AxP - Will We Be?

Beach Day: Main Road Activity

We all pile off the bus and wait in the car park for some students to run to the toilet and come back. I say car park, but it's actually the coach park. Many tall coaches are parked side by side as our chaperones try to usher us all into the middle of the car park so they can count heads. Of course, some the girls and boys find it amusing so they start playing a game of hide-and-seek, where they run and hide between and behind the coaches and the teachers unwillingly have to seek them.

"Actually," Jade says, brushing past my shoulder, "I do need to go for one."

"Me too," I admit as we both walk towards the toilet. We get there and wait for a vacant cubicle. Jade goes in first and waits for me as I finish washing my hands.

"We're going to have a great day babe," Jade remarks, looking at me mysteriously.

"What do you mean?" I ask pointedly, keeping my eyes on the rest of our cohort as they are reprimanded for being childish.

"Just that this could be your chance to tell Alex how you feel, without Gigi's presence making you feel guilty," she clarifies. I am about to protest but she cuts me off. "And don't you dare try squirming out of it by saying it's wrong and blah blah. I mean I get where you are coming from, but you know as well as I do that Gigi and Alex are never going to happen for good. And plus, she's hanging around with Harmony..."

"True," I agree with the fact that Alex and Gigi would never be a lasting thing, "but the fact that she's hanging with Harmony has nothing to do with me. Who am I, to tell her who she can and can't talk to?"

"Yeah, I know you wouldn't, babe, but Harmony would. She'll probably spend all day telling her that you're a snake and everything else. I mean it's so obvious that Gigi is uncomfortable with how Alex and you are, so I doubt that she'd take much convincing." When I don't reply she adds, "Babe I'm not trying to talk her down or anything, all I'm saying is that you should think about your own happiness from time to time instead of thinking of everyone else all the time."

"I know, I know you're just looking out for me and, to be honest, you do have a point, but I trust her. She's a good friend and I want to be one too." Jade nods at me in response as we approach the rest of the students, who have now stopped playing hide-and-seek and are waiting patiently for out next instructions.

The teachers hand out the packs containing the activity sheets and inform us to be careful not to lose them as they will be crucial for when we write up our coursework.
"Okay, you all need to split into 4 different groups," the teacher instructs. Naturally, Jade, Jed, Leigh, Andre, Jesy, Claud, Harris, Aaron, Alex and I form one group and the other students scramble into three other groups. Our group ends up with one student less and Soreya's group is one person too many so irritatingly, Zayn joins our group.

The task is to measure 5 key things about tourism along the main road. We start at the top of the road and walk down it, stopping every 100 metres to take the measurements until we reach Peasholm Park at the bottom. From there we'll make some other observations as we walk through the park. From the park, we'll walk to the beach and have lunch. Then after lunch, we are supposed to go around in pairs and ask locals a few questions about tourism.

Simple.

I think.

Our group and another group head to the top of the road so we can walk down, and the other groups work from the bottom and walk up the road. When they are done, they'll walk back down so we can go into Peasholm Park together.

When we get to the top, we do our first set of observations. The first thing is traffic congestion. I look at the road, where there is a set of traffic lights on red. The cars are cueing up at the traffic light, so I rank it as a 4 out of 5.