Mrs Walton, Head of Performing Arts, and students Amy Chadwick and Lizzie Cooper report on this exciting trip.

Our trip started at three in the morning on Monday 10 July in the school hall.  Sixty-one very bleary-eyed students from Years 10 - 13 and ten equally bleary-eyed staff were about to set off to the USA, to visit New York, Washington DC, Chapel Hill in North Carolina and Orlando in Florida.

After an uneventful flight we arrived at JFK airport where we met Nancy and Yvette, our American tour reps, and headed off for lunch at Grand Central Station. This beautiful building is still an active railway station, which has a food hall below which has to be seen to be believed: its food courts offer everything from tacos to full steak meals. A real slice of life was on display as we ordered lunch.  

After lunch we found ourselves staring up at the Empire State Building - an awesome sight from below and above. The view from the observatory was amazing and even though there was a degree of smog you could still make out familiar landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty. There was also a map indicating where the Twin Towers used to be and how high they were in comparison to the Empire State Building.

After a tiring day everyone longed for a good night’s sleep at our hotel in New Jersey. However the fire alarm had other ideas and decided to boot us out of bed and make us stand out in the rain! Fortunately it did not take the firemen long to search the hotel and find the cause, so that we were finally able to catch up on our beauty sleep.

Day Two included a trip to Ellis Island which was the immigration centre for the USA from 1882 until 1920 and the Statue of Liberty. The statue is deceptively large at 46 metres high and we discovered that it was designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower.

Lunch at the Amish market was absolutely delicious. We then paid our respects at Ground Zero, the site of the Twin Towers and found all the messages on the walls and written tributes very moving. There was a steel cross in a very large piece of concrete – it was part of the steel structure of the second tower and when it collapsed this cross piece had wedged itself into the ground. It now remains in memory of the horrific events of 11 September 2001.

In the evening we watched Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theatre, which was amazing!

Day Three included a visit to the Lincoln Arts Centre and a workshop with Eric Scott Kincaid, a Broadway performer who gave us very useful advice followed by practical fun workshops.

The morning of Day Four in was a highlight for many girls – shopping at Macys.  Prizes were awarded for finding the tackiest tourist gift possible. Then began the long journey by coach to Washington DC. Several hours later we arrived in the spacious and very clean city of Washington. What a contrast to the noise and clutter of New York. In New York buildings were tall and quite dark but in Washington everything was white!

Free time including swimming at the hotel helped us all relax and prepare for our performance of “A Little Bit of Britain” at Stonebridge High School the following day. Pulling into the school driveway was a little surreal – there were yellow school buses everywhere.  The school was huge and had its own purpose built theatre seating approx 800 or more. One hour’s rehearsal and that was it – we were on. We were thrilled – modestly of course – with our performance and the cheers and praise we received afterwards were (almost) embarrassing.

Saturday morning, which was bright and very hot, was spent at the Kennedy Centre – a huge theatre complex with four theatres and two performance spaces in the very long foyer. A walk from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument with pictures taken at the White House took up the afternoon. Saturday evening will be remembered for the funniest play most of us had ever seen. “Shear Madness” is set in a hairdressing salon and is a mix between a farce and a murder mystery with audience interaction and genius improvisation. It was just fantastic!

The best staff moment in a hotel has to be when after curfew Miss Windsor, Mrs Bailey and Mrs Morgan patrolled the corridors, checking that all was fairly quiet. Hearing an unacceptably loud noise, Mrs Bailey banged very loudly on the door, demanding that the culprits open the door immediately. Imagine her consternation when a gentleman appeared in his pyjamas looking very panicky. Mrs B had knocked on the wrong door!

Sunday was spent at the Native American Museum and the Air and Space Museum before packing for another long coach journey to Chapel Hill in North Carolina.

On Monday afternoon we checked in at the hotel before heading to Cyndy Blackburn’s house. Cyndy is the co-ordinator of “Act One, Act Now” and the school has worked with this group since 1997.

Tuesday was spent at The University of North Carolina preparing for the next performance which we shared with Cyndy’s students. Once again we can say with all modesty that our performance was brilliant!

We feel that we deserved our few days’ rest and relaxation in Florida. Sea World was incredibly hot but the park had highly popular spray showers that you could walk through to cool off. The highlight of the day should have been the Shamu show but the lead female killer whale was in uncooperative mood so the evening show was cut short. In reality the best part was the dolphin show – colourfully dressed acrobats and dolphins combined with a spectacular score made for a very exhilarating performance. Even Mr Smith admitted that he enjoyed it!

Disneyland was great but again very hot. The fireworks were brilliant. The highlight for most of us was the final parade of all of the characters in “Spectro Magic.”

The last day was spent at Universal Studios where we enjoyed a range of rides and activities before taking our final pictures around the universal globe.

Last minute shopping the following morning and that was the end of the trip.

So many experiences, so many activities – we had all learned so much and we didn’t want to come home.

J Walton, Amy Chadwick, Lizzie Cooper

Click here for more photos: http://www.kingsleygallery.co.uk/index_files/unitedstates.htm