Venice, Nice, and Ardèche...finally!

So as you probably know, I had an action packed vacation in April and am just now getting around to writing about it. But not for lack of material! I spent a week and a half in (and around) Venice on a beautiful bike and boat trip. Then I spent three days in Nice, checking out the Cote d'Azure (it really is Azure!) and finally I spent the weekend in Ardèche with friends celebrating Rémy and Sushi's 4 year anniversary in a country house in the middle of rolling hills and cow pastures (far enough away to make for a pleasant view without the accompanying not so pleasant smell). So I'll start with Venice.


I met up with my parents in Venice after discovering that in fact all the ferries to our B&B closed before I even got there, and so finally I took a nice night ride in a water taxi and was greeted by a sleepy but very happy Daddy. My mom booked an adorable B&B on the island of Murano, where Venetian glass is made and where the masters work, so we spent the next day wandering around the different glass studios and watching demonstrations (A glass horse is not as hard to make as it seems! Not that I could do it...) In the afternoon, we went on an adventure with all of our luggage to find the boat that would take us allong our bike tour. It was kind of like a treasure hunt! The directions were not at all correct, and after crashing a little Italian child's birthday party, Mom saw with her eagle eyes that our boat was several docs over. So we went in search of said dock, and after one or two mishaps, we wandered into a large boat yard at the end of which was our little Dutch cannal boat waiting to greet us. It's name is Vita Punya, which means "Life is a struggle." How apropro.

We were greeted by our incredible tour leader, Hein, who is Dutch and has lived all over the world. Our whole trip was constantly enlightened by his musings on life (always very apt!) and his consistant and goofy smile. He truly made the tour - he was a ball of fire, full of energy and always ready to chat. And if ever something didn't go according to plan, well, we learned that "that's how life is" and we moved on with it.

The bike trip was 8 days between Venice and Mantova, a city to the west of Venice. We followed the Po river delta, and so we saw a lot of water and farms and beautiful poppies everywhere! Dad was all decked out in his gear, including a fancy rear view miror that clipped onto his sunglasses. Mom and I went more for comfort but still looked pretty good with our bike gloves and diaper biking shorts. There were about 20 of us on the trip, from all over the world. Aside from me and another girl who was traveling with her mother (14) most people were between their late 30s and 70s. This made for wonderful stories, charming personalities, and an inspiring trip! I hope that I am doing bike trips when I'm in my 70s! Each day we biked between 45 and 65 km, usually around 50 km. We always stopped at least once, and often twice for coffee and also for lunch, so we had a very relaxing trip. At night we ate delicious Italian food cooked by a girl my age who learned to cook from her mother. Real home cooking!
Highlights of the trip:
- Standing on a wall down the middle of Lado (I think) and seeing the Sea on both sides! That's how narrow the island is! Incredible!
- Seeing flamingos taking off while biking through a private aquaculture
- Watching the re-assembly of the Captain's room of the Vita Punya
- Wandering around the medieval commerce streets with Mom in Ferrara
- Watching a fellow biker (who was using an electric bike because he had had a stroke) zoom ahead of everyone else as they struggled against the head on wind. He turned around and smiled with such endearing pride!
- Hanging out with Mom and Dad in our itty bitty tiny room on the boat. It was so small that only one person at a time could fit between the two beds that were on either side of the room. MMmm cozy.
- A lesson in coffee - aka the millions of ways to order it - in Italy from the Italian somalier that was biking with us for the week (whose wine we drank all week also - it was wonderful)

So those are some of the highlights from the bike, which was all around beautiful, fun, and rewarding, even (or especially) when it rained!

After the bike trip, Mom, Dad, and I spent three days in Venice. I'll finish this part later.

Tansoleil - or something like that

Feast your eyes! I have been taking an African dance class since I got here, and we finally had a performance! It was a Mali Festival and all the classes from the association had different dances that they did for a wonderfully encouraging audience. Here is a video of my class's performance of one of our dances - tansoleil! (Try and catch the move that I can't figure out how to do for about 20 seconds - it's not that hard to pick out! hahaha!)




Not bad eh?

The CHALLENGE!

Today was a very important day in Monteux (the small town where I work) for the elementary schools. It was the Challenge des Langues Vivantes, Anglais! A day of skits, songs, and games in English and the culminating event of what the kids have been learning all year. (For me it happens to fall two months before the end of the year, but what can you do?) Even though the Mistral was blowing its hardest and I managed to get sun burned, it was a really rewarding day.

Of all the students there, 6 of the 8 classes were mine (3 schools total, two of which I teach at). Each class had to prepare a little performance, which meant that I was running around for the first half of the day figuring out cds, singing with the kids, and encouraging them to sing plus fort! plus fort! Everyone did alright, but I was most proud of two of my classes. My youngest class of first and second graders sang the best of any of the students! They sang "I love you" (people don't have the same Barney hang-ups here that we have in the states) and "This Land is Your Land" which is particularly impressive because of its complicated vocabulary (gulf stream waters is not easy to say if you're a French 7 year old). They sang so loud and so well; I was so proud of them! The second class that I was really proud of performed a skit of Go Dog Go. Over the spring vacation, they all made dog ears and props for the skit (to my surprise!) and memorized all of their lines and movements! They looked so adorable with their little cardboard ears! Also when we rehearsed yesterday, I told them to be more enthusiastic because it's more fun to watch, and they actually did it today! They jumped and smiled and hammed it up! It was great! Afterwards a bunch of teachers came up and complimented me on the idea and how well they did. It felt so good because I was not sure we were going to pull it off at all, or that it was worth spending that much time on, but in the end everyone had a really good time doing it! Here they are (I'm on the edge...same size as them!) with their ears on!

They were proud of themselves too. All around a success I would say! The next youngest class did a skit of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? Unfortunately, they were far less prepared and impressive, and it was maybe a little painful to watch for the kids in the audience. They are a cute class but don't pay any attention and goof around all the time. But in the end, I think it was worse for them than for me, and the teacher just shrugged and said something like, what can you expect and we laughed and it was over. (Phew! They are certainly not going to get the big scratch n'Sniff stickers that I'm giving to my Go Dog Go class! Maybe a sparkly insect instead...) Another class sang "It's Raining It's Pouring" and "He's Got the Whole World in his Hands" which they sang very well even though the music didn't work for them. Another fifth grade class sange "If You're Happy and You Know It" and my last class did a little Beatles medly - "Hello, Goodbye" and then "All Together Now." They chickened out on the movements for Hello Goodbye, but they did an excellent job sailing the ship, chopping the tree, and skipping the rope for All Together Now. Then finally the performance part of the day was over and it was on to the relay of games based on English vocab, structures, and culture!

The game I was running was Guess Who, and included people that I certainly didn't know about in Elementary school - Mohamed Ali, Carl Lewis, Andy Warhol. But they did ok - and had fun running around and showing off their American knowledge. They all had teams of 6 or 8 kids, two each from different classes, with a little scoreboard that one team member wore around their neck. At the end, the scores were tallied and there was 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, and then everyone got a snack before going home. As the kids were getting ready to go home, two of the girls in one of my classes came up to me and thanked me for my excellent English classes that had taught them so much. They were thrilled because they had come in First! It was so cute and I was so touched that they did that! It was really fun for me to see them feeling proud of themselves for the English they knew. I feel like this year has been a good year for them, and there are definitely some kids who really care about learning English now, which is great. A mother of another of my students who was chaperoning told me how much her son loved English. Then she told me how he comes home and tells her about what we do in class every week - and she knew everything we had done! She knew his English name (Steven), about my little powerpoint that I put together after going home for inauguration, about my sister coming to visit, about the Go Dog Go skit (her son had particularly excellent ears). It was so rewarding to hear that he gets excited about what we do in class! It was a day that came at just the right time, when I was not particularly looking forward to teaching for another 2 months. But after doing this day with my students and seeing them have so much fun and feel so good about what they learned, it got me a little excited to play games with them and think of fun lessons to do in these last months of school. Even though I don't want to be a teacher, I think I'm going to miss being Miss Becky when this is all over. It can be lots of fun.

Some Pictures, Barcelona and the Pyrenees

Kasia, Carly and Myrto being the Pyrenees in front of the house where we stayed.

The view from where we were staying. Beautiful and breathtaking.

Kasia and I looking at some mosaic in Park Guell (The park in Barcelona that Gaudi designed).

Laughing and enjoying delicious tapas!

The delicious tapas!

Some Pictures, Barcelona

Carly and Fannie in the metro with their masks

A small street in Barcelona

Les Quatres Gats for my birthday dinner!

Fannie and Carly interpreting Gaudi's La Perrera.

Road Trip! Setting off for Barcelona!

Some pictures, Avignon

Carly and I in front of Palais des Papes, 5:30 am

Steve performing for Jesus and Mary

Bringing my apple pie (for the International dinner with my land lady and her family) to Carly's. She has an oven. I don't!

Tuckered out after an invigorating game of tag.

Delerium - the place to be in Avignon.

Birthday in Barcelona!

For my February vacation, my housemates, Carly, and Fannie (a French friend) decided to take a road trip to Barcelona and the Pyrenees. The five of us piled into Myrto's little two door car, and set off for Spain on Monday morning (March 2). On our drive we stopped in Caraques to see Dali's house (with two egg statues and two cracked head statues on top) and walk around the town's small cobble stone streets.  Then we spent the night in Fugueres, and went to the Dali museum the next day, which was amazing! I have never liked Dali's work before in my life, but the way he presented his work really helped me understand and appreciate it! It was soo cool! It completely changed my perspective by showing me his perspective. If you are ever near Barcelona, I would highly suggest making a detour to see this museum. 

After spending a day with Dali, we piled back into the car and headed to Barcelona. We had slight setbacks meeting up with our couch surfing host, and when we finally did meet up it was about 9pm. We ended up hanging out with his friends for a couple of hours, who were very nice, although having the same conversation over and over due to limited English and non-existent Spanish can get a little tiring. Our host had to do his laundry and we had to wait for him to show us where we could park for free, which meant hanging out for a while. The more we hung out, the more we realized that there was no way we were going to sleep at all if we stayed the night. There were far too many people staying the weekend, and the party had only just begun around 11 or 12 when we finally decided to go park the car ourselves. We made an executive decision and got a hostel instead. By the time we parked the car and got all our luggage back to the area we were staying, we were starving! (We had not eaten dinner and it was already past midnight!) Backpacking packs and all, we headed for the first restaurant we saw, which was a touristy tapas restaurant with a table of rowdy Italian girls who ended up singing me happy birthday in at least 5 different languages. Not a bad start to the trip!

The next day, we did a Gaudi walk and saw his major designs. His architecture is so playful and imaginative! I loved it! I felt like I was in a dream! We saw the house he designed from the outside, and went into La Perrera (whose roof was breathtaking!) and La Sagrada Familia, which is still in the process of being built. Then we went to the Fondacion Miro, and saw a lot of Miro's work from his earliest paintings to latest works. Barcelona is such a cool city with so much art and beautiful architecture everywhere you look! 

After the museum, we went back to the hostel to rest a little and drop off our bags. As I was checking my copious facebook messages (thanks everyone!) the 4 girls I was with came down, took all my stuff and blindfolded me, and walked me outside to a nearby Flamenco bar where they had bought tickets to watch the show for my birthday! The dancers were so serious and intense, and the music was wonderful! It was such a great surprise! Afterwards, we went back and got changed, and went to Les Quatres Gats, the restaurant where Picasso used to hang out all the time. The girls had figured out everything without me knowing and had made a reservation for us. The night just kept getting better and better! We ordered delicous food (the arroz negro, suggested by Steph, was to die for) and yummy Spanish wine and ate so much we could hardly move! The girls bought me The Little Prince in Spanish as a birthday present since I'm learning Spanish, and when I thought the night couldn't get any better, our dessert came with a candle in it and the piano player started playing Happy Birthday.  We all shared the wonderful Creme Catalan and sorbet, and the waiter kissed me on the cheek because it was my birthday before we left. Afterwards, Carly, Kasia, Fannie and I went to a club that was right next to our hostel and danced our pants off for an hour or two before heading back to bed. (We did that thing we used to do at Cornell where each person makes up a dance move and you put them all together! The other people in the club thought it was hilarious!) It was a truly amazing birthday!

The next day, we walked around Barcelona and saw some of the Cathedrals and Churches. We did a little shopping, and had lunch on the beach. It was sunny and warm, and we had a really relaxing day getting lost and finding ourselves again. Then at night we went up one of the hills next to Barcelona and watched the sunset and the lights in the city light up as it got dark. Fannie, Carly and I bought paper kids masks for fun, and wore them on the subway to the fenicular, and then while waiting for Myrto and Kasia to meet us we had way too much fun playing around with the masks and staring at people with them as they got off the subway. It was so silly and so much fun! What was the weirdest thing was that people in the metro didn't even react at all! They acted as if there were always people wearing parrot, tiger, and flower masks on the metro! Only one little girl stared at us with a look of jealousy because our masks were fabulous. After going up the hill/mountain and coming down again, we had an evening of tapas, and went to two pays basque tapas restaurants that were delicous! We had sangria and all the traditional tapas at one, and then at the second had cider and more creative and equally delicious tapas. It was really fun and really filling in the best way! 

The next day, we went to Park Guell (designed by Gaudi) and walked around while Kasia tried to sell the earrings she had made (no success unfortunately) We had a picknick of Spanish ham and cheese that we bought at the main Barcelona market and basked in the sun which finally decided to come out in force. We left in the late afternoon and loaded up the car to go to the Pryrenees, to stay with a friend of Fannie's who has a house in a tiny village. 

The drive was beautiful, and the Pyrenees were striking and gorgeous. The house didn't have heat (they use it as a summer house mostly) and there were between 20 and 30 people there for the weekend! We lit the fireplace and played games until 4 or 5 in the morning before we finally went upstairs to the loft where there were shockingly enough mattresses for everyone to sleep on. Incredible. (My new sleeping bag kept me toasty warm, despite the lack of heat!) On Saturday, we woke up late, and then Fannie, Kasia and I went skiing for the afternoon in a mountain about half an hour from where we were staying. It was so much fun! The snow was powdery and landscape was so striking, I couldn't look away! (This proved to be dangerous while skiing). It was definitely one of the most beautiful sights I have seen. That night we got back and the power went out, so we ate dinner and played games by candle light for the rest of the night before going to sleep. The next day, before piling back into the car to go back to Avignon, we went on a walk around the village and through the fields nearby. It was such an amazing vacation, I never wanted to leave. Work on Monday was hard, man!

And that concludes the tales of my Barcelona/Pyrenees adventure! Signing off, a real grown up 23 year old, Becky

A Whirl-wind week

Here was the last week in February, which was definitely up there among the best weeks of my life!

First of all, Carlos came to visit! It was really fun!  I showed him around Avignon and we hung out with my housemates and drank lots of wine and ate delicious cheese. He got to meet Andy and Carly,  my best friend here. One night, he, Carly and I went out for wine before dinner to a small wine restaurant. We tasted all kinds of cheeses, and one of the best ones (that I've had in Avignon!) was a chevre covered in nice blue and green mold. MmmmM! While Carlos was here we walked all around Avignon and went to see things that I still hadn't seen, like the Fort St. André and Villeneuve les Avignon (a small town off of Avignon). He made me climb a tree (that he and his friend were already in) as French people walked by and stared, and I was mortified, but he thought it was funny. Americans! So inappropriate in pubic! 

Then Friday night my housemates and I cooked an international dinner for my land lady, her husband and her daughter, who are all wonderful. We started off with Greek - salad and cheese puffs, then moved on to Polish cream of mushroom soup, and chili (by yours truly! It was spicy and delicious!) accompanied by Polish potatoe pancakes. Then we finished with apple pie a la mode for dessert. It was such a nice evening, and I love my land lady! (What a refreshing change from last year!) After dinner, we met up with Carlos and his friend Nigel (who had eaten dinner with Andy) at a club/bar called Delerium. They always have live music and stay open all night, and we danced every kind of dance  (salsa, swing, hippie swaying...) and stayed until they finally asked us to leave because they wanted to close at 5am. (5 am is unusually early for them to close but there weren't that many people left). Since Delerium had closed, we had to find something else to do until the market opened at 6 for breakfast. We decided to go to the Palais des Papes (what Avignon is most famous for, aside from the Pont d'Avignon) and play tag in the square in front of the palace, with statues of Jesus and Mary looking down on us. This also happened to be the one night I decided to wear heels out (not to be repeated- too many cobblestone streets) and they flew off in about 5 seconds, leaving me at a slight disadvantage and running around in my stocking feet on the cold stone square. But it was amazing! Finally, around 5:45, we worked our way over to the market that was just opening, got fresh croissants, and sat down to have coffee and hot chocolate at 6am. Not ready for the night to end, we decided to go watch the sunrise from Fort St. André when we finished, so we all piled into Andy's British car (driving wheel on the right!), drove over, and watched the sun rise over Avignon. It was beautiful (albeit very cold) and for all my (very vocal) complaining I loved it. Afterwards it was time for bed, and I went home around 7:30 to go to sleep for a little.

After a lazy Saturday and early Saturday night, (Carlos left for Spain in the early afternoon) Sunday came around, and Andy and I went to the opera! We got dressed up (even though a) it was a matinee, and b) no one really dresses up for the opera in Avignon) and saw Manon. It was my first opera, and there were some parts that literally took my breath away. The duets between the male lead and female lead were so beautiful I was in a trance. A wonderful afternoon! After the opera, we went out to a delicous dinner with delicious red wine and we tried the things you have to try at least once in France: escargot (ok) and foie gras (amazing though I hate to admit it). The rest of the dinner was amazing! All around a wonderful weekend!

But it doesn't end there! On Monday, Andy, Carly and I went skiing at a small mountain about an hour away from Avignon. Andy and Carly have not really skied before, so I was showing them how to do the snow plow and turn. It was really cute! We decided to brave the intermediate slope, and so we got on the lift (which is actually a pole with a circle at the end and you put it between your legs and it drags you up the slope, called a tire-fesse in French, which means butt pull). Andy did not make it up as he lost a ski early on and then fell off the tire fesse trying to grab it! But Carly and I made it up only to be nearly blown off the mountain by a ridiculously strong wind. It was terrifying! We didn't know what to do and couldn't figure out the best way to get down. Carly took off her skis and crouched down with her head between her legs, and I tried to look around to very little avail. We couldn't see more than 5 feet ahead of us, and the wind was blowing snow and ice up the mountain that stung our faces if we tried to look down. Finally, the ski patrol came up and told us that we had to go down the slope, but the wind was so strong that I had to use my poles to go DOWN the run! Finally we made it past the windy section and skied down the rest of the mountain, and Carly got rewarded with some hot chocolate. We finally found Andy, and the three of us finished off the day with some sledding in rented saucers. Quite the adventure.

Andy moved back to England a couple days later, and I left for Barcelona, but that will have to come in another post. Thanks for reading!

Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse!

Sing along if you know the song!

I saved this moment for when Mariel came, and I think I did well! I don't care if this is as tourist as you get, I'm embracing it!

Some pictures from Christmas vacation (in backwards order)

New Years Eve at Sushi's house in St. Rémy, where Mariel and I were perfectly dressed.

The giant head in the luxembourg garden - photo taken by someone I thought was speaking Spanish but was definitely speaking Italian  (I discovered this only after I told Mariel to speak Spanish to her).
Myrto's family in Nemea, Greece. So hospitable and such good cooks!
Picking an olive in Greece! Cooool!
Myrto and I at the ruins in Nemea, actually in the ancient bathhouse (Can't you tell!)
Npafoli (I think) at night - gorgeous
The New Balance store in Athens after the riots
Mryto and I taking advantage of the storybook children's walk set up in the National gardens.
Me, as a politically active Greek. Viva la Revolution!
The Theatre of Dionysis - I was really excited to see it since I've studied it so many times!

Improving my Greek vocabulary

First of all, Happy New Year! Although I didn't send out any e-mails or cards, I was thinking of all of you and hoping that you were thoroughly enjoying yourselves! (Better late than never, right!)

So it is high time I wrote about my Christmas vacation, during which I went to Greece for 5 days and Mariel came to visit me in Avignon. I'll start with Greece. As you know, there have been crazy riots and a lot of violence in Athens recently because an innocent teenage boy was killed by the police, sparking a lot of anger and demonstrating against the government. This all happened about a week before I went to Athens. But once I got there, the violence was on temporary hold and Athens was doing its best to put on a happy face for the holidays. It was really cool to be there at that moment, because in addition to seeing the Acropolis and other Greek monuments, I got a little taste of what was actually going on in the country, and very modern movements which starkly contrasted the majestic ruins that cover the city. It showed that although Greece is famous for it's antiquity, it is still very much alive and changing and trying (still!) to improve its democracy! 

I stayed with my housemate, Myrto, who's mother lives in Athens and who's father lives in a town about an hour and a half away called Nemea. I hung out a little with her friends and it was really interesting to hear their take on it. The young people in Athens are really frustrated by the government, who, for example, completely encircled the christmas tree in the central square in Athens with riot police, but did little to protect the store owners or citizens during the rioting and fires just a week before. This boy who was killed seems to be the straw that broke the camels back, and people are finally fed up with the corruption and negligence of their government. I went to the street corner where the boy was shot, and people have taped letters to the walls across the whole corner, and there are candles and gifts and flowers all over the side walk. In the letters, people wrote to the boy, saying that they would miss him, or that they would not forget  what happened. Others were more militant, criticizing the government or vowing revenge. Half a  block on both sides of the corner building are covered with these letters. It's really impressive, and touching too. I saw a lot of grafiti as well, and stores with broken windows or tape over the doors. There was a New Balance store across from the National Archeological Museum that was completely burned out. There was nothing inside and it was all charred and destroyed. Despite all of this, Athens did a pretty impressive job of cleaning up for Christmas (which agravated Myrto's friends because to them it is just symbolic of the gov't's corruption and superficiality.) And all around, Athens is a really cool place. 

After we spent a few days in Athens, we went to visit Myrto's family in Nemea. Nemea is a cute little town, and Myrto's family took great care of me! I have never eaten so much in my life as I ate for the 3 days we were in Nemea! They kept feeding me different delicious home-made Greek dishes, and I couldn't say no because I wanted to taste everything! By the end of those 3 days I thought I would never have to eat again. There were meatballs, stuffed vegetables, spinach, pork, cabbage salad, really good oil and vinegar (you know how I feel about vinegar!) and of course endless christmas desserts! And Myrto's grandmother makes fresh bread every day, so we always had homemade bread with every meal. Her family was so hospitable, and even though I had only learned about 10 words of Greek and they didn't speak English or French, we figured out a way to communicate (with lots of gestures and guessing! it was fun!) Myrto and I took a couple day trips to nearby towns and visited the ruins of Nemea which were really interesting because we got a little tour of what they're doing to restore them. Overall a wonderful Christmas vacation. 

Then on Christmas I flew back to Paris, and stayed with my mom's cousin, France-Lea. It was great to spend time with her because I haven't seen her since I was maybe 14. Claudine (France-Lea's sister) and Reine (her daughter) were there too, so I got to  spend some time with family that I really never get to see! We went to a museum, saw the view from Sacre Coeur, and had chinese food (which I have decided is not worth it anywhere in France). Then they went to their parent's house, and Mariel flew in for a quick stay in Paris (wonderful!) and then a few days in Avignon! Highlights of the trip were: 

1.Discovering that the hotspot for lunch in Paris on the weekend is an American themed restaurant with pictures of JFK all over. They have a very good cheeseburger with REAL cheddar!

2.Dancing on the bridge of Avignon as a family stared and laughed. But it was tooootally worth it, and I have a video!

3. Delicious beat and cheese salad with fresh bread, all from the local baker and the local market

4. Being absolutely perfectly dressed for New Years - almost every girl at the party was wearing a little black dress and black shoes! We were so French!

5. Discovering a hidden circus behind the Vieux Port in Marseille. 

6. Almost peeing in my pants laughing as we tried to figure out how to eat the most disgusting bouillabaisse in the world!

I was sooo happy to have Mariel here! We laughed so much and I finally had a shopping buddy!

So that is the story of my Christmas vacation. This Friday I fly back to the states for Inauguration, which surely will give me lots to write about! Miss you all! I love hearing from you, so leave me a comment or drop me a line and tell me how you're doing!

Bisous!

Sometimes being an elementary English teacher is like being a rock star

The week before Christmas vacation was one of the best weeks I've had teaching. Not only did I know that vacation was coming up (always makes teaching better) but I got to teach Christmas songs as lessons! Every class learned at least one Christmas song, and we also colored in gingerbread men, which meant telling the story too. There's nothing I like more than singing and telling stories! One class even applauded my rendition of the Gingerbread man! It was great! I did voices for the different characters and they loved it, and they basically understood what happened because I also acted it all out (it was rather applause worthy I guess). Anyway, at the school where I teach on Tuesdays, we had an impromptu concert with the two classes who learned "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" in the courtyard. Afterwards, different kids came up and asked me if we could have more concerts, and the students who didn't get to sing really wanted to learn the song and perform with their classes too. It was so cute! Then on Thursday, I again decided to have an impromptu concert with my fifth grade class who had learned two Christmas songs. Except that their teacher is really Type A, and if we do anything, we do it right. Which means that instead of doing the lesson I planned we practiced singing the whole class, not just Christmas songs but all 4 songs they know well (Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Twinkle Twinkle, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town). They were instructed to sing Twinkle Twinkle gently, like a lullaby, but then the Christmas songs with lots of energy - this teacher means business. When recess came and it was time for the concert, she informed me that it would be better to do it in the gym room than outside in order to hear the students, and she assembled all the students who were having recess to come be the audience! It was a real concert! We sang the four songs, and the kids loved it- they clapped really loud and shouted "Encore" at the end. All the students from the other classes asked me if they could have a concert too. Then, after the audience had gone back to class, the teacher of the fifth grade class pushed me into the middle of the room and I realized that the entire class had formed a giant circle around me. They started chanting my name and saying thank you, and then they all rushed me at the same time, gave me hugs, and every single student gave me a kiss! And to top it all off, when I went into my next class, they were all humming the songs from our concert. Sometimes the simplest things work the best. And after however many weeks of teaching, all that humming and those kisses were much appreciated.