Happy Winter Solstice to all today! An if i was in the states i would have been able to see the total lunar eclipse....so if you are there, please go outside and look for me....it will be visible in all of north america.....i am off tomorrow to thailand for the winter break.....in looking at the weather, it seems i will not need anything but shorts and swim suits.....yahoo....its a relaxing trip planned with my friends the watts....
originally i was going for the big job fair in bangkok....but i no longer need to do that.....i have a job for next year....it's official....i am headed to the shanghai community international school....woot! i will be teaching 7th & 8th grade science....with a teaching partner and other members of a department will be there too....the school is 1300 students, its a mac school and one-to-one with laptops....in shanghai....i am very excited.....
what this means for my winter break is that i get to enjoy it and not be stressed out by the looming and freaky job fair....yayayayayay!!!! i will be working at the same school as the watts, my friends i am meeting in thailand and they helped me get this position in the fast and furious way i got it.....it's great to know where i am going and to know there is light at the end of the european tunnel i am in at the moment.....yay!!!!!
anyway....i wanted to send out a happy holiday greeting to everyone, no matter what you celebrate and also wanted to let folks know where i have been in the past few months and where i am headed in the coming year....so on to the pictures.....
the first set of shots come from croatia during all souls night....i was up at the big cemetery here to celebrate and lit a candle to honor folks in my family who have passed..it is an amazing thing to see all of the candles burning at all of the graves....it was also really warm that night and there was some crazy fog in spots....as you can see in the shot above....
in this shot above you can see all of the candles that are brought to the cemetery and left in honor of folks who have died who are not buried here....they make a huge cross down the center of the cemetery with these candles and the heat coming off of them is unbelievable.....
in these next two shots i can be found in romania....i actually got to travel back to the place i lived at and the school i worked at....and where we had the coaches dinner (for speech and debate) they brought out this tray of meat and offered french fries for the vegetarians....i guess some things just never change....in the end we had an amazing salad....but it was just too perfect not to take a shot with a tray of meat....ha!
the best part of the weekend though was seeing all of the cool people i used to work with....and going to one of my favorite Mediterranean restaurants in the world...piccolo mundo...yummy....it was a great turnout and we had a blast....thanks to laura and doina for making it happen.... interestingly enough i will be headed back to romania in april for another competition....how crazy is that....twice in one year....
these next couple of shots come from graz, austria....where we went for shopping on black friday....the best part about shopping on this day here in europe is that everyone else is still working....they do not have thanksgiving and friday off like we do....i saw this street graffiti while we were walking around in the christmas market....i found it interesting that it was there.....
graz is always dressed up nice for the holidays....down the main pedestrian area, where the excellent christmas markets are, with the tasty mulled wine, they hang a bunch of xmas trees upside down from wires and light them up at night....simply stunning.....
however, zagreb does well with xmas lights and their celebrations as well....i found out this year that they spend a lot of money on putting these lights up every year....and i really like it....this is one of the only cobbled stone streets in zagreb, and it leads up into the old part of town.....
this shot was taken looking down the main road through the center of town...illica....they hang these lovely lights all along this street....they actually go out as far as my place....
this is a view of the main square - or trg as it is called here....you can see the main xmas tree, the stage where they have performers every night...and the street lights with their lights as well...
this is a bit further down....still in the main square....this tent style thing is the main bar serving mulled wine, beer and sausages to everyone....they have nightly performers in this area and it is packed on the weekends....all the way at the far end they put in a skating rink....very cool....
and last, but certainly not least, this past weekend we headed to Ljubljana, slovenia to check out their xmas market....it was rather small and they had a bunch of snow and very cold weather, but it was a great trip....it was the first time i had seen this sculpture....i love it!!!!
because it was so cold, we stopped in and had a cup of hot chocolate....also known as melted chocolate....i love this style of hot chocolate....its so thick the spoon can almost stand by itself....yummy....and perfect for the weather they were having.....
slovenia is a pretty place....and they have lots of lights too....but many of them are in crazy shapes....my favorite was a strand of DNA....i am sure you can figure out why.....
another one of my favorite sites here is the dragon bridge....and how great does it look with snow on it....in the background you can see one of the cathedrals found in this city....it was a fun day and as we left the sun was setting....just beautiful....
this last shot was taken in graz....we went to this chinese restaurant that had its menu on a scroll....i just think its a perfect shot for a girl headed to shanghai.....yay!!!!! we had a great time in graz and i am looking forward to an exciting and new challenge from living in china.....think about visiting in the next two years....maybe more....you never knowso....as is said in croatia....sretan bozic and nova godina....merry christmas, happy new year, happy holidays and all of that fun stuff.....i wish you and your families a happy and healthy new year and all the best in 2011.....drop a line and say hi if you get the chance....
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