Twas a Great Fate!

Hello! So recently I got to experience my first village fate, ok so it's spelled fete, but you pronouce it "fate"! What on earth is a village fete you may ask? Well, wikipedia says that they " are usually outdoor shows held on village greens or recreation grounds with a variety of activities and are organised by an ad hoc committee of volunteers from organizations such as residents associations". Yup. That's pretty much what it is. I snapped a few pictures to give you a bettter idea.

This little boy is about to get a balloon sword.

Tombola was a big hit. Apparently this is a very common game to have in a village fete. You pay a quid for 3 tickets which you draw out of a big bag. If any of your tickets have numbers that corrospond with the numbers on the bottles you win it! There were bottles of wine, liquer, beer, juice, soap, etc.
This was also a common game. I guess it's a cousin game of whack-a-mole. It's pretty self explanitory. The dude in the funny hat shoves a bean-bag rat down the pipe and you are supposed to splat it when it pops out. Sounds easy, but it when watching it you can tell it would be tricky.
There were also vege and baking competitions! This reminded me of the Kent County Expo back home in New Brunswick. There were many different catagories from scones, to onions, to flower arrangments. This one shown above was the winner and oddly enough the entry name was Mr. Tom Long. Tehe.
There was also a dog show going on. I noticed lots of pairs of dogs walking around which lead me to belive there must have been a couples competition. Not sure if thats what this pair were going for or not....
Anyways, thats all I have for now... I know, not very exciting. Hopefully I will have more news after this weekend. I am making a trip back to Bath!! I am also heading to Cheltenham to see about possibly moving there. So hopefully I will have some exciting news/pics for the next post.
Here's on last one of the Fete. There is a classic ice cream van in this shot. They have them everywhere here! And they actually play that funny ice cream van music and drive around neighbourhoods. Tehehe.
Lata!

Jolly Ol' Jobless England.

Well, I have made it 3 weeks now and still, no job. Everywhere I go I hear about people's kids looking for work, or the painter's grandson, still looking for a job. Hopefully when students start filing back to school some jobs will open up. In the mean time, I may look into nannying for a wee while, just to pass the time and earn some money. I am told there may be some work there considering it's the summer holidays and lots of families have kids home and still have to work. Other than the job front I have been keeping myself busy. Last weekend, on Will's day off, he took me to a water reserve nearby where we rented bikes (a bit pricey for a 2 hour rental in my opinion) and biked around the reserve (I think it was 12 km.)
Even when biking my Canadian insticts kicked it. Whenever we would meet people on the trail I would instinctivly shift over to the right side of the trail. Well of course they went that side too and probably thought I was a bit of a tool. I had to keep reminding myself that I was in England and even on bikes the driving is backwards.
That evening I trained it into London to meet up with some exchange friends from last year. We somehow figured out that a few of us where going to be in the UK around the same time, so we planned to have a bit of a reunion. It was great to see everyone. Below are some pictures of London that I took while I was there.
There was a vintage festival going on that Sunday afternoon, so we decided to check it out. There were tons of booths and stalls selling old things for too much money, although if you were really keen you could sometimes find a good deal. There were lots of fashionable folk walking around as well as some of the organisers pictured below who took vintage to the extreme.

Oh, I also found a vintage cutout of Darth Vader. Here is Vader and I and my German friend Vicktor. (Vicktor was also a Star Wars fan.)
Here is the London eye. A HUGE ferris wheel type thing. It costs an arm and a leg to go on it and it moves like 1 meter per hour, but apparently the view is quite nice at the top.

Throughout this week I spent a lot of time online looking for work and exploring the local towns nearby. And while the closest towns are not the most beautiful, we did go to one yesterday called Stamford that was really nice! I will take pictures next time I am there. As some of you may know it was Pete and mine's Birthday on Wednesday. For my Birthday Will surprised me by taking a day of work and taking me skiing! That's right, skiing. In England...in August. They have an indoor ski slope about an hour from here, so we spent an a couple hours skiing! Never thought I'd do that on my birthday. Unfortunatly I didn't take any pictures of it. I will try to take more exciting pictures over the next week to spice it up.
That's all I got. T.T.F.N. Ta ta for now!!

Cushty!

So, it has been just over a week since I arrived. Still no job unfortunatly. I am still waiting to hear back on a few that I've applied for, so hopefully something turns up. In the mean time I am adjusting to UK life. Adjusting to UK life involes many things, but in this house one of the biggest ones for me is the constant consumption of tea. I think I have drank more cups of tea over the past week than I have in my previous 21 years of life combined. (They also have lots of cherry trees!)

Another big adjustment is the driving. I had my first expereince driving on the left side of the road today. We decided it would be beneficial for me to take a lesson. So I had an hour driving lesson today where I had to get used to round abouts and shifting with my left hand (yes, it was a standard car). It was tricky. I kept looking up to my left to look into the rearview mirror, when it was on my right and more than once I found myself flailing my hand into the door to do a quick gear change. But I think it's coming along. The round abouts might tale a bit of practice though.

(Some sheep next door.)

Another common sight where I am are the small planes in the sky. The few times I've gone for a run, I'll see these small planes doing loop da loops and figure eights in the air! I guess there is a air field near by (They have a lot of small airfields in England) and they often practice during the day.

(A holly tree in Oundle)

On top of this I have discovered a few more differences. Instead of mayo, most Brits use "salad cream" on thier sandwiches. And the majority of Brits do not eat pb and jam sandwiches and for the most part, they think they sound rather nasty. I was also surprised to discover how many of our basic vegetables are called something different over here. For example, what we call zucchini, the Brits refer to as courgettes. Also we differ on turnips. What us and the Scots consider turnips, the English call a swedes. They have another smaller root vegetable that they refer to as turnips.
Anyways, that's all I have so far. I have posted a few pictures to give you an idea of where I am and what it's like over here. And I will leave you with a shot of our little friend who was getting a cheeky munch of the cat's food outside the back door two nights ago.
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Country Living

Well, I have arrived alive. My flights from Halifax to Iceland and from Iceland to London were long, sleepeless and meal-less. I managed to find a bit of food in Iceland, but was struggled to buy something as I had know idea how much an Icelandic Krona was compared to a Canadian Dollar! I ending up having a 199 krona container of yougart (which I just found out cost me about $1.70, phew!) It was weird yougart, the consistancy was somewhere between soft and hard ice cream, but it tasted alright.
Now I am currently living with the Butlers in Hardwick. It is a very small village about 1 hour North of London. I learned that to be considered a village you need a church. Well, that's about all that is here. There are maybe 6-7 houses, some fields, some sheep, and a church. It is very beautiful. I have not yet taken any pictures, but I will.
Some things I have learend in the past few days include: Brit's spell "tire" (as in car tires) "tyre". They love fresh flowers and many people will buy then regularly to put in their front rooms (they are not as expensive here as they are in Canada). Hedgehogs are a regular sight, but only around dusk. There is a mom and 2 babies that we often see in the front garden here. And lastly, something that surprised me, there are still gypsies around! When driving along a road you may spy some dodgy looking campers (what they would call caravans) set up in a random field with horses nearby. This are temporary gypsy camps! Apparantly they are a rough crowd and can cause a lot of havoc. I am told that not to long ago, right down the road from here a farmer had his car stloen by some. Every morning he would stop at his field gate jump out (with the truck still running) and walk maybe 10 metres to open the gate. One morning as he stepped out to do that, some gypsies came running from the ditch and nicked his truck!
Well, that's all I have to report for now. No job prospects yet, but I am on the hunt. I will hopefully put some pictures up soon with a new post! That is as long as I don't get taken off by gypsies.

..and she's off!

Well, I have packed just about everything. It took me an entire day to pack all of my stuff, and just like last time, I have lot's of suitcase room, but I'm already at my weight limit. I wonder if I put some helium balloons in my suitcase if that would by me some more weight...

I am flying via Icelandair which means a quick stop in Iceland before I get to England. I am excited to see a little bit Iceland on my way over. I will be arriving in England just before lunch thier time if all goes well. I will then spend the next little while at the Butler household searching for a job and a place to live. Hopefully I will sort something out soon!

And that is all I have to say for now. This post is mostly just a practice to see if I still remember how to do this. So far so good I think. I will try my hardest to update this thing every so often and will make it my goal not to up and bail like I did last time.

Well, T.T.F.N! Ta ta for now!

...Tell a tale of Leprechauns, Drape yourself in green, And have the best St.Paddys Day, The world has ever seen!

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Well, I made it back alive and well from my trip to Dublin, Ireland for St. Patrick's day. Me and almost everyone in my residence left on Tuesday and returned Friday afternoon. Getting there was fairly uneventful. We took at cab from Bath to the Bristol airport. The roads were winding extremely narrow and I thought we would surly die, multiple times. But we got to the airport on time and alive. We arrived to the Dublin airport and got a bus to the center of the city. We then had a bit of a hike to get to our hotel. We soon discovered that in Dublin, at a cross walk, when it's your turn to cross there's no way you could miss it. They have these sound things that beep at you to let you know it's your turn to go, except it sounds like a laser gun followed by a machine gun shooting continuously until you crossed. And it didn't matter how many times I crossed the street, it always scared the livin daylights out of me. The highlight of the trip was probably the St. Patrick's Day parade. We had on our green shirts and headed for the crowds. We quickly learned that a green shirt worn under a coat was not festive enough in the least. So we went to one of the many St. Patrick's Day shops and bought us some hats. Here is a picture of Matt, Hillary (both Texans) and I at the parade, Hillary and I with our hats.
Our hats were miniature versions of the popular St. Patty's day hats. I have a picture below of what most of them looked like. The floats and acts from the parade were very interesting. Many of them seemed to have quite an artistic flare. It was almost impossible to see. However we got lucky when we went to a crossing point. They had them various locations along the street and they would pause the parade and let the people do their dancing and what not while they let a mass of people cross to the other side. Well they cut us off right before we were about to cross. So we were right there in front. Here are a few picture of the parade:



So all in all Dublin was good fun! Went to some Irish pubs, heard some great live music (Rattlin' Bog, Irish Rover etc.) Heard some lovely Irish accents and had some famous Irish Guinness. We actually went to the Guinness factory and had a tour. That was pretty neat. On our way back from that tour I asked our cab driver why there were so many Scots walking about in their kilts, as I had seen quite a few. He said they were getting ready to watch the big Ireland vs. Scotland game on Saturday. He then asked if I knew how to tell if they were truly Scotsman. I responded, "no, how do you tell?" And he replied "they wear nothing under their kilt. You'll have to look for yourself." I don't quite remember how I responded to that one. :)
Well, I will leave you with one of the most exciting finds in Ireland. There was a convenience store across from our hotel and we went there often for food. (Everything was ridiculously expensive in Dublin). As I was walking through I glanced down, and a small packet of sugar caught my eye, then some straws, then I stepped back and saw an entire booth! Behold!!
I was so excited. I shouted to the Texans, "Look, a Tim Hortons! In Ireland!" they of course responded "Tim who?". I then tried (and failed) to describe the significance of a Timmy's. Ah well. I must say, I didn't actually buy anything from it. The maple dip donuts had chopped nuts on them, and I was very unimpressed.
Well, that's all I have for now. The Texans and I are heading to Italy (Venice, Florance and Rome) and Greece (Athens) for Easter break and am leaving this Wednesday. So I will be back April 9th and will hopefully update my blog then!

Busy Bee

Busy busy busy. School is starting to pick up, and rugby playoffs have commenced. I am starting to remember how hectic life can get. But it's a good hectic. I am so busy I don't have time to get lonely or homesick! So, due to my busyness, I have not regrettably taken many more exciting pictures, or done anything terribly exciting. Last week, the Texans who live across the hall all went to Oxford, Liverpool and Manchester. I had a poster project to do, so I did not join them. However, I managed to finish up my project fairly quickly, so I made my own day trip to Bristol. Bristol is a bigger city to the west of Bath, and is about a 10 min train ride away. It was a beautiful day so I did snap a few pictures of which I will post below.
The top picture is a shot of inside the Bristol Temple Meads train station. The one below is from the outside. You can see all the taxis sitting at the entrance. The are all very funny looking. The taxis in Bath are all different, but it Bristol, they tend to all be the same funny looking model.

So in Bristol, the only thing to really do is shop. There were a few things I really wanted to pick up. Some good walking shoes, some rugby spandex for under my shorts, and a green top for St. Patricks day. I ended up with only the spandex, but it was a fun day none the less. What's really cool about Bristol shopping is that they have what the Texans call an "outdoor mall". It's really neat actually. I tried to take a picture to give you an idea of what it's like.So it sort of looks like you're inside, and it sort of feels like you are, only it's cold and the roof is more of a screen. And it doesn't extend the whole way. It will randomly stop, and all you have is sky above you. It's odd, but neat. The shops in Bristol are a little more low key. Not as many high-end fancy brand name shops. Which is nice for those of us who arn't willing to pay a semesters tution for a pair of shoes.

So, the only other exciting thing that has been going on here is rugby playoffs. They started last week, however because our team did really well throughout the season we had a bye. The playoffs are set up as knockoffs. So once you lose you are out. So our first game was yesterday and we played Bristol. They are one of the lowest teams in the league. The result? Well, we beat them. Pretty badly actually. It was more of a slaughter. The score was 98-0. That's right. 98. For those who don't know much about rugby, that is a ridiculously high scoring game. However from here on in the games will get tougher and tougher. So wish us luck! Here are some pictures from our game in Cardiff two weeks ago. I think I wrote about it last time. The pitch was very muddy. The first picture is warming up before the game, and the second is sometime during. You can see the how nice and clean we were before.
Well, that is all I have. Hopefully the next post will be more exciting. Next week I am heading to Dublin for a few days and will be there for St. Patricks day! So I'll be sure to update this once I get back.

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