Paris, London and Celebrities!

I think you can all guess what we did when we were in Paris for four days. Basically be tourists (just for a change) and walk around the city taking in all the sights! I'd been before but Adele hadn't so there were a lot of things she had to see!

It only took us 9and a half hours to get there from London, because we decided to save money and get the coach, but it wasnt as bad as you might think! I pretty much slept the whole way, and when I wasn't sleeping I was using the free wifi! By the time we arrived in Paris we were both knackered and hungry, so we checked into out hostel (again, saving money..) and wandered up to the Sacre Coeur to look out over the city, and what a view it was! On the way back we stopped in a restaurant for dinner, and it was then that I realised how bad my french had become. Turns out three years of my life was wasted taking french at college because apparently everyone in Paris speaks english, except for the guy who took our orders that night.

Now I could go into a mass of detail about what we did every day, but to be honest I can't really be bothered, and I took enough photos (albeit average ones) to document what we did. So here's the somewhat shortened version..
Basically we caught the metro into the city, and then walked everywhere from there to save money (are you noticing a trend yet?) In the three full days we had there we saw The Eiffel tower (obviously), the louvre pyramids, Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame cathedral, Moulin Rouge and the Champs Élysées.

The inner Classics/Art History geek in me had a fantastic time pointing out all the architectural styles. Only thing I learnt in school that I actually use in life!

In between seeing all the sights, there were multiple trips to McDonalds and Burger King to use their wifi and get a cheap lunch. Adele ate snails – I ate one last time and didn't feel the desire to eat them again...

We had a middle-aged Russian man cook our pasta for us in the hostel kitchen because apparently we weren't doing it right. We made friends with some of the people staying in the hostel, and heard all about their stories and experiences about their travelling. We got pestered by people trying to get us to buy various souvenirs as soon as they heard us speaking english (5 for 1euro!!!), so Adele started speaking German around them, and it worked! The only problem was that I don't speak German so I just nodded along and said the odd “nein” or “ja”. On our last night we sat on the stairs opposite the Eiffel tower and watched the sun set over the city. We watched the tower light up, and then we witnessed a proposal! It was the cutest thing ever! Paris was amazing, as you would imagine, but after three days of non-stop walking and spending a bit too much money on souvenirs and food, I was ready to head back to an english speaking country!

Saturday was perhaps the best day ever! Even though we were back in London and not Paris.. But we met up with our gappie friends after a quick run to Oxford street. We decided to head to Notting Hill and try and find the blue door from the movie “Notting Hill”. Turns out that door is near Portobello Road so we had a look at the markets while we walked to the door. We found it eventually, and then on the way back, we met an absolute legend. Just casually walking through the markets was Bill Nighy!! He was such a nice man and stopped to have a photo and a chat! It's safe to say that meeting him made our day!

After that we went to a pub and watched a game of football- I was the only one that wasn't massively enthusiastic about that! Then, to end the half term holidays on a high note, we walked up Primrose Hill in Camden and looked out over London at night. The view was amazing and you could see the skyline, including St. Paul’s, the eye, the shard and even over to Canary wharf!
Sunday, as usual was spent travelling back to school. Four train rides and a cab – with the coolest driver ever who spent the whole time talking about rugby and how the All Blacks' Haka is “bloody terrifying”
By 3.30 I was back in my room, unpacked and back to reality.. Thankfully Monday is my day off so technically I'm still on holiday, so Netflix and updating all of you is all I have done today!

Bill Nighy is as awesome as you'd imagine!

Chocolate,Tennis training and being a tour guide

Sorry about not posting last week! But I was out exploring and being a tourist (in more than one country, but more on that later)

So this week (being two weeks ago..soz) was just a little bit perfect. Just like all the other weeks, not a lot happened out of the ordinary, but it was still a great week!
On wednesday I was stoked to see that I had a parcel in my pigeon hole, and it was something that I hadn't ordered online.. It was a parcel from home, filled with whittakers chocolate, pineapple lumps, my school yearbook and some other bits and pieces mum sent over. Its amazing how a little bit of chocolate can make your day! And I've been good and haven't eaten any of it yet (I'm saving it, because once it's gone, its back to the english stuff...)

Other then the parcel, the rest of the week was like any other, and because it was the last week before the half term holidays, it was even more chilled then usual. On Thursday I learnt that I am absolute rubbish at tennis after joining in with the year 7&8 games. Though in my defence I had never played tennis before, but that didn't stop everyone laughing when I couldn't hit the ball over the net (personally I blame the racquet) but by the end of the lesson I managed to hit the ball every time, and most times it went over, and occasionally it went in the court! Talk about pro!

By the time the weekend rolled around I was desperate for a holiday, so on saturday I got a ride into London, navigated my way across the underground like a pro and watched the rugby in the comfort of my relatives living room. Now I imagine you all did something lovely for valentines day, wither it was dinner, a movie or flowers? Well I did too, except dinner was a M&S pizza, and the movie was on Netflix, but I was finally reunited with my friend from NZ! I hadn't seen her since I left NZ in December so needless to say it was a night filled with long chats about our jobs, and our lack of sunshine, and out excitement for the week ahead. 

Sunday was once again spent being a tourist in London, as Adele (previously mentioned friend) had never seen the sights before. We also met up with a couple of other gappies and spent the day wondering around London and skillfully navigating the tube (I was appointed team leader so it was my job to get us where we wanted to go. And I did! Woop!) I managed to lead the gang from Big Ben to Downing Street to Trafalgar Square without looking at a map once! I think I might have a calling as a tour guide?! I'm actually getting quite familiar with the London underground now too! I know what most of the lines are called, and how to get from anywhere in the city to Victoria – because thats where I need to be to get home. Turns out you only need three weekends in London to pretend you know where you're going – who knew?!

The Globe theatre. I know my english etcher would be proud!

Abbey Road! I pity the people driving who have to wait for the people to get the perfect photo..

 I think Harrods at night is one of my favourite things in the city!

Oh the things you see when you're waiting for a train! Yes that is a penny farthing!

I can't wait to see the city in the summer when the trees actually have leaves.. 

Spot the tourists. Obviously the two people standing in front of the lion. Weirdos.

And I think that's it for that week! Again, sorry for not posting sooner, but you had a heads up so you should have known!

Musicals, bubbles and a fat-provention programme

Another week gone. I actually cant believe how fast January went! This week marked two milestones for my gap year – one month in England, and two months out of New Zealand.. Its weird, it feels like I've been here forever, but at the same time it feels like I've only been here a week.. But even though Ive been here a month, I cant help but smiling like an idiot every time I stop and look around. Im living in England, working a job I love, I can go to London for a weekend and it only takes me 3 hours to get there (instead of it taking a weekend to get there..)

So this week started out like all the others, the normal routine of netball, registers -with the exception of making bubble mixture with the year one forrest school class, and spending an hour blowing bubbles and drinking hot chocolates by the fire pit. All pretty normal..  Then the music happened...

Do you know how hard it is to blow bubbles and then take a photo of said bubbles before they pop? The answer is very hard, so this was the best I got... Soz

By this I mean that on Wednesday nights the boarders have a house night, so they all do an activity together, and this weeks one was an open mike night (basically a microphone, flashing lights and songs played on youtube with the lyrics on a projector). Now I was hoping I could just hide at the back of the room for the entirety of the night and go unnoticed, but the staff had another idea..

It was about 5 minutes before the night started that I was informed that there was a tradition, that the new Gap did the first number.. This was not something I was pleased to hear, but luckily they also had another tradition – one of the post-grad gappies opened the night with 'What makes you beautiful' (I think he actually wanted to sing 'Why does love do this to me?', but he was convinced otherwise when no one else – expect me- had heard the song, which I found crazy because I thought EVERYONE knew that song, but apparently its a New Zealand thing.. Who knew?).

So the night was opened by yours truly singing a duet to One Direction with a 25yearold lad.. Lets just say the kids found it hilarious, and the next act had tough boots to fill (I didn't even need to look at the lyrics, what a pro!) The night was fantastic, and I know that because I only had to perform once, and by the end of the night my voice had gone from singing along with all the songs (I wasn't the only one, all the kids were singing so you couldn't actually hear the music, but thats only for the armatures)

On thursday I was treated to two musical performances. One was in the dining hall, and basically consisted of 10 year 7/8 boys singing and dancing to 'Uptown Funk' and 'Shake it off' while clearing the tables. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen, because they were all doing the same dance moves (used in the previous nights performance) and it surprisingly didn't look half bad. However within an hour their impromptu performance was somewhat put to shame by the Year 6 production. Now when you hear those words you usually imagine some bad acting, off key singing and a dull show. That was not the case here. The acting was amazing considering it was 10 and 11 year olds, the singing was amazing, and its impossible to be bored when the show is of 'We will rock you'! I couldn't quite believe how good the show was, and how funny it was! The show was two hours and I wasn't bored for a second!

Just down the road from school I found this. What are the odds eh?

Other then that, the week was pretty normal! The weather here is starting to clear up, I mean its not a lot warmer but the last three days have been lovely and sunny and I have made the most of it.

I know you're not going to believe me on this one but I swear I'm not lying! I have gone for THREE runs this week! I know, I know its not that impressive but for me this is massive! I even have the muddy trainers and sore legs to prove it! I finally decided that eating three cooked meals a day was going to make me fat, and on the money that I make here, I cant afford to buy a whole new wardrobe of new clothes (even though I wish I could) so the only option, other then eating less (which isn't really an option) was to do some exercise. So I downloaded an app that tracks how far I run and the speed and all that kind of stuff, and off I went! So three 5km runs in a week has made me feel all motivated and stuff, although I don't know how long it'll last, so lets not get our hopes up...

Running down country roads with this on either side of 
you makes it a little easier. 
Only a little bit though...

This little fella followed me for a mile while 
on my run. However I drew the line when he 
tried to come into the reception 
area of the school..

And on that note, I think that's all for this week! Now just a heads up, next week the post will either be on Sunday (a day earlier) or there wont be a post until the following week, but hopefully it'll be a good one so don't get worried!  

More snow and pretty chilled week (see what I did there?)

So, this week has been a bit more relaxed then previous ones, thank god.

Tuesday afternoon was spent on a fixture with the netball team, which pretty much means I hopped on a coach with 30 girls and a couple of teachers and was driven to a school in Taunton, watched them play netball in rain, wind and hail, and then returned to school. I blame that weather for giving me a cold that then lasted for the rest of the week... The rest of the week was spent like the others – thats the problem with a weekly timetable, it doesn't allow for massively interesting blog posts because every week is the same.. sorry.
Although while it doesn't make good reading for you, it makes my life easier because it means I now actually know where everything is, and I no longer have to ask for directions around the school!

I think the potential highlight of my week was judging the kids when they played Just Dance. Now I don't mean judging them in the bitchy teenage-girl kind of way. I mean actually judging them in their pairs to see which one won. It was all part of their wednesday night activity, where they had a choice of games they could play, and if they won they got some sweets (I got weird looks from everyone when I called them lollies, unfortunately I still haven't quite got the language differences here yet..) I think you could imagine how entertaining it is to watch kids copy the dance moves of the person on the screen so closely you'd have thought it was a real competition.

I pretty much spend my days joining in with the games (mainly netball and dodgeball), helping out in classes and doing the duties on the girls landing, which can either be delightfully easy, or the most trying couple of hours in your life. Sadly on thursday, it was the latter. This was because there was a year 3 sleepover – basically 12 7/8yearolds sleeping in a dorm room. Might I add that these girls all refused to get to sleep, and insisted that they weren't tired, which meant I had to sit on the floor in their room for over an hour making sure they weren't talking. Its sad when you're nearly falling asleep before the kids 10 years younger than you are... It's also made harder when it snowed that day so they are all overexcited because of that.. But to be fair I shared their excitement because IT SNOWED and no matter how old you are, you should always get excited about it!

Okay, how much does this look like it should be in Harry Potter? The architecture in this school is crazy!

On Friday night, after a day where nothing much happened, I had an hour-long chat with Mother Denise, who comes into the school regularly and has an amazing history. I never thought my Friday nights could get more reserved then sitting on the couch at home, in a onesie watching Coronation Street with Mum, but apparently it can when I was in bed by 8.30 after talking to a Mother for an hour.. Who knew?

The weekend was nothing exciting – I went to Warminster with the year 4's for a netball tournament, and while the proud parents were gushing over how their darlings actually caught the ball, I was in awe over the school it was held at. I cant get over how amazing the schools here are! They all have such amazing architecture and incredible grounds that surround it. It's safe to say that I have never seen a school like the ones here in New Zealand, probably because most of the schools here are older than New Zealand...

One thing I've noticed here is the names of the towns all sound really posh, and although they're all english names, no one pronounces them the way they're spelt, which makes it really hard for me to sound like I know what I'm talking about (which I really don't, but it'd be nice if they made it easy for me by pronouncing the place names the way they look – at least the names in New Zealand are phonetic, even if they are in a different language).
That's the other thing, half the kids here have no idea New Zealand even exists, and they always say I sound like an Aussie (I try not to take offence to that, but its hard..)

Yet again, you all should be proud of me! Last week it was for navigating my way across London by myself, and this week it's for me driving all by myself into Shepton Mallet. Now before you joke about me causing multiple crashes or running people over, that did not happen. Not once! I even managed to park the car in a busy car park, in between the lines and everything! I must say it was a very vocal driving sesh, because English country roads are stupidly thin and every time there was a corner (which was every few hundred metres!) a massive truck was coming the other way and oh dear me it was terrifying! That, along with not having a clue where I was going, and having to drive out through the entrance of a car park because it was the wrong one and the exit had spikes on the road, made for an interesting day of driving. But I made it back alive with no damage to me or the car (but some damage was done to my bank account because I may have gone shopping, again...)

Pretty much the closest thing I've ever seen to a whiteout. However this didn't last long because within seconds the kids were outside having snowball fights and there wasn't much left after that..

The sunset with what remained of the snow after the kids had finished with it.