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here we snow again. photos of the green (well, white) stretch of park that is wrapped around the northern border of the city center, na sadech. only a few minutes walk from my house. today: staying warm, planning a sunny summer sweden holiday (ahhhh), and overcame my fear of czech post offices. it’s not soooo bad!
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scavenger hunt
in mid-january, alex’s family asked us to do a scavenger hunt of certain things as part of their family birthday activity back in michigan. we went looking for some of these things in prague, especially since we had a lot of time on our hands then…. here is what we found. the stipulation is that we must appear in each photo to prove we were there. a traffic light a flag as big as a table (hard to tell from this, but it’s true) something(s) yellow a fast food restaurant (that time i actually had a panic episode in the mustek metro station right before this) a bus (this on taken…
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still winter
sure it may be mid-march, but it ain’t spring! currently, it’s snowing again. with no wish nor reason to venture out today, i will likely be practicing german, reading books, tea drinking, and un-stretching my favorite wool sweater, blasted thing. here are some photos of a sunnier time but no less cold time, two weeks ago when alex and i ventured out to some lakes in the north part of the city, Ĉeskê Vrbne. i really had never seen an entirely frozen over lake before that day.
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prague jokes
it rains today. gloomy, grey and dark and making me wish for spring’s arrival as soon as possible. i wanna get out there! on friday (as i wrote below) we were in prague for three hours in order to visit the foreign poice in zizkov. because our appointment unexpectedly lasted maybe a half hour, alex wanted to take an earlier bus back because he had work to do for his monthly reports. naturally i would allow this, but i kept teasing him with things we could do if we stayed in prague for an extra three hours to try and change his mind. “we could….. go shopping?“ no. “we could…..…
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the week of bureaucracy
this week has been the most exhausting one since i’ve moved to the czech republic. having the visa trip in the first part of the week was tiring enough as it was, and it took me literally two nights more worth of sleep to feel normal again. even riding the city buses to my lessons this week made me think…. “i don’t want to ride another bus somewhere for a good while”. the rule states that no more than three days after you receive your visa, you must register with the foreign police. we were fortunate enough to have alex’s boss marketa, who is czech, along with us for this…
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any day now
this past week has been a good one– one that pushed my comfort zone and made me nervous (as i had my first classes) but i think the more i teach the better i’ll feel about it! i’ve been patiently awaiting a ton of things it seems: my visa notification and a couple of packages from the U.S. that have not arrived for whatever reason. arghhhhh. a great week for alex though, as he got his visa notification and had an excellent first full week of teaching kids. he says “it went as expected”, which i think means it went well. above are some photos of budejovice from this week.…
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cesky krumlov-ing it
we took a day trip seeing as we both have the week off from lessons– half hour bus ride away to beautiful quaint little cesky krumlov. it is basically what would happen if prague was tiny and only old town with winding streets and plenty of cobblestones. alex is lucky enough to have the opportunity to work here, teaching the local primary school kids english once a week! the people are friendly and being there in february on a wednesday morning, it was practically deserted. (off-peak travel really ain’t that bad!) i had visited here six and a half years ago during my first “eastern/central europe” trip– it was the…
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employment
yesterday was a monumental day in the life of “cynthia abroad”, for i have been hired by a language school as an english teacher. as clients come up, they will assign me classes and slowly my open schedule will fill. i have already been assigned a course with an employee at a local firm here that will start the week after next, as this next week is the czech “spring break” holiday. the czechs LOVE skiing and usually plan ski trips for their families to nearby ski resorts in the south of the country or in the austrian alps. i also had my first paying gig last night– first lesson…
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next phase
on thursday, we moved from prague to ĉeské budêjovice– about a two hour, twenty minute bus ride in complete snow. upon arrival (in which i, not going to lie, felt a liiiittle nervous about… “am i going to like it?”) we were whisked away by our landlord and alex’s new manager, marketa to our new home for the next five weeks. our landlords are super nice and thoughtful, and the woman reminds me of mrs. hudson from sherlock (yes, i have watched the entire BBC ‘sherlock’ series thus far. now i’m into ‘the wire’). it cannot be overstated enough that our flat is GORGEOUS and giagantic and i can’t believe…
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Last Days in Prague
last days in prague, which is quite snowy and freezing at the moment. not exactly great exploration weather but it’ll have to do. today i’ve sort of shut myself inside all day with tea, sweater, and a candle sifting through hundreds of apartment listings in ceske budejovice. and of course there is something wrong with almost all of them. trying to accept the fact that i will be moving into a terribly communist looking building as most of them there are like this. as almost a strange hobby of sorts, i’ve always liked perusing craigslist for cool looking apartments in great neighborhoods… just for fun. but i have to say, it is so…