Just another thing Canada does better

On Saturday the girls and I bundled up and headed into the city for the Santa Claus parade. We got coffee, bought fresh donuts (YUM) and got to the perfect viewing point nice and early. There were TONS of people, we had to fight to keep our spot...personal space does not exist here, I think that people truly believe that if they shove hard enough that extra 1 cm that they gain will improve them view tenfold, and shove they do! The woman who stood behind me was holding a toddler who she shoved into my back so that the child, who had a horrible cold, could cough right into my face making sure that I was able to enjoy each and every sneeze. But we figured that the Santa Claus parade, especially in a city as large as this, would be epic enough to completely overshadow the shoving crowds and sneezing children. Oh how wrong were we!!

The parade kicked off with some REAL reindeer, at first this seemed pretty cool but upon closer observation you could see the total and complete fear in the eyes of the clearly tortured reindeer so that kinda killed that excitement. Santa walked by (not in a sleigh?!?!) with who else by the mayor who was oddly carrying a basket with a blanket in it (don’t ask). Then came some pretty cool costumes: christmas puddings and crackers, christmas decorations on roller-skates, a snowman which was zipping around on some type of cart and an oddly placed leprechaun which was completely lit up (beard included) by mini lights! The leprechaun should have been the clue that something was off...but yet we were still grasping onto the hopes that the parade would put us in the Christmas spirits. We started to question the integrity of the parade when Chinese dragons and carnival dancers on stilts walked by. A couple of women went by on a float (note: this ended up to be the ONLY float in the parade and it wasn’t even decorated) signing.....they only sang one song. Over and over. There was then a lag in the parade, we thought, like at home, there was a holdup somewhere and more floats/oddly costumed people would be coming by shortly. We waited patiently until a street cleaner drove down the street and we then realized that the parade was over....words can not even begin to describe our disappointment. If Blessington (the blink-and-you-miss-it gathering of houses in the middle of the country that my parents live in) had a Christmas parade it would be better!!!!  

While the city of Birmingham completely failed at treating the public to an enjoyable Christmas parade their lights do help to redeem this tragic experience. They have lights everywhere, ones with falling stars which are pretty cool. I will try to take some decent photos to post in the near future!

I can’t help but be jealous knowing that my Canadian family and friends are able to experience a Christmas parade worthy of true Christmas festive spirit and excitement! 

Remember, Remember the fifth of November.

Remember, remember the fifth of November.
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot."

While Halloween was not a big deal here, Guy Fawkes (5 November) was a very different story! This evening originates in 1605, Guy Fawkes was one of thirteen who conspired to blow up the (Protestant) King James I and VI of Scotland his Lords in order to cause turmoil and raise a new monarch to hopefully return England to its Catholic past. The plot was discovered and he was arrested. The surviving conspirators were executed. In January of 1606 the ‘Thanksgiving Act’ was passed which stated that for at least 250 years the 5th of November was to be kept free as a day of thanksgiving. The actual celebration has greatly changed over the years but I think that it is pretty cool that the tradition is still kept alive!

My experience of Bonfire Night started with me busing home in the pouring rain, trying to decide what to do. After a long day at school a night watching movies sounded perfect but in the end I decided to pull up my socks, literally and quickly change for our new adventure!

We took the bus back into town and jumped on the train just as it was leaving the station. We took the train to the right spot, got off and then realized that none of us knew where we were actually going...so we randomly turned left and started walking, thankfully the right direction! 

As soon as we got off the train you could already smell the fire! It instantly reminded me of the fire at Moms and Dads back home, a perfect country smell! As we walked there were more and more people joining in the schlep to the Pride Park. I was wearing my winter coat, a million layers of clothes, my winter coat mittens and scarves, after walking at a brisk pace for what seemed like forever I wished that I had worn a few less layers of clothing! I felt like it was the 5 of July, not the 5th of November!

As we entered the park we could see the bonfire almost immediately, it was huge! 

We found our Canadian teacher friends, ate their delicious donuts and enjoyed the heat from the fire. We missed the lighting of the fire but when we got there it was still HUGE and because it was raining and everything was pretty much soaked you could see it all evaporating off the ground and the peoples coats, pretty cool. 

In Canada, the rain and general miserableness of the weather would have cancelled the event all together, not in jolly-ol England! They rise to the occasion! There were TONS of people, dressed in everything from the typical heels and short skirts found on many Birmingham women to rubber boots and rain coats. Umbrellas were everywhere, at one point I had to literally dive out of the way to avoid losing my right eye to the worlds largest umbrella being carried by the worlds shortest man. And they were all having a blast!

Along with the monstrous fire there was also a huge midway with tons of rides and games typical of all Canadian fairs and tons of little food ‘huts’. The lines for these were insane, some 50 people long! We found one with a short line and ended up having them put cheese and gravy on our fries, delicious!  While eating our fries the fireworks started, they were truly amazing! They went on forever, a great show! The fireworks made the long journey worth it! 

On the way back the train was delayed 4 times and we missed our bus back to our house by 2 minutes so it took about 2 hours to get home....2 hours too long haha. But this typically British experience was well worth it. 

London: Day 1

London Day 1: Dedicated to Cailey

To start off our epic adventure the three of us girls got up SUPER early (5:45 ish), packed (obviously that was left to the last possible second), called a cab and met Pendray at the train station. The cab ride there was super entertaining; the driver spent the entire time telling us about different steaks he has eaten over his life time while traveling in London, the side dishes which came with his steak and how his ‘misses was gobsmacked’ due to the high prices of said steak. To fully appreciate the conversation you really had to be there. 

On the train we lucked out with optimal seating, 4 seats together next to the first class section so it was nice and private. This was Caileys first train ride EVER and she got stuck with a backwards facing seat... judging by her facial expressions throughout the trip she may not have fully enjoyed it.  

We successfully made it to Clapham Junction (taking a train AND the tube with complete success!!), met Laura, Thom and Meagan and walked to our apartment share. The apartment was right on the Thames, really clean and had everything we needed. It slept up to 8 people so only having 6 there made it very comfortable. There was one bedroom upstairs with a king sized bed, a bedroom downstairs with a double bed and two pull-out couches in the main area as well as one full bath and one half. When we arrived at the apartment we dropped off our stuff and walked back to the overground station (lingo lesson for the Canadians: pretty much an above ground subway/tube station). We then spent the afternoon at the British Museum (free), amazing!

Highlights of the British Museum: the Rosetta Stone (the key for our current understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics....a pretty big deal), the Egyptian exhibit (mummies, skeletons and sarcophagi, OH MY!)...I thought at one point that I was looking at the legit Cleopatra mummy. Turns out the name is quite common and I was quite excited for no reason, embarrassing. I also loved the Greek artifacts from the parthenon and the room FULL of jewelry, especially the pastoral themed items that focused on connecting man kind with nature etc made of coral, pearl and gold. I appreciated how the original cases for the jewelry were made with such care and attention to detail, specifically made for each piece. This exhibit basically made my desire for material possessions even stronger than it already was. 

We then bought groceries for supper, took the train home and a fantastic evening playing cards and planning our travels! 

Lessons learned today:

- Be aggressive! If you want a decent seat or standing spot then you best shove your way onto the tube or you will be stuck with the worst spot ever, if you get one at all.

-Don't stop or block the path of any true londoners. This is especially so if you are stopping to gawk at something which is relatively common place, such as a street sign, which somehow relates to a place or person at home and you obviously must immediately stop and take multiple pictures with at least 2 different cameras, 12 poses and 3 props. 

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!