Our first holiday weekend!

I have tried to convince Greg to take over as a guest writer, but thus far he has declined.  He's pretty swamped with curriculum work and lesson planning, but I'll keep working on him, since there has been some demand for his perspective.  

Let's begin this blog with a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Suzanne, who celebrates her fun day in NY.  We can't wait to hear all about their trip!  Derek, one of the other international teachers, celebrates his birthday this week also, so we will be partaking in some birthday treats.  Birthdays are the best!

In school news, we began classes this week, and I have now met all of my students.  So far, they seem really smart and lots of fun.  I'm working on learning their names, which always takes me a few weeks!  I continue to be amazed by how "normal" I feel when teaching and hanging out on campus, as opposed to those moments when I realize that I have upended my entire life and moved my family to Bulgaria!  Kids really are kids no matter where we are.

School is pretty different from home though.  Teaching on a campus instead of in a building is great!  I love walking outside from the English building to the tech or admin buildings.  I love that we have a garden/parklike area, and that there is a quad to hang out in.  There is a freedom to working like this that is radically different and much nicer than feeling like punching a clock, and I think most staff members are happy enough here that everyone stays late by choice anyway.  Kids have a ton of freedom too.  We have block schedules (I will never escape the rotating block, so it's a good thing I love teaching in that style) where classes are 90 minues each (except on Mondays when they are shortened to 70 minutes each for school wide testing period.)  We get a 5 minute break in the middle of class and 10 minutes passing between classes.  It's great because kids never ask to go to the bathroom or get a drink.  Perhaps the biggest change is that when students don't have a scheduled class, they just have free time.  They are not required to report to anyone or be anywhere in particular.  Many hang at Onda, the coffee shop, in the lobby of my building, outside if it's nice, or the cafeteria.  I haven't seen any behavioral issues or vandalism and it's nice to see that they appreciate the trust and respect they have been given.  And finally, the last and most super-cool part of teaching at ACS, is that Arissa is welcome to come to school!  She spends most days in my classroom, although sometimes she visits Greg.  On preps we go play and walk outside, and during breaks between classes she gets tons of visitors.  Most kids love her (which is sometimes overwhelming for her, but she's adjusting.)  We like to stay late at school, and our departures will get later as extracurriculars get going in full swing, so it's nice that we don't have to rush home to walk her or feel guilty for leaving her alone all day.  We also feel better about going out at night since she has such fun days and we have spent numerous nights this past week just exploring downtown.

Last Thursday, we went to the park to the Italian Cultural Festival.  We had authentic pizza, wine, and of course, dessert!  There was a hilarious performance of pizza dough tossing that we captured on video.  I love that we can find these experiences here!  That same night, many of our colleagues attended the Snoop Dogg concert in Sofia - yes, that's right, Snoop came to town.  They said it was a blast.

This weekend is a holiday weekend for us, our only one until Thanksgiving.  Today is Bulgarian Independence Day.  (Don't be too jealous, we have Open House on Saturday, so we're still working 5 days this week.)  You should, however, be jealous that we got to take such an awesome trip this weekend.  We, along with 7 other international teachers, went to Serbia.  We had our first overnight train experience, leaving Friday night and arriving in Belgrade on Saturday morning.  We spent the day exploring the Old Town, the pedestrian shopping district, the Kalemegdan Citadel and park, and some interesting churches and statues.  

We stayed at the Hotel Moskva, a historic hotel located right in the center of the city.  I love the communist buildings!  

It was pretty cold and wet, so we stopped into a Rakia Bar for coffees during the day.  Saturday night we ate at a cool Serbian restaurant called ?.  Apparently, there was some controversy about 100 years ago when the church felt the name of the restaurant was blasphemous, and the owner, not understanding the issue, renamed the place, "?".  The name stuck and the place was great!  We sat at these crazy low tables that felt a bit like being in elementary school and tried some local delicacies like Ajvar, sort of similar to babaganoush, but made with red pepper base instead of eggplants.  There were more adventurous items on the menu, as you can see in the photo, but none of us ordered them.  

Later that evening we went to what we were told is the hottest club in Belgrade, called Anderground, which is literally underground beneath the citadel.  There was a Madonna karoke night going on, which was pretty hilarious.

Sunday we went to the zoo, where Greg befriended the elephant!  For a small zoo inside a city, this one was really impressive, and only cost about $6 to enter.  The animals, except those fiesty wild cats, had a ton of freedom and were able to interact with people.  We saw some wolves, one, as you can see in the video who was clearly making his own exercise or trying to visit his next door neighbor, we aren't sure which!  

We did a little souvenir shopping, my favorite purchase is the Yugoslavian money I got.  It seems, in the 90s, there was severe hyperinflation, the worst of any country in Europe.  To "help," the government issued notes as high as 500,000,000,000 dinars, making everyone an instant billionare!  Obviously, with the political strife and fall of Yugoslavia, the money is now worthless.  We read in the guidebook that it was worth more as wallpaper than money even when it was being printed.  The woman who sold it to me (I plan to use it to decorate my Christmas tree), congratulated me on becoming a "rich woman."  She was very cute and even posed with us for a photo.  

In other Serbian fun, we found a Lush, because they are truly worldwide except for Sofia!  They had 17 Cherry Tree Lane soap and gave me free samples of face masks.  Always a fun day when we find a Lush!  We stumbled upon some sort of bake sale where sweet little old ladies who spoke no English sold us slices of wedding cake for less than $2.00/piece.  There was the usual abuse of statues (though we refrained from abusing the HUGE images in front of the parliament, which you will understand based on the pictures), and we saw a really cool photography exhibit.  

We had coffee and a pre-dinner dessert at the cafe Rusky Tsar, walked down Skardarska, a bohemian, Montmarte-esque street, and ate dinner at Que Pasa, a bar/restaurant with great music!  (It inspired talk of an 80s theme party at pink house, one of the campus houses...costumes required!)

After another overnight train back, we arrived in Sofia around 8AM this morning.  We spent some time cleaning up and then hung out downtown a bit, buying some produce and other goodies from the street vendors.  I'm already planning my tour itinerary for when you guys all come to visit us.  The street vendors, yellow brick road, Onda, and park are on the list, as well as several other fun stops.  We still have some downtown exploring, as well as some out of town exploring, like heading up Vitosha Mountain so we know how to show you guys all that too.  Just one more note before I go study student names and prep for tomorrow - as I was typing this entry, we heard fireworks for Independence Day.  We could see the whole show right from our balcony!  I love when those moments sneak up on us!