All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

If you had told me a year ago "Hey guess what? Next year you are going to visit Sri Lanka and fall in love with the country. You are going to hold a monkey, ride an elephant, see some dolphins and whales and swim in the Indian Ocean. This will be a well deserved break from your teaching job in the desert." I would have laughed in your face.

We made sure to pick a hotel that was right on the beach! 

Sri Lanka was absolutely incredible! It is such a beautiful and colorful country. I got to see so much of my favorite color- green! Sri Lanka was not even on my radar of a country to visit until one of my friends mentioned it. I said yes to being her travel buddy and the rest is history!

Things I learned in Sri Lanka:

1. Their school year starts in January. They go to school year round and have monthly breaks in April, August, and December.

2. The school uniforms are white. Girls must have their hair in braids.

3. The Queen is the oldest hotel in Kandy. Queen Elizabeth once stayed there.

4. When you see white flags hanging in the streets it means that someone died. While we were there they were mourning the loss of one of their members of Parliament.

5. Sri Lanka's Independence Day is on February 4th.

6. Egg hoppers are a breakfast cuisine that are delicious.

7. Sri Lanka recycles!

8. They went through a civil war for 30 years that recently ended in 2009.

9. First Asian country known to have a female ruler!

10. Their currency is Sri Lankan rupees. $1 = 143.54 rupees. and 1 Qatar riyal = 39.42 rupees.

The places I circled are where we visited. As you
can see there are areas that we did not get to. I guess
I will have to go back! 

Sri Lanka flag

Egg hopper! Yummy fried egg

Yay for recycling! Take note Qatar. 

Ca-ching!

We stayed in the southern part of Sri Lanka at the Royal Palms Beach Hotel in Kalutara. We arrived Friday morning. We had a driver named Mangala pick us up from the airport. He was very kind and informative. It was about an hour and a half of a drive from the airport and he told us about the rubber trees and rice paddies.

The golden brown parts are the rice paddies. 

Inside the hotel lobby 

View from our hotel balcony AKA my favorite spot. Who wouldn't like sitting on the balcony reading your kindle listening to the waves crashing? 

Made a friend on my first day. No I was not breastfeeding him! 

She may murder me for posting this. Alanna did not volunteer to have the
monkey on her. Which makes this picture hilarious. 

The first day we relaxed at the hotel. We watched Say Yes to the Dress in our ridiculously comfortable hotel beds and took a glorious nap. This was followed by lounging at the pool and adult beverages. Our hotel offered an all-inclusive package. If you ever stay anywhere that offers this- DO IT. I did this when I went to Mexico and it is well worth it and easily pays for itself. $40 each day for all the food and drinks that I want- I will take that deal!

DO IT. 

Saturday we had our first day trip to Mirissa for dolphin and whale watching. We had to be up bright and early because our driver Nishantha picked us up at 3:30 AM! Funny enough we ended up getting there an hour early. To kill some time I played with some adorable puppies! There are so many stray dogs in Sri Lanka. I just wanted to scoop one up and sneak one back to Doha with me. Dolphin and whale watching was fantastic. I am happy that I have a strong stomach because for at least half of the trip... many people got seasick. It is not my favorite thing to be out on the ocean listening to the sounds of people retching. Loudly. We were out to sea for about 5 hours... imagine 2 and a half hours of listening to people puking. Woo hoo for headphones and blaring my music to tune it out!

Whale watching. Hello Indian Ocean! 

Waiting in the marina/dock area ready to go!

Out to sea. That is one of the other whale watching boats. 

I love this country. 

Getting ready to start moving. 

That view though!

Hard to tell but that black blob is a whale! 

Sunday was a chill day at the hotel. We had to be all rested up for our next day trip to Kandy! 

Ahh that balcony. My favorite spot.

The dining area where I consumed at least 5 pounds of bacon. 

Monday was Kandy day. It was quite the eventful day that began with our pickup at 4:30 AM. Elephant day! I got to ride an elephant named Pooja. Unfortunately it had chains on it. A little disheartening while you are riding it and with each step you hear the clang clang of the chains. We had our awesome driver Nishantha again- no tuk tuks for us. Driving around with him was a bit what I imagine the knight bus to be like. We were constantly weaving around cars and motorbikes and tuk tuks. We were speeding around and then sometimes suddenly coming to a full stop- definitely an adventure! We got to see elephants and learned a lot about them. For instance, they make paper from their dung. I did not buy any but was definitely intrigued by that fact. Other elephacts: they can comfortably carry 25% of their body weight which is equivalent to 45 fully grown men. Male elephants can go through a period called musth. This is when the elephants have increased testosterone levels and can be very aggressive. Do not approach them! Only 5% of male elephants in Sri Lanka have tusks. There are 40,000 muscles in an elephant's trunk. Compared to the human body which has 639 muscles, that is a lot! We also visited a tea factory, a spice garden, botanical garden, and the Temple of the Tooth. Nishantha was driving us to our next stops which apparently was a Kandy dance and then a gems museum. I looked at him with a blank stare and said "...do we have to?" I was completely and utterly exhausted. I wanted nothing more than a big dinner at our hotel and then to crash immediately in my comfy bed. So we did. 

This is a tuk tuk. They are everywhere. The good thing is that when you go on highways they are not allowed on there! 

No I did not buy any! It was tempting though. 

The streets of Sri Lanka 

They drive on the other side of the rode. So weird to get used to! 

Pooja <3

Just a herd of elephants walking down the road. No biggie. 

They want to get in the refreshing water!

They love to lay in the water and it is the cutest thing ever. 

We visited the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage and got to see them feed baby elephants milk. Tourists used to be able to, but
I guess it got very popular. As you can see from the crowd. 

Taking a selfie with the elephants at Pinnawala

The tea factory Kadugannawa. We got to sample some at the end!

All the tea leaves. They get weighed here.

I love that the tea leaves get their own elevator. 

The woman operated this crazy contraption to grind up the tea leaves.

Temple of the Tooth

They're a big fan of gold

Temple of the Tooth

Temple of the Tooth

One of the stupas. A stupa is a place utilized for meditation. 

I saw a boy climbing up and posing in the tree so of course I had to
copy him. 

Look at all those bats! I cannot wait to tell my kids about this because
we talked about bats for a week and they love the book Stellaluna.

The monkeys from Jumanji made a guest appearance at the botanical garden. 

                                     

Palm tree lane

There were pretty flowers too!

The next 2 days we had relaxing pool and beach days. I got some color and caught up on some reading! Then on Thursday our last day I devoured the last bits of bacon I could get my hands on and then Nishantha gave us a little city tour of Colombo before dropping us off at the airport. It was exciting because it was Sri Lanka's independence day! They had a little ceremony at the hotel where there were drummers and dancers. They also gave the hotel guests white balloons and we released them followed by the people in the ceremony releasing doves. 

So cool to watch!

Their costumes were fantastic

I loved their costumes and dances

Getting ready to release the doves. 

Some sight seeing in Colombo

Fountain in Colombo. The statue is the president who helped them achieve their independence. 

Sight seeing in Colombo

Sight seeing in Colombo. 

Yes. Even in Sri Lanka you can get a whopper. 

Stadium in the shape of a lotus flower

Fountains in Colombo

I got spoiled by all the colors. Did not want to come back to tan city! 

Sri Lanka was a wonderful vacation spot and I would highly recommend it to anyone. It was the perfect getaway that was just what I needed. Never in a million years did I expect travel opportunities like this to fall into my lap. Hard work pays off! All I can do is embrace it and enjoy. 

Think like a proton and stay positive.

Today is Sri Lanka day! I am so unbelievably excited to go whale watching and see some elephants! My brain is mostly in vacation mode. I have been having a really good week school wise. I feel like some things are starting to get on track. And now I feel more like a teacher and less like a kid wearing grown up clothes.

The Royal Palms Beach Hotel is where we are staying! Right on the beach. I cannot wait to relax by the water with my kindle. 

I finally updated my bulletin board in the hallway for the first time in months. And now I have 2 months to come up with another creative idea before I have to change it again!

Big shoutout to Dav for the witty title! Otherwise it was just going to be called Shape Pizzas.

It is nice when a foreign place starts to feel more like home. It really does make a world of difference. And when you gain some confidence in areas of your work, that feels pretty awesome too. I feel like my tunnel vision has gone down a little and I remember to actually enjoy the kids and talk to them... get to know my teacup humans! They are stuck with me for 180 days after all, might as well make the most of it.

We have had some interesting weather lately here in Doha. A few days in a row we had insane amounts of fog. And it actually caused a lot of car accidents. Not surprising with the maniacs on the roads here. The best part was that we did not have to give out any tardy slips those days! The fog was so thick. It kind of reminded me of the fog from Catching Fire. Except you know it was not poisonous and people didn't die when they walked through it.

Spooky fog

For 3 mornings straight this was the view

Meanwhile the weather at home has been pretty exciting too! They got a hefty amount of snow and I eagerly shared pictures and videos friends and family sent me to my students. They absolutely loved it and were happily exclaiming how much they wanted to go play there! They especially loved the video of adorable Xian Xian the panda rolling around in the snow. I got a care package from home this week! Harry Potter souvenirs from HP World- I drink from my butterbeer mug every morning. And also lots of junk food because I make fantastic life choices. Animal crackers ginger snaps, Kraft macaroni and cheese (Spongebob and TMNT shaped!) Life is good.

Like I said school has been good. Parts of it were sad because I had 2 students leave my class because they went back to their home countries. One family was so incredibly kind they even took me out to dinner one night. I will miss them so much. However they did say I am more than welcome to visit them over the summer so I may have to take them up on that!

It is exciting to see how much growth some of the kids have made. One child in my class went from recognizing only 10 capital letters and 4 lowercase letters to knowing all but 3 letters. And it is just so exciting to see them read. I think about when I first put a book in front of them and they stood there reading each individual sound of the words and now they are reading books with multiple sentences on them. Some of them of course are still on books like "I can see the cat. I can see the dog." But everyone moves at different speeds and I am confident that by June they will be where they need to be for first grade. We have also begun writing sentences. We talked about how each sentence has to have 4 parts: begin with a capital letter, finger spaces, a period at the end, and written neatly.

Sentence number 2 put a little smile on my face. 

People keep telling me that this is not only an incredible work experience but also life experience. And it really is starting to hit me now how true this is. When I work with so many different types of people and see and meet new people all the time, I realize how special and rare this opportunity is. If I had stayed in New Jersey and took on another year of subbing (maybe I would have finally gotten a long term sub position) and interviewing and submitting hundreds of resumes and not taken this huge leap- my life would be so different. I am giving myself a big pat on the back for taking this huge risk. Because there have definitely been moments where I questioned myself and wondered if I made a huge mistake. Teaching itself is hard but teaching in a foreign country in the desert? Definitely challenging. But I am happy to be here and so grateful for all the people I have met here.

There is a Facebook group called When, Where, and How in Doha. Sometimes people post pictures on there.
 This was one of my favorites.

Awesome shot of the skyline. 

Tonight at 10:40 my flight leaves for Colombo in Sri Lanka! I promise to update with many pictures and stories about my adventures!

Kalutara, Kandy, and Mirissa here I come!