"Lovely" London

Wow! I just realized how long it has been since I last posted! I had a wonderful time visiting childcare centers in London with my class. The best part was being able to speak with the kids in English! Oh, how I missed that! I had a funny experience with a little girl at one of the centers. She was watering the plants in the garden and asked me, “Aren’t the flowers lovely?” She was so sweet. I said, “Yes,” and then she invited me to paint the playground, so we went around with paintbrushes and painted with invisible paint. That leads me to another highlight of the trip: I loved that everything is “lovely” and men on the Tube say, “Excuse me, Love.”

Also, I saw Les Miserables and Avenue Q. It was the perfect balance because one night I was crying at Les Miserables and the next I was laughing hysterically at Avenue Q. I highly recommend both.

While walking around in Greenwich, a borough of London, we stumbled onto a set for the Pirates of the Caribbean 4. A few students from my class saw him film a scene! Also, on that same day, Johnny Depp made a surprise visit to a local elementary school in London. We spoke with some of the students from the school. Here’s a YouTube video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3LwwqxyZEs.

We also went to a Bollywood dance class. We were dressed in traditional clothing, and all members of the class, boys and girls, learned a dance. Now you may be asking: When did I actually do work on the five-day visit to London? Haha. Well, we did visit a lot of schools while in London to explore multiculturalism in a British context. We visited a Muslim school in Brick Lane, a well-known multicultural area, and we learned that religious education is mandatory in British schools. I thought that was an interesting aspect of the British education system as compared to the U.S. education system.

Here are some photos from London:

The set of Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

My first experience having a Nutella crepe. It was delicious!