Living in London for the past 7 months has been a wonderful experience. Teaching English children has been for the most part challenging but I am a much stronger and more confident teacher now than I was on my first day. I think those Canadian children will look like angels to me now.
I have gotten to know South East London pretty well and could call myself a local instead of a tourist. haha Meeting people here was probably the best part. Living with pretty cool flatmates and enjoying the party side of the city felt as though I have been on vacation my whole time here!
Tomorrow we are taking a dreadful 3 (count them 3) flights back home: London to St. Johns, St. Johns to Montreal and Montreal to Toronto. But I think it will be worth it for getting an extra 2 months to stay here and all the traveling I got to do in between.
See you again London!
Not sure if anyone actually looks at or reads this blog but I'll keep on bloggin'.
I took four days off work to extend a weekend into 6 days away in Poland visiting my family. My mom's side of the family lives in a small town in south west Poland. I spent a few days at my grandmother's house with my cousin. We also visited my aunt and uncle as well. I've been to my grandmother's twice, once at age 9 and again at 15 so it pretty much felt like home to me.
I'm really happy that I have learned to speak, read and write in Polish because it is amazing knowing another language. I am definitely not perfect since I wasn't born in Poland but I can engage in conversations. Most young people in Poland know English anyways since it is a world language that will get you by in most countries in the world.
My last day in Poland my cousin took me to Wroclaw which is a city where she studies and lives. We searched for gnomes (an attraction in the city), went to dinner with her boyfriend and sat at a couple of bars in the evening.
I am glad I decided to take this trip. Not only is it cheap to fly around Europe from England but I also wasn't sure about the next time I would have the opportunity to visit my family. 
A typical posh English experience.
love-ly
Schools were closed for a week for term break the first week of June, a perfect opportunity to travel again. Susan and I decided on Spain; her friend Michelle was visiting and was keen on it, Jen was going there anyways so we could meet up with her and Ryan would be there as well.
After a 1am wake up to catch a night bus (which we missed by a few seconds so took a cab instead) to Victoria station in central London, a 1.5hr coach bus to Stansted Airport and a 2hr flight to Spain, we made it to Barcelona! We had a beautiful but quiet hostel just outside central Barcelona. The 2 nights we were there we had a lot of Tapas (basically an assortment of appetizer sized food) and a lot of Sangria (a fruity wine mixture). We also had lunch near our hostel in a home grown cafe where no one knew English and they had to literally bring us other customers` plates of food to show us what we could order.
We did a free walking tour of Barcelona, cooked under the sun on the beach and checked out the real Absinthe bar in town (tastes like black licorice, ew). Barcelona was great but I knew I would fall in love with Valencia.
We took a 4 hour bus ride from Barcelona to Valencia and found our hostel in the city (more people this time=more socializing). Ryan was there before us all ready to go, by the time us girls got ready it had started to pour rain (in Spain?!) so we checked out the museum literally next to the hostel which showcased miniature Greek sculptures. Later, we had Paella and Sangria which is an amazing combination and we explored the city in the evening and settled on a bar for more Sangria. The second day in Valencia was spent at the market, at a fancy restaurant for Paella in humongous pans, the beach, met people at the hostel and Ryan and I saw a real Flamenco show at a bar = amazing entertainment.
