The Joys of Travel

Kalimera! (Good Morning)

I know this will shock many of you who have flown American Airlines, but I was waiting in Amarillo to board my flight to Chicago and then came an announcement that an indicator light came on in the cockpit and they had to call a mechanic. 45 minutes later(!!!) a mechanic showed up and said they had to replace a battery. That didn't sound too bad...but it was. They kept updating our times to leave. I kept re booking my connecting flight and then missing them. We watched the 3:20 flight arrive and then leave before our 1:15 flight. Three hours later, we were allowed on the plane and then had to wait while they refueled. We thought perhaps they could have done that during that three hours.

I got to my hotel around 10:00 and met my roommate Myra. She works at a high school in San Francisco. She is going to be a new assistant principal next year. She is really nice and we compared our states problems in education.

All day Thursday we had workshops about Bulgaria including the history, art, language and culture. Thursday night we went to a Bulgarian restaurant and ate some wonderful Bulgarian food. Then we learned some Greek and Bulgarian folk dances. They seem to be good exercise which I needed after all that food! (See the pictures)

Friday we had workshops about Greece covering the same types of content. We had a wonderful family style Greek lunch. We did not get to work that one off with dancing however.

We leave for Athens this afternoon and we are all excited and ready to be there, as you can imagine. I will post as often as I have time and Internet access.
See you soon.

Amy

The Night Before

So here it is, the day before I leave on my big six week trip. I am not entirely sure the time I will be gone has sunk in yet. I am very excited and probably won't get much sleep tonight. I am a bit like a little kid in that respect. I still sleep poorly the night before the first day of school. And I'm the teacher. Oh, well. I guess that is normal.

I have been slowly packing for the last week or so hoping I won't forget anything. Now I can't remember what I have packed and what I have not. I should have taken photos of each layer of the suitcase as I packed so I could go back and check. Packing everything you need for 6 weeks is much harder than packing for 10 days. At least I don't have to pack winter clothes that take up so much space.

Some of the other participants and I have been emailing back and forth so I am anxious to meet them in Chicago and find out more about the projects we are all planning based on this trip. Our itinerary shows lots of work and study time. I suppose we will also have some time to immerse ourselves into the culture. I look forward to all of it, hard work and all.

I guess I better go and check my suitcase again. The dogs tried to get into it but I don't think they would make it through customs. Besides, they have to stay home and take care of Rik. More thoughts from Chicago.

Fulbright Hays 2008

This will be my personal blog about my trip to Greece and Bulgaria in the Summer of 2008. Several of you had asked if I would be blogging as I go. I can only say that I will try my best to do so.

I leave on May 28, 2008 for Chicago. There I will meet the rest of my group and do some pre-trip briefing with the Fulbright people. That will be exciting. I am certainly anxious to meet the rest of the group I will be spending the next six weeks with while we learn about Greece and Bulgaria.

I will try to upload some photos as we go but may have to have a larger page to do this on as photos take up a lot of space. I could put them on Facebook but I think that there is probably an easier site to post on.

I will close for now but will write more later.

Here is a picture from my last international trip to Poland.