Tuesday, June 20

Well, the weather is warming up here in Graz, and the students are learning how to cope without air conditioning.  Thankfully, our classrooms weren't super hot today, but the forecast is calling for even warmer days ahead. We'll get through this heat together.

Today, we had classes as normal. Before we started classes, I caught one student gazing out of the window, and I couldn't help but think about how we are all going to miss this view when our journey here in Graz is done.

Here's one of the views that I'm talking about:

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of pictures from today because we had classes as usual and then after lunch, we took interested students to the pool due to the heat. 

In addition to classes, students also completed a self evaluation to process their progress thus far in Graz/ Here are some pictures from the self evaluation time:

Most of the students joined us on a trip to the pool after school. (I didn't take any pictures at the pool because I wanted to maintain people's privacy while swimming/sun bathing.) The pool (called Magarethenbad) is about a 15 minute walk from school. This outdoor pool has a different feel than the pools that I know in the US.  There is the pool with the cement pool deck, but there's also a grassy area where most people prefer to hang out while not in the pool. This area also has some trees which provide shade. Additionally, the pool have a cafe/snack bar with some tasty snacks, including pizza and french fries. The atmosphere is welcoming, and all types of people were there: retired people, families with children, college students, and our students. 

Even though the water was pretty cold when we first stepped in, it was a great way to beat the heat.  The students had a lot of fun just messing around in the water.  In fact, some of the students made up German word games. For one game, you had to give a German sentence using a certain grammatical structure.  If the sentence was wrong, then you would get dunked. For another game, the students would give you a category for a German word, and then you would go underwater while they said the word. Then you'd have to come back up and tell them what you heard.  If you were wrong, then you had to go underwater again, and they would say the word louder. This repeated itself until you got the word right.  I played one round with them, and it was definitely hard for me to hear those words underwater.  However, it was also a whole lot of fun.

The last students headed home to their host families a little after 5.  I'm sure that they slept well after a busy day of learning and swimming.