Birthday in Prague!

This has been one, crazy, fun week. On Tuesday I had my advanced classes and the ladies brought me a birthday cake! How sweet! How wonderful to have met such nice people who would do this. It was nice considering I couldn't be with any of my family or friends from back home on my Birthday. On Wednesday I had my Benesov classes. A woman named Katka picked me up to take me, but she had to stop at a print shop on the way. So for a half an hour I listened to her converse with the printing man in Czech. I could make out dobry, dobre, dekuju, and na sledanou...the same darn words I knew before I even arrived. Why does Czech have to be so hard! My students made me say a few words in Czech in class and started cracking up at my accent. Then they told me I sounded like I was from Vietnam. I reminded them this was an English lesson and to do their worksheet...in a nice, funny way, don't worry. Anyway, I had my classes in Benesov which were like pulling teeth. I need new material or something for a few of the students. I had a one-on-one lesson with a new guy and we just talked for an hour. I taught him words like ice-skate and stitches during the story he was telling me and did error correcting. He said that to him, that was a perfect lesson so that he could tell how he feels and I help him haha. Then he said he would take me to a castle near Benesov sometime. How nice haha.

That evening I met Merlinda for a Booze Cruise. We sailed along the Vltava, danced, and met some new people. I didn't realize though that the cruise was for study abroad students, so we were the only Americans which was great. People kept asking us where we were studying...we either lied and said St. Charles University, or said we were teachers and imposters on the boat. When we docked, the party moved to a club called Radost. It was a pretty fun club and Merlinda told everyone that it was my birthday was at midnight. A group of Germans sang Happy Birthday to me in German!





The next day was...drum roll please...my birthday! I was pretty stoked about celebrating my birthday in Prague and we sure did do it in style. That night I walked the whole way to Vinohrady in my dress and high heels. I love the cobblestone streets, but they are not fun in heels. It's about a half an hour walk. Why the tram doesn't go from Zizkov to Vinohrady I will never know. Jeremy recommended a fabulous little Mexican restaurant to me called Fosil. All my friends started showing up and there were about 20 of us. We were basically the only ones in the place! I ordered a margarita of course and all of a sudden the owner comes over with three shots. I told him I didn't order them. He said, "It's your birthday, you get three free shots an hour." Oh dear lord. It was half sprite and vodka so he banged it on the table and it started to make it fizz which made me have to drink it as fast as possible. I ate a delicious burrito and had a really excellent time with everyone. The circle of friends I have here is amazig and I just feel really lucky. We ended up staying at the restaurant for almost 4 hours! We didn't get to the club, Karlovy Lazne, until around midnight. I had never been to this club before, but I was definitely into it. The club has five floors and each floor plays different types of music. We started out on the hip-hop floor and then of course ended up on the 90s floor. It was great being with everyone and was hands down, the best birthday ever!





On Saturday I went out of Prague to Karlstejn, a small village with a beautiful old castle on the top of a hill. There's not much in the village, but it was nice just taking a relaxing walk around. I was taking pictures of all the Czech houses and yards. You have to hike up a path to get to the castle then you can take a tour of it. It is a beautiful view from the top!! I was exhausted at the end of the day though from all the walking. But then it was Jessica's birthday so us 6 ladies went out for dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was lovely having a girls night! Then we danced the night away at Lucerna!



On Sunday I did a lot of lesson planning and went grocery shopping. I need to stop eating out or just making pasta everynight. So I made a delicious meal and was super proud of myself :) Then I went to see Star Trek. I thought I was going to dislike this movie, but I actually really liked it! And it was fun looking at the Czech subtitles during it. Although some of the previews were dubbed in Czech so we thought we were in trouble. But it turned out just fine in the end :)