Berlin and a New Beginning!

Friday was the last day of the TEFL course!! Woo, we did it! We had two workshops then were free to go afterwards. I made sure I had everything in my portfolio and was one of the first people to hand it on. I’m really proud of myself for how disciplined and organized I’ve been during this course. Usually I would have been scrambling until the 5:00 deadline. Most of us met back at the Café later on. Honza and his friends were going to take us around town. Honza bought a bottle of champagne and we all had a toast for Shelley’s Birthday! They took us to this really cool bar and it was so nice because they had reserved an area in the bar for us (you have to do that in the Czech Republic but we always forget). I asked Tomas if he thought I looked Ukrainian (a lot of people here think I’m Ukrainian for some reason.) He said, “You do not look Ukrainian. You look very European, but when you talk, I know you are American.” Hahahaha. On our walk after the bar we were at the top of this huge hill and it had the most beautiful view of Prague. Unfortunately my camera couldn’t capture how beautiful it was. We were all saying how nice it would be in the summer to have a picnic up there with a bottle of wine. Then, we tried to go the Roxy because Honza has been talking it up for weeks now. But the bouncers wouldn’t let him in for some reason. Oh dear. So then they took us to a House Boat Bar. It was great little spot I probably wouldn‘t have known about otherwise. They were playing techno music and we were all dancing and sang Happy Birthday to Shelley at midnight.

Saturday was a well deserved lazy day. That night we all met up again for Shelley’s Birthday dinner. It was an early night though since half of us were going to Berlin the next day!

Sunday morning I met Shelley and Heather at the Metro and we made our way to the Train Station to meet Becky, Starkey, Kristen and Josh. Our train ride to Berlin was going to be about 4 ½ hours. I thought that we’d all fall asleep right away, but we were mostly too excited to sleep. The scenery on the way was pretty, but I’m sure it’s beautiful in the Spring and Summer. We arrived in Berlin at the biggest and coolest Train station I’ve ever seen. Thank god we were with Josh because it was his 4th or 5th time to Berlin, so he knew how to work the metro system there, which is huge and crazy. Even bigger than London’s underground. Another great thing about Josh is that he is doing his Thesis on architecture in Berlin, so he knows A LOT about the city and was tour guide the whole time. We made our way to our hostel, the 3 Little Pigs, which is by far the BEST hostel I’ve ever stayed at. It had a great lounge, private & clean rooms, and a huge buffet spread for Breakfast for 5 Euros. After we freshened up, we went to Alexander Platz and found a restaurant to eat at. We ordered some German beer, which I wasn’t very fond of unfortunately, but it came in a cool glass that I wanted to steal. I ordered a cabbage roll, which tasted very similar to the pigs in a blanket my grandma makes, and parsley potatoes. It was pretty delicious!





After lunch/dinner, we walked all around. What’s really interesting about Berlin is that there aren’t these huge, amazing sights to see like in London or Rome, but it’s the history there makes the city so fascinating. After my weekend there, I can’t believe how naïve I used to be about the Cold War and Communism. Our schools delve so much into WWII and the Holocaust, but they skim over the other stuff, which is just as important. I felt pretty emotional the entire time. They went through the War, Nazis, and Communism, and have only been completely free for 20 years. That is so recent. Some of the people there are a bit rude, but when you think about what they went through, then how they raised their children, how could you be upset with them.

Many of the buildings there have bullet holes in them from WWII.






The TV Tower

The Berliner Dom is covered in soot from the bombs that went off.

This the Alte Museum which has some great exhibits. Hitler used to give speeches from the top of the steps and the entire field would be filled with people. It was crazy standing where Hitler once stood.

This is the book burning memorial. All of the books with Jewish authors, or anything dealing with Judaism were burnt.

After our little walk it was getting dark so we went back to the hostel to get ready for the pub crawl. Pub crawls are great because instead of wandering around looking for a good place to go to, they take you to 4 or 5. We were all pretty tired, but never fear, we all got a second wind. I didn’t get many pictures of the crawl, but the starting bar was really cool. It had really interesting art pieces (we weren’t allowed to take pictures because they were all for sell). As we were leaving a man was welding his newest creation. We went to three more bars and our group quickly dispersed. Kristen and I were troopers and went to the last club, which was one of the best clubs I’ve ever been to. The music they were playing was amazing and non-stop and everybody was dancing and singing. AND I am pleased to tell my London Crew that they are STILL playing Put Your Hands up for Detroit! Woo!!!! It just sucked that no one got as excited as me. Also, Kristen saved a German girl in the bathroom…she was stuck in a stall and saying “Allo? Allo?” Kristen high kicked that door in and saved the girl. We are still laughing about this. We tried to go home but the subway wasn’t running for another half an hour and we lost the card with our hostel address on it. One of the German Boys led us to get some food…doner kebaps mmm mmm! The last time I had this was in Barcelona and I’m obsessed with them. They are cheap and delicious. The German boy made sure we got on the right subway and we went back to the hostel.

The next morning we walked around Berlin all day. Unfortunately, it was raining and really windy and a bit miserable. But that didn’t stop us from seeing all the sights.

The Holocaust Memorial. The architect wanted people to feel really disoriented walking through it and confused as to where they were going. It doesn’t look like anything from here, but once you start walking through it, the statues around you keep getting bigger and bigger. The ground is really uneven and we lost some of our group in it which is the point.

The Brandenburg Gate




A German and Russian soldier. Of course I’m being a typical American and holding a Starbucks coffee (hey, it was cold out and I was tired). After this, the German Soldier started yelling at us to put money in the tip box (umm excuse me, it’s a TIP box). Then he dropped the American flag. WTF.

The Reichstag…German Parliament. There are some really interesting pictures of this when Hitler forced someone to burn it. They built the glass dome because they wanted it to be transparent. They aren’t hiding anything anymore. All of the Parliament offices are glass and you can always watch them working. We saw a huge meeting going on in one of the Conference rooms.

A memorial of those who tried to jump the Berlin wall and escape by this river. They were shot and killed in the river.

Checkpoint Charlie. In October 1961, the U.S. tanks and USSR tanks confronted each other. If anyone had made the first shot, it would have started WWIII.

We went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum which was absolutely fascinating. They had so many stories of people and pictures. Stories of people the Soviets left to die, people who built tunnels and escaped or were caught, women who were sent to prison, and people who had their children taken away from them. It was weird to think that the Germans we had met the night before could have been the kids who were taken away from their families. They a bunch of books there with the names of people who had gone missing...There was a last name spelled "Fric" which really freaked me out. It also really put everything into perspective for me: These were the types of reasons that our ancestors left Europe and escaped to America for freedom. We really are so naïve and ungrateful in some ways because we have no idea what people went through for us. Nothing like this would EVER happen in America.

The Berlin Wall. There is not much left of it anymore and understandably so. There were two walls with a death strip in the middle. Bricks line the streets of Berlin showing where the wall used to stand.

After our tour, we were all pretty exhausted and freezing. We went back to the hostel then went out to dinner. We found a really cool bar and hung our there for a while. We took the subway back to the hostel and had ten minutes until the subway closed, but then the subway stopped and the lady kicked everyone off. At least, we figured out that's what she was talking about since it was in German.

The next day we split up and I went with Becky and Starkey to the Pergamon Museum. We saw The Pergamon Alter from Turkey and the Gates of Babylon.

We caught our train and arrived around 9:30. We heard that our grades had been sent to us, so Kristen and I went to the school to check our e-mail. I received a Pass 1 and start work on Monday! Woo! I’m so relieved and happy that everything is coming to together. Now I just need to find a place to live and get a phone haha. And I also need to fall in love with Prague like I fell in love with Berlin. I think it’s just been difficult because we had a huge lifestyle change and then were thrown into work at the school and didn‘t know if we were going to have jobs or not. It will be so nice when we’re all settled in and aren’t stressed and have more time to explore.

ah! ice cube...the rapper!

Although sometimes I get really sick of the dungeon like atmosphere of the Caledonian Café, it is truly appealing at some points. On Wednesday night they were going to play Slumdog Millionaire and serve a traditional Indian meal for 40 kc ($2!). I waited around until 7:30 even though I didn’t really have any work to do at that point to wait for this. They served the meal which was absolutely delicious! The chef at the school is amazing. I only got about a half an hour in to the movie though when I decided I couldn’t handle the cigarette smoke any longer. I’m not sure if it’s because the café is poorly ventilated, or because I’ve been a bit sick lately, or if my body just can’t handle it, but I am seriously so sick of cigarette smoke. It makes my eyes get dry and blurry, my nose gets stuffy and I get a headache. Not to mention that I feel like I’m chopping off one year of my life every time I smell it. It’s ashame that some of my nights have been ruined because of this. I’m really grateful for the Pennsylvania law and wish everyone else would follow suit.

On Friday we had meetings with our teachers about our progress with some of the assignments and projects. Luckily, my teaching practice group didn’t have to go in until around 11! I was so excited to stay up late Thursday night and sleep in! Gina and I tried to find something on tv that we could mildly understand. We found some John Travolta and Vince Vaughn movie. I think I saw it when I was younger, but I couldn’t remember what it was about or what it was called. It was an action packed mystery and Gina and I were speculating what was going on and gasping at all the scary moments. It’s really amazing that in scary movies, so much of it is non-speaking and you are able to understand everything that is going on. I also have new respect for Vince Vaughn…who knew he could be such a scary villain! He didn’t have to be loud or aggressive…he just had this scary quiet presence about him. Maybe as theatre students we should be forced to watch things in different languages. It was a great choice for a movie in Czech! By 11 pm, I passed out. So much for my big night staying up late! In the morning I woke up at 6:30. Nooo!! My new body clock doesn’t comprehend sleeping in. Luckily, I was able to fall asleep until 9. Woop dee doo.

On Friday we met with our teachers which wasn’t a big deal. It was a great easy morning. For lunch a few of us went to the food court at the mall and got falafel. Mmm! It was so nice to have lunch outside of the school and get some fresh air. And see daylight. After lunch we had our last Czech lesson. Kind of sad, but good…I had been lost in that class since two lessons ago. Czech is sooo hard! Whyyy?! And although I barely know a lick of Spanish anymore, it’s amazing how all the Spanish roots are deeply and forever engrained in me. Afterwards, I headed to the teacher’s lounge to get to work. I got a few things done, but this woman next to me kept humming. And humming. And humming. And wouldn’t shut up. For a moment I thought of throwing something at her. It’s amazing how something like that can be so distracting and make me so nervous. I would have rather heard loud talking or something. So she broke my concentration for good and I headed to the café to find most of my classmates having a beer and eating dinner. So of course I joined and this is when I realized that it was ABBA night at the café. ABBA and dancing you say? Who wants to stay? Who’s with me? The new cafe guy Honza changed the lighting and moved the tables and all of his friends showed up to party. Hilarious. This is a school café. So it ended up being me, Gina, Simon, Heather, and Shelley. We didn’t actually dance, but we sure were belting it out for the rest of the night.

This leads to my love for Honza. When he’s speaking English, he seems so darn innocent. He said he is taking all of us dancing at the Roxy on Friday. I asked if he worked there, but Czechs can’t comprehend “literally working now” compared to “I work there on nights I’m not working at the café.” This led to me being a complete TEFL teacher and gesturing over my back asking if he worked there in the past. I think he understood me. So for the record, Honza used to work at the Roxy, but not anymore. I asked him if he liked Nebe (the club we went to last weekend). He said “For you…Nebe good. For me…Czech…Nebe bullshit. Roxy…my second home” At one point I asked “Are you STILL making food?“ And he handed me “still” water. I just bought the water. on Sunday I asked him for ice. He went to give me an iced coffee. I said, “no, ICE, frozen water.” He hands me water. I said, “no ICE CUBE.” he said, “Ahh! The rapper!” Somehow after saying ice a few more times, he gives me a glass with ice. He asks where Gina and I live and I tell him. He says, “Ah Luziny…not so beautiful.” So at least Gina and I aren’t being high maintenance prissy girls when we say we’re not fond of where we live.

Anyway, on Saturday it was soo beautiful outside and the sun was shining! We decided we couldn’t waste this day because Prague has been so grey and gloomy ever since we arrived. We wandered all through the streets again and up the river a bit. We walked through the Jewish Quarter and found Cathedrals and museums we must go back to. We found a cute little café that served delicious cheap food. We stopped at a mall that didn’t have all of the commercial stores. It seemed to sell a lot of Czech brands. We now know where to go for ice cream, pantyhose, luggage, and maybe some dresses and shoes. We headed home and did work for the rest of the evening. I hope all of you getting pissed on the Erin Express were thinking about me in my work hole.

On Sunday I went to the school for about 6 hours and got a lot accomplished.

We’ve had three language awareness assignments to hand in and if there are any mistakes on them, they hand it back for us to redo. So today my observer hands the third one back to me for the second time. He says, come to talk to me. So I almost started crying because I was just completely devastated that I didn’t get the corrections right the second time around. It worried me that he wouldn’t want to hire me if he didn’t think I had good language awareness. It put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day and I was terrified to do my listening lesson. But somehow I managed to calm down and pulled off a great lesson. I was really pleased with it, but knew he would find something wrong with it. As I sat down afterwards, he looked at me and whispered, “very nice job.” It made me sigh in relief and I was glad that his advice during feedback was very minimal.

After feedback I decided to suck it up and ask him about my assignment. (After I consulted with Dean who had the correct answers because I’m sneaky like that.) He just looked it over, signed his name, and circled PASS. Why I was so concerned beats me. Then he looked at me and said “overall….” and pointed to what he had previously written on the assignment “very good job.” Then he went on to say “You’re doing very well in the course. A top performer.” Or something like that. So I’ve been in a great mood ever since. I know that it doesn’t guarantee me a job because the economy sucks, but it makes me feel a whole lot better about my capabilities. I feel as though the rest of the week is going to whiz right by! On Friday we have to hand in our final portfolio, but I should be pretty much finished with it by Wednesday evening!

1 assignment and two lessons to go!!!

Also, I miss my little cousins dearly.

Past Perfect = Death

1. Yesterday I needed a lot of help with my grammar lesson so I met with my observer. It was actually really good meeting with him. He told me I had good questions and he actually answered them instead of putting it back on me. So today I taught the Past Perfect verb tense. How difficult! I was freaking out because my last grammar lesson didn't go so well and these were pre-intermediate students, so would they understand it? I even had a nightmare about grammar timelines last night.

I found a love story in one of the books and rewrote it with two of the students names. (He brought her a rose yesterday!) Unfortunately, she wasn't there today, but everyone couldn't stop laughing. It was a really great way to start the class! Then, things started to go wrong. I explained the timeline, they did their own timeline, then they had to fill out the form of the past perfect (had + verb-ed) but they weren't getting it. So I had to stand at the board and explain a lot of the stuff. I thought I was going to get in trouble for "TTT" (teacher talk time). Then they all started talking about how they were confused and didn't know what a past participle was. They were thinking too hard and didn't have confidence. There are two very boistorous ladies and they are loud and don't stop talking! And you know it's bad when they're talking in Czech! They did some controlled worksheets and then at the end they had to write a story about a celebrity using the tense. I know that not all of them understood it, but a lot of them did. A few of their sentences were great "Beckham had played football before he met Victoria." haha.

After the lesson, I was terrified. We're getting down to the nitty gritty and I can't afford to have any major things go wrong. BUT, Paul had all good things to say, with minor corrections. He said that I should be very happy with the lesson :) Yay! I've realized that whenever I think something doesn't go well, it actually had, and when I think I've done well, I haven't. I also did better with my error corrections (correcting the students especially with pronunciation), so I know I'm actually really helping them, but when you're up there you just feel like you've been talking for ages. There are a lot of things to get used to. But overall, a successful day!

2. It's a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning when you feel like you have a purpose in life :)

3. Our one teacher Andrea the other day was explaining the importance of our job and stress in words. She said a sentence that sounded like this "My boss is a very impotent man who works at the semen factory." We all died!!! Here she meant, "My boss is a very important man who works at the cement factory." She said that what stands in the way of that woman not being embarassed or looking stupid, is us.

4. Simon and Dean both moved here to get away from London. They said the quality of life there has gone down and that it's really unsafe. I didn't understand this because all I've wanted to do for the past two years is move back there, especially because of how safe I had felt. When I told them that I had been studying abroad and living in South Kensington, they told me that it wouldn't be like that again. And even if I went back knowing it would be different, it would still probably be disappointing. Very interesting...

5. Prague is like Amsterdam...if you know what I mean...

Week Two

I haven't had as much time to do this blog as I would have liked. I thought that I could write everyday in major detail about what was going on. But the course is so intense that I spend my evenings planning lessons, then want to bolt out of the school because I'm usually here for approx. 10-12 hours a day! I wake up at 6:30, get to the school by 8, class begins at 9, and our teaching practice feedback is over usually around 4:30. Then we all usually end up in the cafe to chat about the day and vent, etc. then head to the teacher's lounge to do work.

Last Thursday I had to teach my first grammar lesson. How nervewracking! I still don't even know that much about grammar myself! I'm having a hard time completely understanding what the school wants from us. They like it when we guide the students to find the answer for themselves, but should we explain it first, etc? I was asking my teacher about it and she kind of brushed it off so I thought "Okay, if I see that the students are struggling with it, then we'll talk about it more in depth." (The unit was on the difference between "used to, get used to, and be used to." All in all, the lesson went really well and I was really happy. They were using the language and personalizing it. Zuzana who struggles the most even got something and it made me teary-eyed. I was also sad because it was my last lesson with them and I had gotten so attached. Then at the end of the lesson I got torn apart by Kamila for not telling them the "form" first. But then I think Kamila realized that that's what I had been asking about before and she knew she had brushed it off. She apologized which was good, I suppose. She said it was a fantastic lesson considering. I just felt so angry because clearly I'm aware of what I need to do and what the students need, or I wouldn't have asked her about it. It just kind of made me feel like I can't actually look to them for help like I'm supposed to be able to.

Needless to say, I wasn't the only one who was angry and stressed out after their grammar lesson. We were all sick of being at the school and sick of being stressed out, and we all needed to let off some steam. A few of us TEFLers went to the brewery next door to bitch and moan, then the rest of the group showed up. We went to another bar because there was so many of us. It was definitely such a well needed evening! We're all tired of having to be so polite and proper all day long! So all the deep dark secrets came out haha A soft jazz band was playing cruise ship type music and we were all dancing even though it wasn't really dancing music. Gina and I stole all the matchbooks so that we can light our stove. We went to KFC afterwards, but they don't sell mashed potatos or mac and cheese. So lame! Clearly it's not a real KFC! So then we went to McDonalds and made our way back home.

Friday was kind of an easy day. Gina and I went to Tesco to get some essentials like trash bags and a hair dryer. It's like we're an old married couple doing our grocery shopping together haha. We vegged for the rest of the night because we were so exhausted from the week. We watched a Czech movie even though we couldn't understand any words. But we got the idea because the movie was absolutely ridiculous! It had men as nuns, people having affairs, and transvestite teachers. Pure craziness. I feel really lucky to have Gina as a roommate. She's so easy to live with, not high maintenance at all, and she's goofy like me. She's kind of like the intelligent fabulous hippie chic who wears retro clothes that I've always aspired to be haha :)

On Saturday we got ready and finally explored Prague! I feel like I know my way around a bit better (if not for the crazy winding streets ah!) It's actually a pretty small town. We started at one museum, made our way through the square, across a bridge to below the Castle and then down the river. I got some good pictures finally and it started to feel like we were actually in Europe! Then we went home and got ready for Kristen's Birthday! The whole group plus some outside friends went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I thought the food would be terrible, but it was actually quite good. The one girl Hana who was there is Czech so she led all 20+ to the metro then to a club called Nebe. In Nebe we found the entire Southhampton University Football team haha all of our dreams come true! I talked to more British people that night than I did my entire time in London I believe. Nebe was great...good music, great atmosphere, and I could FINALLY DANCE!!! It's been sooo long...since before Graduation that I went out dancing. After Nebe we went to Chateau which was just as fun. It was one of those nights that I've been waiting for...we were all dancing through the streets and singing on our way to the clubs and I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard.

On Sunday I met with my one student for a personal one-on-one assesment. I'll have to plan a 60 minute lesson adapted for her needs. The rest of the day was spent doing my assignment and planning my lesson.

Today I was a wreck because even though I was completely prepared for my lesson, mentally I didn't feel that way. I think it's because it's a new class, I don't know who they are, or what their capabilities are. I realized that I couldn't picture how the lesson would go because I don't know them. But the students are more fluent than I thought they would be and they definitely got into their discussions. It was a reading about "Body Clocks." These coursebooks are so silly and outdated. Paul is our new observer. Although he's not as scary as Kamila, what he expects is different and some of his views are going to take a while to get used to. He teaches us like he would his Czech Students. "Paul, I have a question about blah blah blah..." "Well Allyson, what do YOU think?" "Well Paul, I don't know, that's why I'm asking you." I'm a person who needs a lot of examples and a straightforward answer. Ah! Anyway, I'm sure it won't be that terrible. Only 3 more lessons to go!

I found out that my adapter DOES work for my computer...I was so excited to watch the finale of The Bachelor online after class, but I can't watch anything on abc.com because I'm not in the states! I'm absolutely devastated! And I'm also really behind on LOST. Nooo!! If anyone knows of any websites that might have these shows, please let me know...I'm desperate!

Also Happy Birthday my Genna Bunny! I I hope it's fab and I miss you dearly :)

Week One in Prague

Monday:
On Monday began my first week at the Caledonian School! I was pretty nervous because of how disorganized everything was during Orientation, but things went very well! There were 17 of us (now we're down to 14) and we're split into two groups. In the morning we have two workshops...Lesson planning, speaking/writing activities, grammar, etc. We have an hour and 15 minutes for lunch then we have our Teaching Practice session. Teaching Practice is split into 3 groups, so the majority of my time is spent with Gina (my roommate) Simon, and Dean. Simon and Dean are in their thirties and they're both English. They've both lived in Prague for a while and both have Czech girlfriends. Dean is the quintessential English man...when I look at him in his little sweaters and glasses, I just picture him holding a cup of tea with his pinky up. Simon is like the Father of the whole TEFL course. He's always motivating and complimenting people. Simon and Dean both give me a good laugh.
The Czech students we are teaching get free English Classes, so they are basically our guinea pigs! We walked into the room and met our observer Kamila. Kamila is Czech who is obviously fluent in English, hardly has an accent anymore, and is really good at her job. She's scary in the "I really admire you" way. I think anything after Kamila will be easy! She taught the first lesson so that we could see how it is done, then we had feedback afterwards, which we do after all our Teaching Practice. The students are supposed to be upper-intermediate, but we have a wide spectrum of students. One is really strong, and one should be in the pre-inter. class. They are all really friendly and really willing to learn though. Sometimes I get a little choked up because I am truly moved by how motivated they are to learn our language. Afterwards, Kamila left and the four of us were to teach other something to kind of get in the groove of things. (We had to teach the next day!!) Simon taught us how to make honeycomb, Dean taught us how to play dice, Gina taught us how to draw something, and I taught them a theatre game. When that was done, Gina, Simon, and I went to a brewery next door for our first Czech beer (delicious!) and dinner. Gina and I really needed to do something because at this point we still felt like we weren't in a European city. (We're still working on this because we spend soooo much time at the school, then just go home to sleep.)
When we got home, we found out that David had moved out and in with two other girls. (There were housing issues, not because he didn't like us!)

Tuesday:
My activity with the students was "Change Places If..." It's sort of like musical chairs with what they have in common. It went really really well! They were all talking and laughing and there was a really comfortable vibe in the room. But then the one weaker student stood up and said "My parents are dead." The whole room got silent and THANK GOD for my improv classes because I quickly said, "How many children do you have?" She had to children and thank god someone else in the class also had two children! It's amazing how much my theatre training is helping with this. With being confident in front of them, thinking on the spot, certain activities, and feeling out the 'audience.'

Wednesday:
I got to sit back and relax because Simon and Gina had to teach. They both did really well and it was fun seeing what they came up with. I also liked being able to observe the students and seeing if they were confused, enlightened, excited, etc. There are some characters in the class, too! Simon asked if anyone likes ABBA. Teresa said "My daughter like ABBA." and Filip said "My mother likes ABBA." Now, when you picture a blonde buff guy who looks like he goes to techno clubs and has an accent say that...it's pretty hilarious :) I took some notes during our Feedback session that will help with my lesson. It was definitely really nice being able to see someone else go first because I was able to fix a lot of things for myself. After that, I spent the rest of the evening in the Teacher's Lounge preparing my lesson!

Thursday:
My lesson was about Perfectionists. How boring can you get?! Luckily I can modify the activities in the book which I did. All in all, it went really well! I felt really comfortable and the students seemed to get really into it as well. At the end they were to discuss if they know any perfectionists and how they feel about them. I asked them to use their new vocabulary words. Filip said, "There are other medical students who do well and so..I am...resentful." haha! I love it! Clearly the vocab word here was 'resentful.' :) There are a few things I need to work on of course, but she said it was a solid lesson for the first week!
Everyone in the TEFL course ended up in the school cafe afterwards to celebrate our first lessons being over and being a success. It cracks me up that they serve beer in this school! (All my teachers can be found chugging a beer with their lunch!) The cafe is really cute and cozy with brick walls and archways. After 6, they dim the lights and light candles. And of course people started to go home and it was me, Simon, and Gina again. Too funny! The Cafe guy Tomas brought us free beer and helped me with my Czech. I haven't seen Tomas around this week though...so sad!
And the BEST part of the day...My suitcase arrived! Everything is in tact and nothing exploded or broke! Hurrah!

Friday:
Since there are no English lessons on Fridays, we have Czech lessons with Kamila instead. It's amazng how different a lesson is here compared to in High school. In HS we just copied words from the board and how to memorize them. We spent very little time having conversations and practicing how to speak. (Which is the point of the English lessons at Caledonian...to get the student talking as much as possible.) Kamila walked in and right away started speaking Czech and had us repeat. She had color coded conversations on the board and we were to walk around having an introductory conversation with each other. Czech is hard! But I want to learn it so badly. I feel so lost, stupid, and rude when I'm out and about and can't speak it. Especially coming in and out of my building or at the grocery store. I say "No Cesky." And they say, "Oh, you are American." Gah.
Anyway, there was a Czech observer in the room and I actually got to do my conversation with her which was great! It made it so much more real. I need to find a Czech person who wants to meet up and that I can conversate with!
After class the majority of the group went out to dinner together. I, once again, had beef goulash and dumplings. But I can't get enough of it! I'm going to get fat, but I guess that means I just have to trek up
to the Prague Castle again to burn it all off! :) The only bad thing about the evening was that I was so darn exhausted, I couldn't really enjoy myself. I couldn't believe how much the first week had taken out of me and I was a real party pooper. But then we walked around the city a bit to another bar. The walk woke me up a bit and everything is just so beautiful at night and with the lighting!
I headed back home with Shelley and Heather because I found out they live near us, so that was really nice. We tried to speak Czech on the way home, but we had already forgotten a lot of it :(

Saturday:
Sleep in!! Yay! I got up at 9. Yes ladies and gentleman, 9:00 is now sleeping in to me! Did you ever think it would happen? Nope, I didn't either :)
This was a well deserved lazy day. I organized my room and went grocery shopping at the neighborhood store. It was nice because I felt like I really lived there. And the store wasn't commercialized like Tesco is. It was just pure Czech goodness. I did some work for the following week then got ready for my dinner party!
I arrived at Pavel's (Julien's friend who I've been writing for like 4 months now) to find out that he was not there! But I met his roommates and their friends and everyone was really nice and welcoming. Their apartment was really charming too. It was set up kind of like ours, but looked cozy and lived in and had things like wallpaper and paint. Ha. We ate a traditional Czeh dinner...beef goulash and dumplings hurrah! And also Spanish Birds (Salami, egg, cucumber, rice, and some other things I can't remember). Beth is going to have to teach me how to cook because it was absolutely delicious!
Then Pavel arrived! Hurray! We were finally able to meet! He was really nice and everything I pretty much imagined from the emails haha. After our chat, we all went out to a club called Vertigo. It. Was. Hilarious. It was all techno music with flashing lights and wasted people dancing like maniacs. It was like Jon Kearney at XS dancing. But everyone was doing it. I met some more great people and just had a really good time. Then we went to another club that was kind of the same, but had weird turns where you'd find a bar in a tiny little brick room. Weird!
It was a great, well-needed evening, and I hope that I will be able to hang out with all of them again soon!

Sunday:
Basically just spent doing my assignment and reading for Monday. Boring day of lots of work at the school. Caledonian School should just give us cots here to sleep on!

Monday:
Gina and Simon taught a listening lesson. They both did really, really well. I'm so proud of our Teaching Practice group! The rest of the evening for me was spent planning my lesson. It's about things people are "addicted to..." like, cleaning, a sport, the internet, etc.

Today:
For some reason I was really REALLY nervous about teaching the lesson. I think it was because I was a bit over-confident on Thursday, but then had a 4 day break from it all. And also, my eating habits have been a bit wacky. During the lesson, I didn't feel as good about it as I had with my first one. There was a weird energy in the room, so I felt like I wasn't "entertaining" them well enough. This is something I have to get over because my job isn't to entertain them, it's to teach them. But I know that this is the theatre major in me! Then my nerves got to me and I kept making stupid mistakes like saying "you guys." We can't say this because Czechs think we are saying "you gays." Ahh! Crazy!
I was really nervous for our Feedback session, but Kamila said that I did really well and that I have "fantastic classroom management." A few minor things like error correction and writing new vocabulary on the board that comes up during the lesson.

But now I must go plan for Thursday's grammar lesson! Ahh!! It's on "used to."

Things that Rock:

• The subway is soo efficient and clean! During rush hour I literally only wait for one minute until the next subway comes! The subways on each side of the track always show up at the same time, too! Incredible
• A lot of the lights in certain buildings are automatic so that we don't waste electricity!
• When you enter or leave the elevator you say "dobry den" or "na shladenou" (Hello or Goodbye.) A cute little boy said it too me once and I almost died of joy haha.
• My tattoo is healed! No more peeling!

Things that are Different:

• There are no microwaves. Anywhere. I thought it was just Caledonian being cheap, but apparently it's all of Europe. How am I supposed to reheat my leftovers?
• We have to light the stove with matches. Seriously, we do.
• A few places I've seen don't have shower curtains. Do Europeans sit in the tub? I guess so
• A lot of the toilets are in a separate room from the tub and sink
• I use a hot pot/kettle to heat my tea in the mornings!