London

The first place we actually traveled to away from Bognor was a day trip to London. We went up there early the first Saturday we were there on the train. The trains were so easy to use over in Europe, and you could get basically anywhere on the train. On that first trip we went right to the British Museum as soon as we go into London. We found the architecture to be amazing! The building were so different than we have over here, even in the lesser areas of London they were beautiful!

The British Museum is free to go into, and it is also one of the largent museums in Europe. We did not even get halfway through it! I have a picture of am old fist of a statue they found burried somewhere with my fist on top...the fist islarger than me, so I can not imagine how big the rest of it was!

We then spent time walking around London, and evenyuallt ended up at Harrods Department store. This is the World's largent department, all designer things, and very classy. It is owned by Princess Diana's fiencee's Family, Dodi Fayed. There is an exhibit there that has her enggement ring on display (which is huge) as well as the glasses they drank from the night they died, and a picture of the two of them. I think she will forever live with how much people still morn over her. There were things to buy EVERYWHERE with Princess Diana's face on it. There were also many memorial spots all around Londo where people still left flowers mourning her!

The last thing we did for the day was take the train down to Wimboldon. We wanted to walk around there and see some of the tennis courts. The town is a VERY wealthy town, with very large houses. We were able to see some of the outside of the tennis courts, but not the insides.

We didn't get back to Bognor till late, but it was well worth the trip, and throughout the course of us being there we went back many more times!

Teaching

Since I just posted about Bognor Regis, when is where I spent most of my time, I figured I would focus next on the reason I was over there, which was to teach. I spent my time teaching in a small village school in a town called West Dean. It was a beautiful little down about half an hour from Bognor, and on the way there we went through field after field of sheep, and beautiful rolling hills. There is a college in the area as well. The school I taught at is called West Dean Church of England Primary. The whole school consisted of 72 students and three classrooms. I taught years 2, 3, and 4, and I had 31 students in my class. It was much different from teaching over in the US. I had three lesson plans every day for every subject. They are very big on independent learning over there, as well as having a differentiated teaching style. The kids LOVED to hear me do "read alouds" because they thought that my accent was funny, and also because they thought it was funny to hear me ask what certain words meant as I read.

There were so many things that surprised me while I was over there. Things are much more laid back over there. One of the first things I had to help teach was woodworking class. Oh yes, my 6, 7, and 8 year old were using hand saws, power drills, screw drivers, and hammers, BY THEMSELVES! There were 2 teachers in the room during this time, me included while 31 students used these tools. I was terrified the first few days of my teaching that one od my kids was going to cut their fingers off, or drill right through their hands! The worst part was that there were probably 15 or so students drilling and sawing at once, I I cant be 15 places at once, so I had to learn that it was not America and it was ok to let these kids do this!

Another thing they thought was funny was when I would write on the smart board and spell words "wrong." For example I was there for Mother's day, and so I wrote different things on the board that they could write on a card such as "Happy Mothers Day Mom!" Well, they say Mum, so they all laughed because "Miss Becker couldn't even spell mum!" This was about the time I bought a pocket dictionary to carry with me. There were many words that were different, and a few are programme (program), neighbour, and colour.

It was a wonderful semester and I would go back and do it again in a heartbeat of I could!

Bognor Regis

I am going to start my first post by talking about the place over in Europe in which I spent the majority of my 5 months. It was a small town on the South of England right on the English Channel called Bognor Regis. It was one of the cutest towns I have ever been it. It reminded me of one of the Eastern US beach towns such as Wildwood NJ, or Ocean City. There were many small shops selling beach type items, as well as multiple fish and chips stands. I got there in January so many of the places right along the water were closed because it was not tourist season, but the small town shops were opened and we spent a lot of our free time there walking around and enjoying talking to people. It was basically only locals there at that time of year, so they were fascinated by "the Americans." All of the bars and restaurants there were filled with locals and regulars, and we because well known in the area probably because we were not only new comers, but also we were not from England. People were very nice to us, and it was easy fall into a rhythm there.

One of the things that was neat to do was go to the grocery store. Since we lived in dorms, (very small campus, called University of Chichester. We had the entire top floor of the 4 floor dorm, and there were only 12 of us who went over to teach.), and ate at a dining hall we did not really need to buy food, but we did because it is all so different! They have food there that we don't have here and it was fun to try it all.

Another thing that was cool was their beach. It is all stones, and not small pebbles, but stones that barely fit into my fist. This was so normal to them. They got confused when we would talk about sand beaches. Once tourist season came around, in April or so, people would lay out on towels just like we would do here. I tried it, but found it to be very uncomfortable!

The final thing I want to discuss are the signs that were all over. They were on all the lamp posts, and they said "Welcome to Bognor Regis, the Sunniest Place in England!" It was NOT sunny! It rained everyday for at least a few minutes. It could be sunny and 5 minutes you would find yourself caught in a downpour! We had to have an umbrella with us all the time, even if there were not clouds in the sky!

Introduction Post

I have decided to blog about places I have traveled, as well as places that I would like to travel to eventually. I did my student teaching in Bognor Regis, England, and it was the best experience I have ever had. It allowed me to travel Europe, however there is so much that I have not seen that I still want to.

I decided to organize each post by a different area of the world, discussing the reason I want to go there, or why I enjoyed it there. I am very excited about this topic, and I hope I can excite anyone who reads this to research places they would like to visit.