Well, it is has been a few weeks since our last post, and we wanted to give y’all a few highlights from our weeks in London. A few days following Halloween, the English have another exciting holiday on November 5, Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night. Many of you are doubtlessly familiar with the day from the film, V for Vendetta. Although it is an excellent film, it does fail to capture the English attitude towards the holiday. In many ways, Guy Fawkes Day is a celebration of England’s history and the preservation of its government. On the evening of November 5, I made the trip out to a small town in the English countryside, Lewes. Lewes is one of the centers of celebration for Bonfire Night, and every year, thousands of people come out to the town! The celebrations were really intense. Many groups marched through the streets with torches and burning signs. The train ride back into London was fairly jam packed, but overall, it was an enjoyable night!
In other news, I had one of my favorite days of the trip last week when Olivia and I (both aspiring teachers) took a day trip to Surrey to visit the Holy Trinity elementary school, where Dr. Aiesi’s good friend Richard is the headmaster. Richard gave us a tour of the school, we spent some time talking to teachers about their experiences at the school, and then we spent most of the day in Level 6 classrooms (our equivalent of 5th /6th grade) helping students with the day’s project, which just so happened to be “design-your-own Rainforest Cereal Box"! Now most of you are aware of how much I LOVE cereal, so this was an absolutely perfect day for me to visit! Needless to say, Olivia and I both loved our time with these kids and it was so difficult to leave at the end of the day, but we learned so much about the differences between the American and British school systems and had a wonderful experience. Favorite student quotes of the day:
“Do you study English in America too? Or do you call it American-glish?”
“I’ve only met four Americans in my whole life! Your friend was the third, and you were the fourth!”
“How old are you? Are you a mum (mom)? Well if you’re not a mum, then what are you?”
This past week, all of the United Kingdom observed Armistice Day on November 11. We all donned our red poppies and joined in the commemoration of the fallen. Other highlights from this week include Dr. Aiesi’s legal tour of London, yet another visit to Parliament, and several exciting performances. Three final performances this week will finish off our epic semester of theater-going…as our professor has told us, we can now be considered “theater mavens” because of the ridiculous number of shows we have seen these past few months!
We are now entering our final week in London, and we really don’t know where the time has gone. By Saturday, all of us will be off to different parts of Europe. It will definitely be a bittersweet end to our time in London because it has been an incredible past seven weeks in this city, but we are all definitely looking forward to independent travel (and being done with classes of course J)!
Seeing as this is our last week here, we thought we would make a few short video clips to give you a little glimpse into our daily London lives! We hope you enjoy them! J
Yours Truly,
Thomas and Julie
On the way to class....
After class....
The beginning of the Lord Mayor's Parade in front of St. Paul's Cathedral!
The view of London from Waterloo Bridge!
