Carolyn and I just bought our tickets to the country of Georgia for our fall trip.  There is a Muslim holiday in Saudi called Eid which falls in September this year.  So after an extended week-long in-service during which time teachers will be getting our rooms ready and learning about the priorities of our school and district (we have a new superintendent this year), school will shut down and Carolyn and I will be off to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

Carolyn and I at the Oregon coast.  Windy as always.

In the meantime, we’re spending the summer in Portland, Oregon.  Only two more weeks, actually. It’s been really fun meeting up with old friends and hanging out with my family, but it’s been exhausting too.  Our lives seem to swing between a lot of scheduling with people we want to see followed by long periods of down time in which we are forced to notice that our current living situation, cool and comfortable as it is, is not really home and we are often at loose ends with our time.  Still, it is deeply comforting to be touching base and touching lives with all the people who mean the most to us.  

Sharing a tender moment

And it has been indescribably dear to have the time to visit and sing with my mom.  She shows very, very little emotion and cannot handle even the lightest burden of conversation.  But she genuinely seemed to recognize me at our first meeting since I’ve been back and we’ve had a couple of visits where she was at her very best and willing to sing some of the old hymns along with me.  When I first walked into her room I asked her if she remembered me and she said, “Sure.  You’re the crown prince.”

Gellato break in Budapest

Selfie time in Prague

On our way back from Saudi to the US, we met up with my sisters, Caroline, Janie, Cathy, and Jan in Budapest.  After a week there we boarded the train and rolled on to a second week in Prague.  Those were special days not only for the views and European experiences, but also for the laughter and card games and conversations with my sisters whom I hadn’t seen for a year.  It is such a gift to be good friends with siblings.  Here are a few pictures of our time in Europe.

Now to back up and post an entry I wrote but never got around to posting about our Spring Break trip to Thailand.  The people I’ve talked with ALL have loved their vacations in Thailand.  It was no different for Carolyn and I.  There is something about Thailand - perhaps the low-key ethos, perhaps the delicious food or the affordability that makes it a favorite.  I found the people to be uniformly friendly and easy to talk with but feisty at the same time and no-nonsense when needed.

We spent our first of two weeks in Bangkok, a sprawling city with a semi-developed public transportation system but plenty

We visited a Bug and Reptile museum.

The employees were incredibly informed.
This is NOT one of the employees!

of alternate ways to get around.  The most colorful of these ways is a three-wheeled motorized taxi called a tuk-tuk.  No seat belts, no doors, no AC but plenty of personality and charisma.  

Not sure if this is to protect the tourists or arrest them.

We explored a few of the sights inside the city - mainly the endlessly fun open air stalls.  One of the more exciting moments came when a sudden downpour descended on one such market while we were shopping.  The stall owners were most certainly NOT caught unawares but activated a system of plastic sheets that acted as rain gutters which calmly shunted the torrent into the drainage system.  Watching that was even better than shopping!

After Bangkok we caught the night train to Chiangmai.  Around 8:00 PM a officious and incredibly efficient train employee came around and transformed each seating area into an upper and lower bunk.  With our devices plugged in and the train lulling us to sleep we woke up not long before pulling into Chiangmai in time for breakfast at a quaint coffee shop right there in the station.

At a park on a lake.  Lunch was served.

Helmets were included in the scooter rental.
Large selection. These...were the best they had.

Our highlight in Chiangmai...well, really there were two.  On our last day there we found ourselves in the midst of the Thai New Year celebration which involved a bigger water fight than you’ve ever seen.  It’s the perfect holiday...if you’re 8 years old.  More on that later.  The other highlight was renting a scooter and going on not one, but two excursions outside the city into national parks.  Both times we decided to turn both trips into two-day events because we read that there was lodging with terrific views all along the route.  Check out the photos of our trips since...as I’ve heard, they are worth a thousand words each.

Chiangmai's city wide New Years water "fight".

But back to the New Year’s celebration in Chiangmai - surprising puts it mildly.  The whole city is invaded by squirt gun and bucket sellers a day or two prior to the actual holiday.  Then, with one day to go...since, who can resist the temptation to start a water fight even if it is a day early, everyone on the street is a target.  The idea is that you are being well-wished by others who are helping you be cleansed for the coming year.  Yeah right.  In less than a block you are drenched along with anyone riding a scooter or a tuk-tuk.  The people we saw were taking it in stride with the notable exception of an extremely grouchy old man on a scooter who just wasn’t in the spirit.  

Since the temperatures were bordering on scalding, a wet shirt was certainly not the worst of all outcomes.  But you will find that walking around with wet underwear is ultimately a less than comfortable reality and that evening we found our way to supper on the side streets  and took to scuttling quickly past the buckets and squirt guns as soon as the ambushers were distracted.

We departed for the airport around 8:00 in the morning and we questioned our tuk-tuk driver as to the possibilities that we would arrive for our flight drenched. We implored him to find avenues least likely to involve large quantities of water which he did. We were ever so grateful...and sorry to leave Thailand but happy to be departing dry.

Hey there, Friends and Family,

Thanks for checking up on my progress here in Saudi Arabia.  And yes...it has been an incredibly long time since I wrote up my thoughts here in my blog.  I could probably fill up this entire page exploring why it has been hard to keep up with it...which I won't do.  But it probably is worth a few words since it has, in fact, been a part of my life that it has been very difficult to be a writer on this leg of my life's journey.

One of my most persistent struggles here in the desert has been a sense of isolation.  We do not live around anyone with whom we work, and our only source of connection and friendship is with our working colleagues.  Carolyn and I crave our alone time - time away from conversation and interaction by virtue of the fact we're both introverts.  And so our separation from friends at the end of the working day hasn't been all bad.  It gives us time to do things we love like read, exercise, and play music.  But the balance hasn't been right.  It is too much alone time even for us.

I think it is no coincidence that I'm writing this from a workshop in Bahrain - a nearby island nation with a much more inclusive and relaxed life style from Saudi Arabia.  These professional workshops give me, in addition to great information on how to improve my classroom practices, a chance to hang out with my teacher friends in a way that fills some of that void.  Somehow it makes it easier for me to write out into the world from a place of connection.

But enough about that.  Let me move on to more interesting aspects of my life here in Saudi.  Actually, the most interesting parts have been my travel opportunities OUTSIDE of Saudi.  Life here in the kingdom is fairly routine in a good way.  Driving feels natural and easy after the first shock over how aggressive some drivers are.  But now I just stay out of the way of the yahoos bombing down the left hand shoulder and keep an eye on my own safety and sense of courtesy and mutual accommodation with other drivers on the road.  That said, I just paid my third speeding ticket since arriving.  Speeding tickets are a result of machines that take your photo.  Unfortunately speed limit signs are few and far between and I've been paying the price...literally...for not being more vigilant.  How the unrepentant, habitual and reckless speeders deal with this problem is beyond me.  Anyhow, the ticket is relayed directly to your bank account where it shows up with all the other bills and you just pay your fine by clicking on the button and viola, out goes your money and poof goes your fine.

I recently returned from a conference in Mumbai that I absolutely loved!  It was a conference on Responsive Classrooms - a program whose philosophy can be summed up by saying that a student's sense of community, safety, and a feeling of being accepted and well-liked in the classroom is essential to their growth as a learner.  If any of you teachers get the chance to go to a Responsive Classroom workshop, I highly recommend it.  I implemented aspects of it the day I returned to my classroom.  But Mumbai itself was a trip!  Loud, vibrant, dirty, colorful, daunting, and welcoming all in equal measure.  Mainly, thought, I traveled with some folks from school that turned out to be a LOT of fun.  The highlight was a trip to Elephant Island by ferry under which are rock caves that were carved into places of inspiration and divinity by ancient peoples.  It reminded me of the rock churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia.  But without the sense of reverence and worship that Lalibela embodies.

Carolyn and I also traveled to Oman where we relaxed on the sandy beach and looked for interesting shells that, in the end, overwhelmed us with it's plentitude.  I've never seen so many shells in one place.  That was so much fun!

And, hard to believe, I never wrote about our Christmas trip to Italy and Spain where we met up with two of our three kids - Erin and Jacob.  Barcelona was initially overwhelming with its sprawl and busy-ness.  In the end we caught on to a few of the modes of transportation and got a good sense of that fascinating city.  But by far the best part was hanging out with Erin and Jacob.  As far as the actual travel experience, Rome was my favorite.  It was a constant source of enjoyment to see the ancient sites and imagine life as it was.  They were on the cutting edge of technological advancement in their time, and yet lived so different from how we get on with our rapidly changing technology and devices.

Looking ahead, for Spring Break Carolyn and I will be going to Thailand where we hope to hop on a motorcycle and tour around some countryside in the north where traffic is relatively light and easy to negotiate.  More about that when the time comes.

Keep in touch, everyone.  I can't wait to see you all come summertime.  I miss Portland and the blooming cherry trees, the coffee shop, and yes, even the rain!