Two weekends in Check... I mean Czech

First Weekend
The first weekend in November was my fall break. My roomie, Karin, and I went to Praha (Prague) for 3 days since we had never been. It was beautiful. My Slovak friends are always saying how beautiful Praha is and how much they love it and I must agree that it is beautiful, but I love Bratislava. We wandered around Praha on foot mostly, taking in the Charles Bridge, the Praha Castle and the old town. We met up with some other English teachers and had dinner with them one night. It was nice just to be relaxed and taking in the sights of another city.
A story to share with you. We were walking to a restaurant for dinner. It was dark outside and there were six of us. All of a sudden, Karin starts pointing into the window of a restaurant we are passing by and saying, "Texas!!!" She is pointing and very excited. We all, of course, go to the window to see what all the fuss is about. Inside the restaurant, on the back wall, are two Texas posters, one of which says, "Don't Mess with Texas!" The funniest part is that there is a table in front of the window. And the man sitting at the table had this confused and almost panicked look on his face. Imagine this from his point of view. You are sitting enjoying your steak and red wine, when all of a sudden, someone outside the window starts pointing at you and shouting, although you can't make out what she is saying. She is obviously excited (or maybe agitated) about something. She keeps pointing (at me? you think) until a small crowd gathers around to stare at you. I think we creped this poor gentleman out. He will go home and have a story to tell though, that's for sure.
The last day we were in Praha, we went to visit the old castle, which is just outside of the old town. We walked through the ruins, as that is all that is left of the castle. There was an old cemetary and we spent almost an hour walking through it, reading the old headstones and observing all the people who were there cleaning the stones, planting flowers and lighting candles. It was very touching as it was the weekend after All Saint's Day, so there were many, many people there. It think this was my favorite part of our trip. It is always interesting to see castle ruins and I love to meander through graveyards.
If you ever get the chance, I would put Praha on your list of places to visit. There is a reason that so many people visit it every year.

Praha

Second Weekend
The second weekend was our TeachOverseas Thanksgiving. We celebrated with all the TeachOverseas teachers from Czech, Hungary and Slovakia. The Hungary and Slovakia teams met up on the train, where we took over almost a whole train car, with our American hugs and greetings. We had a short ride to the border town of Breclav. There we met up with the Czech team and took over the train station, as there was 40 adults and 7 children. We were the loud Americans while we waited for our bus. We then took the bus for about an hour to a nice hotel out in "the nature." We checked in, got our roommates for the weekend and gathered for the first of many meetings. We were informed that we would be having dinner at six. Those of us who are alums just crossed our fingers, remembering the interesting (processed ham with cranberry juice over it, dry mashed potatoes with no gravy) Thanksgiving dinner we had last year. However, one of the alums cheered us up by saying that Kelly (our retreat planner chief) had emailed them recipes in Czech and had even converted all the measurements for them. Glorious hope of a real turkey dinner!
So, at six we all gathered in the dinning room, which was nicely set and were happily talking, like you would a family reunion/class reunion. And then the wait staff started bringing in the wonderful hot meals.... of wiener schnitzel and cold potato salad with carrots, peas and corn. Say WHAT?!?! What kind of Thanksgiving dinner does Kelly have? Because this was not what we were expecting. But we all decided that we should be thankful for it. We started to eat, and it was very good. A few minutes into our dinner Kelly made an announcement that there was a mix up. We would be having a real turkey dinner.... at 9pm. Somehow the staff got mixed up and thought that the turkey dinner was in addition to the regular dinner. So, we decided to call this dinner the appetizer or first dinner. Even though it was very delicious, I only ate a little so as to save room for the real turkey Thanksgiving meal to come. And it was worth the wait. A real turkey, stuffing (which I normally don't like), mashed potatoes (maybe they were from a box -but no one was complaining) and gravy. Oh, so good. The thanksgiving and jubilation were visibly present in the room.
And after second dinner, around 10pm, we had PIE. Oh, PIE! Everyone brought pies, cakes, cookies and other baked goods. My favorites - a pecan pie (I was in heaven), a pumpkin cheese cake (made with real Philadelphia cream cheese) and a snickers pie. We talked and ate and talked and ate and talked and ate some more. Then off to bed. No sleeping in for these teachers.
Friday we had a time of worship, prayer and devotions, then some classes about teaching, kind of a refresher courses (and how we are able to take 2 days off of school). We had some free time and in the evening, we had first dinner again, followed by the 2nd annual talent show. The talent show featured a lengthy trivia quiz ranging from thanksgiving, to movies, to art history, to churches, to science. My team came in dead last (if you can't be first, be the best at losing, right?) but we had fun. My favorite act was the "I like Toast" song by Amy Mann, accompanied by a toaster drum and two wooden spoons. If you have never heard this song, your life is missing something. I love this song!
Saturday, we had another time of worship, devotions, an extended time of prayer and communion. It was a wonderful time to bask in the presence of the Lord and His family. When we woke up on Saturday, it was snowing. It continued to snow through the day until we were on the bus and halfway back to Breclav to catch our train.
All in all, my two weekends in Czech were a wonderful time. I am thankful for the time off, for the friendships that were renewed an the ones that were made. I am thankful for my Slovak family and my Wayne Manor girls. I am thankful for my students, my colleagues, my administrators. I am thankful for the snow, the sun and the rain. I am thankful for warm boots, wool coats and thick socks. I am thankful for first dinner, second dinners and PIE. I am thankful for all the wonderful friends, family and supporters that God has blessed me with.

Czech Thanksgiving

Spy Kids

My sixth graders have been working on a unit called spies and I was amazed to see just how excited they were about it. They really got into it. I assigned them a project to create their own spy persona, secret service agency and boss, enemies and mission. I gave them a month to work on it, telling them that I expected to get great things from them because I gave them so much time to work on it. And they did not disappoint. I asked them if I could share their projects with you and they said yes, so here are a few samples to show you.
I am adding pictures of one of the power points and one video. I haven't figured out if I can upload a power point so I just took pictures of it. Please excuse the spelling and grammar mistakes. I did not edit these before they turned them in.

Samo's Project

I will share one of the Lego videos that 2 of my boys made. I am so impressed and I hope that you are too.


This video was created by Šimon and Paťo.

Wayne Manor

Welcome to the year of the Wayne Manor girls. For those of you who are new, or just didn't catch it, last year Becky, Karin and I were the BatCave Girls. Why? When we were given the report about our school and our flat at training in California, the girls who were here before us said that the section of town we live in, Petrzalka, looked like Gotham City. So, we decided that if we were living in Gotham City, we might as well live in the BatCave. And so our flat became the BatCave and we were the BatCave girls.
When we moved this year, we knew we would have to come up with a new name, but we didn't really want to loose our Batman theme. So, since our new flat has more rooms (same size, just more rooms/walls) and there is paint on the walls(definitely not common in Slovakia), we decided to christen our new house Wayne Manor, in honor of Batman's other home.
Enjoy this quick tour of the Wayne Manor.

Wayne Manor

Update for the new year

Hello dearest family and friends,
Well, here I am writing to you from Slovakia again. I arrived a month ago (Wow! Time flies when you are starting school) and I hit the ground running. School started two days after I arrived and I have been getting back into the swing of things ever since. Please pray that God will give me wisdom, patience and endurance this year. I am teaching more classes and am working hard at building relationships.
This year I am teaching 4 groups of 2nd graders (who are new to me), 2 groups of 3rd graders (last year's 2nd graders), 2 groups of 4th graders (3rd graders from last year and my favorite class), and 2 groups of 6th graders (last years 5th graders and my other favorite class). I am also teaching science in English to the 4th graders once a week. As an added bonus, I am teaching two openings a week, one with 4th graders and one with 6th graders. Openings are the first 15 minutes of the day and are designed to be a way to bring religion into the classroom on a daily basis. It is a great opportunity for me to share Jesus with my students (and their teachers) in an open environment. I am currently doing lessons about bullying with my 6th graders as this has been a big problem for them.
Last week with the 4th graders, I taught about how the Bible is like a mirror using the verse in James 1:23-25. I read a paraphrased version of the verse in English and talked about how we need to hear things more than once to remember them. Then, I took out a small tray that I had with 25 different small school items (paper clip, glue stick, pen, etc). I had them look at it for 30 seconds then covered it up. I then had them write down as many things as they could remember. None of them could remember more than a few. So, we liked that to English class and how I always present the new vocabulary and grammar many times. And the related both to how important it is to read the Bible and listen to the stories many times. They seemed to understand and enjoy the lesson, which is really neat for me to see. This is my class that last year thought they could fool around in my class because I didn't speak Slovak. It is so amazing to see how far they have come. And their teacher, Magda, who speaks very little English, told me later in the day that she understood it in English. It was a wonderful moment. Please pray that I will have wisdom and creativity to know how to present Jesus in a way that my students will understand.
It is amazing to think that I have already been here a month. When I left California, it was hot and definitely summer. I arrived here to much cooler temperatures, rain and the smell of fall in the air. The heaters have turned on in our building and while it may be warm during the day, it is best to take a sweater just in case, and at night a jacket. I am not really looking forward to a long cold winter, but I now know that I can survive.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. I love getting emails, phone calls and skype/yahoo/google chat messages. Please keep me in your prayers.

Coming Home!

Well, the time has finally come. I can officially say that I have survived my first year living overseas(Barring any complications in the next 3 days). More than survived though. Enjoyed, accomplished, loved, and learned. When I came, I was still unsure, was this really what God wanted me to do? Was this where God wanted me to go?
Now, I am certain I have been in the right place. They say hindsight is 20/20 and things are definitely looking clearer, now that I can look back. I can see now that this year was about building relationships. Relationships with fellow teachers, with my American teachers, with students and building my relationship with my heavenly Father.
I have really seen this in action in the last two weeks and am thankful to have God point out to me so clearly before I left that this was the plan he had for me and that I did and still am completing it.

škola v prirade (School of Nature)
Last week I had the priviledge of going with 72 of my students (2nd-4th) graders to škola v prirade, which is basicly a week long camping trip, with some learning activities. There was only one other teacher on the trip (out of the 12 of us) who was fluent in English. All the others have various levels. Sometimes it was incredibly frustrating, because I got little or no translation for the big meetings and was always having to tell the students in my group that I didn't know what was happening, the rules of the game, or what we were doing next. Most of the time, however, I really enjoyed myself and got to know some teachers better. It was a very relaxed and fun atmosphere and I felt like I fit in. Magda (who is quickly becoming a close friend) and I had many chances to streghten our relationship. Magda is the 3rd grade class teacher and she speaks the least amount of English of all the teachers I work with. She has a very, very basic vocabulary and can put very simple sentences together, but talking with her is a struggle. However, she is incredibly willing to try and talk to me. On the way to camp, we stopped in a little town to get ice cream. This town is where Magda's mom lives and so she came to see her and Magda was so excited to introduce me to her mom that she did the whole introduction in English, even though her mom could not understand her! We had so much fun together. We always end of laughing about the words we don't know and trying to figure them out. Towel is a very funny word when you don't know it and have to go into the bathroom and point to where one would be to figure it out. On the way home, she pointed out the hospital she was born in and the high school she attended.
This was also a good time for me to bond with some of my students. I had a group of 16 students along with another teacher. Because I was in their group, my students all had to speak and get instructions in English. Many students would be unhappy about this, but my group welcomed me with open arms. Two of the girls insisted that I sit between them (actually sharing 2 chairs between the 3 of us, since we were short on chairs) at every meal. I even helped make up a new word in Slovak, which was a huge hit with my group. We were the black group, but our name tags were purple so we called ourselves the čierlovi group, the Slovak equivalent of blaple (black-purple). Our group made up a chant and a song for our name and loudly (proudly) called it at every chance they got. After we arrived back in Bratislava and everyone had been reunited with their parents, one of the girls on my team saw me, came running up to me, threw her arms around me and gave me a huge hug. It warmed my heart!

Field Trips and Last Week of School
This week I was able to go on 3 field trips, 2 with Magda's class. This offered us some more time to bond. One of our field trips was to the traffic playground - no not taking the children to a busy intersection and letting them play. It's actually a child size couple of blocks complete with sidewalks, streets, traffic lights, zebra crossing and train crossings, where kids learn how to follow street signs. Well, the lady that did the instruction for our group was awful. She spent 40 minutes outside slowly going over and over and over things (this was after the 30 minutes of instruction inside). She was telling our students things like "very bad" and even made a couple of them cry. But, it was an opportunity for bonding. And we did. Magda and I found it easy to communicate how frustrated we were at her and how much we didn't like the way she was treating our students. We find that sometimes words aren't really necessary.

So, God has been good this year, and I know that next year will be better (although still painful at times).

If you would like to hear more stories, please let me know by email. I would love to visit with as many of you as is possible while I am home. I will be home on July 2nd(Yippeeee!) and will be leaving again around the 18th or 19th of August. I look forward to seeing you all and having a chance to share more of the past year. Thank you again for all of your support, cards, e-mails, care packages and mostly prayers.

Becoming...

So, I have been feeling this week more and more like a Slovak (or at least not a guest) these last few weeks.

Case in point. Last week, Karin and I went to our favorite little neighborhood pizza place. Side note: A while ago, when we had been in, our server noticed that we were speaking English and tried to get us an English menu. We told him that we didn't need one and he asked again. We finally convinced him we did not. The next time we came in, he didn't offer us the English menu, just accepted our limited and badly pronounced Slovak. End side note: So, we were sitting talking and just enjoying our meal like we normally do. Then, Karin noted that it seemed that we had it seemed slow even for our normally quiet pizza place and that the service seemed slower as usual. Now this may not seem like an amazing observation. But, it made us feel like regulars, to be talking about the service (which is definitely much slower than in the states).

Second case in point. I feel like I made a break through today. I was invited to one of my student's homes. For those of you who know me from Oster, you know how much I enjoy getting to know my students outside of school. I accept every invitation that I possibly can. Well, with the language barrier and just the different culture, I have not gotten any invitations. Until today. Today, at one of my conferences, I had a mom who spent a year in the states with her family, so her family all speaks English. She was lamenting the fact that she doesn't have anyone to speak English with. So, I volunteered to practice English with her. Her eyes lit up and she quickly gave me her phone number and email address and invited me to come to her house regularly to practice English not only with her, but also with her whole family. I am very excited about this opportunity and hope that it will open up more doors for me.

Easter in Krakow

Going to Krakow
For Easter, Becky, Karin and I decided to go to Krakow. We wanted to rent a car and drive, but didn't know you had to reserve a car at least a month in advance. So, we took the train instead. It was a nice six hour ride - lots of time for talking, reading and watching the countryside go by. It was actually a nice time of relaxing and rejuvenation.

Auschwitz
Krakow is just an hour bus ride from Oświęcim, the Polish town were the concentration camp Auschwitz is located. On the bus ride, they show a video about the history of the camp. It was a sobering ride. Words can not really express the feeling of being at Auschwitz. To be there, standing in a place where history happened. And such recent history. I stood there realizing that this place was a place I had read about in my history books, talked about in history class and yet, people who had suffered in Auschwitz were still alive. So many places in Europe are about ancient history. Not this place.
Our guide was a gentile lady who spoke very with a Polish accent and quietly showed us how important it was for this place never to be forgotten. Unlike most tourist locations, Auschwitz was full of silence. As we were walking through the camp, you could hear the sound of shoes on the gravel road. You can not take pictures inside any of the buildings, for which I was thankful. Because, instead of people focusing on getting a good shot, they were forced to really look at the things before them. The suffering, the pain, the despair.
It is not an easy place to go. It is not for everyone. Children under 14 years old are not allowed. And yet, it is a place that everyone should go. Because we can not forget. We can never forget and we must always remember.
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. " - George Santayana

Auschwitz

Salt Mine
The next day, we went to the Salt mines. It is one of the oldest salt mines in the world and up until a few years ago was still operating. Now it is a tourist attraction. It has a depth of 327 meters (for you not into the metric system, 1073 feet). We had to walk down over 500 stairs just to get to the start of the tour, and many more stairs as we went along. All through the mine, everything is made of salt. There are statues showing the history of how salt was mined, famous storybook scenes (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and famous people (The Pope). I am posting some pictures from the mine, but it is one place you have to see to appreciate. (Since it is all underground, the pictures are all kind of dark.) The coolest thing was that they have a huge cathedral underground, made of salt. Their are carvings on the wall depicting scenes from the life of Christ from his birth to his resurrection, including Da Vinci's Last Supper. The crystals on the chandeliers are made from salt and the tiles on the floor aren't tiles at all but salt. It is truly a sight to see and well worth the long walk down.

Salt Mines

Easter Markets in Krakow
Spending Easter in a country that is 95% Catholic (with 70% practicing) means that Easter is a huge holiday. Krakow had an Easter market, very similar to the Christmas market in Bratislava with lots of little trinkets, yummy food and neat people. We spent time each day wandering around, buying little treats and enjoying the sights and sounds. We bought dinner at the market one night, sausages and rolls, mushrooms and sauerkraut. So yummy.

Krakow

In the square, they were setting up a huge stage and on Saturday, at 9pm, the show started. Of course, it was in Polish, but that did not stop us from spending the next two hours standing (and freezing) watching the show. It was an Easter drama, that much we could tell, but we are not exactly sure what it was about. We are guessing that the majority of the drama was from the 1940's, based on the costumes, and that it may have had something to do with the Jews and WWII. There was a full orchestra and four talented singers, plus two dramatic readers. And near the end of the show they took a man in white (Jesus) and attached him to a crane and lifted him, arms outstretched into the midnight sky. Even though the words were in a foreign language, we could understand the emotion behind the scene. We left the drama cold, but touched and thankful that God loved us enough to send his Son to die for us.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world (that's you and me!) that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."

One Of Those Days...

Yesterday was one of those days. It just felt like everything was going wrong. It started out nice enough. I woke up refreshed (always a good thing on a Friday morning) and the sun was shining. When I got to school, the morning rush started. Copies to make, things to print and gathering everything I needed. Unfortunately, I couldn't teach in my classroom, as they were doing special testing in it. So, I was given one of the Rest Time rooms. A huge room, with no carpet, no furniture, no desks, no chairs, no white-boards. Now, I am flexible and adaptable, and having no desks didn't bother me, as I like to have my classes sit on the floor. The problem came when you put people in the room. There was nothing to absorb the sound, so it was like teaching in a cavern - even a whisper echoed across the room. None of my lessons went quite as I would have liked as it was impossible to keep the noise level bearable. My fourth lesson of the day is with 4th graders, and I have the head director's (think superintendent) daughter, the director's (think principal) son, the deputy director's (think vice-principal) son all in my class. So, when I got to my make shift classroom, there is the director with his wife. He asks if his wife can sit in on my class for a few minutes, as she is waiting for their other son to finish some testing. How can I say no. So, I say yes and in she comes. The lesson is fine, just incredibly noisy. I actually think that the kids are having fun. My only other problem with this room is that it has no clock and of course, yesterday was the one day I forgot my watch. So, I had brought my cell phone to class and was using it as my watch. My least favorite thing about Friday's is that my 4th lesson ends at 11:55 and my 5th lesson starts at 11:55. So, I have to be in two places at once. Usually, it is not that big of a deal, because I can just let the 4th graders walk to their classroom which is on the same hallway as my classroom. But since we are in a different room, I have to go with them. And I had asked my 5th graders to meet in the computer lab since we are working on a computer project. So, as I am trying to herd my 4th graders back to their room and race up the stairs to the computer lab, who do I find corraling my 5th graders? The head director. Great. Just great. He doesn't say anything, but I feel bad. The only good thing is that my 5th graders are good for my lesson and I feel like we accomplished something. Near the end of the lesson, one of my 5th graders stops me and asks, "Are we going to have lunch together?" She has invited me to have lunch with her and her friends every Friday. Now, I am feeling a little better. I buy my lunch in the cafeteria everyday, as it is very cheap, filling, warm and usually good. There are always 2 choices, a vegetarian and a meat. I saw that the vegetarian was a kind of potato paste with a hard boiled egg on top (not my favorite) while the meat option was rice with little pieces of meat in a sauce. So, I had the meat. As I was taking it to my table, I looked more closely at it and realized that it was kind of a funny color. Almost all the meat we have in the cafeteria is pork and this definitely was not pork. When I looked at it more closely, I noticed the texture looked strange. So, I decided just to eat my soup and the rice. My girls and I had a nice chat. They noticed that I wasn't eating my meat and told me that neither of them liked this meat either. They said it was black or purple meat and started pointing to their stomachs. "Liver?" I asked. "Yes!" they said. Yuck! So, I left lunch still a little hungry, but glad to have avoided the liver.

One of those days...

I went to my office and straightened up, getting ready for the next day. I checked my email and found out that some friends of ours in Hungary may have to leave the country 2 months early because of problems with their visas and plane tickets. So, I just was feeling really down. And like I hadn't done my best teaching. And wondering why I was coming back for another year. So, I packed up my things and decided to head home. But on the way, I stopped by the secretaries office (up 3 flights of stairs) to ask her something and ended up staying for 20 minutes or so. I went downstairs to sign out and ran into one of the rest time teachers who was brining a group of kids inside. I had wanted to ask her something, so I stopped and talked to her for a moment. Two of my third graders saw me and grabbed my hands, and started talking to me about čaj (tea). Then Andreka, the rest time teacher, said, "We welcome you to tea with us." My girls wanted me to come and have tea with them. So, of course I did. We talked in a strange mixture of Slovak and English. They wanted to sit by me and share their tea. One little girl, Maťa, even gave me some special tea to take home with me. And all of a sudden I knew why I was staying. This was why. I am building relationships, and with younger students, who don't have a lot of English, it takes more time. I am their teacher, and yet, much of the time, I don't understand what they are saying, and communicating with them is hard work. And yet, here they were, asking me to come to tea and sharing their snacks with me. So, as I left school, I took the opportunity as I was walking, to thank God for reminding me why I had come, why I was staying and for opening doors for me. Please, please, join me in praying that God will continue to open doors for me to build relationships with my students and share who I am and what I believe in with my students.
I serve an amazing God who promises that He will do abundantly more than we can ask. Now, all I have to do is ask....
(Ephesians 3:20 - Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us).

German Coast Guard - Lost in Translation

A good example of why what I am doing is so important!

Family and Friends

The BatCave is Full!
Our flat has been full for the past month and a half. We have had visitors nonstop since the beginning of February. It started with our friend Jen from Hungary just kept going. We had a teacher from Minnesota stay with us for a week while she was visiting our school to see about setting up an exchange program for students and teachers from her school. It was fun having her and she brought us a HUGE jar of peanut butter and a HUGE bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Yum, yum. After that we had a couple of girls from a traveling drama group at our house for a few days. After that, it was our friend Matt from Hungary who cooked some amazing curry chicken for us. Soon after, my sisters came (for TWO whole weeks). The day after my sisters came, a friend of Karin's came. The day my sisters left, Erin,from Hungary came for the night. Then the next night, the Kellum family (a family of 6) and Jen came for a couple of days. The next night, Heather from Hungary came. So, for one night, we had a grand total of 11 people staying in our two bedroom flat. Five in one bedroom, four in the other and two in the living room. Amazingly, we had enough beds for seven of our guests, so only the kids had to sleep on the floor.

Sisters
Kacie and Hannah came for two weeks. They arrived on a Thursday, which is a story in itself, and stayed for my spring break and left the Wednesday after my break. We had a great time - how could we not - three sisters bumming around Europe. We hit four countries in their two weeks. And we have the pictures to show it. Kacie was the official photographer of the group and blessed us with gazillions of photos.

Sisters

Arrival
I said it was a story in itself and so, here it is. Thursday. 8am. I arrive at school and teach my only two classes of the day, finishing by 10. I get a quick snack from the cafeteria and go catch the 95 bus. From there I catch the 70, which takes me to the autobus station, arriving with just five minutes before my bus leaves. Hannah is scheduled to arrive at the Vienna airport at 12:45, so I need to catch the 11am bus which will get me to the airport by 12. So, I literally run in to the ticket counter and ask for a ticket. The lady at the counter refuses to sell me a ticket for the 11am as it is so close. I take the ticket for the 12 bus, but run like crazy to try and catch the 11. I do! So, I arrive at the airport and check the board. So far, so good. Planes are both on time. I sit down and eat some lunch and at 12:45, I stand up so I can be right at the front of the gate. No Hannah. By 1:45, I don't know what to think. I wonder if maybe she didn't make her connection but see that the next should arrive shortly so I decide to wait. Besides that, her cell phone doesn't work, so there is not much I can do. By this time, I can see that Kacie's flight is also delayed. So, I wait some more. After the next flight comes in and no Hannah, I go to the information desk and have her paged. No luck. But, in another 30 minutes or so (almost 2 hours late), out she walks. It turns out that she was waiting for Kacie at baggage claim and when she didn't show up on time, she decided to come and find me. So then Hannah and I wait for Kacie's 4pm flight. By 4:45, no Kacie so I have her paged. A couple minutes later she walks out. Lost luggage. We get that sorted out, buy bus tickets and find a bench as the bus doesn't leave for another 45 minutes. Thankfully the bus ride is easy. No problems. However, we have more problems when we get into the bus station. Both girls brought my parents luggage, from the 80's with teeny tiny wheels and no real handles for pulling it. And of course, the luggage is heavy. So, we half drag half carry it to the next bus stop. We buy tickets and somehow lug it on board. Three huge suitcases and two backpacks. We get off two stops later and have to drag the suitcases four or five blocks to the next bus. By this time, we are all dead tired. It is almost 7:30 and it has been a long day for all of us. We again lug our the suitcases on. The next stop we get off is the closest one to my house, but that is not saying much. It is quite a hike when you have so much luggage. Across a parking lot (this is where the handle broke), down a flight of stairs, down the bike path, across a dirt path (this is where we drug the suitcases on their sides through the mud, got the wheels clogged with pebbles and dirt and almost fell down the hill because we were so tired), across the canal, up another dirt hill, across the street and finally into my building. By the time we finally got all the suitcases into the house, it was 8pm. We had just enough energy to make introductions, scramble some eggs and make up the spare bed, before the girls crashed. What an adventure.

More adventures...
My sisters came to school with me for a total of three days. They were able to meet all my classes. They all had lots of questions, and one of them even fell in love with one of my beautiful sisters! During our week off, we went to Vienna for a day (did lots of shopping, visited St. Stephens Cathedral and the catacombs underneath), went to Milan for two days (more shopping), went to Budapest (saw Hero's Square, House of Terror and Castle Hill - no shopping) and toured around Bratislava. We saw as much as we could, but the best part was just getting to hang out with two of my best friends. Gotta love sister time!

Italy!!!

Two Weeks Off... What shall we do?
With Christmas vacation fast approaching, this was the question that my roommates and I kept asking ourselves. We finally decided to go to Poland, but then a week before vacation, a Slovak friend told us that Poland wouldn't be the best as we would need visas, everything would be closed after Christmas, and it would be hard to get train tickets. So, after scouring Sky Europe for cheap airline tickets, we settled on Italy. We decided to go to Milan first, then head to Florence, then to Venice (for New Year's Eve), to Verona and then back to Milan. We booked hostels for all the cities and let our friend, Mel from Czech Republic, know our plans and she decided she would come with us.

Bags packed... We're off!
We decided to be very European and pack light. Just two sets of clothes- the one we were wearing and one fresh one in our bags. That way, we could easily carry everything with us if we needed too. We left Bratislava as the sun was setting (about 3:30pm), took the bus to the airport and flew to Milan. We found Mel, our hotel and dinner that night before heading off to sleep.

Milan and the Duomo
So, unless you are really into fashion, Milano doesn't have a lot to offer the average tourist. There are lots of expensive shops (Prada, Louis Vatton, Armani anyone?), but not many sights to see, except the Duomo. The Duomo is an amazing basilica and the third largest church in the world. We toured the inside and then climbed up what seemed like a million stairs to the roof. Truly awe inspiring! You can walk around the entire roof, climbing up even more stairs until you feel like you are on top of the world. It gives you a beautiful view of the city and an up close view of the amazing architecture, statues and carvings on the roof. We spent over and hour, walking around the roof, marveling at the amazing amount of work that went into the design and construction of this amazing building.

Lake Como and George Clooney
As previously stated, Milan really does not have much to offer, so when we found out that there was a lake, with hiking trails nearby, we decided to hop on the train and check it out. We arrived at Lake Como and enjoyed walking around the town and the lake. They were offering hour long boat rides and so we decided that would be fun. Being brave, we decided to sit outside, which was definitely the best choice. The lake is narrow and very long, so we only went around a small portion of it. We were able to take lots of pictures and see many picturesque Italian towns. Only later on did we discover that Lake Como is where George Clooney lives. We are still trying to discover if we have a picture of his house...

I just want to get to Florence...
Our plan was to leave to go to Florence on Friday and spend two days there. We headed to the train station in the morning and tried to buy a ticket. And tried, and tried, and tried... To no avail. All the trains were sold out. So, we tried a bus. And they were all sold out too. So, after racing around Milan trying to find something, we finally decided to just go to Venice early. And we had no problems getting tickets to Venice, so voila, off to Venice.

Gondolas, Ferry boats and New Year's Eve
Venice is truly amazing. A place not to be missed if you are going to Europe. We took a bus/boat to our hotel and spent our time in Venice walking through the streets by the canals and over bridges, or taking boats to explore some of the surrounding islands of Venice. We were able to see glass blowing on one island (something Venice is famous for) and the real Venice Beach on another. All in all a magical time. We spent New Year's Eve on St.Marks Square along with 35,000 other people. It was packed so tightly in places that the crowd just carried you along. They had tables and tables of white wine and bellinis - free for the taking, and a amazing fireworks display set to music. We ended up walking the streets of Venice until 2am, along with many other tourists and Veniciens. New Year's Day it was drizzling, so we just wandered around the city and did a little shopping.

Fair Verona...
Verona was our last stop on our Italian vacation. Their is a coliseum in Verona that is so huge and amazing. Walking around such huge ruins was breathtaking. It is like stepping into the movie the Gladiator. I couldn't help but think about all the Christians who boldly walked into a coliseum and faced the hungry lions, rather than deny Christ. Praise the Lord!

Back Home...
We spent our last day in Milan and couldn't wait to leave. We got up early, though, and went to see "The Last Supper." I never realized just how big it is. Unfortunately, the building it is housed in was damaged during the Second World War, and part of the roof was destroyed, so the painting is badly damaged. However, just standing near it and trying was breathtaking. Although there were probably around 30 people in our viewing group, it was silent. Everyone was taken with the painting. You are only allowed to view the masterpiece for fifteen minutes and then you are ushered out. There are no other works of art. Just one. Simple and yet magnificent. After our fifteen minutes were over, we headed back to our hotel room. We still had a couple of ours before we had to check out. Which we spent watching CNN - in ENGLISH! For those of you who don't know, it is absolutely amazing to hear the news in English (even if it is British English). After we checked out of our hotel, we wandered back to the Duomo and sat on a bench watching people pass by. When we were cold and hungry, we found a Burger King and had lunch and sat their for our last four hours in Italy. Tired of traveling, tired of eating out, tired of carrying all our possessions on our back, tired of hotels and just missing home.

Home, Sweet Home
We arrived back around 10pm and were very glad to be home. While traveling is great, the sights are thrilling, the food is amazing and the people are friendly, it is always the best to walk up to your front door, put the key in the lock and know that your bed awaits, that you can pull fresh clothes from the closet and you can walk around in your pajamas. Ahhh... home, sweet home.

Italy - Milan, Venice and Verona

Interesting Fact #7

Pandemic vs. Epidemic

No, I don't really know the difference (and I have not yet pulled out a dictionary), but these are the two words I heard over and over today. Last week, all of our classes were visibly smaller. Instead of 10-13 to a class, some classes were as small as 4 students. But you know the saying, "The show must go on." And so we did. But today (Monday), when I went to school, three of our English teachers were out sick. Usually this means that we have to figure out a way to cover all the classes they would normally teach, but, since the numbers were so low, we just ended up combining classes to make almost normal size classes. Around lunch time, my boss came to tell me that Narnia had cancelled school for the rest of the week. In Slovakia, there is a law that if 20% of your school population is out sick, you can cancel school. Well, on Monday, there was only 50% of the kids in school (and about that many teachers), so they cancelled school!

Hip, hip, hooray!
I felt like one of the kids I was so excited. I do have to go to school, but can focus on things like long term planning, organizing my cabinet (office) and getting caught up on things. And I can come in an hour later and leave an hour earlier. So, while words like pandemic and epidemic usually cause me to feel a sense of dread, today, they brought nothing but joy.

Baking Day

It has been a while since I wrote and part of the reason is that life has fallen into a routine after Christmas and it seems like I am super busy. That said, I wanted to write something fun, but couldn't quite figure out what. So, I am going to write about Baking Day, that we had before Christmas.

To bake or not to bake...
Baking day is inappropriately named, if you ask me, since there is not actual baking going on. The premise is that the students will bake treats for the Christmas House program. The goodies will then be purchased for a small price and the school will benefit. So, Jayne, the head of Narnia's English department, is in charge of the baking day for the English department. However, she admits that she is really not a baker (or cook for that matter). So, I am given the task of coming up with four different no-bake recipes that we can make with first through fourth graders, using ingredients we can find here. Why no-bake, you ask? Well, because we have no ovens or stoves to use. Only one microwave. And for those of you who have made no-bake recipes, you know that you have to melt things (butter or chocolate usually) for all your recipes. Well, I am not daunted (yet!) by my task. I scour different websites looking for recipes and finally find 3 (Jayne has 1 recipe): rice crispy treats, haystacks and mini cheesecakes. Everything is fine until the Friday before when one of the teachers asks me to help her make a shopping list so that we can make sure we have all the ingredients. I have to explain each ingredient, and when she says they don't have that (i.e. - chow mien noodles), I have to give her a substitute (such as ramon noodles). So far so good, I think. But... as the saying goes, don't count your chickens before they hatch. Come Monday morning, I am faced with all the ingredients. Instead of crispy rice, there is puffed rice, instead of coco crispies, there are coco puffs. And the marshmallows! They are half white, half bright (neon) pink! And they are fruity flavored. Great! But again,... the show must go on. So, I look at our recipes. They all have cups and ounces measurements, while all of our ingredients are in grams and milliliters! So, I have to hastily convert things (going by sight and feel mostly). Then I realize that we have no measuring cups or spoons. So, we borrow some spoons from the kitchen and find some little plastic drinking cups which are about a cup and a 1/3, we guess.

Well, here goes nothing, I think, as the first group of students comes parading down to make rice crispy treats. It goes fairly well, although, with only one microwave and three batches of marshmallows to melt, it takes way too long. So, we send Erika (the 2nd grade English teacher) off to see if she can find another one. We finally borrow one from a neighboring organization, and with two microwave's, things are in full swing. The first group made rice crispy treats from puffed rice and I took a taste as I was putting them in the pan. Gross! They are called rice crispy treats (not puffed rice treats) for a reason. But they have a nice neon pink color, so at least the kids will think they look good. The second batch we use coco puffs and they look even worse. Brown cereal coated with hot pink goo.... Anyone want to try?

TeachOverseas

All in all the day goes well. Everything we make has a small problem or two, but nothing too bad. We have to wash all our bowls and utensils in between every project, and it seems like we just finish cleaning when the next group comes, but I like staying busy, so it's all good.

My favorite recipe we made was the miniature cheesecakes. We had all the right ingredients, so they turned out good and they were fairly easy to make. The fun came when we had to mix the whipping cream and cream cheese together. I had brought our mixer from home (which I had used before). However, when I turned it on, it started spattering little drops of cream everywhere. Soon, I was covered in little white dots, as were the kids who were standing close to the bowl. Ester, the 3rd grade English teacher, saw my problem and came up with a solution. She took the big role of plastic wrap that we had and started wrapping me up in it! She started at my waist and went halfway to my knees. I was laughing to hard to convince her to stop... and besides, it was working. The dots were on the plastic wrap, not me! The kids thought this was hilarious and soon half of the class, boys and girls, were wrapped up in plastic wrap. (Side note - the cheesecakes were delicious!)

So, all in all, it was a successful, productive and hilariously fun day. While I don't recommend baking with one hundred children in one day, it makes for some great stories and plenty of laughter. I only wish that all of you could have come to the Christmas house and sampled our wonderful treats.

SNEŽENIE!

Snow! Finally, after a non-white Christmas, we have had our first snowfall of 2007. (We had snow in November, while we were in East Slovakia, so this is also my first Bratislava nowfall). As we left for work yesterday, Karin said that it was raining so we should take umbrellas. But, as we came out our front door we realized that it was snow falling, not rain. Big white flakes. They didn't stick much - just to car windows mostly. But there was just enough for one student to make a snowball and throw it at my office window and for another student to make a miniture snowman on the back of a car! Fun, fun, fun!