Just Call me Julia

Hey Everyone,

So Rita and I have just had the busiest weekend ever... and it was the most fun. Sorry that I haven't kept you as updated as usually and also sorry in advance for how long this blog could potentionally be.

Before I explain my great and fabulous romantic getaway weekend with Rita I'll give you a quick overview of life. Things are going well here... i'm now at the point where I am developing minor annoyances with my job and situation but nothing major and I just have to remember to step back and count to ten a great teaching method and then i'm back and level headed again. The hardest part of being an au pair is living with your job, and my solution is get out of the house whenever I'm not working, and this also helps me to keep busy and see things. The weekends are definitly my favourite part of this all, but Olivia and Isabella still are great girls and I have a great time with both of them on an idividual level. I cherish our alone time together when its either me and Liv or me and Bell (thats my fav.).

I went today and got a National Insurance Number so I'm going into Liv's school tomorrow to see whats the deal with that job.

Oh ya and did I mention I'm going to SPAIN!

And now for the weekend of madness...


Saturday Rita and I ventured into Nothing Hill (thus the Julia Roberts connection), and hit up portabello market. It was crazy cool and Nothing Hill so so beautiful and so what you would typically think of when you imagine London. After a few hours at the market we went for a stroll and found Kensington Garden/Palace which was just as amazing. A tour guide was explaining the Palace and we just joined in for a mini lesson. I can't even discribe to you how beautiful this Garden was it was so beautiful you weren't even aloud in it! Since we had wandered away from the tube we got lost in England Suburbia but asked someone for help and got it!


We tubed back to my house where Rita was sleeping as well Saturday night to get ready for the bar. We had to be in the Zoo Bar before 9:00 to bet the cover and we got there at like 8:30 (PS. who goes the the bar at 8:30!) but it was already packed. The upstairs level was more barish and they had a DJ who played "cheese" music (that is what these English folk call Top 40), we stayed upstairs for about an hour, then ventured down for the club scene. They played good dance music and it was a blast. Since the drinking age is 18 Rita and I felt old but we had to go to a 18 plus and not a 21 plus bar because Matilda is only 18. We danced the night away (and when I mean night I mean until 12:30) then we went to catch the tube... which was closed so we had to take a night bus and due to drunk people and our desirefor food we didnt get home till 3:30. We were ok with leaving at 12:30 seeing that we had been there since 8:30.

It was crazy over and over we just kept looking at eachother and saying "were partying in CENTRAL LONDON!", its pretty much the same. Except all the girl wear dresses, and all the boys are a lot more forward, not in a creepy way because they would back off once you said no thank you lol, but still very forward none the less.


Once getting to bed by 4 we had to be up for 8:30 so we could take an hour train into Brighton. I would compare Brighton to a somewhat England Grandbend. It was a university town with a beach and sweet shopping. Brighton is also known and a gay district, and having a sweet night life, so Rita and I plan on going back to spend a night one Saturday. We just hung out on the beach, sleeping, eating fish and chips and touring around all day. It was a great relaxing Sunday after a very busy Saturday. Surprisingly I was able to tan in September in England so now I have a sweet tanned face :)

I will try to keep up to date so that blog aren't this long!

Have a good week.

BARCELONA BABY

I am going to Barcelona, Spain!!!

Rita and I took our dreams into our own hands and bought plane tickets to Barcalona for the weekend of October 17 to 19th. So pumped... neither of us have ever been so we can't wait. I have to look into what we are going to put into our etinerary (if anyone has suggestions let me know).

Last night Matilda and I hit up a spa, because every last thursday of the month they give all their treatments half off. We went after work and they provided us with free wine and food, and all the staff was very friendly I met a girl there who was waiting to get pampered too and she was very friendly we chatted about the area and places to go etc. Everyone here seems very friendly and if you are ever sitting beside someone alone 99% of them will start a conversation with you. It was a very classy place and I got my toes done and my eye brows threaded. An East Indian woman used a tread she held between her teeth and her hands and twisted out the hair. It was crazy cool and she was really nice, and it was HALF PRICE.

Not much to say about the weeks so I will post again after my excited weekend, just wanted to brag a little about SPAIN!

Love.

Rita Marie Reda is HERE

RITA IS HERE!

Saturday Rita flew in for her year of teaching here. Sara being one of the kindest woman ever offered to pick her up with me on her day off so we didn't have to take the tube around with all of her stuff. It was so nice to see a friendly familiar face :) We met her at the airport around 10:30 after all the traffic and getting lost, and had a huge movie moment where we ran to each other and being very overwhelmed with a new place and experience tears of relief came.

We got everything organized and settled by around 2:00 and we head off on her first LONDON adventure. Lucky us the tube out of her town was down due to engineering so we took a bus instead. I took her to Canary Wharf a nice spot with shopping and dining. We ended up randomly at a place called The Docklands; it is an old huge brick building right off the dock and it is turned into a connected row of different places to eat and drink. So after we read each menu twice we finally decided that we must eat Fish and Chips and choose a good spot. Little did we know that as the night went on the spot we picked turned into a Canary Wharf hot spot and soon the bar was full of girls and guys dressed to impress. It was nice, a few young chaps started conversation with us in a 100% friendly plutonic way, which was reassuring because sadly its a rare occurance. At about 11 we decided to call it a night because we both had to find our ways home in different directions, and we were getting up bright an early the next day.


Sunday we (Rita, Matilda, Matildas friend Ebby and I) ventured to Hyde Park (one of Londons famous parks) to see The Horsemans Sunday. However, we only saw horses go by us for about 2 minutes and never found the festivities. Instead we made our way to Speakers Corner, it is a place where every Sunday the path turns into a center for debate and personal thought. Individuals can stand on ladders or other things and express their thoughts on topics such as religion, politics and war. Some of these thoughts are very contraversal and heated arguments occur. We listened to a few people who had quite 'interesting' veiws on things, but their was one man whos ideas and thoughts were very educated. He explained that he was the man who created the first documentary that the movie "Blood Dimond" was based.

After almost 2 hrs listening to different people talk we headed out to Oxford Street to show Rita some real shopping, and I feel in love (Sorry Daniel) with Primark. For all of those who don't know what Primark is its just the best and cheapest store EVER. I bought so much stuff and it only cost me 25 pounds! LOVE IT!

But now my weekend is over and I dont know where it went, I find that days here go by SO fast its going to be Christmas in no time! Tomorrow Rita is coming over in my off time to see my town and to use the internet!

Hugs and Love
<3

Down in the Dumps

(a picture from our regular bath time fun)

I have caught my first England cold and I blame it all of Bella, it has been going around at nursary and she has now succeeded in passing it on to all the adults in the house. So althought today was one of the few beautiful days we get I spend my extra time curled up in bed with a permanant tissue attached to my nose. I am hoping that it will pass by the weekend seeing that Bell is better and I have plans this weekend.

Friday Matilda has invited me to go out with her Swedish friends (althought I was suppost to meet them at the Thames Fireworks, I didn't get a chance to go to them because I was running late). We are going to go into Central London for dinner and drinks. It shall be low key seeing that its an Early morning Saturday because I'm pick Rita up from the airport! Sunday I am planning on going to Horseman's Sunday in Hyde Park, with Matilda, Rita and maybe Kaily (the new Aussie nanny, who replaced Ula).

Waking up sick was not pleasant especially when this morning Bella gave me such a treat as to poo in her pants! So literally my day started in the DUMPS. I must think of the possitive and at least it was a solid shit and therefore it was minimal mess. Oh the joys of toliet trainning, I can only hope that I will love my child so much that things like shit won't bother me. Since I started my morning off with such excitment it was hard to top.

As everyone probably knows Wednesday night is date night with Daniel on SKYPE so today with being sick, dealing with poo, and missing home more than usually I was in a semi emo state... but... Matilda is great and when Im with her I don't miss home as much and when I do I have someone that can relate to me and listen to me.

We have planned to do a shopping trip in Leeds/York at the end of November for Christmas etc. So I am going to start planning that soon! Us two are closest out of all the Au Pairs, whenever I'm not at the house with the girls the 5 or 6 depending if Bell is in nursary are always together. Its great because Mia and Liv are the same age and Anna is just one year older than Bell so its great, we plan activities and things together.

Tuesday = sweet day (when Matilda and I are aloud dessert with our coffee)
Wednesday = when Mia and Liv play football (note we saw her coach close up and hes not as attractive as we thought, mildly disappointing)
Thursday = if the girls are good we get ice cream
and lucky Matilda doesn't work Fridays :(

Days are flying by, and Weeks are disappearing
Home in exactly (well probably) 3 months today <3

PS. Happy Anniversary
PSS. Happy Early Birthday CASSIE! (sorry I can't be there)

Midday Assistant

(thats an image from Sunday at the Thames Festival, its a view of the London Eye - take note Cassie)

I have EXCITING NEWS... that most of you don't know, I am in the middle of getting a part time job at Olivia's school as a midday assistant!

A midday assistant is someone who basically does lunch duty. I'm incharge of courtyard duty as well as the lunch room duty. I am there with the students from 12:00 - 1:30. Today I did a shadow day with a woman who thought she was queen of the courtyard, slightly ripping all the other parents or community members who do this job. So I get about 12 pounds a day 5 days a week... which is sweet because I wasn't going to get a part time job because I wanted my weekend free so this is the best of both world, and I am employee by the London school board with is great for me C.V.

So today I was helping out some students at lunch and we had a yogurt explosion... so I was helping a boy clean of his sweater but we decided to take it off because he had a golf shirt underneath. He left but then returned because we noticed there was some on his trousers, I said well we will have to wash that off because we can't take off your trousers and he was like "No, then they'd see my penis" aww it was so cute, hahaha I LOVE KIDS!

As I was on my duty I was just observing that there are NO FAT KIDS in England... there was the occasional cute chubby child but no fat kids like we have in North America! It was crazy I had never even noticed this until that moment, and it may sound like an odd observation but its kinda shocking once you think about it.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL WHO CARE: I TALKED TO SARA AND SHE HAS NOW SAID THAT I FOR SURE GET TO COME HOME AT CHRISTMAS AT LEAST FOR 10 DAYS AND WE ARE STILL WORKING ON 14 ... AND IF ITS 14 I GET TO MAKE THE WEDDING, CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEARS!!!


WOOT WOOT

I will keep you posted on the job :)
Life here is working out great... minus the whole in my heart for all of you <3

Girls Night Out & Thames Festival

(above is a picture of my nanny network left to right: Ula, Adina, Matilda, Spikey the Farrot and ME!)

Friday Night after work I went out with the other nannies. It was a great time we went to Ula's house and pre partied and then headed to a local pub before we were going to go to a club. However... we never made it to the club because since Matlida and Adina are only 18 and 20 they dont have much experience drinking. Thus the later portion of my night was spent covered in vomit and taking care of a few drunk ladies. Now that is the PG version of the story because the entire story envolves me waking up a few host families for help as well. But looking back on the night I still see it as fun because it was really nice getting out with the girls. I'm sure we will make it to a club at some point but for now we just made it to the parking lot... does that count?

On Saturday because of the reward system I created I had to take Livy skating. We had fun tho we went from 14:00 - 16:00 (just to give you a bit of the struggle I face daily since every clock here is 24hrs!). I have never seen an ice rink like this they had a DJ and lights and a disco ball we only have that for roller rink back home and even those get closed down due to the occasional shooting! Then Saturday Night I stayed in as well because I was babysitting, but I didn't mind, I had hardly any sleep from the night before. Thats one thing I hate... that even on weekends here I dont get to really sleep in because my room is outside of the kitchen so when the family wakes up at 8 or so they are all I can hear =P

(above is a picture of Southwark Cathedral, which I stopped at to have some ice cream)

Today I went to The Thames Festival... it is once a year and runs from Westminster Bridge to the Tower Bridge. It was really cool im so tired from walking but it was nice. There were tons of booths of people selling thier art and crafts. I picked up a few Christmas and Birthday presents and I know its early but the stuff was super cool and I was supporting independant artists! I stopped along the way and tried my first cold cidar. It was nice it was nothing I could drink a lot of. Today the weather is beautiful here and so after walking it was nice to sit down under and tree and have a drink and read. I stopped for a minute to think about the fact that I was drink in public and it was socially acceptable! I countiued my walk and caught the next tube at the London Bridge station. On my way I saw the Tate Modern Art Collection and I will definitly be going back to that!

Tonight Matilda and I are going back to the Festival and catching the fireworks that are on tonight. We are hopefully going to meet up with her Sweden friends which will be nice because she is like my friends back home and so I hope her friends are as well :)

I will hopefully get some pictures and post them on facebook.
Have a good week everyone <3

Nanny Network

I am now on a regular basis hanging out with Matilda (an au pair from Sweden), Adina (the Rumanian au pair), and Ula (a nanny from Poland). Those are the girls I am going out with TOMORROW and wow I can't wait!

SIDE NOTE: an Au Pair is live-in, a Nanny just works for the family

Matilda and I usually end up meeting up everyday at about 1 - 3 because that is her down time and we grab coffee or explore. She is an au pair for 2 little girls as well Mia and Anna. Mia is in Olivias classroom and she and Liv are the only two girls on the football team that happens every Wednesday (PS. they have very attractive coach). Anna is 3 and she plays with Bell everyday in the park. Matilda and I get along very well and her English is amazing so we have no problems there...

On Wednesday we went and watched the girls play football and it was really nice. I found it funny as I sat there because I felt like I was being prepped to become a sweet Soccer MOM! (not that motherhood is on my mind lol).

I forget sometimes how innocent and interesting children are... they are so nieve and curious and have no fear in asking a "silly" question. A cute example I was telling Liv last night about Toby (my parrot) and how he was an African Grey. She was very intreged in the fact that he spoke English and asked why... and I said because at home we speak England and he learns what we say. Then she asked "Does he speak African too?"

Its so nice having friend here and we bond so well because they are all Au Pairs and know what were going through. Every morning Bell, Anna, Matilda and I go to the park after dropping of Liv and Mia. Then every day after school we all go back to the park and Ula and her 2 girls join us. Its nice not only for us Au Pairs but for the girls as well... they have other people to play with there own age etc. We are kinda like a small Nanny Network. Today I had Mia over for tea until 6 and then another day Matilda will take Liv. Although this is Ula's last week with her family because she is starting school, she lives in a town close by with her boyfriend and a new nanny with take her place. She is Austrailian and 21! I really excited to meet her because she will be the only one other than myself whos native language is English!

Finally, the other great thing about nanny networking is everyone is from a different part of the world... thus I have a sweet hook ups all over. Matilda is going home on two different occasions and has already extended a warm welcome!

I will post again Saturday... probably bitter and hungover because I promised Liv I'd take her Skating as her postive reinforement reward, and since she in school during the week, I have to do it on my TIME OFF =P

Cheers

They Say its your Birthday <3

Hello all... and THANKS for all the GREAT birthday WISHES!

Yes, I am 22 years old today and I am pleased to report that the Jack family has made it a good one.

This will be short since I wrote yesterday but I'm sure you all want to know about my birthday here. I woke up to cards from Sara and Liv (a hand made one from Liv) and then Sara rushed off to work so she could come home as quick as possible. We had a great day today going to the park and the library.

SIDE NOTE: At the park I was hanging out with Matilda and a new girl Olya and both these girls are nice and they are both people that I would get along with well and we decided that on friday we are going OUT! Seeing that I haven't been clubbing once yet I'm going into alcohol withdraw and was seriously contemplating drinking wine alone in my room with a nice movie... but now I have girls to go out with!!! WOOT WOOT

Ok, back to my birthday I made a nice dinner or saugage, mash (thats what they call mash potatos) and mini corn cobs and then Sara was home and we had CHOCOLATE CAKE... which was a nice treat because we eat very healthy here and the closes thing I get to a treat is salt and vinger flavoured rice cakes. The Jack Family also bought me another travel guide from the same book company the London one was but and this one is for Britian... and along with that they got me this membership to the Youth Hostel Association of Britian and it gives me discounts of all the hostels and Britian and over 80 in other countries!!! A gift that I will for sure use to its full advantages!

Now my day is over and I am glad that it was all nice... they made me feel very special and thats how it should be on your birthday. Althought of course I miss home cooked meals from mom because birthdays mean you get to pick the menu but the Jacks did a pretty good job of making me feel at home <3

.smile.
ps. thanks again for all your lovely wishes

Covent Gardens & Trafalger Square

(my picture is taken at the Canadian Embassy in Britian, courtesy of a nice tourist)

SATURDAY:
Saturday I got up and headed out to Covent Gardens (1 of the 22 places my London book told me to see.) It was cool, I'm starting to get used to the stores here and figure out which ones I like and which ones are WAY to expensive. I needed by buy more tops and shoes, and of course I was successful! I got to Covent Gardens at 12 and Adina (my new friend) was going to Oxford Circus at 2... so when she got there I met up with her and we spend the day together, which was nice. We had tea and she showed me some stores I missed last weekend! I was so excited I bought my first 'real' London outfit. I love the fashion here and I am getting used to it and thus buying it for myself. Since I like it so much I have told myself I'm only aloud shopping once a month... and therefore by the time i'm done here I will have 12 London outfits to bring home!

SUNDAY: Today I was heading out on my own to Trafalger Sqaure where you can find many art galleries, that are all FREE! The first one I went to was The National Gallery. It was HUGE, and had obviously many pieces of art I had never heard of before. It was amazing to know you are staring and ORIGINAL pieces that steam from the 13th Century and forward. I was able to look at art from: Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Leonardo and Michelangelo. A peice that most of you would know is Van Gogh's - Sunflower... it was crazy to grasp the concept that this is the same piece of art that you learn about in school and now I was able to see it in is original form. The National Gallery had two travelling exhibits on as well... my favourite was titled "LOVE". There was many different forms of art in the exhibit all surrounding, you guessed it LOVE, and since I love love it was perfect!

Next I found my way to The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and I was really looking forward to that because contemporary art is a kind im really fond of. I was aloud to take pictures in here which was cool, and it was no where near as busy as The National Gallery. I wish they had more art though, they had many film playing but I wasn't in the mood for that so I just looking thought the galleries.

Its so crazy how close everything in here... I could walk from Trafalger Square to Westminster or Piccadilly Circus. I like that fact a lot especially for when I have visiters because it means you can see more in a day!

and FINALLY I didn't spend as much time as i'd thought I would in Traflager Square and was able to make my way to Matalan's and get WELLIES!!! I actually loved this store it was like a Walmart and had cheap shoes... so I bought some flats as well!

Love.

Lost in Translation

Sara told me that she wanted me OUT of the house today, which at first made me kinda irratated because it made me feel like she believed I was a loser who just hung out here. So at first I wasn't going to go out and I was going to continue on with my regular day which consists of (nap, read and TV) BUT I decided I'd go on my first double decker bus adventure to find me some Wellies (known in Canada as Rain Boots).

So off I went... I caught the 179 bus and got TOTALLY lost, I took the bus all the way to the end of its line and then finally got directions for the bus driver. He was a very kind man and could obviously tell I was a newb and he helped me out. However he told me to go back and catch the W19 bus... well that bus never came and my time was running out because I had to pick Liv up from school so in my pathetic WET state I got back on the 179 bus and went home. Sara enjoyed my adventure a little more than I did and she laughed because I was suppose to get on the W13 bus all along... which I knew but I made the mistake of thinking the W19 and the 179 were the same bus and SURPRISE SURPRISE they weren't. However, now that I learnt that I will take the same trip again on Monday (hoping that it won't rain to much this weekend... my runners are slowly drowning to death) and get the W13 bus all the way to Matlan's (the Wellies store).

After the day I had one would think it wouldnt turn around... especially after the week I've had with Liv... BUT she was great today... and actually has been getting much better after the first few days of school. We made homemade pizza together which was fun and Bell and Sara went to the grocery store. She even went as far as setting the table up all nice with bamboo and asking her mom if she needed any help bring in the groceries!

(the picture is of us and one of the two pizzas we made)

Its really funny how much she has taught me about England. Since she is only 6 I don't mind asking her what new words are... or even when were reading a story since they are all English authors she knows what some words are that I don't even know! All thought we some times don't see eye to eye the good times with Liv are nice :)

Tomorrow I'm off to Covent Gardens to go SHOPPING... hopefully girls I can find out travelling t-shirt! I might even catch the tube with a new friend, since I got my new cell phone up and running I am a socialite!

I'll take lots of picture,
Have a good weekend everyone

Driving me Mad

(Okie I tried to attach a video today and was unsuccessful: Sorry)

Daniel has informed me that people want me to post more... which I found odd. I try to do it every couple of days and if I was you guys I'd be annoyed by my meaningless stories, but dont get me wrong I'm very glad you all read them and enjoy the feedback :)

Yesterday was my WORST day here thus far... and I must say I'm glad it's over!

It's funny because as a teacher you will always have students in your classroom that are ridiculously annoying but you get a small pleasure in the fact that after the bell rings they are no longer yours. Well, as Olivia is getting into her normal routine at home with me she has become one of those students and now as a teacher I have to deal with the home side of the annoance (ironically enough she is perfect at school and saves it all for me).

Now, dont get me wrong, she is a sweet child who like anyone is just looking for acceptance and love, but she has been taught a certain way to act to get what she wants i.e. whining and tantrums and I don't accept that... thus to her I am the enemy at the moment.

Yesterday I was having an emes day all on my own so when it was time to get back to work I didn't have much left in me... and boy did she take all I had. Liv and I have tons of fun together when we are being friends but as of now she is having difficultly finding the medium between "Jenn the Friend" and "Jenn the Adult", and thats when our mini wars start. Bella is such a pleasing child and if she has a tantrum its for about 2 minutes, where as at the present moment Liv drags everything on and whining is the only language she speaks. My day contained yelling, crying, kicking, hitting and telling me she wishes her old nanny was still here. All things I know aren't true but with the day I had before our war it didnt help.

However, yesterday is over and today has begun.

This morning was another mini war with me getting kicked... but I've started using "Serious Mean Jenn" voice and she stops! I can only hope that tonight will not be a reoccurance of yesterday!

Bit by Bit I will get spoilled whiny Olivia into the Nice, Kind, Friendly girl she is capable of being.

I feel for her... everything is new, and she has been taught this is the way to get attention, so with me trying to teach her to act appropiately she must change what has worked for her for so long :(

Wish me Luck,
PS. I meet another potential friend... a girl this time, she another au pair from Russia!
PSS. I went to the bank today and Aaron wasn't there lol... maybe a friendship with a young chap isn't meant to be (Dan you can be Happy!)

Cheeky Monkey

Today was Olivia's last day before school starts tomorrow so Sara asked me to work extra so we could do something special as a treat... we were going to go Ice Skating!

BUT...

Since summer is ending and everything is changing for her, Olivia has been having a wee bit of trouble listening and behaving, so this morning she was once again testing her limits and she went to far and skating was taken away (not by me... but i agreed 100%). So instead after she calmed down we went to the park, the post office, the local store and the library. All and all she ended the day in a good mood.

It's funny the first few days with a new child, getting tested. I started her on three warnings... in the bathtub today and she got kicked out because shes not listening and once again testing me. I think she is learning quickly though that I mean what I say... and am fair with giving her enough chances. Her problem is she gets so heated so quickly that she starts whining and screaming before you can even talk. This is when I tell once shes ready to have a conversation she can let me know. It seems to be working well!

I'm going back to the bank tomorrow to give the rest of my information and to talk to Aaron and hopely see if he and his FREINDS are doing anything this weekend... its funny my desire to make friends isn't as strong as i'd thought it would be. I just think im so content with my friends and home and know that this is temporary that I'm not in a huge rush to meet new people. My friend Rita is buying her plane ticket here today so she is coming mid-september and that will be nice because then we will have eachother. But I dont necessarily want to make many friends because I'm enjoying relaxing and not being so busy... It will be nice to have Rita because she will be a tourist as well and want to do the same things as me (and she will have a flat in London that I can stay at on weekends!)

I have also made a list of different festivals and places I to visit but I have yet to decide which ones I'm going to do this weekend!

Hope you all had a good labour day... see that I was the only one doing Labour!

Much Love