Weekend in Prague

So now I remember why everyone appreciates weekends after a long week of work! I love having a full time teaching job and now starting to get my routine. I am starting to get to know my students and get the swing of things at the school. My students are SO adorable and really well behaved. I eat the school lunch everyday and one day this week we had DOUGHNUTS as the meal. Katka my coworker told me that it's traditional to have "sweet lunches". Also traditional is to start your meal with a soup. The soup is like a chicken broth with veggies and noodles. I like having soup to start off your meal. The doughnut was a deep fried dough and with a plum jam on top of it. However, the plum jam was not sweet and a little bitter. It is topped off with clotted cream or something similar and sprinkled with powder sugar. Kids in the US would go nuts to have doughnuts for lunch and be bouncing off the walls with sugar rushes! It's the norm here so no big deal to the students.

After work on Friday, I purchased a train ticket to Venice, Italy! I am leaving September 24 and taking the overnight train and will arrive in the morning on the 25th. I will be there til the 27th and be back in Prague on the 28th. The 28th is a national holiday so we have a four day weekend! So I look forward to that and if you have any suggestions let me know!

This week I got to know my other roommate, Sarka pronounced Sharka. Sarka is from the Czech Republic and grew up in a small town outside Prague. She works as an Admin for Vodaphone and has lived in Prague for a couple years. I love having her as a roommate because she fills me in on what everything is and extremely helpful on how things are done. I told her about my milk story and she said I didnt buy milk and it's a sour/yogurty milk that is actually really good for you! oops (shouldnt had poured it down the drain I guess). She enjoys beer so she would tell me all about Czech beer and her favorites that I have to try. She also loves Burchak! Burchak is a wine that is a "young wine" meaning it is still fermenting. It is only once a month and it's now season to have Burchak. It comes in red and white and is sweet and bubbly and dangerous. People carry it around town in 2 liter plastic bottles. You are supposed to unscrew the cap every so often otherwise it EXPLODES! We went to a wine festival yesterday in Troja but to our disappointment they sold out of Burchak and I saw people were going nuts for this stuff. I still have yet to try it. Sharka has taken me to some of her favorite pubs and we enjoy a nice beer together and she'll explain Czech food. The table next to us was eating ...get this...raw ground beef with a raw egg on top with onions. Who in the world thought, "hey that sounds good I think I'll make that". Wow just blows my mind to eat 100% raw meat! I stayed with something safer and I tried Pickled Cheese. It was a bre cheese that has been pickled and is spicy. I enjoyed it but you had to have a beer with it to ease the spice. Also, get this, McDonalds here is expensive! It is so opposite from home. At home, McDonalds is incredibly cheap and vegetables are expensive. Here is it's the complete opposite. Sharka said it is an expensive luxury to eat at McDonalds. My meal cost 100 crowns which is as much as a sit down restaurant. You can forget about the dollar menu. I rarely eat out and cook a lot at home which is good for my wallet and my health.

Another great thing about my new roommate, is Sarka loves to play tennis. She just picked up the sport this summer and joined an outdoor tennis club where she plays at beginner level. She invited me to join her on Saturday and I rented a racket and tennis balls and got to hit a few with her. Then she had a match so I just practiced on the wall and worked on my serving. Sharka is pretty good and we are talking about taking tennis lessons once a week (indoors of course) together. Watch out Wimbeldon, here I come! I mentioned to Sharka one of the Williams sisters quote, "every time I come to Wimbeldon there is always another -ova I have to compete with". She informed me that in the Czech Republic the girls last name always ends with an -ova. Sharka told me that her last name does not end with an -ova so when she gets called by a stranger they always say Mr. ----.

Sharka and I had a discussion on living in the Czech Republic when it was Communist country. She told me she doesn't remember much because it ended when she was 7 years old. But she told me that they had a motto when communism was here, "If you don't steal, you will steal from your family". People would be forced to work in factories. They had no stores where you can buy what you wanted or needed. Instead, it would be one store where you were LUCKY to get something you HAD to have. Jeans were extremely hard to get ahold of so you would have to bribe the cashier to get you a pair or be very aggressive and grab the few they had. Sharka said that people learned to become selfish because you had to become selfish to survive. You shoved people out of the way to grab that banana. She said that there are still signs left from communism where people do not hold doors open, they are VERY impatient, and they are very shy. It was fascinating to learn about what it's like to live under communism and learning more about the Czech people.

I went out last night with Martina, who is from San Diego, and went to a bar called Prague Beer Museum where they had at least 30 beers on tap. I met some other teachers who were teaching abroad and had a nice time. The weather this weekend is perfect in the 70's and sunny! I hear fall here in Prague is beautiful and it will be my first time seeing seasons change.

It's Sunday which is grocery shopping day. Sharka invited me to play doubles but I told her I have a long way to go before I can start playing games. Another great week here in Prague and so much more to come.