The End of Round One!

So, this is it. I leave for the airport in about 4 hours and it's so strange. This year has gone so quickly. Going back to America will be strange for me, cuz I'm gonna hear English all the time and not hear Czech anywhere! It's crazy!

Anyways, I just got back from Ireland a few days ago, and it was a really fun trip. It was a fun and relaxing last trip before I head home for a bit. It was good. We were in the capitol, Dublin for a few days,and then we headed to the west coast of Galway for a few more days. Galway was definitely cooler, prettier and more fun! It was a total blast. Just hangin out with students and seein some cool places. I'll just show some pics and let them speak for themselves. We took 17 students to Ireland, and we were 3 English teachers (2 native, and 1 Czech teacher). Enjoy.


Here's Tereza, Katka, me and Lenka just chillin like our awesome selves and enjoyin some of Dublin.
Here's a pic of some of us after we toured the majesty of what is known as Guinness (note: those under 18 did not participate in the alcohol consumption).
Our group pic in front of some crazy statue in the middle of Dublin. It was just callin to us. We couldn't resist.
So you can't really see it, but this spire is like 100 meters tall. It's pretty cool actually, i promise. really...
In front of St Patrick's Cathedral (patron saint of Ireland). I'm not really sure what Katka and Iva are doing to me, but I think that means I've been accepted... :)
We are so muggin...
So, some dufus apparently thought it was a good idea to park his car down some ramp and then the tide came in and he was left with some car in the water. So we walked by and laughed at him and then...
We all pitched in and helped to get his car out of the water. The entire floor was full of water afterwards. Totally sucks.
So, in Galway, at the Atlantic Ocean. Was many of the students first time in the Atlantic Ocean, so we walked 30 minutes to the beach, and with the temp around 55 or 60, we decided to walk into the ocean and one thing led to another and we all ended up completely soaked. And so we were freezin and then we had to walk back to our hostel. It was a good time had by all.
Petr, Honza, and Pepa. These guys rock!
Tereza, Lenka and Katka chillin as always on our fun bus ride around Ireland

Here's a pic of Mike, me, and Zdenek (the head English teacher and the other adult on our trip).
Cliffs of Moher. One of the most beautiful places in Dublin
Lenka, Tereza, and me
Me and Zuzka at the rockin cliffs
Pepa, Petr, Jirka, Honza (crazy standin), Vanda, Prokop, and the back Zuzka. Some of these students was there first time on the plane, so it was interesting. Some were scared, some were excited. It was a good time though!!

Final Countdown

So, can't really think of a lot of new things that have been happening. School has been fairly blah lately. But, hopefully, very soon, I will have some kickin business to talk about. I'm going to Ireland today and next friday i'm comin home. it's kinda sad actually. I've been spending a lot of time outside school with my friends lately cuz it's the last time I will see them for a few months. We'll see how it all goes though I guess. But, so I listed a few things that I'm looking forward to coming home for, but maybe it would only be fair to list a few things that I'm gonna miss here in the summer and am lookin forward to seeing come august and sept.

• Hearing Czech everywhere and trying to understand (funny thing is, that's something I'm lookin forward to leavin also)
• Speakin Czech
• Hanging out with students
• Czech beer
• Cheap everything!
• public transportation (trains)
• saying Ahoj to my neighbors (cuz that's the only words we've said to each other all year!)
• walking around school aimlessly
• Czech atmosphere
• hanging out with Czech friends

So, i was given a few books to read over the summer, only problem... they're in Czech, so we'll see if I'm able to manage it. It'll be fun, so we'll see about that. So, I have a lot of traveling coming up here. So, today I'm flying to Ireland with some students and teachers, and I'm coming back next Wednesday and we have some final school party on Thursday, and I fly to America on Friday, and then on Sunday I'm flying to Gulf Shores for some fun in the sun with my family! Wow, I hope I don't sleep the entire time in Florida. We'll see. So, talk with you all later. Peace

The Krum

Went down south this weekend for some fun in the second hottest tourist spot of Czech Republic, boasting the second biggest castle in CZ and the mighty Vltava River. Didn't really do a whole lot actually, it was a time to relax one last time with myAmerican friends and just kick back and forget about school and have fun. Our big event of the weekend was when we went, on Saturday, on a canoe trip down the Vltava. It's one of the highlights of the entire year, but, as you could imagine, something went wrong. What? Well, if you haven't been keeping up with the weather forecast in Central Europe, it has been freakin cold and horrible. Around 50ish constantly, in the lower half also, and rainy and cloudy and just not fun!! It's June for goodness sakes!! So, we arrived at our drop-off spot at around noonish and we were set for a 6 hour journey through the cold cloudy skies in Southern Czech. Boy was I excited. But it was a good time, at least most of it. We took our sweet time, and stopped every so often for a drink here and there, and after a few hours we stopped for quite a long lunch. During lunch, it downpoured like none other and it was really a disapointing time. But we left right when it stopped, and wouldn't ya know it, it stopped raining and the sun came out. So, we rowed and rowed and rowed for several more hours and we had to go down a few little chutes as well. Well... all but one. One was too bad, that we needed to portage across it, but after that, I regretted the decision. (The last half hour proved disastrous for me, here's why). On the portage, I fell into the freezing water and banged the heck out of my legs and it was really a frustrating time for myself actually. I was wet and all my stuff was also and i didn't even go down the fall. DANGIT. Oh well, so it was still sunny, thankfully and so we were paddling, and whoa! What's that?!? It's a big willow tree and it is sucking us towards it and there's no way out. No problem, I think I just saw a canoe go through it without problems, so, it will be interesting maybe,yea? NO!! So, we head into it, and I see this huge mammoth log hanging, and I just think... death. So, we near it, and I just take cover... but apparently, it wasn't quite enough. BOOM. Right in the back of my head. Needless to say,I was fairly pissed for the remaining 15 minutes of the float. Fortunately, it was at the dead end though. Wow, what a crazy time, but it was really a lot of fun just chillin and floatin down the river. Good weekend, and I got just a few more weeks here until I head home for the summer. It's comin, ready or not. Talk to you all soon. Hit me up. PeaceYea, this is aat the end of the trip, don't i look just really happy!

Fun times with my Czech Language

So, every week I have a Czech Language Conversation class where I go and I attempt to speak Czech. So, usually each week (either in my lesson or actually in the real world) I make some truly putrid mistakes which really makes me look like a big horse's bottom. Luckily, most the people understand that I don't really speak Czech, so they know to never really believe anything I say. So, two quick funny experiences for me in using Czech:

1. It was very hot one day and I walked into my Czech lesson and found my teacher to be just as hot as I was because of the heat, and, me being the smart Czech language student, started to speak Czech right off the bat. And, seeing that she was hot, I said "Jsi tepla?" But what I meant to say was " Je ti teplo". The literal translation of "Jsi tepla" to English is "Are you hot?" but in Czech, "Jsi tepla?" means something else. So, I walked in and said (right off the bat) "Are you gay?" So, instead, I must say "je ti teplo" which literally means "it is hot to you", but in Czech, it's the correct sentence that I wanted! Luckily, my Czech teacher was able to correct me and there were no feelings hurt!! But I sure felt like a big dork for a while.

2. So, this other time was a little worse, because it was in real life and not in practice conversation. So, there is a restaurant/pub that I go to fairly often for dinner or for a drink. I'm pretty tight with the owner and he's rockin, but he doesn't speak any english at all. So, sometimes I understand him, sometimes not so much. So, one evening I was there with some friends and I had to leave early cuz i had to get some work done for class tomorrow cuz it was getting kinda late. So, this mistake I made is just more of a stupid mistake, I just used the wrong person (instead of using third person, I used second person). So, I was going to give my money to my roommate and he was going to pay for me, so the waiter came up, and I'm sweet talkin him as usual and then I tell him "Hey, you are going to pay for my food and drinks!" He looks at me and (he's actually a little drunk) and is just confused. So I said it again, and then walked away. And I didn't realize it until the next day, that I meant to say that "He!!" my roommate, not "You" are paying for my food. Yea, so i felt like a stupid idiot, but everything's good. It's more funny now, but it makes me go a little easier on my students when they make those funny and stupid mistakes, because I probably make about a million more mistakes than they do. Wow, I'm sure there are about a million more funny stories out there, but i can't think of them right now. Hope you enjoy those stories for now. Ok, later.