My first celebrity sighting in England!

So, I was walking down the street on my way to an Evensong (formal chapel service), and I stop at a light. I then hear someone talking behind me and realize that I recognize her voice!!! I turned around, and there was Susan from Narnia!! I did a double take, and then felt bad that I was sort of staring, so I made an effort not to look at her. We both crossed the street and were walking side by side for a block or two before she crossed the street! So cool! Turns out she is a student at one of the colleges here in Oxford.

Evensong at New College (the college we are working with) was amazing. It was being tapped today for BBC radio, so everything was particularly formal today. They have a very famous boys choir, and they were AMAZING! I wish could have taken pictures of the chapel itself because it was one of the most incredible rooms I've ever seen. I might be able to go back later and take pictures.

I hit a wall

This is Christ church, which actually is a University.

So, I guess I knew ahead of time that his would happen, but I didn't really think it would happen so fast! I hit a wall. The thrills of a new country have faded and I'm starting to miss the good old US of A! My sound machine died last night (which I CANNOT sleep without, so I'm very tired. I'm not used to being around children 24/7, so their charm has worn off. I'm tired of taking baths, eating strange food, not having access to American TV, having to grocery shop every single day and walking absolutely everywhere. I'm feeling a little better now, but it was kind of a rough morning! I think it was a momentary lapse/breakdown, and hopefully my frustrations will continue to fade.

I went to my first ESL class today. I didn't do much "teaching," but basically observed other students teaching. I'll do more next week. It went better than I thought it would. 3 hours is a really long time for beginner students, but they hung in there.

Church in England

Yesterday I did some shopping at a famous book store in town, Blackwell, and did some more grocery shopping. I have to get used to shopping every other day for groceries. Nothing is in bulk; they don't even offer gallons of milk. Everything has to be carried the 3/4 of a mile back to our flat. I saw someone today load their groceries in a rolling suitcase. I might try that next.

I haven't bought much yet, but I found a sweatshirt on clerance for 3 pounds that I liked. It's a great color and it fit me really well. I didn't pay much attention to the wording until I got home and realized it said "New York City" on it. Sigh....I swear I'm actually in England. I did not secretly go to New York this summer instead.

We went to church this morning. The service was similar, but with some obvious differences. First, children are given musical instruments to "play" during the singing, but really, it's just loud noise when they are all shaking tamborines and banging drums! The songs were familiar, but most of them were sung to different tunes. The funniest thing was when we sang a song put to the tune of "The bare necessities" from The Jungle Book. It was really cute but hard not to laugh! After the service everyone hung out and ate digestive buiscuts (a BIG thing around here), and of course drank tea. They also served a weak lemonade that they called squash. Then everyone rode their bike home from church. We of course, just have to walk everywhere.

Everyone else is taking a nap now. I'm tired, but I won't sleep tonight if I try to rest now. I should be doing my homework! I have two classes soon after I get home, and I'm trying to get started with my reading ahead of time.

First real day out and about

Yesterday I spent the entire day inside the flat, and I babysat the boys for the first time. Today we went to the Museum of Natural History. I love that museums around here are free. There were thousands of stuffed animals and bones. I took a few pictures and put them on facebook. The Internet is so bad here that I'm not going to take the time to put them both places. I think anyone reading this is friends on facebook too, so you can see the majority of pictures there. Some of the highlights at the museum were the T-rex, an ostrich, and a dodo bird skeleton. I also experienced my first public toilet, as they call it. It was free, which was nice, and it's more like a room than a stall like we have here. You have to hold the handle down to make it flush, and when you think you have enough water in the bowl you let go. It seems potentially disastrous! They also had a room full of artifacts from all over the world; tons of pottery, musical instruments, etc. They also had shrunken heads, which made me think of Harry Potter (a true fan knows why). There were cases of torture devises and the skulls of those who had been tortured. Lovely. Truly lovely. They had costumes from all over the world, including Eskimos, native Americans, etc. There were lots of things you could touch, including a whale's jaw bone, a stuffed cheetah, a stuffed pony, stuff owls and polished rocks of all shapes and sizes. I was amazed at the size of alligators and sea turtles; I don't think I've ever seen either up close. I'm slowly starting to learn my way around town, and I think pretty soon I'll venture out on my own and spend time taking pictures.

First trip out

I walked to a mall yesterday, located almost a mile from my flat. It was very small compared to a US mall; perhaps 20 stores, but it had a variety of things, including their version of a department stores and the grocery store! I'm quickly learning that you can't buy much at one time because you have to carry everything with you! This was true when I was in Chicago, but I never had to buy all my groceries there. I saw my first red telephone booth, and I wanted very much to get my picture taken in it, but it was very crowded on that side of the street. I'm very reluctant to look like a tourist; I want to blend in, but maybe that's just impossible. The family that I'm with speak Spanish all the time, so maybe people will think we're from Spain.

The grocery store was VERY crowded!! It was hard to navigate and try to figure out the best deals. One interesting thing is that you can buy milk in boxes over here, and because of the way it's pasteurized, you don't have to refrigerate it until you open it! I wish we had that in the States so I could stock up when it's one sale! I made the mistake of not paying any attention to the different coins here, so when I had to pay I looked like an idiot, staring at each coin trying to give the cashier exact change. After I paid the cashier tried to tell me something, and for the life of me I couldn't understand a thing she was saying! I asked her to repeat twice, but she eventually gave up. Apparently I'm supposed to bag my own groceries, but since I couldn't understand her see just bagged them herself.

The public library is right next to the mall, but we didn't go in because we were carrying a lot of heavy bags all the way back to the flat. I'm very excited to tour New College, the school we are working with, but I'm not sure when that will happen. On Saturday we get to tour a castle that's right in the middle of downtown Oxford.

No London or top sheet

Sorry some of these are sideways....still getting the hang of this, and it takes about 5 minutes to download each picture, so when I get back in the State's maybe I'll fix it. Anyway, here is my strange shower contraption that doesn't work very well!

My room.

View from my bedroom window

Another view from my window.

Ok....so here's the full story. We got to the airport in GR just fine, but when we were going through security I realized I accidentally packed a shampoo bottle in my carry on, so I went back to the ticket counter, they found my bag, and I slipped it in. I had to go through security again, but I made it in plenty of time to get on the plane. That short plane ride was really fun. It was the first time the boys had flown and it was great to experience it through their eyes. When we got to Detroit we found our next gate and discovered they were going to board us a full hour and 15 minutes early, but that we were going to leave 20 minutes late because of strong tail winds. So, we sat on the plane for over an hour before we left. When we got in the air we discovered that our individual tvs did not work, and we were sooo sad! Eventually they did get them to work some of the time. We were served dinner a few hours into the flight. I'm so impatient when I eat and I was starving, so I foolishly took a huge bite of potato and burned the roof of my mouth. It was hard to eat anything else the whole flight. About half way through the flight, when we were out in the middle of the ocean, we suddenly turned around and started heading back the other direction! We eventually found out that a man on the plane had a medical emergency, and Newfoundland was a little closer than London. So...we flew 2 hours in the wrong direction. We sat on the ground for an hour and a half and then flew 4 and a half hours to London. Around the time we were in Newfoundland I started to feel very sick, so I was pretty frustrated that we were going to be on the plane 5 hours longer than planned. My seat was broken so it wouldn't tilt back, and I was terribly uncomfortable. I didn't sleep a wink all night! We fiiiiiinally arrived in London and had to take two trains and a bus to get to Oxford. I developed very strong nausea on the bus ride that has not gone away, 20 hours later. I hardly slept at all last night because I felt so sick. Today was our only day to go to London, but unfortunately, everyone went without me. The trip hasn't all been bad; I'm still somewhat excited to be here. All I can think about is how sick I feel and worry I'll never feel normal again, but I'm hoping and praying I can get over this jet lag soon. I'm on antibiotics for the infection I had for a week before I got here. I still feel very sick from that, but hopefully that will go away too! Sorry for the length and the not so great report. I'm sure I'll have better things to say about jolly old England when I don't feel like throwing up!

It's been interesting to experience all the differences here in the small things. My shower was a bit of a disaster; I didn't get the hang of it right away and made Lake Erie on the bathroom floor. Apparently they don't use top sheets in England, so it was strange to sleep with just a comforter. I like my room, but I couldn't get my converter to work, so I couldn't plug in my noise machine and I could hear every little creak and moan of the building, so today I'm getting batteries for it. I've tried to download some pictures, and I'll try again now, but my Internet here isn't the best.

I'm on a bus on my way to Oxford!

So....I just typed up this huge description of my trip here and it deleted....twice! So.... I'm giving up for now since this isn't a good connection. The short version is that it was really rough...huge delays, I was sick, etc. I'm thrilled to be here, however, and am trying to soak it all in. Lots more details to come.