Well, I leave for my Fund for Teachers trip to Greece in two weeks! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am. Now that all my reservations have been made and arrangements for Ringo, my dog are set, I can really see this is happening!
I am a fourth grade teacher in St. Paul, MN. I feel so lucky that I have been blessed with such interesting, smart students that challenge me to stretch my learning. My grant has me looking at Alexander the Great's imprint on Greece and his connection to mythology and then connecting that with literature circles for the upcoming year.
One of the challenges is that my plan has had to change since really investigating the travel portion and the feasibility of going everywhere I put in my grant outline. Long story short, it isn't happening the way I wrote it. It was too ambitious to get all the way around Greece in ten days and really enjoy myself at the same time. I will actually be in Greece for two weeks but won't heading as north as originally planned. Also, watching YouTube videos of climbing Mt. Olympus has made it painfully obvious that this isn't really an activity I feel comfortable doing.
This brings me to another challenge. I am traveling with my family. My husband David (I call him Davey) and I have a son, Will, who is 14; another son, James, who is 10; and a daughter, Eva, who is 7. The grant pays for my expenses, so keeping things separate is time-consuming. I have done this before, though, so I think I'm doing OK!
One surprising thing I've found is that prices have gone down a bit for lodging in Greece, so I am able to stay in better, "logistically appealing" areas for what I had originally budgeted. I was also able to find a very good price (relatively speaking) for my plane ticket.
As far as I can tell, most places I am staying have wifi. I am only bringing my iPad and am hoping it will be sufficient for blogging. My goal is to have at least one entry with some photos for each place I visit. I'll put my schedule on my next post.
