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!