Helloooo :)

Finally got some sleep after our long night in the Dublin Airport... and a shower, thank the Lord!  The next day at breakfast, we met with our class and professor and had to tell the story of what happened to us… telling them how we all were running frantically through the airport, sweating to find people to help us, and crying thinking that we would never make it back to Liverpool and get deported by Dr. P!  Thankfully, we didn’t get deported and we’re still here at school!  Dr. P was super understanding and was glad that we all were back and safe!

However, since we missed the lesson on Monday, Dr. P thought it’d only be fair if our group led the next discussion with the class for today’s seminar, which I thought was a more than fair trade!  Our seminars have been over reading and writing in the classroom and different strategies to use with students.  Surprisingly, I’m actually really interested in the topic, which makes class a lot more fun and interesting!

Yesterday I did laundry for the first time here with Holly.  We were so confused on how to use the machines… but we figured it out and hung out in the janky laundry room while our laundry was finished.  Hopefully I won’t have to do laundry too much while I’m here… so I bought some Febreeze to help that situation ;) Nothing wrong with a few wears and sprays of Febreeze to save a little time and money!

Besides from the large amounts of walking on the weekends and through City Centre, I have had zero attempts to work out here, so for the first time today, Holly and I decided to go for a run together around the city.  We didn’t go too far, but are hoping to build our stamina up again and get into the habit of working out!  Also, remind me to never eat a trillion starbursts before running… I brought bags of candy to give my students at the end of the summer and I broke open the bag today to have a “few” because they’ve been sitting in my room since I’ve been here just eying me down!  Those “few” turned into about half the bag, which gave me a sugar high, which I thought was going to cause me to throw up a rainbow during our run today.  Remind me to never do that again.  Ooopss! :)

After the run was dinner and then the library to do our assignment for class that’s due Friday and to print off some confirmation papers for or next travel weekend!  We’re going to London this Monday, Berlin Wed-Friday, Amsterdam Friday-Sat, and then back to Liverpool!  Looks like I better brush up on my highschool German skills... it sure has been a while!

Tomorrow I have to wake up early for breakfast and to visit my Foundations classroom for the day.  So excited to see my adorable students again!  Then a group of us are thinking about going to City Centre to see Hangover 2! Another busy, but exciting week ahead… and 2 weeks down. Crayyyzay how fast time is flying by!

I love and miss everyone at home! Only 45 more days left here until I’m back in the States!

xoxoxoxoxoxo

The Luck of the Irish...

What an eventful weekend… to  say the least!  We left for our flight Thursday and arrived in Dublin with no problems.  We found our awesome hostel, which was located right next door to the pub we heard we had to go to.  We had so much fun our first night out!  The pub was just how I imagined—a live band was playing Irish music and people were Irish dancing all around.  The atmosphere was completely different from the US and England. 

The next day we walked to the Guinness Storehouse Factory, which was pretty interesting, and also was the first time I tried Guinness… and all I have to say is I am not a fan lol.  We also got a chance to trace our family name at the factory and I typed in Fitzsimmons, the family name before America.  A lady by the name of Lillian, married to a man named David Alexander Fitzsimmons… any relation?  I don’t know… I’ll have to ask my grandparents.  After the tour, I got my Dad some cool things from the shop I thought he’d like, so it was a successful trip.

That night we headed to the bed & breakfast in Wicklow.  We all were exhausted and poor Ryan stayed awake on the bus to make sure we’d get off at the right stop for our B&B host to pick us up.  The scenery was BEAUTIFUL!  There were so many shades of blues and greens and yellows and so many hills I thought I was in a movie!  We arrived to the B&B and our met our adorable host who treated us so nicely through the time of our stay—she especially liked Ryan!  She made us a full Irish breakfast each morning and it was delicious—minus the black and white pudding, which is a type of sausage made by cooking blood or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled.  Sounds reallyyyyy gross but wasn’t THAT bad to be completely honest.

The first night at the B&B we all stayed in and watched Friends on TV together.  It’s been a week since we’ve all watched TV since there aren’t any in our dorm rooms here, so we were happy to have a little entertainment besides our computers for a change!  The next day we decided to take a walk to enjoy the scenery and visit the nearest town to eat some lunch.  Our host told us it’d be a 40 minute walk, which we thought would be a nice little walk with great scenery; however, it started to RAIN!  We walked about 45 minutes in the rain… umbrellas and hair flying everywhere.  We saw another B&B ahead and decided to ask how long we had left til we reached the town, Avoca and she said we were only HALF way!  We said our thanks and started walking.  Minutes later, the man from that B&B picked us up and drove us down into town—how sweet!

We arrived in town and stopped into the only restaurant in the town, Fitzgerald’s Pub.  We spent 8 hours there… lunch and dinner because there was no where else to go in this little town!  I’m not complaining though because the scenery was indescribable and something you could never see anywhere else!

Sunday was our last day in Ireland… or so we thought.  We went back to Dublin to visit the oldest jail and then ate dinner at the oldest pub, which was really cool.  Then we decided to get back to the airport to catch our flight back to Liverpool to get to seminar the next morning.  Our flight was supposed to leave at 11pm and we arrived at 7:30pm… a little early but we kept ourselves entertained and played cards together.  As boarding time approached, we gave the workers our passes and they wouldn’t let us through!  Apparently we were supposed to have our printed off passes stamped before we could board? Who knew!? So all 7 of us SPRINTED across the airport to get our passes signed, only to find out that desk was closed.. just our luck!  We had to wait until 3:30am to talk to RyanAir and get another flight to make it back to Liverpool.

After sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in each others’ clothes and blankets, we talked to RyanAir, they offered to have us each pay 100 Euro for the next flight at 8:55am the next morning… one slight problem, we had seminar at 9:30am!  The only thing going through my mind was how tired and exhausted I was, so I’d do anything to get back to Liverpool, even if that meant I had to stay 5 more hours in the airport and pay 100 more Euros.

We slept and waited some more, only to find out or flight would be delayed, delayed again, delayed again, and delayed again!  We didn’t end up leaving Dublin until 12:30pm, Monday!  This meant we had to miss seminar and we were all hoping we wouldn’t get deported for missing our class; however, the minute we missed our flight we called our parents and Dr. P about the whole situation, and good news… we’re not in trouble! YAY!

Apparently the hold up at the Dublin Airport was Obama’s visit to Dublin this morning at around 9.  On the bright side, we got to see Air Force One arrive at the airport, which was pretty cool.

Sorry this is such a long post, but this weekend was quiteeee eventful.  Even though there were some mishaps, I had a great first weekend and definitely won’t ever forget the memories made during the trip and the 18 hours spent in the Dublin Airport.

Now it’s bedtime…  Goodnight everyone! :)

"Miss, why do you talk like that?!"

Today was the first day visiting the schools and I am in love with my children!!! :) They are so adorable and SO incredibly polite.  The school is very small and my class is quite large—60 in the Foundations class, which is split up into 2 different classes.  I have class 1.  Since they are so young, there is a new law where the students must spend 80% of the day having free time or play.  It’s critical for such young children to develop social and personal science skills before spending too much time on academics—which I think is wonderful!

The classroom day started with prayer and song, a 20 minute reading lesson, and then play.  After play was lunch, a 20 minute math lesson, a small snake, and ended in song.  I was so shocked to see the students reading sight words and writing them.  Also, the teacher started a small Spanish lesson with the students—how impressive?!  During the play time, I was having so much fun with the students.  There were crafts, computer activities, coloring, and other activities indoors.  Outside there were tons of blocks and tires, tipis and forts, sand pits, buckets of water, a long white paper to color, and other toys.

I decided to walk around and then color with some of the adorable little girls.  When the second play time came around, 3 of them took my hands and led me outside to play with them.  They were so excited to play and laughed at me all day (because of my “American accent”).  The all came up to me and said, “Miss, why do you talk like that?!” LOL  I loved how they all called me “Miss”—so polite!

I can’t wait to go back the next few weeks to observe and then finally teach them! :)

Time to get ready for Ireland—leaving for the airport in an hour!

P.S., I had beef, onion, and horseradish sub for lunch today that the cafeteria ladies packed for our class… surprisingly pretty good.

Ta Ta for now. :)

Time Flies By When You're Having Fun!

I can’t believe week 1 is almost over!  Seminar today went by fast—we had a guest speaker who was really cool and told us what to expect tomorrow when we visit the schools.  He also gave us creative ideas to incorporate fun activities into the curriculum.  We got out of seminar early today, so Holly and I went to City Centre to get a blanket to use at the hostels we stay at—mine is cheetah print (MY FAVE) and was only 2 pounds…what a bargain!  I also got a coat to wear since it’s been so cold. HOWEVER, today was the FIRST sunny day since we’ve been here and it was so nice—we all were 100x happier to see some sunshine. :)

After we made our purchases and browsed the shops in City Centre, we took the bus back to school to make it in time for tea.  I’m beginning to get sick of the SAME food they serve in the dorms.  The food is pretty decent, a little different from what I’m used to.  For instance, there’s a salad bar with very limited vegetables and ZERO dressing, except if you ask for sandwich dressing from the sandwich area… weird.

After dinner my traveling group for this weekend got together to print off our boarding passes for tomorrow and get an idea of a schedule for the weekend… how exciting!

Thursday Night- Arrive in Dublin and check out the pubs; stay in hostel

Friday- Hang out Dublin and visit the Guinness Storehouse; leave for Wicklow (where P.S. I Love You was filmed—OMG!); stay in a beautiful bed & breakfast

Saturday- Wicklow for the day; stay at the bed & breakfast

Sunday- Back to Dublin to spend the day and catch our flight back to Liverpool at 11pm

Tomorrow we have to get up super early for breakfast and to take the bus to the schools tomorrow.  I’ll be at Much Woolton Primary Catholic School, teaching the Foundations classroom (4, 5, and 6 year olds).  Can’t wait to visit and see what it’s like!  Then back to campus to get ready to leave for Dublin! Busy but fun few days planned—I’ll let everyone know how the first weekend trip goes! 

Missing everyone at home—Have a great weekend!

Love, love, love!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Good news!  I woke up this morning and my eye is SO much better, thank goodness. More good news, we had seminar this morning and got to pick our teaching placements.  I chose to teach the youngest group of “cherubs”, as Dr. P likes to call them—the 4, 5, and 6 year olds!  I’m sure they’ll be a handful at times, but they’re going to be adorable. :)  We get to visit the schools on Thursday so I’m very excited to see my group!  Seminar was really laid back and involved a lot of group discussions, which was really nice, so I’m hoping all of our seminars will be like that for the few weeks.  We also got our first reading assignment today, which wasn’t bad at all.

After seminar was lunch and The Beatles Tour (Dad, I know you’re so jealous, sorry :) ).  Now I’m not much of a fan, but I heard it was a good experience so I decided to go and I’m so glad I did because it was actually really cool and we got to explore all over Liverpool!  Eight of us went on the tour, where we were split into 2 taxis.  The drivers drove us all around Liverpool and showed us SO many different places, which helped link the significance of their song lyrics to real life in Liverpool.  We saw their childhood homes, the Strawberry Field, Penny Lane, and so much more.  Not only did they drive us to the locations to talk about them, we got to get out of the car and walk around the different locations.  We got a bajillion pictures that the guides took for us, which I’ll work on posting!

The Beatles Taxi Tour ended in City Centre, so we had to catch a bus back to the University and it took forever!  It was during rush hour so it was pretty hectic.  We didn’t get back until 6, which is when “tea” (aka dinner) ends… why so early? I’d love to know.  So me and a few other students went down to the village to grab something to eat.  I ate, hung out with some girls for a while, did my reading assignment, and now I'm just waiting to Skype friends and family back home before bed!

Tomorrow is our first full day of seminars and Thursday night I leave for Dublin, Ireland for the weekend!  I feel like the weeks are going to fly by!

PS, I hope the weather has been sucking at home, if not I’ll be a little jealous, because it’s been rainy here everyday—not good for my wavy hair or my skin that wants to be tan so I can be a bronze beauty.  Guess that’s just a good excuse to take an upcoming weekend to travel somewhere warm… sounds like a good deal to me. ;)

Nighty-night!

PRIMARK=LOVE

Such an eventful day today!  I set my alarm for 7:10 to get up early so I could get ready for breakfast in the morning.  I slept great but woke up about 20 minutes before my alarm—probably because I was nervous I wouldn’t wake up for it—such a quiet alarm! I woke up and my right eye was closed shut and as I got up to look in the mirror, I noticed it was bright red and pink! I was freaking out thinking I had pink eye! I tried not to worry too much and showered, in the dark because I couldn’t find the light haha, and then continued to get ready for the day.  Using the outlet converter, I blow dried my hair with my blow dryer from home.  It got pretty hot so hopefully it doesn’t fry it!  Then I plugged in my curling iron, which did NOT work. :( Then I plugged in my straightener, which also did NOT work! Hopefully they didn’t fry because I would cry if my Chi didn’t work anymore! Since my things didn’t work, I just let my hair do it’s thang—plus it was rainy today so it got wavy and curly anyway.

I made it down to breakfast on time with another girl from school.  I made sure I was early since I missed the meeting the other day! Breakfast was pretty good—I had scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee.  Everything tasted the same except for the bacon, which tasted more like ham.  Then we all met together to get our ID pictures taken.  When we arrived, Mr. Cowell took me aside and gave me a key to my NEW ROOM!  He said I’m one of the first one’s to move into the new dorm! I got to move in the afternoon.  After our ID’s, we went to the seminar room to go over some things about our stay, along with receiving our meal vouchers and train passes (YAY!). Then we went to the library for a tour. (Mom, you’d love their library shelves because they’re just like Notre Dame’s.  We were all amazed at the electronic bookshelves.)  Also on our visit to the library, I noticed that all of the students were dressed nicely.  I think I saw 2 students dressed in sweats.  If you were to walk around BSU’s library, I’d say about 80% of the students would be in sweats!

After the library, we went to eat lunch.  Lunch was nice because there several choices.  I got the salad bar with some fruit.  Then we went to a small bookstore where we received  a FREE hoodie from Mr. Cowell.  I chose a plum crewneck hoodie that says Hope Liverpool—so cute! After that, and had free time, so me and a group of friends went to City Centre.  We took a double decker bus and thought it was the coolest thing!  We arrived to City Centre and 2 English girls offered to show us around.  They showed us where Primark was and we rushed over there because we’ve heard so many good things about it!  We walked in and I swear it is like H&M/Forever 21 but 4 stories and SO cheap.  Needless to say, I spent most of my time and money there. J I bought so many cute clothes and shoes! The boys opted to go to the pub while we shopped.  Then we went to the store to buy shampoo and soap.  I also had to buy a new curling iron and straightener. It took me a while to count out my money at every shop, but the workers were friendly and helped me out.  I felt like everywhere we went you could tell we were tourists because we had our cameras out all the time!

Then we left City Centre to get back to campus to meet our class for dinner at 5.  I had chicken, a baked potato, and salad.  After that, Ryan helped me move all of my luggage out from my old room and into my new room!  My new room is SO nice with my own bathroom! I LOVE it! I can’t wait until everyone else is in here.  I met some of my English flat mates and they are super friendly and nice.  It turned out that 2 of the girls were the girls that showed us around City Centre!  After I unpacked a little and Skyped home, me and some friends walked around and went to Half Ways which is a small pub.  It was fun talking, laughing, and hanging out with everyone before we came back to go to bed!

I came home and talked to my flat mates, Skyped again, unpacked, and I am now getting ready to go to bed.  It’s about 1:30 am here and I have to get up around 7 to shower and get ready for tomorrow! Goodnight! :)

Ta loves! 

OMG, I'm Here!!

 I MADE IT, I MADE IT, I MADE IT! Safe and sound in my dorm room, where I had to carry my 50lbs. suit case, my 30lbs. carry on, AND my ginormous purse up a flight of stairs.  Carrying all my luggage around from airport to airport and all around campus realllyyyy made me wish my Dad was there to help me!

After sad goodbyes, annoying security checks, and plane delays in Indy, we finally made it to Chicago.  Since we had a delay in Indy, we only had a few hours to wait until we boarded the plane for MANCHESTER!  All of us students were pretty much in one big group in the middle of the plane, which was nice.  However, the food and the 7 hour plane ride was not so nice—but it was all worth it now that I’m here! :)

Once we arrived to the airport in Manchester, we had to wait in a long line at the UK Border to get our passports checked.  Since I’ve never been out of the country I was so confused, but I made it through and got my luggage quickly after.  Then we all met Liverpool Hope’s Coordinator, who met us at the airport and took us to a charter bus.  We will be working a lot with the coordinator, Mr. Cowell, and no, he’s not related to Simon, dangit! He’s an older man and seems really nice and funny, so it should be fun working with him! Also, I LOVE the way he talks—he calls us “love” in his cute little English accent.

The charter bus took us to the University.  It was so weird driving on the other side of the road and seeing the steering wheel on the other side of the car.  The scenery was beautiful—very green, lots of horses, cows, and sheep.  It reminded me of Harry Potter with the adorable brick houses everywhere.  I can’t wait to go out to see more of Liverpool and take lots of pictures. :)

The bus ride took about 40 minutes to get to the University.  It was chilly and rainy; it was also only 9:30am so hopefully it’ll warm up! We got inside and received our dorm rooms.  We all got split up for now because there are still students here finishing up their finals.  There are only 7 of us in my dorm, where 2 pairs of girls had to share a room.  I got lucky and got my own.  It’s pretty small with a bed, night stand, desk, closet, and sink.  The hallway has 2 ½ baths for us to share.  I unpacked and tried to get things organized, but didn’t want to get unpacked since we will be moving out soon. Mr. Cowell said we all will be moving soon and should all be in the same dorm within the next 2 weeks.

We met at noon to grab something for lunch at little markets.  The food here is so different—bacon crisp chips? Fried fish balls? Me and a few of my friends just grabbed some chicken sandwiches to heat up back in my dorm… but little did we know we were really supposed to go back with the group to go over some things with Mr. Cowell. Oops… Once we got to my dorm and heated our sandwiches up, we noticed there were no other students on my floor.  We got worried so we ate our sandwiches on the go while we went searching for our class and teachers all over campus.  We finally walked into the room they were in, just in time for the meeting to end.  What a great way to start of the first day at the University… haha oopsies. (Dad, I know you’re freaking out and think I missed a bunch of stuff, but don’t worry, we got all caught up and didn’t get into any trouble. :) )

Tonight we’re all meeting together to go to the pub for dinner, which should be fun! Then back to the room to Skype with family and friends before I hit the hay for tomorrow's orientation.  I probably slept for about an hour on the plane last night and haven’t slept all day today so I can’t wait to cuddle up and get some sleep!

Cheers (Thanks) for reading and Ta! (Seriously, how adorable are their sayings?!)