Archive for January, 2012Page 3
Châteaux, and The Blood On Their Hands
This past weekend we spent off-site in the city of Tours for orientation. One of our principal occupations there was visiting the magnificent châteaux in the area. For any whose history or French is a few centuries out of date, a château is a French castle. However, they are not very much like the fortified […]
Boating on the Bosporus!
After gazing out of our hotel balconies for days, today we were finally able to sail on the Bosporus. The body of water, which divides Europe from Asia, presented an unparalleled view of Istanbul. Although one of our classmates got sea sick (Cole was looking even more pale than usual), the faerie allowed us to view the […]
El Ensanche
El Ensanche is the name of the barrio where my host family lives. But don’t worry. Here, barrio simply means neighborhood. I’m staying with a family of four. Cruz is la señora and Jesús is her husband who works as a computer programmer. They have a daughter, María, who is studying English philology (that’s what […]
Donating Beds!
Hola Family and Friends, Today was like many of our other days here in Chimbote. We taught in the morning and the afternoon. However, our siesta was a little bit different. After eating our lunch we were able to walk around Chimbote to donate two wooden beds that we assembled last night. The families that […]
Lessons
After a weekend of fun and acting like tourists, its back to the grind here in Chimbote as classes and homestay visits resumed. Teaching class seems a little easier now that we have a hang of things and have been very good at planning out the lessons for class. Unfortunately, today was a rough day […]
My One Certainty
Anyone who has heard of Bailey’s Irish Cream knows that the name Bailey comes from Ireland. However, this beverage has been misleading people for generations. The problem is that after hearing the name Bailey, people who encounter the name Bailly assume that it is also from Ireland. In fact, the variation Bailly is from France, […]
la playa!
Hola! Today we traveled by boat to a small island off the coast of Chimbote. The person running the boat gave us a tour on our way to the island, unfortunately it was all in Spanish so only a few of us knew what he was saying. Once we got close to the island, we […]
January 15 in Istanbul by Mandy
Today was, once again, a beautiful day in Istanbul. First, our tour guide Ender (the man, the myth, the legend) took us to Dolmabahce Palace, which was mind-boggling. It was built in 1856 and, surprisingly, Mimar Sinan was not the master architect. After Sultan Selim III was murdered in Topkapi Palace, the move to this […]
A day of new experiences!
Our first weekend in Peru to be tourists and explore the city has started out with a bang! Today our group got the chance to climb a mountain to see the city of chimbote in whole new light. It started out with challenging some fears by driving up the mountain in a bus, but we did […]
Blackout in Istanbul
Today it started out drizzling lightly as we walked to Little Hagia Sophia (not to be confused with Hagia Sophia). However upon arriving there, we realized that the mosque was closed. On the way there we had heard what we thought was a call to prayer, but it was actually an announcement of a death […]