First Couple of Days....

All eight of us finally arrived in England and are so excited to begin our adventure!  Amazingly no ones luggage got lost and all of the flights were on time.  When we caught our first glimpse of London it was a stereotypical gloomy, overcast day.  After waiting for a couple of hours and overcoming some minor bumps in the road we finally got to board the Air Force bus that would take us to the base.  At first we were all loud and excited but after about 15 minutes the fatigue set in and we were all out like a light.  When we woke up we had to go through several checkpoints to make sure we were allowed to enter the base.  The Entire base consists of three separate bases.  There are Lakenheath, Feltwell, and Mildenhall all located within 15 min. of one another.  All of the food and shops are located at Lakenheath.  The middle school I am teaching at and our dorms are located on Feltwell.  After arriving on base we got to look around some of the shops and rest for awhile.  Next, we were issued our base IDs that we must have on us at all times.  You do not exist without a base ID here, which is good for security reasons.  Next, we had about 15 min to run around like crazy people and try to get all of our groceries and necessary items  for the next couple of days.  Needless to say everyone ended up with some pretty interesting food combinations :).  Finally we were taken to our dorm rooms and got all of our luggage moved upstairs.  We each get a small dorm room with a bed, dresser, chair, and closet dresser.  The rooms are pretty small but big enough for one person.  Each room has one room connected with a door so you can keep the door open or closed.  My room is connected to Sarah's which is perfect because we are both at the middle school.  So, a lot of the time we will just keep our door open, which is more fun anyways!  Then we have communal bathrooms, kitchen, and lounge.  Today (Thursday Jan 27) we got to go to our schools and finally meet our cooperating teachers.  We were met by the secretaries and assistant principal.  They gave us a tour around the school and were all very welcoming and helpful.  The school I am working at is called LMS Lakenheath Middle School, and it is only four years old with about 500 students in it.  The grades are all separated into different hallways and given team names, my team is Hammersmith.  Dr. Mills is my teacher and I have heard only great things about him.  He has had a lot of experience which makes me nervous but also excited to learn from the best.  The school is almost eerily quit because the students are so well behaved.  My first impression of the students was very good they all seem very respectful and ready to learn.  A couple of the girls even made me a cute sign that says "Welcome to LMS, Good Luck," it was really cute and I wasn't expecting to be welcomed so quickly.  Overall I am ready to get started but still feel like I have so much to learn.  I do not think I could have asked for a better teacher to learn from or students to teach.  Tomorrow (Jan 28) is a teacher work day so we get to take it easy and meet with our teachers.  Then this weekend we are taking a trip to LONDON!! We are doing a tour of the tower of London and then just exploring the town.  Well that is all for now, don't know how good I will be at blogging but I will attempt to keep people updated.  Lots of Love !