England... so far

So I've been here for 3 1/2 weeks. It hardly feels like it! I am continuously shocked and amazed at the behaviour of my boys, but it certainly keeps me entertained. Two fights in my classroom in the first 10 days of teaching certainly makes for an interesting start to the year. I managed to break up the second one by separating them with a chair before any blood went flying. However, there is now a dent in the filing cabinet from one boy's head.

Last weekend I wanted to go to Canterbury, but due to having no internet at home yet, and problems with the filtering software causing nearly every web site to be blocked at school, I was unable to plan my journey. Public transportation in the UK is very complex so you definitely have to plan your trip. Instead, my Scottish roommate, Don, and I decided to go to the nearby town of Rochester for the day. We visited the cathedral there, which is the second oldest in England and is over 1400 years old. It was gorgeous, both inside and out. Next we went to Rochester castle, not that beautiful, but it had a great view of the Medway River from the top. Afterwards we went to a nearby pub and had a beverage outdoors, then went for a great Thai dinner. I had a bit of an interesting trip home afterwards. I had to take a train and then a bus because there was repairs being done to the rail tunnel. While waiting for the bus, a man started to harass a woman who was waiting with her young son. He was quite verbally offensive. Another woman who clearly felt uncomfortable decided not to wait for the bus and called a cab. When the cab came, she said that anyone who wanted to join her on the trip to Chatham could share the cab. This crazy guy tried to go with her! She started screaming at him, "Not you!!" When the bus arrived, everyone got on besides the young woman and her son. I decided to go onto the upper level of the double decker bus because the wacko was on the main level. The bus just sat there for about half an hour. Finally 6 police showed up and dragged the guy off the bus. I guess when you don't carry guns it takes a lot of cops to deal with one guy.

On Tuesday I had to go to a town south of here to get a national insurance number (the UK equivalent of a SIN). After taking care of that, I decided to take a walk about the town centre. I ended up wandering into a museum which had everything from antiques, to art, to an Egyptian mummy, to military artifacts. It was very eerie to look at items which had been worn and used by Nazis.

I finally took a real trip into London on Friday night (my first time there was just en route to my house). ITN Teachers, the recruiting agency, had a drinks night out for teachers. It was so great to hear people who speak like me! It was a mix of Canadians, Australians, and South Africans. I even met a couple people that went to the U of A. A couple free drinks, some dancing, and meeting some great people made the 2 hour trip worthwhile. I had my first experience on the London Underground as well. When I got off the train at London Bridge and was heading to the tube, I was completely overwhelmed by the number of people. It was rush hour and were the people ever rushing! I felt like I was in one of those music videos where the person is standing still and all the people are rushing by in fast motion. It was surreal for a few minutes. Then I felt myself caught up in the flow...