Halloween weekend

Well, I went to visit Parliament on Wednesday which was very interesting.  They only let the visitors into a very limited amount of areas (3), but the stuff they allowed us to see was interesting enough.

We saw the reception area (nothing remarkable), then we went into this over look balcony thing that overlooked this area:

Then we went into the most impressive room of the building (that we were able to see) called the Hemicycle.

There was actually a meeting going on at the time, something about satellite weather predicting techniques or something.  I was busy listening to my guided tour headphones!

So that was interesting.

Thursday morning I got a phone call from the school asking if I could substitute for the day, so I went in.  It was a good day.  My 2nd class was a room of 4 year olds.  The situation was hilarious, but I somehow let go of my inhibitions and ended up sitting in a circle guiding them in song.  Funny quote - we had just finished singing Row Row Row Your Boat and I thanked them for being very good singers when a little boy turned to me and said, "But you forgot the part about the crocodile!" haha, it was funny.  The next day was the day I was anticipating to be my first day.  It also went well.  My last class had 60 students in it.  They were a handful, but it was nice to be able to conduct again.  So in summary, this new job of substitute teaching is challenging, but rewarding at the same time.  I think even though I was just there for a few days, some students improved their playing and I hope they will remember some tips I gave them about balance and listening.

Friday (the same day with the class of 60) I woke up feeling very sick.  Well, not very sick but sick anyway.  I still feel like it today, so I suppose it's a cold that will have to be slept out.  Luckily I brought vitamin C with me so I'll be taking that and drinking lots of water.  I have no one else to blame but myself for this sickness though.  I shook the hand of someone who was sick and forgot to wash my hands afterwards.  Wait.  That wasn't what this paragraph was going to be about.  It was going to be about the fact that last night (Friday night) I went to Delhaize (the grocery store closest to the house) and bought 2 pumpkins!  David carved one last night because it was his first pumpkin and he was excited.  Today, Natacha, David (he'll carve another one) and I are going to carve some more.  I've said here many times that Halloween is new here, so this is all very exciting for them!  It was exciting for me too, because I've realized that the last time I carved a pumpkin was about 3 years ago.  Last Halloween I was in Korea (I celebrated, but didn't carve a pumpkin), the year before that I was in teacher's college (again, celebrations sans pumpkin) and the year before that would have been the last time I carved a pumpkin.  How fun!  So here's a picture of David's pumpkin:

And finally, here are pictures of me helping and looking as scary and halloweenesque as possible:

I'll update later in the weekend with news about how Halloween actually went!  (If kids were out etc.)

Have a great weekend everyone!