Peterborough

Well I just had a very interesting weekend... I had to go up to Peterborough to experience the "British family culture". Hope everyone has a while to read cause you'll need it for this one... Let the story begin:
So to start off we first got our assignments during orientation and were told that "the most responsible student has been chosen as the group co-ordinator". This basically means this is the student who will check everyone in and have the tickets. Originally I thought this was a bad idea seeing as how there was not going to be anyone from the program there to supervise roughly 30 kids getting on a train at King's Cross, but they're the experts. Fast forward til last Friday at 4:45pm (London time) when my flatmate and I arrived at King's Cross early just to make sure we didn't miss anyone. We were supposed to meet at the station at 5:30pm and be on the platform by 5:45pm with our luggage. So during our wait I got hungry and got Burgerking (had a little taste for America). After eating my food I walked around to look for more students and the person that had the tickets but didn't see anyone (it was 5:15pm at this point). At about 5:30pm and another stroll around the suggested "meeting area" we found the other people from our building and stood with them. After waiting another 15 minutes our train finally came up on the board with the platform number so we all scurried to the platform still not having found the "most responsible student" with the tickets. We decided the best option would be to stand at the entrance of the platform and look for the other students because they would have to pass us to get onto the train. One fact I forgot to mention is our train leaves at 6:03pm and while waiting on the platform it was 5:50pm and still no students. So I decided to walk the entire platform looking for this student with the tickets but no luck. Finally 6:00pm rolls around and still no mass of students has walked by us so we decide to call the emergency number they told us to call if we missed our train (side note they didn't provide the actual number luckily one kid in our group had it on him). After someone talked to Arcadia for 5 minutes and the train left without us we found out the following information: The students we were looking for called Arcadia 15 minutes before we called them saying "we're on the train but we're missing 7 kids so I'll wait on the train for them", we must now purchase our own tickets for another train to Peterborough, and we will not be refunded for this purchase. Following this call there was several others back and forth trying to figure out what to do, eventually we took it upon ourselves to just go ask the ticket booth for 7 tickets on the next train that stops in Peterborough instead of waiting for Arcadia to sort things out. We got our tickets then waited a little til our platform was announced then boarded. The trip took about an hour and I mostly slept the entire time, best part is they never checked the tickets... We could have boarded the other train and still made it to Peterborough perfectly fine.
Upon arrival in Peterborough we were met by the local coordinator who works for the company that arranged the homestay's (not the university I'm studying abroad with). She took us to a hotel directly across from the train station where the parents of the homestay's were waiting for us, and the rest of the students that came earlier. After being introduced and handed off to the parents I find out what happened with the other group of students at the station. Apparently "the most responsible student" had no clue he was doing and just jumped on a train that was headed to Peterborough but not the one Arcadia set up for us. Instead this one was a train that left 20 minutes before the scheduled one did. He also thought it was not necessary to look for or wait for the 7 kids he was missing until the last whistle went off for the train. After I found that out I just laughed and instead started talking to the local coordinator who was driving me and the two other guys that were staying with me to our homestay. This is when I found out that our original host family had the flu or something so we were now staying with someone else. After about a 10 minute drive and arriving at the house I find out that our hosts are a 70 year old Italian couple that have lived in England for 43 years. Cherry on top to this learning British family culture trip is they spoke broken English...
At this point of the trip I decided to make the best of it since I couldn't do anything to change it and don't get me wrong our hosts were extremely nice! She cooked us a full Italian dinner which the appetizer was a full bowl of pasta followed by a plate of chicken with practically a loaf of bread on each of our plates. Then after all this potatoes and more chicken. After dinner we sat in there living room talking and getting to know each other while watching Last Samurai. Once the movie ended we went to bed which were basically like gel and I fell asleep instantly.
The next morning we were woken up by hammering and drilling, apparently their roof is leaking and they were getting it fixed that morning. So after the three of us showered we go into the kitchen to see a meal consisting of toast, toast, oh and toast with melted cheese on it. We all take a seat and start eating while she starts cooking eggs. Needless to say it was a delicious and filling meal. Once we finished breakfast they drove us into town, dropped us off and told us to call them when we were ready to be picked up (she pointed out a couple of places to see and asked us previously if it would be okay to drop us off to let us do our own thing, so we were okay with this lol). The three of us checked out the local cathedral which has apparently been burnt down and moved about 3 times each (I posted pictures on facebook if anyone wants to see). After this we basically just walked around stopped in shops and then ended up in a sports bar and watched football. After we got picked up and got back to the house waiting for us was an authentic Italian dinner. Each one of us had a plate with justvand this isn't an exaggeration, the entire plate was filled with a piece of lasagna. On a side plate we had a salad, potatoes, and of course bread. Now most people, including myself, would think that's the entire meal but nope after all that she goes over to the oven and pull out a pan with pieces of pork. She grabs all of our plates and puts a piece on it then puts more potatoes on the plate as well. To make this dinner even better during conversation we find out that the couple makes their own wine, with grapes from Italy! So she offered us some with dinner and of course we accepted! It was absolutely DELICIOUS!!! She was very generous with refilling our glasses as well which I loved. After feeling like I just gained about 3,000 pounds we went to meet up with our friends (who were also staying in Peterborough) at a local pub. After having a drink at the pub we went to see what nightlife was like in Peterborough and not too surprisingly it wasn't much haha. We decided to get a cab back instead of making our hosts come get us and after some chit chat with them, they went to sleep and we watched a TV show on one of the other guys' laptop.
The next morning was a similar breakfast to that of Saturday's which afterwards she took us down to the local park and just talked for a while. When we got back it was another Italian lunch. The three of us (the other 2 guys and I) decided our hosts day basically revolved around meals, which wasn't too far of a stretch for an Italian. When we finished lunch (which she kept calling dinner) we went upstairs packed and then they took us back to the train station where I got to watch some of the first half of Manchester United vs Tottenham Hotspur (in other words the team I support versus the team Jay supports). This train ride back went a lot smoother since the local coordinator helped supervise things. Luckily I got back in time to not only see platform 9 and 3/4 but also got to see the majority of the Bears game!! All in all it was a fun trip which might not have introduced me to British family culture but it did let me see Italian family culture!
If you made it this far I'm a little bit impressed and hope the read was worth your while!! Until next post, bye!!