7/30/2011 Taverna Opa

We couldn't find KC today to get another recommendation, so we asked the concierge who suggested Taverna Opa, a Greek restaurant. Probably better described as a Greek "experience." We arrived too early for the belly dancer, napkin-throwing portion of the evening, but we still had a great experience with some delicious food.

"On the house" hummus prepped at the table. Here our waiter is crushing the chick peas, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper together at the table. Oh my goodness! That's the way to have hummus. And it was served with freshly made, warm from the oven, pita bread slices.

Here's the appetizer we ordered: Saganaki, which translates to flaming cheese. Our waiter even yelled "Oopa!" as he lit it on fire.

I ordered slow roasted lamb...

And GJW ordered lamb chops which were marinated for 36 hours. Both dinners came with lemon potatoes and yiayia vegetables which were green beans with onions in a mysterious but delicious sauce.

And of course, dessert. Our reward after 2.5 days of hard work. (Plus, we've had dessert every night and you can't stop a streak like that!) This is Galaktoboureko. The description "honey phylo filled with custard" hardly does it justice. Super yummy.

Look closely at the girl with her back to us. Yes, she's wearing a veil and a satin sash like Miss America would wear. We're pretty sure this is a bachelorette party because she's wearing the veil and everyone else brought gifts. I've never heard of this trend, but Google it and it's everywhere. In fact, when we were waiting for the trolley after dinner, we saw 12 girls out walking, 11 dressed in black and carrying gifts, and 1 with a sash and no gifts wearing pink and yellow. You never hear of it and then it's everywhere.

Yes, we're down to just 2. Luke missed last night 'cuz he had work stuff to do and a 7:00 Skype call. The conference was over today, so Luke skipped the last session and took a late afternoon flight. Pam's dad lives an hour away, so she rented a car and headed off to visit him for a few days before heading back to Maine. GJW and I are leaving in the morning and I should get back to my place around 7pm.

7/30/2011 math workshop

There's really not a great way to capture in photographs all that we do all day long at this Institute. I actually took these photos for myself to remind me of things I wanted to remember later. But mostly I've been listening and taking notes and thinking. A lot of thinking. Oh, and talking with colleagues from around the country (and one new friend from Canada). They have us in sessions based on our breakout topic (my beginning algebra table includes Angela from Georgia and Shelby, a first year teacher, and the cool lady from Canada to name a few). They also put us in planning groups based on our roles--9-12 classroom teachers, supervisors/administrators, higher ed folks, etc. Pam and Luke were in randomly assigned groups for teachers of grades 9-12, and GJW and I were in a higher ed group together. But once we saw the resources they had for planning, the 4 of us left our assigned planning groups and formed our own planning group and used the time to do our own planning for the Dine and Discuss workshops.

This presenter is from Hawaii and it was all about "Equity for All." He used manipulatives to teach high level geometry concepts and had tasks that challenged all levels of math learners. Here he is demonstrating making a quadrilateral with folding straws.

7/30/2011 more chairs

This hotel has a great lobby. It's incredibly clean, it's spacious, it's got good lighting and it's got GREAT seats!! Check these out! I already did. They're fun AND comfy.

7/29/2011 Thai Thani

KC the Concierge did it again. Nothing can top Tu Tu Tango, but this restaurant was really fun, delicious food, great ambiance (I think we really were in a Thai palace), and fun entertainment. Three of us went (Luke had to stay back and do work stuff). We each ordered something different and then shared a lot plus we split the appetizer sampler platter (we had a $5 off coupon for an appetizer). On the way out, the Friday night entertainment of authentic Thai dancers began, so we watched that for a little before catching our great trolley back to the hotel. We had super duper good timing with the trolley tonight...Less than a minute wait on the way out and only a half full trolley and a pretty empty trolley with at most a 3-minute wait on the way back.

And what better way to end the day than a beautiful sunset out your hotel room window overlooking Big Sand Lake (I think that's what the water is on the left).

7/29/2011 Orlando Day 3

Today was all work and no play. Well . . . when you're having fun with the people you're working with, I'm not sure that's entirely true. And we did treat ourselves to a fun Thai dinner with one of our new friends. Don't feel too sorry for me, but do know that I'm spending my time in Orlando working and learning.

This is one of the many unique and fun chairs in the giant atrium/lobby of our hotel. I came down early to do some work on the free Internet available in the lobby. It's not so hot. Hard to get on (the system is down a lot) and very slow when you do get on. Since the Internet service wasn't impressive, at least the chairs were.

Today was all work and no play. Well . . . when you're having fun with the people you're working with, I'm not sure that's entirely true. And we did treat ourselves to a fun Thai dinner with one of our new friends. Don't feel too sorry for me, but do know that I'm spending my time in Orlando working and learning.

This is one of the many unique and fun chairs in the giant atrium/lobby of our hotel. I came down early to do some work on the free Internet available in the lobby. It's not so hot. Hard to get on (the system is down a lot) and very slow when you do get on. Since the Internet service wasn't impressive, at least the chairs were.

7/28/2011 Cafe Tu Tu Tango

KC, one of the sorta-concierges at the Renaissance, was awesome. I call him a "sorta-concierge" because he actually works for Expedia, which has a desk next to the desk of the hotel's concierge (called a Navigator). He can do all the selling of tickets where the concierge just has information. When we bought our shuttle tickets from KC, he told us about Cafe Tu Tu Tango--Food for the Starving Artist. The 4 of us (GJW and our two new best friends Pam and Luke) decided to go. We caught the crowded trolley (after a very long wait) and squished in. It didn't take too long and we were at our destination.

The premise behind "Tu Tu Tango" is everything is "appetizer sizes meant to be shared." Our waitress, Darcy, (whom KC told us to ask for and we were very glad he did 'cuz she was awesome) told us that two items per person will leave you full but with enough room for dessert. Sounds good. So we picked out 8 items to order: baby lamb chops, Caesar salad, duck confit salad on a home made flat bread, mushrooms Rockefeller, curry chicken skewers, steamed edamame (steamed baby soy beans with vanilla mirin glaze for dipping), calamari, and roasted pears on pecan crisps. Wait. We had more than that. People kept ordering. They bring the food out to you as soon as it's ready and there's a giant stack of salad plates on the table and a jug of silverware and you just take clean ones whenever you need.

And somewhere in there, we had a Flamenco dancer for entertainment and starving artists sit around in miniaturized studios and produce their art while you watch. All the art on the walls is by local artists and is for sale.

We just kept eating and ordering and tasting and oohing and ahhhing and yes, oh by the way, we laughed and told stories and laughed some more.

Then Darcy brought us the dessert menu. You have to have 4 desserts, too, right? Banana something or another on a dessert bread, creme brulee, cheesecake lollipops (little pieces of cheesecake dipped in dark chocolate and served on a stick), and chocolate calzone (with white and milk chocolate inside the calzone and ice cream and whipped cream outside the calzone).

New best friends bonded by an amazing dining experience:

7/28/2011 Around Town (or at least the iDrive)

This conference starts at 2pm today. I've never had a conference start at 2pm. For all the folks that live in Florida (maybe 25% of the ~700 participants), that's nice. For us that it takes 9 hours to drive/fly here, that's not so efficient. But it gave us the morning to tour around. Our hotel is on International Drive, nicknamed i-Drive. And there's a trolley service that you can catch that goes up and down the drive. It runs 24-7 and is only $1.25 a ride OR you can get a 3-day pass for $6. (There are other combinations are available for the pass.) We bought the pass and then put it to the test.

Before we could even get out of the hotel driveway, *this* pulled up. It's crazy! It's a Volkswagen Beatle with a lobster on it! It's a promobile for Boston Feast, an all-you-can-eat lobster restaurant in town. Being from Maine, I think I'll pass, but I do like the car. I posted this on Facebook and comments included, "Where's the giant dish of melted butter?" which did sort of sound yummy, but I'm still passing.

We rode the trolley north and then south and just walked around. But only did a little walking around 'cuz it was 89 degrees with 65% humidity and it felt much much hotter than that. We got in a little sightseeing (including Wonderworks, which we did not go in but which sounds pretty interesting) and bought some bottled water and fresh fruit to avoid some of the extravagant prices you'd pay for those items in the hotel. Water here smells like sulphur from about 10 miles out. Even the locals don't drink it much. We made a few stops then headed back in time for the 2:00 keynote by Dan Meyer. What a way to kick off a conference. He was awesome and inspirational. Let the mathfest begin!

7/27/2011 Staying at the Renaissance

Check out these fancy digs! Not that we'll be spending much time in the room, but it is nice to have a spacious room with very comfy beds and extra nice linens.

And there are enough plugs . . . a very important feature with two people trying to charge up laptops and cell phones for two and half full days of workshops and speakers.

Our room Stylists will service our room each day between 8:30am and 5:00pm. Wow. Never had a "stylist" before. At least not for servicing my hotel room. Is this politically correct language now or is this political rhetoric?

7/27/2011 Orlando bound!

Orlando bound! Via Atlanta. Where better to grab dinner in the airport than Atlanta Bread, eh? I had the avocado sandwich, just because I could! (You can't get good avocados in Maine 'cuz they have to travel too far.) Yum!

So why am I going to Orlando, you may ask. This fall, GJW and I will co-teach the class on "math methods" (how to teach high school math). It's our first time to do it and though the course is mostly already designed, our department said they would send us to this Institute to get the latest and greatest research and information on teaching math. It's going to be an amazing 2.5 days.

In addition to learning a bunch of good stuff that we can use in our class, we found out that two high school math teachers from Maine are coming as representatives of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics in Maine (ATOMIM). They were planning to give "dine and discuss" workshops across the state about what they learned at this institute. We tracked them down and said, "Let's work together on this." So each of the 4 of us are taking a different strand at this event (beginning algebra, intermediate algebra, data analysis & probability, and geometry) and together the 4 of us will put on these workshops. It's going to give GJW and I a great way to meet math teachers from across the state which will only help us be even better at our jobs plus be a lot of fun. We haven't met Pam and Luke in person yet, just corresponded via email. But we will meet them before the keynote and then spend time together planning these events.

Here's the atrium/lobby of The Renaissance Orlando at Sea World . . . our hotel and our conference location. We are exactly across the street from the pedestrian entrance to Sea World. (Not that we'll have any time or money to attend.) Our room is on the 8th floor. Here's the view out our front door.