Well, it's been a busy month and a half! October was full of planning and marking and filling out reports. Luckily, this last week was a much need week off. What better way to spend a week off in England than by traveling to Europe with my roomie??
Another day, I hope I'll have time to write more about England, but for now, a little bit about... Austria!
After landing in Vienna, we immediately took a train 2.5 hours through the picturesque Austrian countryside to Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart and setting for The Sound of Music. Thanks to some touring around Salzburg, I learned that the name means Fortress of Salt, due to all the salt available in the region.
We easily found our hostel, a Yoho International Youth Hostel, about 10 minutes from the train station. Just as a side note: I would definitely recommend this hostel. It was clean and friendly with reasonably-priced food offered in the morning and evening. Plus they played The Sound of Music every evening.
Once we had dropped our luggage off, we took a walk around the Old Town (also a 10 minute walk from the hostel). Old Town Salzburg is full of Baroque buildings and has remained fairly unchanged in the last few hundred years. A majestic castle overlooks the beautiful city.
Besides exploring the collection of churches, shops, and otherwise beautiful buildings of Salzburg, we also wanted to explore the area around the area. There are so many day trips to go on near Salzburg, hiking in the mountains and visiting smaller towns.
Well, I won't get into all the details now, but hopefully I can post in the next few weeks. I'm trying to get a good routine down so that I can find a balance between my work and personal goals. Wish me luck!
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Exploring London
So, I know it's been two weeks, unfortunately. It has been a busy two weeks with a lot of work and touring :)
Last weekend I spent Saturday and Sunday in London checking it out. There's so much to do, I won't even get to everything in the next year I'm sure.
I walked around the Brick Lane Market awhile, and picked up lunch at a street vendor around there. It's a really cool area, with vendors and boutiques selling everything from delicious food to antiques to clothing to vinyl albums. Basically anything you could imagine with lots of hidden gems. In and around an old brewery called the Truman Brewery, there's a loads of little markets.
Apparently, according to my good friend Wikipedia, the Truman Markets (in the Brick Lane area) started as a single farmer's market, set up once a week, way back in the 1600s. Through the 19th century, a huge movement of Bangladeshi immigrants to this area changed the market. It's famous for its curry houses, which I actually didn't know before. I didn't get any curry last time, so I guess I'll have to go back!
Instead of going to a curry house, I got food from a street vendor. It was hard to choose which one and the one I went to ended up not having the meal I actually wanted. I ended up with fried chicken somehow, which unfortunately is not one of my favourite meals. However, it was quite good for fried chicken, and very flavorful. Another time, though, I would probably go for one of the vendors with a more Asian influence (of which there were many).
I did a lot of walking around after the Brick Lane Market and eventually ended up at the Tate Modern. However, I should warn you not to walk around too much BEFORE going to an art gallery or museum. I ended up walking around one floor then leaving to go see a movie. Luckily, the Tate Modern is free (as are many of the museums and galleries around London), so I will go back. I'll write a little blurb about it when I have seen more.
Just as a side note, I went to see Sin City 2. The movie was fantastic, but my advice to you is not to bother going to see a move in one of the cinemas at Leicester Square. Not sure if it was just that cinema or all of them, but it was £15... and I thought $12 was expensive in Toronto.
Anyway, that's it for now! But hopefully I'll have time to write another post this weekend about my daily experiences and things I notice or encounter.
Bye for now!
P.S. photos to come.
Last weekend I spent Saturday and Sunday in London checking it out. There's so much to do, I won't even get to everything in the next year I'm sure.
I walked around the Brick Lane Market awhile, and picked up lunch at a street vendor around there. It's a really cool area, with vendors and boutiques selling everything from delicious food to antiques to clothing to vinyl albums. Basically anything you could imagine with lots of hidden gems. In and around an old brewery called the Truman Brewery, there's a loads of little markets.
Apparently, according to my good friend Wikipedia, the Truman Markets (in the Brick Lane area) started as a single farmer's market, set up once a week, way back in the 1600s. Through the 19th century, a huge movement of Bangladeshi immigrants to this area changed the market. It's famous for its curry houses, which I actually didn't know before. I didn't get any curry last time, so I guess I'll have to go back!
Instead of going to a curry house, I got food from a street vendor. It was hard to choose which one and the one I went to ended up not having the meal I actually wanted. I ended up with fried chicken somehow, which unfortunately is not one of my favourite meals. However, it was quite good for fried chicken, and very flavorful. Another time, though, I would probably go for one of the vendors with a more Asian influence (of which there were many).
I did a lot of walking around after the Brick Lane Market and eventually ended up at the Tate Modern. However, I should warn you not to walk around too much BEFORE going to an art gallery or museum. I ended up walking around one floor then leaving to go see a movie. Luckily, the Tate Modern is free (as are many of the museums and galleries around London), so I will go back. I'll write a little blurb about it when I have seen more.
Just as a side note, I went to see Sin City 2. The movie was fantastic, but my advice to you is not to bother going to see a move in one of the cinemas at Leicester Square. Not sure if it was just that cinema or all of them, but it was £15... and I thought $12 was expensive in Toronto.
Anyway, that's it for now! But hopefully I'll have time to write another post this weekend about my daily experiences and things I notice or encounter.
Bye for now!
P.S. photos to come.
Friday, September 5, 2014
A whirlwind
Hi!
So a little bit of background... I was teaching grade 4 French Immersion in Saskatchewan last year. It was a great experience, but I definitely missed the business of life in and around Toronto. I decided to get my qualification for teaching high school English. Literature has always been my passion and I wanted a chance to work with higher level material and students.
So a little bit of background... I was teaching grade 4 French Immersion in Saskatchewan last year. It was a great experience, but I definitely missed the business of life in and around Toronto. I decided to get my qualification for teaching high school English. Literature has always been my passion and I wanted a chance to work with higher level material and students.
Considering the job market for teachers in Ontario, you might know that there aren't many jobs for English teachers there. I had a teacher friend going over to the UK and I've ALWAYS wanted to take a year abroad. So.... I applied and after a Skype interview, was offered a job in Slough, UK about 20 minutes outside of London. I decided, on the spot, to accept and thus began a summer of gathering documents, applying for passports/visas and waiting for everything to fall into place.
Well, everything did fall into place! I am currently in Slough and I have just finished a week of training and a week of PD/teaching. It's been a fantastic, if busy, two weeks though. If anyone is wondering, I went with the recruiting agency UTeach. I feel that they have a lot of pros and a lot of cons, just like any agency probably does. Message me if you'd like to know more about my experience :)
There's a lot of differences in the culture and the teaching that I've come across, so that's mainly what this blog will be about. I'll hopefully include a bit of history mixed in with my own day-to-day experiences.
Hope you enjoy! Talk to you soon.
CG
Update: Okay...I quit my secondary job at the end of December and decided to start supply teaching. Redbox Teaching Agency has been great in providing me with steady work and I have so much more free time to travel or relax - definitely a good choice. I was beginning to resent spending my year abroad planning and marking without cease.
My blog has turned more into a travel blog and it is definitely less about England and teaching than I had originally planned. Things never really do go as planned, do they? ;)
Update: Okay...I quit my secondary job at the end of December and decided to start supply teaching. Redbox Teaching Agency has been great in providing me with steady work and I have so much more free time to travel or relax - definitely a good choice. I was beginning to resent spending my year abroad planning and marking without cease.
My blog has turned more into a travel blog and it is definitely less about England and teaching than I had originally planned. Things never really do go as planned, do they? ;)
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