Blogs from Wroclaw, Lower Silesian, Poland, Europe - page 5

Oh dear how boring this is getting. It was raining again this morning. We have had rain for at least part of the day for the last 12 days. So we headed off from Katowice without seeing much of the city as it’s too wet to explore what might be on offer. Driving through the city we see a mix of the shiny new buildings with their glass walls rising skywards and the old buildings looking as though they have seen better days. Opening the car window to take a quick photo we were enveloped in the smell of coal smoke. Coal is in abundant supply in the area as we have seen many working mine pitheads. The roads through the city have been some of the best we have encountered. It didn’t take long before ... read more

Well to start off, today is a holiday from school in Poland for "Teacher's Day," basically a celebration of education and teachers. So no school today, and we're leaving for Italy in a few hours!!!!!!!!!!! So since we have no school today, the students celebrated yesterday. They bring teachers candy and flowers and other gifts. Both Des and I got roses yesterday from our classes which was super nice. Yesterday starts off normal, get to the bus stop to wait around 8:35 since the bus is supposed to leave at 8:45. The bus didn't get there until 9:15. Verrrry late. Luckily we made it to school just in time to find out that we were supposed to be there to teach an earlier class that nobody told us about. So we missed our 2nd period class. ... read more

So for the last 2 days, the school has surprised us with extra lessons. Earlier extra lessons. Instead of starting at 9:50 like planned, they wanted us to teach the 8:50 lesson also. The problem with that is our normal bus leaves at 8:50. The next earliest bus leaves at 6:55!!! So we get up at 5, shower and get ready, eat breakfast and pack our lunch, walk to the bus stop, take a 30 minute bus ride to school, wait an hour and a half in the teacher lounge, then start teaching at 8:50. To say it is inconvenient would be an understatement. We started our extra lessons yesterday at the private school also. Nobody showed up to any of our 6 lessons yesterday and today. Sooo the other teachers gave up 15 minutes from ... read more

So last week went pretty smoothly. Our topic for last week's lessons was music, so most of the students enjoyed it and participated some. On Wednesday and Thursday though, over half of the students in each class were absent because they were preparing the school for their 90th school celebration this weekend. A lot of them were in their school chorus that was singing a few songs for the weekend celebration. Our 2nd to last class Thursday didn't show up and a couple students from that class came to tell us that they were all in the auditorium watching the chorus rehearse the songs. So we walked over to the auditorium and got to see them sing (in Polish of course), but they were realllly good! Then we found out that all of the last classes ... read more

Just found a couple of websites with a lottttt of really cheap flights from here to Rome, Paris, Dublin, Spain, Norway, Germany, England, Scottland, etc. Can't wait to plan out some trips for February when we only have to work 2 days a week! This weekend we're planning on taking the train to Krakow since its only a 3 hour trip and staying Friday and Saturday night. And since Auschwitz (the biggest concentration camp during the war) is only a short bus ride from Krakow, I think we'll go and spend the day on Saturday there seeing the museums and camps. I know I'll take a lot of pictures. Very short day at school today. We were supposed to only have 4 lessons but 1 entire class skipped school so we only had 3. Those kids ... read more