Traveling around: Yucatan Peninsula

Traveling Around: Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Can you relate?

  • Driving around in a rental car and not being prepared for the multitude of “topes” or speed bumps.
  • Having people say “Hablas español?” and when we responded yes they proceeded to talk to us in English.
  • Waiting in the longest line ever at the Cancun airport to go through customs.
  • Eating avocado at every meal.
  • Realizing that Mexican food in Mexico is MUCH, MUCH tastier!
  • Being in awe of all the beautiful colors of the Mexican architecture.
  • Walking around central plazas with basically everybody from the city walking around in it, also realizing how little people from the United States do that in their own cities…well if their city has a central plaza.
  • Being that it rained like every day, this area of Mexico is indeed probably best visited during spring break season.
  • Staying at a hostel with a very talkative owner.  Helpful, but VERY talkative.
  • Running into a folk dance performance with what seems the whole city watching.
  • Going into a travel agency asking them where to view the flamingos, and then finding out we didn’t allot enough time to drive to the actual place they were at.
  • Trying to find the best fresh juices in each city we traveled to.  Can’t have too many glasses of fresh mango juice!
  • Being amazed once again by the beauty of palm trees on a beach.
  • Looking the other way when being confronted with spring break type people.  Tried to avoid them most of the trip.
  • Going up to a table with a family thinking that they were a family of a student you had previously taught and then realizing it WASN’T them in the first place.
  • Couldn’t believe that I had to leave United States to finally go and visit Mexico for the first time.
  • Being amazed at how many different kinds of pastries there are at the bakeries.

If you are on a trip right now, away from your host country, write to us at admin@internationalschoolcommunity.com with your “Can you relate?” traveling experiences.  Tell us where you are traveling in the world, what you are seeing, and how you are coping with any culture shock.  Once your Traveling Around experience is posted on our blog, International School Community will give 6 free months of premium membership!

School profile highlights #7: American Int’l School Vienna, Kodaikanal Int’l School & Makuhari Int’l School

Members of International School Community have written some new and informative comments on the following schools:

American International School Vienna (10 new comments):

New Comment: “If you have a BA with 4 yrs experience your salary will be around 38K euros. If you have a MA with 8 yrs…”

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Kodaikanal International School (15 new comments):

New Comment: “KIS is fortunate in having a fully staffed Travel Office to coordinate student, staff and community travel. Our travel partner ‘Around the World Travel’ is an India-wide agency with…”

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Makuhari International School (7 new comments):

New Comment: “The monthly accommodation allowance is JPY 30,000.00. The average rent for a 2bd apt is JPY 50,000.00.”

Blogs of international school teachers: “Love International Living”

Are you inspired to start up a blog about your adventures living abroad?

Check out the experiences of another teacher from the moment they signed the contract to what they are writing about after a few years working abroad.

Our 5th blog that we would like to highlight is called “Love International Living.“   Similar to our last highlighted blog, it has some great insight into how important the first few weeks are for new teachers during their orientation days to their new city and new school.  There is also much information to be learned what life is really like working at Chadwick International School – Songdo.

Entries we would like to highlight:

Settling In…:
“On the 29th we begin we our Korean language classes.  So far I can only say “hello” and “thank you” so I’m really looking forward to getting more communication help.  We’re told the Korean character system is super logical and easy to understand, so we’ll hopefully be able to read Korean soon.”

New Songdo Exists!:
“Chadwick (International School) has been incredible.  Our president and our headmaster along with many other staffers picked us up from the airport, handed us a wad of money and took us home, to a high-rise called Well County.  There are three phases of the development so far and we live in the newest–the 300s.  Our internet phone and cable was already set up and the school is working out all kinds of incredible deals on internet and iphones and anything else we can imagine.”

Orientation Excitement:
“Usually, when you move to a new school, you have two weeks before school begins.  Often the first week is local culture and city orientation while the second week is work at school.  That’s great for a couple days, but by day three, you want to check out the school and get into your room and start setting up.”