Dessert

Lest anyone think I'm having a hard life over here I just wanted to show you my dessert I'm having today. 

Yep, it tastes as good as it looks. They really like their sweets here in CR. Every supermarket as about 2 isles devoted to candy bars and chocolate. This one is some kind of mixed berry something or other. It's not really a tart or a cake. It's sort of like a pie with no crust. The little sign it was behind in the case said "Ovocny Rez" I have no idea what that means and when I said it to the waitress she made me point out what I wanted so maybe it means "Dessert" or something general. Oh the joys of monolingualism!

First Week Ever

So I've gotten through the first week. What have I learned so far?

1. I speak to fast.

2. I speak too much.

3. When someone looks you in the eye and nods, they may or not understand a word you said.

4. People here like to talk about politics.

5. People want to speak English but are not good with open ended questions. 

6. I really need to find some things about which I can ask specific questions.

7. I've got a long way to go. 

There's plenty more but #7 sort of catches all that. 

I went through the whole week asking each class if they had anything they wanted to talk about that day or at any time in the future. You could hear a pin drop. Then on Friday I got through a whole class in the same manner when Petr Konopik came to my rescue. He's one of the first people I met here. He helped put in the swings and leads the music from time to time. He stopped me and said, "I have a question about something that is not on the topic we are speaking on." Then went on to suggest a few things he would like to work on in future lessons. This opened the floodgate and we got tons of great suggestions. I was like, "Yes finally, thank you Petr!"

So now I've got a lot more to go on. I'm pretty optimistic about how things are going. I've got about three classes with about 10 people and a few with one or two. So I've got a good mix of things to do so it won't (hopefully) get into a rut. 

On a little side note. My wifi signal mysteriously went to nothing yesterday so I don't know how much I can post for a little while. Not that I was burning up the bandwidth as it is. I'm in a cafe around the corner from my apartment. Hi!

Oh this week is their 4th of July in a way. The current Republic was founded on 28 October 1918. It's not as big a deal here as 4th of July I don't think. Nobody seems to be all that workd up. But they do get the day off and so I might also. Although I only had one girl on Tuesday last week and she might be switching to a different day anyway. I may have every Tuesday off for all I know. 

Na Shledanou!

I'm Popeye the sailor man, I live in a garbage can. . .

That's not commentary on my living conditions. My apartment is quite nice. But that's how the little song we sang when I was a kid goes. I can't remember all the permutations of it. The only one I can remember is

I'm Popeye the sailor man
I live in a garbage can
I eat all the worms and spit out the germs
I'm Popeye the sailor man. Woo Wooo!

So why am I reminiscing about silly playground songs from my childhood? I ate big ol' plate of spinach today, that's why! For those of you that don't know me this is a big deal. So big that I would actually waste your time in my blog with it. I'm not big on green stuff unless it's a pepper of some sort. And leafy green stuff is an even bigger challenge. Then when you take said leafy green stuff and cook it for hours, I'm even less likely to eat it. Eeeww!

Well today I had an English class at Maranatha from 9:00-11:00 in the morning. Every Thursday they have a Communion then everyone eats lunch together. It's a really cool thing they do here. So I stuck around for that stuff after my class.

When I sat down to eat though I got an unpleasant surprise. The gave me a plate that looked a lot like this. So of course the first thing I thought was, "Uh-oh, that looks a lot like spinach. Oh that's not good. " But when someone is nice enough to offer you food you eat it. You don't turn your nose up like some spoiled brat. So I made up my mind that I'd just suck it up and power through the meal and hope that the dumplings, knedliky in Czech, would make the rest of it eatable.  Then I started eating it and I was like, "Oh. . . this is good! It must be something else. Maybe it's a bunch of chopped parsley and herbs. Alright! I can eat this, I can do it!"  So after I'd eaten about half of it I asked Slavo what it was. He said, "Spinach, duh!" Actually didn't say "Duh." I don't think they know that word here. But it seemed obvious to him that it was spinach and of course it was.

By the way, Czechs eat really fast. At these Thursday lunches I'm always the last one to finish. I don't know how they do it. Even the little old ladies eat faster than I do. And lunch is the main meal of the day here so the portions are quite large. They are an amazing people. They must think I'm a sissy. 

Anyway, the English classes are going well. It's looking like most people don't want to work with text books and do drills all class long. I'm psyched because that means we will get to talk about general stuff they like to talk about and I can learn what's going on here. Assuming of course that I can trick them into telling me what they like to talk about. But it's coming along and I'm getting much more comfortable with it everyday. 

More to come 

I'm a teacher now, or that's what I tell people anyway.

The classes are going pretty well. I had two today (Wednesday). It's really hard to get Czech people to talk. You can ask them questions and they just look at you with a totally blank expression on their face. It's pretty funny. Anyway I got through a whole class using these text books after I had asked if they wanted to use them or not. Then at the end they all said they didn't want to use the books. It worked out fine. They all just want to work on conversation and pick up a few new words that way. Which is great but the trick is getting them to talk. It's much easier when it's just one or two people. You can usually find something they like to talk about. But they won't tell you what they want to talk about. It's a challenge for sure but it is mostly funny to me right now. In bigger groups there's usually one or two people that will speak up but the rest just look at the table. I hope they all come back but I've been told to expect some people to only show up once. Which is a bummer.  But even after just three days and four classes I'm already much more comfortable with the whole deal.

Sorry no photos this time either. When I know my students are going to stick around I will try to get them to let me take their photos for the blog. Hopefully they'll be more cooperative than some people (wink wink) I know.

The Big Day

Well here it is. I've got my first English class in about an hour. Slavo and I have been getting it all organized and now it's finally going to happen. 

Fortunately I've got books to follow so I won't have to wing it. This class is made up of adults that want a more structured, grammar oriented lesson. That's cool we can do that. No problem. I hope. 

What will be tricky are the ones without the books. So far we don't have any but if teenagers start to come they will not want to do grammar 'cause they get so much at school and the teachers here apparently are not very nice. Evidently it's a bit scary to speak up in class because they get on your case if you're wrong. I have heard that many of English teachers were Russian or German teachers before and don't like teaching English. I hope that's not true.  But hopefully I can make it fun for everybody. I certainly won't be giving anyone a hard time for being wrong.

I'll let y'all know how it goes.

I love Muppets

OK so this is totally out of nowhere I know. But I came across some Muppet Show stuff on youtube. I always loved the Muppets. Never got into Fraggle Rock though. I'm that old that it was after my time. Ooof! That hurts.

Anyway it may seem dumb now but the Muppet Show was so great.
 

They had Dizzy Gillespie on singing Swing Low (Sweet Cadillac).  So we little dudes and dudettes got some culture. Check it out!  Just click here to see the video. Then come back so we can discuss. Make sure you come back though. It will be tempting to watch a bunch of Muppet Show and Dizzie Gillespie videos. It's cool I know but come back. You can play with that stuff later.

So that was so totally awesome! Wasn't it?

So maybe, just maybe Sesame Street and The Muppet Show contributed to me having a short attention span and the erroneous idea that learning should always be fun. It's totally worth it! I don't know if there's a DVD of the old show but there absolutely should be. One day I would like to have kids so I can show them stuff like this. That's not the only reason of course, no no. I'm not a complete weirdo. 

Hey! I'm not! Really! I know what y'all are thinking.

Bye Bye

Karlovy Vary

So this is the lovely town of Karlovy Vary in western Bohemia. It's about 30 minutes from the border with Germany.  This means it has a very different feel from Plzen for many reasons that I will get into. The town is famous in this part of the world for the hot springs and the spas that grew up around them. King Charles discovered the hot spring hundreds of years ago. Karlovy Vary was a favorite vacation destination for Peter The Great of Russia. As a result Russians love to come here. 

In fact the Russians have a huge impact here. For one thing, well I might as well go back to the beginning of what I know. For as long as anyone could remember Germans and Czechs lived in Karlovy Vary and got along fine.  But when Hitler rose to power he saw it as something he could use. The infamous Munich Agreement, you know "Peace in our time" and all that gave this part of the Republic, the famous Sudetenland, to Germany and the nazis. 

As one might expect there were lots of hard feelings at the end of WWII and all the Germans were kicked out. They were literally driven from their homes. So as the Communists took over the Russians again began to impose on the Czechs here. Apparently they filled the vacated German homes with people from Bulgaria and Serbia and wherever they felt like shipping people in from. I hope I'm not boring anyone with the history lesson but it really explains the way things are now for me. 

One of the things the commies did in every town was to build a huge "cultural center" building in town. It was mostly a way for them to say that "We have all the power and will do what we want." They built a big ol' building right on top of the hot springs.  Here I am in my embarrassing tourist pose.

The whole building is mostly glass except for that wall behind me to the right. What you can't tell from the picture is that on the other side of the wall just across the street is the Russian Orthodox Church. They very obviously blocked the Church on purpose just to show disrespect. There's no functional reason to put a brick wall up where they did. It's just there to say, "We are in control here." 

So anyway now the Russians are back. But now they're just gangster businessmen. During the communist era many of the buildings were allowed to run down. They're 100s of years old remember. Now Russians are bringing tons of money into the town and things are being fixed up which is great. But the Russians kind of own the town now which understandably rubs the Czechs the wrong way. 

Even with all that it is a very nice little town and one of the most beautiful I've ever been in. You really feel like your big "E" Europe here.  I mean just look at it. 

A couple other notable things are that movies are filmed here from time to time because it's so pretty. Casino Royale, the James Bond movie was filmed here. This building below is the actual "Casino Royale" where he was playing poker or whatever. 

One of the most famous buildings which I did not take a picture of was the Grand Hotel Pupp (pronounced Poop, hee hee hee) Apparently Last Holiday starring Queen Latifa was filmed there. Deidre says it's a good movie but beyond the Czech landmark I'm not sure it's my kind of thing ;) Oh and James Bond (Daniel Craig) ran down the street in front of the Hotel Pupp in his movie. Just to be sure you know, this picture is not the Pupp. 

As you could see fall is in full swing here in the CR. I'm glad I made it to Karlovy Vary when I did. The trees are really pretty.

I'm very much looking forward to coming back again when the snow comes it should be just as gorgeous. Speaking of gorgeous check out the UMC Church in Karlovy Vary.

Deidre can correct me if I'm wrong but I think her classroom where she does her English lessons in the Church. How awesome would it be to go to work here everyday? Unfortunately they don't have Church services here on Sundays. They've got a really big challenge in Karlovy Vary. Mila and Deidre are doing really well getting teenagers to come in for lessons and camps and whatnot. It's just a really tough place to get people interested in Church. Mila is a pretty amazing guy and does so much good here in KV. I don't know if I explained, Mila is the main representative of the UMC here in Karlovy Vary and "looks after" Deidre. Not that she needs looking after, she can handle herself fine. But I know it's got to be great to have him a minute away. 

So that's pretty much it. Deidre still won't let me take her picture. For some reason she thinks I've been telling everyone that she's late all the time. I must have imagined it or something. She's never late. That whole story about us being late that day in Prague was all my fault. It turns out that nobody ever noticed Deidre being late to anything. So she is not a late person, I fully retract and regret any implication that I may have given to this effect. And I apologize wholeheartedly.  Somehow I think I may have just dug myself a lot deeper.

Greetings from Prague

Hey everybody. Guess what? I'm in Prague!
Don't worry about that dude behind me. He's just some random KFC patron. Yeh, the KFC here has wifi so I thought I'd take the opportunity to check in. 

I've come up to Prague to meet with the guy who teaches  English for the HQ UMC Church. It's been really helpful so see how he does things. I'm feeling a little better about getting going. 

Slavo and I have been working on a schedule and price scheme for the classes. All we need now are students and a curriculum. I'm hoping to iron that out this week. 

Shoot, now that I've got the chance I can't really think of much to write about. Prague is a really cool town. The buildings are all pretty amazing. Even the Borg-like commie "Culture Center" building was impressive in an evil Star Trek cyborg army kind of way. 

I did manage to get a better photo of the creepy skull post on the Charles Bridge. Check it out, I have this as my wallpaper on my phone. 

I'm hoping I can get this better image onto it somehow. I feel like I need to hurry up and get out of here. But really in CR they don't care if you linger after a meal. You have to pretty much chase your server down and ask for the bill or they'll let you sit there all night.  Nevertheless, I feel a bit exposed writing on a laptop in KFC.

Well, I'll try to get some photos of the the Church compound here in Prague. It's pretty wild. You could walk past it on the street and not even see it. I've walk past it several times on accident already. (Update: I got some photos after all) But when you get inside the doors there's a whole big courtyard and tons of apartments that belong to the Church. I'm actually staying in a small apartment at the Church while I'm here. It's 200Kc (about $12) a night. Not bad. Especially since Maranatha is paying for it. The only thing is I apparently do not have hot water. Now I took cold showers in Nicaragua and didn't mind a bit. But when it's 50 degrees outside and your water is about -20 you don't really want to get too much of it on you. Therefor I might be pretty funky by the time I get home. 
This is the actual Church.

And these below are some of the apartments owned by Church. They were burned in a fire a few weeks ago and they've been working to get them restored ever since. My apartment was not up there but over by the Church.

I may be even funkier because I'm thinking about swinging over to Karlovy Vary to visit Deidre before I head back to Plzen. She has started her classes so I kind of want to see how they're doing things over there.  She thinks we'll be doing vastly different kinds of lessons. I'm sure she's right but I still can use all the input I can get my hands on to figure out how to teach the Plzners. 

All right. I think that's going to be it for now. 

Ciao