EF Stories: Arco from The Netherlands at EF Bristol

There I was, alone at Schiphol Airport. I had never flown by myself before, so this was the first time. Fortunately, it's only a 50-minute flight to Bristol. A few hours later I arrived at my host family. They were very sweet people but quite a bit older. It was a Sunday and I put my things away. My roommate would arrive later that night. So the next morning I woke up and found myself in a room with my roommate. Of course, that was fun! He was from China. That morning I went to school by bus and received explanations about all kinds of things about the school and the lessons. This was all very well organized! Day 1 flew by. I returned by bus alone, because my roommate went to the store.

Of course, everything is only English and I learned a lot from that! I got food from the host family in the evening. It was a lot for me so I had said I would like a little less 😉 So that was not a problem. Most evenings I was at home. This was not because I wanted to, but because I lived very far from the school and unfortunately I could not go out in the evening because I would get home too late. This was very unfortunate. The next few days I just had classes and activities. The activities were more fun than I expected. We went to museums and we went laser gaming. How cool was that!

Everyone is alone so you make friends quickly. I got friends from all over Europe and you can have a very nice conversation with them. I am still in touch with them, in English of course 😉 If you don't want to speak Dutch then it's best to go to Bristol because hardly anyone from the Netherlands goes there. On weekends you can go to a city nearby with EF, but I didn't do that, because you can't know where you're going then.

So I went to the famous Clifton bridge on Saturday. Me and my friends didn't think we would go there anymore with an activity anyway. It was a very beautiful bridge! On Sunday, I also went to the historic Bath by myself! It is really worth going there. For us it was simple because with a bus pass I bought for school you can also go to Bath. In the evening I went out for dinner at a wonderful pizzeria as well.

The 2nd week was also a lot of fun! The classes were taught very differently than I expected and the teachers are very nice! We also had a graffiti tour of the city this week. You could see all the beautiful artwork on the walls. I would have loved to go inside the cathedral in Bristol as well, but unfortunately it was only open on Saturdays. Lunch was also very well arranged. We had to walk to the lunch building every time and there we got good food.

It was a really fun experience with everyone! I love looking back on it and am still reminiscing.