A funny thing happened on the way to the castle

Well this weekend has been quite the adventure. First of all let me say that it was warm!! And by warm I mean 1 degree Celsius/33.8 degree Fahrenheit. It has been in the negatives this whole week so it was absolutely wonderful to walk around with the sun out and it being warm.


Friday night I went out with Stephanie and Helen. We had a wonderful Indian meal in the food court of the Palladium (this wonderfully huge shopping mall). The food court there is nothing like I have ever seen in the States or anywhere else. It has a casino and food from all over the world and the restaurants are all decorated beautiful to fit with the cuisine…it was also nice to see a good looking guys, since they seem to be a little scarce here. He ended up being from Hungary-go figure that the one good looking man we meet isn't from Czech at all, lol. But we had a nice easy girls night out. After dinner we went to Red Room-one of my favorite bars here, it's an ExPatz bar but the live music is nice and it has good ventilation, which is super important in eastern europe where they are allowed to smoke in doors.

Saturday, I met up with Lindsey and her friend from Germany, Aunika. We set out with the intention of going to see the Prague Castle. It's in all the guide books and everyone says to see it and that it is beautiful. Well we get up there, and we thought we were looking for a castle….so we walked the grounds for a good 2 hours. Having fun, taking pictures…but the whole time trying to find this castle wondering where they could have hidden it. Well as it turns out, the castle is not so much a castle but a few buildings surround the beautiful Cathedral. One thing that is really funny about Prague is that it is a tourist city. There are twice as many tourists in a year that the population of Prague. So you think that someone would say "What can we do to make things a little easer on the tourists, since they are so nicely pumping wads of cash into our economy?" Well the answer should be 'Put signs in languages other than Czech!!'. You go to any tourist place in Prague and everyone is just confused because everything is in Czech and few people actually speak another language. They had a movie about something (I think changing of the guards) that had a Czech speaker, and Czech subtitles…I mean seriously, you go any where in America and our ATM machines are nicer to tourists than most of the Czech people here. But finally we ran into someone who spoke German. So thank God for Aunika, we were able to learn what the castle was (that its just buildings in the grounds) and that it closed at 4pm. So since it was 3:15 we decided to walk around a little more then we went to Lindsey's apartment and had a little beer tasting session and just fun hang out time. We tried 3 types of Kozel (Premium, Medium and Svetley) and Budwesier Budvar (the original Budweiser). They were interesting, it was really fun though. Budweiser is super dark here with a funny taste. My favorite was Kozel Svetley.

Around 10pm we headed out to Red Room. We met a couple, he was from England and She is from Australia. They were great to talk to, and they have been here for about 7 months so they gave us some pointers. I tried a new beer Hoegaarden. It comes in a awesomely huge glass, Toby (the brit) said we had to try them and he was right…Yummy! We also got some new glasses to add to our apartment and then travel with. Around 2 am we bid a 'due to our new friends and headed on home.

Sunday, we went back up to the castle, and being more knowledgeable did not even attempt to look for an actual castle. We bought tickets and walked through the different rooms that were on the tour. It was interesting. Nothing was really breathtaking. The main room got redecorated during every reign and after communism it really has nothing in it. The art gallery was cool. Some of the pictures were amazing and the lady working at the front door loved my Czech speaking ability (I used about a 1/3 of my vocabulary just saying hello and thank you, lol). But is was encouraging and nice to see a smile. After walking the ground for a few hours we had dinner at an Italian restaurant that Toby had told us about the night before. It is on a stationary boat on the river. It was SO good. I had spinach noodles with mushrooms and sauce, just so good.

I think that is about it. I have to do some homework before class tomorrow so I should say good night to cyber world. But closing statement: It was just an awesome weekend with new friends!

Love you all back home!

XOXO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7CjAv2ehOU

My Praha

Just a few pictures that I took last week when we walked around with our local tour guide, Radek

Radek (my Czech family friend)

**Kim this one is just for you =]**

This is Radek's historical view, haha.  Every statue of a king is positioned with his hand out stretched by his side.  When you look at it from the side...well it looks like he is watering the sidewalk. 

 

This balcony has a story: a young boy fell off of it way back when, and he lived.  Radek said the ground was probably so filled with S*^%T that he probably just bounced, lol.  But there is a light in the lamp that is always lit in honor of him. 

Prague Castle, this is the same street all the presidents use to arrive.

Although they take a car up the horrid hill, we walked =]

walking down from the castle

My favorite picture. 

St. Charles Bridge

Time

It's funny how time works.  Sometimes it goes by so quickly you feel like you lost it and sometimes it is so slow that you can't ever imagine it ending.  Then there is this weird middle point.  The days pass by quickly yet the weeks seem so long.  That is where I am at right now.  I have been away from home for almost a month and living in Prague for nearly 2 weeks.  I feel as though I have been here for 2 months vs. just 2 weeks.  Yet the days are flying.  Everything is new, exciting and so fast paced.  It's just blowing my mind, but in a great way.  I am so happy being here and doing something that I truly enjoy even with all the uncertanties ahead and the fact that for the first time in 23 years my only plan is to make a plan.  It is oddly thrilling to know that in a month I could be living in Spain or Ireland or China and really anywhere I wanted.  Sitting up at 1:30am not being able to sleep and looking at the lights of my tiny part of Prague though my window these are thoughts running through my brain. 

Praha 9

This morning I woke up and it was snowing!! But of course by noon it was melted, but it was still beautiful.  
Prague is an amazing city! It is so beautiful and has such a long and diverse history. This past week I have spent more time out with the locals: shopping, walking around, going out with friends. The people are nice once you get past the hard eyes and no smiles-they are just not smiley people. Classes are going well. We started on Monday and started teaching Tuesday. Tuesday and Wednesday I taught 15 min segments of a lesson. Thursday I had to teach a full 45 min lesson and be evaluated. It went well but like anything there is room to improve-but for a first full lesson the evaluator said it went well. I do have to work on my unconscious SoCal speak (I say “you guys”). I was really happy with it though, and after the first few minutes I am very comfortable teaching.  I am really working on not being so self conscious here and teaching takes that-you just have to be confident.  There is a lot of miming and acting that goes on when you are teaching beginners so it is fun to get up there and have to act out the simplest things.  You feel stupid at first, but it really does help the students and that is the point.  
I am also working on getting out side of my box and being spontaneous-before I left John just told me to do it and be spontaneous-so I am working on it.  Prague night life is crazy but fun, and easy to be safe in.There is lots of new stuff over here-well maybe not new per say but defiantly a lot more is allowed over here than in the states.  For one-I have to make sure that any bar or club we go to has good ventilation because even though smoking will kill they still allow smoking indoors..and its also not just tobacco but the lovely herb smoke as well.  The beer is amazing-and like everyone says it is cheaper than water and  that is what you drink.  When I order water and no beer they just look at you like you are crazy.  What is funny is how grabbing a beer at lunch is totally acceptable.  So before our first day of teaching Stephanie and I split a liter of Pilsner-it was so odd, because it is acceptable and slightly encouraged…..totally weird.  Also there are no open container laws here…or if there is they are not enforced….you can drink on the subway?! Crazy….
Ok more on the non-alcoholic side of Prague.  It has been horribly cold here, but thank goodness dry and cold.  It lightly sprinkles a little bit, nothing too  bad.  I really miss wearing sandals though…. I am a SoCal girl through and through.  But it does get hot here during summer so I am defiantly going to come back to see the hot Prague! I am really enjoying my classmates too.  We are an interesting bunch and very diverse.  We all get along though, for the most part, and have a good time going out. 
I am looking for jobs, I have my heart set on Spain but getting a visa there is really difficult, so I am keeping my options open.Really anywhere in Western Europe is difficult and since the pay is not good anywhere in Europe I only want to stay here if I can teach somewhere I really want to be i.e. Spain, Portugal or Italy.  But I guess we just have to wait and see…it's exciting, I really do have the  world at my fingertips!

Prague, Day One

Today was my first full day in Prague! What to say…..lots of things all in one day, and now sitting in my apartment after 2 hours of chatting with the roommate, Helen, and other TEFL student, Martha, I seem to be drawing a blank on what to say. I guess first off I will tell you about the apartment and the roommate. I am staying in Prague 9 up on a big hill…it is a b!%&h to walk up, but super easy to walk down. It is a 2 bedroom with a kitchen and a toilet room and a shower room. It's really nice….I was thinking we would get a little rinky dink place, but it's nice. We are all very excited to get the internet set up properly. My room is nice, twin bed, desk, chair and a wardrobe. I have 2 desk lamps which is nice…and a good way conserve. On wall is all windows and a door that opens up onto a balcony and faces towards the city. This morning it was a beautiful view. My roommate, Helen, has a wonderful Australian accent. Her and I are the same age and we both arrived yesterday which was nice….neither of us were thrilled and the idea of sleeping in the apartment alone.


Helen and I hung out today in the city. We started out at the Galleria near out apartment and the school. It has internet access so we went down and got breakfast and hung out. While we were there I emailed Radek, my Aunt Sherry and Uncle Steve's friend from here, and told him I arrived last night. He asked where I was and I told him and he happened to be driving by so he stopped in and saw us for a few minutes. It was wonderful to see him, and I am hanging out with him tomorrow which will be fun!

Helen and I checked out the super market, that was interesting. It's called BILLA, and everything is in Czech so we rely a lot on pictures. I got my first taste of walking up the hill around 1…Helen and I had 20 minutes to go up, drop off the groceries and get back down the hill to the metro to meet our friend Matthew. We decided that we wont find out what bus goes up to our place yet just so we can work off all the Czech beer we know we will be drinking. We met Matthew at 2 at the metro right near out place. He is another TEFL student. He has been here for 2 weeks so he took us into Old Town and out for a wonderful Czech meal. I got to see the famous clock (totally awesome) and we walked across the Charles Bridge. After had my first Czech beer, Masters (a wonderful dark beer), and we had a wonderful meal: fried cheese (very popular), roast duck, ham, 3 types of dumplings, sausage, sauerkraut and red kraut. All followed by a second Masters….which at 18% I decided was too much and next time to order only one. But in my defense I didn't know it was 18% when I ordered it.

After the wonderfully exhausting walk up to the apartment Helen and I found a new TEFL student who arrived to day, Martha. She lives on the floor below us and came up to hang out with us for the last 2 hours. Now I am totally exhausted, and it's only 9:30.

the roomate, Helen