Arriving in England

Darrick and I arrived in Leeds after 20 hours of travel. As we passed through border check, they emphasized that they were "not happy" that Darrick was staying so long on a visitor's visa, but they still let us in, begrudgingly. Phew!

David and Clare Price picked us up at the airport, shared sparkling wine (from Leeds) and homemade salsa with chips, right when we arrived. We watched a recap/celebration of the London Olympics and slept in their guest room. They were incredibly generous and welcoming. They treated us like family and helped us on our shopping spree to get bedding, dishes, cookware, towels, curtains and hangers for our new place (introducing us to the British equivalents of the 99¢ Store, Walmart and Target).

We are (somewhat) moved into our flat, 10 minutes away from the Leeds train station. We had our first afternoon tea with the Price's after finding our local Sainsbury market where we bought milk. Our flat is a wonderful place to live with a view of the church across the street (where beautiful bells chime on Sundays) and a river to our backs. Our first night at "home", we went for a pint and "bits and bobs" to eat at our local pub. Darrick had fish and chips with mushy peas, and I had bangers and mash. We felt very wanna-be British.

The next morning, we hopped on a train to London where I had two full days of meetings and Darrick embarked on two full days of exploration.

The meetings were a bit more confusing than clarifying, but I'm hoping my role in schools will be to help identify bright spots and support challenges, so that I can help school leaders design and document meaningful action research. I feel like I'm in way over my head, but luckily, I've always enjoyed swimming.

When Darrick and I returned to Leeds, I came down with the flu that he had just defeated, we smoked out our flat with our first attempt at cooking at home (apparently, the oven wasn't cleaned), I discovered which coffee shop NOT to go to (it's never a good sign when a jittery guy behind you says he'll wait and then the door is locked and the sign changed to CLOSED when you leave) and I failed to open a bank account after Innovation Unit gave me the wrong paperwork. Our first full 24 hours in Leeds were filled with sickness and comical mishaps (ending in a late delivery of Dominoe's pizza - the only place that would take our chip-less American credit card). I'm really missing home, even though I feel lucky to be on this grand adventure and I know Gracie is having wonderful adventures of her own with my parents.

Tomorrow is my first day of work in a school - Goole High School. It's a 15 minute walk to the train station and an hour ride each way, by train. I'm working with Louise, an inspiring social studies teacher, who is going to be implementing the Goole Docks project that Chris and I helped design over Skype. This week will bring 4 first days of school at Goole High School, Chapel St. Atherton, Yewlands in Sheffield and Dixons Allerton. I get really nervous about one first day of school, so I feel like my butterflies have been multiplied by four... I'm hoping I can sleep, tonight. Sweet dreams!