City Living

City living has it's pros and cons. You have great a public transportation system (well, at least in European cities), things are open late, you can get everywhere without a car, and you can find plenty of things to get involved in. And then there are the cons: People. Lots of them. The metros, trams, and buses are crowded. The trams and buses get stuck in traffic, so you may as well be driving. At least then you would have your own personal space...and you'd be sitting down...and there wouldn't be a screaming baby...I digress.

Then there's the even darker side of cities. Don't get me wrong, I know these things happen everywhere, but increasing the population density increases the chances of witnessing them. I'm talking about things like: some guy puking on the tram; some guy puking on the metro; the beginnings of a bar fight out in the street; the end product of a bar fight painting the streets with drops blood; a car to car collision; and, most recently, a car-pedestrian collision. That last one I saw this past week while waiting for my bus to go to work in the morning. It was frightening. Especially since the pedestrian was a little boy. He was okay, though he for sure has a broken leg. The look on the mother's face was the most heart-breaking.

But all-in-all I do like living in a city. Though I don't know if I will choose it long-term. Time will tell. My dear friend can current holder of the title "the person Maggie spends most of her free-time with" hates Prague. He works here, and so occasionally crashes in the city during the week if he has to get to an early meeting the next morning, or a band he likes is playing at some bar, but otherwise he commutes every day to a small village near the city of Plzen.

This small town is where I spend most of my weekends providing nice balance and escape from the city. The village is called Rokycany, and it just recently celebrated 900 years since the first recorded mention of the town. To commemorate, they had this festival over the weekend. My friend had to go to Prague for a bit of work, so I wandered the festival alone for a couple of hours. It consisted of a couple rows of stands where people sell mostly homemade things or food and two stages; a main stage and a side stage. Rokycany has a sister town in Germany, so the side stage was devoted entirely to German acts. Seeing as I am WAY more comfortable with German rather than Czech. I stationed myself by this stage. It was nice to hear people speaking German around me again. Though I discovered later that the beer was 10 crowns more by this stage. I suppose to Germans it's the difference between 1 euro and 1.50 (either way, dirt cheap) but for someone earning Czech wages, that's a big difference. Anyway, while there I saw two acts; a jazz band, which was pretty good, and a singing duo. It was a man and a woman who sang all sorts of songs along with a CD. It was pretty much like a karaoke show, and just as hilarious, especially when they attempted to sing in English, "burnz burnz burnz, ze rink of fire, ze rink of fire." Classic.

Why I dropped off of the face of the planet (or at least the world wide web), and why I'm back.

It's been 9 months. No, I haven't been gestating a baby. But I have been really really busy. So much so that my happiness unfortunately suffered a bit. And then I don't particularly feel like writing or at least anything that can be posted for all to see. By the time it was all sorted out and I had found a new place to live, I had already fallen out of the habit. (And I was still really really busy). Plus, I'll be honest, I don't want to look more exciting on the internet than I am in real life. Sp I've taken the following steps to insure that this year will be better than the last.

1) Quit my 2nd job of teaching adults in the evening.
I only had one class anyway, but I still had to go the whole way to Barrandov at least once a month to turn in my paperwork so I could collect my 1500 cK or so. It just wasn't worth it. (Barrandov is a part of Prague that's really far away.)

2) Got rid of my private lessons.
Two more free nights!

3) Stopped taking Czech lessons.
This may not be the greatest for my Czech skills. But it saves a boat load of time and money.

4) Moved into a new apartment.
Well, I did this twice. But the most recently I found a new place that is cheaper, closer to most of my schools, and more visitor-friendly than the place in which I lived from Feb-June.

I don't have any special reason for returning to the blogosphere except that I have a bunch of really cool things I want to write about.

And since I'm soooo cool in person, there's no danger of me looking more exciting online.

Happy Holidays Addition

First and foremost, my sincerest apologies for being pretty absent for the past months. My computer stopped working a few weeks before the Christmas holiday until about a month ago. That among other things, leaves me here with a back-log of things I want to share with you. Let's start with the holidays, shall we?

The holidays have come and gone. Including 3 kings day, or epiphany or whatever you'd like to call it. During those few days in January there were people (usually in groups of three and usually younger than I am) dressed as kings in the metro stations asking for donations. Apparently this happens every year. I don't know where the money goes, but it's probably something good if kids are collecting it.

Before that, there was Christmas. I personally spent this Holiday at home in Pennsylvania. But I stayed close enough to the day to see the streets lined with large buckets, or more aptly, small, above-ground swimming pools, filled with live carp. Now I say "lined with" because that's how I heard it described before the season actually arrived, and I think this is definitely an exaggeration. Sure, the swimming pools were crammed with fish (I don't think they could turn around in there much less swim at all) but there were only two small pools at each spot. And the the density of these, let's call them 'carp stations' was directly proportional to the density of businesses such as supermarkets, drug stores, and other places with the potential to result in someone impulse buying a live fish. Of course if you don't want to take a live fish home with you (and let it swim in your bathtub for three days to clean its system, which is really the best thing to do before eating it) then there are friendly hatchet-wielding workers to lend you a hand at beheading your Christmas carp. Fa la la la la, la la la la. When you do buy it alive, they just stick it in a plastic bag, and you take it home with it flopping around. Apparently you have a couple of hours till you need to put it back in water.

Going back even further in time, we reach St. Nicolas day (or St. Mikulas Day). This year it fell on a Sunday (Dec. 6th) but the night before is when the fun happens. I was lucky enough to be dating someone who is practically a professional at this stuff. What you do is this:

Step One: Gather a group of friends. You need at least 3 in total but it's best if the number is somewhere closer to 5.

Step Two: assemble your costumes. This is what sets you apart from the other groups on the street, and believe me, there are a lot, so don't scamp on the accessories.

Step Three: Make fliers with your contact info on it, and post them around residential areas that are in easy walking distance from your headquarters.

Step Four: Field calls and set up a logical route for the night.

Step Five: On the eve of St. Mikulas Day, gather your friends (see step one) and get in your costumes (see step two).

Step Six: Travel around to the houses that have contacted you earlier in the week.

Step Seven: Stay in character even on the streets and have a good time.

What happens, is that parents ask us to come and scare the shit out of their children. One person dresses as Saint Mikulas, which is pretty much just like the Pope, and then you need some people to be devils and some people to be angels. The Devils go in first, making lots of noise buy hitting things and yelling/grunting. They also carry sacks. They make the claim that the child was bad over the course of the year. They carry around coal to give to the bad kids, and threaten to put them into the sack and carry them away, presumably back to Hell, though that's never specifically mentioned. Mikulas and the Angels just sort of chill in the background for long enough for the kid to start crying (or in one case, pee himself) and then St. Mikulas intervenes, tells the Devils to quiet down, and asks the child what he or she has to say for him or herself. Depending on the organization of the parents, sometimes St. Mikulas was given a specific list of things to mention to the kid. Then there was usually some singing involved. It was pretty heart-breaking to hear a small little voice timidly singing while sniffling and holding back tears, but then St. Mikulas would declare that everything was OK and tell the Angels to hand over the gifts (which the parents also gave us ahead of time). Luckily, as an Angel I didn't have a speaking part. And I could understand the words "Angels" and "gifts" so I never missed my cue. Here's a picture of our crew:

The presents the parents give out aren't the main Christmas presents, those are opened on the 24th in the evening, and not every family participates in this madness. But still, it was quite the experience. We got paid something like 200 crowns a kid (in the neighborhood of $11) so at the end of the night, the 5 of us went out to dinner and then to a bar. Happy-Belated Holidays everyone!

Kutna Hora

A few weekends ago, I accompanied Miki to a quaint little town called Kunta Hora. It's an hour east of Prague by train. Miki claims it is the 2nd largest tourist town in the Czech Republic (2nd of course to Prague). I had a hard time believing that considering the size of the town. Miki and his roommate were going to Kunta Hora to play in an indoor football (soccer) tournament. So I traversed the city on my own. We arrived shortly after 9. There was not much open at 9 on a Saturday (including the visitor's center. Not wanting to sit around in the pretty chilly November morning air, I took a picture of the large tourist map outside the info center, and headed towards the main attraction of this town for someone in her early twenties not particularly knowledgeable of, or, let's be honest, super interested in history: the bone church. It's officially called an ossuary (a place or receptacle for the bones of the dead). The surrounding cemetery had always been a popular resting place for the social elites of the area, but then someone brought sand from Golgotha in the Holy Land to the cemetery, and then everyone from the Czech Republic and surrounding countries wanted to be buried there. Therefore the land quickly became overcrowded and needed to be expanded. During the expansion, tons of really old bones were dug up, and stored in the ossuary (I'm assuming that's the building part). They were originally just in heaps kind of like the laundry in my room right now until a woodcarver named František Rint decided to make them aesthetically pleasing. The result was pretty cool.

The chandelier has every type of bone in the human body. The ossuary is actually located outside of Kutna Hora in Sedlec. So round trip it was about an hour walk. But even with traveling to Sedlec by foot and back, I was still able to see all 16 attractions marked on the city map in about 5 hours and I was still able to see Miki's last match of the tournament (they came in 5th out of 7). I went inside everything I was allowed in as well with the exception of the silver mine which you need reservations to tour and is only in czech in less you organize a special group in advance. But otherwise there were only 3 places to visit. Two of the others were closed just for construction, but most of the churches were closed to visitors except by appointment. Which is why it's hard for me to believe it's the second largest tourist city in the Czech Republic. How can something be such a huge spot for tourists when there are only 3 places for them to go? But then I remember that before I met Miki, I probably couldn't name another city in the Czech Republic besides Prague, and because of it's small size and close proximity to Prague,it would make since that lots of visitors to Prague make the day trip. Now, enjoy more photo highlights from the trip. I hope you like looking at buildings!

Ursuline Convent
Church of the Assumption of Our Lady

St. Barbara's Cathedral

A cute little road

The cat I saw and kind of chased by the Italian Court

The Stone Fountain

Church of St. John of Nepomuk

Plague Column


Italian Court

A Different Fall

Before you leave the foyer in a Czech household, you take off your shoes and exchange them for 'house shoes' or whatever they call them (slippers/sandals). This is pretty common among lots of cultures, I know, but I can only speak for this one.

This custom extends to kindergartens and elementary schools as well. Everyday I teach kids adorned with Crocs, Birkenstocks, and other slipper/sandal type shoes that are only worn in doors. In the elementary school, (I only teach at one of these which is grades 1-9 and they call it primary school) each class has a giant cage in which the kids can hang jackets and change their shoes. Once safely equipped with the proper footwear, they are free to roam about the halls. Or you know, go to class. In this school, they allow me and other special visitors to keep their street shoes on. Which is good since I don't have a giant cage, and all of the others are locked by the time I get there.

The kindergartens are a different story. If you want to drop your child off at kindergarten, you walk them into the building, get them changed into their indoor shoes and apparently change there pants. (Maybe that's just a winter thing, but I've noticed lately the last few stragglers that are still in the foyer changing pants.) And then you walk your kid up to his or her classroom. Therefore, you must remove your shoes, or by the door, they have these little cloth bags to go over your shoes which you can use if you don't want to take off your shoes.

I don't mind walking around in socks all morning, so I go shoeless. This works well for running around and playing games (or chasing the kids that scream and run into the corner) but doesn't bode well for the transition between classrooms. Stairwells are not carpeted. Last week the inevitable happened. The static friction between my stockinged feet was less than the kinetic friction of the movement down the steps, and I slipped and bounced the rest of the way down. The only things bruised were my pride and my right forearm. I might start bring my Birkenstocks. Just don't tell them that I consider them 'all-terrain' footwear.

To je podsim?!?

That's right, the first title in Czech. I've had two official Czech lessons so far. The class only meets once a week for 90 minutes, so that tiny fraction of the time that I spend speaking Czech will probably not do much. I've been feeling rather pessimistic all week though, so forgive the melodramatic overtone of this entry.

This is Fall?!? is the translation of the title, because, apparently like most places in the world, it's been snowing this week. On Thursday it snowed the entire day. On Wednesday and today it's been raining and very very cold with occasional flurries. My spirits are probably just reflecting the weather.

This job is driving me crazy. Just when I think I have most classes on their way to being under control as far as behavior is concerned, they tell me I have a new class where the kids are the worst yet. It's not entirely their fault. They are surrounded by toys, so I suppose they can't help but get distracted. Thinking back to when I was a kid, if an adult yelled at me, I had to do all I could to keep from crying. I would never dream of laughing and running to the corner taking all of my friends with me. Granted, I never had someone yelling at me in a language I didn't understand, but I highly doubt I would take it any less seriously.

There are redeeming moments. There was the boy who left at the same time I did and ran alongside my bike waving goodbye. And the first grade class that loves me and is very well behaved. I go to that school everyday, and I feel like a celebrity since I go to most of the grades for 20 minutes a week. So all of the kids at least know of me as "the American" and I get a bajillion 'hello's' as I walk through the halls (usually getting lost because the class room my schedule says I should go to is empty).

New Title, Same Great Posts

So I've returned from a fantastic visit home. Unfortunately, I didn't get to do/see everything that I had on the list, but it was a great time nonetheless. Miki said he could see himself living there in the future and that it's not too much different than the Czech Republic minus all of the driving everywhere, of which he was not a big fan.

I arrived to Prague after about 36 hours of traveling by every mode of transportation I can think of, except for car or boat (bus, plane, subway, train, at one point bike, and of course, by foot) all the while carrying bags that were far too heavy and falling apart. But at least it didn't involve sleeping in airports or train stations like the two nights prior to coming to the States. But I digress. We are young, strong, and healthy. Now's the time to schedule ridiculous travel routes just to save money and/or visit different places.

As I was saying, I arrived on the evening of Friday the 18th after 36 hours of traveling, carry heavy bags, with very little sleep, and had to be at the office at 9:30am to begin my weekend of intensive training. Piece of cake. Actually it really wasn't that bad. Getting up the next day was worse and I wrestled with the alarm clock snooze button for two hours before finally being dragged out of bed and downstairs where Miki's Grandmother had cooked us a nice lunch. So I groggily stuffed myself with the giant section of chicken (I think) that she so lovingly prepared, while they spoke in Czech. Great. Back in the land where I have no idea what's being said around me. At times like these, it's funny how much I long to be back in the land where I usually know kind of what's going on, or can at least fake it (i.e. Germany). Luckily I had to be at work soon, so I escaped rather quickly. (Note: I'm being over dramatic, it's really not that bad here. I'm having lovely time.)

Undoubtedly I was one day become facebook friends with fellow Wattsenglish teachers, and they will find this blog, therefore be it known, that I think it is a good company. However, they basically write your first lesson for you, since you are just getting the kids excited about English and showing them the way and thing they will be learning. That being said, the first day of work doesn't require much independent thought. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, after watching other sample videos I stumbled upon on YouTube from other potential candidates that may or may not have made the cut, I see why they write everything out for you. Let's be honest, not everyone is as awesome as I am. (kidding) So at the training I got a lot of papers to read that were filled with ideas for games and activities and then got the Demo lesson as well as the first month's lessons all planned out for you. I stopped feeling bad about missing the training pretty quickly. However, I did miss out on meeting everybody. I plan to fix that problem by hosting a party for my fellow Prague teachers in the near future.

However, as punishment for not being at training, nay, as a result...well I guess that can't be proven either...anyway my first week's schedule was very empty (as is this weeks). They keep insisting more is to come, and I'm sure it is, (though I've heard horror stories of over-hiring/under-booking from last year that keep me feeling a little uneasy) as of right now, I only teach two 25 min classes on Monday and Friday mornings. And this Monday was a Holiday.

It's actually been very nice because I've then been able to run around and do all of the bureaucratic things that I didn't get to do during the week of training, and I've been able to do some proofreading so I'm not entirely useless. Although I must admit, I could get used to the idea of being able to work in my pajamas in front of a computer.