Spring Break with Spice

Some new pics from Spring Break that I have added, so check these out and then judge for yourself how much fun I had. Here, these next few pics are from Portugal from small town called Guarda, it is the highest city in Portugal and it's a fairly scenic place, except there really isn't anything there. You think so?Yea, I hiked around for a few hours cuz there wasn't really anything else to do. I had to entertain myself for like 13 hours here. Maybe just a tad bit too much time for Guarda

This here is in Salamanca in Spain. It's a college town but the college is in the middle of the old town with all this crazy architecture. It was way awesome and I loved chillin around here. I think this is some church, but the university buildings looked just as awesome
So, these next pics are from Avila in Spain. There is this sweet walled city here that was totally cool to see and walk around. I think it was 13th century or something, but it was way cool, maybe 3 or 4 kilometers in circumference.

So, this Spring Break was something to remember. It's a bit different from the usual holidays for me from going skiing in the Rockies or just chillin watchin television all day. This holiday, I was in Paris (gawking at the Mona Lisa and the Eiffel Tower) to the beautiful fun architecture of Madrid and Portugal. I've got stories of eatin Cheese Puffs til I collapsed to a pick pocket picking the wrong pocket and comin back to give me my daily planner and Czech-English dictionary back. I've got stories from the nine nights I spent out, I spent 4 of them in train stations and airports. Of these nights, I really didn't do a lot of sleeping. There was a point where I hadn't slept for 3 straight nights actually. I spent 30 hours waiting for trains and planes, not counting traveling. Another 17 for the traveling. These traveling hours were actually my best times to sleep. I imagine that out of the 17 traveling hours, I was asleep for 16.5 of them. Ahh the joys of traveling alone. It was a crazy trip that probably not many ofyou would even consider joining me on. But that's ok, because I like to live cheap, and that I did on this trip. It was a fun way to see three countries I had never seen. It's something that I'm kinda glad I did, I'm glad I have the crazy experience behind me, yet, there is no way I desire to do this same kind of trip again, but who knows, maybe I will. Let me show you some of the wondrous beauties and me of course about my trip and let me explain...
First stop was Paris and the Eiffel Tower. I met up with a friend of a friend and had a wonderful time touring everything all day. Paris is crazy awesome, but expensive way too much. The Eiffel Tower is kinda funny, because it is really just out of place. There like a beautiful city, and then in the middle, this ginormous pole that is famous for some stupid reason. It's pretty funny, but a good time still.

Here's beautiful me and the tower.

A shot of me after climbing the Tower. That's the top just above me. I'm totally jammin out on the Eiffel Tower

A pic from the top of the Eiffel Tower. I pretty much walked to the top. It's a pretty tall place. And a pretty cool view fromthe top. Cool. The treasured Cathedral of Notre Dame. It's a pretty crazy place. On the middle of an island in Paris. Interesting, and pretty. This is the Sacre Coeur. It's on the top ofthis hill andis a really beautiful and awesome. It was a pretty cool place to walk around. There are gardens and other beautiful places here.

For all you musical lovers, these next two are for you. The first one speaks for itself. THe Moulin Rouge! What a beautiful, romantic, yet very sketchy story. But, it's a freakin landmark that I couldn't miss from going to Paris. This next place may need a little more explaining, but not much. It's the freakin Opera House of Paris. Why is this such a musical landmark you ask? Well, it's just the place that the story of Phantom of the Opera was based off of. I am not sure if it's really true, but it was built on some old thing, so there are mazes andstuff under the operahouse and when you walk in, it looks straight out of the movie or play.

Does life get any better than eating a heck of a lot of Cheese Puffs in Paris. This is one of the ways that I saved up a bunch of money. Eating filling food like Cheese Puffs from America in Paris. Wow, wouldn't have seen that one coming

And how could a trip to Paris not be complete without seeing Versaille. Versailles, the palace of the French fools was a pretty crazy place. Lots of crazy stuff and really fun decorations in there.

Me in the gardens of Versailles. I'm pretty tired. But I gotta put on my "happy face" for the camera!!

Me being awesome in the great Retiro Park in Madrid. I'm a bit tired at this point.

So, somehow when I went to go watch a rugby game in Madrid my last day, I ended up hookin up with the British bachelor party. They were some fun guys and I hung out with them for a few hours. But, they were a little crazy for me. They had many drinks. That's the head guy there in the cow outfit and the dress. He's pretty drunk.

Back in the Prague Airport, and so happy to be home. So so happy to be home. It was a long, tiring, yet exhilirating week.

I've got some fun stories to share as maybe you can catch some inferences from the pics above. There was some crazy stuff, but it was good, and I'm glad to be back home and teaching is all so much more fun. Till later. Cau Cau

Spring Break halfway through

Hey everyone, so since I am on holiday I haven´t been able to write at all and I know everyone is so curious. So, been to Paris and Madrid and going to Portugal tomorrow. Things have been awesome. FUnny thing is the Spanish speak differeint from the Mexicans and it´s funny cuz it sounds like they all have lisps. It´s great. I´ve taken a bunch of pics, so I will get those to you ASAp. gotta go, peace.

Au revoir, Adios, Adeus, Na Schladenou, Bye

So, these are probably five phrases that I will be using in the next week. What do the all mean? Maybe you know some of them, or at least one i hope. Well, if you didn't figure them out, they all mean "bye". I will be going on Spring break tomorrow morning. I will be going first to Paris, then Madrid, and into Portugal and them back to Prague. Therefore, I will be speaking five different languages this week, 2 of which i have a firm grasp on, 1 of which i feel very comfortable when getting around, one of which is fairly similar to one I feel firmly about, and another which I had an emergency language session in the other day before I left (French, I know none!!). So, I am super pumpd, and when you are at work this week, just think of me roaming around the streats of Paris, or celebrating Carnival with all the madrilenos, or hiking in the Portugese hills. Ok, well, I'll catch you up on how things go when I get back, Talk to you all later. peace

V-Day and Mobile Fun

So, i'll start with a warm Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. First off, I would like to inform everyone that I'm totally sportin a new awesome mobile phone (my old one totally sucked and it was totally a necessity), and yes, no worries, still same number. I know all of you have been just dyin to use some major long distance recently. So, anyways, it was a fun experience, let me tell you about it. So, I went to the local Eurotel store in Kralupy yesterday, ready and armed with my wonderful Czech language skills. First I spent some time looking at the phones and looking at the prices and finding a good one for a good price. I must say, none of them were really cheap. Finally, one of the men came over and I told him I needed to buy a new mobile. He was cool, and I asked him which one was good and cheap and he pulled out the catalog, which was awesome and he showed three phones to me. After talking and asking questions for a bit, and not understanding hardly any of his answers at all, I asked him if he spoke English, of course, he didn't. Doesn't matter, I said, though like hell it didn't! So, I continued to ask him more and more questions about the phones, which ones had what and why one was better than the other and why was it cheaper, you know, the usual questions. I caught some of his answers, but hardly any really. He just pointed at pictures. All I caught him saying were, "It's just...'' and then it all went to crap. Anyways, all in all, I was a little saddened because I didn't understand him, but I did feel accomplished because, though i didn't understand hardly anything of what he said, I know he understood all my questions and what i was saying, which made me feel good. Very good actually. So, it was a good experience overall,and... I got the new phone, which is totally rockin my world right about now. Sweet!!

V-Day Fun
So, as today is Valentine's Day, I thought I would mention something that happened today. It actually has nothing to do with Valentines Day, but oh well. So I gave my 8th graders a survey of how they thought class was and what they liked and disliked about it. If you can remember, at the beginning of the year I mentioned that this class was my worst class and I was having a lot of trouble with them, and actually yelled at them once. But for the past few months, things have flip flopped and they are wonderful, though they are very loud a lot, but what to expect from the class that is notorious in the school as "the worst class in the school". So, as time has come on, they have found that I speak some Czech, and they were pretty shocked about it. So, by now, they've caught on to not saying inappropriate things cuz i usually understand them, and then they feel really stupid. So, back to my story, like half the class put down on their survey of likes of the class as "access". Access? What the heck does that mean? Access to the class? Is it very accessible to the school? Just as accessible as most of the other classes actually. So, after asking a friend, I learn that this word has a second meaning, "approach". So, apparently they like my approach to how I handle class. Sure, why not? I mean, they can do and say whatever I want and I don't understand anything. But anyways, this whole mess don't make much sense. But it's good to know that since they have changed their attitude a bit, things have gotten a lot better and I think it's because they have begun to like me a bit more and see that they can't really get away with anything, cuz I'm starting to understand stuff. One kid (the big problem guy) even said that he wouldn't change anything and he loves the class and it's "ideal". Ahh, ideal, great. Anyways. hope things are well. I got a new phone.

poolin fun

So yesterday spent some awesome time in the Kralupy indoor pool with three of my freshmen students. It was pretty much a fun ol time. We got the little floaty boards and were messing around surfing and racing, playing games and all sorts of crazy things that have to do with them. Speaking english is fun with them cuz they suck at it. But it was a good time. 75 minutes for just over a buck. Cheap swimming also, but it was a little cold after an hour or so and I was glad to leave. Fun phrase of the day: Apparently a "cannonball" is called a "kufr" which is a "suitcase". "Do a suitcase!" Well, if I must, as I respond. Ahhh, the joys of strange languages...

"We learn English and Czechish"

Interesting evening I had the other night. I was in the local pub that I frequent often for a wonderful dinner or for a good beer with some friends. It's called Zeleneho Stromu (or Green Tree for you English speakers). and so, anyways, I was here once again on Thursday by myself trying to get stuff done (I was grading papers andthen I spent a few hours learning myself some good Czech language) when I got a tap on my shoulder. Apparently this man wanted something. But I didn't know what in the hell he wanted. "What do you want!" I wondered. So, after I calmed down for a second, and got ahold of my wonderful Czech skills, I proceeded to hold a wonderful conversation with this man. He obviously spoke no English at all. We were talking. I told him who I was and where i was from, all that crap, where i teach. He told me that he had seen me here about 5 times before. And then he brought out the bombshell. He wants to learn English. And we can also talk in Czech. Eh, why not I said. It's strange me being the person who has the upper hand, I mean I know more Czech thann he knows English, so that's kinda awesome. So, therefore, we are meeting tomorrow at the pub and we are going to talk and I'm going to try and teach him some English words. "So what are we going to speak?" I asked him. English or Czech? He answered (in English) "Me, English, you Czechish". Ahh, it's all tying together so well.

The other beautiful part of this story is what this guy does. So, I live in a small town, very small actually, and usually you think that one of the last things that people in a small town would need would be Chinese Accupuncture Therapy. Strange strange strange. But I got a laugh from it. He also does massage stuff, so that a little more normal, but you just can't picture this guy doing this sort of thing. The whole situation is just funny. I can't give it a proper description. Sorry. Ok, peace

Snowboardin etc...

Hey, so, as many of you have found out, I'm pretty freakin close to the mountains. Now, they aren't the Alps and certainly ain't the Rockies, but they'll do. The Krkonose Mountains have become one of my best friends as of lately. As last weekend was no exception. So, I tried for the first time ever, snowboarding, and it was craziness. So, the horrible thing was that I hurt both my feet the week before running, and wasn't fully recovered from that injury so despite all the fun I had hurting myself continually over again and again, I was only able to snowboard for about 3 hours before I called it quits, which kinda sucked, but I've had that experience now, and I didn't have to waste my skitrip once every other year to do it!

But, also, probably the best part of the day was when I decided to stop boarding. I still had 3 hours to wait for my friends to finish, so what else to do but make friends? I went into the rental place to adjust my boot because it was hurting and was one of the only places i knew of indoors and heated that i could go and get away from all the masses. So I went and the only guy that was working there was a guy named Waldo. Yes Waldo, and no it's not a Czech name i don't think. Actually that's not even his real name, it's something like Ewald or something like that but that's what everyone calls him here bcause they can't say his real name. He's from Belgium and was just working there for 3 months. He's probably one of the coolest guys ever. He's 23 and speaks freakin 5 languages (Flemmish, English, French, German, and he's pretty good at Spanish as well). And I pretty much heard him use all those languages there also. It's pretty wicked awesome. So we chilled and had ourselves a good time while he was working. There weren't a lot of people around. Sad thing was that I had to go back with my friends back home. He wanted me to chill and go hang out with him, which i wanted to do as well. But oh well, hopefully he will make it down to Prague sometime so we can chill. Crazy guy, probably not giving the whole expereince justice, but it was an awesome trip.

Quote of the week: (from my 8th grader Martin) "Martin, what did you do on the weekend?" "This weekend, I was on my grandmother." Oh the joys of prepositions