Adventures with Cathie

Tonight, Cathie, the principal/director/superintendent of the school (basically the woman who hired me) took me out. Her plan was to go walk around a local lake and then have dinner.

The lake we went to is called Kuhsee (Cow Lake). No, there are no cows, but it's a lovely man-made lake with a dam nearby and a path you can walk around. You must know two things for this story.

1. Cathie has no sense of direction. It was one of the first things she said when I got in the car.

2. I told Cathie the story about how Julie Carlson and I walked around 3/4th of Lake Murray only to discover you can't walk all the way around. Julie and I had to hussle all the way back before they locked the gates.

Anyway, we were walking and talking about all sorts of different things and as we got deeper into the underbrush we started questioning our location. Thankfully, a jogger came by and Cathie asked him if we were near the lake. He said, "No way!" So we turned around and started walking back, now that the sun was setting. We tried another path to see if we could get around the lake, but that one also went in the wrong direction.

By now, we were both tired and hungry so we found the original path and got in the car. Now that I'm home, I was able to look at Google Maps and give you this illustration of how off course we had gotten.

We laughed about it all the way to the restaurant (which we used GPS for just in case). Cathie is absolutely delightful to be with. She's Irish and this is her third international school. She was previously at a school in Stuttgart, Germany for 13 years and then spent a year in the Bahamas before coming to Augsburg.

We ate at one of her favorite little cafes that is attached to an artsy-fartsy movie theater. I had Schnitzel with potato salad and then a lovely dessert the name of which just went out of my head, but it was like a really thick(1/2 inch) crepe with berry sauce and cream. We were out for a good 5 hours with our adventurous walk and dinner, but it was super fun.

After speaking with Cathie I feel more than ever that this is the right school for me. So many of the things that were problems in my classroom in the US are non-existent at this school. Yes, there are other challenges, but they are truly important ones, not ones based on poor curriculum or political jargon.

Well, my tummy's full and I'm pooped. Tomorrow is Sunday which means live stream from SDCWC (my church in San Diego) and in the morning, I'll probably stroll around town. Let's hope I don't get into another adventure soon!