b'New adventures in the LONE STAR STATEThis amazing experience began with video calls between our class and the Texan class. During these calls, we would ask numerous questions about their lives, culture and education, gaining knowledge about their lives in comparison to ours. For example, their school days have the exact same lessons every day, whereas we have a two-week calendar with different lessons on each day!For the trip, we flew out of London and landed in Houston, Texas. We stayed at the Hyatt Place Sugar Land which was great, with facilities including a pool, and the staff were very friendly. From there, we would go out to get dinner every evening (there was a lot of variety of places to eat but the Mexican food was the best in my opinion, considering it was authentic and delicious, since Texas was originally a part of Mexico)We visited the rodeo there too, which waswould be partnered up with later in the before returning to the hotel to sleep. very interesting to see since it is illegal inweek at their school.the UK. The final day before we headed into the On the next day, we went to the TexasJohn Foster Dulles High School was spent Prison Museum, in which we were shownvisiting the NASA Space Centre, which around in a private tour by the Directorwe explored and got to see actual rockets of Executions, who had overseen 81before going to an active air force base executions himself. After that, we went to(Ellington)it was very interesting!Houston Police Station, where we wereThen, over the next three days, we went shown around by an actual police squadto the High School in which we attended and taught about how they deal withlessons with the American students we criminals. They showed us how they usewere partnered up with. These days were equipment such as riot shields, tasersamazing since we took part in every aspect and batons. To end the day, we went toof their regular school day, and we even Over the next few days, we went to aMain Event, an entertainment and leisureplayed against them in variety of different places, starting with thecomplex, where we playedfootball (soccer). On the Varner-Hogg plantation, where we learntpool, bowling,last day, we got to go about the history of slavery in the state oflaser tag andto an American football Texas. Next, we visited the Brazoria Countysome arcadegame at the Dulles High Fair, where we tried everything from goinggames. This isSchool grounds; it was on bumper cars to buying paintings, visitingwhere we metfantastic since they a petting zoo to eating deep-fried anything.the Americanhad the razzmatazz of students weprofessional American football even at a high school. Afterwards, we checked out of our hotel and travelled all the back to Birmingham, UK.This was such an enriching and educational experience! I appreciate all the work put into making this trip possible by Mr Thaper, Mr Sanders and Miss Morgan.Mikael Mahmood, Year 1050'