Going to a British School

     
  
HORSHAM
I have decided that there is no better way to learn about culture than to be in the culture itself. That's why (or at least partly why) all four of us boarded the train from Victoria bound for Horsham, a small town near Gatwick airport. We were met at the station by our San Carlos friends' cousins the Skipton-Carters (Parents: Luise and Andy, Children: Jemma, Henry, and Felix). After spending a very enjoyable and warm afternoon at their local National Trust property, we felt we had gotten a little more of a taste of Bristish culture. From noticing the history woven into everything here by seeing the grand old manor house  to having sausage rolls for lunch, we saw things you would never see in California. When we got back to their house, we enjoyed a relaxing evening playing lawn games, yet it turned slightly stressful when we tried to get the volleyball over the net 15 times without dropping it. Unfortunately, we never made it but had lots of laughs all the same.

After my parents went home, Lily and I  spent the night with the Skpton-Carters. We were going to go to school with he oldest daughter, Jemma, the next day.  In the morning we had a traditional British breakfast of toast and jam. Then we set off for school.  Jemma goes to an all girls school so it was interesting to watch 1,500 girls in uniforms arrive at the school gates. Lily and I noticed some big differences in this school than our school. First, they have a repeating schedule spanning two weeks with a different order of classes every day. Jemma says that when she finally memorizes it at the end of the year, its a real drag because two months later, she has to get a new one. The second difference we noticed was that the girls here take classes called maths or sciences. There are no specific names for the classes like algebra or physics, so if you asked one of the girls what she was taking, she wouldn't be able to tell you. At lunch time, we ate at her canteen that seemed like the Ritz Carlton compared to the cafeteria at our school. We also noticed that this school offers many more types of art classes including design, technology and cooking. Lucky!

We spent a very enjoyable day at her school though we were surprised to find that their history teacher doesn't teach anything about colonizing America. I wouldn't be here if they hadn't, strange. We walked home for a snack then were dropped of onto the train home. Overall I had an amazing time meeting my friend's mom's sister's family.  Wow, that's a mouthful.

Abby