Weekend with my host family

A photo I took yesterday in front of the hotel. You can see a field of Christmas trees up on the mountain. Growing Christmas trees is a big business here. Did you know that it takes 15 years to grow a proper Christmas tree?

It's 10 pm in the evening and I'm writing another blog entry. I'm at my host family's house now. I'm gonna spend the weekend with Jeannie and Gerry. They live close to Ashe High in an eco-home in the forest. The house is special, as they use alternative energy here. They have solar panels, their own windmill and they use sun radiation, wind, and water power to create electricity, heat the house and pump water. Tomorrow we're gonna see another eco-house they help to build as they are involved in an international program called Habitat fo Humanity. For more information visit http://www.habitat.org/default.aspx

Yesterday I went to Fall Festival with Carmen (she's a Maths teacher) and her son Carter. The festival took place in Westwood Elementary and this was definitely a fun event. The place was crowded with children and their parents. They sold tickets for different activities and games.

Dunking Booth - the most popular among small boys. They had a chance to make their teachers and even the school principal fall into the water tank. Have seen this in movies, didn't think I would see it in real life.

We also played Bingo (with beans) and took part in Cake Walk. It's a game where you have to walk on tiles decorated with numbers. They play music and you just walk. And when the music stops, you'll be standing on a number. They're gonna draw a number and if it's yours, you can pick a cake from a row of different cakes they have there. And guess what... I won a cake yesterday :) My lucky number was 35.

That's my pumpkin cake. I took it to school today and shared with other teachers. It was awfully sweet.

Today it was soooo difficult to get up. It was cloudy and raining so I felt really sleepy the whole day. On the second periond there was an assembly in the auditorium for 9th and 10th graders. We saw a play called Shakespeare on Trial and it was just hilarious. There were only two actors but they were so talented and managed to make the audience roar with laughter.

They also used people from the audience. Here's their interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. The guy on the left is an actor playing Shakespeare. The guy on the right is another actor portraying Juliet. The man in the middle is Mr. Rousseau - an English teacher and soccer coach.

Modern Juliet

The third period was with the teacher cadets whom I hadn't seen at school yet. They were reading children's books. And we also had red velvet cake that Travis had made. I also liked his story about a book that ate people.

And the fourth period was with the 11th graders I was worried about. It turned out that actually they were really nice.

I showed them a video and asked them to make assumptions about Estonia and Estonians. They asked lots of interesting questions and wanted me to teach them Estonian dances.

Here's Kaerajaan :P

One of the girls - Lauren - is gonna take me trick-or-treating on Monday :)

After school I met my host family. I had dinner with them - chili and corn bread and brownies with ice cream for dessert. We talked about Estonia and I gave them some souvenirs I had brought with me.

Oh, it's midnight already. Good night!