During my gap year, I was staying with a very kind family. I really love them, thanks to them I could realise my wonderful gap year, that means, a new culture, new habits, new life, new friends, and the thing I value the most... EXCHANGE, exchange of learning and teaching, exchange of favors, of love. While I was teaching to this family to speak spanish and helping at the house-work, they helped me with my english, and to be open-minded too. I learnt plenty of things, and they did it too. I really think that taking a gap year is always a good idea, and it's a diffrent way of learning (solidarity for example) and discrovering new things (culture, etc..) , doesn't matter where you go. London has many differences from Uruguay, different people, habits, everything, I really loved London, and of course I will come back as soon as I can.
Last day of the fantastic tour:(((
We spent the whole day at Hyde Park, it is a really big park it's one of the largest parks in London, everything is green. It is one of the Royal Parks of London too. It's well known by the ''Speaker's corner'', here you can talk about any subject as long as you want. There, in winter, there are many shows like ''Winter Wonderland'' (one click for a video to see how it is like). We spent all our morning there, and for lunch we ate a very typical dish of there, called ''Fish and Chips'', you can't go to London and come back without eating, at least once, fish and chips. That's the end of our three-days tour:( It was amazing every place I went, everything I saw. London is a really beautiful city.
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| Fish and Chips |
We took again the metro, and we arrive to Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus. There we do some Shopping. Here some pictures... It was amazing, I saw shops and brands that I've never seeing before. It was pretty cheaper that in Uruguay. I started to love London, it's a city that have everything!!
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| Oxford Street |
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| Oxford Street |
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| Piccadilly Circus |
First, I'm going to talk about the London Eye and the Big Ben. We went there by metro (it was the first time that I saw one, in Uruguay we don't have any of them), I still remember the voice saying : '' Please mind the gap between the train and the platform'', I WANT TO HEAR IT AGAIN:( It was an incredible experience. Here there are some pictures...
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| Tube map |
Then we finally arrived to the Big Ben train station, it's located at the north end of the Palace of Westminster of London. Big Ben its the nickname of Great Bell of the clock and it's officially known as Elizabeth Tower. It is really big, and a very known symbol of London. The red telephone box is for publics telephones, we can see them all around the streets of London, they are a symbol of London too.
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| Palace of Westminster |
Finally, we went to the London Eye. The London Eye is a giant ferris wheel on the South Bank of the river Thames, it is also known as the Millenniun Wheel. It is really amazing because it offers you the highest point of view of London, and from there you can see all the city!! That's why it's the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom.
The first day was at the tower of London, nearby the tower brigde. We went by walking. I loved the double decker buses, they are red and they can transport many people, it's more ecologic than buses in Uruguay. The tower of London has a long history behind. It's a historic castle situated on the central london, in front of the river Thames. It used to be a prison, then it becames very important because it was a royal residence. Then, in the First and Second World Wars, the Tower was again used as a prison, and witnessed the executions of 12 men for espionage. Nowadays, this tower is one of the most important touristic attraction that London have. After visiting the tower of London, we went to the Tower Bridge, which crosses the river Thames, it takes it's name from the Tower of London and it's an iconic symbol of London. They are amazing places to visit, they are well known by tourist and they are a symbol of London as many others places that I'm going to talk about later.
Hi,
I'm belen and I'm going to talk about my gap year in London. I was 17 years old, and I decided to take a gap year to improve my level of english (I'm from Uruguay). When I arrived to London, I was shocked, everything was clean, the street was neat, no rubbish. The weather was different, almost everyday was rainning or cloudy. I couldn't see the sun shining like in Uruguay. The people were very kind, and multicultural. When I walked on the street, I could see people from all around the world living in the same country. The structure of the houses was very similar. I was perplexed when I take the escaletors and the people were standing on the right to let other people arrive faster if they had to.My first day's impressions were that London is a multicultural, clean, with many touristics attractions, and a very organised city.
First, I'm going to talk about the London Eye and the Big Ben. We went there by metro (it was the first time that I saw one, in Uruguay we don't have any of them), I still remember the voice saying : '' Please mind the gap between the train and the platform'', I WANT TO HEAR IT AGAIN:( It was an incredible experience. Here there are some pictures...
Then we finally arrived to the Big Ben train station, it's located at the north end of the Palace of Westminster of London. Big Ben its the nickname of Great Bell of the clock and it's officially known as Elizabeth Tower. It is really big, and a very known symbol of London. The red telephone box is for publics telephones, we can see them all around the streets of London, they are a symbol of London too.
