Celebrating Greek Style

We were up early to get to the institutes that began bright and early at 8:30 AM. I went to Georgia Heard's class on Enhancing Reading Comprehension Through Poetry - and she is the master. Julie joined me for the afternoon session because it was so good. By 1:00 we were free to roan the city. We joined the Camponeschi's to try to use up the remaining parts of our Acropolis tickets that allowed us to see several other sites. Ancient Agora was closed (again) but we enjoyed trolling the Monastiraki flea market, the original Olympic Stadium and Hadrian's Gate, the National Garden. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to clean up for a good dinner to celebrate Julie's birthday. Before dinner we went to an intimate gathering for a fantastic concert of piano and violin featuring pieces by Fritz Kriesler, Mozart and Prokofiev. The musicians were from Austria and very good. After a culture-starved 6 months in KSA, this was heaven. Drinks before dinner (tsipouro) at Strofi's Taverna, wine with dinner, and drinks after dinner (mastika) - so we rolled on back to our hotel - only after enjoying the night view of the Acropolis from the rooftop restaurant. Magical.

Comments

Where we are working now

ISG Jubail School is the Anglo-American school for this area: Jubail is one of two planned industrial cities in Saudi Arabia, given a special royal commission for development and planning. Our district, the seven schools of International Schools Group, runs the school in the other industrial city -- Yanbu -- as well. Jubail is on the east coast, between Dhahran and Kuwait. Our nearby "big city" is the tri-city metropolis of Dhahran-Khobar-Dammam, where all the big shopping malls and quaint old markets are, along with the central 3 schools of our district, where Coleman attends high school. ISG Jubail has 410 students -- an average of 2 homerooms for each grade, K-10. Class size varies, up to 22. I have 12 in my required course "Computers & Information Management"; Barb has 12 students in her first-grade class. Most of the teaching staff come from the U.S., some from the Commonwealth. Several teachers are wives of engineers an...

Riding the Bus often

From 201010 Saudi scenes It is ironic that this land of cheap gasoline has so much group transport -- buses. From 201010 Saudi scenes Our housing compound has a Toyota-Coaster bus that takes some to/from school (we usually go earlier and return later, on a similar bus that the school provides). Driver Yahya takes residents on the 90-minute trip down to the Big City shopping every Thursday morning. The above picture shows our group one Thursday, usually going to Ikea or the new Lulu's Hypermarket , or the Dhahran Mall. Coleman rides a different bus every day to and from school -- usually 100 minutes there, 80 minutes back. His bus is evidently an old tourist bus, usually comfortable but a bit dusty. The air-conditioning usually works too well. I've ridden it with him several times, to attend business meetings at the district office. From 201010 Saudi scenes There he is, at 5:45am every morning, at the start of the bus run. Fortunately only about 20 stu...

Reservoir of European Youth, Parliament

A few days ago I walked to the nearby Pasteleira Park, planning to visit the city museum at the Reservoir. Walking through the park I noticed a large group of young people gathered in a circle, engaged in team-building activities. My days in education attuned me to the spectacle and piqued my interest, so I sat on a nearby bench and watched as a succession of enthusiastic students ran to the center and started an activity, which all the others joined enthusiastically. What sort of group would this be? A typical high school class would include a portion of disinterested teens, and others only half-heartedly participating. This crowd was unanimous in their excitement. I also noted that the leaders were speaking in English, though the breeze muffled the words. I walked around, found a couple of older participants on the side, with official-looking lanyards, and asked: this was an activity of European Youth Parliament , simil...

Thomas journals

Search This Blog