Ode to a Grecian Urn...

I am pleased to report that the school trip to Greece was a remarkable success and that we all arrived safely back in Karachi in the early hours of last Friday morning.

We had a great time in the 'cradle of civilisation' amd we saw all the sights.

We started by driving out to Sounion and saw the Temple of Poseiden and this was followed by the tour around Athens to see the Acropolis and Parthenon. We also saw the Temple of Zeus and observed the preparations for National Day on 25th March.  

We also visited the New Acropolis Museum to see the many relics of the acropolis are now housed.  Some, however, are still in the British Museum in London thanks to the 19th century dealings of one Lord Elgin!

On the Tuesday we had a whole out on a boat on the Aegean Sea visiting three islands, Poros, Hydra and Aegina.  The only way to describe them is beautiful, looking just as you expect Greek Islands to look with ttheir blue and white houses and cafes.   

The following day we set off across the country to Olympia to set the birth place of the original Olympic Games.  On the way we passed over the Corinth Canal and the Epidarus Theatre.  On the Thursday we were able to see the remains of the Temple of Zeus, which once housed the Statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient world which are                           

• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia
• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
• Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
• Colossus of Rhodes 
• Lighthouse of Alexandria
• Great Pyramid of Giza 

As I wandered about Olympia I realised that I have been fortunate enough to visit the site of four of these ancient wonders.  I then found with a little further research that I had also visited one of the others unknownly.  This means that I have only Rhodes and Babylon left to visit. Though given that Babylon is now modern day Iraq that one might have to wait...                             

                                      

Don't anyone touch the marbles...

It's twenty to midnight on a school night and I am still sat at the computer.  This is because I am waiting to be picked up and taken back to school so that we can head off for the school visit to Athens.

As ever in this country, the organisation of the trip has not been completely plain sailing!!  A week last Wednesday I received a call to say that the Pakistani half of the group had had their visas refused!!  This was not good news!

Thus started 6 days of stress and consternation for all involved.  I could go through the whole story, but really I haven't got the energy at this time night.  Suffice to say, the whole thing was a complete farce, in fact at one point I thought I should put on my dog collar, take of my trousers and run round with a standard lamp!!  Finally, thanks to the help of one of our parents, and the diplomatic staff of three countries, and that didn't include Pakistan, the visas were finally issued last Tuesday.

Therefore, 40 students and 6 staff will be meeting at school in just over an hour and heading off to the airport to begin our big adventure.  We are going to see all the sights and sounds of the Greek capital and will spend one day cruising around some of the islands.

There will definitely be an educational aspect to the trip, not least as no-one seemed to understand the references to 'not stealing the marbles' made by  the Head of Maths today.  Time to reintroduce Classics me thinks...  

Howzat...

I know this might take some believing, but last Friday I actually went out to watch some live cricket! Dave Watson has some tickets and so we had a boy's night out watching the Islamabad Leopards versus Faisalabad Wolves in the domestic 20/20 Cricket. This was the first time that I have seen cricket live and the first time I have watched live sport in Pakistan, so I have managed to tick two boxes for the price of one!!

Sadly, my first exposure to cricket was not the finest example of the noble game. The Leopards were 103 for their 20 overs, which is not a particularly good score. The Wolves came out, and after a little nifty bowling by the Leopards in the opening over, which dismissed the first batsman, they made relatively short work of achieving their goal. They manage to score the only 6 of the match on their last ball which took them to 106 and won them the game.

After our sporting fixture, Dave and I headed off towards Tariq Road and to nice little Chinese restaurant and indulged in some very tasty food. When I dropped Dave off I was able to collect a couple of items that he had brought back from his recent trip to the UK, namely Angel Delight and Carmelised Red Onion Chutney!

This last month has been a very busy one with the School Arts Week, including the performances of 'Hobson's Choice'. I am pleased to report that the whole week went very well. The opening night was 'An Evening of Poetry, Music and Drama' Year 7 gave a recital of an Urdu poem, Year 8 were the Crazy Chefs which would probably have started a dipolmatic incident had been seen outside of school!! Year 9 gave an excellent rendition of Act 1 of Macbeth. Mixed in between these bigger pieces were performances by the choir, who presented three songs by the Beatles.

Thursday and Friday saw two fantastic performances of Hobson's Choice. We were using an updated version which turned the Hobson family from an 1880's Lancashire family into a modern day family of Pakistani immigrants. The cast were brilliant and pulled off the comedy to great effect. The audience were very impressed and everyone enjoyed it enormously.

The rest of the month became a rather large headache, as we were trying to organise a Geography Field Trip to Muscat in Oman. The problem is that Pakistanis need to have their visas approved before travel and for one reason or another they didn't come through on time. Unfortunately, this meant that the trip had to be cancelled.

There are now just two weeks until the end of term, which will see about 50 staff and students head off to Athens for a week of culture and fun. This of course depends on the Italian Consulate issuing the Schegen visas in time. We have been assured that this will happen, though the assurance was followed by, Inshallah...