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czech language
today i had my first real czech language class. i’ve had two 45 minute beginners’ classes before as part of my TEFL course (thank goodness for them). but today i bicycled on up to the center of foreigner integration – an NGO that offers free assistance to foreigners, and this is the first month they’ve had the funding to begin the czech language courses. i’m thinkin’, it’s free… it’s two times a day tuesday and thursday…. it’s a close bike ride away…. it might give me some good teaching or classroom management tips… what’s my excuse not to go? i love learning languages so i was pretty excited about the opportunity of a…
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happy czech birthday
turns out, czech republic is a wonderful place to celebrate my birthday, as it is a public holiday! whoop whoop! that called for a day trip to good ‘ol ĉesky krumlov, UNESCO heritage site small town cuteness as well as being only a half hour away with much quaint winding streets, cobbestones, and a castle. it has truly sprang back to life since i visited in february. with enough asian tourists to prove that it is indeed high season again. (i’m just saying!) first off, horse-back riding was in order. alex has never been on a horse before! this had to be remedied. so we went to ol’ slupenec riding club, where…
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tre-bon! & a witchy holiday
on tuesday, alex and i were invited to celebrate witch’s night with a couple of our students and their families. i don’t think anybody really knows what kind of holiday this is, and almost no one can describe how it came to be like it is. but i do know that it is primarily celebrated in small villages and in the early evening, most of the men in the village help to erect this giant may pole called “maika”. here it is at dusk…. then when the maika is erected, the children burn witch effigies in the bonfire and the men sit around the fire near the maika drinking beer and are…
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spring happenings
i got a bike! borrowed to me by a student’s mother for the duration of my living in budejovice. then i rode it home from her house along the vltava river, then turned off at one of the bridges and rode through the main town square and up towards home. even that little ride which probably took no more than ten or fifteen minutes was quite exhilarating– riding through cobblestoned streets with beautiful colored buildings all with different ornate early 20th century facades, and thinking “i live here!!!!” gotta hand it to the czechs, during this period in time they sure knew how to make buildings look beautiful. the weather…
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an april week
i have determined that i like very much living in europe. the one thing i do not like is that friends and family aren’t here. also in no particular order i miss: fresh seafood, abundance of health foods and fresh veg, good karaoke, and the beach. and a few smaller things… but really, those are the only downsides! so friends: feel free to come visit! won’t you come inside? house tour can be found here. looking down the stairs from the door to our flat. we live on the first floor and there is currently no one living in the flat next door due to renovations. no noise! this building…
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every day is a holiday
weekends like these are reminders of why i chose to come try my hand at living, working, and traveling in europe. so i can go take hikes, eat at czech restaurants, stroll around castles, and lay in the grass in the spring sunshine. explore new areas! eat dinners on the balcony, listen to birds tweeting. life in budêjovice is so chill. walking to work, which barely feels like work takes seven minutes and on the way i walk over a canal, walk down a beautiful street (my favorite in the city: česka) and pass some old churches. the other half of my lessons i actually go to the homes and the places of…
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spring has arrived?
above, facades of buildings of lannova trida, ĉeské budějovice– or “budweis”– the german/more international version everyone calls it when speaking in english. life is good here– alex celebrated a birthday last weekend and we celebrated in true low-key alex fashion: talking a walk, doing whatever at home, going out to a nice czech dinner, and watching a movie he loves (the professional). unfortunately the next morning i came up with an unfortunate bout of mild food poisoning so the past few days have been getting back to normal for me. (coulda been worse, but i’m pretty sure i have a stomach of STEEL) below, one of alex’s all-british birthday gifts… the…
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a viennese easter
haven’t had a lot of time to post about easter holiday weekend as i’ve had to jump right into teaching madness: moderating another english competition (this one for 14-15 year olds) then zooming to three other parts of the city to give my lessons. although CB is a city of about 100,000 people, it is surprisingly compact and getting around from north to south really takes no time at all– even on the bus! so great. today i taught my first of three conversation classes at the university! only two people came, which was totally fine by me because it gives the students speaking time. the czech people get are taught…
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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…
