Friday, December 23

Yesterday was our last day of school before the break, but luckily we went on a field trip instead. We didn't have to reign in the kids at school. We just let them go wild on a bus trip instead! We were supposed to set out for El Alamein, a site of a World War II battle on the Mediterranean coast at 7 a.m. SHARP (as the permission slip told the students). Joe, Tom, and I, fools that we are, arrived at 6:40 a.m. No students, no bus. The students trickled in slowly by 7:30-7:45 (That's "sharp" isn't it?). Still, no bus. The woman who arranged the trip for us, assured us that the driver was lost on a nearby street. He must have been because he didn't arrive until an hour and a half later at 8:30 a.m. Not only that, but winter has finally arrived, so we spent a cold morning out on the sidewalk waiting.

The trip was a long one, especially since we were just going to see a small museum and cemetery, but we survived. It took about 4 hours there and back. The students, of course, amused themselves by watching Arabic movies, playing the tabla (drum) they had brought along, listening to their MP3s and playing on the bus microphone.

It was a gray and rainy day, but in the end I think that added to the mood. One student remarked that she felt it was very "romantic" that it rained while we were in the cemetery. The museum wasn't much, but the students liked climbing all over the tanks. One student said, "I'm pretty sure you can't do this in an American museum." Joe and I readily agreed.

We went to the cemetery where the students had to pick a gravestone and write about the soldier's life for extra credit. My pregnancy hormones decided to kick in and I found myself crying over the inscriptions. Looking back, they weren't that profound, but at the time they were tearing my heart out. Things like "To the world he was a soldier, to me he was the world" and "He comes to me upon the wind and the air, and lives within my heart." The kids all thought I was nuts, even when I tried to tell them this was just a side-effect of pregnancy. It's funny how all of the sudden I'll start sobbing about something. I'm sitting there thinking, what on earth are you crying about and knowing that I'm going to keep crying anyway.

We toured the British and German cemetery and headed back. We were surprisingly only an hour and a half behind schedule. That's pretty darn good for a field trip at our school. No one ever returns on time.

Today, it's the start of our vacation. I think I'll do all my work right away, so I can just lounge the rest of the week. Maybe we'll make some homemade chocolate chip cookies with the chocolate chips we received in our Christmas package. That will be a treat.

I know I'm going to enjoy these days of quiet, even though we won't be doing much for Christmas. We can't wait to call everyone during their Christmas celebrations.