Saffron Walden: Mission accomplished

I'm staying at my colleague's place in Saffron Walden, the village in England which I first went to exactly four years ago. Now the old Bell school is partly demolished and I cannot enter the site:

Main entrance, library gone

my old place of employment: completely sealed off

Tonight there's an Italian style pasta for dinner which I very much savour. Also, over the course of my stay, I enjoy three Italian-German lessons: Italian for me - German for the Italian chef :) . After dinner I go to the pub with my colleague and chat and drink for a while, then we carry on drinking in another pub. We play a round of darts (I loose twice out of two times we play) and feed the quiz machine with our pounds and don't get a sinlge quid out of it: We are doing ok, but there are always one or two questions which are simply too difficult.
This morning I go very English again: Fully cooked English breakfast. This breakfast saves me a proper lunch.

Beans, mushrooms, bacon, tomato, sausages, egg...

Finally on Monday I go to London, get myself a paper at Green Park station, lie down under Her Majesty's close supervision (lawn in Green Park next to Buckingham Palace), and learn from the paper how Pakistan cheat in cricket. Scandalous!
Arriving at Heathrow I find my flight to be delayed 50 minutes. My mood reaches rock bottom. I don't know for what reason precisely. I have been living in Cambridge for one month now. It's been a very good time and now it's all about to change - again.
Ultimately I'm content for I've done everything which I set out for: I've got my English bank account now, I found a very nice falt share in Birmingham, I earned a reasonable amount of money, I made a couple of new friends. What else could there be?

Cmon you irons!

Here we go: it's Sunday evening and I've just gotten back from the office. Yes, that's right. All day long. It's the deal. Anyway, tonight's gonna be a good night, tonight's gonna be a good good night! Going to play some footie with the students and am off to the cinema later to watch "Inception".

Yesterday I went to see West Ham United play Bolton Wanderers. Luckily I'm not a supporter - otherwise it would have been painful to watch: 1 - 3 and a penalty given away. Even our chants didn't help. Here are some impressions:

The Hammers' stadium

West Ham vs. Bolton Wanderers

supporter Tom

German, Belgian, Spanish supporters

Hitz the hammer, injured

Before we went to the stadium our bus driver (Bell Teacher Campus Trip) got lost in London. She took one wrong turn and ended up driving through London for one (1) extra hour!!! She got really nervous and kept apologising to our group via the mic. My colleague and I tried to calm her down, but she was simply to embarrassed and, more over, desperate for a fag. I hope I don't meet her again! (I wouldn't have done any better in London, but she's supposed to know her ways around! Didn't even use her SatNav - thought she was too smart for it. You can't stop a coach in London, can you? No way to pull over and employ a map, I doubt we would've even had one...)

Rain

You think it's not unusual if it rains, right? In England particularly? Wrong, I think. It rains just as much as in Germany if not less. However, this is the beautiful look from my window WHEN it rains:

Today I only read a book (I realise for how long I've actually not really done this!) and talk and chat to my people on Skype. I'm still shaking off a few remainders from a rather nasty cold I caught bout four days ago. Tomorrow I'm back on the job! I've experienced worse than a bunch of 200 international English teachers :D

Jazz 'n gym

Hi lads, I've always loved jazz music and I honestly miss playing trumpet, but yesterday night was definitely one of these moments when I was reminded of that all the more: I went down to the pub called "The Cricketers" which is near Parker's Peace close to the city centre of Cambridge. These people playing down there were simply amazing!
Monday, Tuesday, and last but not least Wednesday I've been to the gym. They've had a 3 day free trial programme, which I took advantage of. Why not? Obviously they try to talk me into signing up: I don't sign up, of course. Their swimming pool, their steam room, and the sauna are very worthwhile I have to say ;) For warming up, I start with a 11 minute run on the treadmill. Then I'd usually work out my legs and arms, today I've only been doing my arms. I then go to the swimming pool and do a few laps alternating with a few minutes in the steam room. Unfortunately my fellow work colleague can't join me today as he's joined me the last few days because of a temporal medical disorder, often referred to as "hang over", due to a late night out where he emerged himself into socialising by means of drinking alcoholic beverages.

Magic in Ely and the truth about marriage in Oxford

Me performing the lumus spell in Ely Cathedral

Here you can see my wand in action - for those of you who've had any doubts about it: Yes, I can do magic! In the picture below it says " Marriage is a wonderful invention, but, then again, so is a bicycle repair kit." This philosophical sentence must come from a very wise man... or even woman??

Pub "White Horse", Oxford, opposite the bar

Work that doesn't feel like it

Yesterday I accompanied a trip to Ely which is just about a 15 minute train journey from CAmbridge. If you want to find more about Ely, you can click on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ely .

I went to the restaurant "The Lamb" and my boss ordered tea for the two of us. We let two copies the Guardian entertain us, occasionally dropping in bits of very enjoyable small talk.
I didn't get back on the coaches for I was going to meet a the very same friend of mine who works at the Cambridge University Press. We met down the riverside in a pub called "The Cutter Inn". I was very impressed by these typical English house boats anchoring just a few metres away. I ordered a portion of Fish and Chips accompanied by mushy pies. Here's an idea of the size of my fish:

I don't think they used them for FishnChips, though.

The above beauties were swimming in a pond in frond of the Cambridge University press.
I went back on a train to Cambridge. There were a couple of lads singing a few rock classics as well as other songs on the train. Getting themselves into the mood for a night out, drinking alc, too.

Today I get up at 7 am in the morning which I find very hard. I'm still slightly shaky, when I stagger downstairs to breakfast in the great hall. It's the London trip day today, and I have to give a guided coach tour through the cities of London and Westminster. I give out maps of the London city centre on the coach that is due to arrive in London around 10:30am. Then I go through my notes again to make sure that I don't fuck my guided tour up, being a novice on that. It turns out to be all right. I now feel very relieved that I've done it :)
I've been to London quite a few times now, but this time I haven't got anything to do on my mind, really. I wander around and came across this really ... interesting bookshop near Aldwych: It is a bookshop with books on Vodoo, Witchcraft, Yoga, Healing power of herbs, Vampires, and similar... they also sell incense sticks.
Being still a bit bewildered from that recent experience I luckily find a Waterstone's with decent books. I get myself "A Florentine Death" by Michele Guittari, a sandwich and three bananas at a Tesco Express near Convent Garden. I stroll down to St. James' park and lie down on the grass. A few minutes later I am fast asleep. I only realise that I've been sleeping nearby Her Majesty's Residence Buckingham Palace, when a light British summer rain sets in. I then escape into the National Gallery in which I've never been before. At 5pm sharp I gather my teacher group nod them towards the coach and leave London. Isn't this a rather pleasant way to earn money?

day off, Cambridge University Press

Today I miss breakfast, but luckily I still have a banana sitting on a shelf in my room. Now, naturally, it doesn't exist any more.
At about 10am I get ready for a run through Cambridge. I jog out of the college and by the Cam, which is still in the city of course, but also quite green. The weather is just right - not too cold not too warm. Still, when I get back to the college I'm all sweaty and my head's as red as a tomato.
At 12:30pm I wait in front of Edinburgh building on the Cambridge University Press for an old friend and colleague to pick me up. We've arranged to meet for lunch on the site of CUP. It is brilliant to talk to him after such a long time!

One of the many buildings of the site

On the terrace of Cambridge University Press

Next I get a free tour of the company. We walk down the corridor of fame, as I'd call it, with the most renowned authors whose works the CUP has published. Only to give you an impression of whom I'm talking about:

James Clerk Maxwell

Raymond Murphy

Stephen Hawking

Noam Chomsky

Bertrand Russel

Ernest Rutherford

Then I walk into town to open an English bank account which turns out to be more complicated than I thought it'd be. Apart from my ID card they want a bank statement from my German bank to prove that I have a permanent address in Germany, oh well, why should they care? Now, I'm going to have dinner first and then see if I still find the energy to go to the pub later on.

dinner at Homerton college

You may or may not believe this, but only a few minutes ago I've had a nice English dinner at 5:30pm! Isn't that amazing? (No worries, I won't starve but get myself a meal later on this night ;)
Also the dining hall is the great hall of the college which is very impressive! For those of you who have read Harry Potter: Yes, it is exactly like that, except the big double door doesn't open with magic but electronically with a motion detecting sensor.

Homerton College of Cambrige University = my working place for August

Can you spot the double door that leads to the Great hall? (on the left)

All chairs in there have "respice finem" written on them which means "mind the end". This is taken from a Latin proverb: "Quidquid agis, prudenter agas, et respice finem." I actually knew that by heart thanks to the cool tutoring of Dr. Adalbert Nobis. Oh, and it means: "Whatever you do, do it wisely, and mind the end."

I found a place to stay at!

I call house #2  to let them know that I would like to move in and house #1 and #4 to turn them down, which was hard from the social point of view but fairly easy from the financial one. And yes!! I'm so glad that house #2 want me, too! This makes my day.At the same time it is my first day at work for the Bell teacher campus. I'd say this is definitely the next stage I've gotten onto here in various respects. One colleague of mine has offered me this job and I work together with him and the team. I recognise a few people who I met in '06, so I already feel very much being back "home" :).
Now this is the day where all new arrivals come in for the next two week course. Sometimes it gets a bit hectic, but basically my job is to give just below 200 teachers in total a friendly smile after their stressful journey.

Welcome to the Bell Teacher Campus! How was your trip? May I give you your welcome package, Sir? There will be an induction tomorrow at 9 am in the auditorium. Would you proceed to the porters over there, please? This is where you are going to receive your room keys if you live on site. Please feel free to ask any questions at any time...

I guess it would be impersonal if Bell had recorded this message and played it from tape, right? This goes on until 10pm, then I go straight to bed.