La Belle Vie Française

For my half-term break, or basically the first of the two "spring" breaks the schools here have, I was able to escape the grey, drab life of the UK. I jet-setted almost directly south to the lovely city of Bordeaux, the 7th largest city in France. It has a population roughly twice the size of Madison, but with much narrower (and somewhat claustrophobic) streets and lovelier architecture. I was told by many that it had rained for three weeks before I arrived, but the entire week I was in France the weather was mild (50-60 degrees) with mostly brilliant blue, and sunny skies.

Bordeaux Train Station

I got there on Friday, got settled in, and then on Saturday morning my friend Nick, who I was visiting there, and I hopped on a train to travel two hours south to visit the Basque Country. I didn't know anything really about the Basque Country before my trip, but the majority of it lies in northern Spain, with a smaller area in southwestern France. We went to three of the biggest cities in the French region; Bayonne, Biarritz, and St. Jean-de-Luz. All of the towns were very beautiful, but the best part was that each one had its own distinct feel about it. Bayonne is situated on the river Ardour, and had a lovely old-world charm about it.

One side of Bayonne as seen from one of the bridges

Bayonne at Night

Biarritz was rather commercial but is right on the ocean, complete with a few random rock formations that people can venture out onto to get a spectacular view of not only the Biarritz coastline, but also the Pyrenees Mountains in the not so far off distance.

Tiny little park on an island in Biarritz

Pyrenees very faintly in the distance

 St. Jean-de-Luz also had beach-front territory, but more so in the form of a lovely crescent bay. We found an excellent viewing spot on one edge of the bay, and sitting there taking in the scenery was one of the best parts of the trip. Of course, with the others being exploring the local churches, shops, and restaurants.

One slice of the bay with the Pyrenees right behind...

We also took a short day-trip to the quaint wine-making town on Saint Emilion, which was a mere 30 minute train ride from town. This was quite possibly my favorite part of the week I spent in France, and most of it was simply putzing around this tiny, quiet village, along with wine tasting/drinking (of course), a nice cheese plate, and a lovely tabby we decided to name Percy who kept us company whilst doing so. The weather couldn't have been more perfect; it was the kind of day you just have to savour as slowly as possible.

Saint Emilion as seen from the top of the 13th century "Tour du Roy"

Percy - my new best friend (I miss my cats!)

The rest of the week I spent in Bordeaux I wandered about mostly aimlessly, which is my favorite thing to do when the weather is cooperating. I saw abit of the Musee-des-Beaux Artes, a few relatively impressive shopping areas, and of course lovely various structures throughout the city.

I shall label these later, but in conclusion, France was most excellent and I cannot wait to go back with Elizabeth. I was able to rely on having a friend who is fluent, but when Elizabeth and I go it's pretty much all on me, so I am practicing!

Salut!

Odds and Ends

After my last post I didn't do much outside of teaching, visit London again, and a few interesting odds and ends involving school. We went to another seaside village called Selsey on a field trip to learn about the lifeboat (coast-guarding) program they have there, which is one of many throughout the country. I was surprised to find that the national program is run entirely by donations, with no help from the government. The day was very blustery, indeed, but sunny and a nice break from the classroom. The kids mostly behaved themselves and were of course excited by the harrowing tales of rescue from the volunteers, but even more so by the treats and assorted "crap" (because that's what it all really is, let's be honest) that they could buy from the gift shop. It was much more enjoyable than the net-ball tournament that I helped out at, where I mostly stood freezing my butt off and attempting to take good action shots with my frozen, numb hands. It was fun to see the kids play this game though - it is like basketball without dribbling and backboards. They did get 2nd place, too!

Selsey Beach & Pier

During my second weekend in London, the weather was atrocious, but I managed to find some interesting things to do nonetheless. On Saturday, I was able to join a tour with Jon that was specifically for the UW students there, but the tour guide was a gem and let me come along! She was lovely, and really knew her stuff. We started in one neighborhood I can't remember the name of (fail) and saw some buildings with famous associations, as it is an affluent area. We then ended up in "Little Venice," which is more or less a canal. It was a pretty area though, and we got to take a 40 minute journey on one of the canal boats over to Camden town, which has a huge open-air market. It's also interesting to note that there were many houseboats on the sides of the canal in which people actually lived, and the boats are allowed to be no larger than something like 6ft across. Talk about cramped quarters. But back to Camden Town; it was freezing and drizzly, but we tried to make the best of it. Jon was able to use his high-tech iPhone to find us this nice little Japanese restaurant where we had hotpot, which is more or less the Asian (and much better) equivalent to fondue. It was so tasty. I even found that I loved the flavor of this weird black stuff which I later determined to be a type of seaweed that OF COURSE doesn't have any solid health benefits, it just tastes delicious, and is somewhat of a known carcinogen. Damn sea plants. After warming up with some food and tea we went to check out the market place which had a huge variety of goods, including many vintage stores. I went in search of some Shelley Pottery (my family is directly descended from the owners of this famous English pottery company) but I had no luck. It was still interesting to putz around and see everything that was up for offer. Lots of delicious smelling, greasy street food was available as well.

Canal at "Little Venice"

 On Sunday, I attempted to go to a contemporary art gallery but once I finally trekked all the way there I found it to be closed for a private event. How rude. That night before I left to come back to Falpham, we went down to see the festivities for the Chinese New Year. It was cool to witness, but the freezing cold and drizzling rain drowned out most of the enjoyment. One of the big draws to it was the fireworks at the end, which ended up being about 2 disappointing minutes long. Oh well. In terms of the weather, I have found that although it may be a solid 30 degrees warmer here than back home, the more constant sunlight at home makes up for the lack of temperature.

That day I also figured out that my boots are indeed not waterproof. And I still have yet to invest in those Wellies...

Crowd at Chinese New Year celebration in Trafalgar Square

Next time, my adventures in France! Complete with much better weather and scenic beaches.

Cheers to changing positions of latitude in the world.

AKA almost every day on the Big Island

A Brief Visit to London

I am officially very envious of the rail systems in Europe, and so far I’ve only seen two of them. I took a Southern Railways train into London for the very lovely price of 11.50 pounds, or a little under $20. And then I took the Underground to the neighborhood that my friend I was staying with lives in. Having taken the subways in Montreal and Toronto, which are very straightforward granted much smaller, I was not expecting to get lost the five or six times I did on the 15 minute way there. The maps are really misleading… WHY IN GOD’S NAME is there a green line going to my destination when the stupid train doesn’t actually go anywhere near there?!?!? Relatively. Needless to say I finally arrived at my destination. Friday night was much like the rest of the weekend, unplanned, relaxing, and fun. Usually I’m quite particular when it comes to planning out my travels, but I knew that I would be going back a few times more anyways and did not have much energy from the first two weeks of teaching anyways. We went to a few pubs and then I was able to meet up with some friends from Lawrence who live only a few blocks from my friend Jon that I was staying with! Brilliant. I went to my first pub and had a blackberry cider that was quite tasty indeed, although no one else agreed with me. Womp wooomp. Saturday, Jon took me across the road to Kensington Gardens and we visited the palace. Had tea and chocolate cake. Lovely.

A cool fabric installation inside the Palace

The “gardens” were quite dead, as I had expected but nonetheless I still have hope that by the time Elizabeth and I are in London together things will be more colorful.

Part of Kensington Gardens, or what I would seasonally call a "reflection pool"

 We also went grocery shopping, which is always fun in other countries, and then I cooked a lovely eggplant pasta dish for our dinner using the food we bought! Big ups to Jamie Oliver! And smoked salmon. And fresh mozzarella. We then headed to the City of London, which is apparently a specific area inside of the modern city of London, who knew? Maybe everyone but me. We went to see a play by Anton Chekov called Uncle Vanya. I had my doubts about Russian humor but there were a lot jokes involving vodka and such so it proved to be quite entertaining! Haha. Afterwards we went to a nice pub near Piccadilly Circus, and then trekked what felt like all the way across the city to find a nightclub tucked away very stealthily. It was actually massive inside, and the cover charge unfortunately reflected that. But I am a firm believer in trying everything once! For the experience. Otherwise how will you really know what you enjoy and what you don’t? It was mostly just the music that I wasn’t a huge fan of, what they call “house” music and is basically just a bunch of beats that all sounds eerily alike. I really regret saying this, but it for sure made me miss even the DJ’s at Madison’s who play much of the Top 40. First world problems, I suppose. 

A muddled panoramic shot of Piccadilly Circus

 On Sunday, we went out for a nice lunch and then fit in a bit of shopping before I had to head back to Sussex on the train.  One other nice thing about riding around on (above ground) public transportation in London, i.e. the buses, is that you get a nice tour of the sights while doing so. Of course I didn't always know what I was looking at but eventually someone would explain it to me. 

Queen Elizabeth Gate, Hyde Park

Marble Arch

Prince Albert Memorial, Kensington Gardens

 We went to a nicer area to shop, and we ended up at this large store called Selfridge's. Which was funny to happen upon because one of the first tv programs I saw when I got here is called Mr. Selfirdge's, in which Jeremy Piven plays the American man who started the upscale department store in London back in the day. Nowadays it is more of a co-mingling of expensive boutique stores, and I especially appreciated the extensive chocolate selection :)

My new life motto (that I have spent the past few years developing), in case anyone was wondering:

Bognor Regis (Finally) Actually

The entire time since I was given my placement, until I got here last weekend, I believed that I would in fact be living in a town called Bognor Regis. I shortly learned that my host family and the school I work at technically reside in a village named Felpham (pronounced Fel-fam by the locals). It takes about 45 minutes to walk from my house into the town center of Bognor Regis, so I made the trek this past Sunday. It was a lovely day for a walk, sunny with a very light snowfall. On the way to the town center, I made sure to take some photos of the more interesting local buildings. It is easiest to walk along the "pram" or promenade along the beach, and more scenic.

Kitschy lamps posts and pastel beach bungalows

Just a block or two in from the promenade is a thatched-roof cottage which the famous English poet William Blake once resided in! I'm still not sure yet what is on the inside or if you can even go in, but it's fun to see from the outside too. I just love that there are legit thatched roof houses here. So quaint!

William Blake's cottage

Good Ol' Billy Blake

  Apparently, Blake moved here in 1800 to work on illustrations for a book by a different poet. I had forgotten he was also a painter, but I can't say I'm a huge fan of his mostly Romantic period artworks. They're worth a Google, though. And just look at that face. What a babe, right? Ha..ha... There is a pub called "The Fox" across the street where he was also once arrested. Woo!! I will definitely have to give that place a visit. The next interesting building I came across was the very, very old church in town. Not as impressive as the Chichester Cathedral, but it definitely gives the village more old-timey charm. Once the weather is better, I will be going back to all these places to take better pictures with my good camera and to try and explore more.

Norman Church in Felpham: St. Mary's

And FINALLY, we get to actual Bognor Regis. There is a very large resort called Butlin's that is right at the beginning of the town limits. This picture is taken facing towards the sea. I'm not really quite sure what is under those funky white tens, but I'm determined to find out some day. They also make navigating my way to town a little bit easier :)

Butlin's Resort, Bognor Regis, UK

 After that, I finally made it into town to get my cell phone figured out and do a bit of shopping, although I failed to realized everything here closes at FOUR on Sundays and therefore couldn't get too much taken care of. Must plan ahead better, next time. I was very impresed by the amount and variety of stores, even on the one street I got to. I went back today because my new favorite clothing retailer was having a 20% off for students night. Definitely cannot escape consumerism here. This weekend I am off to have a few adventures in London! It's supposed to be 40-ish degrees and sunny, so I'm quite looking forward to it.

Shopping and Castles

Today marked my first full week of being in England. It snowed quite a bit for the UK (3-5 inches) yesterday and has been bitterly cold ever since, thanks to the wind. My host parents wanted to take me over to Portsmouth, which almost every person here so far has told me I need to visit, but we were very unsure of how the roads would be. They ended up being in good condition, but we opted for going to two smaller towns nearby instead.

We first stopped by one of the local supermarkets and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they have more vegetarian cuisine hear than I can find back at home. Brilliant! I'm also developing a slight addiction to Kinder chocolate, and am determined to try as many different types of cider as possible while in England.

After leaving the supermarket, we drove for about five minutes before turning a bit to the left and coming upon a small town called Arundel, complete with it's very own castle! Aptly named, Arundel Castle. We drove up to the portcullis to get a bit of a closer look, and then through the town which lies mainly on a hill, with many steeply sloping roads lined with little shops and cafes. Sue promised we would come back and walk through town on a nicer day.

A blurry view of Arundel Castle from the car

We proceeded to Chichester, which was another five or ten minutes away. We stopped in quite a few clothing stores, and I was very proud of myself for not buying anything :) I did find a lovely new water bottle (forgot to bring one with me) and a funny card that I had to get. There was this "market cross" at the top of one of the main streets, with four streets jutting out from it in every direction, which I was instructed all pointed either due north, south, east or west. They were so many different shops I couldn't believe it! Some I have heard of, like Crabtree&Evelyn, but many others that were very new and exciting. We had afternoon tea (and cake!) at a really nice "brasserie" that is owned by one of Britain's favorite chefs, Raymond Blanc. It was lovely. I will definitely be returning to both of these places before I leave! I still have to explore the interior of the lovely Chichester Cathedral.

Chichester Market Cross

Chichester Cathedral

Tom-ay-to, To-mah-to*

I have just finished up my fourth day of student teaching at Downview Primary School. British kids are so freakin' adorable. Especially the really little ones. They also have the best manners. Well, especially compared to American kids, as a whole. Of course, many of them still act out and misbehave from time to time, but they listen quite a bit better. Or so it would seem. Perhaps it is just their endearing British accents. All I know is, today a five year old made his introduction with me and I just melted. I am currently, and possibly most of the time, going to be working with one of the "Year 4" classes (the U.S. equivalent of third grade). The kids in my class are great, and I am so proud of myself because I have almost learned all of their names already! I haven't really done much teaching per se, but yesterday I did get to help out with Year 3 art. They were making aboriginal dot paintings and I was very impressed by how excellent some of them turned out. The sad part of my day was before we started painting, I got to tell the students a little about America and Wisconsin, and then they were allowed to ask me questions. Well that wasn't the sad part, that was kind of fun. Some of them wanted to know what kind of animals there are in WI, and I realized it's quite similar to the wildlife here but with different species. That's also not the sad part. One little boy raised his hand and asked me, "Why are there so many gun noises in America?" I think I panicked because I can't really remember what I responded with, other than mumbling something about the popularity of deer-hunting in Wisconsin. And then I realized that these kids were more or less the exact same age as the 26 killed in Newtown, CT. I heard they are naming a new school after Victoria Soto and it makes me very happy to know that she will be honored. I do hope those gun laws get passed.

On a lighter note, maybe, another student later asked me, "Why do Americans know everything?" From the previous storyline, it's quite obvious that we don't.

*The title of this blog post is brought to you by the very sassy 8-year old who has all week relentlessly made fun of how I pronounce tomato.

Planes, Trains, and Freakin' Automobiles!

I have arrived! After many long hours of travel, my host parents picked me up from the train station, and after a short drive, we pulled up to a lovely brownstone house that is about 300 yards from the oceanfront! My place of living for the next 10 weeks. The neighbors have palm trees in their front yard, how bizarre and lovely. But more about that later. After a slight "miscommunication" at the Manchester airport, my large suitcase has gone m.i.a. Well, the airline has it, in fact, but it is currently coming to the house via some delivery service. Thank goodness it will be here soon!

The Manchester airport was nice, but a bit confusing. I didn't know the gate of my flight until ten minutes before we were supposed to leave, but it in fact ended up being not ten feet out of the "lounge" area and all the shops/restaurants. There was a large area with duty-free merchandise that more or less sold liquor and perfume. I wonder what that says about tourists... Any who, the flight was relatively non-eventful. The plane was just as big as the plane I came on from Chicago, except it was probably only about one-fourth of the way full!! I thought that was quite interesting, as I've never seen such an empty flight in the US. I was very happy to have a window seat, but then rather disappointed because we were above clouds the whole way which blocked my view from all of the scenery. Oh well. The bit I could see, I noticed, had a much more varying and odd-shaped patchwork of fields compared the the rectangular farm fields in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Aerial view of just outside Manchester

I got the bad news about my luggage not long after my arrival at Gatwick, but trekked onward to locate the train station. I must say, I love trains. I can't believe we don't have more passenger trains in the US. I suppose we are trying, but certain politicians have other agendas. I missed my first train because I thought it was a different train but in fact it was just my trian being early! So I caught the next one that was about half an hour later and met a nice local from Dorking who tried to help me work my cell phone. That is still a work in progress. The train ride itself was about half an hour, and I saw some nice fields full of sheep and small towns on the way in. It was also pretty affordable, my one-way ticket was about $20, but of course if you buy a return as well there is a discount. I will be looking into the train more as I hope to take it into London at least a few times on the weekends. The Bognor Regis station is only about a 10-minute walk away, which is excellent.

Time to research the train and whatnot. Cheers to public transportation!