Guess where I am???

I'm in London, baby!!

Guess what?

I like getting emails!!

(Hint hint)

Freakish Fall

As previously mentioned, we have been having some beautiful fall weather, but these past few days have been almost eerily warm. I spent an hour this afternoon reading in the sun in shorts and a t-shirt! In late October! I also took the chance to take a nice long walk in the forest, as we are changing the clocks tonight and it's going to start getting dark at 5:30 or 6. (or should I write 17:30 or 18:00?).

On Thursday I experienced my second early Halloween celebration, as the first graders had their Halloween parties that day. It was really fun to see the kids all dressed up, and our over-achieving room mothers did an excellent job planning the parties! They played games, did crafts, ate properly-themed candy... it was great! One little girl, Bailey, was dressed like Pippi Longstocking! What a blast from the past!! I have posted a few pictures from that day, and I have also posted pictures from Monday's UN Day celebrations. I figured it was about time I posted some pictures of these kids!

New pictures! Click here

Fake Halloween (and other news of late)

First up: Fake Halloween!
On Saturday, we had a Halloween party at our house! Apparently it is tradition for the interns to host the yearly bash, and we complied. (There was some pretty intense pressure to measure up to the fabulous party from last year that we've heard so much about). We spend a lot of time on Saturday preparing the house and ourselves for the event. We made our entryway spooky, with red lights, black stairwells, and spooky noises coming from the creepy cellar. We had candles flickering everywhere in the house, and lots of orange lights... it was a great atmosphere. Me, Katie, Cassie, and Jen dressed up as the Greek Goddesses Athena, Persephone, Aphrodite, and Hera. It took me at least a half hour of messing with my white sheet to turn out a satisfactory toga-type goddess dress. We even got to use gold spray paint for our accessories! We had great food and drinks, including delicious bruschetta and some sangria we cleverly labled "sangre," which is Latin for blood. Basically, we threw a good party! People showed up in some great costumes -a witch, Madonna, Roller-Derby members.... the only downer was that not too many people came... but it was still fun!

Next up: School

Last week, we had parent-teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday. I spent most of Thursday watching kids whose parents were in conferences. It was kind of fun, I got to color and watch 'The Lion King,' but I was ready to get out of that basement when the day was over! On Friday, I sat in on a few conferences and did some printing/cutting/laminating work. I wish I could have sat in on even more... it is just good to hear more about the kids, as there is still so much I don't know. I feel like I know a lot about these kids, but there is a lot a missed in the first few weeks. I love the fact that I get to stay with them all year and get to know them really well. Crazily enough, there are at least 3 families from Minnesota just in the first grade, including one with triplets!
This Monday was UN Day, so we had an assembly and the kids dressed up in their national costumes or colors, and we tried foods from different countries. It was really great to see the kids all decked out... I'll put up some pictures of them, finally!
There is going to be another strike this Friday, but we are going to try and have school anyway... could be crazy, since some kids may end up getting there late, or nor ar all. this also means that we are having our Halloween parties tomorrow, just in case. Luckily, we are waiting until the end of the day, so we won't have to deal with sugar-filled 6-year-olds for the whole day!
Great story of the week: Today, one of our first graders threw someone's lunch card in the toilet! An accident? Um... maybe. But regardless, he had to fish it out of the toilet!
After fall break, I am going to start teaching an English class for half hour every day! It will be a group of first graders who have fluent verbal English but who need help with their reading and writing. I'm really excited... it will be a great experience for me on so many levels, especially since I'll get to do more actual teaching!
I'm discovering the meaning of the word muli-tasking.... 12 first graders needing help at once with writing or math, calling my name, pulling on my arm, shoving books in my face... I love it! I think I say "try to sound it out" 100 times a day (at least!).


Finally: other fun stuff:
Last night, the mentoring team at school hosted a dinner for all the new teachers at ISB, including the interns. It was at a great little place downtown, the school paid, I got to chat with some really fun people... pretty much a good time. When we got home at midnight, however, we were locked out our house! This is usually not a problem, as we can access our back deck and therefore our back door from the roof of our neightbors, who are also ISB teachers. However, it was late and T.Shawn, whose room we have to go through, was asleep. So Katie climbed onto our back garden wall, onto another roof, and walked across to our roof to let us in! Sigh... the things that happen to us around here....

Every day I learn more about Belgium, including the quirky little things like the fact that they hardly ever use ice (I don't think it's sold in bags at all), beer is cheaper than water in restaurants (no free water here!!), garbage has to get put out in official garbage bags, etc. I'm also shifting my vocabulary a bit and learning some new words... I say "quite" quite a lot more... a kid having a fit is having a "wobbly," the bathroom is usually referred to as the "toilet"....

Up next: Fall Break is next week! I am heading to London on Monday for a few days, which should be really fun, and am also hoping to see some of the sights in Brussels that I haven't quite made it to yet.

I think that's it for now... I promise new pictures soon!

Fabulous Fall

The weather here in Belgium has been absolutely fabulous lately! It's been sunny and warm, and the leaves are changing (though not to the extent that they do at home) - basically, my favorite kind of weather! I've been taking full advantage of it, especially by going walking and running in the forest near our house. (It is absolutely huge and quite beautiful!)

This past week at school was a good one! I worked out a schedule for my afternoons, so I feel much more useful during that time. The kids have been busy writing and drawing about their zoo trip last week. Also, this Wednesday we went to visit the Chateau, the administration building. It was origainally built as a house for Baron von Bischeffsheim, an advisor to King Leopold, the first king of Belgium. So they all traipsed around and looked at the way the building is used now and how it used to be used, and went up the curly servants' "secret" staircase to the top level, and talked to the people who work there. It was pretty fun, and actually really interesting for me, too! It's a great building, with wood floors and tall ceilings. This coming week, we have parent-teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday, so the kids get a 3-day week.

I have decided not to lease the horse. I learned my lesson about spouting off about something before I know it for sure.... I never should have considered leasing him before I tried him out! He is a great horse, but my level of riding is nowhere near as good as it needs to be for me to ride him effectively. I have ridden no dressage before, and it's different in a lot of ways from what I used to do. I would need more experience before I would be able to ride him well. I'm sure I'll keep riding, becuase it's fun, but i won't be leasing Action.

On Thursday night, my friend and housemate from Luther, Lindy, came into town to visit me. Saturday, we took a day trip to Bruges! It is only an hour train ride from Brussels, and it is a great city! It's called 'the Venice of the north' and it has a lot of picturesque canals and cobblestone streets. We were there for about four hours, and we just wandered around looking at the sights. We found a square off the main drag to relax and eat lunch. There's a tall belfry tower, a few squares, bridges and canals, churches.... we decided not to go into any museums or pay any money, and just soak up the atmosphere of the town. It was busy there, with lots of people walking and shopping. There are also a lot of lace stores selling handmade lace that looks as if it would take forever to make. It was a beautiful fall day, perfect to explore a new city. I will post some pictures soon....

I have decided that I will not be going home for Christmas. I know that I will miss being at home with my friends and family, but I also know that it is only for one year, and I am planning on using the time to experience new things. Cassidy and I have booked a (very cheap!) flight to Barcelona, Spain for the week before Christmas! I am very excited to go to Spain, and have heard that Barcelona is a fabulous city. It's very weird to think about not going home... but I feel as if I just got here, and ít's too soon to think about going home.

Well, I think that's about it! Pictures coming soon!

Story time!

Last week I discovered that my mattress is effectively ruined - it has a giant waterspot in it that is still wet and that goes all the way through it.... the only thing I can think of is that it got dripped on this summer from the window in my ceiling...obviously, i didn't really want to sleep on top of a giant rust spot (especially since I suspect it gave me a rash!) so I have been sleeping on the couch for the past week. This has not been too bad, as our couch is really quite comfortable, but I have missed sleeping in my room! This weekend, I found out that a teacher at ISB had a bed to give away! So today my roomies and I got the mattress down to the alley in hopes that the garbage men would take it away. We got it down two floors, and then considered the narrowness of the remaining two flights of stairs, as well as the window that overlooks the alley. We decided it would save both time and energy to simply drop the mattress out the window, which we did with only a little trouble and a lot of laughing. It was much easier than trying to maneuver our death-trap of a stairwell. When the garbage collectors came a few hours later, we spied out the window to see if they would take the mattress.
They didn't.
So now we have a dirty, water-stained mattress in our alley that we are desperately hoping will disappear in the night....
I also have a new mattress! Jake, a fellow ISB teacher, past intern and Luther grad, took me in the ghetto ISB van to get it. this being brussels, there were lots more stairs involved! And of course, the woman needed to get rid of the bed frame and the mattress... so now I have an empty bed frame sitting in our freaky cellar (yes, we have a freaky cellar... there's a door in our entryway that leads to a 3-foot drop, a few steps, and a darkly creepy place. We like to pretend it's not there!).
So tonight I get to sleep again on my bed under my fabulous window, through which I can see the star-studded night sky....

Update time!!

Last Wednesday, the first graders went to the Antwerp Zoo! It was a fun but crazy trip, as the zoo is really quite big and we tried to see everything. The kids had fun seeing the animals and had clipboards to sketch some of them. Some of the living conditions were sad, like the big cat cages, but for the most part the zoo seemed really nice. We saw a seal show in French, too!

Thursday, I went back to the barn to try out Action the Hanoverian. He is absolutely huge! It's a little intimidating, but he's a very well-behaved horse. He's had some problems with his hock, so we just took a nice little walk in the woods. There are miles and miles of trails in this forest, which is the biggest forest in Belgium. (My housemate Katie and I go running in there, too - the trails are fabulous!). I am going back on Tuesday to try him out one more time at more than a walk... pretty exciting!

Thursday afternoon, we recieved word that there was an impending transportation strike in Brussels, and school was going to be CLOSED on Friday! All the teachers were quite excited about the unexpected 3-day weekend! The only downside was that our flight to Dublin that we were supposed to take on Friday evening was cancelled, so we were not able to go to Ireland. However, we made the most of our extra-long weekend! Friday was Tori's birthday (Tori is student-teaching here at ISB), so we celebrated extra hard to make up for not being in Dublin. Saturday night, we were able to attend the Boitsfort progressive dinner with teachers from ISB. A lot of the teachers live in our neighborhood, so a progressive dinner was organized. It was a good time, and a lot of good food - appetizers, sushi, chicken wings and potatoes, and pasta. It was good to chat with teachers from other parts of the school that I don't get to see much.

Today we visited the market and took a nice long jaunt in the forest. There were a lot of people out and about, enjoying the Sunday afternoon. Today our neighbors are celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving, and they borrowed our oven to make the turkey, which resulted in our house smelling absolutely fabulous for a few hours!!

That's really all there is to report. I'll throw a few more pictures up as well!

I have exciting news!!!
Last Thursday, I went for a riding lesson at a nearby stable. It was great to get back in the saddle again, and it all came back to me pretty quickly (so did the sore muscles!). Audrey, my instructor, then proceeded to offer me a half-lease (or half-pension, as they say here) on a 10-year-old bay Hanoverian dressage horse! He’s a gorgeous horse, and also very very tall!! (Probably 18 hands… his back is definitely over my head!) I am going back this Thursday for a test ride, and if I like him, I am going to do it! I will get to ride three times a week, as well as take a lesson on him each week with Audrey. They have a small dressage ring and access to forest trails I can ride him on, at least while it stays light in the evenings! I am really excited about this, because I have missed riding horses, and also because it will give me something to do with myself while I am here! Apparently my level of skill after a 3-4 year break is still fairly good. The horse needs the exercise, and I need to improve my riding, so it’s win-win-win situation!

This weekend, Cassidy and I went to Antwerp to visit Ashlee. We spend Saturday in downtown Antwerp. We walked around the streets, did some shopping, saw the river and the town square and a cool church, saw a movie, had dinner…. It was a nice relaxing day! The legend of Antwerp is that there was a giant who charged the people huge taxes to use the river. If he caught someone cheating him, he cut of their hand. Then a guy named Brabo killed the giant, and cut off his hand and threw it in the river. That’s how Antwerp got its name – it means something like “hand that was thrown.” There are lots of hand symbols in Antwerp because of this. There is a square in Antwerp with the ‘Town Hall’ building that includes some of the oldest buildings in Antwerp, as well as the statue showing Brabo, the giant and the hand. When we were there, there was some sort of weird show going on… but of course it was all in Flemish, so we couldn’t understand it! (In the northern half of Belgium, the official language is Flemish, which is a form of Dutch. In the southern half, it’s French. In Brussels, it’s both, so all the signs have to be in both languages!).
Parade of the day: A marching band of little kids in green and white uniforms!!
It’s always really interesting here to see the mix of old and new. There will be a really old building right next door to a modern one… there was a lot of this in Antwerp….

School: Thursday and Friday, the teachers had meetings all day long, so ALL the classes had subs! I was in a class with Tori, a student teacher from Luther. Because she has been here, I haven’t spent much time with that 1st grade class, so it was really good for me to spend some time in there. I think I know all of the 1st graders’ names now!!! Friday was a half day, but kids could sign up for “Fit Friday,” which involves staying at school and playing soccer or other sports. We interns helped out with that, and I was one of the lucky ones who was with 1st and 2nd graders. We played soccer, Duck-Duck-Goose, and then went inside and watched Finding Nemo. This Wednesday we are going to the Antwerp Zoo! Someday soon I will get some pictures of the kids up so everyone can see them! Funny story: on Thursday, I had recess duty and this kindergarten boy was following me around the playground! I asked if I could help him with something. He said no. I asked if he was going to follow me around, and he said yes! And he did, for awhile, then all of a sudden he disappeared!! It was pretty funny.

Randomness: On a jog, in a park, I saw two guys practicing their fencing skills!
On the train, I saw the conductor/ticket-taker fighting with a guy! They were fighting in the train, then suddenly they were on the ground outside! It was crazy! (Yeah, the train guys even wear the uniforms and little round hats!!)
Well, that’s all for now… pictures from Antwerp are up!

-Erin