Rough Take Off....

Soo.. after the end of 4 long days, it feels like I have been in Prague 4 weeks.
We left West Chester around 10.. and had smooth sailing to JFK, had a nice lunch at the Holiday Inn JKF , NY and smooth sailing to the CSA Airlines gate. Said goodbye to dad outside at the curb and mom walked me in. Had a sad, tearful, goodbye to mom, little did I know I would be calling my parents again in like 10 minutes to come pick up some of my stuff because BOTH of my bags were overweight. Talk about off to a rough start. So after saying good bye again, unpacking and re-packing bags in the JFK airport and finally lugging my bags to baggage check, I thought it was only to appropriate to find a bar near my terminal. I had a beer and baorded my plane with about 30 minutes to spare.
The 8 hour plane ride wasn't bad.. had dinner and breakfast with abour 2 hours of sleep in between. I met an artist from NY who was going to Prague to open a gallery (which I will be attending on Thursday night with some of my TEFL friends.) Only complaint- the TV was about 5 rows in front of me... I can deal with that.
Landed in Prague, breezed through customs, and went to meet Jaromir- the Owner of the Lamguage House, where I am studying. He was about 20 minutes late so I called his cell phone ( 20 minutes in a foreign airport, on 2 hours of sleep, with 100+ pounds of luggage to carry around really feels like 2 hours- which gave me a lot of time to consider/reconsider/consider/reconsider... my decision to move to Prague- Academy Park was sounding pretty good right about then...) But it worked out Jaromir - who goes by Mirka did show up and he helped me with my bags and gave me a mini audio tour of the city on the way to the hotel from the airport. He only through me off with his question of "Can you perform to me a favor...?" My sleep deprived response "uhhh I guess so..." Turns out he just wanted me to deliver a welcome packet to this girl Nicole who he had dropped off at the hotel the night before, but had forgotten to give it to her. No issue there. However the issue came when my room wasn't ready at the hotel... so its around 7:45 AM in Prague and Mirka had to leave- but only after he voiced his complaint about the room not being ready. (The owner of the hotel is a former TEFL graduate) So what to do... receptionist stored my bags for me and promised me a room by 11 and suggested I go to the basement for "free" breakfast. * Last week they sent out an email to the TEFL students in the hotel saying we weren't to take advantage of the complimentary breakfast offer since we were alrady getting reduced rooms, however I am certainly not one to turn down a free breakfast, and what else was I going to do in this strange city? and -side note- we have taken advantage of breakfast every morning, even packing our lunches at breakfast to take to school per Mirka's advice.
My room was finally ready around 9:30... I spelt until 12:30 and then met up with another TEFL student to do some exploring in the magnificient city. All of the buildings are so beautiful, it is hard to believe I will be living here...We found the school, ordered and enjoyed our first meal in Prague, got new cell phones, and did some shopping for basic things we forgot (toothpaste.)
That night we met another TEFL student who is staying at the hotel, we all went out to dinner and then to a little DJ bar afterwards- where we felt it necessary to sample every drink on the menu ( a menu completely in Czech mind you) so we could try to learn some of the langauge- so we made drinking educational... who would have thought? LOL
Then went home (to the hotel) completely exhausted... ok so that was ALL FRIDAY.- tired of reading yet, yeah?

Saturday...woke up around 11:30, and it was freezziinnggg... around 50 degrees all day and windy. Met with the other students around 1. Had a wonderful lunch of Lamb Sausages on the water near the Charles Bridge (Karluv Most) and explored around Old City until about 6. It wouldnt have taken us so long except we got so ridiculously lost in the craziest part of Prague. NONE of the streets are straight so you walk for 5 minutes and your sense of direction is completely thrown off. All of the streets circle each other and intersect and have tunnels that aren't labeled... it was sheer craziness. A few hours later we met up with another student, went to a local Polica pub, had some Pilsner Urquell for 30 crowns each ( for those of you not familar a dollar is 20 crown, you do the math... $1.50 beers- hell yea!) When we got back to the hotel Mirka had just dropped off 2 more TEFL students so there are 4 of us here total, and the rest are in flats right outside the city.)
We went to dinner that night- I ordered a burger because the food porn ( yes there is food porn everywhere- millions of pictures of the dishes in menus, windows, placemats...) looked absolutely delicious and it was-were talking McDonalds hungover good, we are talking melt in your mouth like Dove chocolate good, we are talking refreshing Natty Light from Uncle Pat's basement good... you get the picture. After dinner we went to the Legenda Music Bar.. lucky for us it was pool party night, real blow up pool, floatie toys, sand and waiters in bathing suits (pictures to follow.) It was a lot of fun and gave us a chance to get to know eachother more... we all made it home around 4 AM..? (bars here open till the sun comes up, literally, seriously.) So that ends day 2...
Sunday- finaly getting adjusted to the jet lag, but woke up with a killer headache (wonder why..) that lasted most of the day. And Pharmacy's are closed on Sundays and hard to find, and once you find them, you need to knoe the EXACT name of what you need because everythign is locked up- thankfully I found one today and the pharmacist spoke english and I was able to buy ibuprofen. Back to Sunday- Went exploring again with some of the girls to try and find a grocery store for a few snack to have at the hotel- it took us about an hour to find somethign we were literally no more than 100 meters from the entire time while following street signs for it, because it was in the BASEMENT of a strip store, who would have thought to look there? Got a few snacks and went home to nap for a few hours...
That night 6 of us went to dinner at a real CZECH restaurant and it was DELICIOUSSSS!!! I had fried cheese ( there amazing version of mozarella sticks that don't taste like old fried oily stuff, but actually like warm gooey cheese) and beef sirloin in a cream sauce with bread and potato dumplings and cranberry sauce... wow, my mouth is watering just typing this. Probably a once a month type meal or I will weigh a million pounds when I come back haha. And of course had a few beers ( since beer is about half the price of everything other beverage) and then we went home to preapre for our first day of class.
Monday- first day of class!! Very excited that we actually start at 9:30, not 9...like I had originally though- yay! Met our instructor and others in the class, got an overview of the course and went on a 4 hour tour of the city- which ended at the Czech restaurant Dnkinmbe (spelling..?) for our Welcome Dinner. The TEFL instructors treated us to dinner, and drinks of course, and it was a delicious after hiking it through the city, seeing the Castle and a million other things, and learning how to ride the metros (under ground) and the trams ( above ground) Before we left dinner we were given our first assignment- come prepared tomorrow to do a 15 minute "How to" lesson... I went home and planned my lesson and finally fell asleep around midnight. I haven't been sleeping that well here, but I am hoping that will change- I thinik the pillows are too soft and hurt my neck, so last night I slept with 2 pairs of jeans under my pillows and it helped A LOT.
Today was our 2nd day of class. We arrived and jumped right into some lecturing and "demo" ing of lessons and how to make a lesson plan. We break for lunch between 1-2. There is a nice grassy park (a fav. spot for the homeless guys and also for public urination- which is legal here) but when you can get past that, the park is actually really nice, just stay under your tree, or in the sun and away from the bushes and you are golden. We have been eating lunch with about 8 of the 15 TEFL students so we have really been getting to know eachother, and suprisingly are getting along really well! There is one lady in out class who we think may do coke... or is recovering from rehab- somethign is just a little off- more to come on her later, because SURPRISE- she is in my teaching group.
This afternooon we did our "How to" lessons. Mine was on "How to pour like a pro" so I taught my class a few simple bartending skills. I think mine went well, there are definately things I could have done better once I looked back and did soem self reflecting, but overall not a bad start. We will get our evals. from our instructor back tomorrow. After class we dropped some stuff off at the hotel and Nicole, Kelly and I (2 girls in the hotel who I have gotten to know really well) took teh metro and the tram- ALL BY OURSELVES and went to the mall ( girly) to look for girly things like travel coffee (kava) mugs, and hair straightners (I think I blew mine out...) and wallets. With not much success we had a Mongolian BBQ dinner- sort of like chicken Lo Mein and made our way back home on the metro.
Ok that is probably the longest blog I will ever write... and thats my first 4 days in Prague. The first day I was on the verge of tears, and reallyyy reconsidering my choice to make such a big move at this time in my life. I really miss my family and friends, and after 2 days in class the next month is going to be completely crazy and challenging and I wish you guys were here to support me through my 7 hours of lecture during the day and 3 hours of teaching at night...(yeah that starts next week) but I know you guys are there, and that you do support me and honestly after just 4 quick days... I think I am falling in love with Prague.