My school!

This is Helen outside my school - Peck Elementary . Be sure to visit this website as you will see my principal (Head). She may look scary but actually she is great and she has a real enthusiasm for the children. I am under the grade 3 teachers (they have spelt my name wrong) but I haven't done anything yet!



This is my classroom before I started on it (ok so before I faffed on it!)

This next photo is quite disturbing! Yes you are right! It is a blackboard or a chalkboard as we have to call it in our school! Oh how I miss my lovely interactive whiteboard!





Here is my name on the board as you go into the school - how exciting! How American!



I went on a course at a High School and there were hundreds of these American school buses. Doesn't it remind you of the Simpsons. On our introduction to new staff lunch at my school we got to ride around the community on one of these buses, it was cool - the neighbourhood around the school - SCARY!

Our first night out in Greensboro

This was the venue for our first night in Greensboro. It was a piano bar where 2 piano players played together and kept the crowd entertained all night. Yes there was a lot of country (I lost my dog and my wife too kind of tunes) but they also played some classics. It was a lot of fun - especially crowd watching. As you can imagine the Americans got very excited and there was a lot of whoping and cheering!


This is me, Cate and Hannah - the 2 girls I live with.


Here we have the English, Irish, Scots, Welsh, Essex, Spanish and Columbian! What a mixed bunch. The man I have my arm around is called Angel. Unfortunately (for some) we think Angel prefers men to lovely ladies!



Unfortunately the piano men pictures did not come out. However, every so often the staff jumped on the bar and started dancing!

Arrival and building a home!

Well we left the safety of the hotel and arrived in Greensboro. We were all shipped into a small building, which thankfully had air conditioning (a must here I can tell you). As we opened the door we came across this sign:

Sorry I had to do it back to front to get the full effect - I think you get the idea!

As soon as the many talks were over, we rushed to find apartments. It was like Treasure Hunt! We raced off to find the best apartments as we were told that there was not many to choose from. Luckily our local advisor phoned ahead and off we went to our now home - the Madison Apartments at Adams Farm. Photos of the apartment will be posted soon. The address by the way is:

5322G Fox Cove Lane, Greensboro, NC 27407, USA.

Feel free to send the following: Tea Bags! Jelly Babies (a bribe for our landlady - she loves them), McVities Digestives, anything to do with England that would look good on a display!

Before we could move in to the apartment we had to get furniture. I thought this would be a good experience - I love shopping! However buying stuff that you know you are going to have to leave here is a nightmare. However, we did have some fun doing it:

This is Jodie doing the Tempura mattress test.

Yes there was a salesman in the next office!

This lovely sofa was purchased at Habitat (sounds promising however) for Humanity - a charity shop! This is Cate my housemate - dont worry it now has a tasty throw over it!

Thankfully Helen knows a man called "Red" that has a truck! Here he is with my bed and he is pondering as to how we are going to get the sofa above and a table and 6 chairs and my bed in one truck! We did it - but very slowly and with lots of rope!

Dont worry I didn't get a second hand bed!

We were very lucky in that our apartment has had new carpets fitted throughout. However, we were unlucky in that it was fitted by a Mexican (together with his entire young family) and it took him hours and hours to fit it. Here we are waiting to get in - having already waited 4 hours!

This is the name of our posh apartments:

This is reception and the swimming pool is just to the left of it and the gym is just on the right. No excuses now for not coming back like Cindy Crawford!

And this is the outside of our apartment - ours is the bottom floor! The inside shots will come later after Laurence Llewelyn Bowen has been in and done his stuff! (That link was for you Caroline!)

And the mystery person is...

Would you believe it, the attractive woman next to me is called Helen CROMPTON! I met a Crompton in the USA. This unfortunately is her married name, but heh, never met another one before (apart from family). She is English and comes from Lancashire. Well I be jiggered!

The orientation was full of surprises. Those I went to college will recognise the person in the middle?



It is Helen Batsford. We were in the same class at King Alfreds. She turned up with my local advisor (Danielle) who is on the left. Now how weird is that! Thankfully she kindly agreed to put me up (or put up with me) in Greensboro and we hope to stay on the same apartment complex.

Orientation at the Millenium Hotel

As soon as we got to the hotel (I shared a room with Hannah) I made my mark with my England flag - thanks Ange! Ok so Hannah was asleep whilst I hung up my flag.















However, whilst I was asleep she did this:















The whole event was very well organised and the hotel was lovely. However we did get cabin fever after a while. We had lots of lectures and I had to take a driving test - which I passed first time! In the evenings we spent most of the time in the bar - well the English, Irish, Scots and Aussies did anyway! Here are some of the people I met. Not all of them came with us to Guilford County.














A mixed bag!
















2 girls from Ireland. Bernie on the left and Martina on the right (she came with us).
















Michelle, Justine (Guilford), Bernie, Martina (Guilford), Erica (Guilford), Penny (Guilford) and me! All Aussies apart from the Irish! Spent a lot of time with these guys and boy were they fun!















On the last night we had a DJ and dinner (it was like a school disco - we even had the Cha Cha Slide!). No Build Me Up Buttercup though! Some of us decided to dress in our football shirts and tie our flags around us. Don't we look sexy! This is a picture of Cate (Guilford), Aoife (Guilford), Emma, Hannah (Guilford) and me!




















This is Jodie she is at Guilford and she is a lot of fun! Yes, she knows she looks like Gerry Halliwel! She is from Essex - but I am sure you guessed that!




















We had a great night and we danced lots. Justine (Aussie) and I set up a limbo competition and we had a truly international experience. This is me dancing Salsa with some Chile/Columbian bloke!