Mrs. Madsen

I, Mary, started my new job as a building substitute teacher this past week.  So far, it has been amazing.  We haven't had any students yet---ha ha!  No but really, the staff and the entire school is so incredible.  You can tell that all the staff members and teachers have so much passion for the students and helping them develop as learners and just as good humans.  

The days I have had so far have been teacher workshops.  The first week I had three days of new teacher workshops where all the new teachers in the district meet and get lots of information about the school, technology, health insurance, etc.  I really enjoyed just getting to sit down at a meeting and be a listener and contribute, instead of being in charge! I keep getting this question from the other staff at the school. "Isn't it nice to be in such a small school district?" -  To get the facts Orono school is a school district with 4 buildings.  K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12.  There are about 240 students in each grade level - so this makes about 700 students at each building and 1,000 students at the High School  For a grand total of 3,100 students at the school!  So with my Danish mindset of our kids school having only a little under 500 students K-9 you can imagine how funny this question was to me.  At first I laughed, and explained to others - but now I just smile and say yes.  A lot of the new staff is coming from school districts with 500 students in each grade! With the size of the school you also have a lot of resources.  So there is a specific person for almost everything.  If you want to know about that specific computer program, you contact person A, if you have a question about lunch number pincodes, you contact person B.  It's not just ask the secretary og IT person - there are many many secretaries and IT people.  So I am still learning where to direct my questions both as a staff memeber, but also as a parent.

Bus tour - on a real school bus - it brought back memories of how hot it is on busses in the summer months and how to take the windows down!!

The first three days of new teacher workshops were also days of getting spoiled! We had beautiful lunches provided all three days.  One of the hightlights was getting to take a bus tour of the entire district and have a guide tell us about the area.  Orono schools have a large area they cover including farm land and quaint country homes to the west, and huge mansions on Lake Minnetonka to the east.  So it is a economically very diverse.  During the bus tour we saw so many beautiful areas and stopped at a local restaurant (Actually in the small town of Maple Plain, where we live) for lunch.  



That Friday we were treated to a nice meal at Lafayette Country Club with the school board and all administrators.  Definitely a way to make you feel appreciated as staff.

Last week I was able to have a few days off and only worked Monday, Thursday and half day Friday.  Monday the entire staff had a start up get together with breakfast and time in the auditorium where I had to get up in front of the entire teaching staff of over 300 people and be introduced.  I love being in front of people, but this was a bit intimidating as my principal read things up from my application and it was a total bragging moment.  The Danish girl inside me was like. "Wait, I'm not so special.."  It was a good learning experience to feel on my own body the feeling of being out of my comfort zone, like I so often ask of my choir members and students!  Another thing I realized that day are that over 50% of the teachers at this school have their masters degrees...so another 2 years of education in a specific area, and some even have a PhD.  This is a bit intimidating, but I trust that I am very capapble of being a part of the team!  That Monday we were also treated to a food truck with delicious barbeque options! I hear that from now on we have to bring our own lunches!! HA HA!

So yes, the big day is tomorrow where all the students come and I will be thrown into the job of being a flexible staff member.  Basically I show up at 8am every day and get told what I will be doing.  Mostly I will be in the classroom filling in for the daily teachers, but I could also get asked to assist a student in 1 on 1 reading, monitor the lunch room og recess on the playground, help in the office, help a special ed student, or just assist in a classroom with whatever may come up.  I know I will be challenged this year, but I am looking forward to it, and have already enjoyed feeling like a part of a well working team.

Signing off,
Mrs. Madsen

Mary and Silas in NYC

Silas and I had 4 amazing days in NYC at the end of July! The trip was his confirmation present from Søren and I, and I think I probably was just as excited as he was. 

The day started out with driving in a Tesla for the very first time.  At nice UBER man named Mark picked us up at 4:45am and we were off to the airport.  We enjoyed some peace and relaxation from the beginning just being 2 people traveling together.  It gives a whole different atmosphere.  The flight went well and we arrived in Newark New Jersey. We quickly found the train station and within in an hour of landing we arrived in NYC!!

 

On the Train

NYC STREETS 

 We were very hungry and Silas got to pick where we should eat lunch, so we ended up at.....

McDonalds!!

Yep McDonalds.  We found an amazing coin-offer and paid only $11 for both of us...New York wasn’t looking that expensive!!

At around 1 pm we were ready to hit the city.  We found a place to store our luggage (many stores offer this service, so it was just a tourist store) and  we were on our way to the Empire State Building.  Ahead of the trip I had been a bit worried about long lines, and not being able to get tickets, etc, but in the end decided that it as nice not to have everything planned out ahead of time, and just see how it all went.  I told Silas this plan, and that I was practicing letting go of control and being in the moment, and he was on board with helping me with that!  Turns out you could get right into the Empire State Building and the tickets were actually cheaper at the door! 

We went up the 86th floor and the view was amazing! It was fun to be at such an iconic spot! There was also a lot of information about the building process with interactive features, and you could look through telescopes to see city monuments far away! (Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, etc.)
Silas bought a souvenir – a model of the Empire State building – as he collects these things. 

Then we spent a couple of hours looking around the area there, shops, buildings, people. One of the coolest shops we went into was FAO Schwartz which is a toy store, right at Rockefellar center.  They had lots of unique toys, and people at small booths demonstrating the different things, so that was fun to watch.  And Silas and I got to play the famous roll-out piano on the top floor!

Rockefeller Center

FAO Swartz

Famous Piano from the movie "Big"

Silly pictures for his brothers

Finally we wanted to get back to the hotel for a little rest before dinner.  So, time to go collect our luggage and find the hotel.  We wanted to see if we could figure out the subway system, so we took a short ride from the area we were at back to the train station area where our luggage was.  But wait, where was it exactly that we put our luggage? Every street corner looked the same with tourist shops, and the street numbers I thought I remembered, didn’t seem right.  We walked around the neighbouring blocks for over 30 minutes before Silas finally said – “I think I know where it is, trust me Mom!” And sure enough, there as the store.  We got out luggage, and walked the 20 minutes to our hotel...and of course stopping at Dunkin Donuts for an ice-cold lemonade (did I mention it was 96 degrees – 36 celsius!!)---and a donut!

 

We spent a couple hours in our very small hotel room reading and relaxing.  Silas had gotten a magic trick set at FAO Swartz and he used his time practicing that.  We decided we were going to try to go to this diner we had heard about from a man we were in the security line with in Minneapolis.  It is called “Stardust” and the waiters and waitresses are all aspiring musical stars who sing songs throughout the night.  We arrived at the location a little after 7pm and the line was all the way down the block to get in!!  It was a very popular restaurant and didn’t take reservations.  We thought about if we wanted to wait in line, not knowing if we’d be waiting 30 minutes or 2 hours, and decided to commit!! We had a good time just talking and people watching in line, and after only 50 minutes we got in! We had a delicious meal and heard lots of amazing songs.  Everything from musical solos and duets, to pop songs with dance and confetti! It was a lot of fun.

Bruh - long line!

We're close now!

After dinner we went to Times Square to see it with all the lights on! We were in awe, and found new things to look at all the time.  We found fun stores to go in, the Pelé store being a favorite, with all types of soccer jerseys you could imagine for sale, and some signed jerseys that were cool to look at.

Finally we were tired and went home for a good nights sleep.

Day 2 started at the perfect time for Mary and Silas – around 9.45! I was up a bit before and I woke Silas up at 9.45 to get a start on the day. We had decided to go visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island which is on the south part of Manhatten, so after stopping for some really cheap bagels, with way too much cream cheese on them, we got to sit in the air-conditioned subway car for 30 minutes down to the Ferry.  Again, not planning turned out fine and we got right in line for the Ferry.  Again it was 96 degrees and there were A LOT of people who had the idea to visit Miss Liberty that day.  We waited in line – which was more of a big pack of people, standing very close in the really hot weather.  Right when we thought it would be our turn, just 2 families in front of us, the man closed the gate and we’d have to wait for the next ferry.  Oh well, Silas was so positive and we just turned on our spray fans we had with us.  Then as the ferry arrived and people started to get on, the families in front of us, just shoved open the gate and started pushing in line – Silas and I, as the do-gooders we are, stayed in place, but then everyone behind us started pushing past us – and for fear of getting trampled we went ahead with the pack, just as the guard came back and started being stern with everyone saying “NO ONE RESPECTS THE GATE, JUST GO”....

We went up on top of the Ferry and had amazing views of Manhatten as we sailed away.  We also got great views of the Statue of Liberty.  On the island with the Statue of Liberty there was a great museum where you could learn all about the building of the Statue, etc, and a great video as well!  Silas loved the videos at the museums 😊  Then the Ferry went on to Ellis Island – and that was also interesting with the stories of immigration etc.  We also got to see a movie there, that was both encouraging but also a bit sad with the conditions so many immigrants endured on their trip to USA.  As we queued up to get back on the Ferry, Silas and I talked about that we could imagine what it would be like to be squished together in a big boat – but that the immigrants had a lot more at stake.

Ellis Island registration building

The Ferry rides took much longer than we thought, so it was 4:30 before we were back on Manhatten and we were so hungry for lunch.  We found a NYC pizza place and bought pizza by the slice and took it back to our air conditioned hotel.  We spent a few hours there, and then it was time to see HAMILTON!!  We had decided we would go to dinner after the show since we ate lunch so late!

Subway

Our tiny hotel room

Pizza and AC!

Hamilton was A-MA-ZING! We just have to start out saying that. Silas and I knew the music very well, and knew it was fabulous, but it was even better live.  We were so in awe of how the cast sang and danced the entire time.  2 hours and 45 minutes of music! We loved all the details of the set, with a rotating circle that would serve as changing rooms or scenes, or bring props in and out.  Of course all of this was done gracefully and fully integrated with the music.  There were some really funny characters that added their own spin to it, and really got the audience laughing.  At intermission Silas asked “there is still a whole half left, right??!!” – he was so glad we got to see more. 

Outside the Theater

The only thing that wasn’t 100% amazing about Hamilton was the actual theater.  Richard Rodgers theater is absolutely beautiful, but it is really small and there was not a lot of room to walk around upon arrival, or the intermission – and the seats were really close to each other, so no leg room either.  Silas and I agreed it was good Søren wasn’t there.  After a day of being squished together with other people in the Ferry lines, we were about done with the tight quarters.  The craziest thing though was that it was almost impossible to get to the women’s bathroom during intermission.  I finally got over to the bathroom line, and I hear a woman behind me was saying very rude things about a lady who cut in line to her daughters.  I realize that she is talking about me! I turn around and say, “Are you talking about me?” And she said, “Yes, didn’t you see the line was wrapped all the way around in the theater – you just jumped in from the side.”  I hadn’t realized I did this, so I apologized, but could not really see how I would get out of the line and make it to the back, so I just stayed put and let her give me the evil stare down.  😉 

After the amazing show, we headed to find some dinner.  But we got distracted by lots of fun stores.  The Hershey’s store with lots of unique products.  The M&Ms store, where we designed our own M&Ms to bring back to Søren!   And we had to go to the Pelé store again to see if the Manchester United number 1 was in stock so Silas could buy a jersey with their new player – Mbeumo!

Hershey's Store- Lots of Reese's!

Finally we were so hungry, we ended up going to McDonald’s at 11.15pm! Silas was so sweet saying we should find a place I liked, but I was fine with it as long as I could get a S’mores McFlurry – but then they were sold out! Oh well! 

McDonalds again!

View from our hotel room.

Day 3 we had decided we would sleep in again.  We started our day at 10am – found an even yummier bagel place that made egg and bacon bagel sandwiches for Silas, and then rented bikes to bike around Central Park.  After biking 4-5 blocks on the crazy New York City streets to get to Central Park we finally made it, unharmed thankfully, and found out that the bike path through Central Park is more like a wide street on the perimeter of the park.  You can’t actually bike in the middle of the park.  After the initial disappointment of that, we tried to think biking as taking the metro around Central Park so we could see more of it.  But again it was 96 degrees and we were hot! We ended up using only 2 hours in the park and walked our bikes in a few places and otherwise just biked the loop. We were glad we did it.  When we went to return the bikes, the guys just said – okay thanks, have a nice day! I noticed right away that he hadn’t made me pay – I thought about it 2 seconds, and then said to Silas – we never paid.  He said, yeah, I thought of that too, we better pay! And of course we went back to pay.  There was another customer nearby and he said “Wow, how nice to be so honest, you must not be from New York.”  😊 That made us all laugh!

Our next stop was Brooklyn Bridge which meant a 30 minute subway ride.  Yay for AC on the subway!! When we got off at our stop, we realized that we were standing right next to One World Trade Center – the new World Trade Center after the attack on 9/11.  We had planned on going there after the bridge if we had time, but since it was right there we decided we’d check it out.  We ended up in this amazing mall right next to the building and enjoyed more cool air just walking through it.  We saw the memorial sites of the two original Twin Towers, and decided to go to the 9/11 museum and would be there for an hour or so and find lunch.  But the museum was so interesting and we ended up being there for three hours.  In the museum you could see pieces of the original buildings, huge metal beams that were completely bent and dented.  There was a cool movie about how so many regular people helped get people off Manhatten by boat the day of the attacks, so they could get away from the dangerous smoke and dust.  There was a whole exhibit that took you through the entire day of 9/11 from just before the attacks and ahead.  You could see old TV news broadcasts, voicemails from people in the 2nd hit tower, lots of pictures and personal testimonies from people who were there that day.  Silas was very captivated and interested. 

Finally at 4:30 we were starving and wanted some lunch. We found another pizza by the slice place and ate our pizza while walking to Brooklyn Bridge, which we still wanted to walk over!  It was still really hot, but it was a great walk! Lots of beautiful views of Manhatten behind us, and the bridge itself was beautiful as well.  We took a little break under the bridge and headed back to our hotel by Subway.

After a rest at the hotel, we went to Hard Rock Café for our last meal in the city.  On the way home we hit a few souvenir shops and each bought at T-shirt to remember our time.

The travel home could be a store on it’s own, but I will keep it brief.  We had a hard time finding our train – but after asking for help, made it just in time! We had to wait on the runway for over an hour before taking off, due to air traffic scheduling.  There was no air on the plane, so we were all sweating, in the still 96 degree heat! I thought I was going to have a panic attack I was so uncomfortable and claustrophobic.  It was really awful, but Silas showed me a cool game for my phone so that helped, when I beat his high score on Blockus!  We ended up having to take a detour in the air and arrived 2.5 hours after we were supposed to in Minneapolis....just in time for rush hour traffic going out of the city.  Søren picked us up, him and the boys had also had a great few days back home!

We had such an amazing time together Silas and I.  It was so relaxing to travel with Silas.  He was patient, thoughtful, funny, excited and really good at finding directions! We had great talks and got to experience so many new and exciting things together.  Memories I will forever cherish. How lucky am I!!

Here are some random pictures!

Sweaty faces!

Doing magic tricks

On the way home to MN

Beautiful church