April

Tours in Dublin (including Guinness)

“Green, green / It’s green they say / on the far side of the hill. / Green, green / I’m going away / to where the grass is greener still.” — The New Christy Minstrels

After gray and rainy weather our first two days in Dublin and more rain in the forecast, Whitney and I lucked out that Tuesday. The weather defied the forecast and we later saw our first blue sky in Ireland!

april chester beatty library — The grounds of the Chester Beatty Library

Our first stop of the day was the Chester Beatty Library. Chester Beatty was a wealthy art collector and collected religious art and texts from all over Europe and Asia. What I liked about this museum was that it displayed works from Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I found the collection to be far more interesting than the Book of Kells.

Next, we jumped on the bus and headed for Kilmainham Gaol prison for a tour. This is where we hit a snag — I had bought a Groupon for the wrong prison! We had our Guinness tickets booked for later in the day and we couldn’t stay to tour Gaol at their next available tour time. 😦 Oh, well. This wasn’t my worst travel disaster. (Ask me about the time I missed my flight from Paris to Kosovo, or the time I was stuck at Luton airport for 21 hours).

With our sudden free time, we walked across the street to tour the grounds of the old Royal Hospital (which has now been converted into a modern art museum). Since the museum was free, we also went inside, though neither of us especially likes modern art.

hedgehog — Don’t ask … I don’t know why!

april royal hospital grounds — Royal Hospital grounds

Next, we walked to the Guinness factory. This is Dublin’s most-popular tour. The exhibits are done well but beer production has since moved sites, so we didn’t actually see beer being made. We did get to sample beer, though, at the rooftop bar.

my first guinness — My first Guinness … I didn’t like it!

Dublin city view — The view from the rooftop bar

We ended the day with yet another tour — a literary pub crawl another friend had highly recommended. The tour was fun and informative. Our only complaint was that the pub stops were short (twenty minutes), which didn’t leave much time for drinking.

molly malone — Molly Malone statue, one stop during the pub crawl

My Dublin tips for the day:

If you like religious art, I highly recommend visiting the Chester Beatty Library and Museum. (Bonus: admission is free.) I enjoyed it more than the Book of Kells.
I like whiskey and I don’t like beer so I am bias in this opinion, but I enjoyed drinking at the bar at the Jameson Distillery far more than at the Guinness bar. While the Guinness bar had nice views, it was very crowded and difficult to find a seat. Jameson was much quieter and we could actually sit at the bar and chat with the bartenders.

Things to do on a Rainy Day in Dublin

On Monday in Dublin, it rained all day. Whitney and I had planned to visit the Book of Kells and do a walking tour of Trinity College. We decided to scrap the walking tour, since it was outside, and find something else to do in the morning. We had passed Christ Church cathedral the day before and felt inspired to go on a guided tour. I am glad we did because the tour ended up being one of my favorite things.

view from christ church

Christ Church is 1,000 years old.

christ church stained glass — Stained glass

Our tour guide was funny and informative. We learned a lot about the history of Dublin and of the church. We even got to ring the church bells!

Also, Christ Church has a famous organ that was donated in the 1920s. The only problem was, it didn’t work. They took it apart and found a mummified cat and rat inside! This story was the inspiration behind the cartoon “Tom and Jerry.”

mumified cat and mouse

That afternoon, we went to see the Book of Kells and Trinity Library, both famous sites on the Trinity College campus. The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript (meaning, a text supplemented with illustrations) of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) that was created sometime around 800 AD. Pictures weren’t allowed, so I have none to show you. Several people had recommended the Book of Kells before I went on my trip. Honestly, though, it wasn’t my favorite thing that we did.

The Trinity Library had an impressive collection of books.

trinity library 2

It was still raining after our tours, so Whit and I decided to go to the Jameson Distillery for a drink at their bar. We had a great time sampling different whiskeys and shooting the breeze with the bartenders. We topped off our evening by pub-hopping near our hotel.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhE8XbeBD91/?taken-by=hellofromkosovo

My Dublin tip for the day: Take a guided tour of Christ Church cathedral!

Knitting Class in Dublin, Ireland

Hi, everyone! Did you miss me? I am back to blogging after a full two weeks off. It’s been nice to have time away. I spent my spring break in Ireland with Whitney, my childhood friend.

I got to Dublin on a Saturday afternoon. Whit arrived the next morning (Easter Sunday) from Los Angeles. If it were me I would have been dead tired, but Whit was a real champ and arrived ready to see the city. She had a surprise planned for me and I had no idea what it was.

But first! We had to stop for a drink at Dublin’s oldest pub.

brazen head pub.jpg

Next up was the surprise. I had kind of thought it would be a facial or massage or something. I was wrong, though! Whitney took me to a loom knitting class where we got to make our own Merino wool scarves. (How cool is that?!) We took our class with Liadian Aiken.

choosing yarn — Choosing our yarn colors

plotting colors — Plotting colors on a grid

Things went well at first but then my yarn kept falling off the hooks. Righting it was a tedious process where our instructor had to re-hook each loop back on the loom. My yarn fell off about five or six times. 😦

knitting going well — When things went well …

knitting mistake — When things did not go well 😦 !!!

But FINALLY we finished and I am really happy with the result.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhCQ7xeBOeV/?taken-by=hellofromkosovo

Now I have a beautiful, warm scarf that I handmade and that will remind me of Ireland and spending time with Whitney. 🙂 I love it so much! I wore it all week.

Here’s a little video of some live pub music that evening:

I’ve got lots more to share about Ireland. Four upcoming posts will be about my trip.

Three Classroom Activities You Can Do Using Only Index Cards and Crayons

As the title of this post states, here are three classroom activities you can do using only index cards and crayons.

First up is Jeopardy! What I love about this is that it is endlessly adaptable to all different subjects and grade levels. You can swap out categories or add to them to re-use the game while keeping it fresh. (Also, my students LOVE it!)

classroom jeapordy 1

For younger kids, I’ve focused on simple topics like colors, animals, and shapes. For older kids, I’ve used topics like actions, professions, past tense, telling time, and U.S. trivia. (I’m always interested to see if students know who America’s first president was or when our Independence day is.)

classroom jeapordy 2

The only difficulty with this game is that the cards are small, so I end up circling the classroom for all the students to see the clues. This problem would be eliminated if I had an overhead projector (but I don’t).

To play Jeopardy in the classroom, I divide students into groups and then tape the cards to the chalkboard. The groups go back and forth, choosing clues until they are all gone. Then, we tally the points to see who won.

Jeopardy classroom game — Rhyme, Missing Letter, Food and Places make good topics, too!

Next up is this easy-to-make ABC challenge. I cut index cards in half and wrote out sets of the alphabet in different colors. Students formed groups and had to put the letters in order.

ABC classroom activity

For a further challenge, my teaching counterpart asked the students to see how many words they could make. Our students were clever enough to build on the words, crossword-puzzle style. (I wish I’d gotten a picture, but my phone died.)

Finally, here is an idea for a numbers challenge. Use index cards to write out the numbers 1-10. Divide students into different groups. Give one number to each student. Then, time each group to see who can line up in numerical order the fastest. (I let them do a practice run and then I time them.) 🙂

Here are some other activities, materials, and lesson plans I have used in my classroom:

Kulla e Zenel Beaut, a Restaurant in Peja, Kosovo

“The Kulla,” as my friends and I call it, is one of my favorite restaurants in Peja, Kosovo (which also happens to be my favorite city in Kosovo. Other people may tell you that Prizren is the best city. Don’t listen to them.)

The Kulla has great traditional Kosovar food (as well as some American favorites, like chicken fingers). They also make a great house wine. 😉

kulla restaurant peja kosovo 2 — Entrance

kulla restaurant peja kosovo — Nice atmosphere

chicken fingers kulla peja kosovo — Chicken fingers with awesome bread and dipping sauce

meat in a clay pot — Meat cooked in a clay pot, mmmmmm!

traditional albanian food — This dish has onion in it but it’s so good, even I will eat it!

skenderbag meat food dish — A Skenderbag … a popular food here in Kosovo. Meat is wrapped in cheese and then breaded and fried. Mmmm!

albanian clothing — Traditional clothing

rakia peja kosovo.JPG

I highly recommend this place! Stop by the next time you’re in Peja. 🙂

Photo Scavenger Hunt

When I asked my friends and family for ideas for this blog, my friend Whitney sent me a Pristina, Kosovo photo scavenger hunt challenge she found online. That was a year ago. Since I am going to see Whitney in a few weeks, I decided to finally do the scavenger hunt. Saturday was a nice day and I had nothing else to do. So, I hopped on the bus to Pristina to begin my challenge!

The clues:

If you’re passing by Mother Tereza pedestrian street, just have a look at this Albanian National Hero. [Answer: Zahir Pajaziti]
As an American, it’s kind of funny to see this statue. His name is spelled correctly while the street is not. [Answer: Bill Clinton]
If you’re tired of traffic and urban life, this is the ideal place to have a nice walk or take a dip in the gigantic pool without leaving the city. [Answer: Germia Park]
This kind or architecture will kill your eyes, but since it was listed among top 10 most ugly buildings in the world it is a must-see. [Answer: National Library]
This is the location where Slobodan Milosevic delivered his 1989 speech which ignited the flames of nationalism in the former Yugoslavia leading to a decade of war and ethnic cleansing. [Answer: Gazimestan]
Located in one of the few Ottoman style buildings in the city. It’s tucked off a side street but worth finding. [Answer: the Grand Hamam]

I had already seen three of the sites (Bill Clinton, the library, and Zahir Pajazitit’s statue, because it is located in front of a building that has two Airbnbs I’ve stayed at). But, in the spirit of the challenge, I visited all six places in one day.

I decided to start with the most far-flung of the six sites: Gazimestan. It is a monument that commemorates the 1939 Battle of Kosovo. To get there, I took a bus from Pristina’s central bus station toward Mitrovice, and asked to be let off at Gazimestan, which is just a short ways out of the city. I got off the bus and walked along a desolate, trash-strewn road in the middle of nowhere. As I approached the monument, two stray dogs ran up to me. Luckily, they were friendly, but they shook me up a bit. I got to the monument with my two new dog friends trailing behind me and handed my passport over to a very unhappy-looking guard. He kept my passport for safe keeping and I was allowed onto the grounds to take photos. I thought it would be disrespectful to take selfies at a war memorial, so no selfies for this clue.

Apparently, this is a curse:

After I finished visiting the monument, I collected my passport, walked back down the desolate road, crossed the highway, and took a kombi back into the city center. In retrospect, I should have sprung the money for a cab or taken someone else along with me. [Total round trip from Pristina: 1 Euro]

The kombi let me off right in front of the Bill Clinton statue, something I pass every time I come to Pristina. My next clue: DONE!

I decided to go to the next furthest-flung clue, which was Germia Park. Lots of volunteers I had talked to had been there before, but I never had. (Not much of a park enthusiast, I guess.) I had heard that the pool is absolutely enormous. It is! Although, it was empty and blocked off this time of year.

Big pool Germia Park Pristina Kosovo — Really, really big pool

[Total round trip from Pristina: 80 cents]

The bus back into the city center dropped me off very close to my next clue, the Great Hamam. I had a vague idea of where it was. I even had a map I had gotten from my Peace Corps safety and security manager. I still couldn’t find it. I asked four different people on the street for directions. Finally, I asked an older gentleman sitting on a bench, and he pointed at an ugly building across the street.

It was a good thing this notice was posted to the door. Otherwise, I would have doubted I was in the right place.

I was really disappointed by this clue. I thought the Grand Hamam would be beautiful. But no, it’s an ugly, dirty, white cinderblock building. (There is a really beautiful mosque next door.)

Grand Hamam Pristia Kosovo — Me in front of the Grand Hamam

After stopping for a refreshment at Trosha, my new favorite bakery in Pristina, I headed off to finish my scavenger hunt. I already knew where my last two clues were.

This is Zahir Pajaziti, the first commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Zahir Pajaziti 2

My last destination was the National Library. I’ve defended this building on my blog before … I don’t think it’s ugly! It’s unusual and, as my parents pointed out when they visited Kosovo, in need of some repairs. But still, I like it!

National Library Pristina Kosovo — Me at the National Library

This turned out to be a fun day. I got to see new places in Kosovo (and I also realized I don’t have many pictures of myself at touristy places here). Thanks for the photo challenge, Whitney! (Sorry it took me a year to do it.)

Amsterdam: the Fun Side

Here I am in Amsterdam!

April in Amsterdam — “A” is for “April” … and also Amsterdam 🙂

One of my missions while in Amsterdam was to eat at Dunkin Donuts. I was surprised to see how fancy the donuts are.

dunkin donuts amsterdam — Cookie Monster and smiley faces … whaaaat?! So fancy!

We went to a place called the Cheese Museum, where you can freely sample all different kinds of cheeses. It was heaven.

My friend took me on the commuter ferry at night so I could see a different view of the city. 🙂 It was lovely.

night ferry amsterdam — Amsterdam at night

My friend claims I made her walk through the red light district twelve times a day. (She is exaggerating somewhat.) In my defense, the red light district is centrally located and we had to cut through it to get to other places. 😉 Riiiiight …

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfUBZJQBQA_/?taken-by=hellofromkosovo

condoms amsterdam — Who says safe sex can’t be fun?

magic mushrooms — I did not go in here …

Thoughts and observations about Amsterdam …

Like Sweden, bikes are EVERYWHERE! Be careful when you are crossing the street.
Getting to the city center from the airport is super easy via train and only costs around 5 Euro.
The Anne Frank Museum (see: Monday’s post) sells out weeks in advance, so plan way ahead if you want to visit.

Side note: I visited both the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum, but found myself wanting to just absorb everything and not be concerned with taking photos. I think I saw most of Van Gogh, but the Rijksmuseum is huge! I could return and see things I didn’t on my first trip.

Amsterdam: the Serious Side

I spent last weekend in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and wanted to share some highlights of my trip with all of you. Rather than break my trip into chronological order, I decided to show the serious side and then the fun side of the city. I did not want to post my photos of my visit to the Anne Frank house alongside my photos of Amsterdam’s red light district.

So, on the serious side … (Some of my observations may seem kind of obvious, but I really did not know much about the city or country before I visited.)

My friend and I took a guided canal boat tour around Amsterdam on my first afternoon there. I may have fallen asleep for part of it (I’d had an early flight, and the boat was so soothing!) but I did manage to learn a good deal about the city.

If this hadn’t been pointed out on the tour I’m not sure I would have noticed it on my own, but many buildings in Amsterdam are pitched forward or crooked. That’s because the city was built on filled-in swamp land, and the houses rest on sand (and they shift). Once I learned this, I could not stop seeing crooked buildings everywhere!

leaning building amsterdam — Notice how the red-roofed building leans forward from its neighbor.

Houses in Amsterdam tend to be tall and steep, and many buildings have hooks hanging from the roofs to help move furniture up through the windows.

I also learned that the Neterlands is the world’s largest exporter of petrol, even though they don’t produce petrol.

Furthermore, I learned that Amsterdam is below sea level. Gates have been constructed out in the water to keep the North Sea from flooding the city.

***

“Most parents don’t know, really, their children.” — Otto Frank

My friend and I visited the Anne Frank House the next day. As you might know from reading her story, the annex where she and her family and four other Jews hid was raided after two years and they were split up and sent to different concentration camps. Only Otto Frank, Anne’s father, survived. The picture that moved me most was of Otto Frank as an older man and was taken when he went back to see the annex many years later (around 1979?). I will never forget the image of him standing in profile, looking at the empty attic where his family had hidden.

bookcase anne frank — Bookcase that hid the annex

The museum’s final exhibit is a video montage of different public figures talking about what Anne Frank’s story has meant to them. As actress Emma Thompson said: “Her would-haves are our real possibilities.”

Crochted Christmas Lights

My mom recently told me about a cute crochet project she’d seen — Christmas Lights! I decided to make some for her as a surprise (but then I ruined the surprise by telling her about them).

I followed this easy pattern. The project was easy, just a bit slow and tedious. I am pretty happy with the end result, though.

A string of crocheted Christmas lights — I don’t have a mantle …

Umm … Merry Christmas in February?

Lights — Christmas, Christmas time is here …

Market in Tirana, Albania

I took these photos a while ago but never got around to posting them. I visited a farmer’s market the last time I was in Albania. Fruits and vegetables abounded, but I was also surprised to see other goods for sale. I really wanted to buy an antique clock (isn’t the one with the owl cute?), but the 30 Euro price tag was too steep.

vintage clocks Tirana market — Antique clocks

goods for sale tirana market

Though sheep’s head soup is a delicacy, I have never seen it or had it served to me (though my host family eats mutton). I was surprised to see sheep’s heads roasting on a spit (bottom row).

roasting sheep heads Tirana Albania

I’ve had chicken cooked in a clay pot (see below) in Kosovo, and it is really good!

earthenware Tirana Albania — Clay pots for sale

orange tree Tirana market — Orange (?) tree

I am not someone who visits farmer’s markets with any regularity, but Tirana’s is small, clean, not at all crowded, and had a variety of foods and goods for sale. I will definitely be back!