September, 2009: Prague

On our way to Prague, we made a stop in Frankfurt, Germany. We had eight hours to kill, so we decided to take a tour of the city. The city was quite interesting, and we were happy to be able to say that we had visited Germany.

Before long, we boarded our plane to Prague and were again on our way. Upon arriving in Prague, we were greeted by a man from the Calledonian School who was holding a sign with our names on it. This was a first for us! It felt like a limo driver was waiting for us. The man introduced himself (in fine English) and helped us load our luggage. He then drove us to our new apartment, which he proceeded to walk us to.

We were delighted to find our apartment to be very cozy, roomy, and modern as compared to our former home in Japan. It didn’t take long before we were in bed and sleeping like we hadn’t slept in 24 hours…because we hadn’t! We awoke the next day (Thursday) and took some time to arrange our apartment and our things. We then explored the grocery store “Norma” directly across the street. We found it to be quite simple and were surprised to learn that we would have to deposit a couple of coins in order to use a shopping cart. We also scoped out another store at a mall just about a half block further. We liked it much more and we were able to find several familiar groceries. Of course, some things were hard to find or just completely absent. I noticed that there are a million varieties of sausage, bread, and alcohol…especially wine. We even ran into a few Americans who had just arrived to do a similar TEFL program at another school.

Afterward, we found dinner and a local pizzeria. It was pretty good pizza at a decent price. We were surprised to get bottles of soda-water when we said that we wanted only water to drink. Soda water is disgusting, by the way!

Friday

On Friday we took the subway to our first day at the school. We made our way to the room number indicated on our instructions, and were met by the instructor, Paul, along with about a dozen other students. Everyone was very nice and we felt good about everything. Next, Sterling, a funny guy from Lufkin, TX took us on a walking tour of Prague. He had us cracking up as he walked us around and explained various things to us. The tour ended and we made or way to Tefco, which is apparently a popular Wal-Martish store. We got a few things and then headed home.

Saturday/Sunday

We slept very late on both days. We spent most of our time reading the required readings from our textbooks. We also made a couple of trips to the grocery store at the little mall. We were also happy to find a free wi-fi spot at a cozy little café in the basement of the mall. While it is much better to have internet at home, we were happy to find it in a nice, relatively close spot to home. I found the barista’s demeanor to be a bit humorous. I tried to pay her for a coffee right after I had ordered it, and she simply said, “Sit down.” I attempted to confirm her instructions and she sternly repeated, “Sit down now.” So I went and sat down. She brought me my coffee and I paid her at the table.

Monday

We had our first full day of class and did our practice lessons. It was a long, but useful day. Sarah blew everyone away with her amazing “How to Bake Brownies” lesson and with the actually brownies she brought to share.

We have both been feeling quite under the weather for the last few days…essentially our whole time here thus far. Today was particularly bad for me. We’ve been taking Benadryl, Tylenol PM, vitamins, and even hot tea with natural honey in an effort to combat what ever is afflicting us. We are very worn out from the sickness especially, but also jet-lag and long days of working on our class work. We are desperate to get better soon!

-Brandon