Confessions Of An Australian Teacher In London

15 mins ago we left barking,

now we are approaching the city I’m laughing,

I want to hit a restaurant first coz I’m starving,

Eat well for the start of emptying glasses,

This is London city!

- London City, Devlin!

“Pardon” I say politely.

(Incoherent speaking)

“Sorry, one more time for me” I whisper slightly embarrassed.

“La bla de fo de oye…ya’ kno’wha’ I mean?”

“Can some one please tell me what she is saying”, I ask desperately.

“She wants to know if we need to write this down Sir” Student informs me!

“Right, you want to act like a kindergarten student, you can sit in the corner and face the wall like a kindergarten student.”

“Mr S, what is a kindergarten student?”  I hear a Student ask.

“I think he means reception” another Student remarks.

“Teacher, are you from France?”

“How do you say goodbye in Australian?”

“What language do they speak in Australia?”

“Was it hard for you to learn English?”

#ConfessionsofanAustralianTeacherinLondon!

I have now been in London 23 days that really has flown by so quickly!!! I am officially counted down to my Contiki with Benny Boy in April (which is only 8 weeks away!!)

London is old! I mean really, really, really old! Every street has its own history and story. One of my posting this week was in Stepney Green where I stumbled across this beautiful, historic church.

The Parish church of St. Dustan.

The church houses the Stepney bell from the Orange and Lemon’s nursery rhyme:

"Oranges and lemons" say the bells of St. Clement's


"You owe me five farthings" say the bells of St. Martin's


"When will you pay me?" say the bells of Old Bailey


"When I grow rich" say the bells of Shoreditch


"When will that be?" say the bells of Stepney


"I do not know" say the great bells of Bow


"Here comes a candle to light you to bed
,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head, 


Chip chop chip chop - the last man's dead."

When you are not surrounded with history it is London culture: cafes and pubs every second step, theatre, art, music…

Graffiti art wall is in Soho!

China Town in Piccadilly.

And food, did I talk about food! This week’s hits!

I tried a delicious, traditional English bread pudding!

A delicious Bounty ice cream! 

A peanut butter KitKat

And A hot, chilli, potato with cheese is PERFECT for the freezing cold weather here!

And talking about FREEZING, COLD weather…

 

…it snowed!!! Surprisingly, I quite liked the snow; the white was much more aesthetically pleasing than the grey, dark skies and it also made the cold make sense! 
So with my many layers of thermals, long pants, 2 long sleave shirts, a jumper, a coat, a beanie and a scarf I braved outdoors…

I was inspired by a ‘Things that make us wonder?’ wall in one of the schools I visited.

The students write questions they have on it and the teacher chooses one each day for them to explore! This school has actually turned out to be my favourites to work at and thankfully they seem to like me too and I have been getting lots of work from them lately!

 

I am also getting quite used to the tube! And though I would not say I have mastered the art of it yet, I would deffers say I am on my way! Just look at these photos I took, I think they scream, “I’ve been here before, this is nothing new!”

PO Boxing my love to you all,

Joey!!!

British Museum Part I

And the moment you let go

                                                       The faster the time goes

The darker the night is

The lighter the moon glows

- Good Old Days - P!NK

This week I decided to make a start on the British Museum!!! In five hours I got through three exhibits. I have no idea how tourists get a chance to fit everything in!!!

The second I entered this gigantic, buzzing building, I knew where I was heading – Ancient Egypt! 

How I went from this to being in a room full of Ancient Egyptian Treasures I can’t quite comprehend! 

The Ancient Egypt exhibit is such an amazing and fascinating display. I was in awe the whole time. Being so close to artefacts that date back over three thousand years ago. Thinking that real men carved these statues and hieroglyphics in around 2 200B.C and now I am able to look on and see it. AGH! I could write about it forever instead I will just show you some pictures! 

Check out those hieroglyphics!

This was a little emotional for me (can you tell by my facial expression) - I have a mini-sized version of this exact statue in my collection and here was the original!!!! It was breathe taking!  

If I had my outfit I would have blended in…right? 

I thought seeing the mummified bodies would be AMAZING  - and it was for like five minutes - then I realised these were real peoples dead bodies I was gawking at. All of a sudden it felt quite morbid! I still looked but I stoped taking photos…that’s respectful isn’t it?!?!

ENTER ANCIENT GREECE…

This display was also very, very cool and got me heaps excited for my travels to Greece with Tamara in July and Mum and Tony in August. The Greek artefacts were not is good condition like the Egyptian ones and it was hard to find a statue that had a head!

The statue of Aphrodite had a head…

…she just didn’t have a top on! (As you can tell unlike the mummies I had no problem gawking at this one.)

After seeing so many bodies with no heads I found a head with no body…so we took a selfie!

I took him a few tries but I think he really mastered the art of it!!!!

If like me you didn't get enough last week, here are some more pictures of black people dancing!!!!

This traditional African choir were performing to celebrate the new exhibition for the Sowei mask:
spirit of Sierra Leone! They were pretty awesome!

After the performance I went to the African exhibition!

The Throne of Weapons was created by a Mozambican artist, Cristovao Canhavato, from weapons collected since the end of the civil war in 1992.

The Tree of Life is also made from decommissioned weapons. Canhavato teamed up with three other Mozambican artists to transform ‘Arms into Tools”.

My wonderful day at the British Museum ended with a beautiful Turkish feast that I just had to share with you! So YUM!!!!

Chicken Shish Yogurtlu, Bread, Salad and Mixed Olives! 

                                                               Pistachio Baklava 

Continued prayer for finding accommodation and a great Church and Church family would be much appreciated!

As always I’m sending all my inappropriate love your way,

Joey!!!!