The beauties across the Pond...

Beautiful!

My future job! :)

I spent another amazing day in the heart of England this Saturday, and it was amazing! For the first time since I have been here, the sky was clear of heavy clouds, and a beautiful shade of blue was everywhere! Heather and I met up at the train station, and headed straight towards a museum she had heard a lot about, the Imperial War Museum. What is strange, is that it wasn't in any of my traveling books and I hadn't heard of it. But I am so thankful Heather had, because it was amazing!! 

The Imperial War Museum goes through all the wars that Britain has been part of. It was really interesting because I just traveled to DC with Dan in the summer, so I was able to see the same war from another perspective. Also, starting this week I am full time teaching a history class discussing the Cold War. My first lesson is the Truman Doctrine :) 

A real canon! Serious

This statue was gorgeous. It is to represent all the lives of children lost during the War, especially during the Blitz. 

This is an actual statue from Germany that has been brought to England. If you look closely, you see can actual bullet holes and dents in the statue. 

From the Imperial War Museum, we headed to the Tower of London. We grabbed an amazing lunch, then took off!

The Tower of London is so freaking awesome! You go through an everyday English neighborhood, then turn the corner to a massive castle! 

Here is the castle! We didn't get there in time to go inside, so we are going to head back next week. But it was amazing nonetheless. 

After that, we went to The Monument. This monument is to honor those that perished during the Great London Fire. 

After the Monument, we walked over the St. Paul's Cathedral! The church is beyond huge, with a beautiful dome right in the middle.  

The church was closing about 10 minutes after we got there, so we only made it to the front door. I was quite bitter about it, so I tried to break in :)

No such luck :( Since when do I have to break into a church!?

From there, Heather and I decided to see how long the line was for the London Eye. The London Eye is ALWAYS busy, and today was no exception. With over an hour wait, we decided to walk alongside the river, and enjoy the beautiful day. Heather has an amazing camera that has a whole bunch of special tools, so she managed to great the great sunset in the pics. If you click on the pictures themselves, you can get a better version of the picture :)

Guess this will have to do for now!!

The sunset was beautiful! 

Live. Laugh. Love.

The small things in life!

Today I am appreciating the small things of my life. During the weeks, it is easy for me to get caught up with school, and I sometimes forget how amazing this experience is.

Student teaching is intense. I have officially taken over a class full time, while still observing about 6 other lessons a day. The class I have taken over is adorable. They are Year 7A (7 representing the grade they are in, and A representing the 'level' they are. Highest is A, and lowest is C. The students are placed into these sets, and are expected different things depending on their set.) They are only 11, and come in wearing cute little uniforms. Before they sit down in class, they have to say, "Good morning, Miss Daniels" And, as a first for a teacher, the students say, "Thank you Miss" when they leave the classroom. (Thanks for me teaching them!) A-dor-able...

Here is a picture completed out of jelly beans... awesome...

Here is amazing-ness that was sent to my house from Grandma. She brilliantly sent me a whole entire package of goodies! Such a blessing, for so many reasons, reasons you need to know. :)

 A) Food (actually, everything) is so expensive here! I know it cost a lot for her to ship, but I guarantee it was cheaper than it would have cost me to buy all of it here

B) What she sent me, I can't find here. I am getting used to some things, like the massive amount of baked beans the British eat, but something things never change. And if you know me, you know I am picky. Hence the pasta sides and nutty bars Grandma sent me. She knows me too well :)

C) Love from home. I literally got teary-eyed when I got a package. It could have been empty, but having something from home was heavy on the heart. I even smelt it, and minus the food, there was still a linger of Grandma in it.

D) Dan sent me 6 (!) DVDs with the package as well of American TV shows. In the UK, you can't stream ANY tv shows online, because of the US policies. So, Dan sent me 3 seasons of One Tree Hill, and a few others that I have deliciously been eating up

Here is my drawing of a still-life that I created in my Art club. I am officially involved with another activity, (including Girl Sports on Tuesdays, Weight training on Wednesdays, and Drama on Fridays!) I am now the leader of the art club on wednesday mornings! Our first lesson, we pasted a whole bunch of candies (they call them sweets) onto cardboard. The students had to draw the sweets from a random angle. I decided to join in on the fun :)

I miss everyone dearly!

Brighton and more :)

This week was the first FULL week of my student teaching! Woo-hoo! No snow interruptions, crazy fluke accidents, or anything. That being said, this week was crazy! I am exhausted every day I come home at 5:30, and all I can think about is heading to bed!

On Thursday, I got to shadow a particular student around for a day, to observe him with other teachers as well as watch how other teacher manage their classrooms. Joshua is a cute little kid in Year 7, and observing him was  really interesting. I got to see spanish, math, art, chemistry, health, french (yes, all students take 2 foreign languages!) and geography. The most special time of the day however was when Josh said he likes to practice piano during the first break of school. I said I would come watch, thinking I would hear some cute piano playing. Turns out, Josh has been playing piano since he was 5, and the school thinks he will be professional piano player in the near future. Josh played The Prelude by Bach for me, as well as playing his favorite style of piano music: Blues. He was breathtaking and I couldn't stop watching him play. This 11-year old boy has more talent in him than I have ever since in a person, it was beautiful to watch. Josh is a kind boy, and it was amazing to see a glimpse of his daily life.

Friday was also a great day. After school, I caught a train to Heathers (the girl who lives about 2 towns away who is also student teaching) house where she kindly invited me to spend the night. We ate a glorious "American" meal including of chicago pizza, real chips (doritos) and PEPSI (I haven't been able to find pepsi so I was more than excited that she found it!) It was awesome! Don't get me wrong, some of their food is amazing, such as the French Bread, Fries (chips) and soup, but the British do eat a little odd. They put baked beans on everything, and I really mean everything. If you order a baked potato, you have to say no baked beans, or else it comes all over the potatoes. For breakfast: eggs, sausage, and baked beans... It's weird... Anyways, we had a great night, and I was really happy to get a normal day with a friend.

Saturday we headed out in the butt crack of dawn for Brighton. Brighton is located on the bottom tip of England, the closest you can get to France. It is a beach resort, facing the English Channel which goes out to the Atlantic Ocean (yes guys, one of the other Oceans!) We arrived in Brighton, and without much direction headed towards the water! We ran into St. Nicholas Church, the oldest building in Brighton, serving them for over 9 centuries. Here it is:

In England, it is very common for priests to be buried alongside their church, so there are several gravestones all along the churches. We were able to sneak a look inside as well!

It was so pretty inside. This piece in the middle is the oldest object in Brighton, having served some of the Roman Baths that are located further North.

We kept walking, and ran into another beautiful church called St. Paul's church, but it wasn't open.

I was still pretty excited to see it though :)

We kept walking, until finally we came across the beach! These pictures really don't do the justice this town deserves, it was so beautiful!

My first sight of the English Channel!

We decided to walk out onto the beach! It wasn't sand, but the stones were still lovely. The weather was great too, not too cold!

Side Note: I had to carry this backpack around all day, because I stayed at Heathers but was heading home after Brighton. You all would be impressed, we tackled miles of walking on stones, up hills, and everything in between! My legs are also impressed this morning, and laughing as I cringe every time I walk. Looks like someone is getting into shape this trip!

How awesome is this?!?

So Pretty. I was telling Heather is reminded me of The Truman Show, because the water and sky just melted into each other and it looked like a painting!

So then, Heather and I wanted to touch the water to remember the moment. Heather successfully touched it, and as I was stepping towards the water, a huge wave came and :

Well, this happened :)

A great pier Heather and I walked out on. It was full of games, food, and birds.

After the beach, we settled down for an amazing meal! I got a BLT with chips. I found out that the bacon was ham, but it was still delicious! We then went to the main attraction in Brighton, the Royal Pavilion. George the IV, who was the Prince of Wales, moved to Brighton around 1785. Queen Victoria sold the pavilion to the town of Brighton in 1850. The Prince wanted a Oriental themed palace, and spent many years building it.

Here is George!

And here is his palace!

The builder, John Nash, adopted the Hindu style of architecture.

It was very elegant, and very different from the other buildings we have been seeing lately.

Along with the Royal Pavilion, Heather and I saw out first mall (they seem to call shopping centres 'arcades' here)! It even had an H&M! We went into some local shops, and found some great deals on dresses. I found my favorite shop in Brighton:

The HA! HA! Bar and Kitchen. How can you say that without laughing?

Overall, it was an amazing day! Brighton is small and cozy, and I felt extremely at home there. It may be on the top of my list for favorite towns in England!!

Hello from Brighton, and the English Channel!

(Maybe if you squint, you can see France?!)

Oh London, the things you do...

So I haven't posted in awhile, I guess for a couple of reasons:

1. Other than school, I didn't do too much this week. My school is private, so other than all the others around me, my last class gets out at 4:45, and school ends at 5. By the time I get home, it's just about time for a shower, some homework, reading, and then crossword puzzles until I crash.

2. Homework- Boy when I get home I going to jump on the bandwagon of supporting teacher salary increases. As a STUDENT teacher, I am working hard, which means all the other regular teachers around me must be pooped! Its an exciting job, and I am blessed to have entered this career. When you think of other careers where you work a 8 hour job, then leave with about 4 hours of homework, you normally think of the $$$ that comes along with it. I just think its unfortunate that society (aka government) depends on this career field so much then takes money away from the teachers and the schools... Ok, enough for now :)

3. SNOW! Yes, we had another snow day on Wednesday. Unfortunately for me, and others, we didn't get the notice of the snow day until about an hour after waiting for the bus outside in the pouring snow. My bus driver couldn't get up a hill on the other side of town. I waited for about 45 minutes, until the principal let everyone know that school was cancelled and we could go home. No worries though, I went home and slept for about 4 more hours :)

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Needless to say, I was very excited for my outing with Heather on Saturday yet again to London. We met up and immediately headed off to the National Gallery. The National Gallery was created in 1825, and has over 2,300 paintings in it.

There are no pictures allowed in the museum, but I found a few online so you can imagine them :)

Probably my favorite was seeing Vincent Van Gogh paintings:

This was probably my favorite of the whole museum, the strokes for the sky are brilliant. Here is another one of the famous ones there:

:) I wish I could have shown you the real deal, but I guess you'll have to come visit me to do that !

Also, the coolest painting with history was the Leonardo Da Vinci painting of the Virgin and Child, St Anne and St John the Baptist:

If you look closely, you can see the bottom of the painting, and the hand is not completed, and that is because this is a cartoon. The word Cartoon comes from the French word carton and the Italian word cartone which both mean heavy paper. The meaning of the word is the preliminary sketches made by artist on such paper. :) Cool, huh?

Outside of the national Gallery....


The next event we had planned was for an excellent musical of The Lion King. However, our event was cut short when the only remaining tickets were about 50 pounds each! We decided that would be another day, and headed off the the Tower Bridge. It was at this point my camera decided to stop working, and I actually haven't been able to get it back since. :( Hopefully not broke broke... That being said, the following pictures my friend Heather thankfully let me borrow. 

The Tower Bridge was created in 1894 by Sir Horace Jones. It is beautiful, and a iconic legend of London

How awesome is that?!?

As soon as we got there, we realized that the Bridge was opening up for an old school sailing boat. 

Here is the bridge opened!

We went on a exclusive tour to go up to the top walkway of the bridge. The lower one is the one that opens to ships, but the upper walkway is for pedestrians only and doesn't move. Here is a glance from up high :)


It was a great day, and although it rained, it melted most of the snow away! I managed to get home by dinner time, and relax for awhile. Heather and I are hoping to go to Brighton next weekend, it is located on the very bottom of England, is apparently is a beautiful little beach resort. Hopefully I will have pictures to share of that soon!