Italy

I'm back in Estonia now. The trip to Italy was just amazing. I saw so many places I've seen in movies and read about in books and the weather there was just wonderful. The total length of the trip was 6,600 km and spending so much time on the bus wasn't bad at all. I talked to my "deskmate" Robert (he's a history teacher) and listened to music and just thought about life and things. It was like meditating :)

When we left last Saturday it was cold and snowy in Estonia. Luckily, spring has arrived in Estonia too now and most of the snow has disappeared. I'm back at work now and we've got 10 more weeks to go before the summer vacation.

I took lots of photos on the trip and here are just a few that I like the best.

 The Colosseum in Rome

 The Roman Forum

 Capitoline Wolf with Romulus and Remus

 The Pantheon

St. Angel Bridge and St. Angel Castle

 St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City

Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence

The leaning Tower of Pisa

 San Marino

 Venice - one of the most beautiful cities in the world

Venice

Me, the world traveller in San Marino :P

My next trip will be to Belgium in May. There's a big conference concerning the EU Comenius projects.

All in all, Italy is definitely one of my favourite countries and I would like to go back there in the future.

Spring, spring, spring!!!

Spring has come! At last! The sun is shining brightly and the temperature reaches 14 degrees Celsius. It's hard to believe that a few days ago we had frost in the morning.
Snowdrops are blooming, tulips and daffodils started sprouting... A couple of wild pigeons start warbling sweetly in the spruce outside my window... A new life is born... Again, the time for a new beginning has come...

All the best for you! Have a great time this spring!

Italy - here I come :)

It's the last day of the third term and I'm off to Italy tomorrow. During the next nine days I'm going to travel through eight countries - Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Vatican City and San Marino. I have never been to five of them so it's going to be an interesting trip.

I'm not going to take my laptop with me but I'll try to post some photos on Facebook. I also promise to share some pics after the trip here on our blog.

I hope you're all doing well. I miss you a lot.

After the Storm Comes a Calm

For a few months my students and I worked hard on staging "The Tempest" by Shakespeare for the 4th Regional Contest of School Theatres in English, which took place on March 9th. The work was hard as it isn't easy to adapt the whole play to a maximum twenty-minute performance.



What is more, the rehearsals didn't go as well as we had planned as some of the actors fell ill. On March 5th we had a dress rehearsal and it turned out that one of the girls was in hospital... On Wednesday two more fell ill, on Thursday morning the student who played the Prospero part was sent home with an upset stomach... The contest was on Friday...



On Thursday evening, while ironing the costumes, I thought that either it would be a total bomb if someone couldn't turn up or an excellent job as, knowing my students very well,I knew they would be able to muster all their strength in the time of crisis.



Everybody turned up, four of them still feeling unwell... Yet, they did their best! I was so proud of them! They won the first prize, the second time in a row (last year we staged "A Midsummer Night's Dream"), and Prospero got a special prize for outstanding acting. But first of all, they did a great job! The cooperation, the great team spirit, and, what's the most important, A LOT OF FUN!!!




I wish you could see all the people who were involved in the play. The girls who made decorations and costumes worked really hard, so did the guys who worked on the sound. The girl who played the part of Ariel had composed the music for the song she performed, she also played the flute. 'What a brave new world that has such people in it!




I wanted to upload the video but I failed. At least I managed to upload the pictures :)




Have a great week! I'm sure I will :D

Estonian teachers on strike

Turkey - photos

I'm back in Estonia and haven't forgotten my promise to upload some photos of my trip to Turkey. I couldn't upload much in Turkey because of problems with Internet connection :(

Eskisehir

Our teachers and students meeting the Mayor - the head of municipality.

School lunch

 The Blue Mosque in Istanbul

 Basilica Cistern - the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul The cistern was built in the 6th century.

 Bosphorus Bridge - connects Europe and Asia

 Hagia Sophia - a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul.

 Grand Bazaar - shopping and bargaining :D

 Our Estonian group in front of Hagia Sophia

 Topkapi Palace - the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years (1465-1856) of their 624-year reign

 :)