Teaching Adventures: Track meet and teachers day

Sunday, March 9, 2014

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.