Two weeks from tomorrow

Pictures from Rothemburg, Germany

smiling with the nightwatchmen of Rothemburg

Group shot along the wall that lines the city

In the town square

The Christmas truck

Pictures from Prague and Dresdin, Germany:

Beautiful Prague at Night

It's official, two weeks from tomorrow I come home, yeah!!!

And it is looking like these last two weeks are going to be pretty fricken crazy.  I was just asked to take on another teacher's classes.  It is actually a good friend of mine who is going on maternity leave and the principle somehow neglected to find a replacement so starting tomorrow whenever I am not teaching drama, I will be teaching elementary school EAL.  I am predicting it will be quite stressful but I am trying to focus on all the extra money I will be able to bring home with me :)

     In other news life in Lux is pretty great.  I have gone on two trips since my last posting, one to Prague with EJ and Marcus and one to Champagne with four other teachers from the International School.  Both were wonderful, in very different ways (see above pictures)

     Prague was an amazing city, just as beautiful as I was expecting and very different from any other city I have been to in Europe.  I learned that how to say hello in check, "Ahoy" so apparently the first pirates must have been from Prague :)  One really funny thing that happened in Prague was that we left the window open in our hotel room when we went out exploring for the day and when we came back my back which was right under the ceiling window was SOAKED, including all of my clothes!!! It was hilarious, and definitely taught me the importance of flexibility while traveling.  I mean what else could I do but laugh?!?

    Champagne was so beautiful and I learned sooooo much about the process of making champagne, I am basically an expert.  Had a few really delicious french meals, traveled to three champagne caves, and took a tour through a few old villages and vineyards, amazing!  I will post my champagne pictures soon, I promise.  There's just not enough time in the day.

Thats all for now, hope all is well back home, cant wait to be back in America so soon! 

"Halo" by Beyonce is owning me... and other life updates

Pictures from my birthday bowling extravaganza....

My super intense bowling form, very intimidating!

Me, Marcus, Carol, EJ, and Mark in the background (looking confused)

Lindsey and Rachel

Me, Michaelynn, and Carol

EJ and Marcus

Me and EJ, precious!

      First and foremost, thank you to my lovely sister for introducing me to the magic that is Beyonce's new song, Halo....lifechanging! OK, that might be a bit of an overstatement but I think it has been on loop on my itunes for a week, seriously.

     On to less pressing matters, life in Lux is pretty good these days.  I am really enjoying teaching and getting to know my students better, which is great.  My gym membership expired a few weeks ago so I decided to take up the hobby of swimming and it is basically revolutionizing my life.  OK maybe another teensy overstatement but swimming is really doing good things for me, not only are my biceps definitely getting bigger but it just feels so calming being under the water, away from all screaming children.

     I cant believe I am coming up on my last month here, I have a feeling it is going to go by very quickly!  I am going away this weekend for a women's retreat with my church which should be just delightful.  We are going to Vianden which is supposed to be a really nice part of Lux with a really beautiful castle and we are staying and a very nice hotel so it should be a great time.  And there are a few other breaks coming up soon so planning is in the works for those :)

pics from spring break w/ liz

Me in the centre of brussels

Liz on a precious street in bruges

taking a boat tour through the canals of bruges

sitting at a cafe in bruges

liz demonstrating how much she loves me (i am pretty sure thats what she's doing)

out for a romantic sister dinner

funny bike in amsterdam

standing in the porta nigra at Trier

Liz being scary in the Roman Baths

handstands with my friend, marcus

much overdue

Wow, it has been quite some time since I was last here.

The past few weeks have been a little crazy and I will try to cover most of the highs and lows in this post.

My beautiful and wonderful sister came to visit me for a week and we had an AMAZING time traveling around.  Spent a day in Brussels, a day in Bruges, a day in Amsterdam, a day in Trier (Germany), and a day in Lux.  It was so much fun to travel around with her and it was great to show her my home, here in Lux!

A few days after Liz left I actually got some bad news that a good friend from home had very unexpectedly passed away.  It was pretty tough week after that and I thought a lot about coming home early but after lots of thinking and praying I have come to the conclusion that I need to finish off my time here right and so I am just trying not to think too much about home but rather focus on enjoying on the time I have left here and hopefully this next month and a half will fly by!

I have been teaching drama classes for three or four weeks and it is going really well.  I am finding that seventh grade is a very challenging age for drama because most of the boys are jumping off the walls, overflowing with energy while most of the girls are so self conscious they are basically mute and glued to each other.  And it is my job to bridge this gap while teaching them something about drama in the process.

In other news I am getting very excited for a certain birthday I have coming up on cinco de mayo! I am throwing myself a proper birthday party at a bowling alley here and inviting about 10 close friends so it should be a good time!! Hopefully I will have pictures and stories from the festivities in my next post. 

Spain, jason, and pizza soup

Pictures from my adventures in Spain...

me at the Jason mraz concert

Me eating a kabab, or as we call them in america, a gyro

I dont even know what was in that thing, but I ate it...huge accomplishment!

beautiful Alicante

My precious little room in Alicante

Troy and I out to dinner, enjoying some cervazas

so, I know i have been a little behind the curve with the blog lately...I guess i don't really have a good excuse, sorry.   Here are some exciting things in my life since my last post:

~Started teaching drama, loving it, but also feeling challenged by these crazy seventh graders already, so hopefully that is a good thing

~Had an amazing trip to Spain, where I was able to spend some time with friends and see some really beautiful spanish sights

~Attended two Jason Mraz concerts where I first, fell deeper in love with this amazing musician and then second, came to terms with the fact that we probably aren't going to end up falling madly in love any time in the near future (quite an emotional roller coaster)

~Tried sushi last night, for those of you who know my eating habits, this is quite a big deal

~Read an incredible book called, "Love Walked In", which i highly reccommend to anyone looking for a god read

~Cooked chicago style pizza for my friends, wanted it to be like Lou Malnatis and added extra tomatoes to the top which created some excess liquids and led to the renaming of my dish to "pizza soup", oh well atleast everyone was in agreement that it tasted delicious!

~Made a trip to the farmers market on wednesday which is always a delight because it is in the beautiful city centre and it was even sunny so that made even more delightful

Tomorrow is the last day of school before our two week long spring break and I couldn't be more excited because my wonderful sister is coming to visit me!!! I am meeting her in Brussels where we will spend two nights and then we are traveling to brugges and amsterdam and then back to Lux, should be a great trip.  I am truly craving some sister time and I think this is going to be just the boost i need to get me through the last two months.  Hopefully my next post will be filled with beautiful pictures and wonderful sister stories.

Until then...