". First we made a brainstorming and wrote down everything we know about it, then we wrote short stories in groups using these words. Our story was:
"A man who works in another country goes there every day by bike. He dreams of going by car so he begins smuggling in order to earn money, but one day he is caught by the police and his dream comes true: he crosses the borderline by car, but it was a police car."
Then we listened to the song "Borderline" by Chris de Burgh. We got several questions to answer by hearing the song, then we got the text and we had to write stories and letters and newspaper articles about the story: a boy loves a girl from the opponent country and he joins the army to fight against that country.
We wrote how they met first time, what happened during and after war. We did not finish at all, we will continue in the next lesson an Monday. In the break we joined some other classes and played a game: everybody sat down in a circle on chairs, one chair is missing so that one person has to stay in the middle. He says: "I would like you to change places if you...". He tries to get a place while persons change, if he succeeds the next one is in the middle. Reasons for changing were: "...wear something red", "...are from an Asian country", "...have long hair". There was a lot of movement within the group.
At dinner we had omelette. "If the English food had tasted as good as it looks like, it would have been the best food in the world. Actually, the taste is reversed proportional to the look: the better it looks, the worst it tastes."
At afternoon class we tried to work out a speak about anything that we really do not like. Shay's example was that she does not like mobile phones. I wrote with Joaquin about vandalism. After we had to find arguments (pro/ contra) about "Smoking should only be allowed in the home!", then we discussed about the arguments.
Next we had options. I chose "Music", which was singing songs with Jon. With about 10 people we went outside to sit next to the duck-pond. We sang songs link: "Imagine", "Hey Jude", "Stand by me", "Summertime" and others. Angela (Germany) has been there, too, she is a very great singer.
After dinner we had a disco in the JCR (Junior Common Room, the room which "belongs" to the Teenagers), everybody enjoyed it.
[=> To my jumper: it did not appear since yesterday but I am still looking for it.]

July, 17 - Saturday - Sixth Day

Today was the big trip to London! The days before we had to sign up for options we want to do in London like the "London Dungeons", "British Museum", "Science Museum", "Freetime & Shopping", and last, my choice, the "Museum of the Moving Image". In the morning, at about 8.15am, Will and Fiona came with the megaphone to wake up everybody. They made very much noise so that you could hardly continue sleeping.
We met at the entrance hall at 9.15am, then we left in our groups (me: "Ingrid's Idiots") for London. We went by coach, the ride took about two hours, so that most people slept. When we arrived in London we first agreed upon a meeting point in front of the "Embankment station", the "point" was on a drain. We bought a all-day-ticket for the tube and went with the groups we have signed up for to the places we have chosen. I went with Ingrid and 10 other pupils the "M.O.M.I". In the museum the story of making film and the history of the cinema was shown, it was very interesting.
I spent there about 1 ½ hours, then I went with Frank, Roberta, Charlotte and Ingrid to eat at "Covent Garden". We went there by tube and waited for Fiona, who wanted to come there. She did not come (we waited for nearly one hour), but Arthur came, so we went to a restaurant called "PJ's". I had the daily soup and a steak for £5.95. It was the first eatable food since one week, although it was British beef… I enjoyed it really. And while we were eating, Fiona arrived…
After lunch we had another hour left until we had to meet (at 6.15pm at the meeting-point), so I went with Frank and Arthur to the place in front of Covent Garden where the actors are. There was one who just involved Arthur to his show (playing "An der schönen blauen Donau"), everybody around had to do something like clapping hands, singing etc. It really took a long time so we nearly got into trouble because we were not back in time properly, but the show was over at the right moment and we came back to the meeting-point just in time.
We went back into the coaches and back home to the University. I finished writing my postcards (the important ones), then there was a video shown in the JCR, called "Sock, stock and two barrels of smoke". I enjoyed it, it is a bit like "Pulp Fiction". While the video run we got free drinks and free crisps.
After the film I went to bed at once.

July, 18 - Sunday - Seventh Day

Today we had another big trip, to "Bluewater Shopping Centre", a very large shopping-centre near to London. I got up at about five minutes to nine because I set off the alarm clock yesterday and we were not waked up like yesterday because today's trip was optional. I hurried to get some breakfast.
We left at about (very about) 10.15am by coaches, approximately tree quarters of the students went there.
In the shopping-centre I walked around with Serkan and Frank, I did not buy anything, we just walked around in order to see the 320 shops which are there. At lunch we went to McDonald's (where else). We really enjoyed the meal.
We spent four hours in the shopping-centre, then we returned home. All the girls have spent much money, as they always do when they go shopping. Back home we went to dinner. After there was planned a "Casino Night", but it was cancelled because new Adults arrived today and they needed the JCR for the welcome party.
We played games outside, board-games or card-games, others sang or learned juggling with Elisa. It was a nice "outside evening", later, when the Adults had gone we sat also inside.
Most people went to bed early, so I did, at about eleven o'clock.

July, 19 - Monday - Eight Day

I did not know if there was a swimming option this morning so I preferred to sleep longer (until breakfast).
After breakfast we had lessons with Mark. It was very nice to have lessons after a very long weekend. For the warm-up we made some origami, we made something like this:
Then we wrote words on each side of it and another words on the inside of it and last we wrote activities onto the inside like: "Bark like a dog" or: "kiss everybody in the room" etc. We went to a person and let him or her decide on one of these words outside then we spelled the word by opening both sides alternating. Then he or she chose another word from the opened side and we spelled that word, too, then the last word is chosen and the activity under it had to been done. (One time I had to kiss everybody. I liked it!)
After that we continued writing our "borderline"-stories. Within the break we went to the duck-pond to make a photo of the whole group, then we continued writing the stories and making clear-copies.
After lunch we had the afternoon class not with Shay but with Jon. We talked about typical jobs for men and women and about different words for male and female jobs or animals. It was interesting to see the differences.
At afternoon-options I choose tap-dancing. There were only tow persons: Frank and me. We did it with Debby. We learned some basics about it, it was easy to learn. We finished after 45 minutes, then we had freetime. I played the piano and bought some more postcards.
After dinner we had the exciting evening-programme: "Blind Date". I was chosen to be "volunteer" (of course). There were 4 rounds, boys and girls alternating. I was in group three, on the side to be chosen. The questions we had to answer were: "Where would you go at our first date?" Answer: "To a very lonely place to be alone only with you!" 2^nd Question: "What is the best part of your body?" Me: "It’s my mouth because I can sing with it and also do many other things with it…" Last Question: "Sing a song for me!" I sang (melody: ten green bottles) "There are three guys sitting here on this side (2x)/ and if I were chosen out of this side/ we would have much fun together this night!" In fact I was not chosen by Alice (Italy), she chose Tiago (Portugal). The third boy was Tobi (Germany).
After the game it was not very late so we sat out at the bar to have s drink (beer, although I am not 18 years old…)
It was very late this evening when I went to bed.

July, 20 – Tuesday – Ninth Day

I got up early to swim, but no teacher came. We (Frank and me) searched for Ingrid’s room all over the campus, we woke her up, but her alarm clock did not work, so that we decided to go swimming later, before lunch.
After breakfast we had a meeting the "Lecture Chapel 2". Jon talked about several things, he seems to be satisfied with us.
In class with Mark we collected for warm-up our favourite English words (me: "curiosity) and wrote them onto the black board. Then we wrote some words in others languages and walked around, shaking hands with everybody, saying the own favourite word.
Then everybody chose a colour and guessed what the other persons chose. We wrote down the characteristics of every colour. After we finished our borderline-stories, then we talked about love.
Just after lessons, at lunchtime, we had the swimming-option. Will and Frank and me went downtown to the swimming hall, we came back just in time for the last lunch.
Today was the first raining day, but in the afternoon it got better and the sun came out and smiled down on Kent University.
In afternoon class we had a grammar lesson. First Shay dictated a newspaper article about a boy who wanted to jump off a cliff because his girlfriend did not love him any more, but he was rescued.
Shay dictated in normal speaking speed, so that many words were hard to understand, also she let out the articles ("the", "an" …), so we had to put them in. We got a worksheet with explanations for the use of articles, then we wrote in groups stories and let the articles out. The other groups had to complete the text afterwards. It was not very exciting.
Options today were not real options because we had no choice: we had to prepare for the international night. We had several things to do: sing our national anthem (Angela did it), paint the flag of our country (Elisabeth), imitate a famous person (I imitated Michael Schumacher), write an advertisement speech about Germany (I wrote it and Tobi and Moritz read it out then), the last thing was to present a typical custom, so we took the "Oktoberfest". We prepared all the afternoon and evening and then we presented it for the evening programme. All 14 countries did something, first Austria, last Turkey (alphabetical order). I will not explain it here all because it would take a long time and too much space and it is very late by now.

July, 21 – Wednesday – Tenth Day

This morning Frank and me had luck because there were two teachers who went with us to the swimming centre (Ingrid + Will). While we were swimming, Will got some presents for Fiona in the city because it is her birthday today.
After swimming and after lunch we had the first lesson. First we spoke with Mark about day dreaming, we got some questions about it, when do we daydream and why etc. We spoke about it in groups. Then we played a game: we had a sheet with Hexagons on it, five in each direction. In each one there was written a word, which we got a question about. If the answer was right we painted the hexagon in the colour of our team (red/ green). The first team having a line from one side to the other won. My team lost.
In the second lesson we worked out the questionnaires we had asked people in Canterbury last week (a long time ago, as it seems), we collected the information of 27 people on sheets and drew some graphs. During that time Mark asked one by one about what he or she thinks about Pilgrims and about the lessons and the teacher. In generally I am very satisfied with the course, the lessons are (mainly) not boring, the people are nice, the weather is good (but this cannot be influenced by Pilgrims), the only thing one could complain about is the food…
Then we had lunch break and after we wad another lesson. We spoke about food, especially the vocabulary. We wrote down words connected with cooking and similar things, then we got some little papers with food (?) written on it like: honey, baking soda, orange jelly, alligator (?), pig ear (??), ants (???). We got the task to create a delicious meal with it and present it to the others. That was the end of the lesson.
I think, that the afternoon-lessons are much shorter than the morning ones, but I think, it is just a feeling because they all last 1 ½ hours.
For options I chose nothing because I wanted to go down to Canterbury to buy something like a film for my camera and a new exercise book for my diary (the third one!!!) and the Blue Beatles Album on records for only £4.99.
Then we had dinner: chicken. There are 500 ways to prepare a chicken, but they chose the second worst one (the worst one they chose last week), the chicken was nearly uneatable, but never-the-less: I survived it!
After dinner we met for going to disco, the "Bizz". It is a disco down in Canterbury, we got there with Pilgrims. I walked there with some others, everybody else took a taxi.
It was the "International Night" there today, students from all the language schools around came and brought their students. It was very overcrowded, so that one nearly could not dance.
We stayed there for about two hours, then we took taxis back to the University and went to bed at once because the dancing was so exhausting.

July, 22 – Thursday – Eleventh Day

I went swimming with Ingrid and Frank this morning, like nearly every day (when the teacher gets up!). This day we were very good in time so that we had enough time to have a nice breakfast and after that class.
First we did – like every morning – a warm-up activity. Mark told us a story about how to get a coke from the coke machine. We did the actions ("press the button") and then we had to remember the story and to write it down.
Mark complained that everybody was so tired this morning. We spoke about problems people have (those who are published in newspapers). We wrote some own problems to another class to answer. My problem: the weather in GB is too cold to wear shorts.
We gave them to the other (Arthur’s) class and got it back after the break. The advice I got was to wear long trousers whether I do not like them.
After answering the questions from the others we spoke about when we felt save in our childhood. We painted pictures and got words to place them on the picture. I painted we with my parents walking trough a park. Then we presented the pictures to others by walking around.
"Actually, that is one of the things I like in the lessons: you do not sit around like at home, you have to be active all the time: you always form groups, rebuild groups, write stories, fill out sheets and lots of other projects. I would like to have these kinds of lessons at home, too!"
However: after lessons we had lunch (I do not want to speak about it because of actual reasons), then I tried my e-mail account. It worked! There are some things I do not know how to do, but I think that I will get that in the next few weeks. I wrote some e-mails, then we had lessons again. This was a very long lesson, not like the other afternoon ones.
We spoke about death, the different ways to die (naturally, unnaturally…), then we got some sheets about euthanasia. We worked the pros and cons out and presented it to the whole group.
At options I choose today "laundry". It was one of the best I ever had. It was very funny. We were about ten people, but we had only five washing-machines (white/ coloured), so we saved money by sharing them. One washing was £ 1.20, the washing powder we got from anywhere (who knows?). The washing was the easiest of all, the problem was the drying: one dry-session costs 20p and you need about 5 - 10 sessions to dry it all completely. But there was another dryer, a ton to put clothes in and to press down the lid. That one was free and it was even more fun: you had to sit on it that it worked!
When I came back to my room I spread everything out, on the shelf, on the table, on chairs, the bed… to finish drying. Then I went to the JCR to relax and after to dinner.
Closed to dinner I went with Michaela to the cinema down-town. We went together because we were the only two who wanted to see the "Mummy". Everybody else went to "Star Wars". We left at 7pm, after I had got the tickets from the office (we naturally wanted to leave at 6:45pm).
We went down quickly and arrived just in time to get a good seat. The film was very scaring and thrilling, I liked it. When it was finished I changed for "Star Wars" to the other screen and saw that one, too. Michaela went home by taxi.
The second film was not an good as the first one, it had only special effects, no [real] story.
When the film was finished I met the group outside the cinema and we took taxis home and went to bed because it was around midnight.

July, 23 – Friday – Twelfth Day

Frank and me went with Will to the swimming hall, like (nearly) every morning. It is very refreshing and waking-up, I enjoy it every time.
In the first lesson with Mark we did horoscopes and constellations. We wrote all the signs on papers and everybody wrote his knowledge about it down. We spoke about it and if it is true what horoscope says.
Later we went outside and Mark read from his tarot-cards. He read the future of Tiagos school career. It was interesting how the cards agreed with each other.
After the break we went to the duck-pond. We did some relaxing exercises: everybody closed the eyes and just listened and felt. Then we wrote down our impressions. Mark told us a story: "You walk through a forest on a path coming to a pond, a house, a cow… Describe everything!" Then we exchanged our stories and last we sang a song.
After lunch I ironed my T-shirts, it was quite easy but I think that the blue of the shirts was more blue before I washed them.
Then I went to afternoon lessons with Rob, we changed teachers this afternoon. For warm-up (every teacher likes warm-ups) we stood in a line by the order we like to speak. I was the first one. Then we made paints and had conversations but we were only allowed to ask questions. Next we heard a song and we had to write down as much as possible as we could about the singer, just by hearing his voice. The singer was Rob himself (ten years ago).
We heard another song. We had to write down (in groups of three to four) everything that comes into mind just by hearing the song. Then we made stories about it, like newspapers or a letter, it was really good, everybody (teacher & pupils) enjoyed the lesson.
At options I choose "African Drumming". They got about seven bongos from anywhere and we played with Rod several rhythms.
For dinner we had barbecue chicken, one of the best meals I ever had here.
The theme of this evening was "Beach Party". It was like the normal discos but (nearly) everybody wore beach clothes (shorts, Hawaii-shirt…) and outside there was a volleyball-court. I dances crazy (like every time) and enjoyed it all a lot. At about eleven o’clock it was over (very early), so that most went to bed early.

July, 24 – Saturday – Thirteenth Day

We had today our trip to Brighton. It is a big city, overcrowded by tourists, at the seaside. The teachers came to wake up everybody at 9am. I took a shower, had breakfast and met the group at the porters lodge. Originally we wanted to meet at 9.45am, in fact we met at 10.15am. We left with two busses for Brighton. The ride took two hours, many people slept.
In Brighton I went with Serkan and Frank round in the City, to "Sam’s Burgers" and to some bookstores where I bought three books ("The Graduate", "The ghost from the grand banks" and "Murphy’s law"). After we went to the seaside and laid down on the stony beach. We rested there for about two to three hours, lying in the sun, getting burned.
We went to the meeting point at about 6pm, then we drove home. Most of the people slept.
Having arrived home we had some (about 30) pizza from "Pizza Hut" for dinner (good dinner).
At 10pm a video was shown in the lecture theatre 2, a romantic love-story. I left after ten minutes, it was a terrible film.
I sat outside with some people who did not want to watch the movie, too, then I phoned my girlfriend in Germany and checked my e-mail. I got some answers and wrote some more mails.
Because everybody went to bed early tonight I went to sleep soon, too.

July, 25 – Sunday – Fourteenth Day

Sunday, the day of relaxing! I slept until 9.30 o’clock and got up. It was too late for breakfast so I just sat down and talked to people.
At 12.15am we left to go with Mark’s class down to Canterbury to a pub to have some good food. Some people did not come so that others went with us. We took the way through the forest, it took really long time to go there, longer than the common way. (Murphy: "The longest distance between two points is a shortcut.")
We went to a restaurant to have lunch. I ate roast beef, it was excellent. That proved that English food can be good. After we went to Canterbury City to the shopping street to some booksellers. I bought a deck of tarot cards, several other people also wanted to buy one, but in the first shop they run out of it so we went to some other shops.
We went back to the College just in time to have dinner, then we had the evening programme: "Man-o-Man". That is a game-show where ten male contestants who have to solve several tasks are one by one kicked out being selected by the female audience and as a sign they get a piece of cake in their face or they come to the next round by getting a kiss.
The tasks were: 1. hidden talent (I sang) 2. Muscles (Taieb did some karate performance and we had to repeat it) 3. Dirty dancing (self explaining) 4. Make-over (the contestants had to make-up like a girl) 5. Chat-up line (something you say to start a conversation with a girl).
I was kicked out in round three. The strawberry cream I got into my face was very ugly. I prefer kisses.
After we talked a bit and then we went to our rooms. I read the tarot cards for myself. It is difficulty to interpret all the pictures but I think that I am going to learn it!

July, 26 – Monday – Fifteenth Day

Just another "working" day, but also a unique one like every day with Pilgrims. We did not go swimming because they did not have the car for any reason so I could sleep until 8.27am to go to breakfast al 8.30am.
In the first lesson with Mark we spoke about honesty and lies. We got an article from a magazine and wrote down questions like: "When do you normally lie?", "Why do you lie?" …
In the break we finished our project work (the questionnaires from Canterbury), then we planned the staff-student-show. We collected ideas like played jokes, theatre, sing a song… We gathered in two large groups and thought about our ideas. The group I was in got the idea of making short dialogs with two persons, each speaking in the other one’s language. I do it with Flore. She speaks German, I speak French, ce n’est pas un problem. We wrote a four-line-dialogue and practices it for several times, then the lesson was over but we stayed 15 minutes longer.
After lunch I wrote some postcards and posted them, then we had lesson with Shay. We spoke about a man who had a very strange hobby: he has dug for over ten years a subway in his little town, just by himself, and until now he has about 200 yards. Everybody is scoring about him.
We had to write a letter to the director of a mental-institution to get him there, then we wrote a letter from the man for not getting there, at last a letter from the director about taking him or not taking him.
The weather today was not very nice, the sun did not shine, it was cloudy and windy (English?). I had to wear long trousers. Terrible.
For options I choose nothing, I just relaxed. It was refreshing to do nothing! I enjoyed it!
After lunch we had "Karaoke Global". We were in out teams an had to chose three songs out of about 100 which we had to sing with our teams. The Ingrid’s Idiots sang: "Let it be", "Summer of 69" and "Killing me softly". Nobody won anything (I think), it was just for fun. Great fun! Everybody tried to sing as loud and as wrong as possible. Therefor everybody should have get a price.
Later we sat in the bar and talked, then we went to bed, after midnight.

July, 27 – Tuesday – Sixteenth Day

Our teacher to accompany Frank and me to the swimming options was Will. We did not swim long because the pool was very crowded: the person in front of you is slower than you, the person in the back of you is faster so that we went to the whirlpool.
Today we did not have regular classes: we met Mark an also Rob’s class outside of the office and went all together down to Canterbury. First we visited the "Marlow Theatre", a very famous theatre in GB. We had a guided tour through the building, also backstage and "understage", it was very interesting.
Then we had lunch (I went with some others to a "Fish & Chips"-shop. I decided to eat this never again. Also it was expensive: £ 4.50!), after Mark’s class met to have a visit to the Cathedral. Rob went back to have afternoon-class. We had a long visit in there, Mark got our guide so we got special fees.
We walked trough the whole building, it is a very impressing, large and tall one. Some things we saw jet on Sunday, but now we know everything. Having seen everything we took taxis back to the college and had options.
Nearly our whole class choose "Tarot card reading" with Mark. I read the cards for Frank about his studying career and for Esther about her new boyfriend. We did the reading in groups of four so that I did not do it on my own but everybody interpreted the cards. I enjoyed it, I think I will work on it.
After dinner we were prepared for "Night Raiders". This is a game for two teams: one team were Will’s and Fiona’s groups, the other Arthur’s group and Ingrid’s Idiots. First we got the instructions, then, when it was dark, we went outside (at about 9.30pm, we played from 10.30pm until 11.30pm).
The game rules: there are two teams. Every team has a base with five treasures (balls) and has to protect them and has to get the ones of the opponent team. In the middle of the field, in the forest, there is "no man’s land". You can catch players of the other team on your own side, then they loose a life (a string) and they have to get another one at their base to try again. The first half hour I was a defender, I tried to protect our base, the second half I was a catcher, I tried to get their treasures.
It was a bit unfair because our base was very near to the forest, the other’s one was far away from it so that they got three or five balls, we only two (5 points per ball), therefor we caught eleven people’s life, they only nine (1 point each). We lost 21:24 or 21:29.
But the main thing is the fun and I think everybody who played (about half of the course, each team 15 people) had much!
When I was 2^nd time at the base of the other team I fell and hurt my leg and my arm (not badly, also it was nearly at the end of the game).
The whole thing was very exhausting, everybody was very tired and went just straight to bed.

July, 28 – Wednesday – Seventeenth Day

We had swimming options this morning with Ingrid. We swam very quickly, 20 tracks at all, and then we had some more time to relax in the whirl-pool.
With Mark in the first lesson this morning we had a dictation. He said some words and we had to write three words we associate with them. For example: hour. But it also could have been: our. He chose words with two meanings or words with the same pronunciation. That was for warm-up.
Then we listened to a song that Mark had recorded from the radio: there is a band playing a song (the Banana-Song by Belafonte). The singer sings too loud, so that the bongo player sends him out of the room to sing the loudest part outside and to come in to sing the rest. At the end the door is locked and he comes back by smashing a window to finish the song.
We had to write down the problems the bongo-singer has and how they are solved. The half of the group decided to play this in the show.
Then we prepared for the show tomorrow night, we wrote posters with our dialog (in English, for the audience). We practised our dialogs and the others the song, also in the 2^nd lesson.
After lunch we had another lesson with Mark, not with Shay, we spoke about "Haiku". That is a Japanese kind of writing poems. In Japanese it is out of 17 characters, in English out of 5-7-5 (=17) syllables. We wrote some own Haiku, I had about 15. My best one was: "The sun is shining/ birds and bees flying around/ clouds cover the sun". Everybody gave one to Mark, for the course-magazine.
After lesson we got immediately ready for our trip to London, to a musical, either "The Phantom of the Opera" or "Miss Saigon" (that is where I went to because the other I have seen twice).
We left at 4pm, about the half of the people went there. The bus-ride took about two hours, we played cards and talked.
Having arrived in London, we had one hour (exactly!!!) to have our dinner. I went with some to McDonald’s, others went to Pizza Hut. Those having eaten at McDonald’s had finished first and were on time at the meeting-place. Those having eaten at Pizza Hut were about ten minutes too late where MD was about 1 mile away, PH about 100 yards. MD was half price as PH. Result: MD is better than PH. From the meeting-point we divided into the two groups to the different musicals. "Miss Saigon" was with Ingrid. It was hard to find the way. We nearly got lost in London.
In the theatre we had good seats and everybody enjoyed the play. It took about two hours.
Then we went back to the meeting-point. It was very hard to find the way back. We definitely got lost in London. Unfortunately we did not see ghetto-fires (or was that in N.Y. … !?!).
The ride home took another two hours, but everybody slept, so it did not seem to be such a long time.
We arrived at home at about 1 o’clock, I just went to bed at once, without writing my diary, as I do it normally every night.

July, 29 – Thursday – Eighteenth Day

This morning I slept until 8.30am because we did not have swimming options because: Ingrid is sick and Will spent the night with his girlfriend in London (wow!).
I took a shower instead and went to breakfast (late) and then to lesson (also late).
We practised for our show tonight and got everything ready like painting posters, practising and playing our theatre. Mark had changed the words of "Borderline"-song to "Come back again" and we practised that, too.
In the afternoon class we had some grammar: Mark gave us (fiction) postcards about a girl who wrote to her boyfriend from a InterRail-tour through Europe. She met a boy named Bryan and went with him to Moscow, then she found out that he is a spy. We did it to use forms like "might", must be", "probably have" … That was an interesting grammar lesson, Mark really knows how to teach!!! At the end of the lesson we went to the JCR to practise our play and to see what we need for this night.
Then we had free-time, I checked my e-mail and played the piano and spoke to people and wrote diary.
At dinner we had gain BBQ, it was one of the best meals the cooks here ever produced. We sat down at the bar after and talked and waited until the show went on.
That was at about 9.30pm. It should have been one hour earlier. Every class acted their plays. They all had different things like "Star Wars" or "Robin Hood" or "Advertisement for Pilgrims".
We were the last class (last ¹ least). First we brought bistro-tables and chairs to the stage and played our "culture exchange". Then the crazy "Banana Band" went on stage. They did very well. At last we all sang the "Come Back Again"-song. That was a good end for it all.
After Emre, our DJ played music (until half past twelve) and we danced and enjoyed the next-to-last night. Everybody took lots and lots of photos, I also took (too) many.
"This was the next-to-last day, it is hard to think back to the first few days we just arrived and knew nobody or only some persons and now we spent nearly three weeks together and know each other (nearly everybody). I hope that it will not be too sad when we have to say ‘good bye’ to each other, but: ‘You always remember the good moments, the bad ones you forget!’"

July, 30 – Friday – Nineteenth Day

Today the last day! For the same reason like yesterday we did not have swimming-options. Today’s class was just for relaxing. First we played a game: one person goes out and everybody else decides about something the person has to guess what it is, e.g. crossing the legs while answering, answer like the neighbour would do… Then we played a game where one person thinks about something which is either vegetable, animal or mineral. Then we had 20 questions to ask to find out what it is. That game was very boring because everybody was very tired of having had nearly no sleep.
After the break we sang again our "Come Back Again [Borderline]"-song, then we cleaned the classroom, removed all the posters from the walls and went over to the duck-pond. There we had a quiz, in groups by classes. The questions were about cinema, music, inventors, trivial… We became 3^rd (58pts.), Shay’s class got 69 of 70 points!
Then we had lunch, after I packed my suitcase an checked my e-mail. Now it was time for the last class on this course, with Mark. We met at the duck-pond and sang some songs with Mark. Then everybody got a postcard from Mark and we wrote our name on the top. We passed it to the person sitting next to us and wrote something you like about the person whose name was now on the postcard, until we got our own postcard back. It was interesting what people write about you after three weeks: they liked me because I make everybody laugh, I am always happy, I am funny and serious at the same time (?).
Right after we helped Jon with preparing the envelops for everybody (Martha, Angela, Silvio, Eun-Jung, me). We wrote everybody’s name on it, put the certificates and reports in alphabetical order and looked out for missing ones and put them together with the course-magazine and -photo and some stickers from any radio stations Mark gave us in it. It was really exhausting, especially because of the "Santa-da-costa-family", they are four cousins having three different names than written on the list. But after 1 ½ hours of hardest work we got it!
For dinner we went today off-campus, to a pub down in the city, "House of Agnes". We has a barbecue there, but it tasted very similar to all the food we got in the last three weeks in the canteen.
Some students (Martha, Angela, Silvio, Takako, Ahn, Flore, Eun-Jung and me) decided to go with our teacher Mark to a pub. Mark said that he knew a very good one.
We looked everywhere in Canterbury for it, but we did not find it anywhere. Mark tried hard to remember. We still did not find it. Suddenly we found it. It was overcrowded.
We looked for another opportunity to drink something, but we did not find a good place, it was either too expensive or too crowded so we went back to "House of Agnes". We sat outside in the darkness, they brought us some candles. It was very romantic. We talked about what we do when we come home and had a lot of fun.
At about 10.30pm we took taxis home and continued celebrating the "Good-Bye-Party" at the bar and later in the JCR. At about 0.30am the last song was played and the JCR closed. Jon said something and then some went to bed and some stayed awaken. I was one of them. We sat in the hall until 2.30am and went to bed.

July, 31 – Saturday – Departure Day

They persuaded me to be at the bus at 5.30am to say "Good Bye" to those leaving at that time.
Afterwards I slept about two hours, then I got up and went to the entrance to say good-bye again. It was sad, some people cried. We embraced each other, then the bus left.
I went to the bathroom to have a shower, then I read the last time my e-mail and had breakfast. At 8.30am the second bus left for the London’s airports, now only about five people were there, me and some others who stay there for another three weeks. The second bus departure was as sad as the first one.
I called a taxi at around nine o’clock to bring me to the station. I said good-bye to everybody, especially to Mark, my best teacher inside and outside the classroom, then I also left.
From the Canterbury Station I went to Dover, there I just missed the bus so that I had to walk to the harbour. On the ferry I met some pupils having been at an exchange in England. The ride home on trains was as exhausting as the journey here so that I arrived tired but happy.

That’s all.