Going international

I have written several posts about the benefits of working in a school that represents a multitude of nationalities. What I may have neglected to describe is how international the city of Brussels itself is. As the center of the European Union and the city in which NATO is located, Brussels, indeed, draws in an international crowd. I was reminded again this week of how that affects my experience of living abroad, and so I give you...
3 More Reasons it's So Cool to Live in an International City:

1. The Gangs of New York Party
-Last weekend my roommates and I were invited to a party held at the Autoworld Museum in Brussels, a party reserved primarily for the Italians and Irish of Brussels to go drink themselves silly together. We managed to finagle our way in using our best Irish accents and had ourselves a great time. It was a fun way to meet people outside our little social circle of interns and fellow teachers and talk about something besides students.

2. Burns' Night
-There is a holiday in Scotland created to honor the Scottish poet Robbie Burns. One of my close colleagues is a Scotsman and invited a few teachers over on Saturday to take part in haggis, oats, and hilarity. Indeed, I had the feast of a lifetime, and was still full two hours after I had finished eating. I was in disbelief, actually, at how much I could managed to squeeze into one stomach. Maybe it stretches extra wide for extra delicious food. The picture (I will try to include later) is of the program my colleague created for the event.

3. Listening to children count to 10 in their native languages
-Okay, so it's going to be another school story again. Today was the 100th day of school (I honestly can't believe it's here already) and during the whole school assembly, the principal asked if there were any volunteers who could stand up and count to ten in their native language. I got to hear the following languages this morning:
-English
-French
-Spanish
-German
-Arabic
-Hebrew
-Polish
-Icelandic
-Portuguese
-Chinese
-Japanese
-Afrikaan
-Maori (Native New Zealand)
-Dutch
-Russian
-Italian
-Danish
-Turkish
-Swedish
-Urdu (a language in Pakistan)

And this was just for grades K-2! How amazing it was! And even more amazing is those aren't all the languages that represent our school. This international business is pretty sweet.