Saturday, April 9, 2016

Turkey 2016


For this April break I finally managed to go see my friend Mew in Turkey! I have been trying to get to see her for a while now but it finally happened! She lives in Trabzon, Turkey, which is up on the Black Sea. I was able to met her husband Ahmed and her lovely son Deniz, who has the best smile ever!


I am very lucky that Ahmed is a dentist so I was able to get a a few of my teeth fixed while I was in town. I have three lovely new zirconium crowns! I recommend them they feel great.

Our first outing was to the Sumela Monastery, which is a Greek Orthodox Monastery. Which is an amazing monastery carved into the mountain. Unfortunately, it was closed because they are securing the mountain above it. It was a lovely area and going back to see it open gives me a reason to go back to Trabzon!

Trabzon is a pretty big port city in Turkey. It isn’t very touristy for westerners, though we did see some Iraqi tourists. You can tell that it is a place where the town center is the main shopping area as there were many shops for everyday things. It also has a very large beach front down on the Sea. It was very interesting to be standing on the edge of the Black Sea as it looked just like an ocean beach front.





We also went to visit a natural lake in Uzungöl. This is a natural lake up in the mountains. It is very pretty. They have make all of the buildings out of the local wood. It gave the village a very natural look. In the summer it would be lovely.






Over all I had a great time and was able to relax. I am very thankful to Mew and Ahmed for hosting me and I hope to go back another time so that we can explore more of Turkey!

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

From Russia with Love

So as of August I will be living in a new place! I was very lucky to have been offered a role at the Anglo Amercian School of Moscow for the 2016-2018 school years. The role will be nearly the same as what I have had at ACS Egham for the last 3 1/2 years. 

I will be the Elementary IT Integrationist. Which is a fancy way of saying I teach teachers and students how to use IT as a tool in their classrooms.

I went to the job fair in London last weekend with the hopes of acquiring a new job for next year, but also with the understanding that if the right job didn't find me, I might be staying on at ACS for another year. I was very luck that the right job has found me!

AAS is a great school with a great reputation. While it is the same role it will come with a new set of challenges, teachers, students and admin. I am excited to know that the school already uses the Google Apps for Education, which I helped to bring into ACS. They are also trialing Chromebooks which I haven't used so that will be something new for me to learn. 

I look forward to meeting a new group of teachers and seeing how I can help them develop their IT use personally, professionally and with their students. 

I am also looking forward to exploring a new city and country. That is something that I haven't done since I left Thailand.  I am also looking forward to experiencing a serious winter. I am sure the excitement of heavy snow will get old and tiring at some point, but being a Southern girl, I am excited to experience it first hand. 

Please feel free to follow my blog as I plan on writing more on it once I get to Russia and have new things to explore. I watched a show last night on TV where the presenters went to a Cat Circus. Not sure about that but I am sure that there will be many super cool things to see like the Bolshoi Ballet!!!!