Going.. going... gone?

Well looks like this is it. We still have the all clear for our flights to leave tomorrow. I should be home by noon on saturday. Well, Kelowna by that time anyway. Have had a pretty busy couple of days though, went to the Natural History museum with my roommate from the hostel. He rolled in at about midnight on tuesday. Spent today at the science museum and had a wicked kebab for lunch. Going to get all packed up and ready to go and will have a bit of time to kill tomorrow am as I don't need to be at the airport until noonish. I'm looking forward to getting back home though definitely!! Well that is probably the last update for me from England, bye for now!

Still in a holding pattern

We're still in England, but it seems like there's light at the end of the tunnel — or a hole in a BIG ash cloud. The government has opened airspace over Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern England as of 7 a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday). Rumors are the airspace above London and other parts of Europe will open soon after. So yay! But I won't get too excited until I hear for sure. In the meantime, we're heading to London in the morning and will check into a hotel. We've reserved it for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. Hopefully we'll get outta London before too long. On the plus side, I got to visit Jane Austen's grave in Winchester Cathedral today, and I visited the last home she lived at, which is also where she died. A big thank you to Agnes (my host) for taking me there, and for some great shoe shopping on the way there and back. :-)

If I can, I'll update in the next couple of day. In the meantime, pray we get home soon and Carol (Jim's wife) can come here to see him soon. Also pray the District 1250 team gets outta here when they're expecting to. Again, thanks all for being so wonderful to us when we were here. We had a blast and will miss our English friends very much.

The End Is...Here!

Hello again fellow bloggees and bloggers! Well, it looks like the exchange has now officially come to a close. We had our farewell dinner on Thursday night, and I was most pleased to see a large number of my previous hosts in attendance. Great food, great company, and, of course, our finaly summary speeches were the highlights of the evening (at least I hope our speeches were part of the highlight - ha ha)! It was great to see everyone again and reflect on the amazing adventure we were all involved in! It's hard to believe it's over - seems like we just arrived last week! Having busy (but not hectic) itineraries certainly helped to pass the time and make the experience all the more amazing.

On Friday, I got the opportunity to visit the Surrey Police Headquarters in this area. I spent some time learning more about their dispatch centre, and found that they have an amazing GPS mapping system to track their officers. It's connected with a type of Google Maps template, which means that operators can "zoom in" to any specific area and see what houses are there, as well as view terrain and other geographical characteristics of any given area in the Surrey region! This tool would be GREAT for us in Canada (especially for myself to use when giving directions to lost officers!).

I also got the opportunity to see their K-9 dog training facility. Can you believe they have 26 dogs for the Surrey region alone?! We've only got 3!

We then went to the firearms training centre, and I received a wealth of information from the firearms training centre officer there, who actually turned out to be the son-in-law of the hosts I had in Redhill, Malcolm and Kate Walker! Small world eh?!

We then went for a fabulous lunch at the Lobster Pot (I was being shuttled around all this time by Janet and Victor, Janet is the president of one of the local Rotary Clubs, and is a former County Councilor, while Victor is the former mayor of Farnham, and also a former Rotary Club president - escorted by celebrities - it was pretty cool!). They ended their day with me by giving me a bobby helmet (which fits!) along with a centennial King George Coin, and a book! Very nice indeed - made my day!!

Afterwards, we headed to Janet's son-in-law's house, and he showed me his amazing police memorabelia collection, and we wheeled and dealed to trade RCMP and British memorabelia when I get back too, which is great!

I then got to chat with a local community police officer named Ian, and he drove me around his patrol area, and introduced me to his fellow Farnham officers - I've never felt like more of a celebrity than I have on this trip, let me tell ya!

That night, we went out to a local pub and had a great dinner with Scott and his host family! Yet again, good food, and good company!

Saturday was our last outing of the trip, and we spent it touring London, led by Roger, who was a wealth of information! We saw St. James' Park, the exterior of Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, then went for lunch at a nice little pub nearby. Afterwards, we saw the London Opera House, and toured more area sights, then Scott and I said farewell to the group, and toured the HMS Belfast destroyer docked on the Thames near the Tower Bridge. Very interesting, and very cramped quarters as well!

Scotty and I then went out and painted the town, in this case, we painted it GREEN in honour of the live theatre performance we saw, "Wicked", which is the tale of the wicked witches in the Wizard of Oz (who really wasn't all that wicked, it turns out!). It was fabulous, and both the witches were very well acted, and the singing and stage effects were phenomenal - well worth the money!

This morning, I said farewell to my last hosts, Gord and Bebette, who were great! They had a wonderful home, and were just all-around good, helpful people! I only regret that I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked, but that's how it goes I guess!

I'm now sitting in an internet cafe awaiting my bus to Munich. Hopefully for the rest of the group's sake, that volcano will stop erupting so that they can all get home, but it sounds like they are in good hands in Farnham with their hosts, so I don't feel TOO sorry for them! They just might get put to work though (so they threatened - ha ha) but they can handle it!

Well, fingers crossed that the transit Gods are smiling upon us all! I have about two weeks left in my journey, as I continue on to travel through Germany and even into Czech Republic - looking forward to it! Hopefully I won't return to London for my trip home May 8th and find the GSE team still waiting!! That would be a bummer!

Next on my agenda, the Moses Lake Conference in Washington May 22nd! It'll be great to meet up with everybody again, and share our trip highlights with the Washingtonian Rotarians! See you all there! Auf Wiedersehen!

Final Thoughts

As you can see from the other blog entries, it appears everyone has had an outstanding time here in England. The best part has been the friendships we have gained in each area we've stayed. We attended a farewell dinner Thursday night where we met up with some of our host families and others we've met along the way. The team from the district here was also present, so we got to meet them and discuss their trip to our district next month. If the volcano prevents our departure, there will be more blog entries, as we will be forced to spend more time in London (oh darn). Of course, Carol is scheduled to meet me here on Tuesday, so we're praying that the ash will move away long enough for her to get here. We've been apart way too long.

Some other things we have done in the past few days that may not have been mentioned:
Trip to Hever Castle, home of Ann Boleyn, the beheaded wife of Henry VIII
Day in London - The Monument, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral
Hampton Court, palace home of Henry VIII
More great PUB visits
Castles in Guildford and Farnham
Great food, including black pudding, bangers and mash, steak & kidney pudding, etc.
Visit to Guildford College

Well I'm off to London, and then will try to figure out how to get everyone home.

We're heading home Sunday — if the ash moves on

Hi all. Well, we're coming to the end of our journey — and an amazing one it's been. Last night was our farewell dinner in Guildford. Friends from Horsham, Arundel, Chichester, Worthing, Burgess Hill and Reigate and Redhill were there. It was great to see everyone and to meet the GSE team from England who will be heading our way in about a week. Today were our last vocational visits (though Cam had his last one yesterday). Tomorrow we will again visit London (Westminster Abbey, here we come!) and then providing the volcanic ash has disbursed, we'll head home Sunday morning.

I think I can speak for everyone when I say that it has been busy, tiring and absolutely amazing. We have been overwhelmed by the hospitality and the amazing things everyone has taken us to see. I will be sad to go, but happy to see Corey and Moxie. I will be going home with TONS of pictures, a new love of tea, coffee and clotted cream, and new friends — friends I met here and four friends who traveled with me all the way.

Some highlights I haven't yet discussed: Jane Austen's writing desk. As a writer and English major I can't even begin to describe how much it meant to me to see where she wrote. It's amazing that such a small piece of furniture could have led to some of the best books in the English language.

On Wednesday Scott, Jim, me and hosts Malcolm and Kate went to Windsor Castle and Hampton Court. To stand where Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare stood was awesome. The queen was in at Windsor (hence the flag flying in the picture at the beginning of this post), but we only saw someone walking one of her dogs.

Also at Windsor, we watched the changing of the royal guards. It was complete with a band, and quite impressive. As any tourist, I had to have my picture taken with one of the guards. It was so weird, because it actually felt like I was posing with a statue. What a weird job. They stand there motionless for a while and then suddenly yell and march for a bit, then march back to their place, and then stand motionless again.

Well, it's time for me to sign off. I'll say goodbye the way most of the Brits seem to: "Right."

First Post & Nearing the End

Hello faithful bloggers and readers! Well, this is my first blog, and I have to say, the American contingent has put us Canadians to shame! Great job on the blogs you guys! I've been down with a cold recently, and add some internet connection issues, and well, those are my best excuses! In any case, from start to finish, this has been one heck of a journey for me! I've met so many interesting people, and have also made some friends in the process. Sure, it's been pretty busy for us morning, noon and night, but somehow it still feels like we only just got here!

Being the token "Mountie" of the group, I've been privileged to have met with most all types of police officer here, from volunteer special constables in rural detachments such as Horsham, on up to semi-armed response officers in the bustling metropolis of Brighton, and I have to say, I've been impressed by what I've learnt thus far. The multi-levels of officers is a bit confusing, and I'm sorry to say I still don't have it straight, however the common theme that all the officers seem to share is that they all seem to be very "plugged-in" to their communities. Whether in a bustling city like Brighton, or a small rural area like Arundel, these officers seem to know their neighbors, along with the bad guys, and they are out there talking to people on a regular basis. Talking is such a basic concept, but these officers gather a lot of local intel, and seem to enjoy a high level of local cooperation from the general public. What is also interesting is that, although the majority of these officers are lightly armed, they manage to get the job done, and even have the time to liase with the maze of government organizations and officials like magistrates and parole officers, including the offenders themselves, a strategy which, in West Sussex in particular, has resulted in an 18% reduction in the number of offenders who re-offend! This strategy must be working!

There is more that I will post later, however I would just like to add that all of the officers I have spoken with over here have been very forthcoming, and shared most every aspect of their daily routines with me. I've even gotten in to see one of their dispatch and CCTV control centres!

Speaking of CCTV, I'm learning that it is a very valuable strategic tool for officers here. While apparently not very well liked by the general public, it is nonetheless tolerated, while officers use the intel and tracking abilities of these high definition, hard disc driven and highly zoom-capable (if that's a word) cameras to identify suspects in crimes that would otherwise have not been witnessed, assist people in distress, and track criminals fleeing from crime scenes (amongst several other uses). Whether or not these cameras act as a true crime deterrent is really hard to guage, especially when the majority of Britons seem to forget that they are there, but the value to police as a tool is certainly insurmountable! The cost is somewhat prohibitive though, as, at approximately 60,000£ per camera (roughly $115,000 CDN) they aren't cheap, but I still think that they can be used in trouble areas in Vernon and surrounding districts to help fight crime and make these areas safer.

I've talked a lot about my vocational visits, and that's mostly because everyone else has talked quite a bit about the activities that we've done. Let me just say on that note that every host I've had has been most kind and generous, and an absolute pleasure to stay with and get to know. Not to mention my team - it's really going to be weird to be without them after this trip, because I've gotten so used to them being there. From our fearless leader Jim (aka "Wandering Jimbo") with his kind words and gentle manner, to Kevira (aka "Merv") with her inquisitive mind and boundless energy, to Scott with his unfading smile (which is why I call him "Guy Smiley") and great sense of humour (I will get you back for that candid photo of me Scott, oh yes, I will!) to my fellow Canadian and friend Cam (aka "Action Man" and "The Dirt Bike Kid" - just made that one up) for being such a dependable sidekick and partner in crime, all you guys, you helped to make this trip the fun adventure that it was and is continuing to be.

The lights are going off now, so I'd best sign off for now. More later about my vocational visits and new friendships!

Politics and dressing up

Hello again. While here (in England) I've learned so much about UK politics. For example, did you know that England does not have a written constitution? I didn't until I got here — or if I did learn it in school, I didn't remember it. And voters here didn't know until Tuesday when their general election would be held this year. That's because the Prime Minister gets to decide when to call the election, but he can't rule more than five years since the last election. That gives him the chance to call for an election when his party's poll numbers are good. It's more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it.

So on May 6, 650 MPs (or members or Parliament/members of the House of Commons) will be up for election. There are three main parties: Labour (Prime Minister Gordon Brown's party), Conservative (challenger David Cameron's party) and Liberal Democrat (challenger Nick Clegg's party). United Kingdom voters will elect the MPs and whichever party has the more seats will name the prime minister. There has been talk also of a hung parliament, but I won't go into that right now. :-)

It seems like Prime Minister Gordon Brown might have missed the boat this time and not called the election when his poll numbers were good. Some sources say conservative David Cameron will become prime minister because voters are looking for change — sound familiar? I'll definitely be watching once I return to the U.S.

Now, back to the touristy stuff. When in Rome, do as the Romans do ... or when in Lewes (pronounced Louis), dress as medieval lads and ladies. Here we are at Lewes Castle. Notice that the outfits Jim and Scott are wearing have a bit too many embellishments on them — we think they were meant for women. You might not be able to tell, but I'm making rabbit ears behind Cam and Brad's heads.

Today I went on another vocational visit — to The Argus, a regional paper based in Brighton. They're focusing on local coverage, just as we have for quite a while. More on that when I return.