We also had a lot of fun at school prepping for International Day. Elena's new teacher is from the U.S., and she's a dance instructor, so she really upped our game for the "parade" part of the day. There are not strict rules about which country you have to present with. You just have to have a connection to it, so we acquired a lot of extra participants who had been to the U.S. and wanted to dance. I got a picture of Elena representing how international the day was.
One of Vivian's best friends is from The Netherlands, and they were face painting the flag at their tent, so Elena got the flag on her cheeks. Then, one of Elena's best friends is from Israel, and they were handing out stickers, so she got one of those too. I don't have a picture of Vivian from International Day, because she was so busy running around with her friends, but both girls agreed that they had a great day. One of the other parents sent us a video of the U.S. performance.
It was a fun day. Jeff couldn't make it, but we had a lovely family lunch at La Brasserie on Saturday to celebrate some of our favorite international food. Jeff has been travelling a lot lately, trying to check on everything before the holiday season starts. The following week he was back in Cartagena for work. He stayed at one of the hotels along the "beach", which we haven't done before. He sent me a picture from the room and said the view was great, but he preferred staying in the old quarter the way we've been doing.
While he was in Cartagena, Viv got an award for placing second in a math competition. She has come such a long way in math.
The rest of the week, we were getting ready for Halloween. My homeroom students did a great job decorating my classroom door.
Even though Halloween fell on a Thursday this year, the school and the embassy wisely decided to celebrate on the Friday. The students were allowed to come to school in costumes. One of my favorites was one of my high school students who came dressed as a Rappi delivery person. He even had the highly recognizable bag that they carry around.
It translates to, if you have Rappi, you have everything, which we have found to be very true here. I was so excited to be able to take a proper picture, because I've never been able to ask the regular Rappi delivery people. I figured they would think I was nuts. My student, on the other hand, thought it was great.
Elena chose to dress up as Jasmine, because she loves the new live action Aladdin, and Mom got her a great costume at Costco. Vivian was torn between being the Grim Reaper and being a flapper, go figure. She ended up choosing the Grim Reaper, but I had the hardest time getting a good picture of the two of them.
Of course, once we got into the insanity that is the embassy Halloween, Elena was all smiles.
The first section we went to had gone full on Avengers. It was incredible.
The hammer was foam, but still unwieldy. Elena was like, "How do you land this??" She was also thrilled to discover Spider Kid on the way out.
Viv also wanted her picture with Thanos. Elena was less sure about having a picture with the bad guy.
There were lots of other smaller offices giving out candy, but the next major decoration effort was Toy Story themed. There was a huge long corridor lined with pictures. Vivian got a kick out of the Buzz Lightyear box.
At the end, instead of candy, they gave each kind their own Forky, which I thought was brilliant.
We were also very excited to find an Aladdin themed office, where our Jasmine fit right in.
After an hour, the kids were happy with their candy levels, and I was ready to keel over. Luckily, Jeff was back at the office by then, and he took us all home. They put on an incredible party at the embassy here, but it is overwhelming and exhausting. I'm glad we went, but I will not miss it. Happy Halloween :-)
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