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'The End Of June' in the life of a teacher: Bittersweet! Seven weeks of summer vacation and everyone seems to have something to celebrate before we scatter back to our home countries or onto long anticipated adventures... weddings, summer birthdays, farewells to leaving colleagues. We celebrate for the occasion, of course, but also I think we celebrate with the knowledge, somewhere in the back of our minds, that we won't see these friends until August, or in some cases ever again. This group of people that have made up our everyday lives abroad and boom... gigantic diaspora. The nature of the international school beast is its constant comings and goings and I agreed to it when I started this occupation; but that doesn't make The End of June any easier! The best thing to do that I have come up with is to celebrate. We'll celebrate them and us and the sun and say goodbye. Goodbye!

BudaPesch

With four days in Budapest, I managed to get a taste for the summer city atmosphere: hot, alive, colourful, busy. The buildings are gorgeous and preserved and so are the people!

We had quite significant a fork in the holiday wheel, though, as far as health was concerned. Lauren insisted Hungarian malaria was what we had. I rationalized. It was highly likely that she had sinusitis, as the doctor told us that morning at her appointment, and I a sinusitis/bronchitis combo, as the doctor had told me the day before. What a duo! We walked and toured as our bodies allowed, sat in every square and park known, ordered ginger ales and sorbet, spent money on vitamins and curing Hungarian tea, and destroyed whole boxes of Kleenex... together, we were a tourist team to be reckoned with.

Games in the Park

Question: What can you do when it is hot and beautiful in Zurich? Answer: Go to the lake with friends, come home seeking shade and match the pictures to a baby picture! Not too much has changed since then.

My weekend was intents.

The fearless trio of leaders, Andrea, Julia and I, survived a camping trip with eight high schoolers (alternative perspective being that they, in fact, survived it with us) to experience the culture and environment of Lugano, the Italian part of Switzerland. Even counting the sore muscles and stinky gear, it was a beautiful trip. For me personally though, it brought me to a realization that is, unfortunately, a familiar one: It seems that I can go so long, a year in this case, working in the same building as these fantastic people like Julia and Andrea and never really 'meet' them until our time together is almost over.