Where in the world?

Not too many people back home know where I went for my Winter Ski Break. Egypt was too dangerous, Liechtenstein too expensive. So, in honor of Carmen Sandiego, where in the world is Kaitlin?

- I had a fancy bath today.
- I ate beets. I don't think this counts as a clue.
- I have been drinking apple tea for breakfast.
- On Tuesday, I visited a beautiful Mosque and a building that was first a Christian church, then a Mosque, then a museum.
- On Wednesday, I saw a palace and paid extra to see the Harem.
- I'm overwhelmed by the Grand-ness of the Bazar.
- I went to Asia for a few hours yesterday.

Any ideas? Need more clues?

It made for an interesting Monday.

I watched the Super Bowl this year. This isn't especially spectacular. I have always watched it, and my team was playing against my roommate's team. It is worth writing about here, however, once you start to think about time zones. Kick-off was at 6:30 EST, and I live 6 hours ahead of EST. The game started at 12:30 am, went to about 4:15 am, and I watched the whole thing!

During playoffs, one of the guys at church mentioned that he was planning to host a Super Bowl party. My first thought was, "oh, fun!" My second thought was, "Wait a second... what time is that?" He explained that after church that day, you go home and go right to bed. Around dinner time, we were to come over and hang out, then watch the game, take a nap and head to work.
And so we did. We ordered pizza, played video games, made posters to support our respective teams, and watched the Packers beat the Steelers. :( Well, some of us saw it; others watched with their eyes closed!
The Super Bowl on Italian television has a few, ah, alterations. First of all, it's on ESPN America. It's the same station as baseball games, college basketball, and pretty much anything else sports-related that the rest of the world doesn't care about. Because it's not CBS, or whoever showed it this year, the commercials aren't shown. It's very sad. Instead, you get fun trivia facts about football and Super Bowls past.

Also, they explain a lot more of what's going on: "In American football, instead of an extra point, teams may try to carry the football into the end zone again, resulting in two extra points instead of just one." Because I have watched the sport all my life, and occasionally cared enough to try to figure it out, these were mostly amusing, rather than informative. I suppose they could be helpful for you average Italian insomniac who stumbled across this strange sport in the middle of the night, however!

Happy Birthday

to my parents, who both turn 50 this week! I wish I could be there to help you celebrate (and eat mayonnaise cake), but I'll see you in a week!

Scouting Mission

Wednesday was a school holiday for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. As we are not Catholic, many of us decided to forgo the feast and travel instead. One group wanted to go to an authentic Austrian Christmas market, and as none of us have strong Austrian geography skills, managed to pick pretty much the furthest away, in Salzburg. Tuesday morning, they mentioned that there was one more spot in the car; would I like to come?

During my planning period I made a hostel reservation, then rushed down the hill after school to pack. We set off by six and made it just out of town when we realized we may have a problem. Several of us had written down how to get to the hostel from the highway, but getting to the city from Italy was more of an immediate concern, and much less sure. Some hazy memories of viewing the google map the day before and plenty of sign reading later, and we actually got there!

Tuesday night and Wednesday were spent wandering the city, looking at sights from The Sound of Music, enjoying Gluhwein and roasted nuts at the Christmas Market, and visiting a brewery.

Not bad for a random Wednesday... living in Europe has some advantages.

Quite a Day

Vomit and Lice, all in one day. All in about an hour, actually. Fortunately, neither were directly on me, though both my classroom and apartment currently smell strongly of cleaning chemicals. Huge thank you's to the science teacher, art teacher, learning specialist, and school cleaning ladies for making that happen!

I suppose that's life in an elementary school. Now, off to celebrate the music teacher's birthday!

Thanksgiving

First, last weekend's second adventure was Ikea! It was raining, so we passed on the chance to go back to Slovenia. Ikea is quite the place- a sort of Disneyland of home goods. There's people and stuff everywhere; there's even a map of the store. We finally got a mirror for our apartment, as well as lamps for our bedrooms and throw pillows for our bright yellow couch. We chose green and black pillows, so we now have a Packers half and a Steelers half of the couch.

This week was crazy busy, with a chocolate themed birthday party on Tuesday, conference night on Wednesday, a field trip on Thursday, and then a crazy day Friday with Thanksgiving dinner to cap off the week.

Friday was scheduled to be an in-service day, which means the kids leave at noon and we have professional development all afternoon. For the morning, we finished a movie we had started after the field trip the day before, then I talked about Thanksgiving as a World Cultures lesson, then we ate lunch and sent them on their way, through the SNOW! Between the two groups for the Thanksgiving lesson, it had started to snow a bit, mostly just flurries, but we closed the curtains to keep the distractions to a minimum. Our curtains don't close all the way, though, and from where I was standing near the computer, I had a perfect view through a gap to watch the flakes getting bigger and bigger, and the beginnings of accumulation. By the time we sat down to lunch in our spot next to a wall of windows, the full-on snow storm meant that the third grade ate very slowly as they all turned around to stare out of the window. I couldn't really blame them, and after they left, I wandered around looking for someone to go play outside with me. My southern CA friend was up for it, and we slid around in our not-appropriate-for-snow shoes for a few moments before heading back inside for professional development.

Four hours later, and we we off to very carefully walk to the first grade teacher's house for Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey had been cooking all day and everyone brought their favorite parts of the meal. We learned that Italian homes are allotted a certain amount of electricity at a time, and when you go over it, your power goes off. To turn it back on, you just have to hit the circuit breaker. Simple, when your circuit box is on the inside of your tall, electric-operated gate. That is not the case at this house. At this house, M runs and vaults over the gate to get to the box. The first time the power went out, we were confused. The second to fifth times, we were amused. The last two times, we were just tired of it!

We had so much food- turkey, potatoes with nuts (without the nuts), green bean casserole (without the topping), home-made stuffing, gravy (made by the science club leaders!), cornbread, macaroni and cheese, other mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, eggplant, Indian chicken, stuffed squash, Spanish omelette, apple pie, apple cobbler, pumpkin pie, cake, and that't not even touching on the appetizers! We finally got all of the food warm at once (Congrats, Mel!) and ate around the fire and recorded football game. I inhaled my food, but I think it was all delicious. We sat around and talked and drank wine for several hours, then had a dance party in the basement before finally heading home around 3 am. Quite a Thanksgiving, I must say.

When do you go to another country to see a movie?

When it's the first half of the last Harry Potter, of course, and it's showing in English. After downloading some of the earlier movies to re-watch during the week, we set off this morning for Koper (Capodistria) in Slovenia. We had chosen not to go with the group that went on Thursday night, because we didn't want to be out that late on a school night. We're so boring. (Yes, my friends saw it before you, if you're in the States, as they were home just before midnight, and we're six hours ahead.)

Anyway, my roommate and I met up with another teacher this morning, rented a car, and drove to the mall in Koper. It's only about a half hour drive, so it's really not that crazy, but it was a fun adventure. The movie was really good, though I won't say anything about it as to not ruin it.

After the movie, we wandered around the mall for a little while looking at art supplies and clothes, then got some food at a decent-for-Europe Mexican restaurant and just generally enjoyed the company.

We still have the car tomorrow (and the pass to get into Slovenia), so we'll see what sort of adventure transpires... I'm sure it will be something!

P.S. Post about my trips to Florence and Strasbourg will probably get written at some point...