With our time in Teresina nearly over, I have a few hours to process what an incredible and uplifting experience this week has been. Throughout the week, Jennifer and I often laughed when asked the question “What do you think of the weather in Teresina?” We laughed because it is a known fact that the…

The last few days in Teresina have been memorable to say the least, and at times, it has been a total box of suprises. I wouldn’t have it any other way.:) After our weekend excursion to the coast, we started the week at Joselia’s school (Centor de Linguas), visiting classrooms, and teaching and talking with…

As I mentioned in my last post, Friday evening, after visiting Josie’s language school in Teresina, we were met by Ricardo, our driver sent from the Secretary of Education. We were scheduled for a road trip to the coast for the weekend. After about 7 hours on the road, we arrived in the small, coastal…

We arrived in Teresina on Thursday after a short flight from Brasiia. We were met at the airport by our fabulous host teacher Josie, and her friend and former ILEP student, Alex. Arriving in Teresina, I coud immediately sense that this was a city that is thoroughly lived in. (Okay, I’m over Brasilia bashing now.)…

So as I have mentioned in a previous post, I did not love the city of Brasilia; too modern, too much concrete, etc. It's like if Shanghai and the Jetsons had a love-child, with a splash of eastern soviet block communism. Part of it too, had to do with the “bubble within the bubble” which…

As the focus of the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program is to learn about other cultures and classrooms, much of our time in Brasilia was spent at briefings about the state of education in Brazil. If you're really interested in the details of Brazilian education, especially the history of it, check out my official blog…

Arriving in Brazil via the State Department's Teachers for Global Classrooms Program is a little different than when I usually arive in a country. Since we left Altanta, we have been treated like royalty, and, although I am not used to traveling like this, I am trying to “embrace the ambassadorship”, as suggested by our…

In his 1968 book, Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey offers a beatiful description, prophetic at times, of the beatiful red rocks, mesas and vast stretches of desert that mark the landscape of Southeastern Utah. After spending the first half of the trip exploring Zion and Bryce canyons, (both located in the western part of the state),…

  5 days, 5 parks, 1 sweatshirt. Perhaps I should have checked the weather more closely before I left. Heading out to the great Southwest, the plan was to spend 5 nights/6 days exploring as much of Utah's National Parks as we could in the short amount of time we had alotted for ourselves. I…

In addition to New Years Eve and experiencing the Northern Lights, the last week has been jam packed with adventure. From hiking the glacier to snorkeling in ice water, Iceland has no shortage of things to do in the winter. Here were some of my favorites: (Photo credits to Michelle for the snorkeling pictures) THE…