Preparations for HALLOWEEN

October 31 - Halloween
We decorated our classrooms with paper bats, spiders, spider webs,etc. Thanks to my ESL students it looks veeeeery nice. Spooky room now. On Monday the kids from the preschool will go Trick or Treating around the school. It will be fun!!!!

USS MIDWAY

The ond of the whole conference was a trip to one of the schools on Coronado Island, which was amazing by the way. The school was brand new buildings ( some buildings still under construction though) with the most modern technology one can imagine. But however my heart is at Birmingham.
The afternoon, we spent by taking a tour of USS Midway. US NAVY ship which is on display in SD Harbor. It was my first experience of this kind. Very interesting.

Everybody went on the self-guided tour with these funny headphones. Funny thing.

Top Gun???? No, not really.

Can you believe that 4500 soldiers could fit in one ship?? Sleeping in such bedrooms.

Balboa Park in San Diego

Geez....!!! I know I say something is beautiful and wonderful all the time, but it is, I can't help it.
The Fulbright officials took us to Balboa Park as it is a place they all are proud of. We started the day with a picnic in the open air.

There is also a small village in the middle of the park where there are tiny houses representing different countries of the World.

The house of the Czech and Slovak Republic belonged to one of the first houses built there in 1930s by PanAm Airline. We felt proud, although nobody inside spoke czech.

I thought The Old Globe Theather is only the one in London.But apparently it isn't. So we both went to the same place, right Ky?

Hacienda Hotel and the Old Town

Beautiful, beautiful and beautiful!!!!
On Sunday afternoon we moved to our hotel where we stayed the whole conference. The location of the hotel was just perfect!!! Our room was overlooking the pool and it had incredible view over the old town. All the sights within a walking distance.

Jacuzzi at night??? Heaven, I can tell.

The Old Town was really beautiful. Such awesome houses would catch everybody's eye.

We were treated incredibly well. Delicious food and service. Every day we went somewhere for dinner or lunch. San Diego is influenced a lot by Mexican culture, there are so many Mexican pubs. We went to one of those for lunch. There was live music and the musician (in the picture) fell in love with Adela. He played just for her, but look who was SHY?????

SEA WORLD

After we unpacked our stuff we couldn't wait to get to San Diego's number one attraction. Sea World. I heard a lot about it but you have to see it in person. The weather and the admission fee was a pain in the butt a little but it didn't spoil the experience. It would be very hard to pick one "best" thing as everything was just great. The sharks, pinguins, sea lions, killer whales, dolphins.... You name it, I saw it!!!

And you know what????? I touched the DOLPHIN!!!!! It made me so happy.

Fulbright Orientation in San Diego

Finally!!! I could not wait to get there. We set out on Saturday morning, the journey from LA took approximately 2,5 hours with a quick stop in Carlsbad. The traffic was pretty good so we enjoyed it very much. We gave Nikte Sanchez a ride and were all glad she was there with us. Adela fell in love with her immediately. She called her "a little girl" and spoke czech. It was fun.
We were offered an accommodation with Kathy and Rob for Saturday night. It was a beautiful house in Mexican style. At 6 there was a potluck dinner with about 50 former or current Fulbrighters. Wonderful event, interesting people (all the people I meet here are so interesting) very interesting conversations and also very informative.

The only problem was that I completely forgot I was allergic to cats and pillows filled up with feathers. I started sneezing and when I was almost unable to breathe I got up from my bed and in the middle of the night I went to sleep into my car. A beautiful night as you can imagine.

Adelka immediately became a friend with the cats.

Dinner at UCLA

Yesterday me and my family, we all went to UCLA for a small meeting of scholars and Fulbrighters. I am repeating myself again when saying that there were such incredibly interseting people again. Almost all of them are undertaking research on various topics here in the USA. The people there were from such countries like Albania, China, Norway, the Philippines, Kazachstan,etc.
At the end of this wonderful event we had also the opportunity to hear Dr. George Helou, Professor of Astrophysics, speak about the dramatic advances in space exploration through infrared photography.

Before the event started we popped out for a few more minutes to see the UCLA's beautiful buildings.

We gave a lift to Nikte Sanchez from Mexico, who also teaches at BHS and is a Fulbrighter.

This is our table we shared with our new friends from SCOT. (it looks like I had something interesting to say.)

And of course a delicious meal to go with it all.

BIG girl!

The childhood is over my love!!!!! It is time for preschool. Not everybody has the chance to start preschool in LA. We are really curious about how fast Adelka will learn English. The preschool is within BHS so we all are driving to school every day. Denisa stayed the first day with Adela but the second day she was there on her own and you know what???? When we came there to check on her during the nutrition break, she didn't even want to speak to us. She was so happy with all the kids there. If it was open also on Saturdays and Sundays, she would definitely go. Well.... good for her.

There are students from BHS helping there every day. Excellent idea, don't you think?? How many of these kids plan their own families after the day at preschool???

The SCOT potluck in Pasadena

On Saturday we were invited to Gail, the president of SCOT organization. She organized so called potluck in her beautiful house in Pasadena. There were people who are former or current Fulbrighters. It was very interesting experience. They have so many stories to tell, so many experiences, rich lives. They all were sharing them with one another, it was very interesting indeed. I had the chance to meet Bob Roberts, who looks after me here, finally in person. He is so vital, somebody to be admired. Everybody also brought the typical food from either their country or from the country they went to on exchange. DELICIOUS!!!!! They also plan a lot of activities and events for us to do during the year, so we are all looking forward to it.

Gail's house with its magnificent view over the canyon.

The group. Wonderful people. Ruth telling her stories.

And the FOOD finally

Los Angeles ZOO

Another weekend is gone. We went to LA ZOO to see the animals there. It was a nice day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the monkeys went crazy and the lion was sleeping. Adela enjoyed it very much. There is no doubt she did, we bought her everything she wanted. But it was THE last time!!!!!!!

See???? He was really sleeping!

Tiger was a different ace!!!!

The biggest monkey of all!!! Riding a choo choo train.

No, I wasn't lazy!!!!! I was veeeery busy actually.

I am very sorry for not being in touch for a while. The reason is not laziness, in fact I have a lot of things to say. I will share them with you during the upcoming weeks. I would like to write about how I see it all here. How I like it here, what I found difficult, easy, what I miss and what I don't miss. I realized I should stop talking only about sightseeing here but also offer you an opportunity to peek inside my head and share my points of view on school system, teaching here, working here, living here, being a part of american way of life.
Before I do so, I would love to mention briefly two events I went through, the LA ZOO and the SCOT potluck in Pasadena.

My new class!!

11 graders What can I say??? This picture can say it all by itself. Veeery challenging!!! We will go through American Literature together.

Xmas already!!

Hey, I already gave myself and my family xmas presents. Seriously!! We have bought tickets to Florida for xmas time. I am excited. I will spend 10 days in Orlando and Miami. My first time I will have xmas without snow around. Different but worth to experience it at least once in my life. For New Year's Eve I will be back to LA though.

From Malibu to Santa Monica

Tuesday, a day off. How desperately I needed. We went sightseeing again, or rather beautyseeing. We took Topanga Canyon Road from the valley to the beach. (Kylowna showed me the canyon for the first time, it will always be special for me Ky) It was or still is very beautiful road. The canyon is awesome and then all of a sudden, the sea is right in front of you. Before we went there we learnt that Malibu is also the home of many movie stars. And there is no doubt....

The houses again. OOOOhhh. Have you ever seen anything like this???

Or like this??

We stopped for lunch at the beach. Very romantic and very hot by the way.

After lunch we were lying on the beach, relaxing and playing in the sand.

Then we ended up in Santa Monica on the 3rd Street Promenade.