Getting into the Travelling Mood

I have been getting flack for not updating this blog sooner, and I apologize for that.

These last 3 weeks have been busy. As you may remember, September 24th was my birthday. I turned 30 this year and it was hard to not celebrate with my friends and family back home. Knowing this, many of my new friends here in Leeds came over to my house to help me celebrate. Gill and David have gotten to know me so well that their gift to me included 4 different types of cheese (All local varieties) Hmmmmm.... There was much wine and beer shared and I now have two new guides to England and the local hiking. On Monday, my actual birthday, I went with Jenny and Simon to see a movie (Not available in Canada, it was a British movie) called "Run Fatboy Run" all about a man who runs a marathon to get his girlfriend back. It was pretty funny, and a good example of the British humour.

I forgot to mention, on Sunday Sept 23rd I went down to the local pub for "Quiz" night as usual and found out that Rollie (The quiz guy) had made up a Canadian round for the quiz. My team did very well that night. We even won £30 for being the only team to name 7 of 10 provinces (We got them all!!) The next weekend (Sept 30) we WON the quiz, and I actually got a few of the questions!

With my new touring books I headed out to the city of YORK on Sept 29th. What an amazing city. It still has the Wall around the original city, and you can walk on it and look in on both the new and the old parts. It is a cute city with small streets , just for walking and lots of shopping. The "minster" is a huge church that takes a minimum of 2 hrs to tour. (This city was originally a Roman city, and still has some buildings from that time) As luck would have it there was a food festival going on in the market and I tasted a "Wild Boar" burger. It was worse than eating Liver!!! i eat everything, but even I had to throw it away after 3 bites. (picture on facebook) Met many nice people in York, even the local crazy woman. She sat down next to me as I was eating an ice cream (to get rid of the taste of the burger) and started asking me my opinions about world politics...it was awkward, but I finally managed to get away from her by pretending to see my sister across the lane. Thank you Jen or Carmen

Just this last weekend I went to "Pickering" a small town in East Yorkshire. Also very pretty, but I went there to ride the authentic Steam Train 20 miles from Pickering to Whitby, through parts of Yorkshire that are not accessible by car. The train was cool, with family compartments and all. (pics on facebook) The scenery was great, and I spent the trip with my head hung out the window, taking pictures of the heathered hills and forest. Goathland was my one stop on the trip to take a Level 2 walk (from my new walking guide) I was sure it was mislabelled as I scrambled over rocks and trees to follow a muddy path beside a river for 1.5 miles. (I was covered in mud, leaves and tree slime....No pics, sorry) After the first 1.5 miles the other 3 miles were less grouling and very pretty. Just so you don't think I was all by my self the entire time, I had tea and scones with a gentleman in pickering (stranger) who gave me some great ideas of things to see in Scarborough (NEXT weekend) and I shared a pint with 2 other couples in Goathland who did the same walk/hike as I. Again a very nice trip.

I ended the weekend with a trip to the YSP (the Yorshire Sculpture Park) near Leeds. They had an Andy Goldsworthy exhibition on that blew me away. I've never really been into sculpture as an artform, but I found Andy's work inspiring. Google his name to see some of his art!! Its all based on building something from his environment. All of his works are natural.

To finish this post I want to say that school is going well. I feel comfortable in my classroom and with the students. They have stopped repeating everything I say in a whisper (trying to mimic my accent) and we are now getting lots of work done. I have 1.5 more weeks of school before I have my October Half Term break. I am spending my week off in Northern Italy (Flying in to Venice, then a train to Rome, Florence, Milan and Verona)

Talk to you soon!