At Long Last

I think it has been over a month since I last posted....so likely no one is reading this right now. Oh well. It serves me right.

Quite a bit has happened in the past month or so. Here are some notable things that happened;

- I taught math classes

- Easter came and I ate lots of chocolate

- I went to London for the weekend, looked at some art and saw Avenue Q, which I found to be highly entertaining (though not for the easily-offended).

- I told my school that I was leaving, and I started preparing to come home on April 30th. That's right, I am coming home! I am hoping to interview and get a job with the Waterloo school board for next year. I am also hoping to get caught up on all of the KW fun that I missed...

- My computer, or should I say my school-issued laptop, decided to kick it. All of my pictures from my trip were on there. Those of you who know me well will have already guessed that I did not have them backed up. So that was sad. Luckily, the IT guy at my school thinks that my computer will be fixable and my pictures will be recovered. Hopefully that will occur BEFORE I go home.

- Meghan and I took a 2 week trip over the Easter holidays. We went to Krakow (Poland), Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Munich, Heidelberg and Amsterdam. Needless to say, it was a busy couple of weeks! Well worth it, though. I'd have to say that my favourite places were Prague and Salzburg (although paragliding in Innsbruck was also sweet!). Prague, although not necessarily my favourite city overall, was probably the most beautiful city I've ever visitied, and the scenery surrounding Salzburg is amazing. I kept wanting to sing songs from the Sound Of Music. I have also discovered how great Easter markets in Europe are. Mmm, carbohydrates...

And that is the last month in a nutshell.

In closing, I must mention that if any of you are going to see Ben Folds and John Mayer play in Toronto tonight, you are incredibly lucky and I am incredibly jealous.

That is all.

Final Pictures Of Spain (It's About Time!)

Here is the last installment of photos from our February trip. They are mostly from Gibraltar, and so mainly consist of us standing in front of or with cool things. They are some of my favourites though!

I think this is one of the funniest pictures I have. This is the outside of our hostel in Granada. That's right - we stayed in this extremely sketchy looking alleyway! It was actually perfectly fine, and it was even nice inside. Once we got over the shock of it, it made us laugh quite a bit.

And now, we come to Gibraltar. This is me pointing at Africa. AFRICA!! If you look really closely and squint, you can see it. It was my first, and hopefully not last, look at that continent.

Kim and I standing in a massive cave inside the Rock. I have never seen such a cool cave before. They even have a concert hall in there. I'm sure the acoustics are interesting...

I made a new friend! These are the only "free" apes in Europe.

Meg made a new friend too!

And to close, a picture of me in front of the rock.

That's it for the pictures - we'll see how many posts I have to do for our TWO week trip.

Meet The Next Rhodes Scholar

That's me! Or at least I'd like to think that it COULD be me, after our weekend in Oxford. Needless to say, I enjoyed it, it was very nice, and being there made me want to go back to university. All very predictable for people who know me. Funnily enough, I even felt smarter while I was there.
It's hard to say which I liked better - Cambridge or Oxford. Cambridge colleges had nicer "backs" which faced the river, while Oxford was less crowded and probably had a higher number of cool looking buildings (and seemed to have a higher number of famous alumni). Cambridge DOES have a better math program, though. So basically, if they offered me a spot at either school, I would take it.

Although it doesn't seem like it based on my posts, I have still been living in Great Yarmouth and going to work at school every day. The past two weeks were nice because we had a couple of students from Nipissing university doing some practice teaching. It turned out to be an interesting experience for them (they had a lot of problems with travel logistics and such), but it was fun to be able to talk about home. One of them had even attended Laurier for a year and understood how great Waterloo is! The two of them have gone on to France now, but having them around definitely made the last two weeks go more quickly.

I am glad that it is finally March, because ever since we came home from our week off in February I have thought that it was March. The trees have already been blossoming for weeks, the tulips and daffodils are coming up, and the days have been getting longer. Spring is here! As is March, which means much less confusion for me.

More Pictures Of Spain

Here is one of the cool archways in the Mezquita in Cordoba, with Arabic writing on it.

The streets of Cordoba.

The Alcazar (castle) in Seville.

The Alcazar gardens...very pretty. Senior citizens can get in here for free, so we saw an old man who came in just to sit in the garden for the morning. I can definitely see why.

The amazing Alhambra palace in Granada. The architecture, the gardens and the setting were all awesome. I will try to pick the best pictures to give you an idea of how cool it was.

One of the ceilings.

There was a lot of water around the palace, and it definitely signifies something. However, I can't really remember what at the moment.

One last shot of the exterior.

This is a view of the palace and the city, take from one of the old Muslim neighbourhoods in the city. The square we were at is now apparently also home to all of the hippies in Granada and many dogs.

I will stop for now, but stay tuned for a third installment which will include some pictures from Gibraltar. Don't miss it - they are some of the best ones!

Books Are Fun

I decided that, instead of posting more pictures of my trip, it would be more fun to do this book list thingy that I saw on Steph's blog. Yay Steph, and yay books! I'm not sure where they got the 100 books from, but it's still fun.

Here are the instructions and the list:

“It works like this: The bolded books are books I've read (and even enjoyed) [but not necessarily] ... italicized books I would like to read, books with crosses are on my shelf and asterisked books I've never heard of. The books that are striked out I am unlikely ever to read. The books listed here that haven't felt the touch of my cursor and remain unedited I could care less or more about on any given day.I imagine the books on this list were selected for their best-seller status or something like that."

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) – I want to see what all the fuss is about.
2. †Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) – can’t believe I haven’t read this
4. †Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. †The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. †The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. †The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. †Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. †Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. †A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. †Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. †Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. †Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) – again, I want to see what all the fuss is about
23. †Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. †The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. †Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. †Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. †The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. †East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. *Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. †The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) – Don’t ask why I have this book…I even read a few chapters of it before I couldn’t take any more of the sugar and sap.
33. *Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. †1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. †Bible
46. †Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. †The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. †Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. †The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. †A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. †Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. †The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. †Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. †The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. †Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. *The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. †Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. †One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. †Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. †Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. *Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Ondaatje)
75. †The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. †A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. †Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. *Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. †Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) – I also can’t believe I haven’t read this yet
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) – I, like Steph, wish I hadn't read this! We even took a copy with us to Europe, but it was unceremoniously dumped in a hostel in Girona, Spain. Perhaps it is there to this day.
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) – I don’t think you can go through teacher’s college without hearing about this book
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I didn’t strike any out, because I never know what I’m going to end up reading. I would say it’s pretty unlikely that I will read any of the ones I haven’t heard of though.

I Guess I Should Post...

It has been awhile since I have updated my blog, and a fair bit has happened since then. The main thing was that Meghan and I went to Spain and Portugal last week for our half term break. We had a great time, saw lots of things, and the weather was warmer than it is here (all good things). It is probably easier to show you pictures, instead of trying to explain everything that we did, so here goes.


Our first stop was in Lagos, Portugal. It is mainly a beach town, and since it was not quite beach season it was quite dead when we were there. Still very nice though. I could see it being a nice place to come on vacation - nice beaches, supposedly nice weather in spring/summer, and a little bit of culture thrown in too.

In Portugal, people speak Portuguese, which is something I am not overly familiar with. Hence, there was a little bit of a language barrier at times. Here are some of the words I picked up as I went...
laranja = orange
sumos = juice
obrigado = thank you
aberto = open
You can probably see why we still experienced some communication difficulties, despite my command of the language.

Our next stop was in Seville, Spain. I thought it was quite a nice city. There were lots of things to see and an interesting culture, with flamenco and bull-fighting.


This picture is of the Placa d'Espana. It was a very nice square, designed for an expo that was held in Seville. I can't remember what the expo was for though.












We decided not to go to the right here. If you look closely you can see why.











This is where the bull fights are held in the summer. I was content to just take part in the arena tour.














From Seville, we took a day trip to Cordoba, home of winding, narrow streets, lots of orange trees, and the Mezquita (one of the best examples of Muslim architecture in Spain).










The inner courtyard of the Mezquita.














The inside of the mosque/cathedral (it went from cathedral to mosque back to cathedral) was huge and full of these types of arches.











My computer seems to have decided not to upload any more pictures, so I guess this post is prematurely finished. It also seems to have decided to make the format of this post all wonky, so that is why it looks so strange. Stay tuned for more (hopefully better aligned) pictures from Cordoba, Seville, Granada and Gibraltar at a later date!

Happy Super-Bowl Sunday!

Also, happy belated Groundhog Day...

Both Groundhog Day and Superbowl Sunday are things that are significantly less popular here in England. In fact, I don't think there are very many people here who even know what Groundhog Day is, unless they've seen the movie. Oh well. I for one am still interested in whether or not Wiarton Willie saw his shadow on Friday. Although I can't remember whether that means there are six weeks left of Winter or what.

It is quite amazing to me that we have already made it to February. Our trip is only a week away, and I can't wait! Should be interesting to see how we do in our first journey to the continent and to a non-English speaking country. I'll let you know how it goes!

Here are some select pictures from last week-end in Edinburgh. Enjoy!
















Me after climbing to the top of this......





















Arthur's Seat: the highest point in Edinburgh. It is actually taller than it looks in this picture.














The National Gallery, which contains paintings by Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Raphael, El Greco and Rembrandt, among others.





















The Castle, as seen from the Princes St. Gardens.





















The outside of St. Giles' Kirk on the Royal Mile.





















I liked this picture from the inside of St. Giles' for some reason...
















Kim and I looking "scared" on our nighttime Ghost tour of Greyfriars cemetery.
















The three travelling companions - we obviously survived the tour!