Phew!

Hello friends!

First off-I miss you guys and America so much!!!!!!   But at the same time I love my new friends here and I am enjoying living in a different part of the world.  But I still miss my life back in Utah and Hawaii.

Alright, moving on...so the past couple of weeks have been busy with school work.  School over here is not quite as organized as what I am used to, coming from Copper Canyon and my coworkers (who were all VERY organized) and I miss that.  I have settled down to my daily classroom routine and so have my kids.  Which has been a sigh of relief and a stress reducer.  At the beginning it was a little hard because I didn't know what I was doing and I was in a new place that I wasn't comfortable in and the kids could sense that and they didn't know what was going on...and you could see how it could get hard.  But, now it is so much better!!!

I am still planning day-to-day, which is something I usually find my self always doing--maybe sometime soon I will be able to have everything ready by the beginning of the week...maybe one day in the future.  But, yea, so school is settling down. I love my new 4th grade team, but I really really really really really miss my old 3rd grade team. Man, we were great.  I really miss our lunch time talks and conversations.  Lunch time here is so rushed and the teachers don't eat together and I miss that time to talk to adults instead of students.

This next week is going to be a busy one.  Parent-teacher conferences, but each conference is just supposed to last 10 minutes each..I am a little anxious about how it is going to work, but I am sure they will be fine.  We also celebrate Halloween here-well kind of, we are celebrating it on Friday, Oct 25-not the usual day October 31.  The school has a parade and a Halloween Carnival that night too.  Also this week, is the UN festival and also the Oxi Day performance.  It is going to be a BUSY week!!!!  But it will be a three day weekend because of Oxi (No) day.  Oxi Day celebrates when the Italians tried to take over Greece during World War II and the Greek soliders said NO (Oxi)!!  It wasn't quite as simple as that, but the Italians didn't succeed so they had to call for back up, so the Germans came and eventually they were able to beat the Greeks-but having to do this was not in their plan and this set them back 5 weeks, which meant that they were 5 more weeks into the Russian winter than they had planned.  So, who knows what would have happen if the Germans weren't staled by 5 weeks...So October 28 is a Greek Holiday!  Some of the American teachers and I will be going to Thessaloniki, Greece.  I am excited to explore the country!

Then early November, I will be joining the cross country team to a meet in London for the weekend.  This trip falls during the Athens Classic Marathon, which I was signed up to run, but I will be in London, which I think will be amazing!  I am sad that I won't be able to experience the Marathon and it's environment, but I am excited about going to London.  I have ALWAYS wanted to go to London!

Then for Thanksgiving, some of the American teachers and I will be heading over to Vienna to celebrate.  I am also looking forward to that trip and going to all the Christmas Markets.  It'll be a busy couple of months.  And then for Christmas my mom is coming!  I am SOOO excited for her to come and show her my new home.  Although, there is no place like Hawaii, Greece does have some sites to see and I am excited to see them with my mom.  We will also venture out to Germany or another country in Europe, we haven't fully decided yet.

Phew...lots going on.  Oh and I am starting to get into a schedule with my triathlons.  I think my first A race is going to be a half ironman in Spain, the second week of May.  I haven't fully committed to that yet, but my first A race won't be before that.  But I now have joined a gym, I have a pool, I can run, I found a track, I found a couple of bike routes that I can do on my own, the only thing I am missing is an indoor trainer which I hope to be getting soon.  Also, I wanted to find a coach--but I haven't found one yet.  I have met some here in Greece, but none that seemed really interested or excited about coaching me.  Anyways, it'll come.

Okay-I have to go and prepare for the week.  And also decide what I am going to be for Halloween on Friday!!  Thanks guys for reading and I'd love to hear about what's going on in your lives!!!  Also my phone numbers here is 30-698-735-7999, so find me on Whatsapp so we can stay in touch!!!

Aloha,

Carly

 Last night we went out to the local Irish Pub-James Joyce.  It was a good time, but my party days are over.  I haven't fully "become Greek"--staying out till 5am...I don't know how the Greeks--and some Americans do it!!!!

A cute picture from Hydra-a Greek island we visited before school started.  Fun times in bathing suits!!!!

I am still here :)

Hey all,

So it has been a while since my last update.  The reason for that being I don’t have internet at home anymore!  When I first moved in to my apartment, the previous people never canceled their internet so I was using theirs, until one day it shut off L  Sad story, but after one and a half weeks of playing phone tag (they would only call during school hours and I couldn’t call them back) and then talking in English when the other person spoke in Greek (luckily a co-worker came to the rescue) I should have it tomorrow-although I am a little doubtful.  So we will see.

Okay, now to more exciting things!!!  Um, lets see…I did my first triathlon in Greece and it went well. Again, there aren’t many girls that compete here in Greece.  Last weekend I just did a sprint triathlon and there were 120 competitors and only maybe like 20 girls-at the most…so not too many girls at all…however I did beat a lot of the guys so that was good. J  But all went well in the triathlon.  I am still not on a proper training schedule, but I am still training when I can.  I am coaching cross country after school so that has been taking up a lot of my free time. 

Oh, so that brings me to share another new part of my life-being a coach!  I have always wanted to be a coach…a teacher and then a coach after school (like Mr. Link, Mr. Tuttle and Senora but now that I am doing it is exhausting!  During the first week (we are in week 3 now) I had a couple of break downs…but all is well now.  The hardest part was leaving school right at 3:50 (it ends at 3:45) and then going to practice. Those that know me as a teacher know that I am not one to be 100% organized all the time.  I am organized, but it takes me a while and I like to take my time in planning my lessons and figuring out what we will do the next day, but with coaching I don’t have time to do that until 5:30 and by that time I am so exhausted!  However, like I said it is getting way better and I am getting better with my time management skills. J

Anyways, we have our first meet this weekend!  Our schedule is different than what I am used to because we only have 2 meets-and coach was excited about having 2!  So hopefully all goes well and the kids have a good time!  It is fun working with older kids and having conversations and talking to them about running. 

School is going well.  I am getting used to things now and how things run and what I can control and what I can’t control.  I am really enjoying my class!!  Although they are really talkative they are fun kids! 

My friends here in Athens are great!  Just like usual I have my workout friends and then my social friends.  I seem to always find myself with different groups of friends and not much mixing happens-but that’s okay. I am really lucky that I have met the people that I have.  They are making my experience here so much fun! 

So this was a long one!  Thanks guys for reading my blog and keeping up with me in my life journey.  On my ride today I was thinking about how I really am here-teaching abroad.  I have wanted to do this for so long and I actually did it!  That made me excited.  It is fun to see your dreams come true!  I miss you guys so much but please keep in touch and let me know how you are doing!!

Aloha,

Carly

Picture from my race last weekend.  

The olympic stadium-view from The Mall (that's what it's called).

The view from my bike ride Mt. Imatos (spelling).  It is about a 15k climb..(I will clock it next time) and it's about an 1:45 round trip ride from my house-if I don't get lost :)

A turtle just hanging out in the middle of the city.  Weird!

Syntagma Square, Athens, Greece

Karla, Aryn, and I at the Internations Social this weekend.  Two of my teacher friends at school!-Sorry it's so dark!