Tuesday September 14

I had a 10 am meeting with Nina to go over health and safety stuff. I was falling asleep so badly while reading all the info! After the meeting I went to the Walker library since I hadn’t been there yet. It is small but nice. I checked out a book and browsed. I hope to go to the big library in the city centre soon.

At Kids Kabin I bummed around and played piano before the kids came. It was a relaxing way to spend the afternoon. For the sessions I was in art and had a good time cutting out letters and helping kids pick colors, draw lines or cut holes. They were making a nice banner that said Welcome 2 Kids Kabin to hang in the hallway. I helped one girl use a sewing machine for the first time which was fun!

Wednesday September 15

Today Melissa and I went to Common Ground. We waited a few minutes and then basically went over policy stuff with Paul until 1. I am going to struggle with “actively sitting” and not really doing what I was expecting to be able to do at Common Ground. It sounds like once we are there a little while we will be able to do more interesting stuff but for now we are in the welcoming area. I really want this site to work out because it will be different and a challenge but I might find it too challenging. Only time will tell.

I was in woodwork for the sessions at Kids Kabin and was only so so as far as being helpful. One of the boys who had seen me at church excitedly asked if I knew that the Pope was making a trip to the UK. Most of the kids worked pretty independently today so I didn't have a lot to help with until people in the art room next door had sewing machine issues and asked if I could help. Will has no idea how to use it and wants me to show him how on Friday before bike repairs.

I went with for a street session for the first time. It was on Hexam Ave which is about 2 blocks from Kids Kabin. It was windy so we only had the pottery wheel out and brought paper to have an art competition. A 4 year old girl I was helping hold down the paper for while she was drawing said I didn’t talk right. Haha.

Thursday September 16

Today was my first day at Common Ground. When I got there I noticed there weren’t any clean coffee cups so I brought the dirty ones back to the kitchen, washed them and brought out clean cups. Everyone who comes in has tea or coffee so it seemed important to have clean cups for the start of the day. After a few minutes Ali, a volunteer from Iran, came out from talking with Paul and showed me around a little more. He talked my ear off all day! His English is good but I did have trouble understanding him sometimes. I organized a few things in the shop, said Hi to people and got to help with a phone call! That was the most exciting part of the day! I want to say anything I shouldn't but basically the man who came in for help wasn't comfortable with his English phone conversation skills so I made a call on his behalf. It was nice to do something I felt was actually useful! I have not perfected the art of “actively sitting” but if I get to do more things like helping with phone calls I will be happy! I can see that the people who come in really enjoy coming and it is an important place for them. It is different than I expected and will probably test my patience. Oh well. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out but I do want to try it.

At Kids Kabin, I was in "artery" today-art and pottery combo day. Abby and I were originally going to do art but then some of the kids wanted to do pottery and since Abby knows a lot about pottery we moved some art supplies into the pottery room and had a combo day. One of the kids was drawing for most of the time and we had a great conversation. He is a great kid! He told me how he wants to work really hard in school, go to university and law school to be a solicitor…not really sure what that is but oh well. Then he wants to travel the world and write books. He was very focused and asked me questions too. He asked me what kind of music I like to listen too, what I studied in school, what my strengths are, etc! For street session we took out cookery and games. They made popcorn in cookery and I mostly played games. I played “snake” with the jump rope with some kids and throw a ball to this tiny boy for ages! He had a paddle that was velcroy on one side and he was trying to hit it. He was super cute.

Friday September 17

Today started out bright and early with prayer at the Sisters/Brothers on Hexam ave. I had to get up before 8 which was not easy to do at all! Br. Ralph was there along with Jill, Patricia and Christine. Sr. Slyvia is still on holiday. After we ate breakfast with them which was nice. Out of no where Br. Ralph pulls out these one liners:
1. “London is a suburb of Hell. Discuss”
2. “What the bikini covers is more important than what it reveals. (Discuss)”
Sr. Christine was like “Ralph!” and turned red. It was hilarious!

After, we came home and bummed around (Melissa went to KK for her health and safety meeting) until going to KK around 1:30. I showed Will some sewing stuff since he had asked me for a crash course in sewing. He said he knows more now than he did before so that is good!

Bike repairs were busy as usual. Beforehand Will showed us about direct brakes and we took some apart and put them back together. During the session I helped a kid fix that kid of brakes! He had a good idea what he was doing and just needed some guidance and support/affirmation.

We made chicken tacos and guacamole for dinner! It was delicious! At one point I realized the hot water wasn’t working and that our boiler had an error message on it. We didn’t have a manual but I found one online. I also realized we had our boiler set on hot water only, not hot water and heating!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! That was why it was cold inside! We all just expected the heat to kick in sometime and it hadn't. There is a switch with a bandaid over it that we know has to stay on for the heat to work so we just thought that was all we had to do. Since we didn't want to go without heat and hot water we braved the crazy machine and got it repressurized and we got hot water and heat!!! So amazing!

The next kink in the day is that Helen emailed saying we exceeded our internet allowance. What the heck!?! How does that happen? Apparently we are allowed 10 GB of internet?!? We don’t really understand what it means but by searching the web we found out that amount is for one person with normal internet usage so it would have been fine when Rebecca was the only person using the internet. For 5 pounds more we can get 60 GB so we are going to try to get it switched! We have only been here 2 weeks and we already went over the monthly limit so it for sure needs to change! We are all willing to pay the extra to get more internet. Still confused as to why it has a limit! Apparently from 8 am to midnight you pay and from midnight to 8 am is free. Crazy England!

On a positive note, I did two loads of laundry without any problems. No 2.5 hour wash cycle like Melissa had the other day! There are so many choices on the washing machine! I just wanted my Hot/cold, cold/cold, and a few other choices but we have A-L for different types of clothes, a wide range of temperature setting and a couple other options.

Saturday September 18, 2010

We went to Durham with Br. Ralph today. We walked through some streets that were busy and down by the river crossed a bridge and up to the Cathedral. It is built on a piece of land by where the river Wear makes a U bend meaning it is protected on 3 sides. It was originally a Catholic Cathedral with a Benedictine Monastery but is an Anglican Church today. We climbed the tower and had a nice view of the city and the church grounds below. There were 325 steps and we were definitely tired by the time we got to the top! I counted at least 13 wind turbines in the distance. The weather was nice and I ended up carrying my jacket most of the time.

We watched a video about the Cathedral which talked about St. Cuthbert a lot. He was a monk and the bishop of on Lindisfarne where we will be going next weekend for a retreat! After St. Cuthbert’s death, the monks had to flee Lindisfarne and they brought St. Cuthbert’s coffin with them. They fled to several locations before finding the current location of the Durham location where they would be safe.

As we were walking through the Cathedral/old monastery part I thought that it looked a lot like Harry Potter! Melissa thought the same thing and looked up the filming location of the Harry Potter movies and some of the movies had parts filmed in the Cathedral!! I now really want to watch my Harry Potter DVDs to see if I recognize parts of the Cathedral!

On the way home we stopped at the Angel of the North. It is a large steel statue in Gateshead (across the river from Newcaslte) that is somewhat famous. I saw it from the car on the way up to Newcastle and it was a nice addition to our Durham trip. Br. Ralph was funny and kept quizzing us on the information we read about the statue on the info board at the statue.

We had another lazy evening and watched Elizabeth Town. I remember not liking the movie the first time I saw it but it is Abby’s favorite movie so I figured I would give it another try. It was better the second time around but I won’t be adding it to my list of favorite movies.

Sunday September 19

Today we went to church at St. Mary’s Cathedral in the city center. We went to the 10 am mass but want to attend the 6:30 pm mass in the near future because it is the youth mass. The mass was nice but a bit more traditional than I am used to. There was a nice haze on incense by the end of mass and some things were in Latin, although not much.

After mass Melissa caught the bus to go to a football (soccer) match with a team she is interested in joining. Abby and I found a nice little restaurant for lunch and then wandered around town doing some shopping. Abby needed a coat and I wanted a pair of boots since I know I will need them. We went to H&M and Primark as our first stops. I had seen cheap boots at Primark last week but they didn’t have any left in my size but I did find a cute skirt for 2 pounds! It is longer and I can wear leggings under it for extra warmth. Abby found a cute jacket for a good price at H&M. We wandered around and I found some boots. They are the same style as UGG boots but were cheap. They probably are the kind that will wear out after a year but that is fine with me! We also went to the Laing gallery and the library. The library in the city centre is huge! We had a good time browsing and each ended up taking 4 books home. I was super excited about the DVD selections and had picked out 4 movies I really wanted to see only to find out it costs 2 pounds to rent a DVD! What?! I expected the DVDs to be free to rent like in the US but I guess not. There are some DVDs the previous volunteers left but not a ton and we will probably watch all of them in another month or so. I brought some DVDs with me but I have to watch them on my computer since they are region 1 DVDs and the DVDs here are region 2. It is just nice to have a larger screen but I will settle for using my computer. Before we went to the gallery we walked down by the Quayside, across the Tyne Bridge and back across the Millennium Bridge, looked at some vendors and back into town. It was nice wandering around and due to the half marathon that started in Newcastle today a bunch of streets were blocked off to cars which made our rooming easier.

We were tired from our 5 hours of walking around town and shopping and both spend a good 2 hours reading before doing anything else when we got home. We ended up walking down the street to the Magic Wok for Chinese take away. It was good and the leftovers will make a great lunch tomorrow but we were disappointed they didn’t have sesame chicken!

Well, that is about it for the week. Although I have been here 2.5 weeks, I still feel like I am settling in and figuring out my routine. My flatmates are really nice and easy to get a long with, everyone at Kids Kabin is super nice and the sister/brothers are very welcoming. It just takes time to get adjusted and I guess I thought it would take less time than it is.