I am a German student who’s got to do the civil service next year. From the start, I knew I wanted to do it outside of Germany. There is a part in the law that allows doing the civil service in a foreign country. So I started looking for places. A Spanish-speaking country would’ve been great, since I need to learn some more Spanish anyway. But turns out most places want you to have some kind of a craftsman training, which I don’t have.
So I found this language school near London, it’s a Bell Labs language centre in Saffron Walden (http://www.bell-centres.com/saffronwalden/). I read it’s about one hour away from London, by train. The job seems to be ok, show the students around the building, do some janitor jobs.
Now what I need to know before I apply is this: what’s Saffron-Walden like, is there anything to do on the weekends? Can I get a month’s train pass to go to London cheap? What else should I know about living in England for a year? How about going places, I’d love to see Glasgow/Manchester/Leeds, how could I get there the cheapest?