A Merry Company
At the beginning of July, having packed our travel bags with clothes and provisions (the journey was to be a long one), we set off on the most vivid and colorful trip of our lives. We are boys and girls from different cities of Ukraine - Dnepropetrovsk and Kiev, Kharkov and Sumy, Chernovtsy and Kamenets-Podolsky, Nikolaev and Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Lugansk. Among us are those who attend English school and are going to hone their English, and not just anywhere, but in Britain itself, and the "mini-miss" girls. We took part in a competition held all over the country (and even the world!) called "Mini-Miss", and as winners of the qualifying rounds - each in her own city - earned the right to this trip. So, we gathered in Kiev, at the starting point of the route - the round glass "McDonald's" on Station Square.
Route
Those seeing us off were terribly worried, because some were traveling without parents for the first time, and the journey was to be long. There are as many as three capitals on the route: Paris, London, Brussels. In two weeks we were to travel through Poland, Germany, and France. We were to stop in Paris for just a little while (to spend the night and look around a bit), and from there to London, where we would spend a week - study at a summer school, see their main sights, Big Ben and the Tower, Westminster and Parliament - you can't remember them all at once, even if you hear about them at every English lesson.
We were to return via Belgium with a stop in Brussels, through Germany, stopping along the way in ancient Cologne, then visit Krakow, the former capital of the Kingdom of Poland, and, with impressions and souvenirs for friends and family, return to our cities and towns. Then it was hard to imagine how much we would travel and how much we would see, who we would become friends with and where we would end up... But let's take it all in order.
Roads and Borders
So, in the evening in Kiev we got into a train car, got acquainted, made a little noise, and in the morning woke up in ancient Lviv. There we moved into a large double-decker bus, a Neoplan. We shoved our things into the luggage compartment on the first level, settled ourselves on the second, and drove off. The road was almost empty - we were rushing along quickly. Past the window flew fields, groves, villages, and wisps of morning fog crawled onto the roadside. "We're going to Mostiska," someone said, "it's before the border."
About three hours later we came up against a bus just like ours. "Border," the group leader announced, "have your passports ready!" We stood before a striped barrier. "Shehyni" was written in large letters on the glass building ahead. This is customs. On the mast was our flag - yellow and blue. A border guard came in, looked each of us in the face, then at the open passport. "Looks like - or not? Looks like!" He collected the documents and carried them off somewhere. "He'll stamp them and we're off!" they explained to us. "Meanwhile, you can have a snack!" Bags rustled, chips, sticks, cookies crunched... Then the Polish border, where everything repeated. We drove on. Outside the window were the same fields, only signs and billboards in another language. And the houses were different, and the spires of Catholic churches - Polish churches, and the noisy market in Przemysl, where we stopped to exchange money. About three hours later we braked at a gas station for ten minutes to stretch our legs, and drove on. Listening to a story about how Poland is one of the largest Slavic countries, that it has many beautiful cities, that the largest river is the Vistula, that our languages are similar, we imperceptibly reached Rzeszow, where we were to have lunch. The whole group piled into a cafe. We order: "parufka" - a sausage, "salatka" and "zupa" - our salad and soup, and "herbatka" - that's tea. About an hour and a half later we had eaten everything - and back on the road.
Some look out the window, some listen to a story about where we are passing through, some doze, some read, some watch a movie. And until evening - all Poland. At night we stop again before a barrier. Behind it is a line of cars. It's as bright as day. This is the Polish-German border. We are woken up, and sleepy, we hand our passports to a man in uniform. The bus slowly makes its way forward, we dozed off. Waking up, we realize we are still at the border. They bring the passports, and we move off. Now we are in Germany. But few people understood that - almost everyone was asleep.
Morning caught us on the autobahn (that's what the high-speed highway is called in Europe). After waking up, we listen to the program for the day: when and where there will be short stops to wash up, stretch our legs, and that by four or five o'clock Disneyland awaits us! "Hurray!" everyone shouts joyfully, imagining the encounter with a dream. Outside the window are already mown fields, and on them are barrel-like bales of straw - it is July, after all! Towns and villages flash by, and on the horizon are silhouettes of high-rise buildings. So we passed Frankfurt am Main, turned at the very French border at the sign for "Saarbrücken" and hurry on. Sometimes we are overtaken, sometimes we overtake - but honestly, more rarely: the bus, even on these highways, is allowed to go no faster than 90 kilometers per hour.
In Western Europe there are no longer any borders between countries, and if it weren't for the guide, we wouldn't have noticed how we crossed from Germany into France. The same ribbon of highway, the same cars, only the signs are in French. We fidget impatiently: well, when is it, Disneyland? We wait and wait, and yet we find ourselves at the entrance to this magical world somehow unexpectedly.
Disneyland - a World of Wonders
The bus slowed down before a stone arch with turrets and the sign "Disneyland", and we rolled into the park of adventures and attractions, an hour's drive from Paris. We distributed tickets, gave final instructions - where we meet and at what time, what to do if you get lost, what you must see and where you absolutely must ride - and off we went. Along a long moving sidewalk, you easily glide up to the main entrance. Together with us, hundreds of people are hurrying here in all sorts of clothes, of all skin colors, adults and children. And what's great - everyone is smiling!
Then everything spun around as if in a movie: we found ourselves in a fairy-tale city, with streets of charming wooden houses, shops, little cafes, cinemas, squares and palaces, where actors in costumes of characters from well-known tales come toward you - fairies, Dalmatians, a fawn. Yes, everything here is like in our favorite cartoons! The park resembles a pavilion where the director is about to shout “Action!” and the cameraman will start shooting a fairy tale. And our journey through this fairy tale continued until midnight!
We went on about ten rides that sometimes took our breath away: on the roller coaster we were firmly strapped into a small cart, and it swiftly rushed through a shaft, stopped abruptly, then shot vertically backward and upward. Or on the River of Time you drift and circle in a boat around islands inhabited by pirates, witnessing their “good deeds.” And when the line of boats docks and the lights come on, you realize: your fears were in vain, the adventure is over, and all that remains as a memory is an instant photo with eyes wide with surprise.
Then, in a “Texan” little restaurant, we vied to share our impressions, showed off purchases and gifts, and when it got dark, we all set off to the ball at the Grand Palace. There are many people in the square in front of it. We find a spot on the lawn with a perfect view (and some of us even climbed trees). Then, amid fireworks, the characters of the immortal Disney's cartoons appear in the dark sky. The procession moves slowly in a circle to music, camera shutters click... It truly is a fairy tale! But we still have to drive to the hotel in Paris, and tomorrow continue our journey to the shores of misty Albion. We're leaving!..
Paris: Come to Return
Day four of the trip. A light rain. We crunch croissants in a cozy hotel in the center of Paris. Following local tradition, these puff pastry crescents are served for breakfast straight from the bakery oven. The aroma of coffee drifts over the damp streets; we inhale it, take a few souvenir photos near the hotel that sheltered us - and off we go on a city tour.
In three hours, our guide Sima (originally from St. Petersburg) manages to make us fall in love with this city. To each of us it appears special - with its boulevards, old mansions, parks, bridges over the Seine and monuments - and seems so familiar. We had seen the symbols of Paris - the Eiffel Tower, Place Vendôme, the white-domed Sacré-Cœur - many times in films, paintings, magazines, and now we “tried on” this city.
There is a long queue at Notre-Dame Cathedral: today Paris is the most visited city in Europe. We move on. From the Champs-Élysées, festive despite the chilly drizzle, we drive through the Arc de Triomphe to see Paris's Manhattan - the La Défense quarter. The futuristic city within a city simply dazzled us. For another half hour we wander at the foot of mirror-concrete towers, along clearly laid out streets and “pipes” of walkways thrown between buildings. A couple more souvenir photos - and we leave the first capital on our route. Goodbye, Paris, England awaits us. But we will return!
Sailing through the Sleeve
Still, it is grandiose: in the morning to leave Paris weeping with a fine rain, in the afternoon to set off on a huge ferry from the shores of France, and in the evening to drive along the Thames Embankment, recognizing the silhouettes of buildings etched into memory from school English lessons. That's Europe for you, with its high-speed roads!
However, we did not go to the British Isles by land but sailed. Our ferry crossing was one of the strongest impressions of the whole trip. Tired of Paris's low-clouded sky, having prepared back home for weather “quite the opposite” - summer heat in Paris (as guidebooks say), rains and fogs in England - we were glad to see the sun. That is how the port city of Calais greeted us, with its clock tower visible from afar.
We were to sail from here, from the French shore, and dock at Dover, on the English shore. The most “separate” country in Europe - Great Britain - is separated from the continent by the strait called La Manche, which in French means “sleeve”. The British call it the English Channel. Through this channel - the busiest sea route in the world - we also sailed... together with our bus, on a ferry! Ferries are multi-deck ships, into whose holds cars drive, while passengers sail on the upper decks, where there are restaurants, game rooms, and shops full of all kinds of temptations. Some of us left quite a few euros and pounds there.
After buying chips and juices, we moved to the open deck to look around. The ferry sounded its horn, left the shore, passed by a pier with other ships, and gradually the port cranes turned into dots, and the city with its silhouettes of houses dissolved in the haze. Now, to the very horizon, there was only blue water. Behind the stern a white trail of foam; the fresh wind flaps the hood of your windbreaker, and you want to sing at such beauty. Cameras click - there will be something to show those who stayed at home.
An hour later, white cliffs with a lighthouse appeared ahead, then the outline of some fortress. This is Dover! Everyone crossing the English Channel is greeted by its medieval castle, which is called the “Keys to England”. It was built by the Normans in the 11th century to defend the entrance to the harbor. An hour and a half by sea - and we are on the island. Truly, a united Europe!
A Power on the Islands
The bus rolled down the ramp onto a marked lane, and we stepped onto the soil of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Half an hour for customs and border formalities: a check of the bus interior and documents, another stamp in the passport, and we drive on. After Dover's promenade with signs like “Accommodation to let” or “Bed and Breakfast”, our “Neoplan” merges into the river of traffic heading toward the British capital. It truly is a river of four lanes of cars - from open-top convertibles to brightly painted trailers - and in the opposite direction, toward the Channel, flows the same kind of river. The whole world has set in motion - it's a day off after all, Saturday!
We look around. To the right and left of the highway are green meadows - on them cows, horses, and sheep; houses with flowers on the windowsills. It is like a toy Lego set or a film about Mary Poppins. Signs with city names flash by, and the numbers next to the word "London" become smaller and smaller. They say we should be there by about seven o'clock.
Settling in
It was already getting dark when we were taken to our host families. The four of us - two older girls and two "mini-misses" - ended up with Jane and John's family. True English people, they live in a two-story house with a small lawn at the front door and a small yard behind the house. They have three sons, a red spaniel, and budgies. We were shown a large room upstairs and invited to dinner.
In the dining room, we presented souvenirs to the hostess and started eating. Everything is very simple - stewed potatoes with chicken, but after three days on the road we ate the home-cooked meal with pleasure, and we try the young peas boiled in pods out of curiosity. They are edible. These are the classic English side dish vegetables - no salt, nothing else at all! After questions over tea (slowly, but everything is clear) about how we got there, where we live, and what we are into, we say goodnight. We take turns in the shower and then under the blanket. Finally, we are sleeping in a house!
In the morning - wake-up, English breakfast (cereal, milk, butter, jam, toast, tea, coffee), a bag with a snack for lunch... Jane's voice has notes of impatience: she still has to drive us to the park where the whole group meets. We jump into the car, fasten our seat belts (they are strict about this here), and drive off. We made it!
According to the program, we have an all-day excursion. Sunday, early - there are not many cars on the highway yet. We are speeding at ninety, and in the bus, even the water in a glass doesn't stir. That's the English highway for you!
A River Town - Small and Famous
We arrived in Stratford-upon-Avon by lunchtime. Four centuries ago, a boy was born here who was named William and who, having become an actor and author of 35 plays, made both this town and England famous throughout the world. We were again very lucky with our guide: we not only managed to make out his clear and unhurried English, but also to become imbued with the reverence with which the British speak of their great fellow countryman. They generally adore any antiquities whatsoever - from castles to half-rotted manuscripts. In no other country will you find as many museums and collections gathered from all over the world as in Britain.
And in Stratford, everything connected with Shakespeare's family and his work is carefully preserved, and thousands of tourists from all over the world fill the town's streets every day to touch history. We were among them. To be fair, let us recall one more place in Stratford: a museum of toys, but not all kinds, but teddy bears. It houses a wide variety of bears and the stories of their owners, for Teddy is the toy symbol of England. And we looked into this "bear corner," bought a souvenir each, and even took a photo with it as a memento.
London Holidays
The first day in Britain brought us a lot of pleasure (it was Sunday, after all!) and a pile of impressions, but Monday arrived. It is time to get down to business and go to school, even if it is a summer school.
Our new hostess, Lucretia, dropped us off at a pedestrian bridge across one of the arms of the Thames. Around us is grace and peace, as if we are not in the English capital but in a country village. We walk through the park to the meeting point with the group. Around us, Britons are actively doing sports: running, cycling, and paddling kayaks on the river.
The town of Richmond, where we live, is within the so-called Greater London, and our school is in Kingston. Naming the town, its residents specify: Kingston upon Thames. Like the British capital, it stands on the banks of England's longest river and is famous for its ancient bridge, whose stone arches appeared in the 13th century, and for the town hall on Market Square. There is still a town market here, although now it sells not Thames salmon but vegetables, fruits, flowers, and souvenirs.
Our school is a stone's throw from the market. A church community rents out its premises on the upper floors to a language school for the summer, and we, it seems, were lucky: classes were held in spacious rooms, sunlight streamed through the ceiling, and tables were arranged in a semicircle. Our lessons were like conversations - with jokes, poems, and cheerful games - and ended with city tours. During the break, in the school hall, you could have coffee or tea with biscuits for just over a pound - that is how the old ladies from the community earn extra money for the church's needs.
After classes, we went to London - for a city tour, to the Tower of London, for a walk through parks and squares. We, of course, took pictures of ourselves against the backdrop of all the main sights of the British capital: at Westminster Abbey, at the Houses of Parliament (it turned out that its famous Big Ben is not the clock tower itself, but a thirteen-ton bell that strikes every hour, while the tower itself bears the name of St. James), at Trafalgar Square. There, at the fountain of St. Martin, we not only took photos, but also cooled off by climbing into the pool around the bowl. In the heat, London police officers do not pay attention to this.
Then we went to Windsor with its Queen's summer castle, about thirty kilometers from London, and took a walk through the university town of Eton, crossing the bridge from Windsor. We were in Oxford - another university city, with more than 40 colleges and almost 16,000 students in them! Among Oxford's famous graduates is Bill Clinton, and among its teachers is Lewis Carroll, author of the famous "Alice in Wonderland." And the film based on another famous book - about Harry Potter - was apparently also shot in Oxford, in one of the ancient buildings of Magdalen College...
The next point of our journey after returning to the continent, as the British say, was the capital of Belgium - Brussels. We had not yet had time to properly see the center when a thunderstorm broke out over the main square. We had to return to the hotel, located in a luxurious old mansion, and spend the evening polishing off the travel supplies.
Cologne: Cathedral, Fragrant Water, and Chocolate
After England, Cologne became for us another gift in terms of pleasant impressions, discoveries and surprises. Neither the piercing wind, nor the low clouds, nor the thought that we were here in transit fazed us. We got off the bus right at the square in front of the largest Gothic cathedral in Germany. The Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Mary is the symbol of Cologne, whose pointed spires reach a height of 155 meters. With a guide who looked like a gnome from German folk tales, only a big one, we walked through the quarters of the Old Town, listening to legends and stories connected with it. For example, Cologne is among the pioneers for Europe of a thing without which a modern person cannot imagine a day! Without perfumes, more precisely, without fragrant water, which is so called - "water from Cologne", the morning of most people would not happen. And the name of this German creation sounds unrecognizable only because it was reworked in the French manner: "eau" - water, "de Cologne" - from Cologne. So, cologne!
So, three o'clock in the afternoon. The end of the city tour, farewell to the "gnome". We rush to the next museum on the program, pushing through crowds of onlookers at the Sunday flea market along the Rhine embankment. Finally, we've arrived!
Imagine: a ship is anchored at the embankment, and in it is the most "delicious" museum - the Chocolate Museum, where visitors can not only find out where chocolate came from, what it is made of and how one variety differs from another, but also see how various chocolate delights are made. We watched the whole process of turning cocoa beans into sweet bars or figures (a real production line was working behind glass), and sometimes we tasted either bitter cocoa beans or sweet chocolate glaze into which crispy waffles are dipped. Right there, in the shop at the museum, after tasting, we could choose whatever our heart desired - milk and dark chocolate, porous and with fillings, chocolate in the shape of fruits and, conversely, fruits in chocolate - you can't list everything! You remember it and your mouth waters.
After this sweet "super-choco-show" we went to Aqualand. Four hours in pools among artificial waves and grottoes, lunch at a vitamin bar and again - water slides! They, it seems, wore us out like Sivka in the well-known proverb: after drying under hair dryers, we returned to the bus and fell asleep like babies.
The Road Home
We woke up only in the morning. It turned out we were in Poland again. We were given an hour-long break for morning washing and breakfast and informed that the final destination for today is ancient Krakow, and that is not soon. Realizing this, some of us rushed to the "Avtorest" cafe. By evening we rolled into a very nice city, following our "good" tradition, circled at interchanges and got off at a youth hotel. Dinner and a disco for those wishing to stretch their legs worthily completed another, thirteenth day of the journey.
In the morning - a sightseeing tour of Krakow: the castle on Wawel with its legends, Rynek Główny (not a market at all, but a square), the remarkable Mariacki Church. Flower girls, souvenirs, rides in a fiacre along old streets. It seems that a time machine again took you to the century before last. But no, it's time to return. Our folks at home are already missing us, every now and then someone's phone rings and familiar phrases are heard: "Oh, mommy! It's so beautiful here!.. Yes, we're already coming... Yes, I miss you too..."
Gathering at the bus is scheduled for lunch. It's a pity to part with Krakow so quickly, but in the evening we must catch the train. And again everything spun up as in a silent movie: towns and villages along the road, the border, customs. We hurry! The last section of our "auto race" - Krakow - Lviv. It is somehow sad to think that tomorrow we will part and drive off to our cities. And the dotted line will break. More precisely, it will turn into a big circle with the word "Kyiv". But that will be tomorrow...