STILL getting lost in London!

It has been well over two months now that I have called London home. However, this does not qualify me whatsoever as a someone who knows her way around all of its nooks and crannies. Friday night I went to Selfridges (a very posh department store) to meet a friend of mine for a piano show down in the music section of the store. When neither one of us could find each other (that's another story in itself) I ended up talking to someone who worked in the store and was invited for drinks after the store closed. Since I made an effort to get there I figured I might as well take the opportunity to make some new friends. Well, after a little detour from Oxford St. and a few drinks later I said it was time for me to go. Not realizing which direction I had come from and being confident in my abilities I just decided to figure out how to get home myself. That is not a big deal. I've done it plenty of times and London is not a hard city to navigate using the tubes and trains. However, when the tubes and trains have shut down early for the night and unless you know exactly which bus number to take, you're pretty much up sh*t creek without a paddle. Standing at Canary Wharf after I had done a big circle around the city taking the trains and tubes that were running, I wasn't exactly lost, but lost as to how I was going to get across the Thames and into my bed! Being cheekily resourceful I saw a guy hailing a black cab, one after another they kept driving away. I asked him which way he was going and why he wasn't being picked up - he said he was headed to Lewisham (just beyond Greenwich) but no one would pick him up. I said I was headed that way and he told me to pretend we were a couple and maybe we could get picked up. It certainly worked and I got a free ride very close to home! I walked in my front door laughing... oh the situations I get myself into! It was as random a night as they come! 

Work is fantastic. Things have changed drastically however! I am no longer at the school my contract was extended for. Someone dropped the ball communicating the proper information and what I had been hired for was an Early Years Practitioner, not teacher! NO WAY was I taking a pay cut for that! However - minus the packed bus ride in the mornings, my new situation is MUCH better. I have been hired on full time until the end of the school year in July for a kindergarten class which I run by myself, with one TA. I have 25 children in my own classroom and I am the boss! At my old school I was team teaching in a double class, so I wasn't in charge. Now, I am. And I love it. Of course there are so many kinks to work out and things to learn, planning to put in place, and a classroom to sort out. But, I am SO EXCITED! Unfortunately... no free rides on the train :(

I gave myself a birthday present of pottery lessons! I had my first class last week and absolutely loved it. I actually made 3 things that resembled some sort of pot or container! The instructor said she had high hopes for me! I didn't realize how much muscle was required for being a potter - glad I'm getting some exercise with it! It was a lot of fun, however, I tried to get up after I had finished a piece and nearly fell flat on my face - I didn't realize I had become so dizzy! I tell ya, my life would be much easier if everything didn't make me nauseous...buses, trains, planes, boats, cars, and now pottery. Geeze! 

There is a tradition around the 5th of November in London. I feel a little sheepish not knowing this previously, coming from a commonwealth nation, however, I am now quite informed. Massive firework displays go on around the city (called "bonfire night") to commemorate Guy Fawkes' failure to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. Fawkes was a Roman Catholic trying to displace Protestant rule with his "gunpowder plot". However, he was arrested before his plan of blowing Parliament with all of it's aristocracy, including King James 1 inside, to smithereens came to fruition. You may have heard this verse before:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,

The gunpowder treason and plot,

I know of no reason

Why the gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

England has not forgotten the gunpowder treason and every year on Nov. 5th they remember with bonfires and fireworks at many different locations!

I am very busy with work, pottery, piano, seeing friends, making new ones, getting lost, talking to strangers to thumb a ride home... plenty of things to keep me busy! I hope all is well back home - I hear it's getting cold! It is still totally tolerable here :) Grey and little wet, but I can deal with it. I also hear swine flu/H1N1 is taking over the province?! WASH YOUR HANDS!!! 

Gramma thank you very much for the card and letter. It sounds like you and Grampa had a great time on your cruise! The postal strike is still on, but things are seeping through, so thank you for sending the card! 

I will keep you all posted with new developments in amy's awesome adventures! 

-13 days until my new niece/nephew is due

-39 days until Ali comes to visit!

Much love

~amy