Thursday, January 27

This morning the girls got dressed in their school carnival outfits. Helena was a pirate and Gloria was a hippie, complete with a huge green afro. They both looked great! Nancy and I got ready and then headed to the school ourselves to get in on some of the fun. All the teachers were dressed up with the kids. There were some teachers who did special things with kids. For example, one teacher was Snow White and she had seven of the kids dress as her dwarfs. I saw belly dancers, pirates, police, clowns, hippies, techno/punk kids, princesses, cowboys, witches, etc. They had a little school rally where they performed a dance everyone learned. Then everyone went to their classrooms or to different classrooms. Almost every class had a special game or decorations or face painting they did. Helena’s class did a scary room. I never gained entrance because kids kept cutting me in line. I eventually gave up.

Gloria won the best costume award and 10 euros to the bookstore. She got her picture taken and a little blip in the school newspaper. Nancy was so proud of her! Before we left, Nancy talked to Helena’s English teacher. They will figure out a day for me to spend an hour in Helena’s English class describing life in America and letting the kids ask questions or practice their English with me. It will be a little different though because they learn British English in their schools.

The girls got out of school early so after picking them up I took a nap, ironed, and ate dinner before we headed to music lessons. While the girls were in their lessons, Nancy and I went to the library where I checked out two books this time. After lessons, Helena had a doctors appointment and then Nancy and Gloria had eye appointments. They finished with their appointments just after 7pm at which time we ran back to the car and drove back to the house so I could quick change and head to the gym with Mark and the neighbor who were patiently waiting for me. 

We warmed up by doing different dribbling exercises with basketballs, played Frisbee and did the different track and field stations. While playing Frisbee, I ran after the Frisbee at the same time one of my teammates did. I couldn’t stop in time to avoid the collision, so we ended up doing a little hug/dance before we got our balance back. I’m not sure what people said about it because I couldn’t understand, but I felt horribly embarrassed! Unfortunately, my already sore muscle got 10 times worse when I pulled it again while warming up so I was a lousy teammate when we played handball and I sat out when we played basketball. I don’t really know who was more bummed about that, me or Mark and the neighbor. The three of us were finally on the same team so I know the guys were disappointed when we couldn’t kick the other teams butt in basketball.