Ivana Trump, Becherovka and swine flu

Laura's here. And though her sleeping schedule is still a bit off, we've managed to do quite a bit already. Yesterday, we wandered around Old Town and peaked inside a few churches. On our way from the Jewish cemetery, I took her down Parizska street — what I refer to as the "5th Avenue of Prague." Lots of famous brands have shops there, like Dior, Prada, D&G, etc. We were walking in front of the Rolex shop and Laura noticed some strange activity. I, of course, have gotten to the point here where I don't really pay attention to the surroundings anymore, just focus on where I'm going.

Anyway, there was a guy standing around with a huge camera, and the store clerk was waiting in the doorway, looking very well dressed and a little anxious. Then there was a guy in a suit standing in the middle of an empty parking spot in front of the store, stopping people from parking there. "Let's see what happens!" Laura said. So we did, and we waited. Then up rolls this fancy, black SUV, and an entourage leads this woman in. She had blonde hair pulled back and up and she was dressed in a pantsuit, I think. She walked up to the store clerk and they kissed on both cheeks. That's when I said (quite loudly) "Oh, it's Ivana Trump!" And then she disappeared inside the Rolex store.

Laura and I both agreed she looks really, really good for her age. Later, we Wikipediaed her back home to discover she is, in fact, from the Czech Republic. But at the moment, walking back into the square, we discussed how cool it would be to be wealthy and have such a scene unfold just for you to buy a watch. Somehow all that talk about the good life may have brushed off, because we decided to "be the tourist" and take a seat at one of the outdoor cafes in the square for a drink or two. They're notorious for being expensive, and we learned this as we took the waiter's advice and ordered a shot of Becherovka with our beers.

It's kind of a traditional Czech liqueur and it tastes very cinnamony. I've had it before, but never with a pint of beer. Interesting combo. Also, not so cheap.

Anyway, I'm still very much enjoying my upper level class. And they may in fact enjoy me, because they still show up or haven't switched classes. I did a lesson yesterday on "The Haves and Have Nots," and, somehow, we started talking about the swine flu — mainly because we were discussing how poorer countries don't have good health care. I really enjoy being able to talk about current topics in the classroom, but it did get a little strange as I tried to include the topic in our grammar lesson on reported speech — "I have swine flu." "He said he has swine flu."

Eh, you work with what you've got.

In the news

Before I forget, some things I read lately (mostly in the NY Times) that make mention of the Czech Republic and/or things of importance to my current situation:

Here's the first. Basically, it says migrant workers are fleeing the once promising cities in Europe and returning to their crappy homelands (Romania, snore!) because of the far-reaching effects of the global recession.

This bit was interesting:

The Czech government announced in February that it would pay 500 euros, or about $660, and provide one-way plane tickets to each foreigner who has lost his job and wants to go home.

They will pay you to leave. Similar to paying you to not work. Dang, too bad I don't have a job to lose, yet. I also wasn't aware so many younger Czechs run off to Dublin to find jobs. But I was struck by this one woman's rationalization for leaving Ireland and heading home:

While unemployment is also rising in the Czech Republic, “it is much easier to be at home with family and with friends and not to have a job,” she said, “than to be here and not to have a job.”

Amen to that.

Also, here's a story from the Prague Post, the English-language paper here, that tries to shed some light on the visa issues we teachers are facing in Prague. I say "tries" because, pardon the snark, but it looks like it was written for a college journalism class. Be sure to take a look at the photo — that's my teacher, David, and my friends Shannon and Hannah sitting in the background (appearing to be in deep conversation while David teaches. Nice.).

And finally, a guy from my homeland got detained in Prague and promptly sent back to Louisiana. Who, you ask? Oh, just this guy. So that's what he's been up to! I never thought to ask until now.

Czechs don't blog

I apparently have the largest class out of any of the teachers at Oxford right now. Figures. But I don't mind. It's about 20 students total, I usually get around 15. They're upper level, so they're more talkative. And they seem to be more interested in conversation than exercises and grammar lessons. Which is fine by me. I mean, I can write up gap-fills and matchings and reading exercises till the cows come home and then leave again. But I'd much rather just moderate conversations and role playing. 

So far, I've taught them how to express their opinions on world issues and I taught a lesson on blogs and their various uses. They really enjoyed the world issues lesson — mainly because I had an exercise where each of them would read a statement and the other had to give their view. I gave them a list of phrases to use and then demonstrated with exaggerated renditions ("You CAN'T be serious!" "You MUST be joking!"). It was fun listening to them use it in their groups.

They seemed to be interested in the blogs lesson and had lots of questions, but the second half was supposed to have them brainstorm blogs they would start and pitch their ideas to the class. They weren't into it. I should've known this when my tally of who had a blog consisted of me and the only Asian student in the class. As one student told me, "Why would you want to put all your personal information on the Internet? You will be vulnerable!" That led to a discussion of anonymity.

Then they asked me for the Web site of my blog and I kind of changed the subject.

This week, though, I'm going to talk about money and the "haves and have nots." That phrase was in one of their reading assignments and few of them knew what it meant. So off my mind wandered. We're mostly going to discuss trade-offs — would you give up this if you could have that? Would you buy this over that? And I think I'll try to find a way to talk about charity organizations like kiva.org, which let you loan money to poor people in third world countries so they can start a business. Do organizations like this help? Would you be willing to donate directly to a struggling business over just a general aid group?

Next week's lessons will probably be about advertising and the art of persuasion. I think it helps when the lessons revolve around current events. 

Anyway, all that aside I'm excited because tomorrow morning I'm picking up a good friend at the airport. Yay, Laura! It'll be nice to see Prague again through the eyes of someone who's never been here before.

Which reminds me, I need to finish cleaning my room.

Chleb

That's "bread" in Czech. I was reminded today that even though I'm getting tired of heavy Czech food, the bread is still amazing. I walked down to the grocery store this morning because I was out of shampoo and decided to see what was in the bakery. Czech bakeries are amazing things. There are a few aisles of huge wooden crates, each filled with different types of bread and rolls. You have your usual croissants and long, skinny loaves, then you have all these other shapes. Some are topped with poppy seeds, some with sesame seeds, and even some with pumpkin seeds.

I found these this morning:

The first thing that sold me was that they were warm. When I brought them home and tried one: Heaven. Buttery and garlicky and a little bit of cracked salt on top. I try to go for something new each time, but I think I'll come back to these again. 

Anywho, Life Update Time:

I have a sorta teaching job! Oxford TEFL is letting me teach two 90-minute classes a week for the next four weeks. I start this evening with an upper-level group and I'm really looking forward to it. The thought of getting to try out a few more methods I learned has got me giddy, which I guess is a good thing. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Kaplice, the best place ever? Um, no.

A bunch of us went on a two-day road trip to Cesky Krumlov this weekend that turned into nearly a five-day trip for a few of us. Cesky Krumlov is, like, one of the most photographed little towns in the Czech Republic. And rightly so, it's gorgeous with a castle perched on a cliff and the Vltava winding ridiculously through town. 

After getting our fill of the village life for two days, Nathan, Shannon and I decided to hop a bus to the nearby Sumava National Park. Lots of trees and mountains on the German/Austrian border. We picked a village called Kaplice to make our home base while we hiked the wilderness. 

The hour-long bus ride took us to Kaplice, yes. But a completely different town of the same name in the opposite direction from Cesky Krumlov, famous for not really anything and close to virtually nothing of interest. The Lonely Planet guidebook does not let you in on this important bit of information.

It was a Sunday, so nearly everything was closed. Thus, the ghost town-like scene that spread out before us:

We tried to make the best of it, wandering around town, getting weird looks from locals pondering why these backpackers were here. We did find its "bustling" town center and a place for lunch that was open. Then we went back to the bus stop and waited and waited for a bus to bring us back to Cesky Krumlov. 

Shannon had to go back the next day, but Nathan and I did eventually make it to the park and took a five-hour hike through some really great scenery.

Lesson learned: Make sure no other town shares the name of the town you want to go to. Or, just travel by train from now on. That seems to be worry-free.

Easter picnic

So Easter Sunday was a fantastic day. Nathan, Sarah and I spent most of the day chillin' on a blanket at Letna park. It's across the river to the north of Old Town and is perched on a hill overlooking the city. A great place to spend a lazy afternoon. We've made friends with a bunch of the students in the Oxford course that followed ours and they came out to meet us for a while. The good news is there was a beer garden nearby and you could take your plastic cup of beer with you. Very nice, indeed.

The most productive we were was when Nathan broke out his harmonica and we tried to come up with our own Blues song. Otherwise, we played card games, munched on all the food we brought and did some people watching. 

Aren't days like that great?

Spring is here, lemurs are, too

So, waaaaaayyyyy way late on updating the blog. You'd think with all my joblessness, I'd have so much time to spend updating this thing. But no. Spring arrived in Prague just as I returned from Paris and it has taken up my time. It's a welcome change from the dreary weather of Central Europe I've been experiencing since I got here. There are people hanging out by the river, swans and other waterfowl swimming about, people paddling and running and riding bikes, flowers are all pretty and bloomin', restaurants and pubs are opening their outdoor decks, lemurs are hopping about.

Yeah, lemurs.

Today, I went to the zoo with a few friends. It's apparently one of the top ten zoos in the world? Who knew? It's pretty awesome, if only for the fact that you can actually chill out in the same space as a lemur, or many lemurs for that matter. What other zoo allows that? Of course, you can't actually touch the lemurs. They can touch you, though, so it's a bit like a strip club, I'd imagine. I bought an annual pass because, at about $30, it's a good investment, as I plan to go back. Plus, we discovered a huge public park on the way there that's just begging for a picnic. Prague doesn't have a lot of green space and the ones it does are kind of awkward. There's Petrin Hill, the dominant, tree-covered hill next to the castle, but that's more for strolling on an incline. This is a sprawling park with open spaces and a pond or two. It's quite huge.

I think that's where we might spend Easter Sunday. Several of us have decided to have a picnic for Easter and I intend to bring chocolate bunnies and candies in the shape of eggs and some fake plastic grass (if I can find that last one). 

So, springtime aside: Life Update Time!

Sigh, I'll try to keep this short because spring has me in a good mood and I don't want to ruin it. I've been on an interview since I came back to Prague. That's one, singular interview. It went incredibly well, but they told me as soon as it was done that they wouldn't hire me. It seems they and many other language schools like them are running into snags when it comes to trying to help foreigners get working papers. The Czech Republic and many EU countries are starting to put holds on working visas because of the global recession. This particular school had to fire several American teachers who were in the process of acquiring their visas but recently found out that they hadn't been approved.

I'm hearing lots of mixed reports on this. Some people tend to think it's a product of the economic crisis and likely not to get better until the economy does. Others say it's cyclical and those in charge will eventually start allowing more visa applications through in a few months as it gets closer to the fall semester.

Either way, it's not a good time. I took a day trip yesterday to a town in the northern part of the Czech Republic to meet a connection I have (from Louisiana!) who teaches there and he told me how his business isn't doing so well. He contracts out to companies to do in-house English teaching with their employees. Services companies provide like that tend to get cut pretty quickly in an economic crisis, I guess.

As he said, it's a very different time than nearly 20 years ago (when he first arrived in Europe), when all you had to do was walk into a school, tell them you were a native English speaker, and you were hired.

It wasn't a complete loss, though, going out there to speak to him. He gave me some advice on a few more places to look. I already have another interview set up next week and I plan to set my sights in a few new directions based on our conversation.

I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I'm enjoying my loads of free time here. I'm renting a room in a flat just a few blocks from the river. It's a neighborhood I really love and my street's quiet. I have three flatmates — a Brit named Evonne, a Swede named Bjorn and, I think, an Italian named Fabio. They mostly do their own things (work or go to school), but they are all very friendly, when I do get to see them.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting my Oxford friends to check out an Easter market in Town Square, which reminds me: An early Happy Easter to everyone!

PS — Sorry about the messed-up link in that last e-mail. I'm trying to figure out an easy way to show you guys my tons of photos. Blogger takes forever to load photos, so I'm trying to come up with an alternative. Any ideas anyone could give would be appreciated.

Obama: "Any Americans in the house say 'Yeah!'"

So, I got to see Obama on Sunday. I'll get back to the blog with a recap of what's been going on since I returned to Prague (sorry, flat hunting took up a lot of my time). But for now, I wanted to post a link to my Facebook album to see if this would actually work. It's much easier for me to post photos on Facebook than here, so someone let me know if the link works (you can delegate amongst yourselves who that will be, k thx).

Here's some shots from Obama's speech.