You can listen my column as soon as you visit below：
https://stand.fm/episodes/6043465f52e33e593e0d778c
Hello　everyone. Hi, there. It's Teacher Asuka.

Today, I'd like to talk about ‘my 2nd diary of study abroad experience’.

During my stay in Britain, I had a few chances to travel in the UK as well as another European Countries like France and Spain to see my friends.

My university had a big language center so that many students from overseas used to study English there. As for myself, I usually studied Academic English lesson at lunch time and took some free English lessons after school in addition to my regular course.

At that center, there were a lot of trainees who wanted to teach English in their own country. They needed to get some credits to graduate their teacher’s trainee course, therefore such trainees had to practice teaching English. Because of that reason, exchange students like me took their English lessons for free! What a nice information!

There were few courses like intermediate level or upper-intermediate level so that we didn’t have any choice. However, most people who attended one of the above courses were eager to study English. It was extremely useful for such people to join the lesson to refine their English skills as well as to meet and make friends with various people from overseas. I made lots of foreign friends through taking such lessons in this way.

One of them was my French friend who I mentioned in my previous column. During my easter holiday, I decided to visit some of my foreign friend’s house in France and Spain. I bought a bus ticket, which is a long-distance coach ticket, whose name is ‘EUROLINK’ coach travel at the Victoria station in London.

https://www.eurolinkcars.co.uk/coaches/

(For your information, I’ll recommend you visit Victoria Station first while staying in London, which is a biggest bus terminal so that you can take a coach to travel around the UK as well as Europe at once.

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en

https://www.londontoolkit.com/accommodation/victoria_coach_station.htm

It’s inexpensive to take a coach than train. When you reach Dover, you get on a P&O ferry together with the coach between the Strait of Dover and Calais in France.

https://www.poferries.com/en/routes/dover-to-calais

https://youtu.be/R1nEPRJAE2Q

Boarding the ferry, we need to get off the coach and spend time in the ferry. It takes about 15 minutes.)

After reaching Calais, we needed to go through passport control. After that, the announcement of the coach changed a bilingual broadcast, that is English and French. I got off the coach at Poitiers, which is famous for the Battle of Poitiers in 732. I met my French friend there and she drove me to her house in Parthenay, the west of Poitiers. It took around 4-5 hours by car. I stayed there almost 3 nights.

After staying at my friend’s house, she drove me to the nearest train station Bordeaux, which is famous for its excellent red wine! I took a TGV (the French Super Bullet train) from Bordeaux to Irun. On the way to Irun, I enjoyed beautiful French view from the train window. After reaching Irun, I changed the train bound for Madrid, Spain. My next destination was my Spanish friend’s house located in Logroño, the north of Madrid. Unfortunately, I was not able to talk to her on the phone when I had arrived at Madrid, therefore, I had no choice but to stay in Madrid. During my stay in Madrid, I got in a kind of trouble there. Let’s continue this in the next column!　

Thank you for reading (or listening) this time as well！
See you next time.

Bye for now.      

Teacher Asuka