Autumn's on

It's a cold wet Sunday afternoon following a bright, brilliant and warm Saturday.  The general fickleness of SW Germany's weather is accentuated by Fall's progression towards Winter's grip.  If this sounds pessimistic it's just that last winter was a pretty dark one - the darkest, meteorologically speaking, in 43 years.  But we love autumn for the most part.  The colors are out in central European force.  For a New Englander this sight is welcome but rather muted compared to the blazing glory of a Northeastern sugar bush.

The last gasp of summer for our family based here in Germany is the annual Senior Class trip to Rome.  Rome is south (although at the latitude of our home state RI - Kandern, Germany = Quebec), Rome is Mediterranean.  We all had our last swims of the season just over a week ago.

I get to accompany the trip each year as I teach only Seniors and the school requests I go along for a measure of consistency year to year.  Diane was a able to come along as well.  This year had 75 students and 17 adults on two buses that did most of their traveling by night.  It wasn't all sunshine, in fact, this was quite a problematic year for weather and our usual routines got a bit scrambled but the students had a great time.  The morning the trip boarded the bus for Germany via Venice, Diane boarded a plane from Rome, eventually (and after a nail-biter of a wait for her passport and visa to be expressed to Italy), to Cameroon to explore some TeachBeyond initiatives there.  Below are some shots from the trip.

Yummy sandwich shop in Florence.

Fascinating fresco from side chapel in Santa Novello, Florence.

Students entertaining each other while waiting in line for a museum.

John, somewhat better dressed, trying to strike a David pose.

Gellato - what else!

Diane and a student we've known since Kindergarten (hers).

Carl and friends

Roaming the Roman Forum

A windy ride on the boat to Venice

The wine is purely table decoration.

Now we're all back literally and, after a few foggy days, even the students are back to an educational frame of mind as we quickly wind our way to the end of quarter 1 at the close of the month.