Back in the sand pit for year two.... my oh my!

WOW! I cannot believe how much I has happened since last post. My apologies for anyone who actually likes to keep up with this. The summer flew by, and I had two trips packed into one on the way back to the states. Amsterdam and Iceland, and both were fabulous. I was relieved to get home and spend time with my family, meet my niece Annie, go on the water-slide (over and over) with my nephew Owen, and relax in beautiful Minnesota. I was able to take a trip out West to Portland for a conference with some ASD people, and before I knew it, the summer was closing and I was counting down my days until I arrived back in the sand pit. I'll try to give a little overview of Amsterdam and Iceland first, and then some summer pics.

Amsterdam! So awesome. I can totally see myself visiting this city on every trip back to the states. It helps that it is such a major flight hub. It was the perfect way to unwind from the school year and just enjoy the European city on foot and ride the ferries on the canals. I ended up visiting the Anne Frank House, which was completely moving and unbelievably emotional. The Van Gogh museum was also an experience, but not quite as shocking as the infamous Red Light District. The row houses were old and beautiful, and the canals were busy with boats of tourists, fishermen, and private houseboats. I loved every minute of this city, and know that next time I visit, I will have to rent a bicycle and pedal my way around as the locals do. Here are a few snapshots from Amsterdam.

Canals and Church bell towers! Love! 

From Amsterdam I flew to Iceland. The trip started in Reykjavik and went around the main road or "The Ring Road" around the whole island. Iceland was other-worldly in it's landscapes. It has stunning waterfalls, mountains, black sand beaches, active volcanos, natural hot springs, glaciers and iceberg filled lagoons. the villages are small, but the hospitality is charming. The weather is uncooperative, and the sun never sets in the summer months, but I will remember Iceland very fondly. I recommend going there to be in awe of Mother Nature and her power, especially before it is too late. Below are some pics and where they were taken. Enjoy! 

Hot Springs- Blue Lagoon. Yes, it really is that color. I went in... it was HOT. 

Viking Beer deserves some horns! 

Viking man with my coffee- Thief! 

Lava Rocks

Gulfoss - massive massive waterfall.

Behind the Waterfall pictured below....

Taken around 3 am... it's light out. 

Iceberg lagoon at Jokulsarlon.

Gulfoss adventurousness ! 

Iceberg lagoon

Black sand beaches from lava flows over millions of years

Cool village on Eastern coast of Iceland called Seydisfjordur

Mars? Nope. Just crazy Iceland landscapes. This place reeked like sulfur. Nasty.... but cool. 

Exploring a lava tube in the lava fields of Myvatin

Climbing up this GIANT lava crater.

Natural hot springs at Myvatin

Husavik- an awesome seaside village on the North coast of Iceland

Going Whale watching in Husavik... so excited! 

Stunning

We saw this whale breach probably 35 times. Just unbelievable.

Godafoss- the waterfall of the gods.

Of course I had to get a few swings in...!

Reykjavik's famous church.

The Sun Voyager- a seaside statue honoring the Viking's that settled Iceland. 

WOW! That was a ton- hopefully you liked some of the pictures. I know it was a bit much, but I actually took about 1000 pictures while there, so you definitely got the shorter version. 

I wont go too much into my summer, but it was so wonderful to be at home and enjoy the Minnesota outdoors. I was on the lake, up at the cabin, in the cities, and seeing close friends and family. It is crazy how much can change in one year and how much can actually not change. Sitting down with some people felt as though I had not even been living abroad for the last few months. 

I am excited for the year ahead. School has started well and it was my birthday. My advisory students went all out and decorated my classroom. They are amazing and it made my day. We have some exciting trips already planned for this year. In just a few days we have our Fall Eid break. The way it falls on our calendar lets us have a whole week off so some friends of mine and I are heading to Sri Lanka for a few days of fun! I will try to be better about posting now that I am back and traveling around. Until then.... cheers!

Wrapping up the first year

Well, I must apologize for being absent for a while, but to be honest, there has not been that much to report on. Let's see what I can recap for you...

The end of April and beginning of May really flew by, and most likely due to being so busy at work. It has been a long stretch and both students and teacher alike are certainly ready for summer. We have been enjoying unusually mild weather for this time of year, and have been still able to make it to the beach on a few occasions. The water is fantastic and the perfect counter-temperature to the 100 degree heat (yes, that is unusually mild). We have been trying to relax on the weekend, and going to a few brunch affairs to lighten our moods.

Peter's family came into town for the first time in his three years of being here and so I was able to tag along to the Burj Al Arab (the hotel that looking like a sailboat) with them for High Tea in the afternoon. I felt very much like a royal. The hotel is beyond opulent, and it certainly is architecturally impressive on both the inside and out. The food was top notch, with various amuse-bouche and tiny decadent pastries to fill you up. Top that all off with delicious tea of your choice and bubbly too! It was expensive, but I would say that if you come to Dubai, you must do this. It is the epitome of luxury, and everyone deserves that every once in a while. And just in case you forgot to wear your best diamonds to Tea, there are plenty of high end diamond merchants inside the building (Harry Winston or Cartier, anyone?) I definitely had a "Oh my gosh, I live in Dubai" moment. Click the link above.

Looking up inside the Burj Al Arab. It's supposed to look like the Arabian sky? I think it is beautiful no matter what it is supposed to look like. 

Just a sampling...

I also managed to make my directorial debut with the Middle School One Act plays this spring. There are 5 to 6 plays every spring that are around 30 minutes long. The kids did amazing in pulling a play together and memorizing their lines in just over one month! I am so proud of them. They also got to perform on the main theater stage, which is a very big deal. It was so fun to see some of them really get into their characters. It was also fun to cast and direct and learn how to use the light and sound equipment. I really had to step outside of my comfort zone, and it was awesome!

The cast of "Employees Must Wash Hands..... Before Murder." Just a bunch of divas, obviously.

All on stage after! Great Job! 

So now, we have officially reached under 15 days of school left. I am just as, if not more excited than the kids! I will be sticking around Dubai for a few days to close up my apartment (and wait for Peter to get done working) and then it is off to Amsterdam for 3 days and Iceland for 8 days! I'll be back in sunny MN by July 2nd and cannot wait to just relax at the cabin, play some golf, meet my niece Annie for the first time, hang out with my nephew Owen, and see family and friends.

Spring Break Dubai Style

Well, we now have officially entered into the realm of having less than 40 school days left in the year. I am kind of shocked as to how quickly this year has gone, and before I know it, I will be back in Minnesota. Hopefully by July when I arrive there will be no more snow!

We had our Spring break the first week of April, and I opted for having a Stay-cation. I really wanted to do some travelling, but decided to try to save a little money by sticking around. That kind of backfired because Dubai has a lot to do! I did some fun tourist type things that I wouldn't have time to do on a normal weekend. It was nice because there were a few of us here to hang out with.

We started off the break going on my first deep sea fishing extravaganza! It wasn't as deep sea as I would have liked it to be, but everyone caught a big barracuda and a few people caught some yellow spotted jack fish. We had an awesome barbeque later that day with our fresh catch. The barracuda isn't as good to eat, but the jack fish were delicious!

What's a little deep sea fishing without champagne? Katie and Peter having a glass. 

Katie's barracuda 

A few days later we decided to have our next animal encounter and headed to SkiDubai (indoor winter park at Mall of Emirates) to meet the penguins. This was fun and the penguins are such cute animals. Their feathers are very slick with the oil that  keeps them water proof and their wings are super hard, and basically are solid bone. They seemed playful, but a lot of them were molting, and so we didn't get to see and play with as many as usual, which was disappointing.

My coworker Deb (also my Math mentor) got married to her now husband Jason over the break. Deb has taught in Mexico, Japan, and the UAE, but is from Canada. Jason is from England, and met Deb shortly after moving to Dubai four years ago. Their wedding was truly an international affair with more than 50 people coming from all over the world. They had a beautiful ceremony and seaside blessing/reception on the Palm complete with ceremonial camels, of which I took my first camel ride that evening! 

Camel riding on the Palm! I felt like a rock star, especially in my high heels! 

Deb and Jason getting into their 'Groupon' limo after the ceremony!

Liwa Camping

This weekend we did a short one night camping excursion out to Liwa, UAE. It is down at the very border of UAE and it is desert for miles and miles. The dunes are huge and we packed up the Jeep and headed out for a night under the stars.

The Liwa dunes are a camper oasis as well as the fun driving and dune bashing. We saw plenty of dune buggies zipping around. What is crazy about the dunes is that they are huge but are surrounding salt flats. You can see from the satellite photo below what I mean. 

If you go directly south from point A about an inch, you'll see a large round salt flat. We camped about on this one. The white border line you see is the Saudi Arabian border.

The scenery was amazing, we saw a bunch of wild camels and met a few bedouin herders. It was nice to just camp and get out of the city and enjoy the beautiful weather. I couldn't get over how huge the dunes were, some of them were over 500 feet tall. Enjoy some of the pics.

Beautiful red sand dunes, going as far as you can see. 

Sunset in Liwa Dunes

Peter looks so small.

Climbing  up to the top of our dune. You can see the giant round salt flat below (where one of our cars was parked).

Shalene and the Liwa dunes

Starting to see the stars

Katie and Shalene getting a ride from a friendly bedouin camel herder. 

Shalene and the dune 

Peter at sunset

I'm gonna go to Greece, only got 20 Euro in my pocket....

Hey ya'll! 

Well, I am officially back from Greece, and have been for some time, however, only now have I unpacked my suitcase! The week was exhausting, but very enjoyable. It doesn't hurt that the trip was completely paid for and I managed to only spend about 140 Euro on gifts and souvenirs! The trip around Greece was mainly on the Peloponnese. This Greece was much different than I pictured.... the white washed cliffside houses with blue roofs. We all know that Greece. Annnnnd, because I didn't see that, I have resigned myself to the fact that I will just have to go back and visit the Greek Isles (sans children).

We had a great time, and the kids were wonderful for the most part. We arrived in Athens and found out that a Government Police escort had been hired to follow us the entire trip. After some phone calls to the Greek American and Canadian Embassies, as well as back to the Administration at ASD, we found out that no one knew anything about police escorts being hired. This means that some parent of a child personally hired Police escorts to remain with us throughout the entire week. Soooo, we have no idea who the particular child was that was being kept tabs on, but it became a running joke amongst the adults. Most of the kids were fairly oblivious to the fact that we had escorts, which was good to keep it that way.

Oh, Hey there Mr. Police Man....

We departed Athens the day after arrival to make our way to the Peloponnese.

In short here are the places we visited and some highlights:

• Corinth: where the amazing canal was cut to separate the Peloponnese from the main land, and where Paul preached and taught the ancient Corinthians. 

Corinth Canal

Agamemnon's tomb at Mycenae

• Mycenae: where an ancient civilization was, the tomb of the famous King Agamemnon is, and the best tasting fresh orange juice ever. This site also has something to do with the Battle of Troy and that famous horse... not too sure what though?

• Nafplion was a little seaside town and very cute. It has a giant fortress built by the Crusaders. 

• Epidaurus: where a natural amphitheater still resides. It could seat up to 60,000 people and has such amazing natural acoustics that have never been replicated to this day. 

"Give me your best thug-life face." - My chaperone group of great kids!

The left half of the Theater of Epidaurus. Acoustics are so good, I could hear those people talking clearly.

• Olympia: the site of the Olympic Games and the famous Temple of Zeus. We ran on the track and enjoyed the amazing feeling that so many of our athletic competitions were born there.  

Archway leading into the original Olympic stadium

Me being a ninja on the ancient olympic track.

• Delphi: where the famous Oracle resided and received her clairvoyant powers from getting stoned off of sulphuric gases coming through a fissure in the earth! (Don't do drugs, kids!) Ask her a question about your future and she would answer you in riddles and vague answers so that everything was open to interpretation and she would never be wrong. I didn't find out who my husband would be or if I would ever have my own reality TV series. Shoot. 

Delphi: An almond tree in bloom with the Treasury of Athens and the Delphi valley below

Me at Delphi

• The Acropolis and the Parthenon: Amazing. I never thought I would make it to see this place. Just an awesome experience and the view of Athens surrounding the Acropolis was something in itself. 

Me and the Parthenon

• The Temple of Poseidon: on a bluff overlooking the stunning Aegean Sea. We were able to just relax here while the kids sketched in their journals. There is something about looking out at never ending teal blue water that never gets old. 

Aegean Sea from Temple of Poseidon

• The Plaka: a famous walking only shopping district of Athens right below the Acropolis. Lots on little shops and a fabulous Gyro and gelato stand. All the Greek shopkeepers were so thrilled to have business in their winter season. 
• Running on the "modern"Olympic track, built in 1896 and birthplace of the Olympics as we know them today.

Zoom. I'm so fast. Not.

Standing on the medal podium after we raced. Thomas, me, Ahne, Sohpie, and Bernie. My colleagues are athletic. I got last place :(

• Tree planting in the hills outside of Athens. This area is recovering from wildfires, and for the past six years ASD has worked with a local company to come and plant tree saplings. We raised enough money for each child to plant two trees (about 250 trees total). The kids were awesome at this and really enjoyed working hard. The hillside we planted in was clay-like soil, and full of marble stone, and so the planting was rigorous work. 

We made it home safely and were greeted at the airport by the parents waiting anxiously. It was overall an amazing experience, and so awesome for the kids to see the places they had studied for the last month. I was so impressed by how much they knew of ancient Greece and Greek mythology. Check out some of the links and pictures!