Taking part in London's spring

After a fun and tiring adventure Friday on our way back to London from Ireland we met up with Kylie at the Generator. We got all dolled up for a party that was being put on in our hostel, definitely the place to be in London :) We met so so so many people on account of so many of them being stuck in London and being too broke to do anything else. Our favorite bunch we met was surprisingly a group of Germans. We danced the night away, or at least tried to with the Germans and Australians.

Saturday we found out that our flight was cancelled for the next morning so we began to look at plan B. That only took a moment though after finding out that a train ticket would be 300 pounds. We decided to wait out the volcano and enjoy our extra time in London. Kylie had gotten a walking tour route of things to see by a native Londonan so we headed out on the positively sunny Saturday morning with our hearts ready for adventure. We saw the city from a different point of view, we went to a very busy square with live music and soooooo many people in it. It was probably my favorite time in London. I bought some salads from a vendor and found a spot on a curb to enjoy my lunch and the guitar players sound and voice. We headed back to the hostel to figure out plans for the rest of the night. We decided to get all dressed up and go down to Piccadilly Square because we figured it would be the happening place to be, it sort of was, but we were so hungry and a little broke we ended up just going to McDonalds having dinner and people watching. Back at the hostel we met more new friends, these ones were from Australia.

After getting over our initial annoyance and disappointment of being stuck in London with pretty much no way to leave, we planned a fun Sunday. I found out about Camden Market. It was a part of London that had several discount stores and open air markets. We bought fun little things like jewelry and trinkets. Lunch was my favorite part of being at the market. There were so many different types of food from all different countries, made by people native to the country. With all that at hand picking what to have for lunch was the hardest decision of my trip! I went with a smoked salmon salad made by the cutest 20 something year old. He did everything himself, from smoking huge pieces of salmon to making his own dressing. Mmmmm... best meal I have had in so long. After lunch we split up in twos. Kylie and I continued exploring the market. We found the perfect tea parlor to have tea in and take pictures for Rebecca (she wanted me to have tea in a pretty dress, in a picture perfect place in England) it was so much fun and I happened to be wearing my dress. I had wild rose tea with real rose buds in it :) For dinner we went across the street to a grocery store and bought a bunch of very fresh fruit for super cheap and had a fruit feast together. Kylie and I then went and explored London for a few hours. We ended up in a Claire's and had a giggly good time.

Monday I woke up grumpy and wanting to be by myself and with a book. So I didn't buy an underground pass for the day. As a group we found a used book store called Skoobs! (brilliant, books spelled backwards). I found a brand new ESV bible for 20 pounds cheaper than any of the older bibles there and I promptly realized it as a gift and bought it. I then parted from the group and just hung out at the park and read. It was so lovely. I then went to bed early and woke up Tuesday a happy girl :)

I had really wanted to see Wicked since I was a freshman in college, so Kylie encouraged me to go see it in London. We went out in the morning in search of cheap tickets and ended up getting what we thought were going to be decent seats for 25 pounds each. We then split up and I went back to Camden Market with Jordyn to buy a few more little things and then we went to Kensington Gardens and just sat in the beauty of spring. When we got back we all helped each other get ready for the play. Everyone looked so beautiful. We got the theater and found out that we were as far back as you could get. We decided that we would move to empty seats at intermission, but as soon as the lights dimmed the audience from the balcony rushed the open seats. We refused to be left out of this London activity so we too grabbed our things and ran for the best open seats. The play was so beautiful, I cried through the opening scene all the way to the closing one. I believe it was a combination of my prior connection to the music, the fact that I was finally seeing it, the actors fabulous voices, and my heart missing a few girls who I really wished could have seen it with me. Overall it made my London trip.

Wednesday was our last day in London. Jordyn, Stephanie and I decided to spend the day in Kensington Gardens with our books and spring exploding all around us, definitely a perfect choice. We found the Peter Pan statue, so many beautiful flowers, and a beautiful pond. It was the perfect way to end an extra long vacation. We headed to the airport at 7:30pm to spend the night there before our flight was scheduled to fly out at 6:55am. Everything went well, we slept as well as expected in an airport and made our ways safely back to our own parts of Germany.

Our extra time there was a blessing, I was able to really see London. I cannot express what a world of good it did me to be around kind, English speaking people for 12 days. I shed a few tears on the way back to Garmisch hearing the harsh German and having my smiles returned by smug looks, but hey I was given a fabulous break :)

Lost my Heart to Ireland

We took 3 trains Monday night, the last to Holyhead definitely being the most interesting. We met some you severely drunk Welsh men who were warning us about the Nazi's in Germany and introducing us to a wide variety of Welsh songs. After that we met a friendly Irishman who was convinced that he now believes in love at first sight and he serenaded me. Sweet guy.

We got to the Dublin port at about 6:30am and hopped on a bus and headed into Dublin, we miraculously drove right by our hostel Paddy's Palace and then checked in and they let us shower and have breakfast. I met a new friend before leaving the hostel and we invited him on the rest of our day with us. We then took a self given Dublin tour. We walked through the 7 story Guinness factory. The sight from the top of the factory was worth the entire tour. For the rest of the day we explored Dublin with our trusty map. We found a fun thrift store and got a new outfits for our trip. When we got back to the hostel we booked tours for the next two days we were there so we could get in seeing the countryside.

Wednesday morning we woke up late and rushed to get ready for our tour that left at 8... we made it and our weather was beautiful!! We got on the Paddywaggon with our tour guide Michael Murphy and he lived up to his name, he was good looking, funny, and had a great Irish accent. He was super knowledgeable and enjoyed making us smile. We got him to sing to us so that was fun, he sang Galway Girl while we were driving through Galway and I think I fell a little bit in love. He took us all over Ireland with our final destination being the Cliffs of Mohr, which were absolutely beautiful! Once again we had perfectly blue skies and sunny weather. We also stopped at a monastery, burial grounds, and a castle. We drove home, entertained by more songs encouraged by our whoops and hollers. He was a good sport. I was shocked at how beautiful the countryside. I just wanted to walk around the roads and run into a cute Irishman who would sing to me. Our tour guide pointed us in the direction of a good Irish pub with live music. We took his advice and headed over there. The bartender was a little gruff. He came over and without a smile said, "If you ain't drinking, you ain't staying" I promptly ordered a beer. The music was so so so good :) We had our Norwegian friend with us that we had met in the hostel.

Thursday we woke up with news of a volcano erupting in Iceland, we brushed it off and thought it had nothing to do with us... ha. We got ready to go on our next tour, this one was the P.S. I love You tour, the tour guide took us to several movie sites which of course were beautiful and then to Kilkenny where we had about 2 1/2 to explore the cute little town and castle. We found another thrift store and I got an adorable blue dress. Our tour guide that day was not as fun. He treated it more as his job, but it was still enjoyable, although I feared for my life a few times while he was driving us around those super narrow roads in a coach bus while other cars whizzed by, oh my! But we got back to the hostel at about 6 safe and sound. We then walked a little more around went shopping, turns out that Dublin has fantastic shopping, go figure I go to Paris, Prague, London and then I go to Ireland and find the cutest stuff. Only downside was that I had only brought a backpack for the entire 8 day long trip. After our shopping we went out again to the same pub to listen to more music.

We got to our ferry at 8 am and the line was wrapped around the building! Everyone was trying to leave because there were no flights, thank goodness we had bought round trip tickets. They ferry was late so we missed our connecting train, but that ended up working out because we were able to have lunch in Holyhead, Wales. Woohoo :) Then our train was so full we got kicked off and they promised to send another train to pick us up, which they did. Overall it was a FANTASTIC time. I definitely want to go back soon. I love it!

London First :)

So Saturday morning (the 10th) I woke up way too early to catch the bus to catch the train to catch my flight. Thank God my travels went smoothly and I met up with my travel companions, Kylie (friend from all my education classes), Jordyn (friend who I went to college with, but got to know better in Germany) and a new friend Stephanie. We took our short one hour flight and got to London, but not without flirting with the English speaking male flight attendants :)

Once at the airport we found out that we were about an hour and 45 minutes away from London and pretty much out of luck on a place to stay. We finally found a place that cost an arm and a leg, we needed to sleep somewhere so we took it. No worries though, that night we found a hostel for our remaining nights in London named the Generator, it was a huge, busy hostel definitely marketed to a younger crowd :) Our first night in London we dressed our tired selves up and went out to a club down the street from our hostel. Much fun was had by all.

The next day (Sunday) we bought our key to the city, (an all day underground ticket and map) and gave ourselves the best "see it all touristy tour". We saw Parliament, Big Ben, St. Paul's Cathedral, Shakespeare's church (beautiful!!!), the Globe Theatre, Westminster Abbey and then ended our day with some wonderfully greasy fish and chips. My favorite was Big Ben, people had told me not to get excited about it, that it wasn't anything to gawk at, but I thought it was fantastic! It was bigger than I expected and as you can see from the pictures we had perfect weather. We were so tired by the time we got back to the Generator, but we still stayed up and planned our trip to Ireland. We bought round trip train and ferry tickets for just 60 pounds each.

Monday we went to Buckingham Palace (how cool does that sound!?) and we happen to walk up just as the changing of the guard ceremony was happening, it only happens once every 48 hours at 10:30am... we have impeccable timing :) It was fun using our cameras and taking pictures trying to capture some of what was going on in front of the mob that we were behind. We then went to Harrod's, the humongous department store. We all felt very underdressed and were shocked at the prices on, well everything. The only thing we could afford there was food, I had an amazing turkey sandwich, possibly the best I've ever had. We then just laid around in the park and relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon. Our train and ferry tickets were booked for that night, (so we could save money on a hostel and save ourselves a day). At about 7pm we headed to the train station to start our Ireland Adventure!

emotional moments

Today has been one of those days that I would classify as a "mom day", one of those days that everything makes you cry and you are just overly emotional. There is no apparent reason for me to feel or act this way today, but I do.

Last week I taught my students about the importance of goals and then also the importance of writing down your goals. As an assignment they had to write short term goals that they could achieve by the end of the school year (June 17)... here are some of the ones that got me (some tears and some laughter):

-Have a BFF
-Try and become more popular
-Breathe right
- Make friends
- Have a nice, good goodbye party
- Have/go to more sleepovers
-Be more nice
-Don't talk back to adults
- Don't draw on self
-Write a small book or play

Where is the point in life where we stop setting our goals at friends or a simple nice goodbye party? What would happen if we went back to that? I think I would like to see.

My students also finished their reports and presentations on diseases for health class. Also emotional. First reason being that when I came they could barely form a paragraph, and most of the papers I got back today were professional looking 5 paragraph minimum essays... from 5th graders. They are finally starting to get it :)Two of my students presented diseases that they themselves have. Watching their eyes as they presented and the fear and hope that they held was difficult to take in. The so badly wanted their peers to understand how their lives were, but the were also so afraid of rejection. The students following them stopped refering to people without the disease they were presenting as normal and began saying people without _______. It was amazing to watch them support and uplift eachother. Woohoo for maturing fifth graders :)

I am loving my class, but we are all very aware that spring break is a mere 3 days away :)