Thinking Travel

Going to School in Costa Rica

In October I went to San Jose, Costa Rica to give two intercultural workshops at the Tri-Association conference for international schools (the session participants were awesome, BTW).

Tuesday, October 14

Tuesday, October 14

While I was there, I visited a public elementary school in rural Cartago with a colleague from our Costa Rica office. I love visiting schools in other countries and was honored to have the opportunity to spend the morning with a class of kindergarten kids and their teacher.

Here are some photos from my visit:

The elementary school in Cartago

The front of the school

Me with teachers in the library

Me with teachers in the library

After talking and reading about Halloween - in English and Spanish - we passed out "pumpkins" for the kids to decorate

Handing out pumpkins to color after talking and reading a book about Halloween

For more school photos visit my Flickr!

Madrid Memories

Photo by africankelly

Photo by africankelly

Well, we’re back. We’re home. We’re sitting on the couch watching TV (election results!) while surfing on our laptops. It hasn’t even been a week and we’re back to doing the same old thing.

This is what we were doing last Tuesday in Madrid:

  • drinking cafe con leche at a local bar
  • buying an umbrella at El Corte Ingles to protect us from the all-day downpour
  • eating pastries filled with chocolate in a bakery at the Puerta del Sol
  • touring the fancy rooms and the way-cool armory at the Palace
  • eating the menu del dia at a cozy restaurant near the Plaza Mayor
  • riding a city bus to the outskirts of Madrid just to look around
  • watching a Scottish bagpipe group march through Puerta del Sol (they were raising money)
  • eating late-night tapas while wishing we could stay in Madrid

There’s just no comparison. Last Tuesday was way more fun than today.

We had an awsome time in Spain and my trip to Costa Rica was also fabulous. I’ve got a lot to write about so I’m going to try to write several short posts over the next few weeks. Stay tuned…

A Pretty Good Day

Things are good.

I’m in Costa Rica.
I’m staying in a nice hotel.
I have colleagues who make me feel welcome in their country.
I gave a presentation that 66 people attended (waaaaay more than I anticipated).
And I spent the evening at the U.S. Ambassador’s house.

Yeah, it was a pretty good day.

Hi, I'm Cate.

My goal in 2010 is to do one new thing each week, no matter how small. I'm documenting my progress on this blog and Twitter.

If you'd like to follow along - or even start your own do-one-new-thing-a-week project - that would be awesome. Your supportive comments, insights, and accountability are most welcome.

I'm utterly fascinated by the projects people commit to so if you're working on a personal project in 2010, I'd love to hear about it -- you can email me at cate [@] thinkingtravel [.] com or leave a comment.

week 1 :: morning pages
week 2 :: lynda.com
week 3 :: in bed by 11pm
week 4 :: cook new veg meal
week 5 :: connect

my other project CulturallyTeaching.com



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