Travel Tuesdays 12: Victoria Falls

For this week’s Travel Tuesday’s post, we travel back in time to April 2011, when I spent 2 weeks in Zambia and Zimbabwe to see the Victoria Falls. The name of the waterfalls in the local language is Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means “Smoke that thunders.” We visited just after the rainy season, so the water level was quite high. The waterfalls really lived up to their name -the thunderous roar could be heard from quite far away and there was so much spray! It was best to wear a waterproof jacket to try to stay a little dry.

We did some other amazing things on that trip, like going on a walking Safari, riding an elephant…

and going on a microlight plane, to see the falls from the air. That was so much fun!

It really was one of those “holidays of a lifetime!”

Tea Tales 1

So, as you may have noticed in a previous post, I quite like tea! I felt inspired by Chloe’s blog dedicated entirely to tea, so I decided to do some tea-related posts of my own,  entitled Tea Tales. As you can see, this tea flavour just happens to be called just that!

I was given this tea by a colleague. It’s strong black tea, with a hint of chocolate flavour. (I don’t know if it’s supposed to have a chocolatey flavour, but that is what I taste.) This tea lives at school, and I often make a cup in the afternoon for a moment of tranquility (tea-drinking helps me to relax.) 

I like this tea flavour a lot! 

My tea collection

I love tea! The contents of any of these boxes are A good match for me!

In response to this week’s photo challenge from the Daily post. Actually, I think I just like playing with my tea collection!

Glitter

As a Reception/ Kindergarten teacher, I quickly discovered that glitter is my students’ most favourite thing ever! (Well, except for playdough of course…)

Three phrases you will often hear in my class are: 

1) an excited, “Can we use glitter?” from the kids. They must ask this in every craft activity.

2) A resigned, “Let’s just let them use glitter,” from myself and my teaching assistant.

3) A frantic cry of, “No, not that much! Oh no, now it’s everywhere!” again from the teachers…

Isn’t glitter fun? 😀 

Glitter-tastic butterflies! 

Travel Tuesdays 11: Erfurt and Clermont-Ferrand

For today’s Travel Tuesdays post, we’re travelling many years back in time to my first experience of living abroad! When I was a university student, studying languages, I was required to spend a year abroad to practice those languages… 

So I lived in a beautiful town called Erfurt in Germany for six months, where I taught English in a high school. (It was a great job -I only taught for 12 or 14 hours a week, so had a lot of free time!) I lived in the school attic, so had a very easy commute to work!

Erfurt had lots of pretty, old, medieval buildings, which I would enjoy wandering around.

Then I went to Clermont-Ferrand in France for the other half of the year, where I “studied” French at the university there. Basically, on my university exchange programme, I was only required to go to a very minimal amount of lessons/lectures, so had a lot of time to relax and have fun! My favourite thing to do there was to walk up one of the hills surrounding the town to admire the view. Yes, the church really was that black -it was made from black volcanic stone. 

Please note that I borrowed these photos from Google, as I didn’t have a digital camera back then. Hope you enjoyed my reminiscing about the good old days!

Against the odds

I remember a special day when, against the odds I made it to work in a blizzard through knee-deep snow! (It was in early January.)

Hope it’ll melt and spring will come soon…!

Travel Tuesdays 10: Ukraine

As I think I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I travelled to Ukraine in summer 2007 with my dad and sister, where we stayed in a tiny tiny village with family. We had a wonderful time experiencing village life, being force-fed (Ukrainians love to eat!) and even had a chance to visit Kiev. 
One day, we were swimming in the village lake, when a man walked past with his horse. He said “oh, we are related, you must come to my house to eat!” And he insisted that we followed him home for a feast. A great example of Ukrainian hospitality!

Ukrainians seem to believe that vodka will cure anything… here is one of our aunts trying to put vodka on my sister’s mosquito bites to stop the itching.

And I absolutely loved the village shop -visiting there really felt like stepping back in time…

This is my relatives’ house -it was so pretty! 

Travel Tuesdays 9: Brasov

I seem to go on quite a lot of little trips to Brasov… It’s not so far away from Bucharest and a it’s great place to go for a change of scenery!

Here are some photos from my trip there this weekend.

View of the old town

View of the mountain

View from the top of the mountain

The weather was good -sunny and a warm 8 degrees C, so we were able to sit outside enjoying the sunshine! We had blue skies and beautiful views of the town and surrounding mountains. It was a thoroughly lovely weekend!

Solitude

Solitude 

Time taken to relax

Ponder, reflect and dream

Make plans and reminisce

A brief respite from the hubub of life.