• Christmas,  Life Abroad,  Prague

    happy new year!

    wishing health & happiness to my friends and family in 2013!   i know 2012 has been an incredible one for me…. let’s see……  became a barista trainer, became buddies with the seattle hobos who hang out downtown at 5am, bought a one way ticket to europe, went to disneyland, stayed in an executive suite in the seattle hyatt for next to nothing, high fived jason biggs at a SIFF party, quit my job of almost four years, move out of a neighborhood i’ve lived in for over four years, spent august in warm & sunny michigan, waitressed in a 19th century dining room in the scottish highlands, worked on…

  • Christmas,  Expat Life,  Prague

    what christmas in europe looks like! we had a wonderful christmas time here in prague.  on christmas eve (which happened to be unseasonably warm) we had an EPIC pancake breakfast with eggs and bacon.  i had NO IDEA it was so dang easy to make pancake batter.  and they turned out amazingly.  it’s just flour, egg, baking powder, a little sugar, milk, and that’s about it people!  i will never purchase another pancake batter mix as long as i live. we rode the tram to namesti miru with the intention to go to the christmas market there and stumbled upon a czech christmas carol session that was just starting up.…

  • Christmas,  Expat Life,  Prague

    some photos i’ve taken of my new neighborhood, malá strana.  malá strana (which means “lesser quarter” in czech) is located in prague 1 on the quieter left bank of the vltava river.  this is one of the most beautiful places in all of prague, i am pretty darn sure.  it definitely gives paris a run for its money!  full of gothic and baroque architecture, comes complete with a catheral and, well, prague castle!  you can walk to all of the important places in prague if you should want to from here, which is pretty darn cool. i’ve been a bit busy with my job search as of late, but now…

  • Prague,  Teaching,  Winter

    tefl certified

    it’s been an intense four weeks but both alex and myself, and our sixteen other peers are TEFL certified now, meaning we are qualified to teach english as a foreign language anywhere in the world.  we’ve planned nine class lessons, planned two individual lessons, given two grammar presentations to the class, and the other day, took a grueling grammar examination.  we have words like concept checking questions, focus question, lexis, warmer, scene setting, and many more teachery expressions drilled into us every day.  the course was rigorous but manageable  and i have learned SO much, especially about teaching adults since i have done it so frequently lately. now, we have this…

  • Christmas,  Life Abroad,  Prague,  Teaching,  Winter

    merry december!

    the first day of december, traditionally a very important day for me.  the day i’ve been known to take off of work JUST so i could decorate and put up the tree.  the first of december has been no different, even though i am in the land of the czech.  alex and i went down the street to check out a fleamarket rumored to be quite awesome.  i’ve never actually been to a fleamarket you had to PAY to get into, what the what is with that?  i tracked down a small to medium sized fake tree and colorful globe lights as we navigated between the muddy icy puddles in…