Jet-Setting Travel Woes

Right after I went to Tallinn, we had our scheduled Fall Break at my school. Since I have really been missing my friends in Bahrain terribly, I decided to fly there and see all of them. Believe it or not, I had such a hard time seeing everyone that I knew! Who knew I had so many friends?! More on that in posts to come.

I thought I would tell you about a few things that happened to me while on my layover in Istanbul on the journey back to Kiev:

1. I saw a granny wearing a tacky Halloween vest, and I almost peed in my pants it was so priceless! I was in the Istanbul airport on the day of Halloween, but did not expect to see that. We're talking knitted, lots of colors, ghosts and candy corn. Oh man, it just made my day.
2. NBA was playing in one of the airport pubs!!! I could tell that it was American and not the European league because there weren't a bunch of white pansies tossing the ball around. (Have you ever watched the Europeans play basketball?! It's not the same!)
   
3. Warning, here is the tragic part! There is this amazing hand lotion for dry skin that they sell in Bahrain called Creme 21. I happened to see this creme on sale at Dubai Duty Free, and decided that I had better grab it while I could since they don't sell Creme 21 in Kiev. Unfortunately, the fact that I bought it in Dubai Duty Free on my way to Istanbul did not appease the TSA people and they did not want to let me take the lotion since I had also bought a fragrance at the Istanbul Duty Free. I argued and threw a hissy-fit that usually gets you what you want in the Middle East, but they would have nothing of it and threw that beautiful, brand-new bottle of Creme 21 away!

As soon as I got back to Kiev, I noticed that there were people walking around with face masks on and that the cashiers at my local grocery were wearing rubber gloves. All of this paired with the fact that there weren't many people out on the streets made me feel very nervous. I turned on the TV, and Euronews told me that there is an outbreak of the swine flu here in the Ukraine, and that schools have been closed down for the next three weeks!

As for PSI, we are closed for this week, but in order to count the days as student contact days, we are assigning the students work to do and emailing it to them. Otherwise, we will have to stay really late in July! My favorite part about this was today, when I helped Grade 1 teachers record a puppet show to post online of a story that the students need to read.

Good and bad, it's still the simple things that do it for me. While traveling has become much more of a hassle these days, it is still one of my great loves.