I got to do a special trip just four days after landing in France: I got to take a weeklong trip to England! It sure is different because when in France, you really can just get up and drive to England for the day or the week, or another country of preference, since they’re all so much closer than the US is! I had known before coming to France that I would be going, and there was a lot of paperwork to do, but I find that it was worth it even with the quick country change.

We woke up at 2 in the morning to meet the bus at the school and leave by 3:30. We drove for about 4 hours to catch an 8:30 Brittany Ferry from the Caen dock to Portsmouth, England, arriving at about 1:30 England time (there was a one hour time change).

We saw Stonehenge, spent two days in Manchester walking around the Northern Quarter and Castlefield, and spent a day in Liverpool looking through a few museums. My favorite was the Merseyside Maritime Museum, since it had floors for both the Titanic and the Lusitania. Of course, I listened to some Beatles music too while in the bus.

There were about 60 of us on the trip. (60 kids – that is my whole grade at Bush!) While in England, we stayed in groups of three or four in host families. My host family was incredibly nice. There were three kids: two boys, 9 and 13, and a young girl who was 2 and absolutely adorable.

All in all, the England trip was a great experience and one that I wouldn’t have ever had, had I not decided to do the Passepartout Program. It sure was neat being in a group of French students going to England, and my brain was going back and forth from French to English when speaking to my English host family and the other French kids in my homestay group!

-Grace Farwell