When life hands you lemons....

Heathrow really needs to get their act together, but while they do, we are making the most of our time in London! I have in fact spent so much time here that I can successfully get from our flat to the tube station (using a map...), I know the colours of tube routes, and I know the location of at least six Starbucks.

On Monday we went to the Cabinet War Rooms and Winston Churchill Museum. Hidden in the basement of the treasury, the war council met there during bomb raids to discuss the war. Churchill used it as a private place to call President Roosevelt and, if needed, Churchill and his wife had a protected place to live. After the Cabinet War Rooms, we walked across the street to Westminster Abbey for an Advent Evensong. It was a beautiful service as well as the first children's choir I've heard over here!

On Tuesday we went on a river cruise down the Thames! Although I still can't quite figure out how to pronounce it - Tims, times, or tames? - I did finally see the London Bridge! Which 1. is not falling down and 2. is not very pretty. We got on the boat at the London Eye and took it down to Greenwich, which was absolutely amazing! Greenwich is a World Heritage sight and although most of it has been torn down, there was a Tudor Palace (the stalking of Henry VIII and Anne Boelyn continues...). Monticello is also a World Heritage Sight, so we found a picture of Charlottesville in the museum! Very Exciting! England's Old Royal Naval College is also there which was built by Christopher Wren and is famous for it's Painted Ceiling and Chapel. We went inside the Queen's House, the last remaining building of the palace, which will be hosting equestrian olympic events in 2012. On the chance that my flight still hasn't left yet or there is still "too much snow on the ground"I would be happy to attend. We also got to see the Prime Meridian Line! I had no idea that there would be anything good in Greenwich (other than lunch) and was pleasantly surprised!


After the cruise I met up with Charlottesville friends. We went to Guy Ritchie's pub, Punchbowl, and The Golden Hind for Fish n Chips. It was really fun and so nice to see familiar faces!


Today we went to Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery and then to see the longest running play - 'The Mousetrap' by Agatha Christie. A "classic whodunnit" the cast made us promise not to tell...The rest of the week we are trying to make Christmas Eve reservations, find a Christmas Eve service, get Christmas presents (as though we have any room to bring them back) and get in the Christmas spirit for our (hopefully) Christmas flight!

I'll be home for Christmas....if only in my dreams.

Mom, Dad and I spent the past week exploring England! My last weekend at Cambridge was very similar to my first. Visited Homerton, walked around the city, went to the market, tried to find Great St. Mary's (this time, we actually found it), went in the same Cambridge stores, and went back to Pink Floyd's Grantchester Meadows! This time, no goose attacks, now cow attacks probably because instead of walking, we drove (so nice to be in a car). We ate lunch at the Red Lion again. Mom and Dad had their first experience with poppers - we had quite the scare, couldn't find Mom's toy magnifying glass for a while...After we finally found Great St. Mary's, we climbed the bell tower. Too many flights of stairs to count (probably about 7, let's be real) and a lot of maneuvering later we got to the top and had a beautiful view of the city. Afterward, we tried to go into King's College, but unfortunately BBC was filming the men's and boy's Christmas special. And by tried, what I mean is went inside until we were asked to leave. Then we went to a Christmas Candlelight Service at the Baptist Church in Cambridge to really get into the Christmas Spirit!

On Monday, after saying good bye to Pete and the Avimore, we drove down to Goudhurst, near Kent. It was amazing! Goudhurst is exactly like every Christmas Village I've ever imagined. On top of the hill is the old church - built in the 11th century- then there is the vicar's house, the butcher shoppe, the sweet shoppe, the general store, the news store, and a couple restaurants. We stayed in a Coach house (still don't really know what that means) on Lidwells Lane with a beautiful view! I had my first attempt at making mushy peas, but with no recipe and no idea what to do, made peas that were, in fact, mushy, but definitely did not make mushy peas. We went to the Butcher Shoppe for fresh fruit, vegetables and milk every day. It was great, the man behind the counter actually added up all the goods by hand!

Dad got a lot of practice driving the rest of the week. On Tuesday we went to Canterbury Cathedral; on Wednesday we went to the Castle at Leeds, where Anne Boelyn and Henry the VIII lived; on Thursday we went to Hever, which was so cool! It is the house that Anne Boelyn grew up in, so we stood in her bedroom as well as Henry VIII's! All of the castles were decorated for Christmas - Leeds had a fairy tale theme with the alligator and clock, fairies, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Hever had a mini Narnia inside. Then, we went to Winston Churchill's home, Chartwell. The house was closed, but the outside and grounds were beautiful. Then it started snowing before we left Goudhurst.....

On Friday, we drove to London, where we thought we'd be spending the next three days. Turns out, it's more like the next nine days! There are maybe 3 inches of snow on the ground and Heathrow has now been closed for 3 days. Thirteen-thousand people have been living in Gatwick airport waiting to make flights home. London is insanity right now! Luckily for us, the flat we've been staying in was available for the rest of the week, so we have a place to stay and a lot longer to explore the city. Must be positive!

Notting Hill is one of my favorite movies, and we are staying in the middle of Notting Hill! We've run to Hyde Park, been to the travel bookshop, been to Portabello Market, the next step is spotting a blue door and Hugh himself. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. On Friday we went to Oxford Street to see all of the shops and Christmas lights - some of the displays were a bit intense, but most of it was gorgeous!


On Saturday we went to the Beatles tour. The tour was led by the number one (I will most certainly let him have that title) Beatles Fan. Read for yourself: http://www.beatlesinlondon.com/Richard.htm. Unfortunately it started snowing and as Richard had to take a train out of London he cut the tour short. But, since we have so much time left on our hands, we can either go back on Tuesday for the rest of the tour, or explore more ourselves! Then we went to Portabello Market, where we met up with a friend from school, which was so fun! The market is almost two miles long and really fun to walk through! Not going to lie, was playing Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone in my head the whole time...

On Sunday we tried to go to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. The crowds were unbelievable! We caught a few glimpses of what was going on inside, but couldn't see very well. Was almost just as fun to watch people pushing each other through the crowd. Then we went to the Towre of London where we saw the crown jewels, lived any young boys dream (lots of guns, swords, soldiers) and then continued to stalk Anne Boelyn by going to the place she was kept prisoner and eventually beheaded. Went home early to attempt to pack (somehow my belongings seem to have quadrupled), but turns out we don't need to for six more days...

I know the title is completely dramatic, but that's sort of how it feels! Am thinking positive thoughts about no more snow and a flight home next week, but in the meantime- getting to know London as well as I can!

Day 1 of 37 days of Christmas Vacation....

This week was the last week of school. I'm now realizing that the only thing I regret about about this trip is having to say goodbye to 27 teary eyed children while they were asking me if they would ever see me again. Granted, they'd cry if they saw a pencil tip break, so we'll take the tears with a grain of salt. My tears, however, were embarrassing, but real. In order to explain why I was leaving England to go back to America (or at times, Australia and Africa, it's confusing), I showed them pictures of Charlottesville and my family explaining that I needed to go back because that's where they are. They were all really hung up by that boy standing next to me (my brother). I tried to leave them with a bit of America- gave them each a silly band, of which they all requested a different color and "more please," and a UVA pencil. I am amazed by how well these five year olds kept a secret - they each drew me a picture which they put into a huge book and no one told me! They had to keep the secret for five days - I don't think I could have done it....Friday was the last of the Christmas play. It seems like ours could have been a one class show. My children performed the dance moves of every other class, took on and off costumes (including regular articles of clothing) as they pleased, and sang while no one else was singing. During our song we have about 15 seconds of free dance, in rehearsals we had to really encourage them to actually dance, but when they saw that audience, they lost all inhibition. They did, however, remember that we told them no break-dancing. I am going to miss these children!

On Tuesday night, we went to the last formal dinner at Homerton College. At formal, they had finally opened and revealed a painting on the wall that has been curtained off the entire time we've been here! The dinner was candlelit, they had a beautiful Christmas tree, and there were poppers. The food was great, until we tried a traditional Christmas pudding, which was actually just really dry fruitcake with some white sauce drizzled on top...On Wednesday night we had a combined good bye and Christmas dinner with Helen and her husband, Ellie and Richard, and all of us. All of this is reminding me of Jim Carrey, "I hate goodbyes....shhh, just go."


Then, on Friday, Mom and Dad got here! We went to dinner at the Rock, then a quick walk around Cambridge and off to bed. On Saturday, I tried to show them as much of Cambridge as I could. It was actually a fairly warm, sunny day! We went to Homerton, where again, we saw the mysterious painting, to the Round Church, punting (Peyton and Caity - another Paul Bunyan sighting), to the Mitre for lunch, the Fitzwilliam after, then to the Prince Regent for some orange dark hot chocolate and the Oak Bistro for dinner. Exhausted after hours of walking, we came back to the B&B to talk to Katherine, Turner and Colin and then off to bed!

It's so exciting to be here at Christmas time! We'll be in Cambridge for the next two days, South England for three, London for three and then back to Charlottesville!

What language do you speak? Can't be English...

I still haven't really figured out where the children in my class think I'm from. I get Austria, Africa and Australia. We have an advent calender and each day the special person gets to find the day's date, read the name of the country and inside the flap is the greeting in that country. Today we read the Hebrew greeting, 'Shalom,' and then one of my students raised her hand and asked, where is your country's greeting? I told her that I speak English and her response was, "but you never use the right words."


This weekend we went to the Mill Rd Festival. We saw Father Christmas! And Tigger? There were stands filled with cakes, hot chocolate, mulled wine, and flowers, and the streets were filled with parades, stilts, and folk dances. Made the mistake of watching one folk dance for too long. Emily was chosen out of the crowd as the "Virgin Sacrifice." I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.



We have Christmas formal dinner tomorrow night at Homerton, Christmas play Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and then Mom and Dad are coming!

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful....

It's so cold! But, it's also been snowing! Apparently this is much colder than it usually is at this time of the year, but after buying some camping socks and finally seeing SNOW, I can't complain. We haven't had any snow days, but how could we when we have a Christmas play to plan! Somehow I ended up choreographing our class dance to Take That's Shine...let's just say my dancing skills are comparable to that of a typical five year old.


We are trying to check off every part of NY Times 36 hours in Cambridge to-do list. So, we went to the Fitzwilliam Art museum and while the Sussanian coin section was of little interest, the British, French, and Italian rooms were amazing. Then we went to Ellie's Russian symphony where we heard the world's youngest (not really) pianist whose Justin Beiber haircut bounced along with every note. On Sunday we finally went punting! Although it was negative degrees (still don't really understand what that means in celcius...) we bundled up with blankets that may or may not have stolen from another punt. Although soaking wet and tired from punting all day, our guides told us a lot about the colleges we were passing, 90% of which they said was true, 10% purely entertaining. Definitely enjoyed the 10% the most.

Then, we went to a Candlelit Carol Service! Because the students are leaving this week, the church essentially had an early Christmas Eve service for the students. Candlelit was an understatement. There were candles everywhere. Seriously. We sat in the balcony and there was teeny ledge with tons of candles on it. It felt like if we breathed too hard they'd fall and we'd burn the whole place down. Anywho, in spite of the fire hazard, and the speaker (I'm not going to go there, but there were children and he said something terrible about Santa) it was a beautiful service!


Yesterday was Emily's birthday!! We woke up to a beautiful, birthday-filled dining hall, with a cake on the breakfast table...had some more biscuits at class, went to dinner and then back to the B&B to eat cake with Pete! And because you asked, Katherine -


Apparently December 1 is the traditional first day of the Christmas season, it's snowing (!!!!) and we have dress rehearsal for the Christmas play tomorrow!!

Miss Turner! They aren't called tooth picks. That's silly, you don't pick your teeth with them...

She may not, but we Americans definitely do. Last week was Book Week at school, so not only did I get to see the new (and best so far) Harry Potter film, but I got to dress as a book character at school. Guess who I chose? Hint: not Ron or Harry...After being told that the large diet coke we ordered was probably a small in America, we went to the 10:45 showing and spent 2.5 hours glued to the screen.


On Sunday we went to "The Big Switch On," which is a very clever name for the night that they switch all the lights on. It was in the market square, we got to watch a parade, listen to some music, Michael Jackson made an appearance (too soon, too weird), and Santa Claus came!! It didn't hold a candle to the Lighting of the Lawn (pun intended), but it was fun to sing Christmas songs! Afterward we went to dinner with Peyton's parents at the Anchor. Spent the rest of the week in anticipation...


HAPPY TURKEY DAY! School on Thanksgiving? Weird. On Wednesday I led a school-wide assembly (200 children are more intimidating than they seem) about Thanksgiving and was surprised when I found out that almost none of the teachers even knew why we celebrate it. We acted out the story with pilgrim and indian hats and talked about what we have to be thankful for. Here's what some of the students at Cherry Hinton are thankful for:

- squash (3 of them said this until I realized I was holding up a picture of squash...whoops)
- hot dogs
- sausage
- cakes
(I may have emphasized the food aspect of the holiday a bit much...)
- Then, FINALLY, mum and dad
- my class (that was one of my students!)
- and my TEACHER (which could have been any of the 7 adults that work in our class, but I know who I'm pretending she was talking about...)


Then, on Thursday, we woke up to a beautiful spread as prepared by Pete: salmon and omlettes, sausage, ham, melon, tomatoes, oranges. After school, we headed over to Ellie and Richard's flat for a traditional thanksgiving dinner where we made stuffing, green beans and new potatoes (my contribution), sweet potato casserole, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, turkey, and....drumroll please....HELEN MADE US A PECAN PIE! Before we ate, we all said what we were thankful for- I think only about 5 out of 10 were actually crying... Then, after dinner we opened our poppers, wore our crowns, told our jokes, and enjoyed our party favors. Still trying to work out what I'll be doing with my new cuff links...


This weekend we are going to Ellie's City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra concert, ICE SKATING AT PARKER'S PIECE, and may be Christmas Caroling on Sunday...It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Football, Formal, Food and fLondon (?)

After a long walk and a lot of persuading that we were actually students, we went to the Cambridge United vs. Huddersfield Town football game. The game was naught to naught and after watching Cambridge United fumble around with the ball for two hours, it was a relief that the game (match?) didn't go into overtime. It was only after the game started that we figured out why both teams were separated- in the midst of cheers about Barry Fry, boys no older than eight were shouting, "sit down, shut up, sit down, shut up." Almost reminded me of Katherine at Richmond Basketball games.....After the game we went to a frisbee social themed tight and bright - we played musical chairs, mingle and mix and a late night frisbee game!

Then, we did something that actually seemed like it was straight out of Harry Potter (you're welcome, Hannah) - on Sunday, we went to formal dinner at Downing College and then Tuesday to one at Homerton. Most of the colleges have formal dinner once a week. The dress is formal (just to be clear) and, for students, dress robes are required. The tables are arranged so that the students are together on one level and the professors sit on a raised platform. The story we've been told (which I'm obviously choosing to believe) is that the dining hall at Homerton was looked at to be the one in Harry Potter, but the college refused to take down a huge painting and the movie was forced to move....it's possible. At Downing a choir sang the blessing and at Homerton the Head entered last, blessed the food and we ate. Again, we had to convince someone to let us in - we don't have access to a printer (not to mention the fact that I had forgotten to sign up on time) so we came with no tickets and a pictureless/nameless ID card, but somehow worked our way in. Both dinners were really fun, and we are hoping to go back to Homerton's before we leave! The next night, three of us went to our weekly dinner with Ellie and Richard and actually ended up sitting at the same booth where Watson and Crick (** Rosalind Franklin **) worked their magic with DNA.

Then,I got my first visitor from home! Mark came to Cambridge and after exploring Homerton and the City Centre we went to London for the first time this whole trip! We took the coach to London on Saturday, went straight to a Jack the Ripper tour (surprisingly enough, it didn't give me nightmares), explored the city a bit and then went on the London Eye at night, which was gorgeous. We saw Big Ben, Parliament, the house that the Prime Minister lives in, and a poor museum guard being taunted by tourists. Wasn't lost the entire time - until Mark left - and then, of course, I discovered that there are two Victoria "Coach" Stations and that I was at the wrong one. Missed my bus, but managed to get to the right station, buy tickets for the next bus and made a friend or two along the way.

Side note: not only does England not have Splenda, but the Starbucks here don't have the pumpkin spice latte...I did get my first red cup of the season though! And am now listening to Christmas Music while I write a Thanksgiving lesson plan....