Alicia's UK Adventures or: How to survive, and make the most of, European public transportation

On Saturday we went to the market in Birmingham...awesome!!! Just walking up and down the aisles was pure entertainment! The vendors had one volume: full blast. They basically yelled at the general public the entire time we were there.For the first time I felt like I was acting like a ‘real’ European...except for the fact that I was wearing my camera around my neck, walking around with a perma-smile and apologizing when other people walked in me (so every 3-8 seconds). Tattooing ‘tourist’ on my face would be a less obvious way to show that I am foreign to the ways of the fruit and veg market. 

On top of the vast array of fruit and veggies available there were bolts of material, yards of ribbon and so many yummy sweets! We loaded up on everything needed for our world-renowned (I feel that term is appropriate because we have made them in both North Bay and now the UK haha) nachos and fresh bacon from the meat vendors.  I loved the meat vendors especially, so fresh! That and the fact that Cailey looked like she just ate a sour lemon the entire time we were in that area because of the smell....hilarious. 

One thing learned about going to the Saturday market..force yourself out of bed and out the door at a decent hour as the entire population of Birmingham has decided to join you there. It was so busy that walking in a straight line was next to impossible, the bus was completely packed and traffic was deadly. But totally worth it! :)

In general I am becoming very comfortable when I am out and about the city. I have learned that most people will help you when you are lost...or when you don’t know which side of the street you need to stand on to take the bus in a specific direction. I am better at finding my way when I have either got off the bus at the wrong spot (more frequent than you may expect) or when I am on a strange bus (which is on a daily basis). I seemed to have cured myself from wanting to puke the entire time I am on any form of transit, SO happy about that! As long as I am looking forward the entire time I seem to be fine...just makes it hard to use the essential map-book when finding a school. I may have gone past the odd school...and not realized it until much later haha. 

Our cute little house is starting to feel like home, I have now acquired just enough stuff so that my bedroom can feel homey...aka a giant disaster. We make supper together every night and quite often we have guests which is awesome! Also helping our house to feel like our home is the fact that I get regular mail from home, all of which is taped to my bedroom wall :) When I am not getting cards, stickers and calenders from home I am having phone/facebook/skype conversations with my UK family. I have the BEST family ever!!!

Last week was pretty relaxed...our main ‘excitement’ came from events occurring while taking public transportation, aka the dreaded bus. A quick summary:

• Dogs are apparently allowed on the bus...ridiculous! One morning one the way to work a crazy man sat two seats in front of Lizz and I, had a dog (which we learned was named Archibald) on his lap and was drinking beer. Great. He also talked the entire time to a poor girl who was clearly a stranger. At one point he asked if it was 7am or 7pm...if you don’t know if it is night or day I think that is a sign that you should probably just go home. 
• After a very long day of work I transferred buses in the city center for the last lag of my journey home. I had already been on another bus for 45 minutes and had the start of a wicked migraine. After I had found an empty seat I discovered that the man in front of me was actually smoking and listening to music on his phone for everyone to ‘enjoy’. Ridiculous! How I survived that bus ride I don’t know! I thought that public transportation in Canada could be bad at times, but after 5 straight years of riding the bus back home I can safely say that it was never even CLOSE to being that bad!
• A rather senile man boarded the bus and tried to ‘tell’ (aka scream) to the driver that he shouldn’t have to pay the fee because he had lived in Birmingham since 1962. When told that the bus driver didn’t particularly care how long he had been in the city for the man then proceeded to pretend to leave a nasty present on the bus floor. Wonderful. 
• Today I took a bus, a train and a taxi to school. The trip home took an hour and a half and I only had to ask for help 4 times (to find the train station, to get to the right platform, to find the right train, to make sure I got off at the right stop) so not to bad at all!! But it was a fabulous school with awesome students so it was totally worth it! Just a rather pricey and time consuming commute to work. 

In conclusion: I miss Sydney, aka my beautiful red truck, SO MUCH!!!!! 

Birmingham...aka the home of horrid children

I woke up Tuesday morning actually excited to go and teach. How silly was I???


Kelly (a fellow Nipissing grad) and I met in the city center and took the bus out to our school for the day. I had known where I was going to be teaching on Monday night so I was able to made a plan and map it out, a wonder feeling for a control freak like myself. Both Kelly and I had year 1 in the morning and year 5 in the afternoon. When I heard I had year 1 I had horror movie-like flash backs from the last year 1 class I had...thankfully this class was much better!


The regular teacher was fantastic; she had the classroom wonderfully set up and clearly loved her job. However, she didn't know that I was coming in so the notes she gave me to follow were for herself to read...so while I am sure they were crystal clear to here they were not for me. More like mud....or even tar. If the children weren't decently behaved I don't know how I would have managed! Splitting a class of unknown children into 6 literacy groups and giving them 6 different assignments is almost impossible! While talking to one group the rest of the students do.....what???? Get in trouble, that's what! Add on fact that I didn't really know what she wanted me to do and the result is she definitely will be re-teaching that lesson! But I promise, I really did try!


Play time (I quickly learned this meant morning recess) had me going outside with the children. Fine, I can handle that. What was ridiculous was the fact that the three teachers on duty in the primary yard (I use the term 'yard' loosely, we were literally locked into a giant fenced area) were ALL NEW TEACHERS!! I was the only one that had even taught in the UK before! By the end of recess I had 6 rackets (aka plastic hitting devices) and a skipping rope (believe it or not there were many creative uses as a weapon with it as well).  Awesome. So then, when the bell had finally rung, we lined the students up to go inside. This is the real kicker...not only had they stuck the three new supply teachers outside but they also failed to give any of us a key to get back into the school. We were literally stranded inside a fenced in 'yard' with 50 students. So much fun! I finally had to find a nursery (pretty much day care) teacher to come and let us in as clearly no one realized that we were still stuck!


So I herd, yes I do mean 'herd', the students back into the class (which believe me was not easy) and tell them to get their PE kits for gym. Imagine my face when I learned this meant for the entire class, girls and boys alike, to get their gym clothes and then change IN THE CLASSROOM WITH ME!!!! AHHHH!!! Hello lawsuit, my name is Alicia. It was horrifying. So I turned my attention to the prep notes cause there was no way I was going to help a child undress. I may be blonde, and Canadian haha, but I am not inviting disaster to knock on my door! I was rather confused when I read that I was to have students run around the hall while I shook a tambourine....um what?? Around the HALL?? Wouldn't that be slightly, I don't know, disruptive of the other classes??? After inquiring about these seemingly insane instructions I learned that the hall is 'UK speak' for gymnasium. SO glad I figured that out before parading the students down the hall with musical instruments!


Gym went well (aside for the time I was locked out of the gym due to a lack of keys to get anywhere in the school) so I was in a good mood when I went upstairs during lunch to find my year 5 room. Kelly and I literally had to search for it, we weren't shown around the school at all. Didn't even know where the bathrooms were. Then we met the teachers we would be replacing. They told the both of us that they would be rather 'tricky'. Tricky is code for 'this afternoon you will either cry, quit teaching or move back to Canada'. I wanted to do all three. Words can't even BEGIN to describe my afternoon. I kicked out 10 children, had a pile of at least 10 paper snowballs that were thrown at me, had the head (principal) come in twice to help and two other teachers to assist with crowd control. I didn't even get through the register (attendance) without help. I have never felt like such a failure in my entire life. I actually wanted to leave all my stuff and go home. How children can act like that is beyond me. I miss my Canadian children!!!!


Today (Wednesday) there was no work for me so I came home and went back to bed. So today I will relax, spend time with Lizz and clean the house. We have a friend coming for supper tonight so that is awesome, and CAILEY COMES TOMORROW!!! Can't wait!!


So here is hoping that the rest of this week goes well! I am going to spend the next bit looking into Christian schools here in Birmingham as surely they must be better behaved??

These children are MONSTERS!!!

Friday morning my alarm went off at 5:50am...who knew the world even existed at that time???? I then pressed snooze for 15 minutes and then dragged myself out of bed (more like fell out of bed thanks to my super slippery sheets). I then took the bus to Hays to get my assignment for the day. I was told that it would be year one (gulp) and that it was a specially difficult class (double gulp). Steph met me at Hays and we went to school together which was so awesome, no fear of getting lost!

Like everything else in the UK the school was super old, maybe a church in a past lifetime. The gym was in the middle, which I am guessing was the old sanctuary, with the classrooms off the side. The kids had a pretty decent sized playground with a small patch of grass (which they clearly LOVED).

When I got into the classroom I discovered that there was nothing left for me to use during the day. The teacher also hadn’t done any planning since September 7 so I had nothing to refer back to. Not even a time table. Awesome. There was one silver lining to this cloud: the TA. She was AMAZING! She helped me to find activities to copy for the kids to do and helped with crowd control. My day basically consisted of controlling the beasts, yes, miniature beasts. 

I have never met children like this in my life. They literally did not listen to a single word I said. It doesn’t help that my mental ‘bag of tricks’ is for older kids...at times it felt like I was drowning. My favorite part of the day was when I took the children outside to play. And when I say play I mean run around like rabid creatures while I chase them and pry them off one another. I have never been so exhausted in my ENTIRE life. I would use the exact same methods of getting the attention of the class and they would laugh at me. They would LAUGH!!!! I tried flicking the lights to get their attention and they told me to stop being annoying!!!!  No combination of words, in any language spoken on planet earth in the history of time, can express my  frustration towards those children. 

This is a quick summary of my day:

 -marker fight

- child hiding behind reading center refusing to do work

- child having a temper tantrum...complete with floor kicking and lip pouting

- child drawing on play equipment with a permanent marker 

- children caught cutting pictures out of picture book

- child caught stealing school property

After longest bus ride home, ever: chocolate, chips, pizza, rant to lizz, SLEEP and then out with my new teacher friends!! I wish the weekend would never end!!!!!!!! Please Monday, NEVER COME!!!

All in all, just a day in the life of Alicia! 

Old blog: Thoughts from September 23

Today was a super productive day! I had not yet received my UK police check (don’t even get me started on that one!!) so I had the day off. Lizz and I slept in....something I will surely miss when work, and real life, starts!! We then took the bus to a little shopping area and finnnnnally got the rest of the necessities we have been lacking. It feels wonderful to have a fully functioning  home!!

Pretty much as soon as we got there Lizz decided that she needed to use the bathroom....badly. So she asked a store clerk if there was one for public use. This is a rough transcript of the hilarious conversation:

Lizz: do you have bathrooms?

Clerk: What? (with a super dazed expression)

Lizz: Do you have washrooms?

Clerk: UUhhhhh (looker more and more ‘intelligent’ by the second)

Me: Toilets!!!!!

Clerk: Uh like toilet seats?

Lizz: NO. Do you have a toilet I can use?

Clerk: Uhhhhhhhh a toilet you can use?? Uhhhh no. 

Lizz and I exchange looks of ‘wow, she is suuuuper brilliant and helpful’.

Result: We decided to just go home and use ours. 

After we went shopping I stopped at the girls house and discovered that my CRB (UK police check) had indeed arrived (we used their address the first week to get stuff started before we had our own). I was excited to start teaching again but also super scared, I knew I would likely be teaching young children and that is something I have zero experience with! Everyone has also been telling us horror stories from work so that wasn’t helping extreme fear either!

That night we decided that we needed to make our house appear more ‘homey’ and spent the night doing cut and paste, now our upstairs hallway beautiful garden of paper flowers! Much better!!

In other news:

-everyone here uses a plastic tub in the sink (no clue why)....and so do we because of a lack of a plug

-After talking to Alan it turns out that England as a nation has yet to master the art of plumbing, aka showers, so I will be officially spending the year taking showers sitting down or having a bath....awesome. Lizz can stand because of small moveable shower head can reach her hair. I am too tall....great. 

-We have booked our first holiday from school: a trip to London for 5 or so days with Laura and her husband! AWESOME! We are going to do an ‘apartment share’, so we basically rented an apartment for a week which is much much cheaper than paying for a hostel or hotel and we can cook which will also help to save cash!

-While everyone warned me that british people are super grouchy we have yet to meet one...everyone has been super nice to us!

-The people at the post office now recognize us and chat...we are their regulars!

Gypsies DO exist!!

Today was a wonderful day. Lizz and I were dropped in Darlington to poke around....and shop. And shop we did. We almost didn't have time for lunch!! There were lots and lots of wonderful shops...it was a problem. We both have come to the conclusion that while at home we have to look around and to find something unique or that screams YOU NEED ME, TAKE ME HOME!!...that problem doesn't exist here. I want everything. I NEED everything. Almost every store has fun and trendy pieces that can make quite the statement. How the two of us will return to shopping in Canada I just don't know!!  That being said I did control myself and bought only a long black 3/4 length sleeves shirt that has sequins and jewels on the shoulders (D Brown you would LOVE IT!) and a black tank....total cost for the shopping trip was under 9 pounds! Impressive, if I do say so myself!!  Lizz got a new backpack that was a super deal, and was also VERY needed, a shirt dress and some tights, she is now a happy girl!!

On the way home we stopped at Escomb Saxon Church. http://www.escombsaxonchurch.com/  It was built in 670 AD, a place of worship for over 1400 years! Truly amazing! It was in perfect condition, and quite the contrast to yesterdays Cathedral! On the front gate to the church it told you to go to a house on the other side of the church and ask for the keys...which they are more than willing to give to you. How cute, and trustworthy is that?? I was talking to a man while looking at the church and he said that in the UK people seem to have a unspoken respect for the many churches and cathedrals. They really don't have any problems with graffiti; this church was in a rough area but the grounds around the church were in perfect condition. Kinda cool!

We also went to a train museum in the town of Shildon, where my Uncle Alan is from. This museum had lots of types of locomotives, train cars etc. In the welcome building there is a replica of the steam train 'Sans Pareil'. It was built to compete in the Rainhill Trials in October of 1829. This was a competition to see if stationary steam engines or locomotives would be used to pull the trains. Quite a piece of history! The museum also held the steam engine which holds the record for the highest speed. Around a couple of the locomotives were oil pans to soak up any spills or leaks...can't get any more realistic than that!

Random notes of today:

- While the UK is famous for their traffic circles I really didn't understand how many there are.....they are EVERYWHERE. You can't drive for more than 5 minutes without driving in a complete circle only to keep driving in the exact same direction. They are causing my stomach to experience so rather unpleasant feelings.

-I thought that gypsies were either something created by Disney for The Hunchback of Notre Dame or fizzled out as time went by. Turns out....no. We were driving down the road and I dared to look out of the side window (usually this almost causes an instant desire to vomit so I usually focus out the front window) and there were some horses and ponies randomly in the middle grassy area on the outskirts of a village. I commented on how it was weird that they were there with no fences or anything and was told that they were gypsies horses and were likely just dumped there for a bit. My response: WHAT???? My Aunt went on to tell me that she often delivered gypsy baby's at the hospital, one woman was sporting a belt made of DIAMONDS!!! They are rich, don't pay taxes, live in campers (an upgrade from the Disney addition of the wooden cart) and have their wealth in their horses and their jewels. There families are very close, ie. inbred. They all gather in a town called Appleby for a fair every year! (look at this if you don't believe me.... http://www.applebyfair.org/ ). There was a reality show on here about them which my Aunt said was hilarious... http://www.channel4.com/programmes/my-big-fat-gypsy-wedding 

If you are at the sea you MUSt have fish and chips. It's sorta a thing.

Today was an epic day of adventures!!
  One of the many highlights today was visitng Durham Cathedral (http://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/ ) . This was one of the first truly 'touristy' things we have done. And this experience did NOT let us down! Without having Alan and Jean the experience would not have been complete. They are like our own personal tour guides/history books!! :) :)

Todays history lesson: In 875, the monks of Lindisfarne fled the island because of Viking raiders taking with them their most precious treasures, including St. Cuthbert's miraculously preserved body and the illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels.They then wandered norther England looking for a proper place to lay St Cuthberts body. The story goes that in 995, the Lindisfarne monks put down the casket and when they went to lift it to move it again it was impossible to move. So they literally just built the cathedral around him!

The building of Durham Cathedral was started in 1093 and virtually completed in 40 years, which when you consider the craftsmanship and lack of JCBs and other heavy lifting equipment at the time is a stunning achievement . It is the only cathedral in England to still have intact almost all of its Norman craftsmanship, and it also still has virtually the same shape and size as its original design which is also quite unusual for cathedrals because of the turbulent history of the church over the years.
Walking through the Cathedral I really felt the power of the Catholic Church. To build something of this magnitude in only 40 years is truly an amazing feat. The huge pillars with designs perfectly carved into them, the huge yet intricate stained glass windows, the amazing tombs which filled the main sanctuary and just the sheer size of it all really blew my mind. But the Cathedral also really made me think of the Catholic Church itself. They had so much power, over so many people, and owned so much of the medivals worlds riches while the majoirty of the population lived in absolute squalor. It actually kinda annoyed me. I had an AMAZING time, sooo glad I went, but it really can serve as a reminder to what too much power can do....okay on with a description of the place and some happier thoughts!
The Sanctuary knocker: This is really cool, again my own photo to come! It was a huge thing, located on the front door of the Cathedral. The actual one currently on the front door was a replica but the real knocker from the 12th century is held in the treasury, in perfect condition. It is a lion-type beast which allows criminal offenders, no matter the offense, to knock on it and stay in the Cathedral for 37 days. They were support out their affairs in this time and then leave to 'face the music'. They had to take the first trial or leave by the nearest port.

Another amazing part of the Cathedral (which really did seem to go on forever) was the cloisters.

This is where the monks lived (the cloister garth).This is an area of four covered walkways, forming a square, with a garden in the center. While we were there the sky was perfectly blue and the grass soo green (due to the fact that it literally rains at least once every 10 minutes here) so we got some truly amazing photos. Off the cloisters was the monks dormitory. It dates back to the fourteenth century and has an amazing ceiling of wooden oak beams (Dad, you will LOVE this!) Now this is a working library for the University in Durham, so all the books were catelogued and ready to sign out!!The monks living quarters reading chambers were off this area. Also, for all you Harry Potter addicts part of the Potter films were done here!! This website shows the cloisters in the film.
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/films/locations/durham.htm
The 1998 film Elizabeth was also filmed here, Alan was there during the filming and said watching all the actors running around dressed as monks was pretty cool!

The treasury in the Cathedral was awesome. It holds Cuthberts coffin from AD 698 (the very coffin that was laid down and was impossible to pick-up, why the Cathedral was built there), many acient books and manuscripts (really cool, you can see the pencil lines that the monks drew in to keep all of their intricate writing all lined perfectly, in completely perfect condition!!). One of my favorite parts in the treasury were the cloaks or robes.  After over 500 years they were in amazing conidition! My favorite had an embroidered picture of David holding the head of Goliath. A little creepy but so amazing that it is in such great condition after all these years!

Words truly can not describe how huge and impressive this experience was! There were so many seperate parts to this Cathedral, the planning of it alone would have taken such a huge amount of time and effort even with modern day technology!



After touring the Cathedral we walked around Durham and got what Alan calls the 'classic' view and of course MANY photos of the Cathedral from the other side of the river. We had lunch at Greggs (my new favorite place for delicious food at rock-bottom prices) and then we drove (I fell asleep, mouth open, super classy I know) to where my Nanny was born and raised. We saw the church were she was married, her school house and the grave site for my great-gran Atherton. It was pretty cool to see this history from my Dads side of the family, I really never thought I would!

We then drove to the sea, such a beautiful drive! I maaaaay have nodded off for a few minutes (I blame the fresh air) and when I woke up we were in Seaton Carew, aparantly it isn't the nicest seaside village but Lizz and I liked it! The tide was completely out so we walked down the beach, gathering shells and rocks like 6 year olds and taking tons of pictures. There was a bit of a wind so it was a little cold but the waves were fantastic! Then Alan and Jean took us for fish and chips...this was EPIC! We got them at a little take-out place and ate it in the car. Eating in the car was completely necessary as  the birds seems to see our take-away on the way out and spread the word to all the flying beasts. They surronded us, waiting for us to get out of the car and share the wealth. That did not happen. We are currently eating the left-overs, at 11pm, and they are just as good. The taste can not be described, okay they can...perfection. I may weigh 300 pounds before we leave on Monday!!

All in all it was a perfect day. Pictures. Family. Food. Memories.

English is NOT a universal language!

Today we signed our contracts, after traveling all over Birmingham by a 'wonderful' cabbie. He really had troubles understanding us slash didn't listen to us and drove us to St Peters Square, not St Philips Place. So by that time we were lost, yet again. He then tried to ask us for directions....obviously we have no clue where to go. That's why we called the cab!!! Finally we got to Hays and got that sorted.

Then back to the hostel to check out and grab out bags (weighing about the same as a fully grown elephant) and we walked/Lizz limped back up to the bus station where we caught our bus for Manchester. Being the total blondes (at heart if not in reality haha) that we are we almost missed our bus. We literally watched people boarding our bus, watched someone run for it, looked around, read a pamphlet about traveling to Paris and at the last possible second that the bus was in fact ours (rather obvious as it was in the gate for Manchester and had our bus number in huge light up numbers on the side) ran out and jumped on in the first available seats. I had taken gravol 30 min before boarding the bus so by the time we had sorted ourselves out and realized that our bus was ready to leave I was a walking zombie. I happily slept the 2 hours to Manchester :) ! I was so worried that I would be sick the whole way so this trip was a great improvement! We then walked over to the train station, bought tickets and got on the right train like the seasoned experts we are fast becoming. Mel, my cousins wife, met us at the train station and we went back to their house to play cars with their son and eat the best food we have had since we were here last week!

We are spending the night here and then going up north to County Durham tomorrow so spend the week with my Aunt and Uncle. They have lots of stuff planned, can't wait for some time in the county!! I am so glad that I have family here, without them I would be lost for sure!!


Uk English vs Canadian English

rubbish vs garbage

bin vs garbage can

pants vs underwear

pants vs trousers

rubber vs eraser


Another weird difference is that buses (like the greyhound in Canada) make you wear seat-belts, and they check!