I know some of you have been patiently waiting for me to get this things up and running . If any of you know me, you know I am a procrastinator and a night owl so it wouldn't surprise you that I took a 2 hour nap today and now it is midnight and I am wide awake. My roommate Jessica is on top of things and has already posted two posts on her blog! So I thought I better catch up on this bloggging thing.
Now for the whole reason to this post… I AM IN ENGLAND! Can you believe it? It took me about 3 days to totally grasp the fact that I am in England and I will be staying here for the next 3 MONTHS. The journey here was smooth sailing. I flew out of Tulsa airport with two other student teachers Kendall and Casey, you will learn more about them later. My Mom, Dad and best friend Kasee were all there to send me off. It was so great getting to give one last hug before I took off into security. Once we landed in DC three of the other student teachers, Kassidy, Ellen, and Jessica met us. We then all jumped on the biggest plane I have ever stepped foot on and were on our way. I didn’t sleep but maybe an hour on the trip over but it was so nice because I had a whole row to myself and watched the movie Baggage Claim and caught up on some tv shows. The flight was about 6 and a half hours. When we arrived it was 6 in the morning. We then went through customs. We thought we weren’t going to have a problem. One of us got through, then the next, and then the next. One by one we were scanning our fingerprints, showing our visas, saying thank you and walking through the gate. 5 of us had gotten through successfully and of course we look back and Jessica is getting questioned. They handed her a paper that said she was “detained” and had her wait until they figured out the problem. So there we were 6 o clock in the morning feeling pumped that we just landed in London and now one of us is DETAINED! I can only imagine the thoughts going through her mind at the time. Turns out the number on her passport and the number on her visa were messed up but they were able to see the problem and let her through. Whoohoo!
We then made it through the airport to find our luggage. Each girl loads their 100+ lbs of luggage onto a cart and we preceded to haul the luggage up and down ramps through the airport for about 15 minutes until we finally made it to terminal 3. We were so excited about making it there but then we had nothing to do but wait until the bus arrived at 10am. It was some good bonding time.
Once the bus arrived we were on our way to our new home for the next 3 months. I wanted to stay awake and see as much of the land as I could while I was on the bus but I think I might have had my eyes open for 5 minutes and the next time I woke up we were at the base. My body was tired! When we got there Dr. Davis was there to greet us and help us get settled in. We immediately had to go take what I like to call our mug shots for our ID’s to get on base. My picture screams, “I’m tired and I haven’t slept in 24 hours,” but who really looks at them anyway….o wait…EVERYONE. Ha! Ha! We have to use that mug shot for everything around here.
The next couple days were a struggle for me. Jet lag had kicked in and I was tired and awake at all the wrong times. Dr. Davis and Dr. Utly did a good job at trying to keep us busy and awake during the day so we could at least try to get some sleep at night. We are staying at the community center on the Feltwell base. Our rooms are small but we have everything we need. There are community bathrooms and showers, we have a small kitchen at the end of the hall that everyone shares and a living area with a TV with only 3 fuzzy channels. A bit different from back home. I have never had to live the “dorm life” so it’s different than anything I am used to but so far I have no complaints. The thing that is hardest to get used to is the wifi. At night the community center—which is basically the whole first floor of our building—closes. When it closes we can’t get inside the room with the wifi router. So what do we do? We all gather in this hallway to get connection. It’s quite comical. Some days it is good connection and other days…it is terrible. This might help me with my procrastination problem. I’ll have to get my schoolwork done while I am on Lankenheaths base if I want to have guaranteed wifi.
It is our first week and we have already been to Bury St. Edmunds, London, and Cambridge. Bury St. Edmunds is only about 30 minutes away. We spent a couple hours there roaming the streets. The main thing to see there is the St. Edmundsbury Cathedral. It was impressive. At London we saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the British museum, and so many other beautiful old buildings with so much history. I met up with my friend Heather Richie that I know from OSU that is now working in London and she helped us navigate through the wild streets of London. SO many people. I am not even exaggerating. Everywhere you looked there were tons and tons of people. Bless Heathers heart, she showed us how to use our day passes for the tube and also for the busses. My friends loved her and we are already looking forward to going back and seeing her. Thanks Heather!!!
The next day we went to Cambridge. I must say it is my favorite place yet. It is a college town and so not London. When we got there the first thing we saw was the market. It was full of booths with homemade crafts and all sorts of bread and cheese. I was wanting to buy all sorts of things but I held back. Four of us girls went for some tea at Auntie’s Tea Shop. It was the cutest place. Everything is so small everywhere you go. No wonder everyone is so skinny over here. Kings College is one of the top universities in the world so it was cool to just be on campus and see the life that the college students there live. I think I might be making a trip back to Cambridge as well.
After Cambridge we made a hop skip and a jump over to Ely. There we went to a pub where I had the best cider I have ever tasted, and then we walked across the street and listened to Evensong in the Ely Cathedral. It-was-remarkable!
As you can tell we have been going going going. Today was our first offical day of school. Yesterday we had meetings all day. Let’s just say today was so much more enjoyable. My teachers name is Erica Jones and she is wonderful. I can tell she is going to be very helpful and willing to help me grow as a teacher. She is very intelligent and knowledgeable. I am hoping to lean a lot from her. For the next two weeks I will just be observing and getting a feel for the classroom. So far I feel very comfortable while I am in there and I am already thinking of ideas that I can bring to the table.
Well I think that is enough for tonight. After sitting down and typing this much I think I decided I might try to blog more often so they don’t get this lengthy. Who am I kidding? I’ll be lucky if I get one posted once a week! I will try to do better. I am so excited for the months ahead and I can’t wait to really get into the swing of things.
I didn’t mention much about the girls that are on this journey with me but they are great and I know we are all going to becoming very close. My roommate Jessica made a post that will let you get more acquainted with them if you would like to read it. Go check it out! http://theeuropechronicles.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/meet-the-teachers/
I am super excited about tomorrow. I get to go and help out with the basketball team. He told me to bring my shoes and maybe roughen up the girls a little bit. Ha! Ha! So we will see how that goes.
BIG news, we have officially booked a trip next weekend to Amsterdam and Holland, and Ireland for the St. Patty's Day weekend. This is going to be a great 3 months!
Cheers