Austria

Ryan has been working hard to find new places for our talented athletes to compete, and he found a conference called CEESA. This conference is comprised of international schools in Central and Eastern Europe. Last week, he had an athletic director conference in Vienna, Austria, so off he went on Wednesday. He was able to make a lot of connections and hopefully get some new tournaments and games set up. I also decided I wanted to see Austria, so on Friday I headed off to Vienna.  I flew in Friday afternoon, and immediately was in love with the efficiency and cleanliness of the country. There are so many green spaces, and trails to run and bike on. Ryan had meetings all day Friday and Saturday so I was able to explore on my own. I took a bus tour of the city and traveled all around. It was a great experience. While at the conference we met four athletic directors from different countries that all grew up in the Chicago area, including someone from St. Charles, Oak Lawn, Western Springs and the city. We also met some people that knew teachers we work with now. It is really a small world in the international teaching community.

School has still been going really well. The 3rd quarter is finishing Friday. My IB students have begun work on their first major assessment for IB, their historical investigation. They are working hard on researching topics they have chosen from history. My grade 10 students are finishing up the Industrial Revolution, and they are developing some major projects on their own. I have three students who are building a working steam engine. It is fascinating watching them work on this project. I have other students who are interviewing the grade school kids about what they would invent if they could invent something, and then they are going to be interviewing high school students to see how creativity is changed as we get older. There are students researching the global business practices of companies and creating brochures about their practices. It is great working with so many interesting students with different talents and skills. The school does really give me the freedom to give them the freedom to be creative.

]Monday we celebrated St Patrick's Day, with some friends, including Julie, from Ireland. There aren't any Irish spots nearby, so much to Julie's dismay we were at an English establishment. But, they did download Irish music for us, and we taught them how to turn their drinks green. It was a fun evening, almost reminiscent of Chicago river dyeing.

This week is Spirit Week at school. Wednesday was dress like a celebrity or character. There is a teacher in my department that loves a bow tie and a monogrammed shirt for his basketball game days, so I rallied the teachers in my department to dress like him, and then found out his basketball team was doing the same. I don't have any button up shirts, so I wore Ryan's-it was a litttllllleee big on me. Here is a picture of some of the Mr. Peet's. There are a lot of students that are getting involved in the spirit week here, which is great to see. Ryan is also working on having the band and dance team perform at a game soon, which will be a first here. He was showing videos of high school bands at games to give them some inspiration. He is really working hard to build up school spirit and get attendance at the games.

Dressing up like Mr. Peet. Social Studies teachers and some girls varsity basketball players. 

Ryan has also been working hard organizing the Week Without Walls trips that are coming up for grades 10 and 11 in May. He has been spearheading all of the work for getting visas, payments, itineraries for the trips both here in Lebanon, in Nepal and South Africa.  There are around 20 students going to South Africa, 60 going to Nepal, and the rest of the grade 10 and 11 will go on local trips. I am really excited to chaperone the trip to Nepal with Ryan, and 4 other teachers.

I booked our tickets back to the States for the summer. I have a conference in DC that I am attending at the end of the school year, so I will be back in Chicago on June 20th, which is about 3 months away. I can't believe how fast the school year is going. Within the next three months we will have traveled to Nepal, Jordan, Brussels and Paris. Crazy.

It was a cloudy day in Vienna, but made for great pictures. 

Inside of St Stephen's Cathedral 

Gardens at Belvedere Palace

St Stephen's at night

Opera house at night

Russian Church by our hotel

Inside St Stephen's 

Rainy picture from bus tour of Francis of Assi Church

Mozart statue and Treble Clef garden

Statue in garden of Belvedere Palace

Upper house of Belvedere Palace

Belvedere Palace

Old Hapsburg Palace, Fine Arts Museum now

The point in Vienna Napoleon made it to when capturing land

Gardens 

Gardens

St Stephens

Outside of St Stephens

St Stephens

World War II Memorial

WWII Memorial

Track meet and teachers day

Girls relay team

We had our first track meet on March 1st. The athletes all did a really great job, and our boys team took first, and the girls missed it by just a few points, which was incredible since we don't have a lot of girls to compete in the events. It was fun to see where the athletes are starting off at, and because it is a short season, it'll be interesting to see how much better they get. We have our next meet on the 29th, and then our big meet April 3-5 we will be in Amman for our final meet. This week Ryan's team got their first win in basketball. He is coaching JV boys, and there are a lot of 8th and 9th graders on the team, as well as one great sophomore. The boys have been working hard the last few weeks and are really improving. They were running plays and working hard, so it was great to see them win.

My students had another Skype chat with a school in Baltimore. It is fun to have them explain to the other school what life is like in Beirut.  The students also are putting the Cold War on trial in my IB classes, which is fun to watch them ask questions and try to get their side across.

Thursday night was our teacher night party. Teacher's Day is a holiday in Lebanon and we had the day off on Friday. The school put on an incredible party for us, with food, bands and dancers. It was a great party and everyone had a lot of fun. We had to cut out early since we were leaving for the airport at five am for Turkey.

Dancers at teacher's day party 

Band at teacher's day party

The highlight of the last few weeks was our weekend trip to Turkey. Ryan has been in contact with a group there that organizes soccer tournaments for all different levels. The company put us up in two incredible hotels, with all our expenses paid. They were wonderful people, and Ryan got to learn a lot about how the tournaments will work there. He is trying to organize a new tournament, since so many teams don't want to come to Beirut, or other cities in the area.

Our flight stopped in Istanbul and we had a great day wandering around in Istanbul. We have been there before, so it was great to see how much we remembered about getting around since it has been a few years. We were able to navigate the public transit system and make our way around from the airport by bus to the city and to the other airport. We were in Taksim square and that was interesting to see where all the protests were at  a little while back.  We also sent our tax information out from the old post office in Istanbul, which was funny and quite different to do. It seemed to be that anything Ryan wanted to find there, we found.

Then came our transfer to Antalya, which is on the Southwestern coast on the Mediterranean. We stayed at the Kremlin Palace hotel, and then the Mardan Palace. The Kremlin Palace would be great for teams to stay at, with a bowling alley, pool hall, video game place, water slides, basketball hoops, sand volleyball and more. This is hopefully where the tournaments will be with the soccer fields next door.
The next night we stayed at the most amazing hotel I have ever been in.  The Mardan Palace is a five star hotel in Antalya built by a Russian man for around a billion dollars. Yep. Gold plated everything. I'll let all the pictures speak for themselves.

This coming week Ryan is off on Wednesday to Austria for a conference and I will be meeting him there Friday. I am so excited to see another great place that I have always wanted to see.

Taksim Square

Mardan Palace  

Mardan Palace

Sending our taxes from Istanbul 

Sea and beach at Kremlin Palace

Bowling alley at Mardan Palace

Main area of Mardan Palace

room at Mardan Palace