Week 1
We arrived in London the morning of May 4 at 7:30 (2:30 PM Philippine time). Our first 3 days were spent in the VSO training centre in Birmingham, which is about a two-hour drive from the Heathrow airport. We stayed in Harborne Hall, a beautiful eighteenth century building, which certainly looks like it has a lot of history to it.
We were all charmed by the hall interior, which we can only describe as something akin to a Gryffindor common room.
The Filipino team couldn’t stop taking pictures, as expected! At one point some of the Brits had to ask WHAT exactly we were taking pictures of, haha. Everything looked and seemed almost ordinary to them – the bus stops, the traffic lights, the brick houses, the quaint doorsteps --- while us Pinoys all gawked and oohed and ahhed at everything, in true probinsyana fashion.
