Remembrance

The month I spent in Prague while charging headfirst through my TEFL course at The Language House was brief, but amazing. Those were some of the longest, challenging days I can remember. From morning till night, we shoved TEFL knowledge into our heads. Completing the course felt fantastic. No longer was I an underprepared chemistry major! I had some new found skills under my belt and was ready to tackle my future.

 My class was quite diverse, people coming from all ages and backgrounds. We covered grammar, phonetics, teaching methods and even a crash course in Czech. My notes from these classes are something I will always keep with me. The staff was incredibly supportive while you are a student and after. They are there to ensure your success and had an excellent network of alumni that would bring in the job offers. I look back fondly on my short four weeks there and still remain in touch with my classmates.

 Before starting the course in Prague, I had selected Plzen, a smaller city in the west, in which to start teaching. I had made a good friend there and knew she would be able to support me. Plus, it was closer to the German border and all of my relatives over there. Needless to say, the short week I spent at my friend’s house before starting the course did nothing to prepare me for life outside Prague.

Plzen is a lovely smaller town of about 200,000 inhabitants. I returned from Prague with all my heavy
luggage and moved back into my friend’s apartment while I attempted to find my own place to live. I had severely underestimated the speed of the Plzen realty market. Apartments would appear online only to be taken later that afternoon. My friend and her Czech boyfriend helped me as much as they could, but both were working full time. He ended up scheduling my appointments. I would meet with the realtor and communicate with their minimal German skills, the only language we had in common. Needless to say, awkward smiles, silences, and many hand gestures became the norm. I finally managed to secure a small studio on the third floor of a building tucked away in Slovany by the river. An absolutely peaceful and beautiful neighborhood that was just a quick tram ride away from the center.

I also had to settle all my paperwork. I procured my zivno, business license, within a week, and then had to find time to get my social security number and tax paperwork in order. My friend was absolutely invaluable during this time as all the officials only spoke Czech and I needed these things in order to work!

I did start at Eufrat Language School in the meantime with a part-time schedule. More and more classes were added until I had about a full schedule (for me) of 22 hours in the end of November. Eufrat has a central location and plenty of computer and printer/copier access for teachers. I met some of my fellow teachers quite quickly and received many offers of aid if I needed any help with anything. I taught an age range of 1st graders through adults and a mixture of Business English, conversational English, and general English, and some private classes. My trickier classes were definitely those with the middle schoolers. They are reluctant to speak up no matter where you are in the world. I greatly enjoyed my one-on-ones and more advanced speakers. We ended up with quite simulating discussions and managed to share a lot of each other’s cultures. I even helped one student with his online MBA. My dear 1st graders was another fun group. Week after week they were enthusiastic and up for any games and songs I threw at them. Despite the huge language barrier, I have never received so many smiles, hugs, or broken attempts at English.

 Honestly, I look back at those nine months with such happiness. A piece of my heart remains in the Czech Republic. I will definitely return! I’ve now been back in the US for 5 months and am constantly homesick for the delicious food, and friends I made. Truly an unforgettable experience laid out by my strong foundation in my TEFL course at The Language House. I highly recommend it to anyone! If you are looking for an excuse to live abroad, here it is. Now I’m planning for my next adventure, Japan!

Familiarizing

Aug 31, 2013

Gothic Cathedral

Park in the center.

I decided to go for another walk downtown on Saturday afternoon. It took about 20 minutes and really wasn’t far at all. I visited the Gothic Cathedral in the Plzen square which was built in the 1200s! Over by the town hall, there were three weddings going on!

I ambled around for a bit and saw some kids playing in fountain. The younger girl stripped down to her underwear afterward, how nice of a reminder that I am back in Europe.

After I returned, I played life for the first time, and it was in Czech! I picked a little vocab zaplat and vezumi to be able to read the cards, haha. That evening we had a garden party to celebrate Marek’s birthday. Their friends who also live in this building came as well. Luckily I could converse a bit because almost all of them spoke English. We grilled chicken, fish, and sausages. It was all very delicious! Lori made key lime pie, Czech version, for dessert.

Plzen town hall.

Then I went out with Lori and Claire, a friend who was visiting at the same time from England. We hit up a really nice bar with another Czech guy, and Connor who was South African/Irish. There’s so much smoke around here though! I keep forgetting how intense it is here in Europe. There was some great conversation to be had that night and I enjoyed myself. I ended up drinking tea as it got cooler with Lori. So yummy. Also it was a London tea! Some guy next to us ordered espresso. Nothing like a US bar, haha.

Sept 1, 2013

Lori and Marek cooked a wonderful American brunch with scrambled eggs and pancakes. I had some delicious homemade jam as well. There’s nothing better than that! We had a goodbye dinner with Claire at a sweet restaurant that used to be part of an old dungeon. You had to go down some narrow stairs and it was all stone around you. I ate dinner for only $6 at a nicer sit down place! The food was good, but pretty salty, which apparently is rather typical Czech.

Dobrý den!

Aug 28/29, 2013

The first flight out already affected my travel plans, grr. My plane to Chicago was delayed for an hour because of a flight attendant. She was supposed to be on a flight out of DC so they needed her to fly out asap. Her flight to DC was coming in an hour late, so they switched flights! They had my plane fly to DC then, and we had to wait for the hour late plane in order to fly to Chicago. Bah. Luckily I still got my connecting flight despite others missing theirs.

The rest wasn’t bad. I got sick with a cold right before that left me nauseous and feverish during the flights. The Dramamine conked me out. I slept through like all the flights! It was definitely easier to fly like this while sick. At Frankfurt, the guy at passport control even noticed how tired I was, haha.

After I arrived in Prague, I was worried that my suitcases would have gotten lost somewhere along the way because of all the layovers. But, they came! So heavy though: 45 and 42 pounds. I lugged them behind through customs declarations and the officer ran over immediately because I had two suitcases. >.< He just asked for my passport though and whether I had anything to declare, and then I was off.

I then had to find the Airport Express bus to take me to the downtown train station so I hit up an information booth that let me know where it was. I had great timing and actually caught the bus earlier than I thought I would. The bus was jammed packed for the 40ish minute drive. Got to see a bit of Prague along the way! So I managed to buy my ticket to Plzen, the lady understood me fine, yay! Only $5! I could have caught an earlier train, but since the people I am staying with for a week, Lori and Marek, were expecting me later, I just hung around. So weird being unable to understand anything! All the signs are in Czech, and it sounds so odd. Reminds of Russian and Ukrainian a bit.

Caught the train, which was mostly empty, and made it to Plzen shortly before 10 pm. It was a rather small train station and I made it all the way outside where I waited for about 20 minutes. Lori and Marek had to go borrow a larger car from his parents.

It was great meeting then both. We headed back to their apartment which is absolutely gorgeous! All nicely renovated and decorated. They live on the third floor so Marek helped me drag my suitcases all upstairs. They have two kitties, Pippa and Jack, that look pretty identical and are very cute! We chitchatted a bit. They are very easy to talk to and I enjoy the topics!

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Aug 30, 2013 

I managed to sleep seven hours through the first night, whoop! That morning I had some delicious yogurt without chunks, and strolled a bit around the neighborhood. It’s a nice area here with huge villas that were mostly split up during the Communist era.

I then went grocery shopping with Lori at Kaufland which was fun because a lot of the packages had German on it since it’s a German store. It’s interesting to see the food and prices. The food is pretty similar to European fare, with some Czech specialties. They still have bakeries with broetchen and pretzels here too.

Lori and I talked some more. We have a lot of things in common and it’s always great discussion. We went out for drinks at a café in the evening downtown. She showed me a bit around the center. It’s very interesting seeing which buildings were the Communist ones. So boring and ugly. They were stuck in between these gorgeous ones. I got to drink my favorite, bitter lemon, again! We took the street train there and back so it was very quick as well.

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Free wifi is so much easier to find here in Czech than in other countries! It’s so nice! All over downtown there are restaurants or bars that offer it. How nice!

The language seems so far out of my grasp, but I have to remember I’ve only been here shortly! There are couple words I remember when my friend tried to teach me a bit of Slovak. Like ahoi, dobry den, ano. But even the simplest things like please and thank you sound so hard. I think having a cold isn’t really helping with my pronunciation either.