Let's Recap.

105 days.

For 105 days England has been my new home, and what a 105 days it has been.

When you prepare yourself for any journey you already have some kind of expectations about what it's going to be like.... The location, the weather, the people, the food etc. are all things that race through your mind and create some kind of version of the truth. 

Harry Potter, Wild Child, Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging, Bridget Jones and of course Love Actually all influenced the way that I perceived England to be. Although I am yet to come across a wizard.... I have not been disappointed.The scenery, the weather, the people and the food have all made me fall in love with England, and this is not a movie, this is my actual life. 

When I embarked on this journey I knew that there would be moments when I missed my family, times when I wished I was home with my friends and.... Very recently a newfound burning desire for a chicken parmy and chips. Moving out of home is hard in any case but I took moving out of home to a whole new level. I moved over the other side of the world to live in a strange area with three people I had never met, each of them also from different parts of the world, all of us 'moving out newbies'. Thankfully, these three people are the most interesting, lovely girls that I have ever met and I know undoubtedly that we will stay in touch for the rest of our lives. There is something about seeing your housemates underwear strung over a radiator in the lounge room that cements friendships. I have learnt to appreciate that it is really nice to not have to make up your own mind every day about what you want for dinner and just be told to sit down and eat whatever it is that's in front of you. I have spent hours (slight exaggeration) wandering around Iceland in the desperate hope that I will be inspired only to return home and cook my speciality bowl of vegetables. There's not really anything special about it to be honest. The positives do outweigh the negatives which only last about a week, because let's face it, you will get homesick, everyone does and that's ok.... The answer to such sorrows can be found in a tub of dreams known as Ben and Jerry's (Phish Food is my personal recommendation).

Before you know it you can walk to the supermarket with your eyes closed, count out the right amount of change in pence and pennies and pounds, eat your hot chips with vinegar and drink your 20 cups of tea a day because you are in a routine.... This is your life and nearly four months have flown by. 

I decided to apply for Lattitude after finishing a degree at uni and still not feeling 100% sure about what I wanted my future to look like.

I am now 100% sure that teaching is my future, despite being quite certain that secondary school teaching was my calling.... Through my experiences within my placement I have come to realise that junior school teaching is where my heart has led me. Had I not taken this opportunity with Lattitude I would be studying for a degree that I unknowingly wasn't fully committed to and perhaps later, may have regretted. I don't think that anyone truly knows their strengths until they are pushed and this year has pushed me in so many different ways, helping me to develop a certain kind of strength and patience that I have not had before. It's a lovely feeling to know what you are capable of.

One of the best parts about my time so far has been the people, the teachers, the students and even the locals are friendly and down to earth and genuinely interested in you and wherever it is you come from. For me this has meant explaining countless times that the Tasmanian Devil does not actually spin around in circles, talking to a cab driver about Kylie Minogue, imitating various Summer Heights Heigh characters, explaining that Tasmania is the little 'kinda love heart shaped' island underneath Australia, that chavs are bogans, sweets are lollies, crisps are chips, squash is cordial (so weird) and that genuinely, despite the results in worldwide cricket the English really do like Australians! 

So far I've managed to see London, Ireland, Northampton, Bath, the Peak District, Leicester, Dorset and will be able to check Arundel, Brighton and Chichester off the list come the end of this week. The best part about the UK is that everything is so close together and although the British complain about travelling 2 hours in a car or train to a destination, for me, that's a perfectly reasonable amount of time. There are trains everywhere (unlike Tassie) which makes seeing England and wider Europe so easy! Although every town has it's charms and Portsmouth is filled with them, just being able to walk by the water, pebbles (not sand) underneath your feet and breathe in the salt air is an experience of it's own. It makes me grateful to be given such an opportunity and more than anything, proud that I had the guts to jump into the unknown.