House Retreats in October

While Janna was staying with friends (making cookies, playing with kitties, eating pizza, and reading books) Tim, Delaney and I all went to different places in Lebanon to be part of the ACS Middle School House Retreats.  In the middle school we are divided up into 6 houses, like Harry Potter I guess. Tim is a Griffin, Delaney is an Indrik, and I am a Wizard.  Here are some pictures. Mostly from Tim and I but I hope to get more pictures to add from Delaney's adventures.

Tim went up into the mountains south and east of Beirut to Ramlieh Hostel.

Yes there was a ropes course. Yes, Tim did it. (some pictures were posted on facebook)

The weather was hit and miss.  Yes, we all experienced rain at different times.

Students repelled from here.

Two of our friends, Josef and Nesrine

Fun doing archery

The whole Griffin team, Tim, Nesrine, Ruwaida, Oulaya, Nadine and Josef

As always, beautiful views of Lebanon

A beautiful rainbow in the morning.

I also went with a group but we went to Peaks Resort in the Mount Lebanon Area north and east of Beirut.

We had some serious storms that forced us to modify what we were doing. No rappelling for us.

Yes, I saw the same rainbow as Tim and Delaney.

We went on a nature walk and I just thought this rock formation was typical of what we saw all around the resort.

Marcelle and I waiting for our turn.

Some of the students freaked out when we saw this bug.  Not this student though...not sure what it was.

More of the Wizard team. Joumana, Lolita and Marcelle.

We had a ropes course as well. Thanks to one of my students, who I think is 1/2 mountain goat, I got a lot of pictures.

So happy I finished it!

This house was next to the resort. You can see many houses like this up in the mountains.

The storm was coming in.

We had a zipline as well.

This olive tree was in front of the resort. I thought the roses were pretty.

Delaney went to La Maison de la Foret, in Jezzine which is east of Sidon (Saida) in the southern area of Lebanon.  She stayed in tents in the forest. She also did many of the same things Tim and I did.  I hope to get more pictures of her and add them to the post.

Here she is doing a group activity where you could only use two legs to stand but with four people.

Here she is with her friends, Erin and Maysoun.

Delaney at the end of the zipline.

Overall, we all had wonderful times connecting with friends and enjoying nature.

A Walk to the Park and a Beautiful Evening

We had a holiday last week (October 2nd - 8th)  for the Eid al Adha also known as the Feast of Sacrifice. This is a Muslim holiday that honors Ibrahim's (Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his promised son, Ismail (Ishmael) as an act of submission to God. We had a quiet week and chose to just spend time relaxing around Beirut.

One day, Tim, Janna and I walked up to a park that was renovated last spring. What a treat. Here are some pictures of our time at the park.

In the center of the park is a pool with a fountain that turns off and on. 

Around the fountain are trees that have grown together with benches underneath.

These were sinks to wash in. Not sure why they were there but they were clean and pretty.

The walkways were very nice.

There were 3 playgrounds in the park. Janna enjoyed them.

She was nervous about climbing over the cargo net but after the first time she was a pro!

Then, we had a wonderful dinner on the balcony and enjoyed the great weather, the moon rising and the sun setting.

Very relaxing.

This was opposite of the sun setting.

By the way, this is the "famous" Holiday Inn from the war that happened here in Lebanon...

We then decided to go up onto the roof and get a few more pictures.

The Mediterranean off in the distance.

The moon behind us.

Just a great picture.

Just another beautiful day in paradise. 

The Librarians Go to Belgium

Last week almost all of the librarians at ACS had the opportunity to go to the Triennial International Librarian's Conference in Waterloo, Belgium.  Since we were very busy learning more about our craft I had very little time to take a lot of pictures and see a lot of sites but here are a few pictures to enjoy!

Waterloo is a small town and like most of Belgium, everything seems to close at around 6:00 PM unless it's a restaurant.  I did get an hour to look around one day though. The weather was beautiful!

Just a really beautiful church

The second time we walked past the church this really fun old bus was in front of it dropping off a wedding party.

I thought this statue was beautiful. It was in front of a government building.

This is what I had for dinner one evening in Waterloo. Seems like this is very common to eat in Belgium. A kilo of moules (mussels), frites (fries) and a beer.  I recommend the Leffe Blonde. It was quite nice.

Our hotel used to be a sugar factory. This was the restaurant inside the hotel. They had nice food as well.

I did have one afternoon/evening in Brussels as well. Brussels reminded me a lot of Paris but not as busy.

Of course, I had Mussels, Fries and a beer for lunch when I got to Brussels. It seems that this is the regular meal everywhere!

The chocolate shops are EVERYWHERE! I took a picture of this display in the window because the meringues were the size of a Lebanese potato! (huge!)

The Patria Monument is a crypt for the patriots that fought for Belgium's Independence in 1830. Here are my colleagues/friends Kamal, Jinane and Ghada. 

Apparently, if you rub this statue you will have good luck.

This was next to the statue.

 The next pictures are part of Le Grande Place in Brussels. It's a UNESCO world heritage site.

A beautiful church steeple as you enter the square.

While it was busy, it was quite a wonderful place.

 Overall, it was a nice but quick trip. I got enough of a taste of Belgium to hope to go there again so I can see more!