On the road again, I can't wait to get on the road again..

I'm so sorry for the lack of posts for a while. I promise once we've made our THIRD move this year I'll have something exciting to say and some updates. Remember patience is a virtue people.

Hastings to Hamburg

To tell you the truth Germany was not on my must see list of destinations. Why? Well, no specific reason really other than the fact there was nothing in Germany to possibly entice me there and I have a small fear of the language. When I was in Year 7 I studied German at school and I was terrible at it, my teacher hated me (probably because I was terrible at it) and I hated her back. It struck me as being a really stupid, pointless language and if we're honest about it, it doesn't even sound nice anyway ("Heil, Hitler"-okay that's mean). It also has these impossible, unpronouncable words:

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz

I mean what is that? I don't even know where to begin. Okay, I admit that the meaning of the monstrosity above is "beef labeling regulation & delegation of supervision law" which is hardly a word I'd use in everyday life but still it's all the same to me anyway. Mark in contrast was busting to go to Germany and loves the language and constantly laments the fact that he is not better at it. When we found out that Mark's friend Martin was living and teaching in Hamburg, there was nothing I could do to prevent us from going over there (not that I was going to try) so I sucked it up and we flew to Germany. I'm not a great flyer and I was paranoid that Mark was going to vomit on me but luckily the flight went really smoothly.

We landed in Lubeck, which is an hour North of Hamburg and decided to spend one night there. The first thing that struck me was the smell- Lubeck smelt like the farmyard section of the Easter Show. Other than the weird manure smell Lubeck is gorgeous. The town of Lubeck is World Heritage Listed and we loved exploring all the quaint little streets, churches and historic buildings and Mark of course loved every opportunity to practice his German.

Holstentor Town Gate in Lubeck dating back to 1478

It was sad to say goodbye to Lubeck but Hamburg called so it was soon to catch the train south, buying the ticket from the machine was a nightmare and I had flashbacks of my German teacher barking at me- "NOT. GOOD. ENOUGH". Anyway, the train journey was shorter than anticipated and we panicked a bit because we had told Martin we would arrive a whole hour later. As soon as we got off the train Mark starts to phone him but then I see Martin running towards us!!! He had also brought along his girlfriend Conny with him who we had heard heaps about over the years. Lucky for us, they could actually read the train timetable and had anticipated our arrival time.

We went back to his flat and unloaded all our gear before checking out the sights (and shops) of Hamburg. Conny and Martin nattered away to each other like an old married couple in German while Mark pretended to understand and I stared stupidly. To me it seemed pointless to be a wolf dressing up in sheep's clothing, putting on a naff accent and attempting to mumble incoherently especially when the lovely German people are more than happy to speak English to you (unlike those French and Italians who would rather die than speak English- bit like me and speaking German really). Anyway, Mark loved it and was so proud he could order ice creams all by himself. Upon Martin complimenting him on his skills he replied "yeah, but they heard Karen order first so they knew we were going to be a bit retarded". Gee what a charmer.

Check out the lean on this one. Burgator Town Gate, Lubeck

On the day we left Germany we took a detour North to the Baltic Sea which was great fun (even if the sea is an abnormal colour and the sand has the consistency and color of the bags of premixed cement from Bunnings). The boys played Soccer and us girls sat on the sand rugged up and gossiped for a good couple of hours- ahhhh, good times. I must admit that I did feel a bit sad saying our goodbyes and I felt a little pang of homesickness again. I think the fact I was dreading our long return journey didn't help things either. We eventually made it back to Hastings at 1am and it sure felt good to be back home and somewhere Mark couldn't speak German anymore.

Battle of Hastings

I could make lots of jokes here relating to school but I'm actually going to mention the real Battle of Hastings (1066 and all that). Many people don't realise that the Battle of Hastings didn't happen in Hastings itself but in a town called (funnily enough) Battle, which is 10km North of Hastings. We've lived in Hastings for 7 months and have never visited this historic little town so we decided we better go see what's on our doorstep before we head off to more exotic locations.

Above: The ruins of Battle Abbey

I absolutely love all the ruins and little old villages that we come across and I think because we don't have anything like this in Australia it makes it even more special. On a train journey to Brighton, a mere hour away from Hastings takes you past two ruins of castles and even more exciting is that you get to see the Long Man of Wilmington carved into the hill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Man_of_Wilmington- yeah I know I am an art geek). I was blown away seeing it and I looked around the train to see if anyone was getting as excited as I was. All the commuters had their heads burrowed in books and magazines and didn't even look up- I guess they are so familiar with everything they take it all for granted

Above: The Battle of Hastings actually took place in THIS field. Pretty amazing when you think about it

Goodbye Old Town, Hello Bohemia

Well the time has come and we've sadly farewelled the lovely part of town protected by the East and West Hills. The Old Town was our home and our security blanket, and it also helped that we had our adopted parents living around the corner to run to if we ever needed help. But we've ventured into the big, wide world of Hastings to find ourselves in a place called Bohemia (yes, seriously it's name is actually Bohemia- look it up if you don't believe me). The funny thing is that we should have learnt from our experience of The Old Town that a place name in Hastings has that name for a reason... Bohemia is full of crazy cat lady, aging hippy, arty farty types and here we are smack in the middle. Let's just say that we are still getting used to coming to a smoked hazed house that reeks of mixture of incense and marijuana (I won't mention that the weed smoker is a 50 year old supply teacher for our school, who is also a crazy cat lady). Pretty scandalous huh?

Room with a view- out our bedroom window

I really miss hearing the ocean from the Old Town but I don't miss the sound of drunks coming out from the pub on a Friday and Saturday night so I guess there are pay offs for everything. We also now have full television and mobile reception (woo hoo) but our free wireless internet supply is no longer. Oh well, you can't win it all I guess. One of my new favourite things is that I now have a pet cat and some sweet squirrels (crazy cat lady lets them run around her kitchen downstairs- ewww), we also have some pretty special views of the massive park, woodland and West Hill. I really think I could get used to this bohemian lifestyle.

St Patricks Day

Our intentions for our St. Patrick's Day weekend started out so well. Around New Years we had all these grand ideas of going to Ireland for the St. Paddy's day weekend. After weighing up the cost, time and the fact we would probably find ourselves in a pub surrounded by 150000 other Australians (A La- New Years Eve in Scotland- Shudder) we decided to go to London instead. I don't know what possessed me but I "thought" it would be such a great idea to book an apartment that all six of us could fit into (Mark and I as well as the 4 Canadians). I'd found an absolutely amazing place that was a bargain and it would end up so much cheaper than if we were to stay in a hotel. On Friday afternoon as soon as the bell rang, Mark, Steph and I bolted from school to catch the train to London.

After arriving in London we found our place which was absolutely amazing- total luxury and the two owners were so nice and had the sweetest, friendliest Labradoodle dog. This is the place we stayed at (http://www.griffinhouse.info/upper.htm), Mark kept teasing me because it was "gay" accomodation and there were gay porno mags lying around. But it was too much of a bargain and I felt like I was staying in a Queer Eye conversion- I'd much rather stay here than a nasty Youth Hostel (I know, such a snob).

Thre first night was great with only the three of us in the apartment but it all went horribly wrong the next day when The Others turned up. When they walked through the door I noticed that there was an extra face I didn't recognise. Nice Karen left then and Evil Karen arrived and my demeanour instantly went as cold as my blood felt at that moment. I admit I am a rude and horrible person and I looked them all up and down and asked (gesturing at the extra girl with my chin- really nice Karen) "Who's the spare?". I can't remember who replied but I heard the words "this is Jordy, we met her on the train. She will be boarding with us tonight". I WAS LIVID!!! Bit of a back story here but the apartment was really only designed for 5 people, I managed to sweet talk the owners into letting us have 6 people for one night and swore that we would be well behaved and not let anyone extra in (the owners lived in the apartment house below). As you all know, I have become all weirdly patriotic and whilst overseas I try to be a good ambassador for Australia (unlike some people in Edinburgh- dirty buggers). I really take it personally when I see an Australian person behaving badly and feel that reflects terribly of all of us so when I saw that the other Canadians had picked up a stray on the train I felt responsible as I had booked the apartment and was responsible for everyone.

We all hung around the apartment for a while while The Others fussed over what they were going to do for lunch/ the rest of the day. I sat on the floor silently using my laptop shaking and absolutely seething with anger and I could see Steph watching me nervously as she knew I was going to blow my stack any moment. I thought they would never leave, Jordy kept going on and on about how she had nowhere to stay and was glad to meet someone she could stay with (who does that? I'd never go back with strangers I'd met on a train- we could have been axe murderers) and the more she talked the more my blood pressure went up and up and up. They eventually left and as soon as the door closed behind them the flood gates opened. I had a mega tantrum which involved me and packing my bag to go back to Hastings and swearing and screaming a lot and calling people some delightful things (I remember the phrase Ho Bag came up a fair bit). I wasn't angry at Mark and Steph and eventually they calmed me down enough to be able to speak some sense to me. My mind was made up- I was leaving the apartment, the mere thought of even looking at The Others when they returned made me feel physically ill so I booked a hotel (once again Lastminute.com was a lifesaver) and Steph very kindly offered to stay with me. Mark decided to stay behind to mind The Others and make everything was clean and tidy before they left the next day.

We left the apartment and found ourselves at a hotel only metres away from the British Museum so we looked around there for an hour before retreating back to the hotel- it ended up being a really fun, girly night and I was able to wind down. I felt pretty embarassed that Steph had seen me lose my temper like that but she took it all in her stride and was a great companion (more of our exploits in a later entry). The next day Mark met up with Steph and I in Trafalgar Square to watch the St Paddy's Day Parade, I was thrilled to see that The Others had all decided to go back home (good riddance) so I didn't even have to look at them. After all the dramas of the weekend it managed to recover itself and we all had a great time. I did learn my lesson though.... never book accommodation with other people (unless you're lucky enough to have your own Steph) - if you're as uptight as me it's just not worth it.

Balloons being let of in Trafalgar Square

Many Excuses

After a extended absence I'm back, many excuses can be made but I'm not really going to bother. I think the best thing to do now to make amends is to start posting some posts and some lovely new photos. Brace yourselves.

6 months down

It's hard to believe that it's the 1st of March and exactly 6 months to the day that we started our stints as teaching staff in Hastings. There's actually a lot of firsts at the moment: first day of spring (still feels like Australian winter) and more importantly our first day back at school after two highly stressful days of OFSTED inspections. At this point you're probably thinking "What's OFSTED?" or as our kids would say "OFSTED? You effin abusin' me, you sayin my mam's a slapper? You pickin on me cause I'm ginger? I'm goin to friggin punch your ed in you derty pedo. Innit rite?". Ah, you've got to love them.... At least I can come away at the end of the year saying I've learnt a new language.

Anyway, OFSTED stands for Office for Standards in Education and is a huge, huge deal. In November we had a bit of a test run when we were inspected by HMI (Her Majesty's Inspectors) and that was pretty full on but the past two days have sheared years off my life. OFSTED have a lot of power and can make or break your school, meaning they can put your school into what's called "special measures". Schools placed into special measures receive intensive support from local authorities, additional funding and resourcing, and frequent reappraisal from OFSTED until the school is no longer deemed to be failing. Furthermore, the senior managers and teaching staff can be dismissed and the school governors are replaced by an appointed executive commitee. In basic terms it means that the school's trusty old fallback of hiring newly qualified staff from overseas is all over. OFSTED decide who gets hired and fired and ONLY experienced teachers get employed in the future. Meanwhile the "special measures" title gets splashed all over the media and the reputation of the school goes further down the toilet. Let the fun begin.

Well firstly I should mention that the school got a "satisfactory" rating which was met with cheering and wolf whistles by the staff. After work yesterday many of the teachers went out drinking and then today thirty teachers went drinking in first period in the pub opposite the school. I wonder what OFSTED would have say about that? Everyone was extremely surprised by our rating as we were all expecting the worst because some totally crazy stuff happened over the past two days. An inpector witnessed students bullying a member of staff and leaving her in tears, another inspector was told "get the f*** out of the way you f****** c***". Yesterday a young man walked into the school property off the street, found a boy in Year 11 and them promptly punched him in the face, splitting his nose and spraying blood everywhere. It gets better...The student staggers out of the toilets blood gushing Kill Bill style where another student asks him to turn around. When he does turn around the other student projectile vomits all over the floor in the English corridor at the sight of the gore. Yummy.

One of the reasons we didn't go into special measures because there wasn't a culture of fear amongst the teachers. We all look fairly happy and we seem like we're not about to have a nervous breakdown (probably best we didn't mention that one teacher quit last week due to stress and another is off with severe depression and is actually having a nervous breakdown- join the club buddy). The week before the said teacher (Mr W.) quit there was a staff meeting for the form tutors and the conversation went like this (real names not used to protect the guilty):

Ms D: Your form group is in charge of assembly this week, what are you doing?
Mr W: I'm doing a performance piece.
Ms D: Oh yeah, what are you doing?
Mr W: I'm going to hang myself.
Ms D: *silence*

So yeah, apparently we don't look scared enough. Personally I think we're all a bit over it and a little part of all of us is secretly hoping that a student punches us out so we get a nice, fat compo. package from the school. I know, I know, it's a terrible thing to say but it's true, give any teacher a couple of beers and they'll gladly tell you the same thing.

I think I've been pretty restrained not telling you all the crazy stuff we've witnessed over the past six months and now we've passed the point of no return. I really think now's the time to start revealing a few little snippets of daily school life for your entertainment, just stay tuned...

How was our holiday? Not long enough

The first few days of our mid-term break were spent in Hastings being completely lazy and not being old and teacherish as planned. Now that we’re back and starting school again tomorrow we are beginning to regret spending a few lazy days in London having a grand ol’ time (well not really but I’ll pretend that we feel bad to make us at least look old and teacherish).

Our time in London was partly spent looking at the markets and we saw Portobello Road (3/4 Closed), Spitalfields Markets (closed), Petticoat Lane Market (closed) and the Brick Lane Markets (yep, you guessed it… CLOSED). The last three we visited on Saturday so I was shocked and disappointed to find they were all locked up shut. But all was not lost as I was really excited to see a real Banksy artwork in Brick Lane. Those of you who don’t know who Banksy is (I won’t go into it here but for information on Banksy click on the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy) but as Mark and I are complete Art Geeks we were really impressed and just a little bit star struck. I’ve now accomplished another of my things off my list of things to see and do in England (No. 17- find Banksy street art).

But I guess the most disappointing market of all was the Portobello Road Markets, I wanted to see this:

Click the link for the full effect:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-8804170168873214362&q=portobello+road

And all we saw was this:

Many of you may be thinking “get over it crazy lady” but you just don’t understand how sad and let down I am. When I was growing up one of my favourite movies was ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ and my sisters and I watched this incessantly and knew all the songs. Portobello Road really seemed like this truly magical place and the overpriced, over-hyped reality really made me wish I’d left it in the fantasy world in my head. *singing* Portobello Road, Portobello Road street where the riches of ages are sold, anything and everything a chap could unload is sold by the barrel on Portobello Road… *cry, cry, cry*.

Something I was pleasantly surprised by was the Jack the Ripper tour. This is not actually something I would have voluntarily chosen to subject myself to but it turned out to be really interesting and entertaining (except the bit where a member of the tour fell over and had a seizure on the street). Our guide was this completely insane out of work actor and we saw places in London that we would have never visited (or even thought to prowl through at night). I admit that the highly graphic photos we were shown (just google “Mary Kelly”+ “Jack the Ripper”- ewwwwww) were really completely unnecessary and gross but overall it was one of the best things I’ve done in England so far.

We also met up with Mark’s cousin Roger and his girlfriend Anna and it was so great to catch up with family and speak to some non-scary Australians (our experiences in Edinburgh have scarred me for life). I’m going to tangent badly here now but speaking of scary Australians we met this couple recently from Adelaide who were surprised that Mark and I were from Sydney. The reason why? Well apparently we don’t speak like Sydneysiders, Sydneysiders say things in a Sydney accent like “getting kewl by the pewl”. Uh, hello?

Anyway, all is good as from tomorrow there are only 100 school days left before we leave. Hurrah.