Weekend Training in Portstewart

Saturday, May 30th, 2009 12:56 PM Heather’s Parents House Portadown, Northern Ireland

I slept really well. I’m so glad. Woke up at 6AM and thought I had slept in and realized I was fine. I was told it might happen, its my first time dealing with jet lag. It’s a weird feeling. I was worried I wouldn’t go back to sleep, but I was fine. Heather said she knocked on my and Michelle (my other teammate) at 9AM and we didn’t answer so she let us sleep for an extra 30 minutes. I didn’t hear her at all. She knocked at 9 30AM and woke me up. I felt quite rested.

I now feel tired. I’m about to take a nap. We went over some training materials, and now I have an hour break to do anything. I want to take a walk because the weather and view is amazing, but I just need to take a small rest first. So far I feel really good. Things will be much different in a few days when the choir arrives and things start rolling.

Sunday, May 31st, 2009 8:58AM Heather’s Sister’s Summer Home Portstewart, Northern Ireland

So I am now in Portstewart. It’s beautiful. The view from the living room looks over The Strand, which is the name of the beach here. We walked down near the water, and had fish and chips for dinner, it was the perfect weather, warm, but a nice ocean breeze. We pretty much spent the rest of the evening talking. I got to know Michelle more, and vice versa, which is good seeing how I will be spending a lot of time with her while I’m here.

Today I realized that the UK isn’t all that different from North America. Looking around the differences aren’t that drastic. The biggest thing I think is the accents and certain saying they use and trying to figure out what the person is referring to, but I haven’t had much trouble at all. The ‘ou” sound is more of an “igh”. When Heather says “Sound Guy”, it always sounds like she’s saying “Sign Guy”. One of the first things to catch me off guard was getting into the other side of the vehicle, and then not understanding why we were on the wrong side of the road, and then I remembered. I still forget every time I get into the car, so does Michelle.

Some terms that are different in Northern Ireland (may be different in other areas, many you will have already heard of) are:

lift = elevator, wee = little or small, car park = parking lot, toilet = washroom (but you might just get the toilet, often the bathtub or shower is in a separate room, called the bathroom), biscuits = cookies (arrowroot type), but chocolate chip cookies are cookies, dessert/candy = sweets (but both terms are used), nice/good = lovely (almost an overused word here), windscreen = windshield, hood of a vehicle = bonnet, trunk of a vehicle = boot, mobile home = static caravan, sat nav = satellite navigation/GPS, trailer = caravan

pop cans and bottles are a different size here, cans are a bit shorter, and bottles are skinnier

I will add to this list as time progresses, but I must be off to breakfast now.

We walked along the coast again on the way back from breakfast. I have to admit I’m falling in love with this beautiful little town. It’s really amazing. It’s so relaxing, I feel like I’m on a vacation. It’s almost romantic to me. A honeymoon spot if that’s safe to say. Apparently the weather isn’t ever nice here, it’s hard for me to believe that’s its always rainy and cold, I haven’t experienced either since I landed in the UK.

So today we did some more training, just verbal. Tomorrow I will go to the office in Lisburn and work with the financial advisor more hands on, so that will help a lot. Today it was decided that I would primarily be the Administrator and Michelle would primarily be doing Product Sales, which we mutually agreed upon, so I’m quite happy. It wasn’t set in stone what we would be coming out, but we are going to learn both so we can cover each other if needed. I think its always good to know as much as you can.

It’s been quite a relaxing day, I took a nice hour nap, possibly longer. Currently I’m reading Where The Brave Dare Not Go, written by Ray Barnett who is the president of The African Children’s Choir. It’s about his life, and its very very interesting. I’ve been trying to read it for months because I was told it was really touching, and I finally had some free time, and I’m really grateful I did. I’ve learned so much history through it.

Today was a bit hard without internet. I don’t like having to say that, but its really quiet and lonely sometimes without being able to talk to people you know and update them. I hope no one is too worried about me, I’ve only had a chance to call my mom, but I might be able to get online tomorrow, not that any of you will see this until then.

I don’t really feel sad about being away, I can’t really describe the feeling. I feel anxious I guess because I feel like my new life is about to begin and I’m really excited to embrace it, the good and the bad.

I’m going back to reading now, I’m sort of being anti-social with Heather and Michelle, but I told them what I was doing and I’d like to finish the book tonight.