Venice

Before I say anything about Venice, it has to be shared that Aisling, Rose and I went to see Darren Criss the night before we left England. He was AMAZING, everything I thought he would be. Such a fangirl, but so beyond caring. I nearly cried with joy, I swear to god. Then when Joe Walker came out on stage to sing a duet, the room was thrown into chaos. He sang everything, from his EP to AVPM to Disney covers. I went to sleep grinning!

Anyway, VENICE

Arriving at Luton airport, Rose and I were told that our flight was delayed by 6 hours...not the best way to start off the summer! After waving Izzy goodbye we tried to amuse ourselves until ten minutes past midnight, when we were finally called to board! After the plane trip (90 minutes and I am in Italy, Europe is ridiculous...) we caught a shuttle bus to the station to get us to Venice. That train trip was bliss...Rose and I had not slept in more than 24 hours, we looked and felt like the walking dead. We slept nearly the whole 2 hours, and woke up as we were pulling into Venice.

I will never forget walking out of the station and seeing Venice for the first time-my jaw literally dropped. No picture can do Venice justice - it is the most incredible and beautiful city. Ancient buildings look like they are floating, boats buzzing along carrying tourists or families with their shopping...there is nothing like it! We got to our hostel (with me being told off by an angry old nonna for jumping across the seats on the waterbus) then explored our island of Giudecca. It's off the main island, and is residential, but 5 mins away from the main island. It was actually quite nice, wasn't as touristy and full of western shops as Central Venice. There's this art festival going on at the moment, so Rose and I wandered into a contemporary art exhibition in this gorgeous old house. It was a very early night for us that night - we'd had about 4 hours sleep in two days! Thanks easyjet...

9 July

Today we left at about 8am and headed straight to Piazza San Marco. We went into the Basilica, which was breathtakingly beautiful, like everything in this country seems to be! I said a short prayer in there, and for one terrifying moment when I opened my eyes I thought I had lost Rose. After a couple of minutes panic I found her again, then we just decided to wander. It's true what they say - you can't exactly plan Venice, the best way to discover things is just to wander. We wandered through Rialto Mercato, where there were heaps of fresh food stalls. It smelt amazing - living in England, the kingdom of crap food, has made me appreciate good food so much more. I've been eating on such a budget that I'm going to get scurvy before the summer is out haha. Fresh fruit for dinner and no money for transport, or bread roll and bus fare? There were heaps of touristy stalls around as well, with 'venetian' masks made in china :) we grabbed a 72 hour public transport pass, then went back to the hostel for a siesta to escape the heat. (I've acclimatised to the English weather, and am

dying in 35 degrees-what am I going to do when I get back home in December?!)

Afterwards, typical Rose and Georgie, we hopped on a waterbus which made our 10 minute trip into an hour long one. We weren't really fussed, we got a lovely scenic tour of Venice. We hopped off, and took a stroll away from Central Venice and into a park. It was gorgeous, the air was cool, the sun was setting and it was SO quiet. No cars in a city make all the difference! We walked past a family who looked like they were on their way to a summer dinner outside on the terrace - they were holding bruschetta, prosciutto...pretty much a walking deli. YUMMMM. After our long leisurely walk, we took a long leisurely cruise back to our hostel. The hostel has no air conditioning, and I swear I'm losing weight from the amount of sweat I'm losing...sleeping in a 10 person dorm in 33 degrees? Never fun.

10 July

Today we had planned to do all the islands, but just ended up doing Murano (the island famous for it's glass) and Lido. Murano was quite cool - the glass blowing demonstration was awesome! The guy made a horse in about 10 seconds, so talented. We wandered around, lusted after glass dust collectors, and went back to the hostel to sunscreen up before Lido aka the beach! I had low blood sugar as we were pulling into Lido, and treated myself to a yummy hypo fix of cherry gelati - jelly beans are no more in Italy! The beach was so crowded, but the water was BEAUTIFUL.

You know what else was beautiful? Us, apparently, according to the Italian guys. Our egos inflated so much, Rose and I were hit on so much it got a bit silly. (Seriously, how is my ghost white skin and thunder thighs remotely attractive?) Italian guys are so forward! One of them, when we told him we were australian, said 'Oh, Australia, it is bootyful, just like it's women' and slapped his chest...I am not joking. Rose and I had to stop ourselves from cracking up. Another one shook my hand, went in for the normal two cheek kiss, then tried to plant one on my lips hahahaha. My favourite? I think his name was something along the lines of Dimi? He spoke not one word of English, and my Italian is crap, so we had nearly no idea what the other was saying, but oh my god he was so sexy! We used a lot of gesturing, then he went and tried to make me a bracelet out of a reed...I died. Italian is such a beautiful language, I could have listened to him talk all day. He took my hand under the water and started to look into my eyes (I swear to god I am not making this up!) but this creepy as guy was hitting on Rose, so I made my excuses and we hustled back to the beach. As we swam back he kept pointing to Rose and I saying 'bianco! Bianco!' then pointed to his extremely tanned chest looking very confused haha. Yeah we get it, we are the palest girls on the beach...

(that's not even an exaggeration. Everyone is tanned, and all they sell is SPF10, while I'm there piling on the SPF50. Have the Italians not heard of skin cancer?). As we walked back up to the beach I turned around to firmly say goodbye, and he grabbed my hand, kissed me and said 'Ciao bella'. Seriously, what is Italy feeding their men? Can English guys have some of whatever it is?

So to say the least, Lido was a success! We had a huge pizza for dinner, and got back to hostel at about midnight.

11 July

Today Rose and I did a final wander of Venice. We went into a bookstore which claimed to be 'the most beautiful in the world', and it certainly lived up to it's name! Nestled away in a tiny street, it was stacked high with thousands of books, with hundreds more tumbling out of small gondolas in the middle of the tiny store. At the very end of the store it opened up to a small canal - it still makes me catch my breath, the fact that waves lap at peoples back doors!

We found a little deli/cafe with really friendly owners, where I had a delicious pesto. Before heading back to the hostel to grab our bags, we went into the Doge's Palace, which was just incredible. I walked through the bridge of sighs, and under a ceiling covered in 24 carat gold. It's a medieval palace...and we were walking in it!

We grabbed our luggage, caught the train with plenty of time to spare, and as I write I am lying in bed in florence. It's so hot oh my god!

Activities Week

Activities Week. It means that for a week the girls play games, make things, do workshops etc. It's a very weird week...and very stressful!

Oh, on Sunday Lou adn CLaier arrived to stay with us for a couple of days! Claire's been popping in and out all week, it's been so lovely! She made us dinner a couple of nights ago and scones last ngith. She is the best house guest in the world!

Monday.
I WAS AWAKE FOR 21 HOURS.
Why? Let me explain...

I went on a day trip to France with the Middles. I know, casual day trip to France, whaddup England. We went through the tunnel. You drive into this shuttle thing and it whizzes you through the tunnel in 30 minutes. Crazy! We came out the other end and we were suddenly in France!

We spent the day in Boulogne-sur-mer

Walking around the markets, and spent a couple of hours in the aquarium. The girls had fun, although it was hot. got to about 31 degrees, and for 11 year old English schoolgirls that is sweltering. They did not STOP complaining, I came very close to yelling 'TRY 40 DEGREES!!'. The air conditioning on our bus was broken, of all the days...I do feel sorry for them, England's version of air conditioning is 'open your windows', so no wonder they were uncomfortable.

We had lunch at a lovely little restaurant opposite the beach. A couple of the teachers and I were very keen to take the girls for a dip, however due to health and safety that wasn't an option...stupid paperwork!!! We went for a wander through the town, and tried to force the girls to speak some French, which some of them did :) We stopped by a hypermarche to get some snacks, but we were really delayed at passport control (they made us do things we shouldn't ahve to do, landing cards visa checks etc) so missed our shuttle.

We thought 'Oh well, that's fine, we'll get the next one'. However, the shuttle that we were meant to catch broke down halfway, and we were delayed by 3 hours. Together with missing the shuttle, we were stranded with 40 Middles near the eurotunnel for 5 hours. That is a very long time. At first we relaxed and lay on the grass and it was lovely, but by the end the girls were all tired and we grumpy and we all just wanted to get home. After waiting in a queue for ages, we finally got in a shuttle and we all slept the entire way back home. Once we got back to Godstowe, we got the girls back to their parents as quickly as possible. Most of the parents waiting there were Dads, which made me laugh! Poor Dads, they're always the ones doing the crappy pick ups (well, in my family anyway). We cleared the bus of rubbish etc, then by the time I was done and could head back to the flat it was around 1am...work the next day was not fun!

On Tuesday I helped out with the Upper Division Production, as well as the Viking Day for Form 2. Helping out with the production was great, they're doing a musical version of Romeo and Juliet. Set to Queen songs. I know! Amazing! Why did we never think of that at school? Viking Day was so boring, I threaded needles for two hours because they were making bags and satchels and things. I wanted to stab myself in the eye with the needle at the end of it. I'm happy to do anything 99% of the time, but I had been told that they were 'desperate' for help, but they actually didn't need me...can you tell I'm over younger children at the moment! I love them dearly, I do, but in small doses. I love the older ones so much more!
I worked with the girls, EG and CM choreographing dances, helping block and stuff. It was really fun, and I was really flattered because CM wantedto know and acted on them! She let me jump in and block scenes and everything! That night Em baked brownies. The best brownies in the world. They were DELICIOUS, that girl is indispensible. we had about a million each with a glass of milk, while watching we can be heroes and kath and kim. Partying hard in the gap flat, woo!!

Wednesday morning I spent helping out the Lowers with 'Team Games', but they really didn't need me at all...nice excuse to sit in the sun for a couple of hours! From breaktime to lunch I did some French workshops with the Form 1s, learning how to ask for an icecream in French. We then had icecreams at lunch, and they had to ask me and AA for them in French. 'Je voudrais une glace au chocolat' times 30. Very very cute. That was definitely one of the best activities to help out with. Combining two of my favourite things, French and icecream, into one activity? Winner. I have nooooo idea what I did that afternoon, but I had aftercare afterwards which was hell. Aisling was sick so I did it by myself, and the washing up took forever. The upside was that a) it was jam sandwhich day, yummy! and b) when I got back up to the flat the feeling of relief was incredible! :)

Thursday morning Rose, Em and I dressed up in uniform, as the girls had mufti day and we thought it would be funny. They loved it, thought it was hilarious. The teachers freaked out, they kept walking into the staffroom and going 'GAH I thought you were a student!!'. Nothing to say about that day, other than I did boring photocopy stuff. Thrilling. That night was the first night of the production, so Aisling and I headed down to do makeup and relived our MHS/MGHS musical makeup days. I did Lady Capulet's hair and makeup and I must say she looked stunning :)

Friday we spent ALL day making new labels for the trophies for speech day. It's all top secret so whenever a girl walked past the trophy cabinet we all dived over the lists and labels so they couldn't see. The sneaky things kept craning their necks to see but they had no chance hahaha. That night was also the production, and it was fantastic, I was so proud of them! When J sang Bohemian Rhapsody I got shivers, she was fantastic!

The weekend has been nothing special, other than I spent £100 on stuff for summer. Woops. It was babysitting money so it totally doesn't count!