Things went pretty well today, I think. I only stepped on the interpreter's tongue twice, and I mostly managed to keep the slides where they were supposed to be. I'm not sure the things I had to say were relevant to most of the group because the involved children go to school in a segregated setting rather than being included in neighborhood schools.
I think teaching English has been help;ful to me, because I felt rather calm about the talk. Del said that the important, but unstated, truth is that I was calm by my previous standard, which means I was not in a panic. Good thing, too. They picked me up at 10:30 for an 11:15 talk. I thought that would give me lots of time to set up and unpack my limited dog and pony show. Unfortunately, that is not the way things are done here. We went upstairs for lovely tea and waffke like cake and went down to the meeting room 5 minutes in advance. Fortunately, I was able to use their computer with my thumb drive and I only had a few books, hastily made materials, gold fish crackers and 4 jars of bubbles to unpack. At the end of the session, I drew numbers to give away the children's books and the bubbles. I figured SLPs love free stuff whereever they live, and they do.
After the drawing, they presented me with lovely parting gifts - 13 beautiful tulips, because an even number is only for funerals, two books about Lithuania and Klaipeda, chocolates and 8 little bottles of various types of mead ranging in alcohol from 12-50 percent. We will be sharing that with Mark and Sandy when they arrive. I don't know whether to work our way up or down the potency scale. Based on the little I can read, it is made with midus, or honey. Do I recall that mead is always made with honey?
After that, the administrator/interpreter, a school psychologist and two slps went up for coffee and more special cake. We talked more about autism and parent training. They are very interested in learning more about the Hanen program.
Tonight we went to a neighborhood restaurant we had not been to before. It spoke of being a steak house, and did serve steak, but a large portion of the menu was Greek. What a treat to have something different.
Del had salmon, and I had a bowl of mussels in wine. Neither of us had had lunch, so we had dessert. I wish I had had the camera, even though Jane Snow said last week that she disapproves of taking pictures of food in restaurants. I see the point, but sometimes I can't resist. Del had apple cake with vanilla sauce. It's not what you think, The plate had a baked apple with top cut back so that a apple cupcake cut sit inside. It wasn't frosted, so you pour the vanilla sauce on top of the whole thing. I ordered pistacio ice cream, because it's hard to get ice cream here instead of gelato. It was served in a edible light green spun sugar bowl. It was so pretty, but I didn't eat it. I'm not fond of that sort of thing, but the ice cream was delicious.
Tomorrow we head for Vilnius and on Wed. to Prague. And now to sleep! Happy tax day!
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