Uk lesson of the day: buy a new umbrella. Canadian ones will not suffice.

So yesterday, Friday, was our first full day in Birmingham. And full it was! We woke up (death), got free breakfast at the hostel (fabulous) and then got a cab and went to meet our boss at the agency we work for. After mildly lost for only about 2 minutes, not bad if I so say so myself, we found our way and met up with  him and Kelley, a fellow Nipissing Education student grad. We got our bank accounts arranged and then went to the busiest McDonalds on planet earth for lunch. I had to ask the girl who took my order to repeat herself 3 times...turns out English really isn't universal. (I thought I spoke fast....not at all compared to these Brits! When you combine super fast talking with extremely thick accents and common words which aren't at all like ours the result it usually Alicia looking like a complete tard. Something I hope lessens in the near future...as being laughed at constantly is starting to wear thin.  Last night the cab company I called laughed at me and then hung up...Lizz called back and they sent a cab. Wonderful.)

After lunch we walked around the city center which is really quite beautiful. We got a A-Z of Birmingham book which we will use when teaching to look up the postal codes of the different schools and figure out which bus to take. We also used it yesterday when I thought we should just get off the bus (a double-decker!!!!) and just walk home as I was convinced I knew where we were. I didn't. Surprise. I have lost any and all sense of direction since getting of the plane. I forget directions as soon as a wonderful stranger tells them to us, I turn left when we are supposed to turn right and have also dropped out only set of hostel keys (which were returned to us by our boss). That map book has come in handy more than once!

So after we got our book we went back to a house of fellow Canadian teachers, met some more girls (SOO nice and helpful!) and called some letting (rental) agencies. Our method for house hunting was quite simple and effective...walk down the street and stand in front of each and every house that has a rental sign and call them from that very spot. There is a Muslim holiday this week so a lot of the places were closed but we set up appointments for later that day. Everyone we called was super nice and helpful, it really made the whole process a  lot easier to deal with. We ended up taking the first place we saw, and it has a name!! I so wanted my uk house to have a cute little name, it makes it perfectly British! It is a four bedroom, so we want to find someone to take the 4th bedroom, but it is still easily affordable if we don't. It is fully furnished, right down to the toaster and kettle!  Each bedroom has a double bed, desk and chair and a wardrobe. There is a little garden out back and a cute spot out front where I can have some planters in the summer! :) We are both very, very happy!! We don't get into our house until next Friday which works out perfectly because Lizz and I are going to Manchester on Monday to stay again with my cousins and then are heading up north on Tuesday so have some adventures with my Aunt and Uncle. So when we come back we will be read to get into our perfect little house!

We got our house all sorted, jumped on the bus (almost got hit by a car in the meantime...this whole look the opposite way thing is really throwing me....good thing I got travel health insurance...), got lost, looked in our map book, got sorted, and went back to the hostel where we quickly showered and then ran back up to meet Sam, a fellow teacher (of course we were 10 minutes late).  After we met her we walked through the MOST amazing shopping area. Everyone here is super trendy, and I therefore feel the need to buy EVERYTHNG I see. Extreme self-control will need to be employed. Clothing prices seem to be on-par with home, possibly even a bit cheaper. Everyone here has the MOST amazing shoes. Nothing normal, women all appear to be wearing either boots (not practical of course) or extremely high heels with some type of flashy accessories to make them even more amazing. I may have to open a third bank account to control/meet my materialistic needs! 

Meeting up with some other teachers was really awesome. They were all super friendly, answered all our questions and invited us out again with them! There were Canadian teachers (all from Nipissing!!), Australian teachers and UK teachers! A night out with friends was exactly what we needed!! On the way home we decided we needed to grab some food. We went and got some delicious snacks and then decided we needed to take a cab back to the hostel. OOOhh, the cab. This would be the cab company I mentioned earlier who laughed at me and then hung up. So we decided to stand outside and hail a cab. Easier said than done. (Oh, by this time it was also raining. Not horribly, just enough to make you nice and damp all over.) There are two types of UK cabs. There are cabs that are a different type of car itself which are clearly a cab, but they don't have lights on top so you can't really tell if they have someone or not. The other type of cab is a private hire car. They look exactly like any other car except they may have a sign on the side of car, or they may not. But they do have a little square sign on the back which identifies them as a legit cab. However, to see this sign they must have already driven past you...making the whole hailing thing rather impossible. So we stood on the side of road, in the rain, kinda flailing our arms about at the random cars which passed by. I would say that this was by far the best way to look like either a) completely lost or b) completely deranged. After awhile we got a cab and got back to the hostel. I had to find my bed (my suitcase may have exploded over the entire room) and then we proceeded to completely pass out for over 12 hours. 12 hours of complete bliss!!!

Things we have learned so far: 

1. Canadian umbrellas do not last in British weather. While they may be perfectly equipped to withstand the occasional Canadian sprinkle of rain they are not sturdy enough to handle the daily wind and rain in England. They will immediately flip inside out and force you to jump about until you manage to flip it back out. Lizz learned this lesson many times on Friday. 

2. Saying 'sorry' to strange men to speak who annoyingly you will not make them go away. It will cause them to get annoyed and then repeat their question. 

3. Alicia does not translate well in the uk. Not a singly Brit has properly said my name the entire time I have been here. They try to repeat what I say and fail each and every time. I have decided to go with it and adopt a new uk...A-lys-e-uh. Not horrible, and correcting people all the time is annoying.

4. While this may not mean much to a lot of you, this will to me (and likely my mother). There is an annual flower in Canada called Fuschia. It is small, and you usually plant it in a pot as it only lasts a year. People have entire hedges of it here! It is huge! I will for sure be taking pictures of it as proof!  

5. Sidewalks suck. They are not even, flat or straight. You must always look exactly where you will be stepping or risk sudden and unexpected injury. Lizz currently has a swollen ankle as proof.

That is it for now, hope all is well back home! Miss you all!!!

Ps. Got to skype with Mom and Dad today, AWESOME!!!!