Tokyo!

Decision made! We are going to be teaching at Seisen International School in Tokyo, Japan next year. The school is actually in a neighboring ward of Tokyo and we are told there are nice parks, cherry blossoms and easy bike routes to get to work. Sounds dreamy...

London

We've come to accept that flying from anywhere to Sarajevo will take us at least 12 hours. We were excited to have our first direct flight into Sarajevo on British Airways--only 2 1/2 hours flying time and we would be home with time to chill out. But, of course, something has to go wrong. 4 stops on the tube turned into an hour long train ride, which made us miss our Gatwick train. Thus, we missed our flight. 8 hours and $550 later (each!) we got a flight to Zagreb and then to Sarajevo. So long ease of travel...

The recruitment fair was an intense and exhausting whirlwind. After making connections with a number of schools, we scheduled 8 interviews for Friday starting at 9 and ending at 5. We interviewed with schools in Egypt, Japan, The Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany. It was a positive day and we felt like we had many job offers ahead of us. On Saturday, we were disappointed not to get our Holy Grail job, but we did walk away with 5 job offers--2 of which we are really interested in--one in The Netherlands and one in Tokyo. We are currently debating the pros and cons of each, but hopefully we'll have a decision soon.

The best thing that came out of this job fair was the exposure to different schools, administrations and curriculums. We learned a lot about what we want to see in a school and what we want to be as teachers. We even bumped into a few Oregonians--amazing how you can pick them out of a crowd in London!

We didn't get a lot of time to explore London, but we did find some time to eat curry, drink Strongbow Cider (for me) and Guinness (for James), enjoy the parks and spend double for everything we bought. London is painfully expensive.

A proposal no girl could resist

Only 4 days into February and love has sprung in the first grade!
I don't know about you, but I want to live with the squirrels. It's such a good thing.

Ski Week

The kids can hardly contain their excitement--skis on IN the parking lot!

Mr. Foss taking a break with a first grade kiddo.

We are in the midst of a 5 day ski trip to one of the local ski mountains, Igman. This sounds like a huge job perk! Skiing, fresh air, 5 days away from work. But, it's not so peachy. We spend the entire day picking 5 and 6 year olds up off the snow, carrying their skis, and then them, up the mountain, just to do it all over again.

I'm always amazed that Sarajevo could have hosted the Olympics, because while we have gotten some snow this year, there never seems to be enough to maintain a months worth of ski competitions. I guess it's another argument for global warming. The mountain desperately needs snow and a boost from tourist economy. There is 1 chair lift, a now defunct Olympic ski jump, and trash around the hill. Pazi--Mine! signs litter the drive up the mountain, posted on every 3rd tree. This area was heavily mined during the war. While it is a sharp contrast to the glitzy, shiny ski resorts of America, Igman has it's own charming quaintness. The kids have a great time and couldn't be more thrilled to be skiing over rocks on antiquated rental skis. The smiles on their faces are the true job perk that we enjoy.

Plastic Bags

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0721-04.htm

Sretan Nova Godina (Happy New Year)

Fireworks over the canal

James's rogaine is working!

Always on the hunt for a great cinnamon roll!

Brendan and Cory and Jesse at Katwijk on the North Sea

Brendan, Cory and James at Katwijk

After 10 plane rides in 3 weeks, it's nice to be home. Being home for the holidays was worth all the flying...food, family, food, friends, food. It was great.

We spent the last week of our break in The Netherlands. We were delighted to find out that the Dutch love their fireworks! They don't have a state sponsored New Year fireworks display, but every Dutch man, woman, and child has a least one US-deemed illegal, personal explosive ordinance. These they light off around midnight all around the canals. They seem to wait for their turn, more or less, so maybe one or two large ones will go off in opposite directions, while many single blasts happen 360 degrees around you. What we would call a "grand finale" went uninterrupted for thirty minutes while church bells rang for twenty minutes. The sound of the bells was hardly audible, but it was fun to know that someone was enthusiastically pounding on them---at least we like to believe in human-powered bell ringers. A few torpedo-like fireworks exploded in front of the bridge we shared with a hand full of Lieden residents. If you haven't already, and you get a chance, it is well worth it to go to any medium sized town in Holland for a New Years celebration!

Of course, you can't leave Bosnia without a bit of hassle. The fog has set in again and we haven't seen the sun since arriving back into the "heart shaped country" last Sunday. People say the fog has been here for 4 solid weeks. Our plane circled the Sarajevo for about 40 minutes before deciding that visibility was too low and we turned around to land in Zagreb instead. So, we spent another 8 hours on another bus from Croatia to Sarajevo. I've flown in/out of Sarajevo a total of 5 times and on 3 of those trips, I have had to bus to Zagreb.

Random Ramblings

The QSI Sarajevo bus fleet! VW's are the most popular, and most stolen, vehicles in Sarajevo.
I would guess 2 out of every 3 cars in Bosnia is a VW.

I think there are some sick birds in Sarajevo tonight. We must have had at least 16 runny hits on the Buba while it was parked under a tree. Really, I thought someone had egged the car, it was so bad.

We made our decision. We have to go for the dream and try for jobs in The Netherlands. If it doesn't work out, so be it, and we may end up somewhere really else. But, the dream of riding our bikes to work everyday is too enticing.

People should always look at a place with the perspective that they will be leaving it soon. Even though we still have almost 7 months left in Sarajevo, we are beginning to view the city with "rose colored glasses." Here are just a few of the things we will miss: cherry rakija at Trattorio Uno, our friend Edita, the peaceful nights, somun pita bread, our incredible apartments on the hill, the uneven cobblestone staircases, and cheap, bubbly water.

The first street dancer we have ever seen.
Proof that a little sunshine will change everyone's perspective! Bags of bread are often left hanging on the trash cans for people in need.

Today, I like Sarajevo. The sun is shining. The change in weather put a skip in almost everyone's step and a few of the dour looking faces even turned into smiles. We had a Bosnian morning downtown--picked up a few black market DVDs, watched the parade of Sarajevans dressed to the nines to see and be seen, had a mini-Zeljanica (spinach pie) and a cappuccino among the smoke and locals.

We have to make a decision soon. Our dream has been to live and teach in The Netherlands for a lot of reasons, mostly because it's such a friendly bike culture. But to go for 2 of the 5 jobs available next year, we have to quit our jobs in Sarajevo because of timing issues. We are generally happy here, despite the fog and coal burning, and don't want to have to take just any job. Do we take the risk and go after the dream? Or do we stay in relative job security and spend another year in Bosnia, trying to enjoy the small things in life and raising our chances of dying at the fender of a '72 VW Golf or a smog induced respiratory infection? Choices...

Thanksgiving in Leiden

Last Thanksgiving I visited James in Sarajevo and got fogged in for 4 extra days. After 5 straight clear days, we thought this year might be different, but, just our luck, the fog rolled in and our flight was canceled the night before. Determined to make a break for Western Europe, we took an 8 hour overnight bus to Zagreb to catch our other connection. It was a brutal, smelly night, but well worth it. Our visit to The Netherlands was everything we needed to refresh. We rode our bikes, ate Thai food, shopped, and just enjoyed the ambiance of a quiet, friendly town. Leiden is the city from which the Pilgrims left for America--the perfect place for a Thanksgiving feast made by Cory and friends. These are just a few funny pictures from the weekend. Below, we are at the 4 story bike parking in Amsterdam.

A clothing store in Leiden pulled us in to try on clothing and do a "street casting photo shoot." Cory and I put on some funky clothes and posed in hopes of winnig a trip to Barcelona. The girls in the picture below remind me of Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat.Leiden

Sinterklaas arrived! On December 5th, Dutch children place their shoes by the fireplace to be filled with candy by Sinterklaas and his helper, Black Piet. If you are bad, Sinterklaas will put you in his bag and carry you away.Swarms of Black Piets were all over The Netherlands this weekend--we saw them dancing, singing, playing instruments and even rappelling off a church. Black Piet was originally a term for the devil, then thought to be an African slave and more recently his black face and hands are told to be from chimney soot. To be politically correct, a move was recently made to change Black Piet to have a blue, red, or green face with the explanation that he rowed his boat through a rainbow. We didn't see any of these rainbow Piets.