Camp Again... x2

Day 1 – Slovakia Day
 Highlight: The hour that my team spent together making a company. Each team had to make a company, decide what its product was, design a poster for it, and decide where it was located. My team had the distinct disadvantage of having to speak in English. For half of my team, it is not a problem since one is American, two have an American parent and one has grown up in a bilingual family. For me, it was fun to watch them come up with ideas and share them all in English. Our team was dubbed, “Super Star Air Kids,” and our company is an airline whose airplanes double as submarines and takes kids on deep-sea adventures.
 Lowlight: The five-hour bus ride to get here. I had heard it was only three but that was not the case. We hit traffic getting out of the city, had to make two bathroom breaks, and stop once to pick up supplies. And trying to keep 43 wiggling, hyperactive kids sitting and quiet is no easy thing. But, we did survive and the adventure begins….

Day 2 – China Day
 Highlight: This was my day to lead and the theme was Beijing, China and the Summer Olympics. We spent the morning preparing for the Olympics and then in the afternoon we had six different Olympic Games (variations of real events, such as the javelin throw with chopsticks). So, there were really two highlights for me. The first was the awards ceremony. One of the preparations for the Olympics was making medals. The kids had sparkly paper, pens and ribbons and they made some great medals. In the afternoon, we sat outside in a big circle and each teacher called their group up and awarded a medal to each child, some for best in an event, others for good attitudes, encouraging teammates or being a good sport. It was fun to see the smiles on the kids’ faces. The second was in the evening, when we lit the Olympic torch. The kids lined up from the front of our hotel all the way to the campfire. Then Andreka lit the torch and a great cheer went up. The kids then passed the torch all the way down the line to me, the last person. I held it up and they again cheered. I then used it to light our campfire. And we roasted marshmallows and made s’mores, which was a first for many of these kids’ as they don’t have marshmallows here. It was amazing to watch their faces as they enjoyed this new, sticky treat. (Thanks mom and dad and Patrick for the marshmallows and graham crackers. You made many kids day!)
 Lowlight: The thought of making it through so many more days. This day was actually one of those days without any clear lowlights. I was busy (since it was my day to lead) and I had lots of fun.

Day 3 – Hollywood Day
 Highlight: We spent the morning creating movies based on children’s movies (Shrek, Aladdin, The Incredibles). My team had Shrek and we made a movie about the dragon and Donkey’s children. Mama dragon and the children went on a picnic and the children got lost in the woods. A year later, when their wings finally worked, they were reunited with their mom. It was complete with a narrator, costumes, props and sets. The highlight however, was winning the Oscar for Most Original film. According to my kids, this was the best award you could win. We had Oscars made of chocolate bars, wrapped in tin foil to look like an Oscar. The kids and teachers all brought fancy clothes, wore make-up and did their hair fancy. The upstairs room was decorated beautifully and was complete with a red carpet.
 Lowlight: For me, it was the same thing, the Oscar night. I was sitting with my team, all dressed up and my team was the last one to get their Oscar. So, when the teacher announcing started talking, she was looking at my team and I knew she was talking about my team. However, I couldn’t really understand her. Then when my kids got called up, she asked them if they had anything to say. One of my kids gave a speech and again, I couldn’t understand. I just felt so frustrated because I wanted so desperately to understand. I was so proud of them, but I felt so much like an outsider. This is when I am so frustrated with being the foreigner.

Day 4 – Paris Day
 Highlight: This day was supposed to be our Canada day, but we had to change it because it rained on and off all day. Instead we learned about the Versailles Gardens and created our own of scrap materials and things from outside. The highlight for me was during this time. After we collected all of our things from outside, I had to get something from my room, so I sent the kids upstairs to get started. We had done some work, but they were not really getting into it and I felt like I was pushing, pushing, pushing. It took me a few minutes to get what I needed and I was a little worried at what I might find when I came upstairs. But, they were working happily and had created a really fantastic garden complete with planter boxes around the trees and little tiny flowerpots. It was fun to see them working together so well.
 Lowlight: This was a hard day for my team. Three of my boys share a room as well as being on the same team and it is a lot of together time, and they got in their third fight of the day. And at dinner time, they were using bad language and saying mean things to and about each other. So, after being formally rebuked by the director of the camp, two of the girls were in tears and everyone was very sad. Not a good way to end the day, but hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Day 5 – Canada Day
 Highlight: Today we went on a trip to the forest. We rode on two different open-air trains, which felt very much like we had gone back in time. We walked for an hour or so through the woods, stopping to look at different things in nature as we went (my favorite was the four foot high ant hill. We stopped in a meadow and played soccer and other games for about an hour or so before heading back. The highlight for me was getting ready for bed at the end of the day – not me getting ready, but 4 of my boys. I was assigned to look after one of the rooms with four of my second grade boys in it. This involved me sitting in their room for an hour or so, making sure they showered (with soap) and washed their hair, brushed their teeth, got pajamas on and got into bed with the covers on properly. This was quite a challenge and very funny to watch. I had to say everything multiple times and very slowly. Meanwhile, my boys (who have no shame) were running around their room (before and after their showers) with no clothes on. And after their showers, they didn’t dry off, just put on their pajamas. So, I tried my best to towel them off, especially their hair, as our school nurse says that if you go to bed with wet hair, you will get sick. It was fun to bond with my boys in this special (although silly way) and feel like I was just one of the teachers, instead of the foreign teacher.
 Lowlight: At the end of the day, all the teachers were sitting in our little room getting things ready for the next day. I was helping and listening to the banter around me. They were laughing and telling stories and having fun and I realized how much I missed being a part of a group like that.

Day 6 – Vienna Day
 Highlight: This was a really fun day. We set up a carnival for the kids outside while they learned about Mozart inside. We had six different games/booths: a hit the prize game, a scary forest walk, a tattoo parlor, a strong man/arm wrestling, a tumbling and a Frisbee game. Each kid got 20 Euros and could buy tickets for 2 Euros each. The kids had a blast running from booth to booth, playing games, winning prizes and just having fun. I ran the tattoo parlor, which was a huge success. However, the highlight for me was connecting with two of the teachers, Katka and Vierka, that have very limited English. First, when we were getting ready for the carnival, they asked me to do their makeup, which I did very garishly – bright pink circles on their cheeks and bold purple, blue and green eye shadow. They were so happy to have me do it. Yeah! Later, Vierka noticed I was pink (okay, red) from being in the sun and offered me after sun lotion. So, I went to her room and put some on her back and then she put some on mine. And then, when they found out that I could french braid, they wanted me to braid their hair. So, in the afternoon, while the kids were playing outside, I sat with both of them and braided their hair. We talked in Slovish – my new favorite language, a combination of Slovak and English. These two teachers had not really talked with me before because of the language barrier but now have each talked to me several times. Praise the Lord!
 Lowlight: Today was really a great day. The only lowlight was realizing that I am not even half way done with camp as tomorrow we get a fresh group of children and start all over again.

SvP 2 & 3

Day 7 – Slovakia Day
 Highlight: Today was the last day for our kids. We finished the week by watching a slide show of pictures of the week. Then we gathered outside and the kids took turns praising each other until each of the children had been praised. Even though I couldn’t understand all of it, it was very precious to see the kids telling about who had helped them during the week, who had played well and who had made their week better. But the highlight for me was when the bus pulled up and my fourth graders and Magda got off the bus. I was so happy to see all of them.
 Lowlight: So, while today was the last day for my first group, it was the first day for my second group. When the bus pulled up and the kids piled off with all of their bags and we helped them carry their bags up to their rooms, I had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Only, it was real. It was only a week ago I had done the exact same thing, but with my first group of kids. Then, when the bus left with the first group and we started the program with the second group, I just wanted to scream, “But we’ve already done this!” There are six of us teachers who are staying for the full two weeks (with two new and rested teachers). We all were a little crazy tonight as we are pretty exhausted and know exactly what we are facing for the next week. I hope we can all survive….

Day 8 – China Day
 Highlight: This one is easy. Marshmallows. The day was pretty much the same as the week before with all the same events and such. The kids seemed to really enjoy everything. Again, we lit the Olympic torch and passed it down the line of children to light the campfire. I explained again about how to make s’mores and we got started. This time however, I had each 4th grader pair up with a 2nd grader and cook their marshmallows together, since we had two pronged sticks to cook on. This worked very well and we made our way through 3 bags of marshmallows, 9 bars of chocolate and 2 boxes of graham crackers. Each time I emptied a bag of marshmallows, one of my 4th graders would come running up and ask if they could have the empty bags. They are very impressed with those American marshmallows.
 Lowlight: My team this time around is much more difficult. They are not team players and I have too many leaders. In addition, they don’t want to use their English and so are reluctant to do things. I feel like I am constantly the bad guy. Hopefully things will get better as I had a small chance to talk to them about their behavior today.

Day 9 – Hollywood Day
 Highlight: There were several. First, in the afternoon, we had free time and several of my 4th grade girls invited me to play games with them. We ended up playing 3 different games, and they spoke in English the whole time. Second, I got to play hairdresser. Tonight was our Oscar night (because we had made movies in the morning) and it was announced at lunch that I was the best hairdresser. So starting at about four in the afternoon, I did girls hair straight until about seven (with a small break for dinner). I did crown braids, French braids, side braids, farmers braids, fish braids, ponytails, up-does and whatever else I could think of. It was lots of fun and good bonding time with my students, and even one of the teachers. Third, after our Oscar night (my group again won the award for The Most Original film) one of my 4th grade boys started crying in the corner. I went over to him and put my arm around him and started to talk to him. (He had been struggling the previous day with homesickness.) I asked him what was wrong and he said his stomach was hurting all through the Oscar night. I asked him if he wanted to go to his room or to see the nurse. He told me he wanted to go see the nurse. I offered to go with him or to have one of his friends go with him. He said he wanted me to go with him. This meant a lot to me as so often it seems that my kids would rather have one of their friends or a teacher who speaks Slovak than me. It was nice to be chosen.
 Lowlight: I am tired. And I know that I won’t get any less, even if I get a good night’s sleep, as it is just so tiring. And I know that me being so tired is effecting how I am relating to my group, to the rest of the kids and to the other teachers. I really am enjoying camp, but I am ready to go home. Jayne (my boss) sent me a text message yesterday that I need to dwell on, lean on, and have faith in: Matt. 11.28, Jesus said come to me all who are weary…, and I will give you rest. Just the words I need to hear as I am so very weary.

Day 10 – Canada Day
 Highlight: Today was one of those days when I just marveled at this beautiful country that I live in. Slovakia is so amazingly beautiful. I don’t know if the photos we took will do it justice, so if you want to know how amazing it is, you will have to come and see for yourself. Today we again went by an open-air train to a national park. It was one of those perfect days. The sun was shining, but it wasn’t too hot. We had an ongoing game which lead to one of the highlights of my day. The game is called “spnka,” which means paperclip in Slovak. Each teacher had 30 paperclips and the kids each had one. If you were asked a question, you had to answer with more than one word or you had to give the person who asked you the question a spnka. I had forgotten my spinkas at the hotel, but the kids kept trying to collect them from me anyways. My group was last along with the principal. I told my group they had to speak in English as our principal is going to Wheaton College for 6 weeks this summer and needs to practice his English. So, two of my boys kept up a steady stream of conversation with us for over an hour. Much of it was aimed at getting spinkas but I didn’t mind as it was nice to have someone spending time talking with me. I ended up losing more than 45 paperclips, even though I didn’t have that many. The second highlight was when we stopped to play soccer. Not all the kids wanted to play, so one other teacher and I decided to play Frisbee. Two of our second graders soon joined us and kids kept coming and going. We had twelve kids playing at one time or another. It was fun to see them trying to throw and catch the Frisbee and get excited when they succeeded.
 Lowlight: There wasn’t a really clear lowlight today. Maybe just that fact that I haven’t slept well for the last three nights and two nights in a row have woken up in the middle of the night with very painful leg cramps. I have also been waking up at 4, 5, 6 and 7. I think my body is trying to tell me that it has been pushed too hard. Only two and a half more days to go!

Day 11 – Paris Day
 Highlight: I have begun to realize how much these two weeks have been about building relationships with the other teachers at my school. When you are cut off from all the normal people that you depend on, talk to and laugh with, you have to find someone else. And it is not always easy when you have language and culture barriers to overcome. But God is good and has allowed me to build many, many relationships during these two weeks. Case in point, today’s highlight. After the kids went to bed, the teacher’s gathered as usual to talk about tomorrow. When we were finished, we all gathered some sweets and headed up to the upstairs room where we have the projector set up and watched a movie on the big screen. We watched an American film in English with Czech subtitles. It was fun to hear my colleagues talking throughout the film and to be able to understand that they didn’t like the boss’ nephew and that they thought the star was cute and that one of my colleagues, Magda, looked like a girl in the film. It was nice to be one of the gang and not have language be a problem.
 Lowlight: I found out today that when I get back to school I have parent’s night. We will get back Sunday night around 6 and then Tuesday and Wednesday I have parent-teacher conferences from 3-7pm. I feel so exhausted already I almost cried. The good thing was, I also found out that I don’t have to work on Monday, only a half-day on Wednesday and then Friday is a big game day (Day of Children), so I can choose if I want to come in or not. Next weekend, I also have a retreat with TeachOverseas, so no break then either, which is why my boss here is giving me as much time off as she can this week. I am going to need it!

Day 12 – Vienna Day
 Highlight: Carnival! We had another carnival today and it was so much fun again. I did make-up all around again and then Katka did mine. I was the tattoo artist again and did as many as I could. Then, in the afternoon it started to rain, so we stayed inside and had clubs. Mine was a hair salon, which I supplemented with art supplies. I did French braids for an hour and a half while the girls waiting or finished drew pictures. Later, the teachers got in on the fun too and I braided Andreka, Katka, Magda, Vierka and Mirka’s hair. My hands are tired, but my heart is happy. The whole day was so good that I can’t pick a highlight.
 Lowlight: Maybe the lunch (although I ate most of it). It was pizza with ham and cheese, but the sauce was just ketchup. I know I am becoming more and more Slovak as I finished most of mine and found it really wasn’t that bad. One more thing, is that I have found that not wearing shoes, inside or outside, is a no-no. I was barefoot outside during the carnival and several teachers mentioned it. Then, at dinner, I was walking around inside barefoot and several more teachers shared their concerns. I just told them that I am a crazy American and they laughed. One more day. Less than 24 hours to home!!! Yippeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

SvP 2 & 4

Day 13: Slovakia and FINISHED!!!
 Highlight: This day ended differently than I had hoped, but better than I had imagined. After watching a slide-show of our week together, saying thank you's and talking about what we liked best, we climbed on the bus for our trip home. It only took 4 hours and it seemed to pass fairly quickly. When we pulled into school however, there was not a big crowd of parents like I had imagined, just one of the teacher's boyfriends. No parents at all!!! Now, after two straight weeks of camp, it was very disappointing, but we just did what had to be done - unpacked the bus. Slowly parents came trickling in and we cheered whenever one arrived and tried to guess who would be the next one. After about 30 minutes of this, it started to rain. Big drops. So we took cover under a overhang and it stopped in a few minutes. Only to start up again in a few minutes, but this time it poured. And poured, and hailed, and poured. It continued like this for the next 20 minutes until everything was soaked and all of the children were finally gone. I had to carry my bags home in the rain. Yuck! However, saying goodbye to all the teachers was the best as we laughed and hugged and talked about getting together again soon. I think that I have made some good friends this week. It is so wonderful to see God working through every event in my life.
 Lowlight: Nope! Not on this day. Maybe just the huge pile of laundry currently sitting on my floor.....

škola v prirode

A week at camp
I just got back (5 hours ago) from camp. This camp was with the 5th and 6th graders. Every year, all of our students get to go for a week or so to škola v prirode - school in nature. It is a like summer camp, but with all your classmates and teachers along for the fun. And it was fun. Sit back and remember how much fun camp can be.

Theme of the Day
Every day we had a theme for the day. For each theme, we had a song, a movie, a drama (preformed by the teachers), a game and a night talk. Then, at the end of the day, the kids would have to use all of the clues we had given them to guess the theme. Monday's theme was prejudice, Tuesday's was Courage and Image, Wednesday was Grace and Consideration, Thursday's was Patience and Perseverance and Friday's was Friendship. Even though these were hard words, our kids really caught on. The song of the day was a huge hit and we would listen to the same time over and over and over and over again. Each evening, we would show a power point with the words from the songs and pictures from that day. By the end of the week, the kids knew the words to all the songs (and the teachers were being driven crazy by the songs).

Workshops
Between breakfast and lunch, we would have workshops for the kids. Each teacher prepared one workshop for each day, and then did it three different times. The workshops were varied from first aid to Frisbee golf, doll making to dancing. We tie-dyed t-shirts, learned how to survive in the wilderness, played board games, did origami, made paper flowers and played kickball. We had a total of thirty different workshops, all varied and all enjoyed by all.

Big Games, Crazy Games, Water Games
After lunch, it was game time. First, we would play a big game - one that everyone, all kids and teachers - could play. We played human foosball, crack the code (the code was hidden on trees in the woods), capture the flag and a scavenger hunt. It rained on our crack the code day while we were traipsing through the woods, but the kids were good sports and we just finished quickly and ran to our chatas (cabins).
After the big games, we would have crazy games. These were smaller games (for 7 or 8 kids) and the groups would rotate through 6 different crazy games. The kids had to eat jello with a nylon over their heads, pick marbles out of a tub of water with their toes, throw chips at a partner who had shaving cream on their face and other such crazy things. These games were a huge success as kids really like being silly and laughing at each other.
On Thursday, we played water relay games instead of crazy games. One was a sponge relay, where you had to get water from one bucket to another but you could only use sponges. Another you had to carry water in a cup on your head, but the cup had a hole in it. They were all crazy and most of the kids were soaked by the end of it. So, to make it even better, we filled up two big buckets with water, gave each kid a cup, divided them into boys and girls and encouraged them to soak each other. Three of us teachers played and got completely drenched by kids who were amazed we wanted to play.

Eat, Eat, Eat, Eat, Eat
Camp food is always interesting and when it is Slovak camp food it is even more interesting. But, interestingly enough, it doesn't seem very strange to me any more and I ate almost everything. Breakfast was bread with tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, with either butter or soft cheese or tuna spread. Another day it was hot dogs with bread and veggies. My favorite breakfast however was sweet bread with jam and hot chocolate.
Lunch is the main meal and always included soup. After soup was some kind of meat (pork or chicken) with either potatoes or rice. However, one day we had spaghetti with a choice of sauces - tomato sauce or ketchup. Yuck!
Dinners were very Slovak. One night we had a big piece of sweet bread with plums and a struessel topping on top. Another night it was a potato casserole made with sliced potatoes, sliced hard boiled eggs, pieces of bacon and chopped pickles. Different, but very good. For dinner on Thursday night, we had pasta with a big scoop of melted butter, topped with hot chocolate mix. At one time I would have thought this was very strange, but I ate it with gusto. Seems I am becoming more and more Slovak every day.
On Thursday, we also had our campfire, which means sausages. After we had finished out night games (at 10:30) we started our campfire. We broke out the sausages, bread and mustard and roasted them over the fire. Yummy! After sausages were finished, I brought out the marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolates and we made s'mores. (Thanks to my mom and cousin Patrick for the marshmallows and graham crackers.) The kids were so excited and within minutes all the marshmallows were gone. I had one s'more and it was the best thing I have tasted in a long time...
Each day the camp served us rajnaky (breakfast), deciataj (morning snack), obed (lunch), olevrant (afternoon snack) and vecher (dinner). In addition, there was a snack bar where the kids could buy snacks even though most of them brought enough snacks to last 3 weeks. So, the kids were eating constantly.

Evening Program
Each evening we would have a program about the theme of the day. We started with a skit. Each of the teachers took on a new persona, crazy-happy, clumsy, goth, shy, super-organized, queen bee. We then performed a skit about the theme of the day. For example, for courage, we went mountain climbing and our crazy-happy got scared and didn't want to climb, so Shy showed courage and climbed down and helped Crazy-happy climb up. Then we went canoing and Super-organized and Clumsy were together. Of course Clumsy tipped the canoe and Super-organized fell in and couldn't swim. Queen bee, who had all the best clothes and dressed perfectly jumped in and saved him, showing that image isn't important.
We would then listen to the song of day, while a power point with the words and pictures from the day was playing. The kids were then invited to guess the theme of the day. Then one of the teachers would give a talk, explaining why the theme of the day is important, and how we can put them into practice in our everyday lives.

5th and 6th SvP

Looking Back
Looking back at the week, it was easy to see God's hand at work - in the teachers and the kids lives. The sixth graders were really not happy about having to go with the fifth graders and many even threatened to not go. In the end, though, they all went and by the end of the week, the sixth graders said that they were glad for the friendships they had made with the fifth graders. Each day, we had opportunities to talk with our students and share life lessons with them. My cabin had all the sixth grade girls and I spent a lot of time in their cabin, telling stories, doing hair and just listening to them. They were very happy to have me there and asked lots of questions. My sixth grade boys loved the songs and were always asking if I could play one song or another. We went to a castle one day (Cervny Komen) and one of my boys asked me if he could translate for me. I said only if he wanted to, and he spent the entire hour and a half tour by my side translating everything. What faithfulness! I was worried about this camp as my sixth graders can be very moody, but it turned out to be the best week of camp ever! Praise God!

4 Countires in 8 days!!!!

On Friday, I left school at 11, took the bus to the Vienna airport, waited for a hour and a half and then watched my parents walk through the big doors, on their first trip to Europe. They stayed for two weeks and it was an amazingly wonderful time.

Days 1 & 2
Friday evening, we went out to dinner at our favorite restaurant, "The Meat Place." (Not it's real name, just what we call it because of the Ribs and Wings Platter they serve with BBQ sauce.) I had told my parents they could not go to bed until 9, but by 7:30 mom could barely walk, so we headed home. They unpacked a few suitcases before crawling into bed at a quarter to 9.
The next morning, we got up and headed off on the train to Vienna. Once there, we went to the Belvadere Palace. It is really magnificent with two huge palaces and gardens between the two and a huge private garden beyond. As it was too cold and wintery for the gardens, we toured the inside of the palace and were equally as impressed with the art inside. It was a very impressive palace with huge rooms, painted ceilings and all the other things that make palaces imposing places.
We then went to the shopping district, had some schnitzel, saw St. Stephens cathedral, and my favorite, the break dancers. Mom found a really cute knit hat for Hannah. We walked and walked, and saw many big impressive buildings. Unfortunately, I am not up on my Viennese architecture or history, so I wasn't very helpful with naming the buildings or the importance of them, but it was still fun to just wander around and see the beauty.

Day 3
I took my parents to church with me which was very special for me. Dad greeted everyone in English and so got himself introduced to the church by the pastor. A lady sitting in front of us offered to translate for us. Afterwards we went out to church with the D'Ettorres, the family that also teaches at my school. We walked around town for a while as it was a nice day and then headed back to relax and pack for our next adventure.

Days 4 & 5
On Monday, we left early for our 8 hour train ride to Cesky Krumlov. According to the schedule, we would first go to Vienna where we would switch train stations to catch our next train. (Check. Smooth and easy.) Second, we would go to the border town of Austria and Czech. (Check. Smooth and easy, even had time for lunch while we waited for our third and final train.) A little tiny, one car train pulled up and was sitting on the track we were leaving from, but I didn't think it was ours. However, turns out it was. The conductor told us that we would have to get off at the next stop however. (A little about Europe, you don't get told why, you just get told what to do, if you are lucky). Our conductor and engineer got off the train and followed us onto another train, where we were again told to get off at the next stop. Only this time, waiting for us was a bus. I was actually glad for the bus as it wound through this picturesque Czech countryside, full of old houses, farms, and animals. Finally, we arrived at yet another train, which our first engineer and conductor got on and this train took us all the way to Cesky Krumlov - and amazingly enough, we were on time. Once there, we went to our pension and met Michal, who told us where to go for dinner. It was a superb recommendation, with huge portions and wonderful atmosphere, and we had the whole place to ourselves. The next day we wandered around Cesky Krumlov, went to the castle, tried to find a hardware store, and just enjoyed the beauty of the area. Cesky Krumlov is an idyllic little town. What you imagine when you think of European towns. Like a postcard. Add this to your list of places to go when I go to Europe. And in the summer, it has rafting and bike riding.
We sadly said goodbye to Cesky and headed out to Praha.

Days 6 & 7
Praha (Prague) is the Slovaks favorite place. And with good reason, although I will always be partial to Bratislava myself. We arrived in Prague and found a cute restaurant, bicycle themed to have dinner at. Afterwards, we walked over the Charles Bridge, as it is beautiful to see the city all lit up at night. The next day, we headed over the bridge again and spent the day wandering through the castle district. We arrived at the front of the castle at a quarter to eleven, so we decided to hang around for a few minutes and watch the changing of the guard. Mom and Dad wanted a picture with the Castle Guards, so we went to the gate and had our picture taken. As we were standing looking at how stoic the guards were, never smiling, we noticed a group of girls, who were trying to get their picture taken with the guards also. They were being crazy, trying to touch the guard, so he took the butt of his gun and slammed it on the ground, causing everyone to look. I had never seen the guards do this (or anything) before, so we kept watching. The girls were not discouraged, but kept at their antics. The guard again slammed down his gun. Again the girls did not get the hint and kept trying, so the guard one more time slammed down his gun, but this time spoke in Czech while doing it, and both he and his partner stepped back into their little guard houses. We started listening to a tour guide who was explaining to her group that this was very unusual and that we would probably see some action. Strangely, the girls had not taken this retreat as a clue that they had overstepped their bounds and should leave, but continued to hang around, still wanting to get their picture. In two minutes three more guards came, talked to the guard who the girls were pestering, and marched up to the girls and told them that their behavior was not appropriate and that they would have to leave immediately. They did, and within a few minutes, the guards came back out and it was back to normal. After wandering around the castle for a few hours, we headed into the old town. We took in the astrological clock and had fun just wondering through one of Europe's oldest and most unique cities. The next day we traveled to the old castle, just down the river from the newer Prague castle. I really like the old castle as it seems more out of the way, has less tourists (and more Czechs), is less touristy, has an old cemetery and is just a great place to stroll and enjoy a few hours at a slower pace. We wandered up and down and all around Prague, soaking up all the culture. We took a train back to Bratislava later that evening and were able to enjoy a good night of sleep at home.

Days 8 & 9
After sleeping in some, changing dirty clothes for fresh ones, we headed off to the last of our countries, Hungary. We arrived in Budapest to a cloudy, slightly drizzly afternoon. We went to my friends, the Ballentyne's, house and dropped off stuff before heading off to the castle. We walked down Andrassy Ut, the most famous Hungarian street, a wide avenue with trees lining either side. We walked all the way down this street, stopping to admire the opera house and national bank, then on to the chain bridge, with its stoic lions guarding the way to Castle Hill. We strolled across the bridge, and hiked up to the castle. We wandered around the castle, and all around, leaving only when it started to rain. We enjoyed dinner at a nice restaurant with Susan and David. The next day, we went to the indoor market where Dad found a wallet and we enjoyed some yummy Hungarian sweets and Mom got some authentic Hungarian paprika. We walked down the shopping street and when we got caught in the rain yet again, decided to call it quits and head back to Bratislava. We made it to the train station in time to catch the 3 o'clock train, only to sit on the train in the station for 2 hours. A Greek man informed us (and the rest of the train) that there was a tree on the tracks and they were working on removing it. When we finally did get going, it was stop and go for an hour. Mom and I went to the dining car to get some tea and the waiter didn't speak much English (so incredibly, my Slovak was better than his English). We played cards and enjoyed riding in a train (the last train trip for Mom and Dad). We arrived home much later than we expected, but safe and sound.

Days 10 - 14
Sunday we slept in and had a lazy day wandering around Bratislava. Karin and Becky made a yummy dinner and we played cards and talked and laughed and had a great time. It was fun for me to have my parents get to know my new "family" here. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we headed off to school. My students thoroughly enjoyed questioning my parents, asking them everything they could think of to ask in English (favorite everything). On Tuesday and Wednesday, I put my parents to work. On both mornings, my dad did openings, for 4th and 6th graders, which is kind of like a 15 minute devotional/discussion time. He talked about running the race well. On Tuesday, my mom shared a writing game with my 6th graders that is a favorite with her students. On Wednesday, we made insects out of wire, which Dad was wonderful at assisting with. Later on Wednesday, we played Apples to Apples (my favorite game to play with English language learners. Thursday morning, it was a bright and early taxi ride to the bus station and a bus ride to the Vienna airport. Everything went very smoothly and after a tearful (and quick - I can't take the long goodbyes), I headed back to Bratislava.

It was amazing and kind of unbelievable to have my parents here. This side of the world and time of life for me is so far removed in so many ways from my life back in California that when the two collide, it is a little strange. Wonderful, but strange. It was so great to get hugs from Mom and Dad, to catch up on all the little things in their lives and to get so many treats from home. To all of you, if you would like to come for a visit, I love to play hostess and tour guide, so just let me know when you want to come!

Central Europe in a Week... Almost

Blue and Red Knight Restaurant

During the month of January, our second graders had a unit entitled "Food, food, food." So, Miss Mirka and I decided that a nice culmination to our unit would be to have a restaurant. We asked all the parents to help by sending in food and paper products. Mirka and I got table clothes, fancy napkins, flowers in silver vases, and even mood music. One of the 8th graders and a fellow English teacher made a gorgeous sign to welcome our students. Mirka and I put all the desks in groups of 2 or 4, laid down the table clothes, napkins and vases, plugged in our flower lights, and set up the food in the back of the room. All was ready.

Now, a little background info. In our textbook, was a dialogue about a forgetful waiter. It went something like this:
Waiter: Here you are (handing the customer a menu)
Customer: Please can I have a tuna sandwich?
Waiter: Certainly (goes away)
Waiter: Here you are. A delicious cheese sandwich.
Customer: Oh, no! Not a cheese sandwich - a tuna sandwich.
Waiter: I'm very sorry.

My second graders had really liked taking turns playing the waiter and the customer, especially being the customer and saying very loudly - "Oh, no!" So, we used this dialogue as the basis for our restaurant. We asked parents to send in cheese, chips, bread, apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, cereal, cookies, apple juice, orange juice and milk. Our students had created their own menus which we used for our restaurant.

So, half the students were waiter/waitresses and half were the customers. The waiters would bring their menu to the customer and say, "Here you are." The customer would then peruse the menu and decide what to have. For instance, "Please can I have chicken with rice?" The waiter would respond, "Certainly," and go to the food tables and choose one or two of the food items to bring back. "Here you are. An apple and a cookie." To which the student could respond one of two ways. "Oh no!" and the waiter would take the food back and try again, or "I like apples and cookies. Thank you." The customer would then eat the food.
It was amazing to listen to all of these mini dialogues going on in English. My second graders are not very comfortable in English, but to listen to them this day, you never would have guessed it. Our principal, Rado, the secretary, Katka, both of the second grade teachers, Zuzka and Veronika, and one mom all showed up and took turns being customers. The kids were delighted and had a great time.

2nd Grade Restaurant

The LITTLE town of Kremnica

For Karin's birthday, and our February 3 day weekend, we went to the little town of Kremnica. It was about 3 hours by bus and we left after school on Thursday. We got into town around 9 at the bus station. Except that it wasn't really so much of a station as 4 bus stops in a row. And it was dark, and snowy, with no one in sight. And we only had a really bad map. So, we approached one of the buses waiting nearby and asked the bus driver for help. He didn't speak any English, and he didn't know where our privat (private house that we had rented) was located. We had the phone number of the man we rented it from, so we called him and the bus driver spoke to him for us. Karin and I were sure we heard him say soup, although Becky didn't think so. He told us to wait for 5, 10 or 15 minutes and someone would come. Then he left. Karin and I were joking that he told the man on the phone that he had better have soup for us because he didn't give us directions or have a plan for our arrival. In less than 10 minutes, a little red car pulled up and a young man got out and started talking to us. He asked if we spoke German, we said no and asked him if he spoke English to which he said no. He again asked if we spoke English. We said no, then piled into his car. It may sound strange to get into a car with a perfect stranger, especially when you can not understand what he is saying, but we did. His girlfriend was with him and we drove for about 3 minutes before arriving at our privat. We got out, he spoke to us in Slovak, we said yes, yes and he got back in the car. We understood enough to know that he was going to get a key for us. What we didn't understand was that he told us to go around to the front of the house where there was a porch light. So, he got out of the car and took us around to the front of the house. About 10 minutes later, he came back with his mom who would be staying with us. She was the very motherly type and just talked to us while showing us around the house. The next day, she walked with us into town, invited us to have soup with her in the evening, and introduced us to her niece. We wandered around the town, went up to the castle and just wandered around. We stopped in a little cafe and had warm drinks. That evening our hostess gave us a big pot of soup, which was enough for two nights. Yummy potato soup with sausage. The next day we again wandered around the town and went to the money museum. Kremnica has one of the oldest (if not the oldest) working mints around. They have printed money for many major European countries. It was amazing to look at all the different money that Czech, Slovakia and Czechoslovakia have had over the years. The next day we left and caught a bus back to Bratislava. We had a wonderful restful time. Happy Birthday Karin!

Kremnica

Barcelona Baby!!!

La Rambla
So, on the day after Christmas, Karin, Steph, Joe and I went to Barcelona. Steph and Joe are fellow teachers from the Czech Republic who also did not go home. We flew into Girona, about an hour from Barcelona. Immediately upon getting outside, we noticed a huge change in the temperature. It was at least 30 degrees warmer. (Bratislava has been in the low 20's and Barcelona was in the upper 50's, even low 60's). Off came the winter coats, hats, scarves and gloves. That in itself was a Christmas present. We go to our hostel, checked in and then decided to wander the streets. We took off and just walked for several hours, finding our way around the neighborhood and eventually finding the touristy/main street, La Rambla, in Barcelona. The next morning we again took off for La Rambla and just soaked it in. There are kiosks up and down the street selling souvenirs, flowers and (my favorite), pets. Yes, you can buy birds, mice, lizards, hamsters, even rabbits. We found an amazing outdoor market that you could tell the locals frequented. It sold all kinds of food. ALL kinds of food. Check out the pictures for the incredible but true facts.
La Rambla is also famous for all the street performers it has. I saw angels and demons, soccer stars and headless men, Elvis and Michal Jackson, clowns and magicians. Most just stand still, ready for pictures with tourists. David told me that a few years ago, the mayor had outlawed all the street performers, but they protested, so he relented. Now they have strict laws demanding that each performer have a permit, be in his/her place for a certain number of hours, rotate with other performers and so on. La Rambla would certainly not be as colorful without all of the street performers.
We wandered down the pier, saw the statue of Christopher Columbus pointing towards the Americas. While Columbus started his journey to the Americas farther south, Barcelona was where he sailed into port at the end of his journey. It was also where the Indians from America were first introduced to European culture. Seeing the ocean was therapeutic for me. It is one of the things I miss most about home. We took a cable car up to the Barcelona castle, which overlooks the ocean as well. We wandered around, looking at the different views of Barcelona. Steph and I ended up just sitting on the castle wall, breathing in the ocean air and watching the water. After our time at the castle, we decided to get dinner. Spanish culture however, has a very relaxed time schedule. Most restaurants close around 3 or 4 and don't reopen until 8 or 9. Even in the tourist part of town. We quickly adjusted to this schedule, sleeping in late and staying up late. Not a bad schedule.

Gothic District
The next day, we took a walking tour of the Gothic part of the city. It was a good way to see part of the city and hear about some of the history of Barcelona. One of my favorite parts of the tour was going into a castle, which is know a museum, and seeing the room where Christopher Columbus told the King and Queen of Spain all about the land he had discovered. The old houses in the Gothic part of the city were works of art in themselves. Most had courtyards with fountains, one with a tremendous amount of tile work all around. One had a great mailbox, which you see in the album below. It is about one foot by two feet. The birds symbolized lawyers and how quickly they come out and the turtle symbolized justice and how slowly it moves. Each house that we saw truly fascinating features. That evening, we met up with the Spanish teacher from our school, who is from Barcelona and was there with his girlfriend. He showed us around the city, took us out for drinks and pointed us to a wonderful, little, smoke-free restaurant. Karin ordered the salmon and I ordered the lasagna and we split them both. Yum!

Montserrat
On our third day, we changed hostels and then made our way to the train station to go to a monastery. The Barcelona Montserrat Spain is a spectacularly beautiful Benedictine monk mountain retreat. We took the train about an hour northwest of Barcelona. From there, we took a cable car up the mountain to the monastery. It is high up in the mountains and was started in 880 when a small group of shepherd children saw a bright light descending from the sky in the Montserrat mountains. Their parents and a local vicar confirmed these reports and the monastery was started.
The view from the mountains was breath taking. We hiked around the lower ground for a while and then took a funicular up to the top (at a 65 degree grade). From there, we hiked around and saw the caves where some of the monks lived many years before. The view was so awesome! It confirmed again to me that we serve an awesome and amazing God!
We came down the mountain and visited the church/cathedral there. While it was a beautiful church, it was hard to be very impressed with all the natural God-made beauty surrounding us outside. Our God is an Awesome God!

Sagrada Familia
The next day, we went to the most famous church is in Spain, Sagrada Família. This church was built by Antoni Gaudi. At first look, it looks like so many other churches in Europe, undergoing renovation. However, upon going inside, we found that this was not true - it is actually under construction still. It was begun in 1882 and is scheduled to be finished in 2026. I was not sure what to think of this church at first. The plaques called it a temple and said it was dedicated to Saint Joseph. The price of admission was quick steep and it felt like such a huge tourist attraction that it was hard for me to feel that it was a church. The outside is mostly finished and we ended up spending much time outside looking at the facades. There are three facades, the Nativity, the Passion, and the Glory. The Glory has yet to be completed. The Nativity is facade is huge and covers almost every aspect of the story. The shepherds, the wise men, Mary and Joseph, the birth of John the Baptist, the dedication of Jesus at the temple, even Herod's execution of the newborn boys.
The Passion is also quite amazing, with the figures looking gaunt and tormented. The main doors under this scene are towering and etched into them is the entire account of the Passion. The names of God are each highlighted with gold and stand out prominently.
Underneath the church is a museum explaining more about Gaudi, his work and the church. Gaudi was a visionary, ahead of his time. His work brings to mind the verses, "If they keep silent, even the rocks will cry out" and "the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." I do not know what Gaudi's relationship with God was, but every detail of the church pointed to how amazing God is. One part of the museum in particular showed this. It showed how Gaudi got his inspiration for so many of his designs from nature. The columns in the church were modeled after a tree next to his studio. The staircases, modeled after spiral shells. Even small details like door handles were modeled after pieces of wood or shell. This building seems to shout to the glory of God and His amazing creation.

Goodbye 2007 - Hello 2008!
On New Years Eve Day, we went to visit one of the private residences that Gaudi designed. We were able to go inside and see one of the apartments in the house. The house is built in three circles, think a figure eight kind of design with 3 instead of 2 circles. Not very practical to live in perhaps, but a cool design. The roof was the most amazing part, with many different levels and huge towers. You could see out over the whole city and had a good view of the Sagrada Familia church.
We left to find dinner around nine and decided to stick close to our hostel, thinking it would be easier to find a restaurant not so close to the touristy area of town. Not so much. All the restaurants we went to had special menus for the night, with one or two choices, and a hefty price tag (65 Euros a person was the cheapest we found). So we ended up going out for Chinese. Very tasty, loads of food and a great price tag.
After dinner, we took the metro down to the main square, with most of the rest of Barcelona. It was packed. And the police were patting down everyone who wanted to get in, checking for glass bottles. Barcelona doesn't have a special program for New Years, but in years past, it became famous for the amount of bottles broken on the main square and La Rambla. The police were handing out plastic cups for people to pour their alcohol into. It definitely cut down on the glass, but did not eliminate it completely. It was kind of an anticlimactic feeling as there were no fireworks, countdown or dropping ball. After the stroke of midnight, we wandered down La Rambla with the crowd, just soaking up the interesting people, sights and sounds.

Park Guell
This park was designed by Gaudi and was built in one of the more affluent neighborhoods in Barcelona. It was enjoyable just to wander around, soaking up the sunlight and being outside without being all bundled up. We wandered up to one of the highest points of the park and I found a place to sit that looked out to the ocean. Again, I sat and just stared out at the water. It made me a little homesick, but it also did my soul a world of good to just sit and stare at that vast expanse of water. We went back to the Gothic part of the city to do some souvenir shopping, have dinner and taste some Spanish ice cream. The next morning, it was up nice and early to make it to the airport for our flight home.

Barcelona

Christmas 2007

Christmas comes early in Slovakia. Since there is no Thanksgiving (Yes, it is an American holiday) and Halloween is much, much simpler than in America, Christmas decorations started showing up in October. However, for us, it was hard for us to get in the Christmas mood until after Thanksgiving. I had to work on Thanksgiving, but was able to share the Thanksgiving story with the whole elementary/middle school. And an American missionary family invited us (orphans and homeless) to have a real Thanksgiving with them. It was a blessing, turkey with all the trimmings, Brazilian flan and even a "What are you thankful for" game.

Well, with Thanksgiving behind us, we got into the swing of things. At the beginning of the first week of December however, I got sick. It seemed like just a cold, and as usual, I kept going to work. Eventually, though, I had to take a few days off and even went to the doctor. It took me until a few days after Christmas, and trips to 3 different countries, to get better. The third weekend in December, my roommates and I, along with another American teacher from our school, Katie, went to Germany to go to the Christmas markets. We met up with the German teacher from our school who was teaching in Germany for a few months. We went to Nurnberg for the day, which is where Karin was born. The Christmas markets were amazing! The decorations around the towns were huge and amazing. At the markets, we enjoyed mulled wine, sausages, and sweets. We enjoyed the food and the atmosphere immensely. And the best part of the trip, we rented a car, and I got to drive. On the autobahn! Wow! If you haven't had a chance to drive on the autobahn, give it a try sometime.

The following weekend, Karin and I went to Budapest, to visit our favorite Christmas markets. We took the train with one of Karin's students, Lily, who is Hungarian. We met up with an ESI couple, had dinner and enjoyed an evening of Grey's Anatomy. We spent the next day at the markets, shopping and browsing.

Monday was Christmas Eve and a friend, Steph, from Prague joined us for Karin's famous Texas chili. On Christmas, we opened presents and ate a lazy breakfast. One of my 4th grade students, Jakub, told his mom that I would be staying in Slovakia, and so she invited me over for Christmas day. I went over to their house and enjoyed a wonderful three course meal with their family. They made a traditional soup, pirogies, fried chicken, potatoes salad and carrot salad. Afterwards, Jakub, his dad and I played a game called Niagara. Jakub's grandma was also there, and was so excited that his American teacher would come over for dinner. She talked and talked and talked to me, all in Slovak, and her daughter was kind enough to translate everything. She told me about all of her favorite American movies, none of which I knew. They wanted me to stay all day, and I had a hard time leaving. It was so wonderful to be with a family. When I got home, I was able to talk with my family for a little while, which was wonderful. I love Skype!

Christmas 2007

The day after Christmas, Karin, Steph, Joe and I went to Spain... but that is a whole other post.

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