Another Adventure Coming Up

Hello, All — we’re off to a new adventure.  We’ll finally get to use our international TEFL certificate we got in Prague a couple of years ago.  We’ve been so envious of our classmates who stayed in Czech Republic and taught for months.  Eric is still there having a great time.  David went back to Australia and Michael has moved to America and gotten married.  Actually, I think they all found sweethearts in Prague — how great is that?!  But we stayed home last year doing god knows what.  But now we have our chance at teaching.  We’ll spend April in Ekaterinburg, Russia teaching Ural Federal University students and giving two public lectures each — on what, I have no idea.  Then we go for a month in South Africa visiting our dear, dear friends.  We love South Africa and are very excited that our friend Noekie has come up with all sorts of things for us to do — it will be an amazing trip, we’re sure.

Let me interject with a recommendatory word, a commercial as it were:  we had Sarah Gamber at Airtreks make our travel arrangements and we were thrilled that she found a way for us to miss the Moscow airports going to and from Russia.  It turned out wonderfully because she serendipitiously routed us through Istanbul, which let us have a week layover to spend in Istanbul — where we will hook up with another dear friend from Ankara.  If ever there was a city that needed time spent to see everything, it’s Istanbul.  Can’t wait to go to a Turkish bath — a real one, not a tourist one. Sarah did a great job for us, got us really good deals.  And did I tell you how happy we are that we don’t have to transit through Moscow?  Yea, we get to go directly to and from Ekat.  What a blessing that is! If you don’t know Airtreks, they are experts at multi-stop international travel planning.  Our trip was a little one for them, but Sarah took it on anyway and did a great job.  Now I’m beginning to regret that we didn’t take advantage of a stop-over in Abu Dhabi — that was sorta dumb, but I keep forgetting that we will be out of money long before we get there, so it’s just as well   

I recommend Sarah and Airtreks highly — hope you’ll use them next time you’re traveling internationally and want to go to several places.

OK, so now you know we have a great trip planned:  month in the Urals (even though it is April and might be a tad chilly), a month in hot but exciting South Africa — yippee!  So we’ll be telling you more as we finish up working for the legislative session and try to figure out what we’re going to teach and lecture on, how we’re going to pack one suitcase each for two totally different climates, along with gifts for everyone we know or will meet, and how I’m going to get all my treasures back home.

Stay tuned!