SISSY

My sissy is here!! Not without incident though. Of course. What else can you expect with Steph. She is infamous for being.. oblivious.. haha. We all worry a lot about her and she gets so upset and doesn't understand but it's for good reason!

Exhibit A:

My sister was expected to arrive in Heathrow, London at 10:15 am yesterday. She had a car company booked to pick her up and drive her to Southampton. Her task was to text me when she got in the car to let me know she was on her way. And it's just common sense to let people know that she landed and is ok. 

What did I wake up to? A call from immigration. This is how it went

Immigration officer: hi there this is immigration at Heathrow airport. Are you expecting anyone today? 

me: UMM YES! my sister!!

immigration: what's her name? 

me: Stephanie Medwenitsch

immigration: right. are you able to answer a few questions for us? 

They proceeded to interrogate me about her life, her job, what shes doing in England if I am supporting her and whatnot. At the end the officer told me that she was not able to properly answer the question "what are you doing in England" so she was detained until they could check out her story. Basically they thought she was a drifter because she said "I dont know" about what she would do during the days here. UGH STEPH. 

Anyways so I got off the phone and starting panicking and immediately called her car company for her and asked them to wait longer for her and they said they would. Then I played the waiting game. Of course I texted my dad and he started flipping out at me telling me to "get to Heathrow to find her" and Im like what do you want me to do, I'm two hours out by train and it's expensive to train there and what if she's on her way here? And he starts texting me "figure something out." Which obviously put the pressure on me but what could I do from so far without a car and without hearing from her. It started getting quite late so I tracked down the immigration phone number at terminal 3 of Heathrow. And after being on hold for awhile they said they had a record of her but that she was granted entrance into the country an hour and twenty minutes ago and they hadn't seen her since. So plenty of time for her to call me and she didn't. My dad was also calling her from Canada non stop. No answer. I was so worried her car was going to leave without her. So I called the Heathrow help desk and that phone number wouldn't work so then I called customs and they said they couldn't help me. I was panicking! 

All of a sudden my flat buzzer went off and I picked it up and I hear "HEEEY IM HERE" in an all too familiar voice. My freakin sister. Outside my flat. I just screamed back "ARE YOU INSANE?" and went storming out to get her. 

Essentially she had gotten in 45 minutes late (reason in itself to text or call people to let them know!) and then gotten tied up at immigration but after they talked to me they let her go and she didnt think that people would be worried about her or that she should call and say she got into the country. And she just jumped in her car and didn't let me know. When I asked her if she was deranged she thought she was proud of herself for getting to my place! But that's Steph right? 

So she's here for the next month which is awesome! We took her out to get some furniture and groceries last night and then we went out for a big nice thai dinner to welcome her. I havent been able to do much else since she arrived yesterday and I worked today at Ryde and then I'm back there tomorrow. But stay tuned for Medwenitsch sister adventures! 

Brighton

As per our usual Saturday routine, Gabel and I picked a destination and went exploring on Saturday. This time we chose Brighton, a city known for being vibrant, eclectic, and full of life. Gabel and I had been offered jobs here as well but they only had full time work, while we really wanted to start of supplying first to get used to things.

Brighton was everything we thought it would be which was unfortunate because after walking around for a few minutes I could tell I would way rather be living in that city than Southampton. Not that I don't like Southampton - I do. But Brighton is basically the coolest city I've ever seen/been to.

We took the 9:33 train Saturday morning and it's an hour and forty five minute train ride so naturally Gabel slept the whole way. I swear that girl gets most of her sleep from travelling. I laugh so hard when I think of our different attitudes to travelling.

Me: yippee long train ride, Gabel and I can plan our next trip and figure out our Halloween costumes
Gabel (five seconds after being on a moving vehicle): k peace I'm sleeping

Hahaha super funny. She can literally sleep anywhere at anytime. Anyways, we got to Brighton at 11:18 and right away it looked cooler. And there were TONS of people. The train we took was packed to the point where there were people standing which I hadn't seen before. The train station reminded me of a playoff hockey game back home. People were chanting and screaming. We actually googled if there was an event going on that weekend but it turned out to be just a regular Saturday in Brighton.

Our first stop was through the streets of downtown to the Royal Pavilion. It's so neat. One minute you're on the busiest bustling street in the heart of downtown and then suddenly you make one turn and you're in the pavilion gardens and it's like you've stepped onto another planet. The gardens are so lush and beautiful, filled with flowers and palm trees. And the pavilion itself is like nothing I've ever seen. It looks like an extravagant palace for a sultan in Malaysia or Brunei or something. That coupled with the palm trees and the fact that there was someone playing a sitar, honestly made it feel like we were in another country. Such a stunning sight to see.

Next we went down to the water. Brighton is located right on the ocean like Southampton is but Southampton doesnt have many beaches. Brighton is allllll beach. The beach stretched out for miles!! And it's a pebble beach. The city is literally right behind the beach and it's so beautiful I couldn't believe it. We went into the Sea Life Aquarium there and had a blast. The architecture on the inside of the aquarium is very gothic and each archway was illuminated in a different colour light. There were tons of tanks carrying the neatest creatures. There's interactive rock pools where you can touch starfish and crabs. Our favourite was definitely the large aquarium though. From up top you can just see the sharks and massive sea turtles swimming around. We had lots of fun looking into the massive tank until we realized.. we could go through it!! Underneath there is a tunnel that goes through the aquarium and you walk through it and sharks and turtles are literally swimming above your head. It's like actually being in the water. We stayed in that tunnel forever because Gabel is obsessed with turtles and I am fascinated by sharks. Very cool.

 After the aquarium we were starving so we headed to the famous Brighton pier for lunch. The pier is a must see for anyone visiting Brighton. It has every type of food imaginable, candy, an arcade, rides, three bars, tons of free deck chairs for suntanning, games, piercings, tattoos, restaurants, etc. We treated ourselves to lunch and treats and then set out to complete the Brighton Pier Scavenger Hunt.
It's called 10 Things To Do On The Brighton Pier and here's the list:

1) Glide around the carousel like Mary Poppins
2) Eat a bag of doughnuts without licking the sugar off your lips
3) Eat fish n chips in the "spiritual home" of fish n chips
4) Climb to the top of Helter Skelter to see the Isle of Wight
5) Sit Back and Relax looking out to sea in the deck chairs
6) Have a birds eye view of Brighton Pier from 38 metres in the air with the Super Booster before swinging through the air at 60mph
7) Stick your head through the photo boards for a funny photo
8) Sing karaoke in the world famous Glitter Ball Bar
9) Win a giant cuddly toy on the Hook a Duck and Tin Can Alley
10) Take home a Brighton Pier Candy Rock.

We managed to all the things except for #6. And we kind of stretched #8. But still! We did the Brighton Pier Scavenger Hunt and it was fun.

After the pier and exploring the beach we went to The Lanes which is a famous shopping district downtown. The stores are all super close together so you can barely even walk two people across between them. And the stores are all very posh, unique, funky boutiques. We are too poor to buy anything (well actually Gabel bought a hair scrunchie!) but it was fun to walk around and window shop. I almost bought a big headpiece to wear for my wedding (so exciting!) but in the end it wasn't exactly what I wanted so I figured I'd wait for my trip to London.

Then we trained home and hung out at night. Brighton was definitely worth the visit and when people come to visit me, I'd love to take them there. Here's some pics from the day:

 The Royal Pavilion 

 Royal Pavilion Gardens 

Brighton Aquarium eels 

Brighton Aquarium

Tunnel walk through the tank 

 Relaxing on the pier 

Sliding down the Helter Skelter 

 Carousel riding! You're never too old. 

 Window shopping in the lanes 

 The Lanes 

Scavenger Hunt Pics: 

Mind the Gap or How To Make It In England

Consider this your welcome pamphlet to England! Here's what you can expect:

1) Mind the Gap 

This is the phrase I probably here most often here. It's burned in my brain. Every single time a train arrives at a station, the announcers say "welcome to (enter city here) and mind the gap." Which basically means that the train doesn't stop RIGHT beside the platform, it stops a few inches out so when you step off the train you have to take a big step to make it on the platform. It's not even really a big deal and I don't think theres any way you could fall between the train or the platform or anything. But still.. you better Mind the Gap!! The only way I can travel here is by train so every single day I hear that over and over. I'm minding the gap OK?!

Actually as I say this, when I was in Basingstoke the other day, I heard an announcement at the station that said "Attention. There have been ten accidents this year at this station. Please be careful." So maybe those ten people didn't mind the gap. 

(but seriously Gabel and I are dying to know what happened at this station that produced ten accidents and a resulting safety warning announcement)

2) Right to left 

When you cross the street here you HAVE to be careful. I am so used to looking left first and then right because that's what you do in Canada. Even if you don't realize it, that's what you do. Because that's the way the traffic flows. But it's the opposite here. You have to look right first and then left before you cross the road. You probably don't think that's very hard but trust me it's very hard to undo 23 years of hardwiring to look the opposite way when you cross. I can testify to this because there's so many times I've stepped into the streets looking the wrong way and almost been run over by a car (and one time a bus nearly demolished me). 

It's funny because you also have to walk on the wrong side of the sidewalk here. Or even when I go up the stairs at train stations, I have to remember to walk on the left side and not the right side. There's been countless times when I've found myself going against the flow of pedestrian traffic and people are giving me dirty looks and I just want to shout "IM CANADIAN OK! YOU'RE ON THE WRONG SIDE!" 

3) They are a big fan of illogical coins

I can't get over how many coins the British have. Canada is so sensible now that we have eliminated the penny. We only have five types of coins. In England they have at least eight coins that I can think of. They have the one pence coin, the TWO PENCE coin (that's right a coin for two cents. imagine a double penny coin), a five pence coin, a ten pence coin, a twenty pence coin, a fifty pence coin, a pound coin and a two pound coin. That's what I've seen so far. And they are not arranged logically in size. The pound is the smallest out of them all. The ten pence coin is the largest. WHY! It's so hard when I try to quickly pay for a taxi on my way to work and I have to scrutinize the coins. I think that maybe with the money the government could save if they stopped producing the two pence coin, then maybe they could bring down the cost of riding the train! 

4) Pick a football allegiance

Pick a football team. I'm serious. Englanders will ask you who you support and you better have a good answer. Don't say Portsmouth. Nobody likes Portsmouth, least of all Southampton fans. When my students ask me (which they always do at the beginning of class), I always say Southampton because I live there and Chelsea because that's where my Grannie is from. So far this has garnered me respect and approval but I'm afraid to go to an area that won't find my allegiances charming.

5) Everything closes early!!

I am used to working evenings and staying up late. I most often frequented grocery stores, or any store really, in the later evening hours. That was possible in Ottawa. The Sobeys grocery store is literally open 24 hours and I would find myself there at 11pm. The Walmart in Barrhaven is usually open until 11pm so again, it would not be uncommon for me to run my errands there at 10pm. That is what I am used to. Here, everything closes so early!! A mall in Ottawa would be open until 9pm at least during the week. Most malls here close at 6pm during the week. The huge mall (West Quay) is at least open until 8pm but that's the latest anything closes during the week. All the single shops along the downtown core close around 6pm. My bank back home is open until 7pm so that I can do banking after a day of work. Here, that is unheard of. Every bank closes at 5pm. Gabel and I have definitely been burned a few times trying to run errands. Its especially hard on Sundays when a lot of places close at 4. Sunday is our one sleeping in day and usually in the afternoons we find ourselves doing a mad scramble to try and get to places before the close. It's a big adjustment for sure.

6) Small cars!

I have literally not seen one pickup truck here. Not that I expected to see a lot but I thought maybe one or too. I can also count on one hand how many times I've even seen an SUV. And mini vans do not exist (amen). Everyone drives tiny cars. And I mean tiny! When Gabel and I got here, our real estate agent drove us from the agency to our flat and he had to make two trips because he couldn't fit two girls and some luggage in his car. Plus all the cars are standard. I don't even recognize any brand or model of car. So it's funny to watch everyone whip around tiny streets in tiny cars that I've never seen before.

7) Fashion Attack

Wow the girls look different here. The fashion is different and especially the hairstyles are different. Gabel and I do not necessarily fit in. Nights out at the club mean that girls are going to do weird things to their hair. I can't even explain it necessarily. They are just fond of grabbing random pieces of hair and twisting it, or pinning it up strangely, or having it dyed odd colours. Wearing jean shorts with black nylons underneath is a big thing. Wearing as little clothes as possible is also big thing. As Gabel pointed out "anything goes here." It's true. You could wear anything here and it wouldn't be ridiculous. Standing out is the fashion. There seems to only be one fashion faux pas which I don't understand. I bought rain boots before I left and I love them. They are beige and short and really cute. I would wear them everyday except that people here make fun of me!! They call them wellies here and they always ask me why I'm wearing Wellies. It seems only acceptable to wear them in the dead of winter. Even if it rains, it's not ok to wear them in September. So I get embarrassed to wear them! I just don't understand why it's a fashion faux pas to wear boots that will prevent my feet from getting soaked.


8) The Weather

I find everyone back home is fond of saying that Ottawa and the Ottawa valley change weather quickly. Honestly - you have nothing on England. The best advice we got from the teaching agency we work for is to wear lots of layers. You just have to go out with the general acceptance that at some point in the day you are going to be freezing, at some point in the day you are going to be sweating it's so hot out, at some point in the day you are going to get rained on, and it's also very likely that there will be sunny/windy/foggy breaks. You can't really prepare for it or do anything about it. The weather dramatically changes hourly. When Gabel and I went to Brighton on the weekend we were absolutely freezing at one point and it started raining so we went inside the aquarium and when we came out it was scorching hot and sunny and we were trying to take off layers. I never go anywhere without a scarf or jacket in my bag. One really funny thing I've noticed is that nobody here cares about rain. Its hilarious to watch!! If it starts raining even a little bit, I put on my jacket and pull up my hood. Here, nobody wears hoods, only a small fraction use umbrellas, and nobody wears wellies. Everyone must get so wet and soggy but nobody seems to do anything about it!! It's like they don't even notice they are wearing shorts and running shoes while walking in a downpour. Even the girls don't care if their hair gets drenched. I am a dead giveaway as a foreigner because when I feel the first drop of rain, I'm like "GAAAH, WHERES MY HOOD". I tried it the British way one day and wore little flats in the rain and didn't put on a coat and I got home from teaching just drenched to the bones and I thought "WHAT IS THE APPEAL TO THIS?!"

9) Keep your train ticket!!

If you take the trains here, it is imperative that you don't lose your ticket. First of all after you purchase them, you can't even get to the platforms without inserting the ticket into a gate that will scan your ticket and then open allowing you to enter the platform. After that, people come around on the train to inspect your ticket so make sure that you know where it is. When Gabel and I fall asleep on the trains, we make sure to keep our tickets in our hands so the staff can see without waking us up. Then you think you would be in the clear but you're not. You need your ticket to exit the train station you arrive in. Once again you have to put it through the gates to get scanned so they open and let you get out of the station. It's so weird! I don't know what I would do if I lost my ticket on the train. Would I have to camp out in the station? Hopefully I never have to find out.

10) Different Accents

Everyone sounds so different wherever we go! There's definitely not just one British accent. People on the Isle of Wight sound different than people on the mainland. The further up north you get, the more they sound Scottish. When Gabel and I went to the bar two weekends ago and met that group of guys, they all sounded so different. There was a guy from Newcastle which is very far up north and we had to try very hard to listen extra close to what he was saying because his accent was so much thicker than the guy who was from Southampton.

11) Different regions don't necessarily play nice

I find that in Canada we have a lot of pride as a nation (excluding Quebec). We have the second biggest country in the world but it doesn't matter if you talk to someone in Vancouver or St. John's, they are going to be the proudest Canadian and identify more as a Canadian than as someone from Vancouver if that makes sense. Here it's the exact opposite. I don't find there's much solidarity as a country. There's way more solidarity as a region or city. It's so common to meet someone from Portsmouth who will say "oh Southampton is a shit hole." Meanwhile people in Southampton think Portsmouth is the dirtiest, roughest place. Or people from the north will say that the south isn't really British at all. No matter which city you go to, people from that city think that city is the absolute best and that every other city in the UK sucks in comparison. I've heard a few different people on the mainland tell me that the Isle of Wight is all a bunch of inbred freaks. Meanwhile on the Isle of Wight they tell me to move off the mainland because it's terrible and dirty there. There's such a fierce rivalry from region to region.

12) Geography is not important

One thing is abundantly clear as I encounter tons of different students from different cities every day. They don't know their geography! I don't like to generalize but it really does seem to be a predominant issue. At first it started out when students thought that Canada was in the US (dont worry I always set them straight!). Then I started noticing they were horribly ignorant about Europe and even the UK! Sometimes when students hear me speak they think I'm from Wales or Cardiff (regions of the UK). Then on European Languages Day at a school in Basingstoke last week, I had a girl point to a map of Europe and tell me she couldn't find Scotland anywhere!! I'm like are you insane? She was looking at mainland Europe. I had to try so hard to not be condescending when I told her that Scotland was literally attached to England and a part of the UK. I asked my students today if they knew where Latvia is (the novel we are reading makes reference to it) and NONE of them knew it was in Europe. They all thought South America. The geography of their own country doesn't seem important. As mentioned above, all that matters is their city!!

13) They have different words for things

I remember the unfortunate incident where I learned that the word 'garbage' does not exist here. My classroom was particularly messy one day so I told my students they couldn't leave until they cleaned up all the garbage off the floor. They all sort of looked around blankly and nobody moved. So I kept shouting at them to pick up the garbage or they would be there all night. Still, no one moved. I started thinking in my head that I had a mentally deranged class and that they were all developmentally delayed or something and then the educational assistant in my class looked at me and said "oh do you mean rubbish?" Woops. Yup. As soon as I said rubbish they were all on the floor picking it all up. Of course another big one is that we can't say soccer, we have to say football. Apartment is obviously 'flat'. My kids told me the other day that I have to stop saying 'movies' because it's 'film'.

14) The accents are the least of my worries

Apparently we Canadians pronounce everything all wrong. The Brits are big fans of saving time when they speak. So they shorten a word as much as possible. I'll provide a pronunciation key as example:

1) Salisbury
* The Canadian way to pronounce it = SAL. ISS. BERRY
* The proper way = SOLSBRIE

2) Swanwick

* the Canadian way to pronounce it = SWAN.WICK
* The British way is to take out letters aka = swanICK.

Basically just take every word and shorten it as much as possible to save time. Then you'll be fine!

So that is the rundown on my new country! I love it and all its quirks and every day is a fun adventure. 

Cheers to the Weekend!

Gabel and I had such a great weekend! Here's our lowdown:

Friday night we cooked up a feast. Pork steak sandwiches and poutine. Just amazing. Then we got dressed up and went to the bar called The Encore which is literally right beside our building. It was pretty busy in there and when it was my turn to go get drinks it took quite a long time. When I came back to our table, I could see four guys sitting with Gabel. They ranged in age from 21-46 and were absolutely fascinated with our accents. We tolerated them for a bit since they were buying us drinks and got engaged in conversations about the differences between Canada and the UK. They also enlightened us on a few British things such as the proper way to pronounce certain words and cities here and they did confirm our suspicion that football (soccer) is not very popular amongst women here. They said its a man thing and that watching football is something that they can do without their wives. Interesting! It won't stop us from going to another game though. Go Saints!! Anyways the pub closed down at 11 and we went our separate ways. We packed it in after that because we had a full day of exploring planned for Saturday.

On Saturday we caught the 10:24 train from Southampton to a place called Lymington which is on the outskirts of Southampton but right on the ocean. From there we took a ferry to the Isle of Wight (I know, I'm always on this island!!). This ferry was VERY slow since it had to manoeuvre through very tight harbours with lots of boats and because it was a car ferry so it had quite a big load. After 40 minutes we landed in Yarmouth which is a very beautiful and quaint harbour town. Yarmouth is on the far west side of the island and up until this point I had only explored the east side so this was nice. We were pretty hungry for lunch at this point and walked into a restaurant right on the water called Salty's. Judging from the name and appearance, we thought it would be a cute, cheap little place to get fish and chips. Unfortunately when we went inside we could see that it was quite fancy. And then when they brought us our menu's we were blown away by the prices. A plate of fish and chips was 15 pounds!! That's 25 Canadian dollars! We sat there for awhile debating what to do. The waitress came over and asked for our order and I said we needed more time. What we really wanted to do was bolt out of there since we could NOT afford that but it would be horribly embarrassing. In the end when we thought the coast was clear we ran out and began a quest for a new restaurant. It was a good thing we did too. We stumbled upon the cutest restaurant called The Blue Crab and they had fish and chips for just over 5 pounds! Perfect. So we each ordered a plate and as an appetizer we got the crab guacamole. All the food was AMAZING. I could eat that crab guacamole every day and the fish was unreal. It was a cod fillet probably about ten inches long. It was hanging off the plate. They had homemade tartar sauce too that was unreal. It was my first plate of fish and chips here and I'm so glad it was at that restaurant. After lunch we caught one of the tour buses that did the Needles Tour. The bus comes every 30 minutes and does lots of stops along the way so you can get off and explore and then hop on another bus. For those of you who don't know what Needles is, you should google it because it's really beautiful. Gabel and I had such a great day exploring the ocean and the breathtaking views along the Needles tour. We got off at the first stop which was in a small town called Freshwater Bay. Gabel found a trail that we went down that was literally deserted. It went through a farming field and all of a sudden it came to what I can only describe as the edge of the world. We found ourselves standing on huge cliffs that had no guard rails that looked down onto the ocean with a beach below. It was a massssssssive drop down the cliffs but the views were certainly stunning. I think part of what made it so epic was that it was a very cloudy, foggy and windy day. We took a photo shoot there and then walked over to the main beach and explored there a bit. Once we got on the next bus, we got off at Needles Battery. The ride up to the battery produced incredible views as well and we were happy that we were on double decker topless bus because we could take great pictures. The Needles battery is a preserved old military fort that still has cannons and all the old fort walls and tunnels. And of course it has the best views of the actual Needles rocks and lighthouse. We took plenty of pictures here and explored the tunnels. After the battery, we took the bus to Needles Park which is much more touristy. There's a boardwalk that has shops, ice cream parlours, a glassblowing factory, rides, and the famous chairlift. We took the chairlift from the top of the cliffs down to the beach and the whole time you can see Needles in the distance. The beach itself is amazing. You're walking along the ocean, the beach is a rock beach made up of tons of coloured pebbles, and the whole thing is surrounded by tall cliffs that all change colours. Again, many photos taken here, and then we caught our bus and went back to Yarmouth. We were exhausted after so much exploring and we slept the whole ferry ride back to Lymington. When we got home it was almost 8pm and we cooked up some ham and grilled cheese for dinner. Our original plan had been to go clubbing because we hadn't had a chance yet but we were soooo tired. We definitely toyed with the idea of not going out and just getting into comfy clothes and watching TV but we didn't want everyone to make fun of us for being old and lame and not going clubbing here yet! So we sucked it up and started our predrink, blasted some tunes and got all dolled up. We didn't leave our place till 1am but it's not a big deal because in Europe the clubs are open all night. We walked to Bedford Place which is the clubbing district of Southampton and I would say it's about a 5-7 minute walk from our flat. We picked a place called Junk but they were having a special DJ that night so we had to pay 15 pounds each for cover. It's such a different experience here than back home. The club was so dark and it's like a rave. The DJ's do their thing and the dance floor is just packed with people dancing like crazy and it's soooo hot. The music is very different but I actually loved it. The club was open till 6am but we called it quits around 3am. That's all us Canadian girls could handle! We'll have to practice staying out all night like the Europeans haha. We walked home, made a snack and passed out hard around 3:30am.

Then today was a nice lazy day. We slept in until 12:30 and walked to the mall to go to our favourite place called Shakeaway. We each bought a large shake to cure our hangover. I've fallen in love with the chocolate raspberry one and finished it pronto. Then we grabbed some Subway sammies and crawled into Gabel's bed to watch eat and watch the Office. We stayed like that for a couple of hours but then went into productive mode and showered, cleaned our flat, bought our train tickets for work tomorrow, made supper, took down the garbage, etc. We also secured a futon today! We bought it used off a website called Gumtree (the British kijiji) and it was only 40 pounds. For an extra ten pounds, the woman selling it delivered it right to our doorstep. It's blue which obviously does not go with our red carpet and pink moonchairs but we have a futon in the living room!! Woo!! Now we are both blogging in our rooms but our entire building complex just lost power so we are sitting in our rooms in the dark. I hope they figure out the power soon. I need to charge my phone for tomorrow and we wake up so early that its usually still dark out so getting ready would be a challenge. Stay tuned for an update on the power! And check out all our fabulous pics from the weekend below: