Hiya Lasses and Lads:
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| Yorkshire Dales near Malham Cove |
Lucky me, the other day one of my lessons was cancelled, thus I decided to enjoy some „me-time“.
I went to Starbucks. Ordered a yummy Vanilla Latte. Put my book on the table. Put my I-pod headphones on. Started reading. It felt good. I loved it to sit there in the hustle and buzzle of the city. Doing nothing. Except reading. And, of course. Drinking coffee.
Right now I am reading the book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini who wrote the bestselling novel the Kite Runner. I absolutely loved the latter, the former is not bad either, but I am not too excited about it, to be honest. One thing which really struck me today though was his way of leaving silences to say certain things that do not need to be pronounced or which are even unspeakable. The way he describes the death of the protagonist’s father is really beautiful and made me think...and isn’t this exactly what literature is supposed to do: encourage people to see things differently…Sometimes you don’t have to say the obvious. Sometimes words are superfluous and silence may contain way more information than the actual words. Not only does each individual’s imagination add extra details, but also does silence itself say a lot. This is paradoxically so true. It is also interesting to note how we often desperately try to fill silences, as they sometimes make minutes seem like an eternity. Especially when we meet someone new many of us babble to avoid uncomfortable silences. I have to confess that I do that quite often myself, sometimes I notice it, but it is so hard to change. The same is true for when I talk to my students. I try to encourage them to talk and might end up speaking more than they are. But step by step I am getting better and I am more confident with a moment of silence which gives them time to think. In terms of friends, I think you know that you are very good friend with someone when you are comfortable with sharing moments of silence.
But well, enough rambling…I am well filling these pages with words instead of leaving some things unsaid :)
The last two weeks have been very good. I am busy organising the cooking exchange between my former school in Eferding (Upper Austria) and Lawnswood Leeds. It is a lot to do, but I really enjoy it and I am so curious about how it will work in the end. I am really enjoying my work with the kids.
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| Kirkstall Abbey with Shannon, Kathrin, Pat and Helmut |
Apart from work we also did some trips. As I said we would go to see an Abbey in Leeds. To be more exact it was “Kirkstall Abbey”, it is one of the oldest monasteries in Leeds – and well I know “one of the oldest” is not that impressive, because every other thing is nowadays sold as “one of the best” “one of the most different”,…hahaha. But even so it was really nice. We went to a museum where a street from Victorian time was reconstructed. There we could explore what life was like back then in the good old times – not only did we walk around but we even changed our 21st century clothes for nice 19th century garments…and I must say they fitted well…I might as well have been born in the wrong century hahaha. It was so much fun, as you might expect I took tons of photos and we had a great laugh. After that we visited the Abbey – the actual reason for our visit – which was absolutely stunning.
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| family picture back then in the days, all looking stern |
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| out 'n' about in Victorian Leeds |
University is quite interesting as well, we had a lecture about British Ale and I learned that one should not drink beer that is advertised on TV, because most of the time it is low quality beer with a good marketing strategy. Well, but then again I have to confess that some of the beer is quite nice – at least for a layperson as me ;) British beer has a long tradition and is normally not as strong as other beers, it is much creamier and my dear Britonnians tend to drink it a bit warmer than other Europeans. The theoretical lecture was followed by some practical tasting which, as one might suspect, was also really good.
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| Álvarito making his first delicious Paella!!! |
I also finally managed to meet “my” couch-surfer Adam which was good fun. We had a couple of drinks in one of my favourite bars in Leeds “North Bar”– hahah maybe a bit too much, as I had to work the next day. Apart from that mid-week going out I spend a very relaxed weekend, or as my students would say “ein gechilltes Wochenende”. We had delicious Paella, made by Álvaro at our house and some really tasty Sangria – a Canadian-Spanish product ;) on Friday.
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| Yorkshire Dales |
On Saturday I did a wonderful trip to the Yorkshire Dales with Chris and Olly. It was fabulous. We thought we are going for an easy stroll in the Dales to take advantage of the good weather – but things turned out completely different:
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| Gordale Scar |
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| Malham Cove |
We went to Malham Cove, rather poorly equipped for what was to come. Me: wearing my winter coat, my handbag and my Puma tennis shoes, Chris with his work coat and his sneakers, and Olly as always with his jeans and a casual jacket (as if he was going for a walk in London). We must have looked funny…
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| Gordal Scar |
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| also Dave was with us, here in front of Janet Foss |
We decided to take the long route, not knowing that this would require us to climb up a waterfall. Little did we know… The three of us did not shy away from this challenge and tried to surmount the waterfall. Neither freezing water, nor icy stones could stop us. Our minds were set, we are going to get passed this obstacle…well at least the boys were sure about it, I wasn’t to be quite frank. After trying two different approaches, we decided to jump over a bit of water. But, already at school I found out that I am not that good at sports, so I would never have managed to jump that far…thus I decided to take off my shoes and socks. I’d rather walk in the icy water than have wet feet…and anyways in Austria this would be called “Kneip”-Spa ;)
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| doesn't look that dangerous but was quite difficult |
Even though the climb was quite strenuous it was worth it, the view was absolutely amazing. After all this walking we were starving, and we started talking about delicious dishes which we would have later ;) We finished our day off with some nice pub food – what a good Saturday.
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| with Olly and Chris on top of Malham Cove |
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| close to Malham Tarn |
On Sunday the entire Archery N°9 went to see a Rugby game in Leeds Carnegie Stadium. It was really interesting and Micky, Shannon and I got three new friends: Tom, Russ and Ethan – fluffy Rhinos that Arun bought us, how sweet!
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| the Archeries in Leeds Carnegie Stadium |
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| Shannon and I ready to watch some Rugby - Go Leeds Go!! |
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| the girls with Tom, Russ and Ethan |
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| enjoying some good Rugby, even though Leeds sucked... |
Well this is it with my ramblings…will be silent now! Hear from you soon.
Ta-ra
Shannon and I tried on different outfits for the Leodensian Party Scene…that is what we found in one shop…it would have been hilarious if we had seen people wearing that…hilarious but not surprising though ;)
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| Shannon and I looking like chavs or "chuffed" ;) |
