I have been meaning to put up a post about my recent trip to the Head Office in the UK but up until now I couldn’t retrieve my photos from my camera. Drum roll please for a Projects Abroad blog first as we are do a photo essay on an Open Day that Projects Abroad put on in Bristol on April, 14th 2007.

Since my trip to the Head Office coincided with the Open Day in Bristol I jumped at the change to help out! Open Days are great opportunities for prospective volunteers to put faces to our staff members on the other end of the phone or email and to speak with alumni who have been on a lot of the projects, plus it gives me the chance to reconnect with my colleagues across the pond!

Join us on a look back at the Open Day in Bristol …..

The Wills Memorial Building of the University of Bristol (the undergraduate alma mater of our own Dr. Peter Slowe) on Park Street, Bristol

The weather was actually quite amazing and unseasonably warm the day of the Open Day. Coming from New York where it was cold and overcast, I was not complaining! I also believe I picked up several British mannerisms as in true British form I started this blog post by talking about the weather!

The event was held at the John Mackay Theatre at the Bristol Grammar School where our very own Senior Programme Executive Ian Birbeck honed his cricket skills as a school boy.

The John Mackay Theatre with a Teaching and Projects Abroad sign

The Teaching and Projects Abroad banner as you entered the car park. Doesn’t it look good? It took Rob and me a good 10 minutes to put this up although to our credit it didn’t fall down the whole day!

The Open Day kicked off with an introduction by Dr. Peter Slowe and a presentation by Ian. We then had a great presentation by Frederick Campbell-Jones who had some amazing photos of his time as a Medical volunteer in Mexico. After a lovely tea, we all split up into smaller rooms where a member of staff and alumni would speak about different countries and then projects. Here was my room where I spoke about Romania and Moldova.

But what makes the day so great is being able to speak to our staff members face to face, many of whom have had experience in the countries or projects people are interested in. Here is Rob, a Programme Advisor from the Head Office, and Jery Lee, our Desk Officer in Mexico. What a team!

If you are interested in attending one of our upcoming Open Days the next one will be held in London on June 16th from 2 to 4:30 pm. You can get more details and RSVP here, http://www.teaching-abroad.co.uk/more_info/open.php. Our staff would love to see you there!

There are some of us out there who are just plain airplane dorks (no pun intended!). While some people hate to fly, I love planes, going to new airports and flying different airlines. So I was excited when I found out about flightmemory.com. I entered all of my flights from the last two years and voila! (Click on the link to see my profile)

Flight Memory lets you input information about every flight you have taken and plots it on a map. Plus it gives you some quirky stats about your flying. I apparently have flown enough to circumvent the earth three times and the total hours I have flown would add up to one week of continual flying!

What is the longest flight I have ever been on? New York to Bangkok last May

My most popular airport? LaGuardia Airport here in New York City. Which is no surprise since it has only been a 15 minute ride from my two apartments here!

My only regret is that I lost all the flight information I had pre-2005 when I lost all the emails on my old university account. My advice to graduating college and university students, back up your emails! It seems the only statistic that is missing is how many trees I should plant to offset all the CO2 I have left in the atmosphere. I’m sorry Mother Earth! I’m sorry Rob, our collective conscious!

Although it is a bit belated we would like to announce to opening of our newest Recruiting office in Toronto, Canada which is in the capable hands of our new Director there, Rob Levine! Rob, just like me, got his start with Projects Abroad as a volunteer in Romania and ended up starting and running our pioneering Drama program there as well. So if you live within the 10 provinces and 3 territories of Canada, feel free to give Rob a call toll free at 1-877-921-9666 or visit him at

62A Charles Street East Suite 300
Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1T1

He loves visitors!

Rob in a cafe in Brasov, Romania

I recently came across a race sponsored by “The Supply Chain & Logistics Institute”(who knew that existed?) at George Institute of Technology to discover which courier service could deliver packages the fastest (if at all) to five far flung destinations like Apia, Samoa and Harare, Zimbabwe. The three contestants were FedEx, UPS and DHL with DHL coming out as the winner by being the first to three destinations and second to the remaining two. You can read more about the race here,http://www2.isye.gatech.edu/~jjb/wh/package-race/2007/2007.html.

But reading this got me thinking about all the distant lands this office and our volunteer’s friends and family ships to! From our office here in New York, we recently shipped a box of brochures to Cusco, Peru and a box of folders to our office in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Hopefully they will both get there soon! I feel like at Projects Abroad we could have our own little race!

There are also all the stories I hear from parents trying to send care packages to their kids and hoping it will 1.) get there and 2.) get there before they leave! Do any of our former alumni have any good stories about trying to get packages out to their volunteer destination?

When I was a volunteer in Romania, my mom had sent a care package filled with newspaper clippings from home, letters from my family and American candy bars! My mom, bless her heart, sent it a good month before I was to leave and guess what? I was only able to pick it up from the post office the day I was scheduled to leave. But those Kit Kat bars were the best I have ever had!