Life.

So here’s the latest: Saturday [09.26.09] afternoon, my roommate and I are sitting in Narodni Kavarna café [a five minute walk from our flat] enjoying a hot beverage. I decided to try hot pear juice, which was impressively outstanding. We both were on our computers catching up with emails, friends, family, etc when suddenly, after hearing some sirens, Lindsay starts freaking out saying something like “Gina, Gina, look upppp, the Pope, the Pope!” Just as I look up I see the Pope go by in his little Pope mobile! I couldn’t even believe I just saw the Pope completely on accident. My friend Jane just minutes earlier asked me if I was going to see him, and not having a clue he was in Prague, I asked, “What do you mean?” She then explained how he is in Prague until Monday or Tuesday. Apparently he hasn’t been here in 12 or 13 years. Anyway, so after we saw the Pope drive by, we noticed quite a crowd building up on the streets outside. It was as if they were waiting for him to drive by again, so we went out there to see what and if anything was happening. It’s crazy how fast news travels because those streets got SO much fuller in a matter of minutes. There were several policemen, people, snipers [on top a building] and the contagious feeling of anticipation. With Prague being known as an atheist country, it was interesting to see a reaction like this. I got the feeling there was lots of excitement. Lindsay and I were coming in and out of the café anticipating seeing the Pope again. While we were outside, about 5 or 6 Irish guys were cracking jokes, while drinking some beers. One of them asked me when the Pope was to go by; I told him I hadn’t a clue and how Lindsay and I had seen him earlier. After we got talking, I asked him what he was doing in Prague. He explained how him and the other guys were here for a stag party and how the groom had missed his flight by just five minutes!!! He was laughing saying “Can ya hardly believe that?; what a foocking clown!” So, all the guys arrived in Prague for the stag party, except for the groom – who was to arrive around 7 or 8 p.m. Go figure. Hilarious and unfortunate. It’s almost like ‘The Hangover” kind of theme.
Anyway, aside from seeing the Pope, I realized [by all the security and policemen guarding the street] that he’s staying about two streets away from me! Haha. Crazy right. So after that, Lindsay and I decide to do some grocery shopping and made plans with our friend Pete to hike up to the top of Petrin to Czech out the mini Eiffel tower after we had dinner. After dinner, we set off for our adventure. The sun had just set, so while walking on the bridge of the Vltava River, we had to be touristy and take some pictures because the view was just too gorgeous. So, we start trekking up these steep, windy roads. About half way to the top, there is a nice restaurant that was playing Celine Dion pretty loudly. We noticed several people that were dressed up and soon realized someone had just gotten married and they were celebrating on top of this little mountain. The view you can experience is stunning. We stopped for a couple minutes not only to enjoy the view, but to catch our breath as well. I looked up in the sky to look at the moon for not even a minute, and I ended up seeing a shooting star! Soon after, we decided to keep going. Not even 5 minutes later of walking, there was a small art gallery to our left with a woman standing outside greeting us. She asked us if we wanted to go in and tour Reon’s artwork for only 50kc [about $3]; we asked what kind of artwork he did and she said ‘Mostly magical.’ We stepped in, glanced around and agreed to tour it. A lot of the paintings were astrology based and mythical creatures were in them such as unicorns, centaurs, fairies, & tons of violins, etc. etc. Reon’s artwork was brilliant. We ended up staying for over an hour and even got to meet him! I tried to accurately guess his astrology sign but I was off; Close, but not quite [I guessed Pisces, but he’s a cancer]. By just judging from his appearance [and well his paintings too] he looked completely insane/eccentric. He was wearing these weird pajama-looking pants, a faded t-shirt with his hair all messy and long, a completely untamed beard, yellow teeth and just being totally peculiar. He spoke like 5 or 6 different languages excluding English – or very little, so it was a bit difficult to communicate. It was so cool to meet him though. When we were saying goodbye, he mentioned how this was a very nice visit and thanked us [I think mostly for the conversation]. He said it with such sincerity, as if he’d been trapped in loneliness. Maybe, being an eccentric, it can be very lonely. We didn’t get to talk very much because of the language barrier, but he looked so pleased we came and talked to him. It’s likely that I took like 3434534 pictures there. Haha. All of the paintings were so detailed and the colors were so vibrant. So after an hour or so, we left to finish our journey to the top.
After trekking up steep windy hills, we were at the top. On our way toward the mini Eiffel tower, there were beautiful rose gardens that I’d like to eventually see in daylight. My legs were already feeling pretty exhausted, never mind the seemingly infinite number of stairs I was just about to walk up [I can’t imagine walking up the real Eiffel tower]. Let’s fast-forward to the top, so we get there and the view was just ‘it.’ That’s exactly what I needed after the strenuous way up. I took a few pictures and a video before my batteries died – thank god because the panoramic view that Prague’s city lights, castles, and bridges had to offer was absolutely astonishing. At one point, I had my head against my arm, which was against the window and I was just marveling in the view. When I turned around to talk to Pete and Lindsay, Lindsay asked me ‘Did you make a heart shape with your breath on purpose??!” I looked over to where I’d just been and sure enough, on the window, my breath left a heart shape impression on the window. Any of you reading this may or may not know my obsession with hearts [and skeleton keys]. I see hearts all the time; sometimes in the shape of a puddle, a leaf, a cloud, etc. Just random places usually, with my heart-shaped breath being one of the coolest and most memorable! Once we got back down from the tower, we heard loud noises, and soon discovered were fireworks! We raced to get a good view of them and by the time we got there, they had just stopped. Either way, it was awesome. Czech’s set-off fireworks all the time - seems like I hear or see them every few days. It’s pretty cool.
For the record, this entire blog was only one day. There’s even more that happened, but it would make this the never-ending-blog. Haha. Needless to say, accidentally seeing the Pope, a shooting star, meeting an amazing Czech artist, climbing the top of the mini Eiffel tower, seeing fireworks, etc was, in short, epic.

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching.” - unknown

Since arriving in Prague, I cannot seem to stop listening [almost exclusively] to Radiohead, Coldplay, Feist and David Gray. They are my constant soundtrack spinning through my head throughout my daily travels. Lucky for me, Radiohead was here in August or was it Sept? [time challenged] and friends and I got to see them; absolutely amaZing show ! I’m actually listening to the ‘In Rainbows’ album as I type.

When I’m listening to my ipod on the metro, I love when the music synchronizes with the unique wire designs caused by the motion outside of the train – it’s extremely challenging to describe logically, so, actually, this video is a perfect example of what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCpVSTJTc3I 

When music and life simultaneously synch – that to me, is steller.

I think I'd be so cool if I could just play back a video of everything I’ve experienced with soundtrack to friends and family once I got home so that I could share a true depiction of what it’s been like.  It's terribly difficult, well impossible actually, to capture the true essence of exactly what occurs everyday; there are so many emotions, events, conversations, glances, funny euro mullets, little weird things I notice, culture differences, exchanges of laughter, etc that I simply cannot snap shot and describe accurately or entirely for that matter. So instead, I’ll just blog.

Sometimes life feels like it's on fast-forward and other times on rewind - or even pause. TEFL hit the fast-forward harrrd for those first 4 weeks…!!!!  Haha..life continues to fast-forward with slight pauses every now and then. Been interviewing and sending out CV’s like mad since the course has ended with high hopes of getting a full time position teaching English.

It seems pretty insane, but I’m finally just starting to settle in here. For the first month in Prague, I was staying in a flat with 3 other girls – all from the States [NC, SC, CA] on Bubenska Street in Vltavska – Praha 7. The roommates [Anneliese and Anna] that wanted to stay in the flat had to renew the contract through the school with the certainty of 4 people staying, and well, being in almost constant question of staying or leaving forced me not to renew my contract. My mind would change if not daily, then hourly – no exaggeration. I’d sit on my balcony with ipod on shuffle and thoughts/worries/ideas flooding my mind and depending on how I felt that day, my plans would conincidingly change. It would be incredibly safe to say that I was [am?] the most indecisive person in life. Friends and family picked up on this trend and would ask regularly ‘So, what’s the story today? Staying? Leaving?’, and they’d actually expect changing responses. Haha. But, as you may realize, living in a different country is a pretty significant decision.

Lindsay, a roommate I’m particularly fond of, decided on staying too, and so the story begins. Being in limbo of interviewing and viewing flats, Lindsay and I had to leave the Bubenska flat – our time had run out – not having a place to go, our dear friend, Jane was so sweet to let us stay as we ran in circles viewing a million flats and finally finding one. We stayed with Jane for one week and just two days ago [Sept. 17^th], Lindsay and I moved into our own flat, which is located in Stare Mesto [Old Town] – Praha 1. This location couldn’t be better…we’re in the heart of the city in a nice quiet neighborhood with the Vltava River just across the street and the Charles Bridge only a 10 minute walk away. The building is extremely secure - very Fort Knox-esque; we have like 4 or 5 locks on our entry door. This building was built around 1800s by Jewish fur trade merchants. Pretty awesome; please view attached photos for shots of the hood and flat.

Let’s do this again soon.

::signing off::

"If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary" - Jim Rohn

Since a very young age, I knew traveling was going to have a significant role in my life. I've always been in search for that elusive thing...thanks to mom and dad, traveling has been pretty regular growing up, so packing up my bags and leaving was never tough for me. I would be so excited and curious for anything new; guess things haven't changed much...
 As for Prague...stunning! This city as an incredibly charming appeal full of castles/beautiful architecture. When I first arrived, it was something like 6am and walking out of a 9 or so hour plane ride felt unconsolable. All I could think of was a bed, but I'd waited hours until my head hit any pillow. The transport service desk I was supposed to check-in at arranged through the school was nowhere to be found, so after wondering and almost panicking, finally I found someone who spoke English and helped me. Seems like most people here are happy to go out of their way to help. For example, the other day I was standing in the metro in front of a map of Prague looking pretty confused I'm sure, an old man came over and pointed me in the right direction as his train came and passed! He didn't seem to mind he'd just missed his train; it was really kind of him to stop to help. That's just one example of the friendly and helpful disposition I've encountered here. 

So, anyway, the TEFL course...The 'Praguest' [August] TEFL course, or I've even called it TEFL Boot-camp...hahah...probably the most intense four weeks of my life thus far. Anyone who completed the course, I'm sure, would be happy to agree with that. The main instructor, Terry, was/is an amazing teacher with a wealth of knowledge. I now understand why this school is in the top five TEFL schools in the world...the course was invaluable. It was really interesting to learn how to teach English compared to the States. We learned to keep the students engaged and laughing while they learn. There is significant emphasis based on having the students engage in activities together. The curriculum is mainly based on pair/group work and playing games to learn the English. If you have the students laughing and playing games together while learning, you're doing a great job. In the States, much of the curriculum is based on the teacher; here, the curriculum is based around the students. It's imperative to be student-centric. Much of lessons taught are one-to-one, in which lesson plans are tailored to one student. Say, in a 45 minute lesson, the teacher talks for about 15 minutes of it, and the students are doing all the other talking, it's a success. With that said, it's a very interesting contrast and I prefer this way of teaching because the students seem much more lively and excited about learning when laughing and games are involved. The course was a total of 120 hours and I had the opportunity to teach 8-10 hours in the classroom with elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper intermediate. We also were required to teach 'one-to-one.' I was paired to teach a woman named Mila, a very nice native to The Czech Republic. I taught a total of three lessons with her. She was interested in learning English mainly for social reasons [conversation], like many who learn it. In the last [fourth] week of the course, we had a 13 page evaluation of our one-to-ones which included analysis of Mila's reading, speaking, writing, listening skills, etc. I graduated with a 'Strong Pass' on September 4th after all of that hard work and couldn't have been happier!!! 

Anyway, I'll catch up with this soon and update, but for now, I think this is sufficient. :] I miss friends and family terribly, but am happy to meet friends here and create somewhat of a 'family' in the meantime...

<3