A Weekend in London

This weekend Kelsey and I made the voyage to London. I left on Friday morning at 8:30 to take the bus, a 5 and a half hour ride. It's not a bad trip though, we were a little delayed because there was an accident on the highway, a lorrie turned over or something. I arrived in London and found to the tube station to get to our hostel where I was meeting Kelsey. Our hostel was really nice, but kind of far away so we changed for the evening and set out again for the British Museum.
It was really hot in London this weekend and there was a ton of ppl, more like the London I am used to. We met Patrick at the museum and he took us to where he is staying in London. It's really close to the museum and pretty central in London, so that was nice. We met his roommates and some other friends, they are all from FSU... good thing they were nice.  Patrick, Kelsey, and I went out to get something to eat. Then we met up with his friends and went out in London. It was a really fun time!
The next morning Patrick met us at our hostel for breaky and we checked out of our hostel and headed back into town.
Our first quest of the day was to find Phantom tickets. We ended up going to the actual theatre and getting pretty decent seats. We had some time after that and went and got Pizza and then walked over to Leicester square where there was a Thai fest going on. It was interesting. By then it was time for us to head back to see Phantom. I was so excited! And rightly so, the show was amazing and I loved it! The music, everything was spectacular, I am really glad that I got the opportunity to see it.
We had some time after the show before our train left so we went and saw some of the sights of London. It was a nice day walking around with Kelsey and Patrick, who is always entertaining. We were pretty sure our train left at 8:30 so we wanted to get to the train station at 8. We said goodbye to Patrick at the tube station and made our way to Paddington. When we got there at 8 we looked at the board and realized our train actuall left at 8:06... PANIC! I ran to get my ticket and Kelsey ran to find our platform. Luckily the train was running late, otherwise I don't know that we would have made it. We did though and finally made it back to Plymouth at midnight. We got a taxi back to Marjon and went straight to bed. It was a really long day, but really fun. I had an amazing time! Tomorrow is back to school and we are going on another field trip, which should be interesting as usual. :)

Plymouth: A week in class

This week the students were on their mid term holiday so we went to class!  Our supervisor, Keith, taught our classes and he is really intersting. I feel like I learned a lot about schools in England and their national curriculum and also just how to be a better teacher in general. We did a lot of hands on activites and learned things that can make us better teachers in the future. The frist day we talked abot Teacher behavior and the National Curriculum, yesterday we talked about assessment, and today we talked about learning outside the classroom. Yesterday we talked about PE in schools, because here they don't have specialists, the classroom teacher is expected to teach the students art, music, PE, etc. We did some fun activites in the afternoon with another instructor in the gym that tested our speed, balance, adgility, etc. They were pretty hard activities, but really fun!
Today since our lesson was learning outside of the classroom we went to Morwellham Quay (prounounced Key), which is a historical town and copper mine. It was really neat because it is pretty much the way the people that lived there left it.  It was a port town that used to mine copper, tin, and arsanic. We got to eat Devon Pasties (which are DELICIOUS!) and go into one of the copper mines, which I thought was kind of scary. There was a boat there from that time period as well, the 2nd to last ship to be built in England. We walked up to the farm they have there and met the pigs, horses, and various birds (roosters, quails, turkey, geese, etc). It was a really neat place to visit and like our instrustor said it was different because a lot of England's history focuses on the rich and royalty, but thus was more about the common people and how they lived. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.
I really liked this week because I felt that I learned so much in just 3 days, I wish the program was longer so we could learn more! I will be excited to go back in the classroom next week though (Monday we have another excursion, I think we are going to Dartmoor and sailing?), I missed the little buggers ;)
Tomorrow Kelsey and I are going to London for the night and seeing Phantom of the Opera at a Sat. matinee and then heading back to Plymouth after that. I am excited because I have never even seen the movie, so it will be completely new to me! It should be another good weekend in England! I can't believe my time is almost up and then back to the Sates. Anyway, I have a 8:30 bus to catch to london tomorrow, so I need to pack and get to bed!

Some New Vocabulary

TopDeck is an Australian tour company and so the majority of the people on our trip and anyone we come into contact with at the Sites are Aussies so we have learned some new vocab:


Dodgy: Same thing as sketchy

Cheers: They say this all the time, like we say cheers but also in place of thank you.

Rubbish: Trash

Chewey: Gum

Sunneys: Sunglasses

Mackers: Mc Donalds

Hungry Jacks: Burger King

Kiwis: People from New Zealand

This Afvo: This Afternoon

A Sammi: A Sandwich

Cheeky Bugger: Can be used affectionately or to say someone is being annoying or silly

Variations on Cheeky bugger: cheeky bastard, cheeky shit, etc.

Rubbers: Erasers

Breaky: Breakfast

Jandals: flip flops

Duner: A comforter/ duvet on a bed

Aye?: What?

Some of these are also from my time in England
I might add more that I forgot later :)