The Vacation Continues: Lausanne and Italy

As I mentioned in my last post, we were saved by Erin’s friends Caitlin and Julian and were on our way to Lausanne, Switzerland.  Because the train we needed to take from Dijon to Lausanne was so full, there were only seats left in first class.  This wasn’t ideal since we are Peace Corps Volunteers after all, but we didn’t really have any other options.  So after a short train from Besançon to Dijon, we boarded our swanky first class compartment, fully-equipped with automatically reclining armchairs and free soda.  When we arrived in Lausanne, we parted ways with Caitlin and Julian and bought our tickets to Milan.  The morning train was sold out so we bought tickets for the afternoon train, which was actually better since it gave us more time to check out the city.

Caitlin had found us a hostel near the train station, so once we had our tickets we made our way there and were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful building that was much more hotel than hostel.  We booked a double room with a balcony overlooking Lake Geneva and the most comfortable bed I had slept in in years.

The view from our hostel balcony

Overcast sky but Lake Geneva in the distance

Since it was Sunday and pretty late by the time we went out for dinner, there wasn’t much open.  Eventually, though, we found a burger-bar joint and I got a salad with more bacon than lettuce and Nick got the big American style cheese burger he’d been craving.

The next day we went out and explored the city.  We started down by Lake Geneva, travelling for free on the city’s pristine metro system, and walked over to the Olympic Park.  From there, we went back into the center of town and visited the Lausanne Cathedral.  The city was beautiful even with overcast weather, but I wish we could have gotten a better view of the Alps.

Lake Geneva

Thai Pagoda in the Olympic Park

Lausanne

Entrance to the Lausanne Cathedral

Lausanne Cathedral

Stained glass in the cathedral

After some great Chinese food, we picked our bags up from the hostel and caught our direct train to Milan.  The trip through the Alps was stunning and our short time in Lausanne really made me want to return to Switzerland and see more of the country.

When we arrived in Milan, it was raining and pretty cold.  We walked to our hotel and realized that it was about as dumpy as we had been afraid it would be.  Wanting to spend as little time as possible in the room, we went out for Korean food–a first for Nick.  We both got bibimbap and some kimchee and calamari pancakes.  Nick really liked it but it was a much-needed taste of home for me.  All I can think about as I write this is what I’m going to order at Willow Tree (our local Korean restaurant) once I get home.  It will be the lunch special with spicy BBQ chicken, spicy chicken katsu, and fish jun, in case you were wondering.  Oh, and all the kimchee they have.

After dinner, we walked into the center of town, passing designer boutique after designer boutique along with some very well dressed Italians.  We didn’t spend too much time out that night but the next morning we came back in order to admire the Duomo di Milano by daylight.  The cathedral is one of the largest in the world and is topped by the Madonnina, or Madonna spire, the tallest point in Milan.  The interior was also impressive but it’s the sheer magnitude of the building and all of the detailed sculpting that really take your breath away.

Duomo di Milano

Madonnina

We walked around the city for awhile and then stopped to get calzones for lunch.  We felt like we were really in Italy once we had taken our first bites of caprese salad with fresh mozzarella.  Bellies full, we went to the Hertz office to rent the car we would be driving down the peninsula for the rest of the week.

The beautiful covered walkway near the main square

Leonardo.

With a free Italian maps app (that kept telling us we were in Switzerland) in hand, we were off on our drive south to Tuscany.  It’s clear in hindsight that we should have gotten a GPS system along with the car.  It was stressful at points, but we worked together and figured our way out of the city.  As we drove south, the clouds started clearing up and the weather got warmer.  By the time we arrived in Siena, we were able to ditch our jackets and enjoy some long overdue sunshine.

Tuscan olive groves

Nick and our rented Fiat Panda, Fiorello

Once we found our bed and breakfast, we made ourselves at home in our gorgeous room overlooking Siena and the beautiful valleys and vineyards of Toscana.  The lovely people at the B&B gave us a restaurant recommendation for dinner nearby and we feasted on homemade pasta.

Our B&B, Santa 10

Our room at the B&B

The view of Siena from our window

The next day, we woke up to an email from Hertz, asking us to check the car’s registration because they believed it to be expired.  It was.  We called the office in Milan and they told us we needed to find a Hertz office and go deal with the registration issue ourselves.  They told us to check in Florence.  (Insert shocked expression here).  After Nick reminded them (in the nicest way possible) that this was their mistake and not ours and told them that he had already found a Hertz office in Siena, they agreed to call and make sure they knew we were coming.  So before we began our day of sightseeing, we made a detour to the local Hertz agency.  After waiting and talking to the agent there, we were told that the registration couldn’t be updated then and we would have to come back the next day.

So, in slight disbelief, we began our next adventure: finding parking in Siena.  Luckily, our Fiat Panda is laughably small and we were eventually able to find a spot that most drivers wouldn’t have even considered.  We then walked into the city, visiting the Duomo di Siena first.

Siena

The cathedral is amazing.  The exterior is black and white striped marble with pink marble detailing and the interior is similarly striped but with elaborate carved murals on the floor.  The art within the cathedral and the stained glass windows were equally impressive.

Duomo di Siena

Interior of the cathedral

By the time we finished touring the Duomo, we were ready for lunch.  We found a nice restaurant off the major tourist path and Nick had fried lamb and artichoke hearts and I had artichokes stuffed with seafood.  Delicious.  We chased down our hearty lunch with gelatto and then headed into the main square.  Piazza del Campo goes back to the 13th century and according to Wikipedia, is “regarded as one of Europe’s greatest medieval squares.”  It was a beautiful day and there were people sitting and enjoying the warm weather all throughout the piazza.

Piazza del Campo

Palazzo Pubblico (Town Hall)

That evening we decided to buy some good Italian meat and cheese and have a picnic at the B&B.  We got some fresh Italian bread, prosciutto, a variety of cheeses, olive topenade, and pears at the grocery store in town and were gifted a bottle of the proprietor’s own wine made on the premises.  Our hosts, Gianni and his wife, Eliza, make natural wine from the grapes on their property.  They don’t add any chemicals or do any extra processing and then let the wine age in oak barrels in their cellar.  We were lucky enough to get a tour of the cellar and their wine making equipment.  Gianni also told us that the house itself was more than 1,000 years old but that below the cellar there was an Etruscan tomb, which we were able to peek into through a grate.  Pretty incredible.

Rosemary growing on the property at Santa 10

The next day, after a beautiful walk, we went back into Siena and were successful in updating the car’s insurance.  With a now legal Fiat, we were headed south towards Amalfi.

This was our longest drive but also our most successful in terms of navigating.  We didn’t run into any real issues and the drive was beautiful.  The last hour or so on the road was spent on the winding cliffside roads of the Amalfi coast.  Nick was an incredible driver on a very difficult road with some insane motorists.  It was all the more impressive because he was driving stick shift, something he had barely done before the trip, and because our little Panda was definitely not the right vehicle for the road.

Windy road to Amalfi

When we finally arrived at the hotel, we were happy to have a little break from driving.  Our room had a balcony overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea and from certain angles, we could fool ourselves into thinking we were on a cruise ship.  That night we walked into town and got dinner at a great restaurant.  Nick ordered the linguini with clams and a local fish and I had homemade pasta and seafood.  We drank wine from Ravello, another town along the Amalfi coast we had passed through, and limoncello made in Amalfi.

The view from our hotel room

More from our balcony

The next day, we walked back into town to explore.  The weather was perfect and the smell of fresh flowers and citrus filled the air.  First, we went to the Duomo di Amalfi, a 9th century cathedral in the main piazza.  The cathedral was massive and incredibly ornate.  We kept thinking we had seen all of it when we would enter a new part of the cathedral more impressive than the last.

Lavender growing all over the place

Amalfi and the harbor

Duomo di Amalfi

After visiting the church, we started walking along little paths further and further into the valley, until we had fully escaped the tourists and were exchanging “buon giorno”s with the locals.  There were citrus trees tiered along the cliffs to maximize their amount of arable land and it seemed like everyone was growing lemons.  The nature and architecture we saw on our walk resembled how we imagined Brazil to be more so than Italy.

Towards the end of our walk into the valley

When we finally turned around and got back into town, we went back over by the Duomo and had pizza for lunch.  From there, we attempted to make our way up to the cemetery at the top of the hill but just ended up walking along narrow streets not finding what we were looking for.  We eventually gave up and decided to go down to the beach to dip our toes in the Tyrrhenian.

Tyrrhenian Sea

Amalfi

After lounging in the sun for a bit, we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner.  Nick found us a great restaurant and after dinner, we met a nice Canadian couple who had some very interesting stories of (way) up north.  On the walk home, Nick decided he was going to pick us some oranges from a tree growing by a set of stairs.  After some acrobatics, he managed to pick a few.  We tried all of them but as Nick put it, “they tasted like vomit.”

Vespas as far as the eye can see

The next day we drove into Positano and got some lunch.  I was nauseous on the way there and nervous about the winding roads ahead, but luckily, some rib-sticking gnocchi made me feel all better.  After lunch, we were on the road again, headed east to Bari.

Except, we soon realized, we were not headed east, but instead headed south.  We missed our exit to Bari early on and without GPS, had no way of knowing how far we had gone until it was too far to turn around.  Using the free iPod app, we tried to find a new route to Bari but neither the streets on the map nor the highway exits were well marked.  We pulled over on the highway to figure out our next move when a police car pulled over to see if we needed any help.  The kindly officers pointed us in the right direction and we headed east towards Bari via Potenza.

The road we took to Potenza was similar to many we have encountered in Romania: two-lane pot-holed roads winding over hills and down valleys.  We were definitely taking the scenic route.

Somewhere outside Potenza

Eventually, we made it to Bari and figured out how to get to the Ikea, where we were scheduled to drop off our rental car at the Hertz office there.  Only it wasn’t there.  When we went into the Ikea to figure out where this Hertz agency could be, we were told that it had closed more than a year ago.  Once we picked our jaws up off the ground, we called Hertz and were instructed to drop our car off at the airport.  It all worked out alright in the end–we were able to drop off the car and catch a cheap bus into Bari–but the car definitely added some stress.

Fiorello taking a break on the long road to Bari

We checked into our hotel, which had a serious 70′s feel to it, and were directed to the restaurant across the street for dinner.  We were really hungry by the time we got there and decided to get the appetizer sampler, expecting a plate with a little bit of everything we could share.  Oh, no.  The appetizer sampler meant free range at the appetizer buffet station.  There was baked eggplant, potatoes au gratin, ceviche, marinated vegetables, stuffed mushrooms, squid, and more.  It took so much self restraint to not load up on the first course, but we had already ordered pasta and sausages.  It was even harder once we realized how delicious everything at the buffet was.  It was a great first meal in Bari and dining on such good Italian comfort food helped us forget all the stress of that afternoon.

The next morning, we went out to see the sights in Bari.  We started with stuffed focacia and fried polenta for breakfast and then ordered the special cappuccino from the menu, which we were surprised to find out was not actually a cappuccino  but coffee and ice-cream.  We weren’t mad about it.

We walked around by the marina and then over to the Basilica di San Nicola, or the Basilica of Saint Nicholas.  The church holds St. Nicholas’s remains and some important relics and is a pilgrimage destination for Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians.  The interior reflects the importance of both faiths to the church with its mix of Catholic and Orthodox art.  The most impressive aspect of the church for me, was the completely gilded ceiling.

The Aegean Sea in Bari

The ceiling inside the Basilica

After visiting the basilica, we wandered around the old part of the city.  It was exactly how I would imagine Italy if all I had ever known about it came from visiting the North End in Boston.  We walked through little alleyways full of children playing and old men gambling, and past open doorways where we could see and smell women cooking.

The streets of Bari

Old Town, Bari

Girls posing with their Berlusconi flags

Little alleyways in Bari

In the afternoon, we visited Swabian Castle, which is now a gallery, and where ancient stone and marble sculptures were on display.  We went out for lunch and then continued walking around the city before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner and pack our bags.  We had an early morning flight back to Romania the next day and didn’t want to have to worry about packing when we came home from dinner.

Inside Swabian Castle

Since we only rarely get any sort of Asian food in Romania, and only ever Chinese when we do, we decided to go out for sushi on our last night of vacation.  We had a nice dinner and were apparently good enough tippers to merit some free sake before we left.  We walked around town a bit and then ended up splitting a pizza over beer at another restaurant later on in the evening.  Neither of us wanted the vacation to end.  This was our last big trip in the Peace Corps and it had been an amazing one.  But, against our wishes, our vacation did end and we flew back to Romania the next morning.

I have had some incredible travels during my Peace Corps service.  I realize that this isn’t the norm and I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to see as much as I have during my time here.  I feel equally grateful to have had such a wonderful companion in Nick on all of these trips.

We’re great travel buddies but not the most diligent photographers.  This is the only picture of us together from the trip!

Thomas and Erin’s Franco-American Wedding

Last May, my dear friend, Erin, got married on Reunion Island to a great guy named Thomas.  American Erin met French Thomas while she was teaching English in Nîmes, France.  Around the same time as I moved to Romania, they moved to Reunion Island and a short time after that they decided to get married.  Unfortunately, Reunion Island is very far away from all of their friends and family, so they decided that sometime that next spring, they would have a celebration in France so that they could celebrate with the people they love.

Erin and Thomas’s Wedding in Reunion

So for nearly a year, Nick and I had been planning this trip to France to celebrate Erin and Thomas’s marriage with them.  Luckily for us, their wedding was scheduled for the first Saturday of our spring vacation, which meant that we didn’t have to take much time off from school and that we could extend our trip since we would already be in Western Europe with some time off from school.  We decided that after the wedding, we would go to Italy and spend a week driving down the peninsula, starting in Milan and stopping in Tuscany and Amalfi, before ending the trip in Bari.  More on that later.

Early in the morning on April 5th, we flew out of Cluj Airport to Paris Beauvais. We rented a car in Beauvais and headed south to Besançon in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France.  Nick drove our rented Renault Clio and despite some navigational hiccups (aka we didn’t have a map or GPS), we made it to Besançon and dropped the car off in time to catch a train to Baume-les-Dames.  Erin and her mom picked us up from there and took us to L’Orangerie, a chateau just outside of the town, where we would be staying and where the celebration would be held.

Remy the Renault

When we got to the chateau, we were pretty stressed because we had tried to buy our overnight train tickets to Milan in Besançon, only to find out that the company operating the train was an internet-only operation and that we couldn’t buy tickets in person.  Sidenote: we had tried to buy the tickets online but they had to be shipped and could only be sent to the UK.  So without internet at the chateau and no idea how we were going to make it to Italy, we were reasonably on edge.

L’Orangerie

We did our best not to stress and to be social with the very international crowd at the wedding.  France had the largest representation in attendance but there were a fair amount of other Americans, including Erin’s family and some friends from college.  Romania was also well represented since Thomas had worked for several years in Romania as had his best friends.  Also, one of Erin’s friends from college was born in Romania but grew up in Canada and the US.  Norway, Greece, and Switzerland were also represented, creating an interesting and diverse crowd in attendance.

The beautiful grounds of the chateau

We were exhausted and didn’t last too long the first night, but that ended up being a good thing since Saturday was a jam-packed day.  After breakfast, we were broken up into teams and sent into Baume-les-Dames on a scavenger hunt.  Luckily, we were teamed up with a French family with a good grasp of English.  It was a fun way to see the town and meet some new people.

There were quiches for lunch when we got back followed by some desperate yet fruitless attempts to figure out how we would get to Italy.  In the end, we decided drinking would be the best solution.

After lunch, the other girls and I went to watch Hilde do Erin’s wedding makeup.  She was absolutely beautiful and distinctly Erin, which is what I loved the most about it all.  It was also great to get to know Erin’s other friends, Sarah, Sandra, and Hilde, along with her mom, Lisa.

Hilde doing Erin’s makeup

Gorgeous bride!

Once Erin was all made up and gorgeous, the ceremony began.  Instead of a priest or pastor, they had two friends perform the service, one in a Bears jersey and cowboy hat and the other with a fake mustache holding a baguette.  The ceremony was bilingual and included a Romanian song about bunny ears, Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” performed by yours truly and the rest of the girls, and some heavily accented English swearing by the groom’s mother.  It was the most personal and fun wedding ceremony I have ever been a part of.

Erin and Thomas entering the reception hall

The international ceremony

“You can kiss the bride!”

After the ceremony, there was a champagne reception followed by dinner.  We were all pretty well toasted by the time we got to the dinner, but each course was also paired with a bottle of wine.  Oh, how I love the French.  The food was delicious, but my favorite course was definitely the cake.  Erin had requested a carrot cake and had sent the chef different recipes, which he had then apparently taste tested on Americans living nearby before the wedding.  In the end, he decided to serve the cake with a crème anglaise.  Best carrot cake ever.

Hilde, Sandra, Erin, me, and Sarah

All the American girls

My place setting at dinner

Feeding each other cake.  This is apparently not a French tradition.

In between the courses, there were some games for the bride and groom à la ”The Newlywed Game.”  One activity required them to take their shoes off, which was pretty hilarious since we had been joking as Erin got ready that it didn’t matter what “wedding socks” she wore since it wasn’t like anyone was going to see them!

Out come the wedding socks

At two o’clock in the morning, Thomas’s father came out with a boiling vat of homemade French onion soup.  Or as it’s called in France, onion soup.  Ha!  Bad jokes aside, this is the best wedding tradition and I really feel it should be a part not just of weddings, but of all late night parties.

Mmm Mmm!

Around four o’clock, I dragged myself to bed, only to be woken by the sounds of drunk Frenchmen singing and shaking beds at five in the morning.  …And then again at six.  This wedding tradition can stay in France as far as I’m concerned.

The next morning/early afternoon, we had breakfast and then went for a walk up to the next village.  The scenery was gorgeous and the houses were old but incredibly well-maintained.  Once we got back, we packed up our backpacks and waited for space in a car to take us to the train station in Baume-les-Dames.  We decided that we would figure it out in Besançon and hopefully we would have some luck and eventually make it to Italy.

Along our walk in the next village

When we arrived at the train station in Baume-les-Dames, we met up with Erin’s American friends, Caitlin and Lauren, and their partners.  Caitlin and her husband, Julian, were going to Switzerland via Besançon and said they would help us figure out a way to Italy.  After speaking with the ticket agent and getting nowhere, they suggested that we come with them to Lausanne, Switzerland because they knew there were direct trains from there to Milan every day.  They kindly offered to let us stay with them in their Swiss village or to help us find a hostel in the city.  Nick and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and said “Why not?”.  So with that, we began our journey with a short detour through Switzerland.

Close of Service Conference and the Next Chapter

At the end of March; Group 28, my training group and the last group of Peace Corps volunteers in Romania, had its Close of Service Conference in Sibiu.  This conference was all about looking back, while looking forward.  There were sessions on “How to Say ‘Goodbye’,” writing a resume and using social media to find employment, and administrative issues like flying back to the states and Peace Corps health insurance once we’re there.

All of us in Group 28 are in a state of limbo right now.  We’re trying to tie up loose ends at site, finish projects, and spend time with the people who have become an integral part of our lives in Romania, while simultaneously figuring out our next moves back home (or elsewhere) and looking forward to spending time with our family and friends.  For those who don’t have something lined up post-COS, this can be a stressful time.  For those who do have immediate plans, it can be hard to stay in the present with the excitement of those next steps right around the corner.  Having the group all together and discussing these anxieties with people going through the same thing was very therapeutic.  It was also emotional to know that this was the last time we would probably all be together again.

Group 28

Now with props!

The whole conference was really well organized and a lot of fun.  I’m sure it was just as emotional for our Romanian staff members, some of whom have worked at Peace Corps for more than 20 years.  Being the “Legacy Group” doesn’t change much in our day to day lives but it has been a big adjustment for all of the staff members who keep us safe and healthy and who support us through and make possible all of our work at site.

The last day of the conference, we went to the Astra Village Museum for a session on bringing Romania back with us to America through cultural exchanges and other activities.  After the session, we could ride bikes, walk, or take a ride through the park in a căruţă (horse-drawn wagon).  That evening, they organized a dinner for us at a nearby restaurant with live music and karaoke as well.  In typical Romanian fashion, diplomas were awarded, and I was given the honor of “Best Classroom Decorator” and “The Leonardo DaVinci of both Art and Worksheets.”  It was a lot of fun and a great way to end the conference.

Riding a căruţă at the Astra Museum at the end of the conference

Lindsey, Megan, and me at the farewell dinner

So what’s next for me?  As many of you may know, I spent a large part of the fall semester applying to graduate schools.  After a few anxiety filled months, I finally heard back and was excited and surprised to have gotten in to all of the schools to which I had applied.  I took a month to carefully consider my options, which were all wonderful, and then this week, I formally accepted my offer of admission and enrolled at Georgetown University for the Master of Science in Foreign Service.  I am thrilled for this next chapter in my life and couldn’t be more excited to be back at school and to live in Washington, DC.

In the meantime, my goal is to stay present and live in the moment, savoring each day I have left here in Romania.

Carnavalul Primăverii

Every year my school throws a Spring Carnival, or “Carnavalul Primăverii,” where the kids dress up like kids in America do for Halloween.  Last year, the carnival was held on one day with two separate parties in different parts of the school: one for the first through fourth graders and one for the fifth through eighth graders.  This year, with the addition of the preparatory class (like American kindergarten) at the school, we decided to throw two separate parties on different days.  This meant a bigger commitment from the teachers but that we wouldn’t be spread so thin.

On Thursday, the older students had their carnival.  Only about ten students came from each grade and not all of them were dressed up.  The carnival was laid back with a costume contest, games, and lots of dancing (especially to Gangnam Style). My favorite costumes were the seventh grade boy that came dressed in the traditional regional girls’ dance costume and the eighth grade girl dressed in a tiger onesie and mask.

Cross dressing is very popular at Carnival

Gangnam Style

Paula and a Bunică

Most of the club kids and me

Eat the cookie off the string game

Toilet Paper Mummy Game

Dancing

DJ Ștefan taking requests

The next day, the primary school kids had their carnival.  There were five grades instead of four and almost every kid from each grade was in attendance, meaning there were A LOT more kids this time.  Many of the children’s parents and siblings were also there, making the room even more crowded.

Lots and lots of costumed little ones

2nd grade cuties and cross-dressers

1st graders dancing the hora

I was given the task of judging costumes (against my will) and so after making my own list of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize winners for each grade, had to convene with the ten parents who were serving as judges to decide on each prize.  Keep in mind that some of these parents were fighting for their own children and that I just wanted to get out of there.  Alas, it took us another thirty minutes to come to an agreement but there were definitely some tense moments along the way.

The best group shot I could get of the preparatory class

1st grade

2nd grade

3rd grade

4th grade

The kids were freaking adorable but for us teachers, the day was far more stressful than the one before.  The kids had a blast and everything went as smoothly as one can expect when throwing a party for 80+ small children so I’ll call it a success and be happy it was my last.

2nd grade costume winners

A Plethora of Presidents

After the success of the Halloween toilet paper roll creatures, the students continued to save and bring in paper towel and toilet paper rolls in the hopes of making Christmas creatures before the semester ended.  However, as we all turned to sweatshop elves making origami flowers and tissue paper vases to sell at the Christmas Bazaar, we ran out of time for the Christmas creatures and ended the semester with a surplus of TP rolls.  Boxes and bags of toilet paper rolls filled my classroom and at the start of the new semester it was clear that I needed to figure something out so I didn’t end up on Hoarders.

Looking at a calendar of American holidays, I had my eureka moment: “Inauguration Day…  President’s Day…  Presidents… Toilet paper roll presidents?  …Toilet paper roll presidents!”  So there you go.  The next week, my American Culture and English club kids were in the computer lab divvying up presidents and researching them online.  I gave the kids a worksheet with different things to find out about each president (political party, terms served, vice president, etc.) as well as a notable event from their presidency.  If this project taught me anything it is that not all presidents are created equal.  For some, they had to continue writing on the back and then there are presidents like William Henry Harrison…

A project was born

The next class, the crafting began.  Big credit is due to my lovely mother who sent googly eyes and pom-poms all the way from America to help us out!

Students busy working on their presidents

Busy working on Obama, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jefferson

The students were given pictures of the presidents as well as colored paper, yarn, and anything else they could scavenge (paperclips and thumbtacks ended up playing prominent roles).  We had to stretch out the crafting over a few weeks because there are only thirteen kids in the club and 44 presidents (actually, there are just 43.. Did you know we double-count Grover Cleveland because of his non-consecutive terms?  My club kids do.).

Alexandra’s finished Obama (there isn’t more than one brown at the store where I buy colored paper…)

The 8th grade girls working on (from left to right) FDR, Eisenhower, and Lincoln

Theodore Roosevelt – Don’t worry that’s not a prison tat, just a monocle.

Paula’s Eisenhower.. She’s great with faces! Make sure to look for her Clinton in the following pictures.

In the end, the presidents were put on display in my classroom and are admired by all who visit.

TP Roll Presidents on display!

Check out Adams’s hair!

The ones with facial hair were the most fun for the kids

See if you can make out the expression on Clinton.. I swear it looks just like him!

So in conclusion, my club kids are amazing and probably know more about all of the US presidents than your average American does.

The wonderful American Culture and English Club kids and me

Beating the Winter Blues

Coming back from Aruba and planning activities for the semester, the first half of the second semester last year was at the forefront of my mind.  It had been one of the most difficult times in my service so far and I didn’t want to repeat that experience.  With short days, grey skies, and no vacation in sight, it can be a difficult time to live alone in a Romanian village.  Last year was especially difficult because there was no escaping the cold at home or at school and I would spend my afternoons curled up in bed on my heating pad and as close to my electric heater as I could get.

The backdrop to last year’s seasonal depression

At the start of the semester, I decided it would be best to hit the ground running, hoping that if I were busy, time would pass faster and seasonal depression would be less likely.  So after a couple weeks of planning, I started a series of Craft Workshops at my school with the goal of introducing new craft techniques to the teachers and to encourage them to use these crafts in art class and as content assessments.

The first workshop was all about origami.  The teachers had expressed interest in origami when they saw the beautiful origami flowers and boxes the students made for the Club Fundraiser in December and the beauty of origami is that it requires very little material and colored paper is relatively inexpensive here.  On the day of the workshop, ten teachers from the primary and general schools came and learned how to make an origami heart (the first workshop took place two weeks before Valentine’s Day), box, and flower.

Some of the origami flowers we made for the teachers’ Thanksgiving presents

Origami box, flower, and heart

The second workshop took place a week later and had the theme of recycled materials crafts.  For this workshop, teachers learned how to make tissue paper vases out of old jars and toilet paper roll figurines.  We had a smaller group this time but some of the teachers from the pre-school came for this session which was great.  One of the best results from this workshop was the communication that this activity opened among the teachers.  By the end of the hour they were asking questions about where they could buy the supplies I used, other possible variations on the projects, and all the different applications these activities could have.

Supplies for Workshop #2

Demonstrating how to make a tissue paper vase

The teachers’ finished products!

The last workshop was designed to get the teachers thinking about how they could use these crafts as a means of student evaluation or application in content courses.  The types of student crafts we do in the states don’t exist here to the same extent.  The academic culture is much more test- than project-based.  When projects are assigned, they are usually in the form of posters with a lot of information and very few visuals.  I know how important the 3D projects we did in elementary and middle school were to my creative development so my goal was to encourage teachers to assign projects that require tactile skill as well as knowledge of the subject.

To do so, I made an ecosystem shoe-box diorama, a book report mobile, and used a student’s paper towel roll historical figurine (part of a US Presidents project that I will discuss in a later post) as examples.  Once I explained the process for making each project and what sort of competencies they demonstrated, I split the participating teachers into groups and assigned them each a topic for which they had to design a project.  This also turned into good rubric making practice for the teachers.  They had to think about how they would explain the project, what students were expected to do to get a good grade, and how the projects would be evaluated.  By the end of the class, the teachers had designed four great projects that stuck with the curriculum but encouraged creativity.

My “under the sea” themed diorama

Anda and her paper towel roll Lincoln that I used as an example for the final workshop

The project involved a lot of work but it was all worth it when I went into the sixth graders’ classroom and saw the incredible dioramas, figurines, and mobiles they had made for their history class with Alexandra.  And although the past few days have felt more like winter than spring, warm weather is on its way, Group 28′s COS conference is just a week away, and Nick and I will be on our spring vacation in less than three weeks!  Expect another update soon with more projects and some exciting news!

Club Field Trip

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my American Culture and English Club raised money from their Christmas Craft Sale in order to go on a field trip to Sibiu.  We had talked about going ice skating in Piaţa Mare until a warm front ruled that out as a possibility.  Instead, we decided to go see a movie and get pizza on a Wednesday afternoon at the end of January.

So, after school, the eleven students in my club and I met in the center of town to take the bus to Sibiu.  For some of my students, this was their first time taking the bus out of the village.  Considering I can only travel by public transportation and have to go to Sibiu at least once a week, this seemed a little crazy to me but they figured out the routine fast enough.

Rebeca and Nicoleta on the bus to Sibiu 

We made it to Cinema Arta and bought our tickets to see Jack Reacher.  This is the only movie theater in Sibiu, it only shows one film a week and this film was rated PG-13, so Jack Reacher it was.  Anyway, the students were pumped to see a Tom Cruise action movie.

Girl Talk in the back of the bus.

I’m going to sound like a mom here, but I was really freaked out by the level of violence in a movie considered PG-13.  I usually don’t think about violence in movies (I mean, I loved Django!) but watching a sniper killing people in downtown Pittsburg, I had the strongest urge to cover all eleven sets of eyes.  Fortunately (more like unfortunately), they are so desensitized to violence that it didn’t even bother them.

After the movie, we took the bus back towards the cemetery where we would catch the bus to Răşinari, and went to dinner at nearby Pizza Hot (no, not hut—hot).  Many of the students hadn’t been out to a restaurant before, so we went through the procedure of ordering, asking for and paying the bill, and LEAVING A TIP.  The kids looked at me like I was crazy, but I made sure that our waitress received her bacşiş.

We caught the bus back to the village and I made sure everyone got off at the right stop and walked home in groups.  I was lucky to only have eleven well-behaved kids to keep an eye on but it was still stressful being responsible for other people’s children out in the city.  I would love to take the kids on another field trip later on in the semester but hopefully another teacher will be able to come along next time.

Aurica cracking jokes and Stefi listening to One Direction on the way to Sibiu

Also, in other club news, the students have been working hard on a cross-cultural exchange blog with partners in Bulgaria, Armenia, and the US.  You can check out what they have posted here.