"I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list!"

Hello friends!  It's been ages since I've written a blog post, I know. As Haydn and I prepare for an AMAZING European road trip over the next week, I figured it might be a good time to start writing again. As the name of my blog is the "traveling teacher," I might as well blog about the travel part! The teaching part is a different story for another day. While teaching in the UK hasn't been the most glorious experience, I have learned a lot and will share more about that soon. For now, it's enough to say ONE MORE DAY until Easter Holiday! So thankful we have 2 weeks off!  On to the fun stuff...the traveling!  We are planning to drive through 14 different countries in just 8 short days. We start out on Friday at about 12:30 AM to get to a VERY early ferry that leaves from Dover, England and takes us to Calais, France at 3:20 AM. We will then drive through Belgium to reach the Netherlands. It will take about 1 1/2 hours to get to the ferry and then about 3 1/2 hours to get to Amsterdam. We have such an exciting day planned for Friday. Keep your fingers crossed that the rain stays away so we can see all the beautiful tulips and take a bike ride through the tulip fields. I'll make sure to post loads of pictures!! xx

"Being sick can seem like all fun and games until you no longer live with your mom."

Thankfully I have Haydn. He has been a star in taking care of my while I've been sick. I have no idea what happened. I've been having terrible allergy attacks for weeks now. I think the change in climate, the dust from moving, and the fact that it's hay fever season around here all combined and I've been having issues. Allergy meds usually help clear it up. Last Friday I thought it was that but then my throat started hurting. I figured it was just sinuses and drainage issues. Then the fever started. I think that having a fever as an adult is one of the worst feelings in the world. I had chills and was achey and it was just plain awful. On Saturday morning I was feeling worse. We had a ton of things to do so I didn't want to take up a lot of time by making a visit to the Dr. Also, I haven't actually registered with a Dr. in this area yet. You can't make an appointment until you've registered somewhere but we decided to go to the walk-in clinic. The wait wasn't too long so we were glad for that. I never feel comfortable going to a Dr. I haven't been to before. I was afraid of hearing lectures about my blood pressure being high (I'm sure it's through the roof right now due to stress.) and I just didn't know what to expect. They took my name, asked for no ID, and didn't even ask for my National Insurance Number. The Dr. was about 500 years old and could barely walk. I was scared but still hoping this would somehow help me. He didn't take blood pressure or anything. He just asked what was wrong. I explained the sore throat, fever, etc. I was trying to explain the symptoms but he didn't seem to care. He wanted to look at my throat and didn't use a light or any of the normal tools, he just looked at it and said "Oh, ew, yeah I can see why you say you have a sore throat." He then gave me a prescription and said have a nice day. WHAT?!?! It was like a 2 minute process. It was weird and I just don't know. I know it was strep because I know what that looks like. I haven't had strep this bad since I don't even know when. I am finally feeling better today. Even yesterday I was thinking about going back because my throat just wasn't feeling any better. My glands were so swollen, my neck was sore, and I just thought maybe it was something other than strep. My diet the past 5 days or so has been cranberry juice and mashed potatoes and I still don't have an appetite for much of anything else.  I'm feeling better today I am SO THANKFUL. I've been trying to rest and get sleep as much as I can. I've also been trying to get a lot done so the rest/sleep hasn't been happening so much. I haven't been sleeping well at night but last night I finally got a full night of sleep so that was good, too.  The Dr. experience was bizarre and I definitely need to get registered elsewhere ASAP so that I can see a Dr. that isn't 500 years old. :)

"You can't have rainbows without a little rain."

Moving house is chaotic. End of story. We are so happy with our new house, however, we are currently living in a sea full of cardboard boxes and things that need to be put away and dealt with. I'm doing the best I can while Haydn works during the day but there are just some things I need help with. Hopefully we will get a lot done over the upcoming weekend. We have our first guest (Haydn's sister and our nephew) coming to visit next week! I can't wait! It gives us a good deadline to get things done by!

In addition to the chaos of unpacking and moving, I've been spending a lot of time at the gym. It's such a nice gym. The building itself has a ton of other things going on (huge pool, gymnastics centre for kids, a cafe, shops, track, etc.). They gym is great. I like going in the mornings with all of the older people! When I don't feel like going I just remember that there are about 20 80-90 year olds there so I have ZERO excuse!! I've been running again, some weight training, and finally got back into Zumba. It's the best and it's such a great release of all the current stresses I have going on right now!! Plus it burns a lot of calories! Another note about the gym is that apparently in 2012 when the Olympics were in London, the Bermuda Olympic team used it as their training facility. I thought that was pretty cool! Moving on...

In my phone I've started a list about random things that come up for me to share here in my blog. It's very random but I hope you find it interesting!

*AA does not stand for Alcoholics Anonymous here. AA is the Automobile Association that comes to help you when your car breaks down. Basically it's our version of AAA. Here AAA is just a battery. :)

*Pandora doesn't work in the UK. So sad. I'm trying out Spotify but I don't like it as much.

* TJ Maxx is TK Maxx. Weird. No clue why it's not the same!

*Sundays drive me crazy. ALL stores of any kind shut down around 4 PM. You have to make a really early start to get your errands done! I guess there is some kind of law that only allows businesses to stay open a certain number of hours. It's crazy because stores close pretty early on most week nights, too. Lots of places close at 5:30. I think the mall might be open until 7ish but not every night.

*Thank goodness for IKEA. I'm glad we don't live that far away from one!

*Near IKEA is a Costco!! They even sell Cadbury chocolate in bulk!

*England is not very religious. After living in the south for so long you get used to seeing so many churches all over. There aren't hardly any around here. I think I know where 1 is located but people generally don't seem to be very religious at all.

*The Pound Shop is great. It's our version of the dollar store but obviously they don't have dollars here, they have pounds. There is the Pound Shop or Poundland. Both of lots of things for school!

*Dancing here is known as having a boogie. Boogie is pronounced boo-gie. :)

*I went from NY to shopping with a cart to shopping in SC with a buggy to England where we shop with a trolley!

*Apparently I hold my utensils incorrectly when eating. I guess I'm supposed to hold my fork with my left hand and knife with my right hand at all times throughout the meal. Lefties have it easy!

*Some other interesting words/phrases:
    -What's the crack? meaning What's going on?
    -Slag meaning skank
    -Crackers meaning crazy
    -Crumbs meaning darn it

*Everywhere Haydn and I go, people always say to us "You look nice and brown. Have you just been on holiday?" I love the compliment but I promise I am not any shade of brown. I'm pale as a ghost and our holiday was over a LONG time ago!

*Today I found out what a "subway" is in England and I'm not talking about the sandwich place. It's a creepy tunnel that you can walk through to get to the other side of the motorway. I've used them before but didn't realise that is what they were called!

*I love our new TV provider. We have LIFETIME!!! It's not the same but close enough. It's funny because a lot of shows on the British version of Lifetime are shows that air on Bravo or HGTV in America. Glad to have it though!

*At almost any hour of the day you can watch Judge Judy on TV here. People love her! You can also watch Jeremy Kyle, the British version of Jerry Springer, at almost any time. He's hilarious!

*When going out to eat you can have a starter (appetiser). The best is baked Camembert. I've never seen this in the US before. It's a melty cheese that you can dip breads and fruits/veggies in. SO YUM.

I promise to work on posting pictures of everything as soon as I can!! :)

"Fill a house with love and it becomes a home."

This weekend is our big move! I cannot wait to be in anew place and finally get settled. It will be so nice to unpack everything, get organised, and start living life without boxes and suitcases all over the place! Once we get settled, I'll definitely make sure to share lots of pictures! I'm not even sure we have good pictures of our current flat but I'll work on that, too. Thankfully we are only moving about 10 minutes from here in the same town. The main reason for our move is that we simply need more space. The flat we are in now has been Haydn's "bachelor pad" for the last 3 years. It's worked well for us, however, the lounge (living room) is Haydn's office, if I stand with my arms out in the kitchen I can reach both walls (It's that narrow!), and the spare bedroom is full of tools, and other misc. things that belong in a shed meaning we have no room for guests. When we started looking for a place, we had a list of "must haves" and then a list of things that would be nice but not totally necessary.

Our "must haves:"

*3+ bedrooms (master, a guest room, and office)

*En-suite bathroom to master bedroom (not common in this country!!)

*Yard

*Off-street parking

*2+ bathrooms 

Would be nice but not totally necessary:

*Tumble dryer

*Conservatory (Kind of like a sun room but not!) See picture! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

*Dishwasher (again, not totally common in a lot of places!)

*Close to town (I love to be able to walk there.)

*Shed in the yard (for storage)

*Built-in wardrobes (Closets are unheard of! Wardrobes are huge clunky things that take up lots of space in the rooms that are already pretty small. Built in wardrobes help save space!)
*Detached property (Meaning we wouldn't have to share a wall with someone.)

We were lucky enough to find a house that has EVERYTHING on BOTH of our lists!! Here is a quick picture of the front and back of the house. I can't wait to show you the inside!! :)

"I'm not random, you just can't think as fast as me." :)

I don't have much to write about today so I figured I would just share some more random bits & bobs about life here in England. :)

*The weather. British people love to talk about the weather and I have no idea why. It's no good! I don't think it's actually as bad as they often make it out to be, however, at times it's pretty close. Yes it rains a lot here. Yes it's cloudy a lot here. From my experience, British "summer" lasts for about 3-5 days sometime in mid July. For a solid week it's in the high 90's and extremely humid. No homes have air conditioning so for that week we all suffer and sit in front of a fan! We keep the windows open but there isn't much of a breeze on those days. It's pretty miserable. Side note about the windows...none of them have screens here. You can't really get a tan here because the sun isn't strong enough. You might get some colour but for those of you that know me and how I tan, yeah it doesn't work for me here. I'm pale and ghostly right now! HA! People still always mention how brown I am but I promise them that this is my natural skin and my Hawaiian tan is long gone! The average temperature lately has been about 70-74 degrees (F). They measure everything in Celsius but that's just weird to me, especially when using the oven! It's been partly cloudy on most days but today it's pretty much going to continue raining until tomorrow. At night the temperature drops to the low to mid 50's. It's not ideal but it's not Antarctica either!

*An interesting British phrase that I forgot to mention in a previous blog post is "Bob's your uncle." It basically means that you're done with following a set of directions. It was on a cooking show the other day. "Put the chicken in the pan, put the pan in the oven, and Bob's your uncle!" I'm not sure I'll pick up on this one! It kind of goes into the same category as "y'all" for me. Not going to happen! :)

*Cheese. Someone needs to inform the UK that there are other forms of cheese other than cheddar! It's really almost impossible to find anything other. I did find some mozzarella and one time I even saw monterey jack but that was rare and it wasn't there the last time I checked!

*For those of you that have travelled abroad, you are aware that the electrical outlets are completely different. I have a ton of converters that I use for lots of things. When I first started travelling here, I bought a cheap blow-dryer and straightener to use to save room in my bags every time I come. Also, the very first time I came here to visit, I blew out my chi hair straightener. Those things aren't cheap! Anyway, I am trying to get to the fact that there are no electrical outlets of any kind in any bathroom in all of the UK. Not allowed. This is not my favourite thing. A lot of people use a "dressing table" aka vanity table in another room. I really would love to have one of these because it's weird to not be able to do my hair in the bathroom in the morning! I have to plug my straightener in and have it sit on the floor, which actually doesn't seem safe compared to sitting on a bathroom counter. Bathrooms here don't have counters either. Most have pedestal sinks. Bathrooms really have no storage of any kind. Someone also needs to inform the UK that counters are useful in the bathroom!

*In my post about school I forgot to mention that there is absolutely ZERO parking for parents. Teachers have to use a code to enter through the gate in the parking lot. It will be interesting to see how this works. I'm not sure parents are able to come for lunch. I do know that the new head teacher wants to encourage more parent involvement but I guess they all have to walk if they are interested. That's how all the kids get to school in the morning anyway. It's just different!

*Thank goodness that there is a Zulily UK website! I LOVE shopping there! :)

*Monday is Haydn's mum's birthday. We will go visit her in the hospital on Sunday. No change really in her status. Recovery is just slow but at least it's all been positive so far!

No blogging for me this weekend. We are getting ready to move in 1 week and are so far from being ready!! We are going to be busy, busy, busy! I hope you all have a great weekend! :)

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

So I decided to look at my trek to get fingerprints done as more of an adventure than an annoyance. Not everyone gets to ride trains and buses around different and fun places in England. I got to see a lot more of Brighton and I love it there even more now. I can't wait to go back to explore some of the new places I saw while on my bus ride. There is a huge open market that I didn't know existed and I saw so many cute pubs that have mine and Haydn's name all over!!

For those of you that aren't familiar with Brighton, it's part of the British seaside. We live about 20 min. from there. Our location is great. We have London on one side of us and Brighton on the other! In Brighton there is a huge pier that goes out over the water with rides, games, restaurants, and pubs. There is a ton of great shopping in Brighton, too, known as "the lanes." There is a great vibe in Brighton. I didn't take the picture to the right, but it was a good shot of the pier. I can't find my pictures of the pier for some reason. Haydn and I have been there quite a few times but there is still so much to see. Here are some of my favourite pictures from our times in Brighton.

This picture is from our first trip to Brighton together. It's at the train station.

I can't take credit for the picture below either. I think that Haydn or one of the boys took it. Great shot of the pier and the "beach." :)

 We took the boys to Brighton last year. We visited the Royal Pavilion. It is gorgeous!

Here is Haydn playing some games on the pier with the boys. It's cute. :)

Hopefully we will have time to get there soon to just have a day, however, time is something we don't have a whole lot of right now. The school year here ended yesterday. Today is the restart of my summer vacation! I now have 6 weeks to enjoy, pack, move, organise, visit home, and mentally prepare for adventure of school here that lies ahead. :)

I've been trying not to spend too much money on things for school because I really don't need anything. As teachers, do we really ever NEED anything new? Probably not but it's fun to shop for school anyway! The teachers here were shocked that I would even consider spending my own personal money on anything for school. They are crazy! I've probably spent at least a year's or more salary on things for school!!  Yesterday I did make one purchase, well two really. So there is a Costco about 45 min. from here. THANK GOODNESS! I am trying to convert Haydn into a Costco shopper and we are getting there slowly. He doesn't really like the whole buying in bulk thing but we are going to figure it out. He thinks I must have Kirkland stamped somewhere on my body! It's hilarious. He also asked if there were bags when we were checking out. No Haydn, no bags at Costco*!! :) He's learning the Costco way. He'll figure it out soon enough!  Anyway, I purchased a huge map poster that I want to hang in my classroom. I want to be able to have some sort of visual of where I'm from and where we live now for the kids to see. I think it will be fun. It was only £5. From Costco I also found this adorable alphabet rug that I will definitely be able to use. I love it. I will for sure post pictures of my classroom once I get to that point! 

*On a side note about plastic bags...one thing I love about this country is that they really encourage people to reuse bags. Lots of stores will charge a small fee if you do not bring your own bags of some sort. Most sell reusable bags. I'm trying to be better about that! I always forget to bring them when heading out to the store. 

We have a little over a week before we move. We have decided to not buy any furniture or anything until we move. We actually have no space for anything right now anyway, but we will definitely need lots of new things which is fun! We saw this piece last night at Costco. I WANT IT!! We've decided that it's very Harry Potter and therefore perfect for us.. I really tried to convince Haydn we should get it last night. He said no. :( If it's still there in a couple of weeks when we actually have space, then we will think about it! I love it!! It's so different and I just think we need it. That's all. :)

My adventure today will begin at the bank. It's bizarre but you can't just walk into the bank and create an account. You need to set up an interview appointment and they are apparently very busy. I've been waiting for my appointment for over 2 weeks now! I'll be glad to have that sorted. I will also be sending out my paperwork for the FBI check and heading to my new favourite zumba class tonight at the gym. I can't wait for that! I also need to do laundry. Here is the situation with laundry. A lot of places in England  do not have tumble dryers. Most people hang laundry on the line out in the yard. We do not have a dryer or a yard in our current place. All of our laundry gets hung to dry on a rack in our living room. :)  I thought about posting a picture, however, I decided against it. It's too chaotic right now. Our new place will have a yard AND a tumble dryer...YAY!! I don't mind air drying clothes but it takes up a lot of space and means a lot of ironing needs to happen. I do not love to iron. Anyway, have a great day! Cheerio! :)

"Every day might not be good, but there is something good in every day."

So, yesterday was not my favourite day. On Monday, I was finally able to complete all the information necessary in order to start teaching in September. I had been waiting on my National Insurance Number which finally came in the mail on Saturday. Monday was really positive. I thought I was finally finished with all the going here and there and everywhere business. I thought we were finally done with spending money on the moving to a new country thing. I was wrong. Yesterday I got an email from my school stating that I now have to have an FBI check done since they can't do a background check on me here since I've only just arrived. I totally get it, however, I figured that since I paid about $4,000 for my visa which states I can work, that I'd be done with all that kind of stuff. They wouldn't have approved my visa application if I didn't have a background check completed and fingerprints done and a zillion other things that cost money. Plus, I wouldn't have been teaching for the past 9 years if I had some kind of criminal record. Whatever. My biggest concern was the turnaround time it takes to get this information back from the FBI. There is an 11 week turnaround with no way to pay extra for it to get complete sooner. When I renewed my passport with my new name, I paid the expedite fee which wasn't cheap but it was worth it to save time. School starts in about 6 weeks. I don't have 11 weeks. I completed the application and will have to pay (of course) for this record check. Today I have to go and have fingerprints done (again and they aren't cheap either) and then I can send it all over to the FBI place in West Virginia. Apparently, as long as I am in the process of having the check completed I will be OK to start teaching in September even if it's not back in time. They suggested that I have the record sent to my parents in SC so that they (my parents) could ship it to me faster with a tracking number. If the FBI people send it to me there is no tracking number and "no promise that it will get here safely." Great. I'll just have my parents help me out with that so that it will get here a little bit faster, even though that is weeks away from happening.

I'm just frustrated. There are so many loose ends and nothing is going smoothly at all. I joined the gym here (It's the best gym ever!) and I've been loving it. Of course, I somehow pulled a muscle in my leg so I can barely walk today. Wah. I know. Just another thing. Once Haydn and I move into our new place in a couple of weeks, I am hoping that things will settle down. Having that looming over us isn't fun. Moving is a lot of work. Our current flat is a disaster. Boxes and things are everywhere. I'll be so glad to move into a bigger space and get everything organised and put away. I'm still living out of suitcases! Not a fan! After we move, I really need to get going with the driving thing. Part of why it stressed me out so much about having to get fingerprints done again (not only the cost) was because of how I am going to get there. I have to take a train and several buses and blah, blah, blah. It's just a different way of living. Everything before seemed so convenient and now I am just trying to adjust to so many different things at once. Thankfully I can walk to the gym  because it's just a 20 min. walk and I walk to town (shops) since they are about a 15 min. walk. Things could be worse. I do realise that. Change isn't easy. I realise that, too. I found this quote and it's pretty accurate to how I am feeling. :)