Living Coast - Greta and the Penguins...

I am Greta, I am 18 years old and a student from Germany. I did my 2 weeks work experience at Living Coasts. It was a wonderful and awesome time! All the staff was very friendly and attentive, that was one of the first things I noticed at my first working day.

In the first week I worked at the the 'Education Department'. In the summer that means that there is a lot to do with groups of children but in the winter there isn't much to do so I did some research for a new area about sea turtles and the new 'Pole to Pole Campaign' what was very interesting because I learned pretty much. In the second week I worked at the 'Animal Department'. That was a week with hard work but also around the different animals. For example the penguins: Every morning I had to rake the sand of the huge penguin beach to clean it from leaves. That was quite exhausting but all the time the penguins were directly around me and some of them also wanted to play with the rake or my feet. Afterwards I was allowed to feed the penguins what was really amazing! Besides I fed the seals what was great because they catch every fish I threw to them. Of course there was also some kind of work that was not interesting. I worked in the kitchen what means cutting fish and squids, weighing fish for different animals or doing the washing up. To be honest

more than half of the time was like that but I forgot that while feeding the animals. Later I often worked with the different animals inside. I cleaned the aquariums, checked temperatures and salinities and fed again some animals. There were many several aquariums with seahorses, crabs, a lobster, rays and a lot of other fish. I gave food to all of them what was really interesting because they all eat in their own special way. For example the octopus that gets living crabs or the seahorses that have no stomach and get their food every few hours.

At the weekend I also did a few trips, for example to Exeter, Brixham or Dartmoor. My great hostfamily drove with a friend of mine and me to the Buckfast Abbey and afterwards we drove through the Dartmoor.

That was an amazing experience because it is very different to Germany and we saw some wild ponies. We stopped and my friend and I were able to stroke them. That was unique because in Germany are no wild ponies.

Travelling to England with the Training Partnership was a very good idea! It was a excellent chance to improve my English and getting more confident with the different language. It was a gorgeous time and I hope I will come back in the future!