Weekend Trip: London & Cambridge

Good day! I am currently enjoying my half term break. If you don't know what that is, it is because you're stuck still teaching children in Canada. Ha. Take that. As we missed a lot of London when we were traveling back in May, we decided that it was the perfect time to go for a long weekend. Here's some interesting worth while (at least I think) things to do in London.

London

1. Tower of London
Jordon is more the history buff than I am but this is one thing you can't miss. Firstly, it's a castle in the middle of the city, don't see that every day and secondly, so many things happened here. You can see the Bloody Tower, the court yard where Anne Boleyn lost her head, some of the old torture devices...... okay so it has quite the gory history. We even saw a little boy running around yelling "Off with yer head!" You can join a tour every half an hour where they will share some of the immense history. If you plan ahead, you can find 2 for 1 tickets online making it only £24 for two people.

2. St Paul's Cathedral
A church is a church is a church...true most of the time, unless you are talking about this incredible building. St Paul's Cathedral has been home to many historic events as well: Nelson's funeral (his body is in the crypts of the Cathedral, which you can visit), Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding and Churchill's funeral. There is a Whispering Gallery that you can climb to and if you sit across the dome from someone and say something into the wall, they can hear it from the other side. There are two more galleries that take you outside. The picture right below shows the view from the highest one. An audio guide is also included in your admission cost. Again, if you plan ahead you can get discount tickets online. It ended up costing us £34. If you don't care about seeing the galleries or the crypts, you can go for service on Sunday or their evening song at 5:30 pm every night for free.

3. A Free Museum

There's that word again that I liked so much when we were traveling before. London offers a lot of free museums. There's the Natural History museum, The British Museum and The Victoria and Albert museum, just to name a few. The Natural History museum was packed as it is half term and it is probably the most kid friendly. We chose to go to the Victoria and Albert museum which had some pretty neat things, but I think we both agreed we would have rather gone to the British Museum to see things like the Rosetta Stone and mummies. That's next time for us. 

4. Take a Stroll in Hyde Park

Hyde Park is beautiful in the fall. The picture above with the yellow leaves was taken there. We went to see the Peter Pan statue and Kensington Palace, where William and Kate reside (the rare time they are in the city). 

5. A Free Walking Tour(s)

That's correct, MULTIPLE free walking tours. We did one of London (technically the City of Westminster, there are cities within the city, it's all confusing) where we saw Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and the alley that inspired the set of Knockturn Alley from Harry Potter. We then did a Jack the Ripper walking tour in the evening where they took you to Whitechapel where all the crimes where committed. There is a pub still standing there, The Ten Bells, that was around during 1888. Take advantage of these. There are multiple companies and they are easy to find online. 

Cambridge

On our way back home, we decided to make a stop in Cambridge, which I think we're glad we did but it is a total let down. You hear all these nice things about the University, and don't get me wrong, it's amazing, but they want to charge you anywhere from £3 - £8 to enter each COURTYARD. Not the building itself, just to the grass through the gates. It's ridiculous. We snuck through some door to snap a quick photo of Trinity College which is below but I didn't think it was worth £8. It seemed a bit pretentious to charge us simple peasants to walk the grounds of a university we could never get into. If you do decide to go there, let me know if it was worth it. 

It was a whirlwind of a weekend and now I am working at catching up on Netflix, learning how to make a proper Sunday lunch and relaxing for the rest of the break.

- Vanessa xo

Learning How to Teach in the UK

If you have me on Facebook, you may have noticed I started sharing wonderfully silly situations I've experienced in the school system here. I am not a great teacher, I still have so much to learn on this career journey, but I was getting good back home. I was getting requested back, I knew how to take attendance, I knew that if they had music I should be taking them to a classroom somewhere else in the school and I knew I could look at the timetable hanging on the wall to let me know what time I should be transitioning into the next lesson....

Well, if you ever want to mess with your confidence as a teacher, try moving to a new country.

Here's some differences between teaching back in Alberta and teaching in the United Kingdom that my teacher friends can enjoy and where my non-teacher friends can laugh at my mistakes. You're welcome.

1. Take their Lunch Order
What? This is such a weird step in my morning. After I've done the registration (NOT attendance) I have to go through a list and find out which students have brought a packed lunch, who's getting a cooked dinner, who's getting a Jacket Potatoe (I still don't know what this is) and so on and so forth. I'm pretty sure I forgot to even send it to the office one day but luckily the TA was on top of it.

2. They have Books for Every Subject
You know how your parents had to buy you those exercise books and duotangs and scribblers and as a teacher you always bought some extras to have on hand? Those don't exist here. Every school I have been to will have about six or seven coloured coded books for each child. Every class in the school will use the yellow book for English or the blue book for Topic. I really enjoy this aspect because you can clearly identify with books they need to be using for which subject.

3. They mark EVERYTHING
And you have to use specific colours for your marking... "Pink is for THINK"... oh man. I was unaware of this on my first day. The next day, when I went to the same school the Head Teacher told me I didn't mark anything.... I ended up staying an extra two hours that day to do all the marking from the day before as well as the marking from that day. Needless to say I walk around during the lesson with my green and pink pens now.

4. It's Head Teacher, not Principal
But you already knew this.

5. They Take Security and Safety very Seriously
Check out that alliteration... and I thought I was loosing my touch. Every school has an wrought iron fence around it with a gate entrance that is padlocked at night. Once you get through the gate and into the school, someone has to let you through the first doors. At the end of the day, you have to go to where the parents pick up your students, a parent will come up to you and tell you who their child is and then you call them forward.

6. There's no Bells and No One Puts Up a Timetable
I can not stress enough how stressful this is! I never know when they're suppose to be going out for play time or starting to pack up for lunch or when we go from music to assembly to English to Spanish.

7. It's Maths, not Math
Bet you didn't already know this

8. Religion Plays a Big Role Here
Back home, unless a school was in the Catholic system you didn't cross much in regards to religion studies. Here, I've encountered it in some way or other in every school I've been in. Now this is fine and dandy, but I'm not religious so it's been tough listening to what they're telling these children like "Gods the only one who will be there!" while I'm thinking "Mmmm partial credit..." It'll be interesting teaching a religion lesson. Stay tuned.

9. You don't realize How Many Words are Different
Here's just a few examples. Sweaters = Jumpers. Bathrooms = Toilets. Pants = Underwear. Trousers = Pants. Eraser = Rubber. Fries = Chips. Chips = Crisps. I'm constantly messing things up.

All in all it's been a fantastic experience so far. I really am grateful for the opportunity to explore teaching through a new lens and get a perspective on the profession I don't think I would have gained staying in Canada. I'm getting into the swing of things and learning new things every day.

- Vanessa xo

The Town of Gorleston

Well I've survived one week in my new hometown. We're slowly feeling like this is something we could get use to. We're still alone in the house but will finally meet the other young people with my teaching agency at a pub tomorrow.

You're probably dying to know what Gorleston is like so I thought I would share some information about this tiny town.

1. The population is 5548. That's not a typo. We now know the kind woman who cooked us curry when her kitchen was still closed, the nice phone guy who takes pity on us and Jordon met the cranky old print shop lady. Only 5545 to go.

2. It is the number one attraction on trip advisor for Great Yarmouth. Great Yarmouth is a bigger town about 15 minutes away that is filled with casinos and weird arcades. Our town/beach is the beautiful thing to see if you're there.

3. There is a beautiful old church that makes me wish I was the least bit religious... Wait, no. It's pretty enough from the outside.

4. There is more than one bus company which makes busing to schools very trying and confusing. Haven't gotten lost yet. Knock on wood.

5. Hannah Spearritt, renowned singer and member of S-Club 7 was born here.

6. You can in fact go swimming in the sea on hot days. I walked in the water a couple nights ago and it was lovely.

7. If you have recently got a FitBit and want to reach your 10,000 steps a day, move to Gorleston without a car and walk to get everything. I PROMISE YOU you'll reach 11,000 steps a day.

8. You know the classic romantic comedy with two older actors who have drifted apart but then move to a new town by the sea and have some ridiculous moments, like the man catches a fish and the boat tips over and then they laugh and fall back in love? I use to think "Man, I want to live in a town by the sea with cute houses and one main street." I now do.

Hopefully this paints you a better picture of the town I live in... if not, look at my pictures.

- Vanessa xo

So I Moved to England

What? Crazy I know. There have been many moments where I've thought "What was I thinking", but we've made it here and now the fun begins:

How the hell do I deal with living in a new country?

Moving to a new city or province is a pretty small step compared to moving to a new country. There are so many things you have to do to get yourself set up. Here's a bit of a break down with what we've had to do in our two days here:

1. Move into a house.
This one was fairly easy as we had a room arranged in a house with the agency I came over with. Luckily we were the first of five people to move in so we got to pick our room, successfully avoiding the blinding pink room. I don't think this place was cleaned before we came in as we've sent over thirty spiders and counting to their graves.

2. Get use to a new house.
It's not home, or at least it doesn't feel like that yet. Every power socket and appliance has to be turned on with a switch... which we discovered after our frozen corn thawed out while in the freezer. Who knew that a switch on the wall would turn on a fridge!? Also the shower gave me two options at first: freezing or depths of hell and then took me an additional 15 minutes to figure out how to get the perfect temperature. They also don't have dryers here so please enjoy the image of me hanging my clothes to dry.

3. Get use to a new town
We had to buy bedding and groceries and phone cards and internet and clothespins... but successfully found a pub before anything else. We knew what we had to get, we just didn't know where to go and without working phones, this seemed nearly impossible. Luckily we stumbled across a phone store where the nice guy pointed us in the direction of the post office to get internet (duh?) for the house.

4. Successfully buy all those things.
The phone plans were at least half the price they were in Edmonton so we're saving there. Internet will be cheaper as well. Having to restock your fridge and pantry with the essentials is NOT, though we got the biggest jar of Nutella possible as that was important. We still have a couple of things we need to get but we'll get there.

5. Discover your new surroundings.
Did I mention I live by the sea? It takes ten minutes to walk to the beach from our place. We keep going back and I am going to appreciate every moment there.

Moving was not an easy decision, potentially not a sane one either, but Jordon and I have each other and we're going to take this adventure one step at a time.

"No matter what happens, traveling always gives you a story to tell."

- Vanessa xo

Belgium

Bonjour, Guntentag... and I don't know how to say hello in Dutch. We came to Belgium because the couple who ran the B&B in the Dominican Republic were from here (and because we've seen the movie In Bruges). I was a bit sceptical at first but I'm really glad we picked this country as one of our stops.

Day 1: We arrived in Brussels around 5 in the evening. As I stated above, I was a bit sceptical about coming to Belgium and coming into Brussels was the reason why. It seemed dirty, grimy and didn't have anything that stuck out as amazing. Even the map our hostel gave us claimed "We know Brussels is dirty and we love it." We got to the hostel just before a big thunderstorm hit. After waiting out the rain, we ran to the grocery store to grab some food... hamburgers in a frying pan are no where near as good as on the BBQ. We decided to go grab a drink after as it was a Friday night. Brussels at night was like it was trying to be an Amsterdam, but without the scenic canals and houses. Needless to say, we were not digging this place. We went back to the hostel and were just tried and a bit frustrated that Brussels was a flop. I think we both wanted to kill this poor guy in our room because he wouldn't blow his damn nose!

Day 2: we woke up still a bit frustrated (with the guy still sniffling away). I'm glad we only stayed the one night there. We made our way to the train station to head off to Bruges. Once we got there, it was like a whole other world. Bruges is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Belgium and where In Bruges was filmed (how obvious is that?) We ended up getting a private room for the same price as two dorm beds (thank you someone for your error!) and were able to check in early. We needed lunch before the walking tour and seeing as we didn't get mussels in Brussels, we wandered off to find some shellfish goodness. They also serve fries with everything here, so we feasted on mussels and "french" fries. The walking tour we went on was really relaxed and not very serious. Our guide made us hide behind bridges over the canal and scare people on the boats. He also took us to the beer museum and a chocolate store to sample some yummy products. After relaxing back in our room, we ended up at a Greek restaurant for supper. It was a really good meal and cheaper than salads in Switzerland.

Day 3: we had to have our stuff packed up but weren't leaving Bruges until 3. We threw our packs into their locker room and went on a hunt for something I had been looking forward to: waffles. Belgium is known for their non-eggo, soft, gooey sugar dusted goodness and we hit the jackpot. Our guide had given us discount cards for a bunch of businesses and one was a waffle truck. We also received a discount card for a chocolate shop, which we stocked up for the fams back home. We then headed to De Hann where we were staying at a B&B for three nights. Imola was the woman who ran the place and she kept telling us "this is this" ... though we never found out what was what. The bed was so comfy we didn't move once we hit it.

Day 4: our B&B had a discount card to rent bicycles, so we went and grabbed a couple to bike along the ocean. Now I'm not saying I forgot how to ride a bike, well because it's like riding a bike, I'm just saying after not riding a bike for 4 years, you forget how sore you can get. We biked for about an hour and got two towns over where we ate our lunch by the water. There were people with towels and bathing suits, but even for Canadians it was not THAT warm. We went back to the B&B to relax a bit before supper because we had to bike there. The ride there was fine, but after consuming amazing fish, wine and french desserts our ride back was a bit more work. We were also biking against the wind the whole way back which didn't help. Needless to say, we slept good.

Day 5: we woke up to the worst task ahead of us: returning the bikes. I could hardly sit on the bed let alone back on the bike. It was a pretty sore 15 minutes but we managed. Once we were back to using our beloved feet, we took a stroll on the beach. It was really peaceful and a nice way to spend the morning. We wanted to walk around the town a bit but soon realised how small the town was. It was a beautiful place but not much to see. We did however realise we never got ourselves chocolate, so we headed into what was apparently the world famous something or other and filled a small box with our evening dessert. Jordon wanted mussels again before we left Belgium so we had them for dinner again. You will never have a problem finding mussels in Belgium.

We're headed back to the UK now via a ferry from France to make our way back to Glasgow. Only one more country to go and then we come home in 6 days!

-Vanessa xo

Zurich

Hi, we're broke. Well not actually but man, Switzerland sure makes you feel that way. We cut our 6 days down to 2 days in order to come home a bit earlier, which saved us some money.

Here's some things to keep in mind if you're planning a trip to Switzerland, specifically Zurich:

1. It's expensive. Take what you would spend on almost anything and double it (at least). For reference, a Big Mac meal here would be $15 Canadian.

2. They have free water! There are hundreds of fountains in Zurich spitting out really clean water, so put your bottle underneath every chance you get.

3. Bring food from another country. If you're doing a Europe trip, grab a bunch of stuff from wherever you are before you go to Switzerland. Food is a huge cost.

4. Take a walk. Hiking is a great free (or relatively cheap) activity and let's you see beautiful landscapes.

5. Sit by the lake. Zurich has a massive lake that you can go swimming in, rent a paddle boat or just people watch by.

Day 1: we got in at about 4:15 and it was HOT. Don't get me wrong, we appreciated the warm welcome (see what I did there?) but we had a hour walk ahead of us as we refused to pay for the train (refer to point number 1). After walking and now being drenched in sweat, we got settled, had some water, had some dinner that we prepped in Munich (refer to point number 3) and went for a walk. We came to the lake where we sat on the dock and watched the sun set. Once we got back to the hostel, we made our beds and fell asleep quickly. * The hostel provided a pillow case, duvet cover and what looked like a scratchy towel. We thought it was weird there was nothing to cover the mattress. This is important.

Day 2: luckily our hostel provided a buffet breakfast. The quote "take what you can, give nothing back" really applies here. You really want to fill up to try and hold out for a later or lighter lunch. We then headed into the town to purchase the Zurich card (sound familiar?) These cards can be great if you can get your money's worth. We were able to go to Uetliberg which is a summit looking over the city. Once we climbed to the top we found a hour and a half hike called the Planet Trail. Every metre you walked was suppose to be like 1 billion metres and you'd come to all the different planets. Somehow we missed the first four and the last three but we did find the cable car to take back down. After our sweaty hike, we needed to find some lunch. We ended up at a restaurant on the lake. I ordered a chicken caesar salad and a small Sprite, Jordon had a salad with fish and a beer.... this cost us about $80 Canadian (refer to point number 1). I mean sure, it was a good salad but it was green leaf lettuce, not gold leaf. After we felt poor again, we walked to a park on the other side of the lake, close to where we were the night before. We wanted to go swimming and sunbathe, which everyone else thought of as well. We found a great spot and pulled out what we thought were the scratchy towels from the hostel...... Well it seems we found the missing mattress covers. These towels were in fact fitted sheets. After laughing our pants off and folding them so no one could see our mistake, we headed into the water. It was unbelievable! It reminded me a lot of Penticton. Once we were all sun-kissed we headed to the ferry port to cash in on a "free" (thanks Zürich card) trip around the lake. It took about a hour and a half and was a nice relaxing cheap way to end our time here.

We're heading to the Belgium coast now hitting up Brussels and Bruges along the way. It's suppose to be hot there as well so hopefully I'll get good use out of that dress!

-Vanessa xo

Mozart & Beer

Also known as Salzburg and Munich. As our stays are getting shorter in the cities, I've fallen a bit behind on the blog.

SALZBURG

Salzburg was a beautiful little city. We stayed in a campground within the city and sang "Rock Me Amadeus" continuously... well I did. People where asking me where Salzburg is so in case you don't know, it's a... "city" in Austria famous for the birthplace of Mozart and the location for the Sound of Music.

Day 1: we had a short train ride from Vienna into Salzburg. We purchased the Salzburg Card, which gets you a bunch of free things, and made our way to the campground. Once our little love shack was back up, we went on a food hunt. The guy at reception recommended this Italian place called L'osteria, or something like that, because it tasted like authentic Italian food. Well what he forgot to mention was that the pizza was the size of my body if I curled up in a ball (Jordon also forgot to mention this to me before I ordered even though he saw them coming out. This way he knew he would get some). After we had more carbs in our body than anyone needs in one sitting, we walked along the river back to the tent.

Day 2: Salzburg has the largest preserved fortress in central Europe called Hohensalzburg. Our Salzburg card allowed us free entrance so we headed there first thing in the morning. Once we made it to the top of the hill, there was a restaurant that had the most incredible view of the mountains. We decided to pay for the view and grab a pricy beer. After exploring the fortress we headed to the river for our next Salzburg card activity: a river "cruise." The nice thing about the card is that it allows you to do things you would never pay for. The river cruise was a let down as we didn't really see anything. Last thing on our list for the day was to get to the Stiegl Brewery where we were able to do a tour and a beer tasting, all for the price of $0 (we really got the value out of the cards). This brewery was once of the most... eccentric?... tours we had been on. Usually breweries just show you where they make their beer and get you out. This place had a cinema for a video about the beer brewing process, a history museum of beer around the world and a restaurant. We even got a free beer to take home with us on top of the 3 free beers for the beer tasting (... there has been a lot of beer on this trip). After the brewery we headed back into the old town to find supper and overpaid for some Indian food.

Day 3: now that we were aware of the monster pizzas at the Italian restaurant, we went back there to SHARE one for lunch. We used our cards again to take the cable car up Untersberg, which is a 1853 m summit. We must of spent an hour up there just walking around taking in all the views. These places just take your breath away. I can spend a long time just sitting and looking around. On our way back into the town, we stopped at Hellburn palace. The palace was okay, but what was really worth the stop was the trick fountains. Some Archduke put in all these little fountains in the sidewalks, statues and the walls, so as our tour group went through, these fountains would spray us out of nowhere, and it never got old watching others get sprayed so I get why this guy had them put in. We headed back to the town, went to a grocery store, got some pre-made salads and sat by the river for dinner. It was a nice way to end our time in Salzburg.

MUNICH

After an hour and a half train ride, we were back in Germany. Munich is home to beer gardens and Oktoberfest, but it's June, so that second point is mute. I think this is a city that we'll have to give a second chance as it reminded us of Berlin and we were getting tried.

Day 1: this will be the most uninteresting day I write about. We got to the apartment. We went to the grocery store. We made supper. We watched too many episodes of Doctor Who. The end.

Day 2: when we look up what to do in each city, it all starts to become the same. "oh! You can see a church!" "Been there, done that" "Hmm okay. How about an art museum?" "I can't do another one." "Oh I know, you'd like the zoo!" "Does it have a unicorn or dragon?" "Well no... but" "Then no." This is basically how my imaginary conversations with TripAdvisor go now. We did find a different type of museum though. We headed to the Deutsches Museum that was focused on science and technology. I think Jordon could have spent the entire day there as there was so much to see. They had full sized fishing boats and a mining exhibit where you walked through what looked like a huge mine. After the museum, I had found an ice cream shop that was supposed to be great: the massive line confirmed this. We got to try beer ice cream (when in Munich, right?) which turned out to be really good. We headed back to the apartment again to make supper and had a relaxing evening.

Day 3: I was finally able to Skype with my mom which made the home sickness a little bit worse. It's nice to see our loved ones though. Once Jordon was up we headed to the Viktaulienmark which is a famous market. These markets are cool to go see but unless you're buying groceries it's a pretty quick stop. We grabbed a pretzel and a coffee before heading to the English Gardens. This place was incredible. Take any park back in Edmonton, increase the size by 10 and have a surfing wave (seriously) and maybe you'd come close to the beauty in this park (that's probably a lie). We sat for quite some time before heading to the shopping area. It has been getting really hot lately and we both needed smaller shorts. I ended up getting a pretty dress instead of practical shorts but it serves the same purpose of keeping me cool. After our successful shopping, we headed to the central train station as we were doing ANOTHER beer tasting tour (they're very popular here). It's not about the beer though, it's about meeting others, seeing places you might not have found on your own and just general fun. They also served us German food... which I think I've had enough of for one lifetime. Only a foreigner in Bavaria Germany craves a salad and some water. I did eat all the radishes from the meat platter so I got some veggies. Once our tour was done, we went into the famous Hofbraeuhaus beer hall with a couple from Missouri who were on the tour with us. We listened to some Oomp-pa music and then called it a night.

Day 4: we were hoping today was going to be as warm as the previous day but it seemed cloudy in the morning. We ran to the grocery store and stocked up on food before going to expensive Switzerland. We wanted to go to the city beach but we actually ended up back at the English Gardens for some sunbathing. We did find a Mexican restaurant that served a vegetable enchilada so I was really excited about that (who knew carrots and zucchini could make me so happy). We had packing to do for the next day so we headed back.

I am now sweating like crazy on the train to Zurich, Switzerland. It's suppose to be plus 30 so hopefully the good weather holds out for us the next couple of days!

- Vanessa xo