Second Week & London Day Trip

Hello everyone!

I know it has been over a week since I last blogged, but things are pretty busy over here... who would have thought!?

My second week of school went great. While I am here teaching, I have three formal observations by my USF professors and last week I had my first one. I taught the first of three lessons on People of Faith, Courage & Commitment. My lesson was on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and the students really seemed to enjoy learning about him. I showed them his speech and even separated them up into two halves and did some simplified segregation activities to show them how it felt to be judged by something other than there character. It went really well.

Friday I had a lot of fun teaching the students line dancing! That's right, U.S. Country Line Dancing!!! It is a simple as playing a cassette tape that instructs them what to do, but I still needed to practice with them. I actually ended up dancing with one of the students who didn't have a partner. We had a blast.

Friday night we went out to a few pubs and I crossed two more pubs off of my pub crawl list. Now I am only one pub away from my t-shirt that says "I did the Cambridge Pub Crawl." Isn't it funny what some people will do for goofy souvenirs?

Saturday the whole house woke up early and we all headed to London. Luckily there is a big discount for a group of 4 or more people, that cuts the train ticket price in half. It also included a free Tube pass for downtown, which would come in handy.

When we arrived we headed straight for Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. My group consisted of McKara, Tiffany and Alan (who had been to London the week prior and would basically be our guide for the day). There were thousands of people who also wanted to see the famous ceremony in front of the palace, so it was packed. However, it was still special to see the royal band march down the street and into the palace gates, followed by solderers on horseback with their tall, black bearskin hats waiving in the wind.

The ceremony inside the gate was a little difficult to see, but I was able to understand what was going on.... somewhat anyways. After the ceremony, the band played a bunch of classic songs including the Beatles. What better a place to hear the Beatles than on the lawn of Buckingham Palace being played by the Queen's Marching Band (I guess it would have been better if it was the actual Beatles, but c'mon, be realistic here).

We walked for miles around the city to Big Ben, the London Tower, the Tower Bridge, Westminster Abby and even took a ride on the London Eye. The Eye moved very slow, but took us far into the air where we could see almost all of London.

I only had one regret from the trip. I passed on the opportunity to go inside Westminster Abby. It was only 1/2 hour before the entrance closed, so I didn't want to spend a lot of money to get in for a half hour.

Well, it ended up that although the front doors closed, the people who did go inside were able to stay for almost 2 & 1/2 hours longer... So I missed the tombs where every King & Queen were laid to rest, Issac Newton and even Charles Darwin (who is the grandfather of evolution, which is hard for me to understand why his tomb is in a church?). Although I didn't go inside, I did get a picture in front of it that I posted above!

We also visited a few landmarks around the city, including a monument that was protected by 4 very large lions. After we admired how large they were, we decided we should get a nice photo with them, thus the photo below!

Like always, we had a blast, but we were happy to get home and go to bed after 12 hours of walking around!

Sunday we spend the day walking around Cambridge and really took the time to admire and learn about some of the historic buildings we walk past everyday on our way to teach. I think we all started to realize that we were taking advantage of what we are surrounded with everyday, which is thousands of years of history right under our feet! In the evening we purchased tickets to an event called 'Singing on the River' performed by the King's College Men's Choir. There were about 10 young men who stood on a few punting boats in the middle of the Cam river. Meanwhile, the audience sat on the river bank that was owned by King's College. I am not sure if I have ever been in a more beautiful piece of land which was surrounded by the college and the famous King's College Cathedral. The choir was amazing and there was a great am mount of humor throughout the show, planned and otherwise.

This week I will be doing my second observation in the classroom and hopefully reporting back to you all very soon!

Cheers!