Christmas Time is Here!

I only have one more week of school and plan on turning it into a huge Christmas music dance party.  I’ve officially turned into the American Holiday girl.  During Thanksgiving I went to most classes and talked about the history of Thanksgiving and showed pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner in Armenia.  Now I’ve been recruited to teach about Christmas.  I know I’m going to have a blast teaching the children Christmas songs and ‘trying’ to translate the songs together into Armenian.  I hope that after New Year’s I can start teaching more actual English lessons because learning about American holidays won’t really help the children in the long run.  The Spelling Bee was a great success so I want my students to join in two other competitions in the coming months focused on writing and poetry. 

In other news, I finally have a visa and my passport back! I’ve been stressing out the past weeks because our visas had expired and we had to send out passports to Yerevan to get the situation fixed.  Many of us are going out of the country in the next few weeks so we were anxiously awaiting our visas.  Another volunteer is bringing back my passport today because I have no time to go there before I begin my Christmas adventures. Over the next few weeks I will be traveling to Tbilisi, Istanbul and all over Armenia with my boyfriend.  I’m looking forward to Christmas parties, New Year’s celebrations, an engagement party and a visit back to my old host family.  I probably won’t write again until January J

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving: To Give Thanks

I had a great Thanksgiving with other volunteers.  Ten of us met at a volunteer's house nearby and cooked a HUGE meal. Seriously, don't feel bad that I was spending Thanksgiving in another country, we certainly celebrated well here.  I loved all of the people I was with and consider them my family away from home. Below are some pictures of our day:

Today I was at Trent's house to visit for the weekend.  He lives about 30 minutes away so I called our normal taxi driver to come and get me.  A few minutes later his landlord came over and said we had to go to a birthday party for his wife. My taxi driver showed up with his wife during the middle of dinner.  I tried to leave, but the landlords invited (forced) my taxi driver and his wife inside to eat!

Trent and I sat through a very strange dinner before my taxi driver and I were allowed to leave.

My clubs have been amazing lately. We have done everything from watching the Lion King, translating Beatles songs and learning American slang.  I only have three more weeks of school before winter break :)