Upminster
Our class trip to Upminster, United Kingdom
The Flight to London Heathrow
On the morning of June 13th we met under the red sculpture in Terminal 1 at BER airport at 10:30am. Everybody was very excited and soon after we started to make our way to the safety check. As we got to our gate we then had a bit of spare time until our aircraft arrived. Soon after we saw the aircraft, a British Airways Airbus A 319 rolling into the parking position right in front of us. We boarded the plane using the jet bridge and got into our seats which we were already assigned to earlier. The seats were a bit cramped, especially for the taller students. But most of those issues were quickly forgotten as we started to be pushed back out of our parking position. We taxied to the runway and were pushed back into our seats as the aircraft accelerated to about 135 Knots and lifted off. The flight was on time and we had a really good view of the city as we climbed up to about 36.000 feet roughly 11 kilometers of altitude. The weather looked very nice outside the aircraft. We were offered a drink and a little snack. The flight unfolded quite smooth and calm as some students read books or watched movies. Others talked to their seating neighbours or ate something. As we approached London Heathrow airport, we got a beautiful look of the city and saw sights like the London Eye and others. But because we were now flying below the clouds we could now see what kind of weather we could expect in London, it was quite rainy and cloudy but cleared up later on. As we approached the airport our aircraft shook a bit as we came in for a landing but it was still a quite smooth landing. We got out of the aircraft and went to the safety check and passport control. After finishing those we got our bags and then headed for the tube to Upminster.
Our first day in London
On Friday June 14, we went to the National History Museum. We arrived at around 3 pm and started in the entrance hall where a big whale skeleton is hanging from the ceiling. It is 25 meters long and belonged to a blue whale. After the meet up, we had time to walk through the halls in groups of 3 or more. We went to the dinosaur skeleton section first.
There were many bones of different types of dinosaurs and also pictures of how they looked in the past. It was very interesting and informative. After that, we visited the mammal section. There were many sculptures of different mammals and also another big whale skeleton. When we finished our tour through the mammal section, it was already time to go. We met again in the entrance hall and had a quick talk about what we have seen. Then we took the tube back to Upminster.
Our trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral
Our trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral was on Saturday, June 15. Before I report to you our time there I would like to tell you some important facts about the Cathedral. St. Paul’s was designed by the great British architect Sir Christopher Wren. The Cathedral today is the 5th one standing and took 35 years to rebuild. On Saturday it was sadly raining but luckily we went inside to visit St. Paul’s Cathedral. Once we entered we were all shocked as the Cathedral was so beautiful. Soon we made ourselves up exactly 600 stairs to get right to the top. The staircases were very tight and many were made out of wood. Of course we had stops like for example at the Whispering Gallery. Once we reached the very top we were all exhausted but also still full of adrenalin. The view outside from the top of the cathedral was breathtaking and just amazing. As we made our way back down all the steps everyone was in a good mood and really just impressed. Once we reached the ground again many were quite happy as they were scared of heights. We all got more time to explore the ground floor of St. Paul’s. Overall, we had an amazing adventure and made a lot of memories and I personally would definitely recommend visiting.
A student’s highlight of the class trip – The London Eye
On Father’s Day, 16th June, my class and I visited The London Eye which was built in 1998. It is, in fact, one of the most visited attractions of London and it is a giant wheel standing on the bank of the river Thames. It is located near the tube station “Waterloo” in London.
It was designed by Julia Barfield and David Marks. And it was first opened for visitors in the year 2000. The London Eye (also called the millennium wheel) has over 3.5 million visitors every year. It is also the biggest observation wheel in Europe and the third largest big wheel worldwide. It has a wonderful view above London’s famous landmarks and you can see around 40 km from the top. And an incredible fact is that it is illuminated at night – in different colours!
Now a few words about the impressive technical information:
The big wheel is 135 metres high. One rotation lasts around 30-40 minutes. It has 32 egg-shaped and air-conditioned glass passenger cabins which are located outside the big wheel. Each capsule is 8 metres long and 4 metres in diameter. Up to 25 people can sit in only one capsule. The admission fee is between 33 to 40 Euros and it is opened everyday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
For me personally this was a wonderful experience and one of the greatest and unforgettable highlights of the trip. But it was also a scary experience because I was afraid of the heights. However, I managed to go on the big wheel with the help of my classmates/friends.
I would highly recommend travelling to London and trying it out! It was so much fun and a unique experience.
The flight back to Berlin
On the flight back to BER we met at 10:30 pm at Upminster Station were a small coach picked us up and drove us to the airport. The traffic was quite crowded so we needed over one and a half hours to get to the airport meaning that the trip to the airport ended up taking longer than the actual flight itself. After finally arriving at the airport we got through the safety check and passport control once more and then had some free time at the airport because we did not receive the gate information so quickly. While there were a lot of shops at the airport the prices were extremely high, a single apple for example costed 1.05 pounds. After we found out which gate we had to go to we were picked up by busses and driven around the entire property of the airport until we finally arrived at parking position 525 which was not directly connected to a building by a jet bridge because of Heathrow’s lack of parking slots as it is one of the busiest airports in the world. The aircraft we would be flying with was a 21-year-old British Airways Airbus A 320 which had the designation G-EUUP. We boarded the aircraft by stairs instead of a jet bridge and got into our seats. We had to taxi down the entire lengths of the runway so that we could take off facing the wind with the front of the aircraft and not the back. After waiting for a couple other airplanes to take off it was finally our turn and the two engines accelerated us with a force of 125 Kilonewtons. After we lifted off you could really see just how crowded the airspace in and around London actually is as we saw multiple other aircraft at the same time. The flight was smooth again and when approaching Berlin you could see sights like the Fernsehturm. We landed at BER on time with the flight taking about 1hour and 27 minutes. We then got our bags were picked up by our parents. All in all, I think that our flight went really well and that it was a lot of fun.
Text: students of class 8 E (2023/24)
