First week of TEFL down!

The first week of TEFL is down, with only 3 more to go.  Time certainly flies when you are having fun that is for sure.  Friday was a relatively easy day at school.  We learned various activation techniques, meaning how to get students to utilize the target language that they have just been introduced to.  This was fun and low key, which was good since everyone looked completely zonked out for a Friday as I glanced around the room at my various classmates’ tired faces.

On Friday night, we were taken out by the previous TEFL class who had just graduated this past month, which is apparently a tradition.  This was LOTS of fun!!!  We went to a bar dubbed the Puma Bar, as there are real live Puma’s prowling around outside in the back of the bar within an enclosed area.  There were about 30 of us out at the bar together.  Within an hour, alcohol had loosened everyone up and all of us were well mixed, talking, laughing and getting to know one another while enjoying our Czech Pivo (aka beer).  Some people were sitting out back on the little patio in the dark at picnics tables, next to the section where the Puma’s are kept.  The bar was smoky, small and intimate, fairly plain looking with lots of wooden decorative details.

I had a great time walking around and talking at length with various classmates of mine, getting to know people better and just having some laughs.

And oh boy, were there LOTS of stories the next morning of various happenings with many of my fellow classmates.  Woo hoo, was that fun to hear about!

Today, Saturday, I spent the day with a classmate of mine who invited me to join him in checking out a farmers market in the city with two of our other fellow classmates.  He and I walked about 45 minutes throughout Prague together, through a gorgeous park with a stunning panorama of Prague, until we met up with two of our other classmates, a wonderful, fun, warm couple from London.

Beautiful park in Prague, right near my apartment!

The totally disorienting escalators into the metro!

The four of us strolled around the city center and then walked along the water’s edge checking out the farmer’s market, all the different delicious looking food stalls. 

 

 

 

And…drum roll…I finally tried my first Czech dish!!!  I know, I know, it’s about time, right?  The food I tried was a dish I have seen being served at various food stalls throughout the city.  It’s a mixture of gnocchi, bacon, sausage, a bit of cheese and sauerkraut.  I am not a bit red meat eater, and I think sauerkraut is generally pretty gross ha-ha, but for some reason, the mixture of it all together looks tempting, almost similar to macaroni and cheese.  So I decided to give it a go.  It seemed like a safe choice for my first Czech food venture, as opposed to say, stuffed pig leg (the thought of which makes me recoil).  It was actually quite good!  I would give it a 6.5/7 on a scale of 1-10.  It was hearty and delicious, it would be excellent after a night of having a few drinks…which was, oh wait, perfect for me today!  Overall, a thumbs up!

 

One of my other classmates bought a yummy looking sausage, and another one drank a beer.  The four of us sat ourselves down right on the stone wall with our feet hanging over the edge right on the side of the river.  We enjoyed our food and watched rowing competitions taking place in the river in the water in front of us.  Relaxing and yet lots of fun.

 

We meandered back into the city, making our way slowly back.  We stopped along the way for a delicious ice cream cone, so yummy.  And then we parted ways to go back to our respective flats for the evening.

Tonight however, there was a really neat event in Prague known as Museum Night.  This only happens once a year and was supposed to happen back in June, but was postponed due to a huge flood which occured in the city then.  So lucky us, the event was tonight instead!  All the museums in the city are open for FREE!  You can walk in and out of any museum you want, and go to as many as you want, all night, free of charge.  A group of around 7 of us took the metro into the city together to check this out.  A bunch of us ended up splitting off into smaller groups, as we all had varying museum interests, in terms of where we wanted to go.  A classmate who I really like and I went off together as a pair.  We checked out the German institute, where we were given a free German lesson!  It was very brief, but fun.  It made me laugh, as we were instructed to get up and have a small interaction with different classmates (we were to rotate around) in German saying hello and asking one another what is your name, then bidding one another farewell.

After this, the two of us decided we were all set for the night, so we walked back through Old Town Square, stopping for ice cream on the way, and then headed home for the evening.

Old Town Square during the day.  Stunning.

 

Tomorrow I am excited to be meeting up with a young Czech woman who I was put in touch with by a friend from back home in Boston who I met while working at Tufts.  So I am really looking forward to meeting her!

And then I have Skype dates later on tomorrow afternoon with two of my very best friends, and possibly my Mom.  So I am looking forward to that too!

PS. Our first 45-minute lesson that we are required to teach to actual Czech students is taking place this Monday evening!!!!  I will need to get on the task of preparing that lesson plan tomorrow.

Cheers for now!

 

“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”
― Gloria Steinem