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

Sports and more

The last two weeks have found us in familiar territory. Ryan is back coaching basketball and had his first game. He has the JV team and they looked great. He has some 8th graders in the team as well as 9th and 10th and the team they played against were all big 10th graders, so it was impressive. They played on Friday afternoon and it reminded me of the last few years going to games on Friday night. Only this time we were done before 7, which was great. We went to eat at Bread Republic after, which I don't think I have written about. It is a restaurant that does local on season food, like sandwiches, pastas, salads, and of course all kinds of fresh baked bread. We were sitting at our table in the tiny alleyway outside laughing at how it was February and we were eating outside, and our family home in Chicago had just gotten another 4 inches of snow. Definitely want to stay in warm countries for the rest of our teaching career if possible!

 Saturday we went to the cross country meet that ACS hosted in the mountains. It was a beautiful day. There were a lot of amazing student volunteers that came to help our team and the other team on the extremely tough uphill course. Our kids did a great job running and it was a eeay fun day complete with a Lebanese picnic after. Saturday night we were invited to our neighbor Jamil's house to play a game with his friends, which was fun to meet a lot of new people.

We had a parent teacher conferences Wednesday. I was really impressed with how many parents were able to make it out, which just continues how much parental involvement there has been at the school. It is really nice to work somewhere where the parents can be involved. 

This week is my last session of coaching little kid volleyball. It has been really fun and a whole new challenge. 20 third fourth and fifth graders running around after school is quite the sight! I was lucky to have two great 11th graders helping me out especially for the trip to bring them down 6 flights of stairs and over to another building to wait for their parents at the end. Starting the next week I will be the conditioning coach for the track team which I am excited about, and any of my forner players reading this will remember how much I love conditioning! Another exciting project coming up starting Sunday will be the CAS project of two students. CAS is creativity action and service and all ib students have to create a project that helps the community in some way. Two students are going to be running a basketball camp for less fortunate children for two hours on Sundays. They asked me to be the chaperone-obviously they have not seen me play basketball! I am really excited to see this work. The students have been setting up their practice plan and getting some fundraising ideas together. This is one of many impressive community service projects the students here are involved in. There are a lot of refugees here in different camps that the students often work with or gather supplies for them. 

Today is another beautiful day, we did get a little rain last week, but it was mainly at night. I am planning on a nice long run today down on the waterfront path that reminds me of the lake shore drive path, but way less crowded. It is really peaceful out there. 

Last weekend after our long run we decided to take the kayaks out again. We paddled to pigeon rocks and went into some caves until we heard the bats, which Ryan hates. We paddled around for an hour or so, which was a great shoulder workout on top of the bootcamp and TRX workouts I started going to at my gym. 

Check out the digital photography students work from ACS at www.acsdigitalphotography.blogspot.com for some impressive photos taken around Beirut. The students have inspired me to take the camera out today and try to get some good photos too. 

Kayaks at school

The Radio Shack next to Bread Republic

Bread Republic Alley

The GNC by the Bread Republic, seriously a Radio Shack and GNC

Ryan's team

Classic example of Beirut traffic on a one way street

Trophy Table

Horses on the cross country course 

Horses on Course, mountains in the background

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Amazing fruit plate, best tangerines ever

Ryan presenting the awards

ACS team

Picnic lunch, hummus, veggies and more