Budapest, Hungary

What a fantastic weekend I had (we had (Kate and I)). About 2 weeks ago, our school announced we wouldn't have school on Friday, June 5 because of elections - we had already booked our flight for the crack of dawn on Saturday morning (5:35 am to be exact) so we took this opportunity to go to the beach with Miah, Dwain and Miah's sister Johanna. It was great as hardly anyone was there!

Saturday morning Kate and I got up at 3 am and were out the door by 3:30 and on the bus by 3:45 am! The flight to Budapest (pronounced Budapesh) was 2 hours but they are an hour behind Athens, so we arrived 6:30 am their time! We hopped on the shuttle which dropped us off at our hotel called Hotel Museum Central - which is in a fantastic location. Right across from the National Museum and about a 5 minute walk to Grand Market Hall and the Danube River. So that is what we did after we dropped off our luggage. Grand Market Hall was packed full of fruit and vegetable "farmers garden" products, plus strudel shops, salami, paprika, cheeses, chicken and other goodies. On the second floor was a tourists haven of Budapest souvenirs - we did a little damage here!!!!

I have found that the best way to see a city is on one of those hop on and off tour buses - so we found one! But we only hopped on and didn't get off - we took the entire 2.5 hour tour around Buda and Pest. Our "bus" had no roof which made it quite hot when the sun was shining and quite wet when it rained on us - twice! Luckily we had our umbrellas and they provided ponchos! You wear a headset and listen to all the historical facts and figures of the buildings as we pasted them.

After we finished that it was only 2pm! We happened upon a Hungarian Festival - got some food, listened and watched Hungarian dancers and then headed back to the hotel for a well-deserved nap!

After the nap, showered and dressed we headed for the river for our free boat tour which was included in our bus tour. So we rode the boat up and down the Danube River seeing the sites at night! By 10pm we got off the boat and walked to a popular "Hungarian" restaurant called Fatal where the portions are large and served on wooden platters. Let's just say the roast beef that I got for myself was so large that the people next to us had to take a picture of it because they also had ordered it yet split it between 4 people! It was yummy though I hardly put a dent into it.

Sunday, we tested out the metro - which was old but not too bad. Took it two stops to St. Stephen's Basilica - grand old Catholic church. It was extremely hot, bright blue sky so we thought we should grab a coffee before crossing the river and going up the hill to the Buda Palace. As we got walking though, it became cloudier and cloudier and of course I didn't bring my umbrella this day because the sky was blue when I left the hotel! Needless to say, I had to buy a poncho because it actually didn't stop raining until about 9pm!

Trending forward we took the tram up the hill and walked along the outside of this huge palace. Then walked around "old town" - saw the outside of Matthias Church and walked through Fisherman Bastion then back down the hill, across the river to our hotel. Since we had "worked" so hard we decided it was time for the thermal baths! We grabbed our bathing suits walked across the Danube River again and went to Gillert's Bath House. We relaxed in the 38 degrees Celcius bath water in the "women's" bath house and then went to the co-ed swimming pool with cathedral ceilings. This was relaxing! Went to Italian restaurant for dinner Sunday night.

Monday morning we were very productive! We awoke, walked across the Danube River again back to Gillert's for some spa treatment. Kate had a pedicure and I splurged with a mud treatment and a body massage. The mud treatment consisted of this large Hungarian man scooping and slabbing this dark gray warm mud on my major joints. He began with putting the mud down my spine, then I laid down and he put it on my shoulders, under and over my knees and elbows and on my stomach. Then wrapped me in a sheet and left me there for 20 minutes - I was wondering if he was going to come back! Then he spread the mud over more parts of my body, then I showered and headed into the next room for a full body massage. Life is good!

Then I stopped by the Grand Market Hall for a few more souvenirs and spend my Forint (currency) and grabbed another strudel!

What a great weekend!

Fun with Friends Weekend

This weekend was one of those weekends you don't have much to do but when you look back upon it, it turned out to be a great weekend!

Friday night Kate, John, Flynn and I went downtown to Gazi - a happening neighborhood - to go to the Jazz Festival. It was nice and free and outdoors. We ran into some colleagues from work and we chatted while listening to jazz music. After we went out to a restaurant to hang out, eat and drink. When my head finally hit the pillow it was 4 am!

Saturday, Christina picked me up at 10.30 to drive me to the cake lady's house to pick up the cake for the Confer's baby shower on Sunday. We dropped off the cake and Kate and Lindsey's - picked them up and went baby shopping for a gift. Lindsey, Kate and I took the bus back to Halandri where we ate crepes and went to the bookstore - I was very excited to find a Real Simple magazine - it's really the little things!

By the time I took the bus back to my neighborhood, walked up the hill, went to the grocery store it was close to 6.30 - so I just stayed in on Saturday night.

Sunday, I picked up these sandwiches called Bombes from the bakery (the only thing open on Sundays) It's about 10 or more layers of brown bread salmon,cuke and cream cheese sandwiches - on round bread with very little crusts. Got to Lindsey and Kate's around 10.30 and the shower began at 11.00.

It was a great shower - the whole gang was there including some of the teachers we don't hang out with who came over to ACS with all of us. Good conversations, a lot of laughter, great food, generous gifts - a good time by all!

This afternoon, I took my daily nap on the patio - did some cleaning and looked at financial matters - why is it whenever I am planning to leave for a trip (Budapest next weekend) this is when all my bills arrive - plus giving my landlady rent tomorrow! Oh vey!

My Summer Plans

So many people have been asking what I am doing this summer - as you will see I am quite busy!
June 19- Last day of school for students
June 24 - Last day of school for teachers
June 23-30 Mom is here - I am looking into going to the island of Naxos for a few days.
July 6-14 - my friend Stefanie from OK is coming (I met her in Costa Rica volunteering with Global Volunteers) We are planning to go to Delphi and the island of Mykonsos
July 18-24 - my high school friend Adele, her husband John and their 3.5 year old daughter are coming - they are actually staying around Greece from July 24-31 but doing a cruise for the last week.
August 1-12 - I will be in Tanzania! Checking off the top thing on my to-do list - going on an African safari - this trip is a safari and volunteering in a Masaai Tribe - I will also be doing a hot air balloon ride over the Serengti - see link http://www.travelmoodadventures.com/ITVKSFi_Safari+and+Maasai+Experience.html

August 16-30 - Suzanne Bachner from Stone Ridge (yet lives in NY now)is coming to visit - We will do an island or two or go to Provence, France. A generous family from Stone Ridge has offered me to use their house in France. I never taught either daughter but Suzanne has - so perfect!
Sept 1-2 - SuAnne Yanowitz - a friend from Make-A-Wish will be in Athens before their cruise so will get together with her and her husband.

So that is what I know so far! Mama Mia!!!!!
Start planning now when YOU are coming to visit!

Happy Memorial Day!

Well it felt like Memorial Day weekend this past weekend, minus the day off today!!!! However, I had a good weekend. Saturday I went downtown with Kate - planning on staying for a couple of hours but that led to 6 hours - mostly shopping and have lunch at our favorite Irish Pub James Joyce!

Sunday - went to the beach! Sound familiar? The regular gang - Dwain, Miah, Kate, Lindsey and I loaded up in the Freedomobile and headed to the beach. It was hot and crowded (see photo). Fortunately my sunscreen is working too well - I don't even have tan lines!

Today, Dwain, Miah and I went to the huge grocery store Carrefour (i have an express one down the street but nothing like this one) It was like a Walmart! I was very excited. i don't know what I was thinking of purchasing only one fan though! I will definitely be back!

This is the sunset on my patio this weekend - it changed quite quickly as I ran back inside to retrieve my camera - I know it's a little out of focus too

Movies under the stars, Burning under the sun

I have found a new favorite spot - besides the crepe place on the platia - there is now the outside movie theater at the end of my street. It is great - it has chairs and small tables -to put your food or drinks on - and you sit outside and watch your movie! I think I will be watching a lot of movies here - Friday I watched Angels and Demons - all movies are in English with Greek subtitles - however if the characters speak another language, such as French or Italian, as in this movie - the subtitles are still in Greek!

Saturday morning - I finished assembling the notecards I made. I have always wanted to make notecards from my photos but never had a venue to sell them. Saturday was our school Spring Fair - this fair had everything from raffle tickets to American BBQ to international booths which provided food or drinks or travel brochures; to used book sale to air guitar contests to kids selling homemade things or used toys to class tables selling things or having games to throwing a wet sponge at your favorite teacher! All to raise money for the PTO!!!!! It was a hot day on Saturday.

Lucky for me I volunteered to let kids pay a Euro to try to hit me in the face with a wet sponge. I had to begin my shift early because so many of my students were lined up to attempt. Andreas has a really good arm and aim!!!!! I was quite wet when my 15 minutes was up!

Our 4th grade sold small plants and flowers to raise money for the grade and this is where I sold my cards. The photos on the cards were flowers from Keukenhof Gardens in Holland. I think I made 75 cards and the envelopes and I would say I have about 20 cards left. But I am going to sell them in the faculty room too! I am donating money to the 4th grade in hopes to purchase an LCD projector for my classroom next year.

Saturday night I went over to Dwain and Miah's for game night. Sunday (today) I haven't left my house but did a major cleaning - packing away winter clothes - reorganizing closets for all my guests (next blog entry). And of course marked papers! Only 24 school days left!

Differentiation, Doha, Demonstrations and Delightful Day

I have had a busy weekend! Right after work began the 4th annual conference held at ACS (my school American Community Schools of Athens) focusing on differentiated learning. On Friday evenng I attended 2 seminars - one about gifted children and the other about autistic children.

In photo: me, Lorna, Alex and James

Saturday there were 4 seminars to attend (each 1.5 hours long). The first was about the AD/HD child, then Tools for Literacy - all done from the computer, after lunch I went to Multisensory Approach to Support Learning and finally how to help the gifted and talented student in the

classroom. The speakers were mostly from the US and the whole conference was quite an eye opener for the multitude of things a teacher can do. Of course, with lacking technology and 25 students and no aide the possible seems impossible right now. Maybe next year will be better!

I befriended these three Americans who came to the conference from Doha, Qatar and we headed out for dinner after the conference on Saturday night. They were staying at a hotel in Ominia downtown Athens. We initially started our journey in a taxi but traffic was unbelieveable because the major road to go downtown was blocked off due to protests/demonstrations so we decided to take the metro - along with everyone else in Athens! When we finally arrived at Ominia station we noticed that roads were also blocked off and right where their hotel was were 2 huge blue police buses with bars on their windows, police everywhere wearing gas masks and had their plastic shields. We quickly pivoted and began walking back to the metro. We heard lots of people yelling, a large explosion and saw a lot of smoke. I was shocked on how many people were trying to get a good look at what was going on. I later found out it was a protest from the immigrants in Athens. It does take them forever to obtain legal papers to live here and of course the system is chaotic. So we got back on the metro and ended up practically where we got on the metro to begin with and 2 hours from leaving ACS we were in safe Kolonaki eating dinner outside!

It is always great to meet others from other schools. I certainly learned a lot about living in Doha and I can say I will probably never live there. There are so many more different rules and seems extremely hot! But never say never!

In photo: Dwain, Colin, Kyle, George

Today (Sunday) Dwain and Miah, their friend Kyle, Kate picked me up to head to the beach! It was a beautiful day 80s, slight breeze - it takes us about 40 minutes to get there. About 15 minutes after we arrived so did some of our other friends - Sarah, her husband and the twin one year old boys with Colin and Sue! We laid out, read, swam around - played frisbee in the water.

Left photo: Miah

Right photo: Miah, Kate, Dwain, Kyle

Now I am trying to motivate myself to make dinner and mark papers.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and all my friends who are moms!

Beach and Birthday

Last Friday (May 1) nine of us piled into 2 cars and headed over Pendilis Mountain to a beach. We all had brought picnic stuff and had a great feast on a pretty long beach. The afternoon turned into great weather as we played beachball football and some of us even braved the water!

Yesterday (May 5) I celebrated my birthday with 12 of my friends at El Taco Bueno - in the spirit of every birthday (in the states) we went for Mexican! I certainly had my fill of margarittas and sangrias. It was a fun night!