Day 2/Blast from the Past

Le lendemain (the next day), I took a hot shower and scarfed down a quick breakfast of toast and jam before heading to the bus with the other chaperones. We took a 1.5 hour trip through the picturesque English countryside and I noticed that the villages were full of thatched-roof cottages, trimmed hedges, and carefully maintained riding trails. Contrary to the information listed in our program, there were no guides and the inside of the castle contained no furnishings. There was a 15-minute film about the historical use and development of the castle which I had to help translate. After about 15 minutes, it looked like a Works Progress Administration project like the small “castle” built near my house where teenagers sneak off to drink on weekends. The students decided to play “cache-cache” (hide-and-go-seek) and ended up having lots of fun. As we were leaving, I passed the Comments bulletin board and noticed the following observation made by a 9 year old English girl: “It was lots of fun, but I was afraid of the ducks!”

We ate an exceptional picnic in the bus with sandwiches and fruit, and then ducked inside the station service for a coffee break. Our next destination was a game center next to a supermarket. I had to help one of the students who couldn’t remember what “gelé” translated to in English (“jelly”) but kept mentioning how much her mother liked to cook things in it (?!). At the game center, some of the students asked if they could go bowling instead of playing Laser Quest. The manager did OK it, but it took a while for V and I to count how many kids wanted to do each. G and H watched bowling while we played Laser Quest with some of the kids. It was really interesting to watch their strategies. M, for example, ran all over the place and tried to shoot more than he got hit. His girlfriend C and her BFF J had another strategy. They hid behind a partition and would jump out to say “Souris!” (Smile!) before blasting away at you. That night, we ate delicious chili con carne and looked at some other examples of English castles. One of them is an almost mirror image of the famous Mont St. Michel chateau in France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_St._Michel), though my colleagues explained that ours was a bit taller. Three more days to go…