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!!!