I started this post on Monday...

It's only 5pm but feels like so much later. Caitlin and I have just spent a good while going through all the things that the girls in past years left behind in Highlands, which is where we'll be working (we decided our jobs earlier today). We basically just made 'yes' (maybe possibly someone might like it) and 'no' (omg eww get it out of our sights) piles; luckily the 'yes' pile is much smaller as our rooms are tiny! But there are so many things - coats, shoes, scarves, other random stuff including a phone one of the girls left... it's like being at a market and not having to pay for anything. Why did we even bring anything over?!


Friday we headed into London for the New Years weekend. We left about midday and got our return tickets which turned out to be about £13 return - we got a discount for being a group, but it's still so expensive. Apparently if we book in advance it's much cheaper and we'll also be given rail cards which give us a discount. The countryside heading into London is so picturesque, it's starts as rolling hills, then rows of identical, tall red brick houses. Unfortunately it then got a bit dero and ugly as we got closer to 'London Marylebone' (we can't work out if it's said 'marley-bone' or 'marri-le-bone' since we've heard both pronunciations). We had to walk to Baker St station from there as the services to Paddington weren't running but 'follow the people with the suitcases' got us there. From Paddington station, it was a really short walk to St David's Hotel, although we only realised how short it was the next day; we must have just thought it would be further, and we also had heavy/awkward bags. It is pretty much - WE JUST RAN OUTSIDE BECAUSE IT IS STARTING TO SNOW!!! VERY LIGHTLY, BUT STILL!!! AND I TASTED IT AND OMG, IT BETTER SNOW ALL NIGHT AND BE WHITE IN THE MORNING!


Okay, back to blog land. Paddington is pretty much rows upon rows of hotels, they're all so cute and our row was white, but there are some variations. We picked up lots of brochures and set off in the afternoon, soon coming to HYDE PARK! We wandered through just muttering over and over that we were in Hyde Park, then we saw horses and it was perfect. Georgie spotted some shining lights in the distance which led us to a carnival called Winter Wonderland. There were heaps of people, rides and other stalls and an ice-skating rink (way too expensive). Of course I had to get some fairy floss, I mean candy floss. I took so many photos but I'm still trying to work out how to keep the best ones - I already have 500 just from the first week! I promise I'll put some up soon though. We walked through the whole fair and then along the lake near it. We thought we wanted dinner but then realised it was only about 4pm even though it was so dark. We should get used to that pretty soon. After walking along a few roads, we realised we were actually in Oxford St. Everything was lit up still from Christmas and the streets were really busy. The Disney store was 2 storeys just filled with toys so that excited us all (especially Georgie). We started to want dinner again at a more normal time and were keeping our eyes out for something like Chinese all the way back to our hotel. Unfortunately by this time we were on a bit of a sus strip where every second shop was a Lebanese restaurant and most of them were also advertising shishas. We ended up getting greasy but good burgers (vege burger for £1.50) from this little place and headed back to the hotel.

We were actually so tired by this time and hadn't really found anywhere to go out to celebrate the end of 2010. Embarrassingly, we decided we'd sleep for an hour at 8pm and then see what we wanted to do. At 9pm Georgie, Aisling and I (in one room) decided we HAD to do something, that we couldn't spend NYE sleeping in London. So we got dressed up, took some photos and tried to wake Caitlin and Greer in the room next door, but no response. The guy at reception told us there wasn't much around here and that we would be better to take a bus to Piccadilly. We met some Swedish girls who wanted to know how to get to the London Eye, and we wanted to find out and go with them but Aisling had received a call from an aunt in London who told us there was a high terrorism risk and to stay out of the centre of London. So we ended up just wandering (found a Chinese place just around the corner, dammit), my heels came off very soon and on went my collapsible flats. We went back to this old persons' bar near the hotel, went back up to meet Greer and Caitlin not long after, and then went back for the countdown. Back at the hotel, Georgie was yelling 'happy new year' in French out the window and this couple responded, she ended up going downstairs and I went down later to help Aisling keep control of her when she decided to go for a walk. We ended up getting Ben & Jerry's and Cosmo and went back up to the hotel room. Slept about 3.30am.

We got up at 7.30am for the hotel's famous English breakfast - eggs, toast, yoghurt, beans, tomatoes, hot chocolate (I even ate a couple of mushrooms, Mum)and then made our way through Hyde Park again to get to the Science and History museums (both free entry, woohoo!). Seriously, every building is amazing and old. In the Science museum, we busied ourselves for a good couple of hours in this 'Who am I?' section which had all these interactive games, most likely there for kids. It was so fun. You could see what your face would look like the opposite sex (very crap though) or see if you think like a female/male (yes, I am definitely female). It also had things like DNA gone wrong - a 7-clawed cat, and also brain games, like you had to steer this course the opposite way... I already suck at those kinds of games let alone having to steer left when you want to go right! They also had a small exhibition about fashion and recycling so that's my kinda science. We got a pizza for lunch in the museum then headed next door to the History Museum, where we saw lots of rocks and dinosaurs. The gems were so pretty; there is an excessive number of photos on my camera. We wandered back through Hyde Park on the other side and found Kensington Palace, where this Scottish guy was giving a talk/tour and we tagged along. We went and picked up Janet from Paddington station and then went and ate Chinese at the place we found the night before (egg fried rice - £2.50). I think we got to bed about 9.30pm so early night.

Breakfast again in the morning, then went to Oxford St again but almost everything was shut so we pretty much made our way back to the station and headed back to High Wycombe. Janet's bag was huge and heavy and she had to pull it up the huge hill, although the station is already about halfway up. We ate dinner(pasta again) and started watching Misfits (all season 1 except the last ep) and headed to bed.

So earlier today, we met the Headmaster David, then had a couple more meetings after determining our jobs.

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It's now almost 2pm Wednesday, since I never got enough time to finish this post (I cheated above and wrote a lot of that just then).

We also met Emily who's from Sydney on Monday and had pizza for dinner with David and his wife Cathy Monday night. The school gaps (Georgie, Aisling and Em) moved into their flat earlier in the day so we went there after dinner to watch the last episode of Misfits (crazay) and pig out on the Maltesers David gave us. So much for healthy. Caitlin and I hadn't chosen which room we wanted yet so we stayed in the bunks.

Yesterday we started making 34 beds at about 9am... mattress cover, fitted sheet, doona (sorry, duvet) cover onto doona, doona onto bed, repeat. C & I tucked in about 8 doonas before we realised Amanda (house mistress) and Sam (vice) were just dumping them neatly onto the beds. It was a massive workout for our arms and many a time we had a rest on the bed for a minute before moving onto the next. We finally got lunch at school - potatoes, salad, minestrone, upside-down pineapple sponge. We did a bit more work in the afternoon but it was definitely funner - taking down and replacing the house points board and fixing up some other notice boards. We also got our timetables - we both have Fridays off and I think I have Thursday afternoons off. I said I'd go in the worse (smaller) bedroom, but it's not too bad, just very small. Hopefully with lots of photos, etc (thanks for the others in my suitcase, Dad) I can make it a nice place to live. It's only about two bed-widths wide but oh well. I discovered this morning it gets nice light in the morning, and it now has a lock thanks to 'the men' (maintenance guys). The bathroom for us is pretty horrible though, we've agreed to put some time aside to clean it up a bit. We ordered more pizza last night because we pretty much just had pasta and chips lefts (and vege nuggets, yummm) and were told we would get reimbursed so that was good.

This morning we only had to start work at 10am and then had a staff meeting at 10.30 where David and Nigel (bursar) spoke. I swear David is like Santa, he's so jolly and does resemble him a bit looks-wise. Caitlin and I did a bit of word/clip art before lunch (spaghetti, mushroom soup, salad, yoghurt, jam tart) to update some of the notice boards, so definitely getting into the fun part of the job... maybe. We're off to see if there's more work to do before most of the boarders start arriving at 3pm. Haven't taken many photos the last couple of days and will definitely try and get some up very soon to accompany the too-many words!

Thanks Mum - got your letter today! xxx