Stokes in Peru

February was always the longest month of the year for most of my life-the winter doldrums, combined with an uneventful sports calendar, and every single person's least favorite holiday made the shortest month seem interminable.  The shift towards associating positive thoughts towards February began when Marianella appeared in my life (hey, Valentine's Day isn't so bad!), gained momentum when we moved to Peru (summer vacation!) and has certainly moved into the range of being a pretty good month (we'll see what my thoughts are next year when we're experiencing a real winter again in Beijing). This February ranked pretty high on the chart, due to several short getaways, both far (Portugal*) and near (a day trip to Bangladesh's old capital).  Have I piqued your interest?  Hopefully so. . . * So, Portugal happened in late January which is pretty much February anyway, right? Lisbon Along with two of my colleagues at AISD, we attended the International Sc...

Happy 2016 Everyone! A good resolution for me would involve being more prompt on my blog entries this upcoming year. I will do my best to carry through, starting with this entry, just a short time after our winter break. One of the nice perks of the international education world is having three weeks off during the holiday season; typically, Marianella and I have divided these breaks between Lima and Minnesota, but knowing that we would be job hunting this year, we decided to stay in Southeast Asia in the event that we needed to attend a job fair in early January (we didn’t; more details regarding that at the end). We chose to divide our break into three distinct destinations and themes. Our first week was spent in Phuket, Thailand’s largest island, where our aim was to relax and relax some more. Our second week took us to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), which was new territory to explore while also meeting up with friends of Marianella. Week three was spent in the familia...