A slave to EF

Well if you've been wondering where I've been for the past few weeks, I can inform you by stating just two letters - EF! My job has taken over my life of late. For the past few weeks EF Edinburgh has had over 260 students from Spain, France, Italy and Russia on its doorstep and I have been at the heart of operations! I have met some really nice kids and some great leaders who I hope to keep in touch with. On the flip side I have had some horrible, obnoxious kids who have been testing me a lot! At the end of the group's Edinburgh stay they head down to London for a few days and we leaders get to accompany them down. On paper this may sound like a perk of the job. In reality it's somewhat different! I was assigned responsibility for the group of 68 spanish kids during their stay in London. We left on the 6am train on Friday morning. From the outset things were very 'testing' as the train announcer informed us that we'd have to change trains at Newcastle due to a train shortage. Imagine, if you will, 68 students and 3 leaders sitting happily in reserved seats in coach B of a very, very long train. Now imagine having to herd them all to the luggage car, accessing their suitcases and transferring them to the opposite end of another train at Newcastle. Now add the complication of having only 10 minutes within which to complete the task. Finally take into account that the reserved seats notion goes to pot and that the students have to find themselves seats on a packed train!!! Indeed many of my students had to stand in the vestibules for the entire journey - what a farce! Anyway, that was the start of my London trip. It got progressively worse from there on in. I finally escaped the carnage early on Sunday morning when I had to dash to meet my next incoming group from Hong Kong. Things became much easier with the Hong Kong and arrangements went much more smoothly. Finally today (my birthday!) I returned to Edinburgh and a spot of respite.