Tourist attraction

On our run this morning, Kate and I passed by a couple of Chinese tourists. They had their cameras out and were taking pictures of the sites. As Kate and I approached, one of the men began following us and snapping pictures. I guess we are a better tourist attraction than the Charles Bridge. I guess this is just a small taste of what we may have in store for us.

Nearing the end

Tomorrow is our last day of TEFL! We had our last day of student teaching yesterday. All of us are happy and relieved to finally be done. After the classes, all the students and teachers went out to a local restaurant for drinks and food. It was fun to get the chance to chat with some of our students outside of class.

Last weekend, a couple of our students (mother and son) invited a few of us out to their cottage. We had an amazing time. The cottage is located outside of a small village, approximately 60km from Prague. The scenery was absolutely beautiful. The cottage was quaint and small, but had all the basic necessities. They fed us good food and drinks all day long. Jitka, one of my first students, cooked us schnitzel (a common Czech dish) with mashed potatoes. We were all extremely excited to get our first home-cooked meal since we arrived. During the day, we went for a long walk in the woods, or as the Czechs call it, 'the nature.' Usually they go for long walks to pick mushrooms, but it was the wrong time of year for mushroom picking. In the evening, we built a small campfire (with wood that the boys collected from the woods) and cooked sausages.

Iain and Kate mushroom picking

the forest

Our students: Jitka and Vlada

Vlada and his younger brother

cooking dinner

It's our last weekend in Prague. On Monday we leave for China. It's crazy to think that we've been here a month already! We've been so busy that we've hardly had a chance to really get to know the city. This weekend we're planning on seeing as many sights as we can pack in. Kate and I are getting very excited, but sad at the same time. We've been so fortunate to meet so many wonderful people in our short time here.

Well, that's all for now. Most likely, my next blog will be coming straight from China.... Wish me luck!

Where has the time gone?

We're nearing the end of our third week of TEFL. It's amazing how fast it's all flown by! Teaching is going a lot better. All of us are getting used to the flow and structure of the lessons, and planning seems to take up less time. I'm teaching advanced students this week. We have one student, Peter, who has acquired the nickname "Peter the Teacher Eater" from past TEFL students and staff. He probably knows grammar better than any of us and has been attending lessons for years. While this is slightly intimidating, he is actually a lot of fun. It's nice to be able to see the students' personalities come out in the higher levels.

We still have a lot to work on, though. We're assigned grammar topics that most of us hardly know, or have never heard of before. It's tough to answer questions about something you don't even know yourself. I've definitely had a couple of "deer-in-the-headlight" moments. We have a big grammar test next week, so we all need to start studying for that. I am extremely thankful that I will not be teaching grammar in China. English really doesn't make any sense.

Last weekend a few of us went out to this huge bar/beach area located on the river. It had tennis courts, volleyball nets, and several bars dispersed throughout the area. The "beach" wasn't actually located on the river, but instead was a mock-beach set-up near the bar area. It had white sand, small fire pits for fires, and even some little bamboo huts.

the river

the beach

Kate and Dan

Kate from Canada...love this girl!

Dan was the only one that agreed to getting buried in the sand

I think he may be regretting that decision at this point...

One of my students invited a few of us out to her cottage over the weekend. She says that in Prague, they go to 'nature' to pick mushrooms and relax on the weekends. Her son is in a different level and knows a few of the guys in my program. They are some of the nicest people we have met. The cottage is located about 60km outside of the city, so we are all going to take a bus to get there. We are all looking forward to getting a 'real' cultural experience.

It's crazy to think that we have just a little over a week left in this wonderful place! China has hardly crossed our minds since we've been here, but I think Kate and I are beginning to get very excited. Both of us are getting excited about teaching and finally having our own classes. But it's bittersweet. We've made some great friends in this short time, and we're going to miss them all!

It's been a loooong week...

It's been a busy, busy week! We are halfway through our second week of the course, and oh how they threw us right in there. We have been teaching full-length classes each day. We get our topic the night before and have less than a day to complete it. It's been scary, stressful, humorous, and down right humiliating at times. But back to that in a moment....

After finishing our first week, my classmates and I were eager to have a couple of days of much needed rest and fun. After Friday's class, a few teachers from the former class invited us out for beers at the Letna Park Beer Garden. The park is located on a hill that overlooks the city. The beer garden is located on the edge of the hill and has an incredible view of the city.

View from Letna Park

just beautiful...

the crew

great group

tram ride

After the beer garden, the crew headed out to a club, Cross Club, located on the outskirts of the city. It was a little out of the way, but definitely worth it. The architecture and artwork in the place was incredible. The entire bar was made out of old car parts. My pictures by no means do it justice, but just to give you an idea:

top seating area, you could hardly stand up straight here

Kate and Steve

Looking down from the top

engine block hanging from the ceiling

After our eventful weekend, we jumped right into teaching Monday afternoon. We are split up into groups and each of us has a different level to teach. Few of us feel prepared or qualified to be standing in front of a classroom. My first lesson went well, the later ones, not so well... There's nothing like having a room full of students looking up at you and not understanding anything you are telling them. The students, thank goodness, get these English lessons for free and know that we are all students ourselves. And hey, once you hit the bottom you can only go up, right? Hopefully that is the idea.

Today is our last day of teaching for the week. All of us are exhausted and ready for the break. We have had extremely long days. We usually leave for class around 9am and don't get home until 7 or 8. Fortunately, we have a great group and all have a lot of fun together.

TEFL, TEFL, TEFL...

Class continues to go well. We are learning a lot and feel like we are getting a lot of useful information. Today we had a "Czech survival" lesson. The lesson not only taught us some useful Czech phrases (Dobry den!--hello) but also served as a model of how we should approach lessons for beginners. I had some difficulty getting a hang of it at first. Pronunciations were most difficult, and everything turned out having a faint Spanish accent (supposedly it is very common to revert to a foreign language you know when learning a new foreign language). Tomorrow is our first day teaching actual students, but luckily it only needs go last about 15 minutes. I think all of us feel pretty prepared and confident.

Kate and I went on a run throughout the city this morning. This has been a great way for us to get to know the city. While most people are asleep, we get to see a lot of the major landmarks without the crowds. I have a map that includes pictures of landmarks we pass along the way, and am trying to figure out a way to incorporate it into my blog. All this time, I was sure that I would miss the lakes in Minneapolis so much. And while this is true, the beauty of Prague is definitely comparable to that of MN, but in a much different way.

Class and hip hop battles

Yesterday was our first day of class. No one really knew what to expect, but I think we were all relieved to find that the Language House was an actual school and not some big internet scam...you just never know. The school is fairly small and modest. The staff are nice and energetic, which hopefully will make the 8 hours of class/day pass a little more quickly. There are 15 people in our group. Most are from the US, but there are two girls from London and one from Canada. In the morning we did a lot of "ice breaker" activities and got a run-down of what to expect in the next month. In the afternoon, one of our teachers took us on a tour of the city. It wasn't an historical tour, but more of a practical tour to show us around town to help us survive our next month here. It also gave us all a chance to chat and get to know one another a little better. The tour took us all throughout the city, including Old Town square and a walk around the castle in Prague.

view from the castle

cathedral at the castle

After the tour, we had a "welcoming dinner" at a restaurant down the street from the school. Though hard to believe, it is true that Czech beer is cheaper than water. At this restaurant, a half liter of beer was the same price as .2 liters of water, a little less than $2. So, to be economical, most of the group decided to go with the beer. We still have a very limited understanding of anything Czech, and few menus seem to have much English, so I have some difficulty ordering from menus without any pictures. In the end I decided to order a mushroom gnocchi dish, which turned out to be delicious. At then end of our meal the teachers bought everyone a shot of Czech liquor, the name I am not going to attempt to write. Immediately after the shot, one of the teachers announced, "Now that I have you all liquored up, here's your first assignment..." How nice. We were told that we would need to teach a "skill," of any kind, to the class the following day.

After dinner, two guys in our class, Iain and Steven, invited Kate and I to an open mic hip-hop battle they wanted to perform at. It was located at a dive bar down the street from our hotel. We weren't sure what to expect, but decided we couldn't miss the opportunity, and agreed to tag along. The bar was dark and dingy, but the people were friendly and welcoming (at least those I could understand). Kate and I were impressed not only at our friends' bravery, but also at how well they did. These guys seriously have no fear. Their rap aliases were "slick willy" and "stevie 2-step." Though most people in the audience had no idea what they were saying, there were several people jamming and dancing around during their sets.

"Stevie 2-step"

"Slick Willy"

Most of the people there spoke broken English at best. We met one guy wearing an LA Lakers hat. During our conversation we made a reference to basketball, after which he looked confused and acted as if he had no idea what we were talking about. When we pointed to his hat he said, "oh, I just wear this for show." Overall, the night was a blast and we were extremely glad we went.

the guys getting ready to go on

this guy ran the show, he was our favorite, just look at that outfit

We had our second day of class today, and although we got a late start on our assignment, all of ours seemed to go remarkably well. For my "skill" I taught the class how to do "alternate breathing" while swimming freestyle. It looks like all those years of teaching swimming lessons has finally paid off!

For the most part, we have a really great group and everyone seems to get along pretty well. We start student teaching with actual students on Thursday. It will be a shorter session, only 15 minutes per teacher. We start giving full lessons (45 min) on Monday. I'm finally adjusting to the time change and am able to sleep through the night, thank goodness.

Arrival in Prague

Me and Amie: road trip to Chicago to catch our flights!

Mom and I, saying our goodbye's

So we're finally here... After months of planning and 24 hours of traveling, Kate and I finally arrived in Prague. Though we were exhausted and slightly delirious from a day of traveling, our flights went smoothly and were rather non-eventful. Once in Prague, an individual from the Language House was at the airport to pick us up and transfer us to our hotel. The hotel is nice, but not exactly what was advertised (the photos on the website had large, luxurious rooms, equipped with a jacuzzi and rose petals on the bed). Kate and I are luckily right next door to one another. Our rooms are small, and mine is much smaller than Kate's (though I have a phone and she doesn't, so we're not sure who got the better deal). They are clean and comfortable, however, so we can't complain...

Our first day here consisted of little more than sleeping and eating. We napped for most of the day and woke up in time to catch a late dinner. We went to a cute little restaurant down the street where we got a nice substantial meal. I got a trout dinner (equipped with full head, tail and eyes, welcome back to Europe!). It was refreshing to get a decent meal in us after a day of snacks and airplane food. We planned to wake up at a decent time the next day to explore the city, but both ended up sleeping most of the morning away. Once awake, we went to a small store for some groceries. We had trouble finding any meat that wasn't referred to as 'salam' so we opted for fruit and yogurt until we could find something that looked a little more familiar, and a little less frightening.

Kate and I eating our first Czech meal

Kate eating her yogurt with a banana: we forgot about lack of utensils

Later in the day we walked to the city center, which is only about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. Prague so far has lived up to all the hype. The city is absolutely beautiful! While walking through its clean, cobble-stone streets, you feel as though you are in a fairy tale of some sort. The city was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday, but the streets began to fill with people as we got further into the city. In the city square there was a Jazz festival going on and people were lining the streets, drinking and eating on the patios. Kate and I stopped at an Irish pub for a beer and met some people from England. After the drinks we decided to head back to our hotel and turn in early. We're both still havig troubles adjusting, however, and are now up at 3am unable to sleep. Hopefully we will be able to adjust before class beings on Monday!