Educators on the Edge: October 2014

Greek Isle Cruise - October 18-25

What an exciting week! It's difficult to say what part of this vacation was the most exciting...seeing my sister after being apart for 16 months, hanging out with great friends (my sister and her husband; and Toni and Rick), or visiting ancient cities in Montenegro, Greece, and Croatia. As one can imagine, the combination of all three was truly a blessing.

Leaving Venice at sunset

Kotor, Montenegro

Jay and I climbed to the fortress near the top of this mountain.

This church was about half way to the top

Looking back at the port where we docked.

Somebody has to repair the walls!

Our ship: "Splendour of the Seas"

Corfu, Greece

Athens, Greece

A rest stop on our way up to the Acropolis

The Parthenon!

An afternoon snack at a sidewalk cafe

Mykonos, Greece

Everyone fell in love with the stray kitten.

Inside a Greek bakery

The Windmills of Mykonos

Our dinner table and waiters

The ship's crew flag parade

Bad weather and rough seas required a change in our port of call on Thursday, and the deck chairs had to be tied down.

Split, Croatia

Back in Venice, Italy

The city of Venice was promoting trips to Murano with free water taxi rides to the island.

A gondola ride on the Grand Canal

A decorative carving on our gondola with the Rialto Bridge in the background

A gondola snack after our gondola ride

Standing outside of one of the many mask shops in Venice

Some final views of Venice from the water taxi that took us back to the Marco Polo Airport

KIS International Night - Saturday October 4, 2014

This event was held earlier than it was last year. I'm not sure why we didn't wait until the annual January date, but it makes me wonder if it had something to do with the rumors we've been hearing about no heat this winter. Actually, the latest rumor is that there will be heat, but just less of it. Perhaps we won't be able to heat the school this winter for weekend or extra-curricular events? Who knows?!

International Night 2014 was still a big hit! It was well attended, the entertainment and food was spectacular, and I participated in a new and unique way this year.

Helping China

This is LaLa, a senior at KIS and our one and only Chinese student. Although LaLa has been living in Ukraine for several years and speaks Ukrainian fluently, her Chinese roots are strong. She still speaks Chinese at home and tutors young children who want to learn Chinese. This year LaLa wanted to make sure that China was represented at International Night, but she didn't want to do it alone. She solicited the help of our biology teacher, Xin Yan, whose mother is from Singapore (so, close enough, I guess), and Xin Yan asked me if I would like to offer my culinary skills and my kitchen to help LaLa. I was happy to oblige, not because I have Chinese cooking skills, but because I wanted to learn some Chinese cooking skills. LaLa's menu was a bit ambitious: baozi (dumplings), fried rice, and stir-fried cabbage salad. I know it may sound like a simple meal, but the events committee advised having enough food for 400 people. Granted, we only needed "samples", but LaLa, Xin Yan, and I were going to need MORE help!
The three of us were able to handle the grocery shopping without a problem on the Thursday night before. The taxi driver, on the other hand, had a difficult time getting us and our bags into his small car! On Friday after school, with the help of some other students, we started cooking. It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun. We chopped; LaLa cooked. We ate some pizza and chopped some more. The others chopped, LaLa cooked, and I tried to keep up with the dirty dishes.

Kids will work for pizza

We worked hard until about 10pm and then called it quits. We weren't quite finished, so LaLa returned the next afternoon to finish up before she had to report to the school for the Flag Parade which kicked off the evening at 5:00.

I don't know if we actually fed 400, but the Chinese table received a lot of visitors and a lot of compliments. LaLa felt proud and we were happy for her.