last week we had casey's parents, next week my parents... right now we've got andy and robin. when will it be you?

got the job at the washington international school!! so i'll be working in georgetown with cute bilingual children. really excited about it. we're hoping to find an apartment in the city or maybe just outside. small, safe, hopefully nearby some method of public transportation, since we'll only have 1 car. so, if anyone knows of anything opening up near the end of august...

never thought we'd say it, but we're really excited about coming back. it's going to be sooooo hard to leave prague though. sooo hard. this city is incredible- we could stay here forever if only all of our friends and family would just move here!

okay bye!

for the last 3 nights, we've sat out on our balcony at 7 or 8 and sipped wine and looked at our city. it's the best. it's hot during the day, but breezy enough to still be nice, but between 7 and 9 at night it's perfect. plus the wine bar downstairs has liters of wine (not too bad either) for 54 crowns. that's about 2 dollars. life is good.

i think i might have a job teaching second grade at the washington international school in georgetown starting at the end of august. (it's leah, by the way :) we're going to live in dc!

it's official. our flight is august 12-the end of our life in prague (at least for the time being). it's going to be really hard to leave, but that's the best time to leave a place we think.. you know, when things are still great. it's going to be an exciting summer, especially because we'll have so many visitors who want to make it here before we leave - for the free place to stay and free tours of the city - at least tours of our favorite pubs. book your flights!

it feels like such a luxury now, having the internet in our apartment. no more frustrating afternoons when the greatnewtechnology called wireless doesn't work at the cafe where we already bought the coffee, and so we have to sit there and drink it (and pay for it) when we could have gone to a regular internet place with computers that work. no more going to regular internet places to spend money on computer time when we have this greatnewtechnology which was supposed to work at the other place. no more fighting over the computers in the teacher's room to quickly respond to emails in the 15 minutes before a class starts...

but, it's also a curse, having it here. it's been 3 days, and already we take fewer naps (even though casey is napping next to me at the moment) and then there's that glazed over look when one of us is on the internet with makes conversation difficult.

how do you balance it? how do you use the internet enough, but not too much that it gets in the way of real life, and napping? it's a difficult question..

so, we'll be posting more livejournals, but because we need our nap/cuddle time, it won't be too often.

i think i'll go spoon my husband now.

something.

haha.

brock says hi. he's our second, yes second, visitor to prague. who wants to be third?
first came phred, who was a crazy wild party animal- when we went home at midnight, he stayed out with our friends until five a.m. great fun! sadly, he got sick and had to leave early, which he claimed was a virus, but we know the truth. brock, on the other hand, arrived with illness and has miraculously been cured. it must be the pollution.

so, if you need to get over being sick or just being sick and tired of where you are, we have a very comfortable futon (right, brock?) and a shower that works most of the time. it's not so neccesary, to casey's relief, to be well-bathed here.

If you haven't noticed, its now officially spring in Prague. Throw out your jacket. Kick off your shoes. unzip your fly. The weather is balmy (in a snowy way), the breeze is gentle (yet rough) and the tourists are sweaty. How do you like your washington/new york/wherever else winters? I already have a tan, and its only march. I am lifeguarding on the side.

(that was casey)
okay, well bye! we miss you guys.

Current Mood: geeky

the subject line is a little misleading, because i didn't actually go swimming naked...

yesterday i went swimming with one of my (czech-canadian) friends. we went to an awesome modern pool. there was an olympic-sized indoor pool (with those big diving platforms) and a heated outdoor pool, which was really cool, since it was so cold outside. it felt like being in a huge hot tub, just not as hot. people were swimming laps, but not like we americans do. there weren't any lanelines- everyone just kind of casually made their way up and down the pool, staying out of each other's way. occasionally a very large woman would swim right in front of me- i think she was confused about the direction of traffic, but other than that, no problems. and everyone swam with their head above water- sidestroke and modified breast stroke (without going under water) were the most popular strokes. i looked a little funny i think, in my goggles, swimming the crawl.

anyway, so after the swimming, in was time for the sauna. i should mention that when we first went into the locker room, i was a little taken aback with all the nakedness, but realized that it was no big deal, so i was prepared for the sauna experience. i am not particularly shy about changing in front of people, probably less shy than most americans, but i have to admit that it was a weird feeling just walking around naked, and sitting in a hot small room with a bunch of other (naked) women. but i did it. and it was pretty fun! i felt very european, and my friend said she was proud of me for embracing the nakedness as i did. we're going again on wednesday...

so why is it that we are so embarrassed of our bodies in the states? when you think about it, it's weird not to be naked, right?

haven't written in a long time, i know... you see, we don't have the internet in our apartment. and hanging out at internet cafes is rare now that we're properly employed.

but no worries! monday, this monday, 4 days from now, we'll be in maryland again. for three whole weeks! we're bringing home lots of pictures, which will hopefully persuade you all to come visit us here in this wonderful city.

it really is a wonderful city. i'm not exactly sure whether my daily thrill with living here is due to the fact that it's prague, it's european, it's a city (and we live in the center), or just that i'm usually rather happy anyway. i think it's a combination of all of these things. i love taking the metro, being able to run downstairs for some soap (which we really need right now- down to a sliver) or milk, power-walking through those obnoxious tourists to get to my next class, being invited to the pub with my students...

the other night we went out with my "post-secondary" students. these are kids who just finished high school and aren't in college but are continuing their studies to maintain their tax/benefits status as "students". so yeah, they're basically high school students. and i never wanted to be a high school teacher. it's been going okay- sometimes they send cell phone messages while i teach, but that's to be expected, right? but today, after our pub night out, the class went great! so, it's my new approach to classroom management- drink with your students, and they'll respect you more.

see you soon! yippee!!
(by the way, this entry was written by leah- can you tell?)

Current Mood: excited

can you believe it? these crazy czechs don't celebrate thanksgiving! neither do british people! today is a normal work day. still, we're going to go out to special dinner at our favorite $4 for pad thai restaurant. yum. but saturday, we have been invited to a thanksgiving potluck with some american friends- no turkey, chicken instead, and we're bringing the mashed potatoes. not exactly sure how to make them, but i figure if we have the potatoes and enough butter and salt it'll be delicious, right? hmmm...

so even though they don't celebrate thanksgiving here, everyone knows about it. this is because in school when they learn english, they also learn all about britain and america. in the classrooms where i teach, there are always maps of england and posters with information that i certainly didn't know. one of my students asked for my help the other day- she wanted me to gather any information about a list of topics that she would be tested on in her exams in june, including "famous english novels", "problems of the world today", "the basic information about the usa", "american eating habits", "Shakespeare", "education in GB and USA", "old american literature (poe, london, twain, melville, cooper)", to name a few. so this is quite interesting because 1. how can i give her information on all of this? and 2. why should she care about american eating habits or our education system? Why didn't I have to learn about czech eating habits in school? Why is it important that she know about thanksgiving, when i'd never heard of "student's day" until i came here? yet it's my job to impart this very important knowledge about our very important culture..

happy (important) thanksgiving everybody!

my former principal (and friend too) is coming to prague next summer. she's the first of our friends who has definite plans to visit us. so everyone else, your challenge- beat my principal. come visit before her. there are a lot of empty months in there- yeah, winter is cold, but the cheap beer will keep you warm! i was looking at flights today (still trying to find our next flight back, hint hint karen), and there are so many good deals if you can be flexible with travel time. here's one: fly before nov. 30 on austrian austrian airlines, $195.. who says you need to eat turkey with your family next week- we're not. come have czech dumplings with us instead..

So, we have this wonderful laptop with the latest technology-wireless internet!! and a little place near our apartment with free wireless access. great, right? the trick is, it very rarely works, and when it does it's often very very slow (like now). but, it works wonderfully every once in a while- just enough to keep our hopes up and keep us coming back and buying more espresso each time we come here. we looked into getting internet access at our apartment, but you have to have a little thing called a visa to get it. (we didn't even show our passports when we signed the lease, but i guess internet access is different.

the point is that we have so many things we want to do on the computer and very little time to do it, since we end up having to pay for a computer so often and money is scarce. one of these things is updating the livejournal, which is important, but not as important as finding our next flight. so here's the deal..

we will bring a czech prize to anyone who has the extra internet time to find us a deal for a flight back here. $500 would be great, but $600 is probably more realistic. we need a flight from the d.c. area around new years (eve, day, day after, whatever) and returning on may 6 or maybe the 5th. did i mention there's a prize?? it will be very cheap, but very czech and special..