Merry Company
In early July, having packed our travel bags with things and food (the journey was going to be long), we set off on the brightest and most 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 an English school and are going to polish their English, and not just anywhere, but in Britain itself, and "mini-miss" girls. We took part in a contest held all over the country (and even around the world!) called "Mini-Miss", and as winners of 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 their parents for the first time, and the journey ahead was long. The route included three capitals alone: Paris, London, and Brussels. In two weeks we were to travel through Poland, Germany, and France. To stop in Paris only briefly (to spend the night and look around a little), 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 everything at once, even if you hear about it at every English lesson.
We were to return via Belgium with a stop in Brussels, through Germany, dropping in on the way at ancient Cologne, then visit Krakow, the former capital of the Polish Kingdom, and with impressions and souvenirs for friends and family return to our cities and towns. It was then hard even 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 things in order.
Roads and Borders
So, in the evening in Kiev we boarded 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 Neoplan bus. We stuffed our things into the luggage compartment on the lower deck, settled ourselves on the upper deck, and set off. The road was almost empty - we were speeding along. Fields, groves, and villages flashed past the window, while wisps of morning fog slid onto the roadside. "We're heading to Mostyska," someone said, "that's before the border."
About three hours later we came up against a bus exactly like ours. "The border," the group leader announced, "have your passports ready!" We stopped in front of a striped barrier. "Shehyni" was written large on the glass building ahead. This was customs. On a flagpole flew our flag - yellow and blue. A border guard came in, looked into each face, then into the open passport. "Does it look like him or not? It does!" He collected the documents and carried them off somewhere. "He'll stamp it and we'll drive on!" they explained to us. "In the meantime, you can have a snack!" Bags rustled, chips, crackers, and cookies crunched... Then came the Polish border, where everything was repeated. We drove on. The same fields outside the window, only signs and billboards in another language. And 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 brake at a gas station for ten minutes - to stretch our legs - and drive on. While listening to the story that Poland is one of the largest Slavic countries, that it has many beautiful cities, that the biggest river is the Vistula, that our languages are similar, we imperceptibly reached Rzeszow, where we were to have lunch. The whole group crammed into a cafe. We order: "parufka" - a sausage, "salatka" and "zupa" - our salad and soup, and "herbatka" - that's tea. In about an hour and a half we had eaten it all up - and back on the road.
Some look out the window, some listen to a story about where we are driving, some doze, some read, some watch a movie. And until evening - it's all Poland. At night we stop again at a barrier. Behind it is a line of cars. It's as bright as day. This is the Polish-German border. They wake us up, and we, sleepy, hand our passports to a man in uniform. The bus slowly makes its way forward, we doze off. When we wake up, we realize we are still at the border. They bring the passports, and we set off. Now we are in Germany. But hardly anyone realized it - almost everyone was asleep.
Morning found us on the autobahn (that's what they call a high-speed highway in Europe). After waking up, we listen to the day's program: when and where there will be short stops to wash up and stretch our legs, and that by four or five o'clock Disneyland awaits us! "Hurray!" everyone shouts joyfully, imagining the meeting with their dream. Outside the window are already mowed fields, with barrel-shaped straw bales on them - it is July, after all! Small towns 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 - though more rarely: even on these roads, a bus is allowed to go no faster than 90 kilometers per hour.
In Western Europe there are now no borders between countries, and if not for the guide, we would not have noticed how we moved from Germany to France. The same ribbon of highway, the same cars, only the signs in French. We fidget impatiently: well, when is it, Disneyland? We wait and wait, and yet we find ourselves in front of the entrance to this magical world somehow unexpectedly.
Disneyland - a World of Wonders
The bus slowed down in front of 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 and at what time we meet, what to do if you get lost, what you must see and where you definitely must go on rides - and off we went. Along a long moving walkway, you easily glide up to the main entrance. Hundreds of people are hurrying here with us, in all sorts of clothes, of all skin colors, adults and children. And what's great - everyone is smiling!
Then everything began to spin like in a movie: we found ourselves in a fairy-tale city, where streets are lined with quaint wooden houses, shops, little cafes, cinemas, squares and palaces, where performers in costumes of heroes from well-known stories come towards you - fairies, Dalmatians, a fawn. Yes, everything here is like in 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 the journey through this fairy tale lasted until midnight!
We went around about a dozen attractions that at times took our breath away: on the roller coaster we were firmly strapped into a small cart, and it dashed with a grinding sound along a shaft, stopped abruptly, and then shot vertically backward and upward. Or on the river of time you loop and circle in a boat around islands inhabited by pirates, witnessing their 'good deeds.' And when the string of boats docks and the lights come on, you realize: the fears were in vain, the adventure has come to an end, and in memory of it - only an instant photo with eyes wide with surprise.
Then in a 'Texas' restaurant we vied with each other to share impressions, showed purchases and gifts, and when it got dark, we all moved together to the ball at the Grand Palace. In the square in front of it there are many people. We find a spot on the lawn from which the view is as if on the palm of your hand (and some of us even climbed trees). Now, to the fireworks, the characters of the immortal Disney's cartoons appear in the dark sky. The procession slowly moves in a circle to music, camera shutters click... Indeed, a fairy tale! But we still have to go to the hotel in Paris, and tomorrow - continue the journey to the shores of foggy Albion. Let's go!..
Paris: come to return
The fourth day of the trip. A light rain. We crunch croissants in a cozy hotel in the center of Paris. According to local tradition, these puff pastries are served for breakfast straight from the bakery oven. The aroma of coffee floats over the wet streets, we breathe it in, take a few souvenir photos at the hotel that sheltered us - and off on a city tour.
In three hours, our guide Sima (originally from Saint Petersburg) manages to make us fall in love with this city. To each of us it appears somehow special - with its boulevards, old mansions, parks, bridges over the Seine and monuments - and seems so familiar. The symbols of Paris - the Eiffel Tower, Place Vendôme, the white-domed Sacré-Cœur - we have seen many times in films, paintings, magazines, and now we 'tried on' this city.
At Notre Dame Cathedral there is a long tail of a queue: today Paris is the most visited city in Europe. We move on. From the elegant, despite the chilly rain, Champs-Élysées we drive through the Arc de Triomphe to look at Paris's Manhattan - the La Défense district. A city within a city in a cosmic style simply dazzled us. And for another half hour we wander at the foot of mirror-concrete towers, along clearly laid out streets and 'pipe' crossings 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 come back!
Sailing along the Sleeve
Still, it is grand: 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, we sailed. Our ferry voyage is one of the strongest impressions of the entire trip. Tired of the Parisian sky in low clouds, having prepared at home for weather 'quite the opposite' - for summer heat in Paris (as guidebooks say), for rains and fogs in England, we were glad to see the sun. That's how the port city of Calais greeted us, with its clock tower visible from afar.
We were to sail from here, from the French coast, and dock at Dover, on the English coast. The most 'separate' country in Europe - Great Britain - is separated from the continent by a strait called La Manche, which means 'sleeve' in French. The British call the strait in their own way - the English Channel. Across this channel - the busiest sea route in the world - we also sailed... together with the bus, on a ferry! Ferries are multi-deck ships, into the holds of which cars drive, and passengers sail on the upper decks, where there are restaurants, game rooms, shops full of various temptations. Some of us left quite a few euros and pounds there.
Having bought chips and juices, we moved to the open deck to look around. The ferry honked, departed from the shore, passed by the pier with other ships, and gradually the port cranes turned into dots, and the city with silhouettes of houses dissolved in the haze. Now to the very horizon only blue water. Behind the stern a white trail of foam; the fresh wind flaps the hood of the windbreaker, and you want to sing from such beauty. Cameras click - there will be something to show those who stayed home.
An hour later, white cliffs with a lighthouse appeared ahead, then the outline of some fortress. This is Dover! Everyone crossing the Channel is greeted by its medieval castle, which is called the 'keys to England'. It was built in the 11th century by the Normans to protect the entrance to the harbor. An hour and a half by sea - and we are on the island. Indeed, a united Europe!
A Power on the Islands
The bus rolled down the gangway onto a marked lane of the road, and we set foot on the land of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Half an hour for customs and border formalities: checking the bus interior and documents, another stamp in the passport, and we drive on. After the Dover embankment with signs like 'Accommodation' or 'Bed and Breakfast', our 'Neoplan' merges into the transport river towards the British capital. It is indeed a river of four flows of cars - from open-top convertibles to brightly painted trailers, and in the opposite direction, towards the Channel, the same river flows. The whole world has come into motion - after all, it's a weekend, Saturday!
We look around. To the right and left of the highway are green meadows, with cows, horses, and sheep on them; houses with flowers on the windowsills. It's like toy Lego or a movie about Mary Poppins. Signs with city names flash by, and the numbers next to the word "London" keep getting smaller. They say we should be there by about seven o'clock.
Settling In
It was already getting dark when we were distributed among homes. 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 courtyard behind the house. They have three sons, a red spaniel, and budgies. They showed us a big room upstairs and invited us to dinner.
In the dining room we gave souvenirs to the hostess and started eating. Everything is very simple—stewed potatoes with chicken—but after three days on the road we gladly ate home-cooked food. We tried young peas boiled in their pods out of curiosity. Edible. These are classic English side-dish vegetables without salt or anything at all! After questions over tea (slowly, but everything is clear)—how we traveled, where we live, and what we're into—we say goodbye. One by one into the shower and under the blanket. Finally we sleep in a house!
In the morning—wake-up call, English breakfast (cereal, milk, butter, jam, toast, tea, coffee), a bag with a snack for lunch... There are notes of impatience in Jane's voice: we still need to be taken to the park where the whole group meets. We jump into the car, fasten our seat belts (they are strict about that here), and go. We made it!
According to the program, we have an all-day excursion. Sunday, early—there aren't many cars on the highway yet. We race at ninety, and in the bus the water in a glass doesn't even stir. That's your English highway for you!
A Town on the River—Small and Famous
We arrived in Stratford-upon-Avon by lunchtime. Here four centuries ago a boy was born who was named William and who, having become an actor and the author of 35 plays, made both this town and England famous all over the world. Once again we were very lucky with our guide: we not only managed to catch his English, clear and unhurried, but also to be filled with the reverence with which the British speak of their great fellow countryman. They generally adore any kind of antiquity—from castles to half-decayed manuscripts. In no other country will you find as many museums and collections gathered from all over the world as in Britain.
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 city streets every day to touch history. We were among them. In fairness, let us recall another place in Stratford: a toy museum, but not just any toys—Teddy bears. It contains a 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 keepsake.
London Holidays
The first day in Britain brought us a lot of pleasure (after all, it was Sunday!) and a pile of impressions, but Monday came. It's time to get down to business, go to school, even if it's a summer school.
Our new hostess, Lucretia, dropped us off at a pedestrian bridge across one of the branches of the Thames. All around is grace and peace, as if we were not in the English capital but in a summer cottage community. We walk through the park to the meeting point with the group. Around us, Britons are actively exercising: running, cycling, 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. When 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 back in the 13th century, and the town hall on Market Square. There is still a city market here, though now they sell 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 it seems we were lucky: classes were held in spacious rooms, sunlight poured through the ceiling, and tables stood in a semicircle. Our lessons were like conversations—with jokes, poems, and fun games—and ended with tours of the town. During the break, in the school hall, you could buy a cup of coffee or tea with biscuits for just over a pound—this is how the old ladies from the community earn a bit for church needs.
After classes we went to London—for a city tour, to the Tower fortress, for walks in parks and squares. Of course, we captured 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, and the tower itself bears the name of St. James), at Trafalgar Square. There, at the St. Martin's fountain, we not only took photos but also cooled off by climbing into the pool around the basin. In the heat, London police don't pay attention to this.
Then we went to Windsor with its summer castle of the queen about thirty kilometers from London, and strolled through university Eton, crossing the bridge from Windsor. We were in Oxford—another university city with more than 40 colleges and almost 16 thousand students in them! Among Oxford's famous alumni 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 shot, it turns out, also in Oxford, in one of the old 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 had time to properly inspect the center when a thunderstorm broke out over the main square. We had to return to the hotel, a luxurious old mansion, and have an evening of destroying our travel supplies.
Cologne: Cathedral, Scented Water, and Chocolate
After England, Cologne was yet another gift for us in terms of pleasant impressions, discoveries, and surprises. Neither the piercing wind, nor the low clouds, nor the thought that we were just passing through unsettled us. We got off the bus right at the square in front of Germany's largest Gothic cathedral. The Cathedral of St. Peter and the Virgin Mary is the symbol of Cologne, whose pointed spires reach a height of 155 metres. With a guide who looked like a gnome from German folk tales, only a large one, we walked through the Old Town districts, listening to the legends and stories connected with it. For example, Cologne is among the pioneers in Europe of a thing without which a modern person cannot imagine a day! Without perfumes, more precisely, without the fragrant water that is literally 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, eau de Cologne!
So, three o'clock in the afternoon. End of the city tour, goodbye to the 'gnome'. We hurry to the next museum on the program, pushing through crowds of onlookers at the Sunday flea market along the Rhine embankment. Finally, we arrived!
Imagine: a ship is moored at the embankment, and inside it is the most 'delicious' museum - the Chocolate Museum, where visitors can not only learn where chocolate came from, what it is made of, and how one sort differs from another, but also see how various chocolate treats are made. We watched the entire process of turning cocoa beans into sweet bars or figures (a real production line was working behind glass), and sometimes we tasted either the slightly bitter cocoa beans or the sweet chocolate glaze into which crispy waffles are dipped. In the past, chocolate trinkets were a curiosity, but now anyone can buy a chocolate fountain. Right here, in the museum shop, after tasting, we could choose anything our hearts desired - milk and dark chocolate, aerated and with fillings, chocolate in the shape of fruits and, conversely, fruits in chocolate - you can't list it all! Just remembering it makes your mouth water.
After this sweet 'super-choco-show', we headed to Aqualand. Four hours in pools among artificial waves and grottoes, lunch at the vitamin bar, and again - water slides! They seem to have worn us out just like Sivka in the well-known proverb: after drying off under the hair dryers, we returned to the bus and fell asleep like babies.
The Road Home
We only woke up in the morning. It turned out we were in Poland again. We were told we had a one-hour break for morning washing and breakfast, and informed that the final destination for today was ancient Krakow, and that would not be soon. Realizing that, some of us rushed to the Autorest cafe. By evening, we rolled into a very charming city; following our 'good' tradition, we circled around the interchanges and got off at the youth hotel. Dinner and a disco for those who wanted to stretch their legs worthily completed another, the thirteenth day of the journey.
In the morning - a sightseeing tour of Krakow: the castle on Wawel with its legends, Rynek Główny (which is by no means a market, but a square), and the remarkable Mariacki Church. Flower girls, souvenirs, rides in a fiacre through ancient streets. It seems as if you have been transported by a time machine to the century before last. But no, it's time to go back. Our folks at home already miss 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 on our way... Yes, I miss you too...'
The gathering at the bus was scheduled for lunchtime. It's a pity to part with Krakow so quickly, but we must catch the train in the evening. And again everything started spinning like in a silent movie: small towns and villages along the road, the border, customs. We're in a hurry! The last stretch of our 'road trip' is Krakow - Lviv. It is somehow sad to think that tomorrow we will part and go to our own cities. And the dotted line will break. More precisely, it will turn into a big circle with the word 'Kiev'. But that will be tomorrow...
Tatiana GRIBOVA,
Alexander KHALANSKY.
Photo by the authors.