B.B.'s MONTHLY
from
BUCHAREST

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER ISSUE #2
December 18, 2006

It is the first week of winter break form AISB, and I am enjoying sleeping in and not going to school. The last month and a half was full of special school events, getting lost while traveling around Bucharest via car and metro (the subway system), great dinners out, a night at the symphony, hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner in
The Bucharest Athenaeum

Bucharest and more. The picture above was taken at the Athenaeum as the symphony was beginning. This is an amazing hall that was built in the early 20th century. I wish my camera skills could have captured the beautiful art work better. That night my ears were filled with beautiful classical music while my eyes feasted on amazing art. I began the evening waiting on the steps to the hall for my friends. As your standing on the steps looking toward the street you see a block long walk up to the building. This walk is lined with gardens and trees. There are benches to sit and rest while enjoying the view, before the symphony begins. After all my Friends had arrived we walked into this amazing hall. I felt as if I had taken a step back in time and was entering a palace. The entry hall is several feet tall with a marble floor and mosaics on the walls and celling. The air was full of excitement and hushed conversations. I will keep this evening in my memory for a very long time.

Most of my time these past few months has been spent in the classroom which I share with Kevin in AISB's elementary school. Kevin spends most of his time in the small room we share in the upper school, which was his office last year. Most of my students are middle school students. The upper school room is not only small, it has no exterior windows and poor ventilation. Often the air is hot and stail.

The pictures below are of our elementary room. The one on the far right was taken out the window looking at the upper school. The others are of different areas of the classroom. We are very lucky to have one room that has lots of windows to let in natural light and fresh air. When ever possible I meet with my upper school students in this room. They like having a larger space to work in with natural light and fresh air.








When November arrived I decided that I wanted to make Thanksgiving dinner. This decision began an exciting culinary treasure hunt. I had made the assumption (when Will I learn not to make assumptions?) that there would be no difficulties in finding a turkey large enough to serve 10, and all the ingredients for a simple bread stuffing. Ronda and Rodrica helped me find spices and gave me ideas about where to shop for a turkey. My hunt took me to a place called the METRO. It is somewhat like Costco stores in the states. You have to have a membership card issued through a company to shop there. Lucky for me they let you shop on a one day pass if it is you first visit. After getting my shopping pass I picked the first shopping cart I could find. It turned out to be big and very awkward to push around. It took me a while to locate the turkeys. I wish I had had my camera to take a picture of the first turkeys I saw in the meat cooler. They were frozen and much too large for my oven. They did not look anything like the turkeys I am use to seeing at Safeway or Fred Meyers. These turkeys looked as if they had just come from the farm, stretched out long, not cleanly plucked and not very plump. I ended up buying two 9# turkeys that looked as if they came from the states. One item I am surprised not to find in every store here is raw hazelnuts (filberts). According to Nita (a hazelnut grower in Oregon) Turkey is one of the largest hazelnut producers. That country is so close to here I thought I would find hazelnuts everywhere. I like to roast them and put them in my turkey dressing. Lucky for me METRO had them. Thanksgiving day was a half day off at AISB, so I had to prep the turkeys and make

the dressing the night before. Rodrica put the Turkeys in the oven in the morning while I was at school. Everyone brought something to make the dinner complete. We sat dinner at 5pm. The pictures on the left are of my living room, where I had put out cheese and crackers as our appetizers. The dinner was set up in the entry/dinning room. To my right is Kevin, the head of Student Services and my supervisor. To my left is Vince one of the three, English as an additional language (EAL), upper school teachers. His wife, Elizabeth is in the lower right corner of the picture. She is the upper school drama teacher. Their 15 year old daughter, Kiera, was cut out of the picture. She is sitting to Elizabet's left. Between Kevin and Elisabeth is Lynn, the school's admissions director. His wife Jane is sitting next to Vince. Jane is a English teacher in the high school. They grew up in Amarillo, TX. Lynn's brother and parents live in Midland, where they are spending their holidays this year. They will be calling my close family Keith to wish him a Merry Christmas for me. Sitting to Jane's left is Randy, the secondary music teacher. He went on the trip with me during our October break. Next to Randy is Priscilla, one of the three third grade teachers at AISB. I talked about Priscilla in my first issue. Brian, the upper school principal took the picture. We had a great time eating and visiting.
Everyone decided that my apartment is haunted by the teacher who lived in it last year. He was the upper school art teacher and unexpectedly died last year while visiting the Black Sea during Spring Break. We came to this decision after two mysterious events took place during the evening. Everyone but me, saw the first event. I was busy preparing food in the kitchen when one of the candles on the coffee table move off the table onto the floor. The second event took place while we were all sitting at the table. A knife that was placed in the middle of a kitchen counter fell onto the floor. We speculated that the ghost of the art teacher couldn't stay away from the fun. He entertained a lot and was known as a great chef and host.
The Christmas season begins in Bucharest with a art and craft sale at the Peasant Museum. Artist and craftsmen come from all over Romania to participate in the fair. There were two different buildings with two to three floors full of booths. There were puppets, jewelery, pottery, rugs, clothes, paintings, bells, wooden toys, instruments, copper pots and even brandy for sale. I bought wool rungs for my bedroom and entry. They will help keep this drafty place warm during the cold winter months. There were a couple of people selling copper stills. One of the copper craftsmen, who brought a still to sale, will be moving to Portland soon. He has a cousin living there who is working at a large distillery. It is his hope to find a job working with his cousin.
This wonderful Christmas sale lasted only three days, the Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving. It brought back memories of the opening weekend of APA INI with lines of shoppers around the block. I had to work administering the SAT at school that Saturday morning. A group of us decided to meet at the sale in the afternoon. It was a crisp sunny day so I decided it would be a good day for me to get some exercise and walk. While walking and getting a little lost on my way, I took some pictures. It is a 30 minute walk from my apartment, taking pictures stretched it into a 45 minute walk. Below are some of the pictures I took. I hope you are able to enlarge these to get a better look. In the picture above is a sleeping dog. One of the most difficult parts of living in Bucharest are the stray dogs that are everywhere. At night there is continuous barking in most neighborhoods. It is very sad to see hungry puppies and their mothers wondering the streets. I hope this city is able to find a humane way to deal with this situation.

Both the elementary and high school had winter concerts. The high school music department held their concert of winter celebration music from around the world first. It was a wonderful evening filled with great music and very proud students. We have two very talented and dedicated music teachers at AISB. They chose pieces which ensured that every student had an opportunity to show thier musical abilities and performing skills on stage. The 6th grade beginning band filled the stage with 50 students. They did an amazing job for only having their instruments for three months. These beginners are well on their way to becoming musicians. The beginning guitar band and after school choir performed a beautiful piece together. One of my favorite parts of the evening was the jazz band's performance. It was composed of high school and middle school students along with two staff members. Th evening of the high school concert the upper school community service team set out great treats to eat and drink. They asked for donations. A high school senior set up a table selling Christmas wrapping paper and cards he had made. He is raising funds for going to China where he hopes to teach English as a second language through the non-profit organization, Project Help. He has a great talent for photography and is selling some of his black and white photo's as part of his fund raising effort. I am going to post some on my January blog. The picture to the right is of him (he is on the far left end) and some of his Friends who are helping him raise funds. They got permission to lay down a huge drawing of the world in our main atrium. They posted explanations of what they were doing on music stands and invited everyone to fill the map of the world with coins. It was a great idea. They raised a lot of money over a four day period.

The Elementary music department wrote and produced a wonderful winter show that took the audience on a trip through all the different ways we celebrate Christmas around the world. Each grade took part in writing this play. I was very lucky to be able to help back stage making sure everyone and everything got on and off stage in a timely manner. The schools auditorium is not large enough to hold all of the parents and siblings of our elementary school in one sitting, so we ran the show for two nights. All of the 1st through 5th grade students were in the show and were even all on the stage at one time at the end. On the second and last night of the show the traffic on the major streets leading to and from the school was unusually heavy. It was at a stand still for over one hour. I had gone home after school to do a few things and got caught in this traffic jam along with the two music teachers and most of the parents and students. When I reached the street that the school is on I saw several parents walking/running to the school with the students. I pulled over parked the car, and walked/ran the last few blocks. We opened that night 45 minutes late. It turned out to be the best show of the two. The students were wonderful and actually became actors that night. Four, very talented, mice acted as the shows narrators. Their scenes filled in the spaces between acts and kept the pace of the show moving. Aren't they cute?

On the last day before winter break we held a school wide assembly in our main atrium. The kindergarten classes performed Christmas carols with their music teacher leading them. They did a great job. The upper school Romanian class performed traditional Romanian Christmas Carols for us as well. We all sang together. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye for the next three weeks. Our school administrator and principals each spoke words of holiday wishes.

The Kindergartens are praticing right before we all gathered.

Tamara and Arnie discuss last minute changes to the announcements before officially beginning the last all school assembly of the year.

Magda Ionescu (one of our Romanian, EAL & humanities teacher leads her Romanian class as they sing traditional Christmas carols.

I hope you each have a holiday full of love and peace. Many of us have lost close friends and some even fathers this year. We will be cherishing many wonderful memories of these loved ones during this time of year. I will have all of you in my hart and thoughts.

The January issue will filled with pictures and thoughts of my Christmas in Berlin.

Go well.