Back to school

We had an incredible Winter break and we made it back, with a slight hatred for American Airlines, but a great break regardless. We arrived in Chicago after traveling through Heathrow, however Ryan's bag decided to take some time to stay in lovely England. That was quite fun, since he wore sandals on the plane, and had no other shoes to change into when we landed in cold Chicago. Oh well. We went straight to his family's Christmas party and didn't stop seeing family and friends till we left for Florida. We traveled through Miami to Milan to Beirut on the way back, and it was a great trip.

This past week of school we were right back in it. Ryan started basketball. He is coaching JV boys. This will keep him even more busy. He has a great group of guys out for the team and he is looking forward to being a coach again. I was excited to see all my students. They are an amazing bunch, and even completed so big projects they had over the break. I was so impressed with how hard they worked.

Wednesday we went to see Dirty Wars, a documentary film by Jeremy Scahill. It was quite the experience being in an auditorium in the Middle East watching a film about drone usage and more. Jeremy Scahill was there and spoke before and after the film. I recommend watching it, and reading his books.

The theatre at AUB for the movie

Jeremy Scahill talking

 The last week has been beautiful outside. The weather here when we came back was mid 60s. We have been enjoying running in tshirts, thinking of all our friends in Chicago and there negative 50 wind chill weather. We have the best views when we walk to and from school. Here are some random sunrise/sunset photos of those views.

 Saturday Ryan and I went up to the mountains to run with the cross country team and make sure the course was ready for their first meet. It is a hilly course, but it was really nice to be able to run in a quiet forest, instead of on the busy Corniche. The course is at our school's outdoor ed facility, and Ryan took a few moments to work on his New Year's resolution: to rock climb. That went well.....

On the roof doing an ab workout with the Cross Country team. Can't beat that view. 

Outdoor ed facility 

Part of the trail

Ryan attempting to climb, he cut his thumb. 

In other news, a new restaurant opened up in Hamra called Dottore, which means doctor in Italian. Ali, the owner, has a restaurant in Gemmayzeh that we had been too, so we were really excited about this place opening up. So excited we went there three times in the week....yikes. The food is amazing, and I had another chance to see how great the people are here as they gave us tiramisu, for free of course, and I couldn't finish it, but wanted to take it home. They don't do a lot of doggy bags here, not really their thing, so they don't have boxes. Instead, they just took some tin foil and wrapped up the actual plate, and just told me to take the whole thing home. Wouldn't really happen at a place in Chicago.

We have today off of school, so we are keeping the four day week streak alive. However, next week, it looks like we are going the whole week. Gasp. It is crazy that half the year has already passed.

Making our home/Things that are different

We have been here a month and a half now, and it is really starting to feel like home. I was talking last night about how quickly I came to feel comfortable here. I contribute this to how amazing the people are here, how easy it is to become friends with people, and how great the school is that we are working at. The school did a great job integrating us, and the students are so wonderful and open to new ideas. The staff members are so interesting with all of their life experiences. They are all doing such amazing things in the classroom, so innovative and pushing the students to their limits. Plus, they are really fun to hang out with, and it is so easy to hang out since we all live in the same general area, and walk past many happy hours on our way home from school. I feel like we have really settled into a nice routine here.

So there are a few things I have started to realize that are different here compared to Chicago. These things are different, not necessarily bad.

Low water pressure. Showering is fine, but even in our kitchen it takes a little more time to fill up a pot, or the bucket for mopping. Plus we turn our hot water heater on and off. If we forget for a few days, it is a super chilly start to the day, if we leave it on the water is scalding hot.

We have no garbage disposal. We have to remember to throw all the food away when chopping vegetables that we have washed with our bottled water. 

Cabs honking at you because they want to know if you want a ride, not as they try to run you over. 

No street lights really anywhere. Or traffic rules. It's a free for all. One way, no problem. Park on either side facing either direction. Scooters fly by, cars fly by, trucks stop in the middle of a street. 

All toilet paper gets thrown in the garbage cans,not in the toilets. 

There is no use for clothes dryers. I love the hanging of clothes on our many clothes lines from our balconies, only dropped on thing so far! 

There are small shops, for the most part everywhere. Great neighborhood places where you get to know the shop owners and you find hidden treasures. I love talking to our fellow teachers about the best stores for different products. We talk about our cheese guy, hummus guy and more.

People here are washing the sidewalk/or street/or store floor all the time, but they are really careful to not spray you as you walk by. 

You haven't lived till you have woken up to cat fights. Of the real feline variety. These cats are vicious, and some have told me the cat screams are from something else too...I'll leave that one for you to figure out.  But it is crazy just that there are cats everywhere.
The last thing would be worrying about internet. You pay for a certain number of Gigabytes per month, and if you run out you have to pay more. The internet is free though from 11-5 am, so that is interesting as well. We try to do our downloading then.