ON MARCH 27, students from Norton College Sixth Form’s began their journey to New York at 2:30am, setting off to London-Heathrow airport.

After a long, exhausting bus journey, the excitement was overwhelming when we were finally racing down the runway at approximately 11.30am.

After an exciting eight hour flight we landed in Newark at approximately 4:30pm. Despite our lack of sleep we were all enlivened by the reality of experiencing our first time in the USA. Due to the time difference, we still had most of the day ahead to start exploring NYC.

We arrived at the Vanderbilt YMCA which was where we stayed for three nights in New York. In the evening we made our way to Times Square with Miss Lancaster guiding the way.

The first time we saw Times Square was quite surreal as it looked just the way it does on TV – it felt like we were on a movie set. We then went to the Hard Rock café for our evening meal. Following this we went to the top of the Empire State building which had one of the most incredible views I have ever seen.

Over the next few days we visited some of New York’s most famous sights including the Statue of Liberty, the Rockefeller Center (we went to the top!), Central Park, Wall.St, Broadway, 1 World Trade Center, and many more.

The evening meals were also exciting as we ate at places such as Planet Hollywood and Bubba Gump Shrimp. We also got to do lots of shopping.

After our three night stay in New York we all boarded another coach for a full day travelling to Washington D.C.

On our way we stopped at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We were taken on a tour of Gettysburg and learnt about the famous American Civil War battle which took place there. This was the first time we got an insight to what the countryside in America was like as we saw the farms as well as the town.

When we arrived in Washington we went to our hotel rooms and unpacked then made our way to a restaurant for tea.

The next day we were taken on two tours in which we visited the White House along with the Capitol Building, where we went to the House of Representatives, The Vietnam War Memorial and the Lincoln memorial. It was amazing to stand on the exact spot where Martin Luther King performed his ‘I have a dream’ speech.

The next day we had free time to explore Washington for ourselves with our friends. Later we all boarded the coach again to make our way to the airport. On the way we stopped at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Virginia which was a lovely way to end the trip.

Despite how exhausted we all were from such a full on week we still did not want the trip to end! However at 10pm we boarded the plane back to the UK. It was an amazing experience and the ‘trip of a lifetime’.

by Ella Risi