Photos, Photos, Photos!

I finally did the big upload!

Brussels photos here.

Vienna photos here.

Prague photos here.

Enjoy!

Life in the CZ

Okay, I know I've been a little behind about writing about life in Prague. We haven't had properly functioning internet at home until now, so it's been hard to update. But I really do want to keep u with my blog a little better, so it's my goal to write more on here. Starting..... NOW!

Life is Prague has definitely been a little crazy. Getting settled here has been much much more of a challenge than the other countries we have moved to (Peru and Korea). In Korea, we had everything settled before we even left the US: jobs, work visas, apartments, etc. In Prague, we came with NOTHING. All we had was a hotel to stay in for the first four nights and some names of schools to start sending our resumes to. So when we got here, we hit the ground running.

Luckily, we found an apartment after about 3 days. We met a nice British guy who worked at the hotel we were staying at (he has since become a good friend here) and asked him for any tips on getting settled here. He just so happened to have a friend who was moving out and needed to sublet his apartment for a while. Perfect! The apartment was in a really nice area of Prague, but a little far from the center. It was also pretty old and not the nicest place ever. But it was fine. But after a couple months of living there, we decided we needed something new. And the guy we were subletting from was planning on moving back in in January. So we had to find a new place eventually. We found a really nice apartment closer to the center and closer to a metro station and just moved in three days ago. The only trade off was that we couldn't afford to live in a central location by ourselves. So we are sharing a place with two other American girls, both teachers as well. The apartment is big, recently redone so everything is nice and new, and we have a nice big bedroom on the 5th floor with a little view! Life is good.

We started going on job interviews our second day in the city and landed our first offers after about a week. Like everywhere else in the world, the Czech Republic has been affected by the financial crisis (although not as much as many of it's neighboring countries). Because of this, we realized we were most likely not going to be able to find full time jobs. We both ended up getting two part time jobs, which leads to plenty of work. Jason and I both work at a small language agency and then we each have separate jobs at two bigger schools.

I use the term "school" loosely here, as very little of the actual teaching is done in the school. The majority of classes in the Czech Republic are taught 'in company', meaning a language teacher is sent out to various companies around the city and teachers individuals or groups in their own company. So, I spend my days running around all different parts of the city. I go everywhere from the very heart of Prague to places that I don't think are even technically considered to be part of Prague. This definitely was a little crazy at first, figuring out everywhere to go and how to get there, but after a few weeks it became pretty easy to get it down. All of my classes are once a week, so my schedule is different everyday. On some days (like Wednesday, my easy day) I just have one class in the morning and one in the evening. Lots of free time during the day to plan for classes, come home and relax, etc. However on other days (like Thursday, my busy day) I go non-stop from 8am to 6pm - 5 classes that day.

I have almost all individual classes and most of my students are at a pretty high level. So I have a lot of conversation classes where we spend our time just talking about various topics. I have a lot of students that are very interesting people and make my classes really enjoyable. I learn a lot about Czech culture, food, history, etc. from them. A lot of my students have very interesting jobs, and it's a good experience for me to get to talk to all these successful and different people. I teach everyone from a high school aged model, to the owner of a media production company.

And as for the visa process...... still working on it. Jason is further along on his than I am on mine, and we're getting different types of visas. Coming here, there was so much mixed information, it was really hard to figure out what our best options were and how we should go about doing different things. One of the big questions we had was about the visa. You can choose to get either a regular employment visa or a business license (Zivno). The advantages of the business license is that you don't have taxes taken out (you're supposed to be able to keep more of your money with the Zivno) and you have the freedom to work how ever many jobs you want. I got convinced to do the Zivno, so I'm in the process of doing that. I have to go to Germany on Friday to apply for the visa at the embassy, so we'll see how that goes...

Only problem with the Zivno that we're just learning about, is that I may not be able to leave the country for quite some time. It has a long processing time - several months- and until it's finished being processed, I'll kinda be here illegally as far as I understand. So if I were to try to leave the Czech Republic and come back in, my tourist visa would be expired and I might not be able to do it. This is going to be a problem for Christmas when we have two weeks off and were hoping to travel to some warmer countries... Border patrol is pretty lax in these parts, so we may just be able to go somewhere by bus or train where we won't be stopped and have our passports checked. We'll see!

So that's life here in Prague. Who's coming to visit!?!

But What Does It All Mean!?

In Korean:

Ne = Yes

Anio = No

In Czech:

Ano = Yes

Ne = No

You see my confusion? After a year in Korea I got the words so ingrained into my mind that I'm having a lot of trouble changing it. I usually find myself in shops saying no (Ne) but nodding my head yes. I know I'm confused and I can't imagine how the poor shop keepers feel.

Also, to indicate the number one, I am used to holding up my index finger as we do in the States. However, here, that means two. One is indicated by your thumb.

So, here I am in a shop trying to buy.... let's say, a croissant. I say "one," hold up my index finger, nod my head "yes" and say "Ne". The shop keeper just stares in udder confusion.

Who knew a simple task could be so confusing?

The Vienna Weekend

Me at the Schonbrunn Palace

So a couple weeks ago now, we had a nice 4 day weekend which we decided to spend in the beautiful city of Vienna. Here's the great thing about living in Europe: access to many amazing cities just a short bus/train/plane ride away. We took an overnight bus to Vienna on Thursday night and arrived bright and early at 5:00 AM. Well, it was early but I don't think we were feeling so bright at that time of day after little sleep on the bus...

So after checking into our hotel at 5am and taking a 2 hour nap on the couch in the lobby, it was time to set out to see the city at 7am on a Friday. During our 3 days in the city, we saw some beautiful and amazing sites. I have to admit that I didn't actually know that much about Vienna before visiting. I really didn't know what to expect from the city. But I was certainly impressed. The best word I can think of to describe the city is: grandiose. There are amazing palaces, beautiful government buildings and ancient cathedrals galore and everything is big and impressive. And it’s a city of music! Obviously so many great composers have come out of Austria (Beethoven, Straus and Hayden to name a few….) and that history is still very present in the city today.

We spent our time in Vienna walking around taking in as much of the city as we could. We were on the go basically non-stop from morning till night during our full 3 days there. We saw too much for me to remember or even tell you about. But some of the highlights include:

St. Peter’s Church

Taking in a classical concert with an orchestra, opera singers and ballet dancers

The amazing gardens of the Schonbrunn Palace

The Great Hall of the National Library

The copula in the State Hall

And to me, the very best was our first night spent wandering around the city. Outside of a beautiful government building we found a great circus that had set up some semi-permanent attractions. I really wanted to see the circus (it looked so inviting!) but we decided against it… maybe if they would have had elephants it would have been a different story. :)

But anyway, the circus had a great tent with lively music set up right outside a beautiful white building with a great clock tower. And outside of the tent there were stalls set up selling ethnic food from all different regions of the world (although they had hamburgers as the food from Mexico. Hmmm, not really what I would call Mexican food). We dined on some great Indian food and got to do some good people watching.

After dinner we wandered on to see some more of the city at night. We stopped into a church in the center of town, which was hauntingly still and silent. There were just a few other people sitting in the pews in the dark candlelit room, listening to the recorded chats playing from the alter. If you know me you know that I am not a very religious person, but this experience was moving even for me. It was so peaceful and seemed like such a wonderful refuge, it had a perfect atmosphere and I could feel the spirituality in the room.

Leaving the church, we wandered through the streets and happened upon a lone violin player, filling the quiet streets with his music. We stopped and listened to him play a few songs. I couldn’t imagine anything better. After that, a nice glass of wine sitting outside a café was the perfect way to end a perfect day.

Karls Church