A Life Unknown

Daytrip to Vienna

2010-05-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

As the times go on, more and more troubles with the visa process. But things look better now, but I feel like Tim Robbins in Shawshank after he got out of the sewer. Light at the end of the tunnel.

I was to go to Vienna to apply for another Visa. And this would be the last step for me and my search for all docs to get my vísa.

On Friday morning at 1230 i boarded a bus to Vienna, Austria (about 5 hours away). nice trip. I slept for most of it. And I woke up at 5AM on one side of Vienna. I started the morning out with a nice brisk 5 mile walk across Vienna in the cold and rain. Yea, the public transit was running, but I had a few very good reasons why to not use it at the time in question:
1. Because the Consulate didn't open til 830 I would have had to wait anyways. So I figured walking instead of waiting in the rain was a better decision. Thus, I only had to wait an hour and a half instead of three and a half.
2. The second is simple. I had only an extra two Euros with me which would only pay for one way of the public transit. Yea, I had my ATM card, but I have recently forgotten the PIN code on it, so it was more or less out of the question. And I could have exchanged money, but I just wasn't in the mood.

Anyways, the story ends well. After an hour and a half of waiting, they opened up and I was in. I couldn't have asked for a nicer lady to help me and within a half hour, I was out of there. But, unfortunately there was still the long ride home. And a wait. So I got back to where the bus was leaving and had to wait for another hour or 2 and finally after a day full of hanging out in the rain, I was on my way home.

And a really great ride also. Sat next to two young American college students who were taking a trip up to Prague. The girl spend every 20 minutes in the bathroom throwing up cuz of the party they frequented the night before and all the Czech people around us were quite rude to the guy because he didn't speak Czech. Really great hospitality by the workers of Student Agency buslines. Still it¨s a good bus though.

Anyways, when it was all said and done, I was back home at about 6pm and the long day had finally come to a close. Glad it is over and now I just need to wait three long months for it to be processed. Thanks for everything.

Problems Galore, but a light...

2010-05-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

In the last few weeks, things have been getting quite milky, to put it nicely. Milky but frothy. :)

Finding time to get everything done has been an issue. Luckily, as the time has continued, I now do not have my Seniors at school anymore. The students I have had for 5 years are now gone. It is sad, but maybe one of the most rewarding feelings in my life. It is really great and I am really looking forward to seeing my students become successful in the coming years. It is a great feeling.

Also, a problem has been with getting my visa. Going from one office to the next has been a difficult process while having a full time job. Several times and back to the city housing office, town hall, trade license office, embassy, and the foreign office. And then after all of that, they tell me it is not enough and tell me I have to take a trip on a work day to Dresden to the Czech Consulate. Gosh, it has been a real headache, but things will work out, I am sure of it. In times like these, you always have to be optimistic or you will go crazy.

The next fun thing is job hunting. It has been a lot of fun going to so many interviews and everyone saying, yea great... so probably not, but have fun. But optimism will always triumph so I have a few more in a week or so. They are fun and I am looking forward to the increased practice in job hunting.

The last problem is my roommate. He sleepwalks and through the year I have awoken and found a stray window open or something, (one time when it was about 5 degrees Fahrenheit outside. But earlier this week he turned our gas stove on and went to sleep. By the morning our flat was completely consumed with gas and had not our neighbor come in early, suffocation would only have been a few hours away. I feel someone was watching out for us.

I really can't complain about things right now. I am happy and though scary things happen. Life always brings reasons for everything. I am looking forward for the next step God has for me in my life and I am not worried about the problems and trials He brings because I know that it comes for a reason. I look forward and am ready for whatever He may bring. Thanks guys. Talk to you soon.

A Strange School

2010-04-15T09:53:00.001-07:00

Schools... they are here to educate each of us. But to some degree, even sometimes schools are quite incomprehensible. Take this one school. Let's call it... Dark. It's an "English school". Why do I quote it? Well, for just that reason. They "say" they are an English school, but I am still a bit wary about it. Let me tell you my story.

I got a phone call a few days ago before I started teaching one of my classes. A lady was on the other line. She was calling me in response to my resume I had sent to their office. )Note: I sent my resume to several different places, and it was all basically the same: some note, my resume, and a current photo, maybe I included an educational essay I had written. And mind you, everything was written in clear English.) This lady is on the line and doesn't bat an eye before she starts away in her native language, Czech, expecting me to catch everything... I did... She quickly proceeded to explain to me who she was and for what company she works for and that she is "in charge" of prospective employees. She asked me a minimal number of questions about myself and told me that before anything, I would have to come in and take an "English test". A perplexing moment for me when I think that it's clear that through everything I sent them, and them obviously knowing the fact that I am a native speaker, that I should also come in and take an "English test" (you will find out my use of quotation marks soon enough). I thought it quite funny and continued on and was actually quite looking forward to such a possibility. I thought it would be some normal grammar sentences and I would be in and out in 15 or 20 minutes.

After our conversation, I went and looked at their website to find quite a credible school. They have flourished quite well after 15 years or so of existence and have even expanded to 13 different cities around the nation. Sounds quite good. But one thing did strike me as strange. The fact that there wasn't any English version to this website. I find it odd that such a prestigious English school wouldn't have even a small English translated version, since clearly, they ARE an English school.

But I digress. I travelled the next day to Prague to take my exam. I was quite excited and eager to for my exam, but still not totally understanding the exact reason and importance to know how well an American can speak English. I arrived to a healthy greeting of a few of the office workers (none of which spoke English). They explained to me the test and I was off to work. But... what was this?... an English test?... with so few English words?... I looked quizzically at this test, and jumped into it. The first part... translation. Translate from Czech to English... ok, I can do that, but I don't really understand the importance of why I should have to. Next, translate English to Czech... still not sure why it's important for teaching English in an "English Only" classroom. But, ok. Next part, translate the following 35 sentences from Czech to English. Ok, now this is ridiculous. I can speak English perfectly. Fluently even. Why do I have to translate from Czech to English? I did, and quite well, I think.

Then come the essay questions... in Czech... Quite unnecessary for me I thought. But I continued. The entire process was a bit ridiculous I felt, but an experience, nonetheless. Thankfully, it's over now, and I don't know if I will ever fully understand the process to employment at this "English school".

Like a Dutchman

2010-04-05T12:44:00.001-07:00

Hey all. So, as the world continues to turn and life slowly passes by, so as similar likenesses occur in my life as well. Last week, as we had a 5 day holiday from school, me and Joseph and Blanka. It was really an unbelievable experience. We took ourselves a small little trip to a small little country which has two names... one of which is Holland and the other of which is The Netherlands...

First to mention that I never would have would have considered this country to be one of the last European countries that I would have visited, but it's true that it is. And second, I never would have thought that this country could have produced one of the best remixes ever with Counting Crows and their song "Holiday in Spain". Check it out here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzQtEk9CzCA

We got here and we stayed in a factory. You can see a few of these pictures first.

It was actually quite a scary place, and after staying here, and walking around and taking a tour of all the halls and empty space where could be creeping all sorts of freaky scary people, it makes it much easier to walk around my school in the night time. Not scary one bit.

So our first real day we went to Alkmaar which has one of the best and oldest Cheese Markets in Holland. Holland, which has the famous cheese cities such as Edam and Gouda. This was a really amazing day where we got a chance to see so many different kinds of cheese and taste so many kinds. It was surprisingly an amazing experience. You don't really ever think about how important or how good cheese can be. You just kinda buy it whenever you want a ham and cheese sandwich, and life goes on. But this was a great day and time by all.

After this we drove around this part of the country and saw the countryside which included a cheese farm which we toured as well as many small villages with canals and windmills, sheep, farms, and goats. It was truly time that you never want to forget and want to experience over and over again.

The last day we spent in Amsterdam visiting such places as the House of Anne Frank, the famous flower market in Amsterdam and the Heineken Brewery. Also, we saw really narrow houses, and lots of boats and canals in a major city. I was surprised to hear that Amsterdam is the first European city which has English (a non-native language) as its second official language.

Anyways, the pictures are the most important part here. After such a long time of working and laboring, this was a much needed and relaxing trip. And although I'm looking forward to the last coming months of work, holidays are always a nice thing to experience. :)

The Kettle of Infamy

2010-03-30T01:24:00.000-07:00

Taking a trip last weekend was a fun time to finally get away from life and to relax and experience something different. Here, above, is a picture of me in the accommodations we stayed at. Next to me you see the countertop with an electric kettle on top. This is what the story is about if you are curious.

This kettle, doesn't look so electric, does it? I mean besides the electric heater underneath it and the plug into the wall. But just the kettle looks normal. So, if a tired person would wake up in the morning and put water in it. After holding it, where would you think to put it? On the electric heating pad or the stove? Of course I chose the latter. And after putting it on the small one, I decided that it wasn't big enough, so I put it on a bigger flame for 10 more seconds or so. I saw a strange flame and then realized what I was doing. Luckily, ( this picture was taken after.... looks pretty good, huh) it wasn't harmed... much. And it still worked quite normally. Just the bottom looked a bit strange.

Anyways, that was a funny thing that recently happened to me and my life. :)

And the Silence is Broken

2010-03-30T01:23:00.000-07:00

How to break the long awkward silence?

That's what's been going through my mind for a few months now. I've wanted to write something, I really have. But something's been holding me back, and for that, I beg forgiveness. :)

Just to try and catch some of you up on what direction my life has been going in, I'll try and fill you in as much as feasibly possible, ok? But you have to promise that you'll catch me up with you as well, deal? :)

- November - Winter started (it would be the first of the following five months of the coldest winter in 18 years.)

- December - Winter continues. I was so looking forward to my Christmas holiday and finally getting a chance to relax, but I found myself ill and in bed for most of it. New Years Eve was also quite uneventful due to the heavy fog/smog in Kralupy. You'd be surprised though how unimportant this minor detail is for most people who have fireworks. Apparently, it's only important to hear the fireworks, no necessarily see them. Even the city set off their fireworks in this dense fog. And what a "noise-show" it was. Brilliant. But even the better because I was able to watch OU's bowl game on TV, and it finished at about 1215 am on the 1st of January, so I was satisfied that we at least won. Would've been quite a waste of a New Years celebration if I had spent it watching my team lose...

- January - The winter braved on. But throughout the month, there were interesting events such as the Kralupy music festival and a few Senior proms. We changed churches because we weren't satisfied with what we were getting from the other one and have since found the best church, for us, in the Czech Republic.

- February - We started out the month with Spring Break. Quite early, I know. But we spent, with Blanka, a week in Italy skiing. It was an awesome time skiing for a week in the Italian Alps. The month withered on and the winter showed no signs of giving in. Temperatures dropped to -10 F at times but mainly stayed around a cool 0 F. It was a fun time had by all.

- March - And now we come to happy times. Winter has left. Spring has arrived and life is much happier. It's time to start taking trips a bit more. I've taken already a few trips around and bike trips are soon to be had. A great thing that we did was visit a local waterpark during the winter. There's nothing like beating the winter with a nice warm water park.

School is going great. As my Seniors are finished with learning all the topics, my life has gotten about a million times easier. Which is nice to not have so much stress. But life is good. I don't have any complaints and I'm really looking forward to my holidays. And relaxing. :)

On Being 25

2009-10-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

So, it's finally happened. My car insurance is officially lower. Too bad I don't have a car, and too bad I don't live in America. But if I rent a car (maybe i'll do that soon just because) it'll be cheaper. That's really the thing I'm most excited about. It's been an interesting last two months, for many reasons. Mostly I'm glad to be back over here because it's a great place for me right now. It's where I need to be. Some things that have happened recently:

- I recently heard that my long-term visa has been processed, so finally all the hassles and problems are behind me and I can finally rest happily with my visa. Next Thursday I will be traveling to Dresden to pick it up. Wow, my last 4 years in the Czech Republic, I drove through Dresden once, but in the last 6 months I will have been there 4 times. Wild times. Nice city though.

- I participated in a bowling tournament in Kralupy. It was great. About 20 people came and first prize was an IPhone, but unfortunately, I came in second, so I had to settle for a few prizes that were not as hefty as the prized phone. But it's ok, it was fun and I had a really fun time.

- I have finally, after much trouble and hassle and problems, applied for my Teacher Certification! Finally, after all those years of hard work and turmoil, I finally will have my certification and license to teach History! The processing fee was 52 bucks which is stupid, but i guess they have to make money somehow, and I guess they figure the students will have the same reasoning that I had,"If I spent all this time and money to apply for the license, and if all that's standing (finally) between me and getting my license, then so be it. I guess I'll do it."

Well... I guess that's at least 3 important things that have happened. My birthday was really nice. I kept myself quite busy with phone calls from friends and fun times. That's the great thing about birthdays is that you don't just have to celebrate it one day, but maybe for about a few weeks when you have time for special excursions here and there :)

A Foreign Saturday

2009-10-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

So, as time goes by, I start to think that I know a lot about my small village of 18k people, give or take. I've been here long enough that I think I know most of the different kinds of foreigners. And I start to feel like normal. But what happened to me today made me feel exceptionally different.

Me and Joseph wanted to get out, so we left the flat in search of a good walk and a good lunch. We went to the market about 7 minutes away. The weather was rainy, yet sufficient nonetheless. I really liked it. Typical fall weather that makes you feel like your life is continuing. That's the reason for seasons, but enough of that. So we went there and got some food for the day and went to pay. I was getting ready to pay, with my food on the conveyor belt, and I looked at what the person behind me was buying, really really cheap beer in cans. Hm... I didn't pay much else to it, and continued in the line. Then the guy bent over to tie his shoe or something and hit my arm on the way up and I looked at him and he was Asian. He then tried to apologize to me and was quite insistent on it. Then he tried to invite me for one of his beers, or so I thought, and I declined. But he was ruthlessly insistent and took my by the arm and Joseph followed, to the nearby Chinese restaurant.

This man really couldn't speak Czech at all. And it was entirely impossible to understand anything that he was telling me... almost. He asked me my name a hundred times, and I finally understood what he was asking for, and then he asked Joseph's name and where he was from. Throughout the day, he continued to ask this. This fellow wasn't Vietnamese which the majority of people from Asia in CZ are from, this guy was from Mongolia. And what I got from the two beers that we had with him were the following.

He has lived here for three years. He can hardly at all speak any Czech (he just knows the words: wine, beer, vodka, finished, home). He doesn't know how to write in Latin alphabet, only Cyrillic. His wife is finally coming tomorrow to Czech Republic. He has at least two small children, maybe a third one. His father was killed by the police in front of him when he was thirteen and he then tried to fight the police, but they beat him up. Joseph is a super friend, and so am I. Mongolia has passports that look like drivers licenses (only some laminated plastic card).

I'm pretty sure that's all I got out of him. But It was a really interesting afternoon. I came home after that and was really confused at what had just happened. But these things seem to sneak up on my quite often. Interesting to say the least. :)

My Wedding Weekend in Vestec

2009-09-08T05:36:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I traveled down to the small farm/village of Vestec. I'm still not really sure where it is, but it's somewhere in southeastern Bohemia. Maybe I should look on a map or google it to find out where I was this past weekend. I was to travel there for the wedding of my good friend, Hana. Hana was one of the first people I befriended in Czech Republic more than four years ago and she was my first teacher of Czech. We traded off language lessons for 2 years before she moved away from Kralupy, but we have kept in touch and have been able to hang out every so often.

So the wedding was last Saturday. But quite far from Kralupy, but luckily, I had an option to hitch a ride with some friends. Otherwise it probably would have been quite near impossible to get to this small town in the middle of nowhere on a weekend. But there was one condition. I had to help my friends in the morning with building a playground and reconstructing some things in their village with grant money they had applied for and won. The whole village was there at 830am and we went to work. It was quite an interesting thing to see, but I quite liked it. So I was filling up a sandbox and then pulling out weeds and stuff most of the morning. The next morning, after the wedding, I couldn't remember why I was so sore, but probably manual labor for several hours would do the trick.

We finally left about noon or so and got to Vestec at about 130 or so. The wedding was at 2. It was cold, windy, but not rainy, just seemed as though it would any moment. It looked like it'd be a nice wedding. It was at a "mill" or I don't know if you can call it that, but that's what they did, and it was really nice inside and had a few garages and the wedding was outside. The wedding started and it was really cool. After the wedding was a great big feast and really tasty everything. Afterwards, I didn't really know many people there and the few people I did know knew lots of people and I would have felt bad to just kind of latch on or something. So I took a few walks in the fields and stuff. There are some really famous hills near this place which are the origins of one Czech legend. So it was a really nice walk I think.

I came back and was bored for a bit longer, but then it started getting later and everyone started to get happier. We ate some came and people started talking to me and it was more and more fun. Then the Jewish band came and started singing and everyone started dancing and having a good time. I'm pretty sure that by the end of the night I knew everyone and it was definitely an overall good experience.

In the morning, we woke up and I was talking to several people and then we decided to finally head back home. I rode with this guy who was going back to Kralupy. He was a really nice guy and friendly. But we stopped to get gas for his car and we were with his wife and daughter, who was terrified of me :), and he came to me and told me that we have a serious problem. He just came back from pumping the gas and he had accidentally filled up his car completely to the hilt with diesel. It was kinda a problem. So we waited for the tow truck to get there and just as they got there, another of our cars pulled in and i traded cars as to get back home faster. I hope to talk to him soon to find out if it all worked out, but I think it did. Just quite bad luck I think. But I got back home about 230 and had a few hours to at least try and relax a bit. But it was an overal really great weekend and I'm quite happy that I was able to attend another wedding in the last month. :)

German Cans

2009-08-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

Really strange. In Dresden today I found these mixed drinks in a can. Really interesting. Vodka and Red Bull, Bacardi and Coke, and Jack and Coke. How Strange is that

Less Work for the Police

2009-08-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

I was on a train today back home from Prague. Me and joseph were sitting in some seats talking when the ticket guy came around. We gave him our tickets as normal and he continued onward. He went to the next girl after us, who was listening to her music, and she gave him her ticket. Who know what she was trying to really do. She was probably just trying to scam him with a fake ticket, but you never know. She had some child's ticket, and he asked her how old she was. "In a month I'll be 16", she said. :) It's always funny to me that people say this to make themselves look older.

He asked for her ID which she didn't have on her, which is a big no-no. He told her that she couldn't use this ticket. I really couldn't hear that well why, but I think I guess correctly. Not really down with all the rules of tickets with youth or special ticket prices, but I dunno. He then told her that it was gonna cost her 44 crowns (2 bucks) but she said that she didn't have any money. She wasn't sure of the rules cuz she never goes anywhere by train. It was 9pm at night, dark outside as well. He said that she could either get off or he was gonna call the police. WOW, this guy was ruthless. I was listening tot he whole thing thinking how much this would suck to be this girl. And nothing I can do... or was there.

She sat there staring at him. He with his cell in his hand ready to call the cops, waiting for her to answer. And I was sitting there watching it all go down. Then she started crying. Really interesting. Poor girl. I really couldn't be this guy was gonna call the cops on the girl who was almost home and was a quite young girl or he was just gonna kick her out at night at some random stop. It was ridiculous for me to think about. A true number one a-hole. Then I realized that I could help the situation a bit. So I got out of my seat, went to the guy and gave him the two dollars to make the situation go away. She was a nice girl and hopefully learned her lesson. It's a nice thing to be able to help someone out like this sometimes. I've had people help me out a million times, that I think it was about time that I do something good as well. She said thanks and shortly after exited the train and said bye, so I kinda hope that she doesn't forget the generosity of people, that people are good and that maybe someday, who knows, I might run into her again. We'll see. It was a nice night to make someone less hassle, and in this case, a lot.

The Ride of My Life

2009-08-18T07:06:00.001-07:00

This picture is of a simpler part of the trail :D

For years upon years upon years, it has always been some kind of fantasy to cross the gap of Kralupy-Prague, a gap of 26 km, upon my own strength. Cars and trains had been the only means of transport that I have made it from one to the other, but with a new years comes new horizons and new challenges to be met. Normally, this challenge would be impossible due to the small fact that my bike that I had from my friend's dead grandma wouldn't exactly be up to such a journey. But luckily, it seems that we have a newer, nicer bike for the time being, and when invited on such a journey, I jumped on it.

I jumped on my bike and was off in a flash. And it was starting out awesome. I was excited. To prague on my bike. Wow, what a thrill. But this thought was short-lived. I realized that i really haven't ridden a bike in a pretty long time, and a trip of 26 km was an unthinkable quest that I had never even come close to. But I was truckin along pretty well at the beginning. Yet the road got smaller and smaller, and the asphalt became less and less, and then gravel, and then nothing but dirt which was fine for the time being. Then came the forests, and the trees, and the roots. But I was able to handle that, but then the trail got narrower and narrower, and although that still wasn't a real big problem I did need to start going slower for a plethora of reasons. First, the roots were quite big and I don't have much experience of trail riding, there'd be some hills every now and then which didn't look like much traction could be had on them, thirdly, big rocks made the journey more exhilarating. Yet, probably the biggest reason that slowed me down was the fact that the trail was maybe less than a foot wide or so and to my right was the river, a dropoff directly to the river. Not really a long way down, but I could see if the spill was taken at the right place how it could be fatal. It's interesting, I'm curious how many people each year fall off into the water. It could be a pleasant surprise in some areas, but most of them, I can't see the pleasantness of it.

Anyways, I made it through the death-defying part and for the most part it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. Such a beautiful ride. great weather, great nature, lots of peace and not too many people out doing the same thing as I. It was really a fun time and I'm glad that I was finally able to get the chance. Next up is running it. I'm not sure if I'll be up for that, but don't count me out.

A Day Full of Blood

2009-08-11T23:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it wasn't really quite at the beach, but it definitely could've been... Ok, maybe there are actually no similarities to my day in no way, shape, or form to that of a day at the beach. But I'll tell you about it anyways. So... after being back in the Czech Republic for a few days now, I really haven't been getting a good sleeping pattern down at all. But that's not what this story is about.

I don't have a visa yet. I know... kinda strange, but I don't have it yet. And it's kinda confusing because I never got my passport stamped when I got off the airplane in Frankfurt nor Prague, so I am not sure if the Foreign Police will have a problem with that or not when and if I actually do obtain my visa. I had to wake up early today, which wasn't really a problem since I have been acting like a cat more recently by sleeping for 3 or 4 hours and then being awake for that amount of time. So I got up and got on a train leaving Kralupy at about... 530am I think. I was Germany-bound. To Dresden I was going. Fine, not a problem. I've done it before. I brought my computer so I could get a little bit more work done on the journey. I had to change trains in a city called Usti, so I did. Let me ask you something. What was the last liquid puddle you might have ventured across? Mine... was blood. I rode up the escalator and literally there were several PUDDLES of blood. Just everywhere. More blood than I had seen ever. I really couldn't believe that it was blood, but then I saw a lady sitting in one of the benches in, no joke, all white... except for her leg, which was a dark maroon shade of blood. A few workers were tending to her, but they weren't doing more than just wrapping a bandage around it. It was A LOT of blood. I'm pretty sure that with that amount of blood loss, she should be treated like... well, or something. I really don't know where she went afterwards, she was just kinda out of it and when the guys finished with her, they just kinda smiled and said, Well, have a beautiful day miss. Yea, I'm sure she will.

Gosh, it was so crazy. So much blood. At such an early hour of the morning. On such white clothes. Blood blood blood everywhere. Wow, it was hard to even imagine that something like that was possible, but it was. There was so much blood just everywhere. On the ground, on the escalator, on her, on everything.

So I got over that after a long while and got on my train to Dresden. Nothing much to say about it, except I was working on finding more embezzled money, which I did, thousands and thousands more. So that was productive. I arrived in Dresden, found the Czech Consulate quite easily, actually, which was a cool thing to have been able to do. And there was only another guy in there. So I made it out after a bit more than an hour and my short-term visa is being processed and I have to get a few more things ready before they can start processing my long-term visa. That's a quick run down of what has happened so far in my day before noon. Right now I'm on a train back home and should be there before mid afternoon. Wow, what a day. And... yea...

A Home of a Farer Fare

2009-07-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

Yea, I know, a long time since the last one. Lots have happened since moving back to the States. Been to Phoenix, cleaned up, had 3 jobs, went to the beach, interesting business proposals, experienced a lot of interesting times. And they keep coming. As of now, I'm not far from looking back into my Czech household and the blog should be more regular as I should have more time. I feel like things have gotten interesting with the time running out. Lots of problems and solutions with visa process, interesting times with support raising, trying to sell my car multiple times, and even a longtime smouldering has produced a wee amount of flame.

A lot of waiting to see what pans out with most of my situations is necessary, but I'm confident it will all work out. A few things that I need to do in the next week or two:

-sell a few things on Ebay
-sell my car... again
-wait til I sell my car so I can buy a plane ticket
-pay off my tuition from last fall
-cancel my car insurance
-get my stuff from my sister's storage unit
-book some bus ticket to Dallas in preparation for departure
-go to Norman to see a few special people
-get my passport back (hopefully with some kind of visa inside it)
-pay back certain people for debts I've incurred
-get a few recipes to take back with me

Man, I'm sure that there are others also that I just don't know how to remember them all. Good luck to me

The Experience of Yet Another Flight Home

2009-04-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

It's almost started to be routine, me flying across the Atlantic, but I decided that I wanted to spice it up a bit, and it decided to spice it up a little itself. My journeys are never without a little hint of adventure. Maybe that's why I always look forward to it. It's always a learning experience that I enjoy.

It started off the night before with me figuring everything out on the internet before it went out on me. I spent the night cleaning up the homestead, cleaning up myself, finishing packing, saying bye to a few people, and by that time, the night was well in progress. It was about 2 or 3 in the morning I think and by that time, it almost seemed ridiculous to go to bed because I'm always afraid of going to bed before I fly out due to the fact that I perhaps might sleep through my alarm. So I didn't. I watched a movie on my computer and made sure I had accomplished everythign that I had needed to before leaving at a little before 5am to the train station. It would be the first leg of the journey. Was I going to Prague airport, as I had done every time beforehand? No, this is where I wanted to add a little spice to it. I got on a train heading north. I was going to Dresden. So... could I sleep on the train? No, because that leaves me with the same problem as sleeping the night before. I would be too tired and was afraid of sleeping through and waking up in Western Czech Republic. I waited at the train station for it to get there, and luckily, it wasn't late and I got on the train without a hitch and relaxed, ate my breakfast and after an hour, I had to get off and wait an hour for my transferring train to Dresden. Waiting for an hour at a strange station early in the morning, without sleep doesn't sound so appealing and it really wasn't. It was boring and I felt my life wasting away at this very point. :) But I digress and I pushed on.

I finally got on the train heading to Dresden and it was a nice one, ready for my hour trip to Dresden, so once again, no sleeping. But at this point, exhaustion started setting on and I had to get creative as to not fall asleep. I thought of a few fun things that made the time fun. Maybe hallucination of tiredness set on, so I was able to make it even more fun by setting up interesting scenarios, but for the time being, I was satisfied. I got off the train in Dresden and was in search for some way to get to the airport. After spending approx. 15 minutes working the ticket machine trying to figure out how to buy just one simple normal ticket, I was able to make my way to the train to the airport and I got there without problems. Everything really worked out quite fine. I got my ticket successfully and made it through security with them taking away from me my forgotten juice and my shaving cream. The guy said something in German, and I said, yea, ok, i don't need them. Take them away and motioned for him to take them, and he said, no, and said something. And I was confused. I tried to leave, but he said no. And gave me the stuff and pointed me out back through security. Apparently he wanted me to dispose of them myself. So, one of the guys walked me out and to a color coordinated set of approximately 10 bins with different things written on them. I looked at them in confusion until the guy said something in German which i took to mean, "Throw them in any one, it doesn't matter". I did, he was satisfied and I got my stuff again and left.

The plane from Dresden-Frankfurt was fine. I was able to sleep from take off to set down. It was nice to get this rest. But my next problem I was anticipating was getting to my connecting flight because I only had an hour to make it through Frankfurt airport, which at times has taking me an hour and a half, so I was worried. Luck was on my side because I was close to my gate, and I didn't have to go through a second security control, which was kinda strange I thought. I always have to. Anyways, I made it to my gate in 10 minutes and I was happy. Waiting sucked but it seemed as though there would be no hitches in the travel... and for once... there weren't. It all worked out. Thank God. I looked at my ticket though and saw that I had a B seat, which meant for the 8 hour trip, I'd be in the middle seat. Awesome.

I got on the plane and saw where I was to be. Between a bigger older guy with a mustache and an 70-year old lady. Awesome. This looked promising. I got comfortable and didn't think I'd be talking to either of them. However, I was quite wrong. And they were both really interesting. The guy I started talking to first. He was German, but left over 30 years ago and was going back for the first time to visit his kids, who were all grown up, but had not seen since they were kids. A really sad story, that he didn't explain to me in further detail, which was fine. I really didn't want to hear his problems anyways. It goes to show you that there's always someone who has had a more difficult life than you have.

And then I started talking to the older lady, which I had no idea of talking to, but she was Greek but worked at the embassy in DC. Really nice lady who had lots of advice to offer me about life and about settling down. I really valued her talks and she was such a sweet and nice lady. I wish her a happy life and know that she's had a rough life as well. It was clear.

And then comes the fun moment of ordering a drink. The stewardess came around, asking about drinks. I ordered something with alcohol and she looked at me and asked me how old I was. I was taken aback for a second, but then thought about how old I was and responded to her. She looked at me, wondering if she should believe me, then started making it for me and said that she's supposed to ask. Fine... then I was wondering if she was going by American rules or German. There's no reason for me to think she was going by American, but I really can't believe that she would think I was under 18, as goes German rules for liquor. Anyways. The flight went by smoothly. I slept for over half of it, and was dearly excited about that, and when landing time came, I was ready for it.

I got off, went to customs. And I felt like i was in some kind of Disney film. It was so strange. They have tvs up showing motivational stuff about how amazing America is. They seemed to have very vibrant and awe-inspiring music playing. Imagine yourself waking up in the mountains, with the sun coming up and life starting anew. And that's what it was like. It was so funny coming through it all. So i got through, got my back which was already there, and walked out. I needed to call my friend, but my american sim card broke and I needed to find a way to call him. I was outside scoping out people to ask if i could use their phones when he just pulled up. Everything really worked out so perfectly and it's nice to be back, even though right now I'm in Maryland, a place even more foreign to me than Europe, but it's a nice new adventure. :) Back to home on sunday

Your Move, Pawn

2009-04-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

It's go time and I'm going back to America now in a few hours. After almost a full 4 months of relaxing traveling in Eastern Europe, it's time to make the transition back to the States for the time being. I'm looking forward to it and spending time with people that I haven't seen in while and enjoying what is the culture that I was raised in. The last four months have definitely been an experience and I'm leaving with definitely different thoughts as to what I came here with. As to what I thought this time would be.

I came here wanting some closure with a part of my life that was dearly important to the shaping of what I am today. I am leaving with something else. I'm leaving a greater feeling for many relationships. Relationships with my former roommate, relationships with my neighbors, relationships with very close friends have been strengthened. And I've realized what a difficult person I am to get to know, even more so. But to a point to where people have even given up on knowing me at all. It's been interesting.

I have realized that wherever I am, I can never please everyone and though my intentions are always good and never malicious, there's always a few people out there who wanna get me. I realize more now than ever how evil the world is and how your life is always being tried. I've come to know that the easiest way out is never or mostly never the best. Right things are always difficult yet worth fighting for. And I think that once these decisions have been made, it only gets harder. It makes me wonder how these decisions will affect my future. It makes me excited/looking forward to/interested/scared a bit as to what it will look like.

Either way, I know that God is looking out for me and guiding me in every way. I know that I will never stray from what He desires for my life and that although I falter often, He will always be there to make my bad choices good, for the better of His Will. I can't explain how blessed and lucky I feel to have experienced the life He has given me. I hope and strive to not let Him or anyone else down in accordance with His Goodness. Life is good, life is bad, life is life, and I'm living it.

The Raft of Our Destiny

2009-04-16T03:56:00.000-07:00

So... it all started the other day when me and Joseph were walking along the river on a trail to this marina on the river bank to play cards and spend a great Easter Day loungin in the sun. I love Easter. We got there and we were standing by the river, and the idea just came to us... We should get an inflatable raft. "We should totally get an inflatable raft."

And then we started talking about it and usually when we get a crazy idea like this, the next day it doesn't seem as cool, but this one still did, and we thought if we could find a cheap one, then we'd go out and be on the river all the time. We talked that we'd go out every day in the summer, spend weeks on rafting trips. We'd do whatever we needed to to be out on the water. It was, as we decided, a much better alternative than just sitting here in the flat watching a movie or something.

So, we continued talking about it, and then i started searching on the internet. Could we really find one for a good enough price? It wouldn't be possible to find one for a reasonable price. The odds were desperately against us. And I searched, and sure enough, I was right. Several thousands of dollars for these things. But it really was never exactly what I was looking for. I continued searching and searching, until I found exactly what we had wanted, and even at a cheaper price than we had expected. Wow! it was great. Now the decision was to actually get it or not. We know where to go, the problem is actually going and shelling out the dough for it. Could we do it? Joseph said yes, and I said, I'll go tomorrow.

The day came and we got excited about the possibility. I had to go to Prague to get the thing. Wasn't totally sure where it was. I went and by metro came to the wrong station. I was looking for this specific street. I finally give up and ask someone where it is, and they point to this highway. Oh.. great, it's the highway... lovely. So... i walk along the highway for a while until I realize that I must be going the wrong way. Not really sure about it, but i decided to turn around and walk in the other direction. I ask a car dealership where this sports shop is. They don't know. It's ok, I'll just keep walking. 15 minutes of walking later, I run into a pub and ask them. They'd of course never heard of the sports shop, but he pointed to the end of the street and said, "You see that big SPORTS sign? Maybe try that. Maybe that's it." So I continued to walk and walk and sure enough, it actually was it. So, after 45 minutes of walking, I made it there. And after conveying to the man the necessary questions I wanted answered, I got the raft and was on my way. But not too fast, because it was a really heavy raft in a big box. about 40 lbs or so and I had to carry it to the metro, about 15 minutes (i found a closer one), to another metro, up to the train, and then 15 minutes walk home from the station. My arms were dead after that.

BUt... after getting home, we pumped it up, and what was suggested as 15 minutes, turned into 45, but in the end... we had accomplished perfection.

The Epic of the Green Beer

2009-04-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

We thought the day would never come. We waited in anticipation for weeks, for months (or so it seemed), and as the day grew closer and closer, our hearts started beating faster and faster... well... maybe it wasn't that much of an excitement, but you could imagine if it were. The day had finally come for the "Green Beer". In honor of the Thursday before Easter, which Czechs call "Green Thursday", the local pub next to my place was offering green beer. What an experience. It really drew a lot of customers I think, and it was definitely something that was making everyone excited.

Then we got the green beer finally. Eh... not bad, but the other beer they had was better. So, that was it. One big green beer and the excitement had rushed out of my heart. And back to the normal stuff it was. But you see now, the story doesn't end here. It's almost like a fairy tale actually.

Everytime we went back to the pub, after Green Thursday, we were being pressed to have the green beer. Apparently, they just couldn't get rid of it. I, every time, refused it, but was always offered it first before all others. For weeks, nay, months, after, there was green beer. It was like the green beer that never went away. Everywhere I looked, green beer, green beer, green beer. I couldn't get it out of my thoughts, out of my dreams. It was haunting me! So finally, me and Joseph went in there last night and I was going to conquer my fear. I walked right up to the owner, waiting for him to offer me the green beer... he didn't. He offered me my usual kind... I, perplexed, got up the courage to tell him NO! I want the Greenest beer you have. That's right, the greenest beer you have. He looked up at me, and I swear I saw a tear in his eye. He slowly looked up at me, and it was at that moment I knew. I would never be haunted by the green beer again. The owner's mouth opened, and those fateful words I'll never forget... "We're all out." A little piece of my heart broke right then and there. As I turned around, I walked with my head down to my table. As I passed a table of a couple with green beer, horns grew from their heads and they were mocking me as they finished the last two pints from the green keg.

That's the story and I'm sticking to it. Exaggeration to any part may have been used for theatrical expression ONLY.

Recovering my "stolen" bag

2009-03-28T14:39:00.001-07:00

I totally forgot to keep you up to date about my bag that I lost. As most of you know (who follow my blog) i told a story a week ago about how I got my bag stolen. The story goes like this... with a continuation.

I was traveling in Montenegro and was going from the capital, Podgorica, to a coastal town 3 hours away, Herceg Novi, and I got off the bus (my bag was under the bus in the luggage place, and it wasn't there. After some hand signals with the driver and the attendant (who didn't speak Engish), they told me to go to the bus station an hour away, because apparently there was a "Big Station". Those were the only English words they knew. So... I went there the next day, and was looking for the information place because that's what they said. I went to the ticket office asking for the "informacije". Where is it? I asked. This guy came up and I told him i lost my bag. oh!! he said. Baggazh! Yes yes, he said. Come. 5 Euro. What? I said. What? no no, i thought he didn't understand me. I met another young guy that worked there that actually spoke English. I told him about my bag and told me I needed to pay 5 Euro. Why? I said. Well, we found the bag here. You forgot it. WHAT!! I DID NOT FORGET IT!! I DIDN'T EVEN GET OFF!! How did i forget it! He said... well it was here on the station. I said, But i didn't get off here, i was going to Herceg Novi. He said... Well, it's not OUR fault. Me: Well, it's certainly not MY FAULT! What am I supposed to do, look out the window every stop to make sure my bag didn't fall out? He was perplexed at this. Apparently it was my fault. It wasn't their fault. OF COURSE IT WAS THERE FAULT!! HOW COULD IT NOT BE THEIR FAULT! Gosh, the people here are total idiots. After trying to explain ourselves for about 15 minutes, I was like, fine, you know what, fine, here's your freakin 5 Euro, give me my bag. I had already thought it was stolen and I'd never see my expensive glasses and contacts and bag again. I was happy to pay five to just get my bag back. That's the story and these people are complete idiots. End of story. And my bags are never leaving my sight again. :)

The Wear of Traveling

2009-03-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

Stats of Traveling:

Duration (in weeks): 6
Duration (in days): 42
Countries visited: 9
Cities: 17ish
Nights spent on buses, trains, and ferries: 8
Different modes of transport: 6
Number of nights crashing on a couch: 10
Number of different travel partners (must include actual traveling 2+ days): 7
Times been scammed, robbed, or almost jumped: 4
Currencies in my wallet or pocket: 9
Times I've washed my clothes in 6 weeks: 2
Other places I want to see: 0

As you see, I've got a lot of numbers in my trip. Too many. I've become quite weathered in the past 6 weeks and really don't desire to travel anymore. I'm looking forward to relaxing and being with friends and family and being around familiar surroundings. I still find ways to enjoy the time I have though, don't worry. Usually, I just sit and smile and wonder why I'm so happy. Usually I can't ever think of a reason, but I keep smiling anyways. I make conversation with myself almost constantly. I've met so many people and traveled with a lot of them, and many of them I just didn't like talking to or I'd just want to be alone. The good thing about talking to yourself is that you always agree with yourself. I wish I could describe the kinds of conversations I have, but they're pretty good. I find myself intriguing. Most of them time I'm just trying to figure out why I'm happy all the time. I just can't seem to help it though. :) That's really all I want to say right now.

Living like a Hobo

2009-03-23T09:40:00.001-07:00

So... after being in Montenegro, I feel that I've been rather lucky because I haven't had to pay for accommodations for at least 5 nights which really has saved me a lot of money, and I've met some really great people who have bent over backwards for me. I've seen a lot of things that I would never have seen otherwise. I've been on the radio, seen the countryside, been in a taxi more than I ever have in my life, due to the fact that taxis here are cheaper than public transit. But... it seems to have all caught up to me.

Today I was started off from the capital, Podgorica, on a 3.5 hour bus ride along the coast to a city in the north, Herceg Novi. I got there and quite easily got on a bus to the coastal city of happiness :D I went to the bus, and as usual, they don't allow me to take both of my bags with me on board. No problem, as I have done a million times, I put my backpack with all my clothes and toiletries underneath the bus in the compartment for luggage with a plethora of other bags. I enjoyed the long ride there, slept a bit, relaxed a bit, listened to a book on tape, and then after a journey, I got off at my destination, being the last person on the bus. I got out and told the guy I had a bag underneath. He opened it, and to my surprise... a black pit of emptiness. Uh... excuse me... where is my bag? The guy looks in... looks at me confused. Of course no one on the bus service speaks English. Where is it? He looks at me, looks back. Asks if it is onboard with me... No, of course not, I'd recognize if I had it with me the entire time idiot. We look again at the black hole of despair. The driver gets out and looks also. And puts his hands up as if he's sayin... well... it's not there, sorry. What am I supposed to do? I asked. He had no answer. Well... we looked at each other. What now? Then they told me to go to the big station at the city an hour away... Uh... ok, thanks...? I had him write down his name and number and there really wasn't much else for me to do. I guess I'll go check out the place tomorrow. Nothing doing now.

In all honesty though.... it sucks that I don't have my bag, but again, I have the irreplaceable stuff with me still. All the expensive stuff. I just had my clothes and toiletries in it, and the bag also was important. But everything is replaceable. I still hold out hope that I'll find it tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure someone just took it off and stole it. It adds more adventure to my trip, in my thoughts, than anything. It's quite interesting now to see how the final few weeks of traveling will work out now that I don't have clothes or toiletries... so we'll just see how it works out. Long live the adventure. Adventure is what I longed for, and that's exactly what I've gotten. Moral of the story: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

A 23 Hour Excursion

2009-03-16T05:01:00.000-07:00

It's funny logging into the blog in different countries, cuz whatever country I'm in, it switches to that language. And although I wasn't able to make it to Ukraine, I'm quite glad that I'm in Serbia because I really like trying to read Cyrillic. It's quite fun and cool. Anyways, that's not what this is about.

I got on the train in Istanbul to head to Beograd (Belgrade). I got on the train and was in a 3 person sleeper car since it was a long night's journey. I got on the train and soon after met my roommate which just so happens was an American. I hardly met any Americans at all in my two weeks in Turkey and now I'm in an overnight train with one. Basically just there were Japanese and British people. So I was quite excited and happy to hear some normal English once again. And he happened to be going to Beograd as well. We talked a lot and we became friends pretty quickly. The trip went quickly due to the fact that we were sleeping most of the time. We had to switch trains in Sofia, but we'd have about an hour and a half break, so I wasn't so worried about not having a ticket for the rest of the way there. It'd be cheaper this way anyways. Problem number one, though. The train was about an hour and a half late.

Here's where the story gets interesting. I wake my friend up telling him we're there. I gather my things and tell him that I'll go and check the ticket situation and he could just get all his stuff together and I'd see him in the station. I get off the train and there are these guys there asking if I'm going to Beograd. Yes, of course I am. HURRY HURRY HURRY. The train is about to leave. Five minutes. Hurry. Ok, I start to run with them. Wait! I don't have a ticket. I need to buy one. Wait, I have my friend in the train, I need to tell him. No time NO TIME. HURRY. We go buy a ticket, come with me. So we ran down into the station at breakneck speeds to the counter. I thought, well, my friend won't have time to get a ticket, so I'll just buy his ticket for him as well and he can get me back later. But wait! I don't have any Bulgarian money! And so they say, HURRY HURRY HURRY!! let's get money. I run to the machine and get the money out. The guy actually takes the money and we run back. I try to get the money, but this is a lost cause. We pay and get the tickets and then run run run to the train. Wait! Kolega, (my colleague), I tell them, I don't know where he is! NO TIME NO TIME!! GO GO GO GO. We run to the train. And I get on. They ask for money, but I've spent all that I got out. I think they probably got some money from my ticket anyways. And I got on the train.

Wait a second, I'm thinking. This had to be a scam somehow. What just happened. Am I even on the right train? I ask people, they say yes, this train goes to Beograd. I look confused and dazed a bit and just kinda try and figure out what I'm supposed to do. I'm looking for my friend, of whom I just bought a ticket for and he's no where in sight. No way he made the train (he didn't). And so I'm kicking myself for buying two tickets! Why did I buy a ticket for a guy I don't know and I knew wouldn't make the train. This was stupid. I was thinking more. Ok, I have my wallet, my passport. I wonder if these tickets are actually valid. Somehow I must have been scammed. In the end, yes, the tickets were valid, it was the right train. I did actually pay twice as much as I was supposed to pay I think, but to catch the only train out of Sofia to Belgrade that day, I was pleased to pay the extra. I was waiting on the train less than a minute when it started going. I decided, oh well, I just bought two tickets. I'm stupid. I'll just go sit down and enjoy my 10 hour train to Beograd.

I find a compartment and start reading. I guy comes in offering me pot and I decline. I can just picture this guy planting it on me and at the Serbian border me spending the rest of my days in a Serbian jail. It was funny though, I walked down the train a few minutes later, and he really was rolling it in his compartment. Nice guy, but I just went back to my compartment. Here's where the story gets interesting.... We're going for about an hour or moreso, and we get to the Serbian border. The police are knocking on my door every 10 seconds and stamping my passport. I'm sitting there in Dmitrovgrad, still reading and reading and then another cop knocks on my door. Great, awesome. I look up from my book and there's my friend, my roommate from the train from Istanbul!! What the hell? I look at him totally shocked and confused. He gets his stuff and joins me. I ask him what the hell happened. I thought he'd just get on the train the next day and hang out in Sofia.

He tells me that he got off the train and the same guys who got me, got him and told him the train had already left. He rushes with them to the street and they put him in a taxi. The taxi's job is to cut off the train. He drives him about an hour as fast as possible to the Bulgarian border to Dmitrovgrad where I am and pays a large taxi fee and gets off. But he doesn't have enough money for a ticket! What's he supposed to do now? He doesn't have a ticket. He gets on the train, is confused and dazed like I was and then he runs into me! What are the chances? Weird point of the day is here... he doesn't have a ticket, I BOUGHT HIM A TICKET ALREADY. He's floored I did it, yet happy. Now, we have two people and two tickets. And a ten hour trip without any food. What do you think would happen next? Well, we had to wait about five hours, but a guy joined us and he was a Serb and later we started talking and then he got out his bag which was FULL of all his mom's cooking. We had an absolutely amazing Baklava and the trip was definitely one for the books. That's all I got for now. Hope you enjoyed it.

Turkish Delight... not so much...

2009-03-02T21:20:00.000-08:00

I met up with my friend Ben in Istanbul for a 6 day tour of Turkey. Our first stop was Cappadocia, but by a dirty smelly night bus with lots of ugly Turkish people. Coming into this bus, i literally hadn't slept for the last two nights, and this night would be one to remember. I was hoping i'd be so tired that i'd just fall right to sleep, and it was somewhat so at the beginning.

We sat down in our seats in the middle of the bus with no room in front of us, cuz the middle door was there, so, where to put our feet, or our stuff. My satchel was a bit bigger, so I thought, no problem, I'll just put it under my seat, there's no one sitting behind me anyways. After sleeping for an hour, I woke up because I was thirsty, I grabbed for my bag to get my water. I pulled it up only to realize that my worst fear had just become reality. My computer was GONE! Oh no, where was it? Maybe it just fell out. I scrambled to the floor to look under but to no avail. I looked inside my bag, and after some searching, I realized that all my power cords were missing also. Ok, someone definitely stole it, but who? Had anyone gotten off yet? I don't think so. The only person sitting behind me at all was the bus attendant. But he couldn't have possibly done it, could he have? Yea, he coulda. I told him, though he spoke no english and he started searching. He wanted me to sit down and do nothing while he did it. I said no, I look too. I used a lot of signals with him. He then said that we would look in a few hours at our first stop. I told him NO, we look now. So... after about ten more minutes of searching, he motioned to me and I came to him and he pointed on the floor half way up the bus under one of the seats layed my computer. I was so shocked and happy I gave the little thief a huge hug. He seemed perplexed but i didn't care.

Next order of business was the cables for my computer, 2 mp3 players, phone, and battery charger. But he refused and resisted adamently and I looked for a few more hours but again to no avail and in the end, there was nothing I could do. What I DID have still were things such as: computer, both mp3 players, phone, camera, everything of real importance. I am still a bit bummed, but I know that it coulda been a lot worse, and I'm just thankful that I have some of my most irreplaceable things. Now that's a story I'll remember, and never again will I leave my bag from my sight.

Traveling in Style

2009-03-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

I arrived into Istanbul after a twenty hour train ride with my new Argentine friend Juan with whom I had met in Brasov when i was there for the second time. We got onto the train and realized that there was no dining car, and we were in the second class couchettes, so we were really excited about the next twenty hours and the possibilities they could bring. And no outlets in second class to watch movies on my computer. I went looking at the cost of an upgrade to first class only to find it was 39 euros. Something that we both really didn't want to spend money on. So we waited and after a few hours, I went back to ask the man something, but i forget as to what it pertained, but he was trying to sell me again on it, and I asked him if there'd be a group discount. He gave me a piece of paper to write it down on and I wrote 50 euros for the both of us, and he wrote 60. Ok, not bad, that's 9 Euro less. But it was still quite a bit for us. An hour later i went to try to use the outlet in the hall of the first class but he wouldn't allow me and asked me to write a new number. I was gettin the hang of this, so I wrote 20 euro for both of us, he wrote 30, I wrote 25, and he said no, 30. I left and talked to Juan and we still decided not to, that we could get lower. After another half hour, we went back and said only 20 euros. he took it, and what was normally 39 euro, we got for 10 euro. A 20 hour upgrade into nice bedrooms for an extra ten bucks or so. it made the rest of the way much more pleasant. We slept, watched movied, and had a good time.

Sibiu Sorrows

2009-02-25T23:40:00.000-08:00

So, my travels and time in Sibiu, the 2007 EU Cultural capital, was quite interesting. I first came from Cluj and looked at bus times and saw it would take about 4 hours to travel 150 km, which I saw as a ridiculous experience. I really have grown to hate the minibuses in this country and plan to avoid them at all costs. So, I talked to the hostel guy and asked if it'd be easier hitchhiking, and he said yea, probably. So, he helped me prepare for it, told me where I should go and wait and thus, I did. I went there and was a bit confused with it all. I had my sign and I was waiting, and cars were stopping and taking everyone else but me, and I started getting discouraged.

But finally, after about 45 minutes or an hour wait, I got a ride from a pretty nice car from a pretty young guy. I thought that it was great because of course he'll be able to speak English. Most young people in this country can speak English pretty well and since this guy has a nice car, I imagined that he'd be able. I crawled in the car and said, "Vorbit engleza?" And he said "Nu", so I then asked him if he spoke any other language that I know anything in, (German, Spanish, Russian, Czech) and he said he spoke Czech! So we talked for 2 hours all the way to Sibiu... Ok, not true... he said that he only spoke Romanian and no other language. But no problem, I was determined to have fun with this, so I pulled out the papers I had printed out before my travels on Romanian phrases and I asked him things like What's your name, Where are you from, How old are you, he helped me count to 20. We had ourselves a real ball. And by the time we got to Sibiu, we were discussing the effects of Global Warming in connection to the recent migration of the humpback whales :D Well... almost, that is.

Yea, the car ride was fairly bland, but it went by and we were finally there. Once we got there, I took a taxi to the train station where I was to meet the guy I'd be staying with. Now... I kinda had a bad vibe about this guy from the start. Not like a serial killer vibe, but just a "this guy is strange and weird" kind of vibe. First off he started saying in his messages that he was really happy and blah blah and it was just really strange. And then he said how he refused to respond to my by SMS because of the international roaming. Seriously though, it's like five cents more. We met in front of the train station, and he was very adamant that I be THERE at THIS time. So i was, but he was 10 minutes late, and then I thought he'd be free, but no, he was just on a break and we went back to his office and then he said that I should meet him in 3 hours at this theater. Everyone knows where it is, ok? I'll see you there... Thanks very much sir, but I don't know where it is, so can you show me please? He showed me and said he was going to some classical music concert alone. And I said ok, I'll be there. And he lived 30 or more minutes from the center. As I was walking around the center, I just didn't feel right about it. Not that it would be dangerous, but just that I didn't really think it would be a very good time. The guy was a really nice guy, but I just felt strange. (Hey guy, if you're reading this, sorry).

So... I in the end, I wanted to just stay in the center, it was really fun and I wanted to be in the center, so I wrote him and said i randomly ran into an old friend i hadn't seen in 8 years and I'd be with him and stay where he's staying. And also I didn't want to walk around with all my stuff with me. I like to drop it off and then walk around like a local. I didn't get an answer and I went on my way. I found a hostel in the center and dropped my stuff off and started walking around. It was really awesome and I don't worry about anything. I came back early and used the net for a while and then I asked the receptionist about a place to get a drink about midnight. She said the pub just below. It plays good music and is open late. No problem, that's easy enough and I went. I got a drink and walked around to see the people. Let alone, I saw someone that looked familiar. Who was this familiar face? Was this a guy I had met at a previous hostel? If so, where was he staying. We exchanged greetings, and I kinda looked at him curiously for a bit, and then it hit me who he MUST be!! He's the guy whose place I was to stay at!! :D Gosh, I went back into the other room, finished my drink at a faster than average pace and then went back up and went to bed. It was a classic moment that will live in infamy. :D

Bus Stories thus far

2009-02-23T00:25:00.000-08:00

So, in the bus scene, it's been a bit interesting. In inter city buses, nothing really ever seems to go right.

My first experience was when I was traveling on a one hour minibus from Sighisoara to Targu Mures. It seems like a fairly simple idea. Just wait to you get to a big city and then get off at the main bus station, doesn't it? No no, that'd be way too easy. First, what you have to do is wait til you get to the city, clearly say only the city's name and point outside. When they don't understand you, you say it again with more vigor. When they nod, you look really scared because the bus didn't stop at a station and has already left the station. You get up, run to the front of the bus where an old lady is standing and look at her in despair trying to get her attention. You say the city's name again and she nods in agreement. You look more scared then and try and get her to tell the bus driver that you don't want to leave this city. She says something in Romanian to the effect of "Where are you going?" You mutter "here" with other nonsensical noises and point downwards. After a few minutes she does the same thing, as well as you do. But wait!... the bus is beginning to slow down and stop. But is this a bus station? No.... it's just a normal city bus stop. What am I doing here? you get off either way. you look around totally confused, but luckily you have the number of the guy who was supposed to meet you. You call him and say you have no idea where you are. He asks you to describe it. You say... well, I'm on the main street and there's a big yellow building and a sign with the date, time, and temperature. Later, you find out it's the Polyclinic and he makes it there. And it leaves you thinking... What in the hell just happened here?

Here's a photo of a minibus which are everywhere and act as real buses. Oh yea, it was an hour late also which is normal.

Story number two comes when I was planning on traveling from Targu Mures to Sigheti Maramures in the north. What is supposed to be a 5 hour trip. In the morning we went there because there was supposed to be a bus that leaves daily. We get there and apparently this bus is on holiday for the next two weeks. Oh, great, awesome, maybe they should update the national bus website sometime. Ok, no problem... luckily I don't care about keeping a schedule... where could i go. Where does the next bus go to? There was a bus (a real bus this time) going to a big city 2 hours away called Cluj. I really hadn't been planning on visiting this place, but I thought ok why not. So i went to the bus and tried to get on... you'd think it would be simple enough, wouldn't you? Just buy a ticket and get on, right? Well... you forget my friend that I'm traveling in Romania, the land where the traveller always gets the shaft.
I walked up and asked for one ticket please (actually my friend did cuz i don't speak Romanian if you didn't know). Yes? one ticket you want huh? Sorry, we have a few spots open still but I'm not gonna sell it to you right now, said the bus driver. (You see, the bus didn't end in Cluj, but in a big city 4 hours farther.) So, he said, if no one comes who wants to go to the farther city, then you can go, but you'll have to wait until right up to the time when we're ready to go. (Sounds like a reasonable sentence from a reasonable SOB, huh?)
Anyways, by the time we left, we went and asked again and there happened to be one seat left, and he said that it's "somewhere in the back". Well... of course it would have to be the one in the back corner. I'm carrying my satchel, backpack and some lunch and I look back and think, "There is no way me and all my stuff are getting back there, no freakin way." I walk and i try to put my satchel up top but it doesn't fit. Ok, no problem, i say to myself. But as i get closer to the back, people's stuff was strewn all over aisle so that I couldn't even get back there. So, first i put my lunch up top. Then kinda throw my satchel in the seat, and carefully take my backpack off and put it in the floor. And then i grabbed my lunch. So i'm sitting there, in the back corner of a crowded bus, jam packed, with my backpack between my legs, my satchel in my lap, and me trying somehow to make myself a sandwich from a loaf of bread, packaged cheese, and slices of ham, wriggling out my knife several times to cut something else open. And squooshed by the big gentleman next to me up against the window, and then trying to write something down. Wow, that was a good experience

Gypsy Lovin'

2009-02-21T23:38:00.000-08:00

I apologize in advance for the lack of photos but i thought that it would be ok to at least give u something and i'll add a photo later, which i do have btw.

The story starts as I was leaving the town of Sighisoara the other day and walking to the bus station. The town was about as big as Kralupy but a million times more gorgeous (yes it's possible). Anyways, I was walking to the bus station with all my stuff and got there with plenty of time to spare, maybe an hour or more. I walked around looking for a market where i could buy some cheap food for snacks or sandwiches. After walking around for a while, I realized that that was a lost cause and that I just wanted something. I finally went to the only place that I had noticed to be open and selling food... a pizzeria.

As I walked in, I was accosted by this gypsy fellow with a clipboard of sorts. He asked me a question (I wasn't sure if he was wanting me to do a survey or give him money) so I just looked at him and said, "Uh... English" which gave him the idea to step down so I then thought his English was none. I sat down and five seconds later, he asked if he could sit with me. Now, at this point, I'm getting confused. I know I'm traveling alone. Gypsies have this reputation for me to be lazy thieves, always trying to scam you somehow. So needless to say, I was a bit hesitant and cold towards him right off the bat.

I sat and looked at the menu and decided what kind of pizza I wanted. Somehow, we got to start talking, and I was partly right. He was a poor gypsy, but he was studying in university and was almost at the end of a 200 km hitch hike home. So... I'm still thinking that somehow he's gonna scam me, so i kept my things close to me still and we keep talking. His English isn't that great, but we get by talking to each other, and he is super friendly and interested to talk to me. His clipboard was his hitch hiking sign it ended up. And so we stop talking a bit, he's drinking his coffee and reading a book, and I'm trying to eat my pizza fast enough to make my bus. We had ourselves some good convo though. He taught me how to say several important things in Romanian and it was fun. He really wanted me to learn some important phrases.

So anyways, at the end, I was quite please with the situation and I was happy to pay and leave with one more nice experience to my name. But wait! That's not it. I asked the lady to pay, and this guy, George was his name, told me that he really wanted to pay for me. I was confused. We'd only been talking for 20 or 30 minutes. And he can't even afford to buy his own bus ticket home and he was now buying my lunch. It was quite interesting I thought. And here he is paying for my meal, a gypsy. I'd have never thought it possible. I was quite humbled and felt bad for being so cold to him at first. The least I could do was get a picture with him, so I got my camera out and took a photo and promised to email it to him. Now that was a good experience.

Train Experience in Romania

2009-02-17T16:06:00.001-08:00

As I have been sitting here on the train from Budapest to Brasov (a journey that will no doubt take up at least a fifth of my entire life when it's all said and done), we stop just after about 3 hours or less of traveling and a most perplexing things happens.

Several people get on... but that's not the perplexing thing. I'm not sure how many are in the hoard, but it could be as many as hundreds, but it seemed to be only more like 2 people, an elderly couple, and they kept bringing on board these grocery bags. But they didn't have groceries in them and they looked to be heavy. And then they started stacking them above the seats. I thought this to be quite strange because I was thinking, why would they stack them if they could just put them next to each other... I mean seriously, they're only three bags. (Sidenote: I'm at the Romanian border! About to cross for the first time into the land of the true Romans :D ). Anyways, back to the real story. So I was thinking... three bags, why do they need to stack them, they look as if they'll fall if you stack them. Then, they started bringing more. Two by two, as if the train were Noah's Ark and the boxes were different kinds of animals, they came on board. And two by two, they heaved them up on top above the heads of their seats.

They quickly noticed that they were going to have to start using other space, so before the tops were full, they were already putting them under their chairs and next to their feet and behind the chairs. I was confused because I thought that they could still use the top part, but then i thought that they were just tired of heaving them up so high. But after they had occupied all of the floor space near and around them, they continued to find more and more space which was up top. And then they started taking them to other parts of the train. And then they had just their normal bags as well. In total, I have counted at least 30 of these strange bags, and I'm sure I had to have missed about 10 or so, so that's 40 bags! How did they get them all here? How are they getting them home!? WHAT IS IN THEM!!!????

(Anyways, maybe you can help me out a bit. Here's a pic of most of the bags. You can see them up top, at her feet, and that red one is one of several they'd put behind the seats.)

Gosh, I'm so curious as to what kind of ungodly things could be in these bags. Maybe they'll open one of them up, but probably not. And since I don't understand Romanian or Hungarian (whichever country these ruffians are from) I can't even eavesdrop as to what could possibly be in these mystery boxes. For what kinds of goods were these strange people using this public train as their cargo ship? It's something that we will have to be content with never knowing. Can I handle it? Yea, I really don't care that much.

Frankly, I'm more interested in how long it's gonna snow for. It's been snowing for 2 days straight now and there is a sizable amount of snow on the ground, and with seven hours left on this train ride of doom (I'm just kidding, it's actually been pretty comfy thus far) it doesn't show any sign of letting up. I'm sure glad I packed my hiking shoes and not my tennis shoes. I guess we'll see if I am as glad about that when I'm at the southern coast in Turkey in a few weeks.

PS. Oh... it was pretty cool, the guy just opened up a bottle of wine with no more than a knife. He dug it out and then pushed the remaining into it. It was great

Sleepless in Budapest

2009-02-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

Oh what a sequel that would be if Tom Hanks would just give in to the immensity of such a heart stopping thriller. Hm... I wonder how it'd go. Maybe Meg Ryan could be like a Chinese lady who moved to Athens and Tom could be some really awesome Hungarian guy who just needs some kind of maid or something. Anyways, she sees the add that some cool Hungarian guy can't sleep because his house is too dirty. She sees her chance to make it big and to help such a poor man out. She hitchhikes all the way to Budapest and tada, it's almost the exact same story as Cinderella... but a bit not.

I would pretty much totally buy an awesome movie such as this... or at least rent it or see it in the theaters. And we could get Antonio Banderas to direct it. I hear he's got some killer photo angles that are revolutionary in the 21st century.

Hm... I really could have made that story a whole lot longer, but part of me just doesn't want to since it's... uh... late and part of me really wants to just write out the whole story and make it awesome, but part of me just doesn't and I can't make it just a half hearted effort, so I just won't do it. Maybe I'll think about it later. But for now... I can't sleep and I'm trying to figure out why. Could it be:

-the fact that I'm going on a 10 hour train tomorrow to the vast unknown known as Romania where I start the real journey of whatever it is I'm doing?

-my affinity for How I Met Your Mother that I just want to watch more and more even if it means losing sleep over?

-the fact that I'm so relaxed cuz I was at the baths today for 2 hours and just kinda kicked it back today?

-I'm worried about what the future (post-journey) holds for me?

-that I just really don't want to wake up tomorrow at 630?

-that i feel dirty since i didn't shower after the baths and that I have to wait until tomorrow morning? better yet this morning :)

-that I'm mulling over the many long discussions that me and David entertained each other with throughout the day

-that I wished I'd have bought some real hungarian paprika to take with me on my journey as to spice everything up.

No no no... all of those seem like good reasons, but I'm pretty sure that the reason falls somewhere between two main reasons, one of which is slowly going away, and the other which really hasn't subsided even minimally:

1. The fact that I'm just not tired and I just can't fall asleep. (this one is slowly going away)

2. The fact that I have heartburn from all the awesome food that I ate today. I had real Hungarian gulash with real Hungarian paprika and an awesome spaghetti for lunch and the a huge amount of fajitas and homemade guacamole and so many awesome things that tasted just so yummy. Thanks David and Susan for a great trip. But it'll be good cuz i can sleep on the train tomorrow... I hope.

Dreams of Destiny

2009-02-11T01:06:00.001-08:00

So... last night I had an interesting dream. I always like it when I dream of something fun and new. But as I start to set off on a journey of adventure and daring bravery, I had a dream that perhaps correlates to it, though I hope in no way it does :) I had a dream last night that I was taking an adventurous trip to the Amazon (the Amazon in my dream is Romania in reality) and I am always so careful about my bags and keeping them with me. But somehow, I managed to leave my bags on the plane or they were stolen from me or something and just at the beginning of the trip, I didn't have any of the stuff I needed. I was totally lost and with nothing at all. :) Crazy, but it would be more crazy if it really happened, but don't worry, it won't. I can't wait for the adventure to start and for the times of tomorrow to be the times of today. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what kinds of fruit are exhumed from such a trip as this. :)

Birthdays

2009-02-09T03:32:00.001-08:00

So the other day i was talking with an old student and he was talking about his birthday and what he's gonna get for it and blah blah blah. So, I asked him a normal question. When's your birthday? I got for the first time in my life this answer. I don't know. He didn't know when his birthday was. He had it narrowed down to three days, Feb. 19,20, or 29th. Given though that the 29th only happens once every four years. He proceeded to tell me that it was normal that people don't know when they're birthdays are. I proceeded to show him that he was wrong by asking everyone who was there when their birthday was. Of course everyone knew. He just couldn't concede to the fact that it was very abnormal for someone to not know when their birthday was.

In the end, we looked at his ID card and found out that it was the 19th. Really unbelievable for me though that he didn't know. And i finally got some back up from the other people who were with us that it was strange to not know. Anyways, now he knows his birthday and hopefully he will remember it from now on.

Nights Worth the Story

2009-02-01T02:20:00.000-08:00

As time goes by, memories are made. As memories are made, people start to see good things and bad things that they didn't once before see. The past week or two has been marked with meetings of several different friends and many innumerable long nights. Let me take you back to a few of them.

The first one I was meeting some adult students that I became quite close with the past year for bowling. Of course, I won, as I always do, but as the night got later, and as the venue changed on multiple occasions and as the attendance of the group slowly dissipated, the night never really seemed to die down. It really never does with this group. But before I knew it, I got offered a job by my friend to be the token American in his garden making business and an invitation to join them on their Thai vacation. But after hearing their offer and doing some quick math, I realized that my salary would hardly be enough to live off of let alone to save enough for a Thai vacation. Oh well... maybe they'll up the stakes a bit. :)

In one of them, I was celebrating a birthday of a student with her class. It was a class which started studying at the school the same year as I and it's the class with which I have probably experienced the most things with and enjoyed interesting moments, some good, some not so good, some quite awkward, but nevertheless, moments. I was speaking with one of the students and although we never had many good talks, she was always a part of our experiences and after a really good talk with her, she let me know what an impact my friendship has meant to them, and it was a really happy evening.

And last night, I was in Prague with Joseph and my friend Stephanie and we were having a good time, starting with a depressing movie, then followed with a walk across town to a pizza place which has become frequented by us incessantly in the past 4 years. A bit pricy, but the quality is unmatched by any other in Prague. Though the only pizza in Kralupy is better. Anyways, we were walking after dinner and Joseph found on the ground, off the main square, 1000 crowns (or 50 bucks) which made as a late Christmas present. We took that money and proceeded to indulge and enjoy the night a little further at the next venue.
Following this venue, we started walking around Prague again as to decide to what would be the next desirable location, for none of the weary had to be home anytime soon. We just had to make the last train a bit past midnight. So as we were walking, the snow started to fall, and continue to fall it did. As we got off the beaten track, the snow was clearly starting to cover the ground. And after the view of a gorgeous church, and a well placed tackle of an intruder into the church's gardens (joseph) we digressed onto our next location.
After some moments there, we realized that we needed to get back as to take the last train back home. For if we missed it, we wouldn't be able to take another one until 430 in the morning. That would mean 4 more hours of finding something to do. We walk into the train station as we always do, only to not find our train on the board. I run to the ticket office and as what's up, and she says that it's leaving from the other station in 5 minutes. Now, let me relay to you what this means. After a full night of relaxing and hanging out, now we have to make it to a train station in five minutes which is clearly more than 5 mintues away, but we decided to try for it anyways. So... it's almost 1230am, and snow has now covered the cobblestone streets, and there are two guys, who clearly aren't in the kind of shape to run as hard as you can for 5 minutes to a train station which is probably about a bit farther than half a mile away.
So we were off, I got to a quick lead and I didn't look back, as my partner trailed me by perhaps a hundred meters or more when it was all said and done. I reached the train station, ran through it, up the escalator, saw that the train was still on the board and ran through the gates to gate 5 (it had to be one of the last ones). I run up the stairs and see it still there. I am dead, officially. I stand at the entrance and wait for a about 10 seconds and then the conductor starts yelling at me to get on. I look around and finally spot him. I tell him to wait a minute for my friend. Joseph finally comes and we get on and I felt like a ghost. I wasn't sure what to do. Should I die right there, should I go throw up in the bathroom? Does this train even have a bathroom? So I decided to revert to option 3 and just fell asleep. As some old students got on the train, I was glad that Joseph knew them better than I so I let them be and they as well to me the same.
We got home and the night of adventure had finally been wrapped up. Tonight should be a bit less exciting due to the fact that we will be not making the last train, yet the first one in hopes of some good times with the Super Bowl and some friends. Until next time.

Nice Days, Clever Nights

2009-01-21T04:58:00.000-08:00

Days pass by as they were some kind of whirlwind of seconds, but alas, all good things must come to an end, that much is true. It's been fun seeing here things progress and people grow older. That's probably been the craziest thing for me in these past 3 weeks of being here. It's been strange seeing people, former students whom I first met and befriended 4 years ago, and the younger ones are 4 years older, adults even, starting to make big decisions. But the strange thing is that I feel completely as I did before. All of them look 4 years older, but not me, I feel just as the way I came here, with the same spirit and drive for adventure. I came a young 20 year old boy and now I'm still a young 24 year old boy, and I've seen changes in myself, but although I'm 20% older, it's nothing I think.

In the past week, I've been doing lots of things, but not much. I've:

-visited a new non-smoking bar in Kralupy, which is great by the way.

-visited a new great church in Prague (the first one that I kinda ever liked somewhat) It's called ICF-Praha

-I've been entertained with an innumerable amount of tea.

-I've spent lots a few hours studying and preparing my Russian. I've still got a lot to do, I don't understand it still much.

-I've been researching my upcoming trip to Romania and where I'll stay or who I'll stay with.

-I've decided that I'm gonna win a contest and move to Australia, so i'm working on that for the time being also.

-I've talked to many old students back home or old friends via chat.

I'm keepin myself pretty busy. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks and some of the fun or interesting experiences that will arise from it. I hope you all are well and I'll talk to you later.

Refreshing Freshness

2009-01-13T02:57:00.000-08:00

Things haven't seemed to slow down for me since coming here a week ago, I've been keeping myself busy with visiting with an innumerable amount of people in such settings as houses, flats, over tea, over beer, festivals, and various places in the school mostly being the classroom with my old classes.

But it's been really good. I've felt a lot of good feelings since being back, and the one that I'm glad that I haven't experienced yet is boredom. I'm sure in the next several months of my time of not having a job or really having anything set to do that I will, in time, become bored sometime, but going on a week plus strong and I'm still not bored. It probably has a bit to do with the fact that in my free time when I'm not with people, I've got other preparations to do for some trip or I've been watching some TV shows that my old roommate Joseph and his roommate Aaron have.

Interesting notes thus far:
- I visited the Kralupy Music Festival, called Lednovy Underground, last weekend and saw lots of people of whom I was very excited to see and meet up with. I was able to hear lots of good music also and feel like everything was back to normal again. I've accomplished a lot more normalcy in the last week than I have felt in the last few months, so that has been a good feeling for me.

- It was really fun for me to meet this strange guy the other night in a local pub who remembered me and came over really wanting to have me teach him English because he doesn't know anything for going on holiday to Egypt or anything. He doesn't know any languages and really wanted me to teach him some travel English. I said no problem, knowing that he wouldn't want to the next day (they never want to). And if he did, that'd be great, cuz then I'd be making a bit of money which would be helpful. So he wanted help for his holiday travelling, but then he said that he isn't planning a holiday for a long time and actually he doesn't have a job right now, so it was a bit confusing, but that's life. Oh, and he wasn't able to meet the next day.

- Another night I was with some friends and we went to a nonstop bar and met one of my old friends and his wife. Well, they weren't really old friends, but just someone I knew from a bar I used to visit near my place. He's actually the first person who asked me for English lessons but never followed through with it. They made me and my friends come over and we came and they wanted us to drink champagne, so although we didn't want to, they bought a bottle and made us drink it. It was strange a bit, and then the wife wanted to kiss everyone many times. Really strange.

- Last, on a sad note, my old neighbor is really really sick. Keep him and his family in your thoughts. That's all I can say now.

I'll try and get some pictures up later but for now, this is gonna have to do. :) Hope all is well with everyone and I'll be talking to you all again really soon I"m sure.

Zach is back

2009-01-04T03:01:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone and welcome again to my blog. I know things were a bit slow for a few months as I was in America finishing up some boring studies, but I have arrived finally again back in Czech Republic and hopefully I should have a few more adventures and interesting stories to keep you all entertained. In the meantime, stay tuned and I'm really interested in where it'll take us. Talk to you all later.

King Croesus and His Hybris

2008-12-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

In the "Histories" by Herodotus, I find one of the most virtuous stories about living a good, strong life and what it means to live a happy life when we look at the accounts of the richest man in the world in ancient times, King Croesus:

On this account, as well as to see the world, Solon set out upon his travels, in the course of which he went to Egypt to the court of Amasis, and also came on a visit to Croesus at Sardis. Croesus received him as his guest, and lodged him in the royal palace. On the third or fourth day after, he bade his servants conduct Solon. over his treasuries, and show him all their greatness and magnificence. When he had seen them all, and, so far as time allowed, inspected them, Croesus addressed this question to him. "Stranger of Athens, we have heard much of thy wisdom and of thy travels through many lands, from love of knowledge and a wish to see the world. I am curious therefore to inquire of thee, whom, of all the men that thou hast seen, thou deemest the most happy?" This he asked because he thought himself the happiest of mortals: but Solon answered him without flattery, according to his true sentiments, "Tellus of Athens, sire." Full of astonishment at what he heard, Croesus demanded sharply, "And wherefore dost thou deem Tellus happiest?" To which the other replied, "First, because his country was flourishing in his days, and he himself had sons both beautiful and good, and he lived to see children born to each of them, and these children all grew up; and further because, after a life spent in what our people look upon as comfort, his end was surpassingly glorious. In a battle between the Athenians and their neighbours near Eleusis, he came to the assistance of his countrymen, routed the foe, and died upon the field most gallantly. The Athenians gave him a public funeral on the spot where he fell, and paid him the highest honours."

Thus did Solon admonish Croesus by the example of Tellus, enumerating the manifold particulars of his happiness. When he had ended, Croesus inquired a second time, who after Tellus seemed to him the happiest, expecting that at any rate, he would be given the second place. "Cleobis and Bito," Solon answered; "they were of Argive race; their fortune was enough for their wants, and they were besides endowed with so much bodily strength that they had both gained prizes at the Games. Also this tale is told of them:- There was a great festival in honour of the goddess Juno at Argos, to which their mother must needs be taken in a car. Now the oxen did not come home from the field in time: so the youths, fearful of being too late, put the yoke on their own necks, and themselves drew the car in which their mother rode. Five and forty furlongs did they draw her, and stopped before the temple. This deed of theirs was witnessed by the whole assembly of worshippers, and then their life closed in the best possible way. Herein, too, God showed forth most evidently, how much better a thing for man death is than life. For the Argive men, who stood around the car, extolled the vast strength of the youths; and the Argive women extolled the mother who was blessed with such a pair of sons; and the mother herself, overjoyed at the deed and at the praises it had won, standing straight before the image, besought the goddess to bestow on Cleobis and Bito, the sons who had so mightily honoured her, the highest blessing to which mortals can attain. Her prayer ended, they offered sacrifice and partook of the holy banquet, after which the two youths fell asleep in the temple. They never woke more, but so passed from the earth. The Argives, looking on them as among the best of men, caused statues of them to be made, which they gave to the shrine at Delphi."

When Solon had thus assigned these youths the second place, Croesus broke in angrily, "What, stranger of Athens, is my happiness, then, so utterly set at nought by thee, that thou dost not even put me on a level with private men?"

"Oh! Croesus," replied the other, "thou askedst a question concerning the condition of man, of one who knows that the power above us is full of jealousy, and fond of troubling our lot. A long life gives one to witness much, and experience much oneself, that one would not choose. Seventy years I regard as the limit of the life of man. In these seventy years are contained, without reckoning intercalary months, twenty-five thousand and two hundred days. Add an intercalary month to every other year, that the seasons may come round at the right time, and there will be, besides the seventy years, thirty-five such months, making an addition of one thousand and fifty days. The whole number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty, whereof not one but will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly accident. For thyself, oh! Croesus, I see that thou art wonderfully rich, and art the lord of many nations; but with respect to that whereon thou questionest me, I have no answer to give, until I hear that thou hast closed thy life happily.

This story shows, quite contrastingly that the most important things in life aren't money or fame or glory, but living and dying a life worth living and dying for.

Another Great Note from "The World is Flat"

2008-12-14T18:28:00.000-08:00

After telling the story of Candace Lee, a young, ambitious, optimistic girl who tragically died on 9/11 on the plane directed by Mohammed Atta, the author notes, "When Candace Lee Williams boarded Flight 11 she could not have imagined how it would end. But in the wake of 9/11, none of us can now board an airplane without imagining how it could end - that what happened to Candace Lee Williams could also happen to us. We all are now so much more conscious that a person's life can be wiped out by the arbitrary will of a madman in a cave in Afghanistan. But the fact is, the chances of our plane being hijacked by terrorists today are still infinitisimal. We are more likely to be killed hitting a deer with our car or being struck by lightning. So even though we can now imagine what could happen when we get on an airplane, we have to get on the plane anyway. Because the alternative to not getting on that plane is putting ourselves in our own cave. Imagination can't just be about reruns. It also has to be about writing our own new script."

I love this quote. I just love the way he puts the image in our head with the cave. It makes you realize, if you haven't already, that when your time has come, there's nothing you can do about it, but if it's not your time, then, until that specific time, you are invincible.

Time to Start Pickin it Up Again

2008-12-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

As time has passed, my life in America, in Oklahoma, in Norman, receiving my Teacher's Certificate has been mildly, no I take that back, extremely exhausting and wearisome. I am quite ready for it to be finally over with it. But there have been a few high marks in the semester. There have been a plethora of moments I'd rather never recall again, but I'd rather stray away from those. Moving to Norman, 5 months ago, I was really lucky to get in the situation that I came to so simply. I found a house, a job, and car without having to raise more than a phone call here or there. And now, here I am, at the moment that I have been living for for the last few months. The moment when it all ends. The moment when I got what I came for and I have accomplished all necessary requirements for my certification.

So now what? Here is where the problem, or shall I say "adventure" begins. I don't know. I've got lots of directions in which I could go, but not one of them seems to be so strong right now and clear. I hope that in the next few months, that I will have the time I need to refocus and spend some quality time thinking about where it is that I want to be. Therefore, starting in about 3 weeks or so, I'll be heading off back over to Europe and wherever it may lead me. I look forward to everything that it might bring my way and hope that it will prove to be a very growing experience for me.

Early Christmas Present

2008-11-17T14:48:00.000-08:00

I've been teaching now at Norman North High School, 9th grade World History for almost 3 months now and have been teaching pretty steadily so the students have somewhat grown on me. Some of them more than others. But, they're fun to joke around with a bit and talk a bit during class about what interests them and such.

But everyone had apparently noticed that my shoes were pretty decrepit and that i needed new shoes. I knew i needed new shoes, but i was just waiting until after Christmas and before the New Year to start shopping for them. But... i didn't have to wait that long. I walked into school today and my cooperating teacher told me i had a surprise and he told me that one of my students had bought me a new pair of shoes. i was so shocked and amazed at them. They were like a really nice and i mean nice pair of running shoes. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made my day a lot happier and I love my new shoes. They're amazing. I am so happy and it really will be sad to finish up the year. I was at the point where I was ready to give in and just wish that everything was finished but now I've got more motivation and I really like my classes so much and I'm afraid that it's gonna be sad to see them leave. Wow, i really don't have much else to say right now. I'm still pretty speechless, but it's awesome.

I gave my classes the rest of my measurements and i'm hoping to get a new suit out of it by christmas as well, not to mention maybe some shirts and whatnot. :D i wish, huh? jo, so here's a pic of my new kicks.

The Election

2008-11-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my life, I'm sad that I live in Oklahoma. Why? I'm sad about the people who live here. I'm sad about the way they perceive life. I'm sad about the stereotypes they carry and the fear they have of something new. But I'm glad how the election ended, but it's just sad that people are so horrible. I'm afraid for some of these people who are afraid of Obama being president. What are they gonna do? What are they gonna think? How are they gonna react to so many things that happen in the coming years. Ugh, it's so strange and so horrible. People don't put enough blame on themselves and like to blame other people. That's the thing that's wrong with this country and with people in general. No one wants to admit that something is their fault. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens with Obama. I knew from the moment that I got the breaking news 4 years ago that he had won the Senate race in Illinois that this man was someone special. That this man would be the next president of the US. And I feel like this is a guy who can inspire us to follow his lead. A leader is someone we want to follow and someone who will motivate us to take charge. Someone who will fight by our sides. That's who I want to be leader, and I am looking forward to seeing what will happen.

Birthday Fun

2008-10-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday and it was quite a long birthday at that. It really wasn't too exciting actually, but it did make for a memorable day which can be categorized as a birthday. It started out with me working. So... actually for the first 4 hours of my birthday, I was working, because it was the last 4 hours of my 13 hour shift for the day at work. It was pretty long and i was pretty darn tired at the end of that day, but it wasn't really that bad i think.
Then I went to bed and slept for about 5 hours and then got up and went back to work again for the rest of the day. It was a nice Gameday in Norman and when a few of my customers found out it was my birthday, they were extra nice, and one table even sang to me. Then, since my boss hadn't given me a break on the previous day, I asked him if i could get a break today, and so he did. He gave me the first half of the game off. I was excited, but then, just as i was leaving, he asked me if I wanted to go to the game. I said yes, and so he gave me an extra ticket they had! Wow, I was really happy. So i went to the first half of the game. It was really great. It'd been about 4 years since my last game and the environment was so much fun. I was really lucky to have had such a great break I think.
In the end of the night, I was working behind the bar. It's funny you know how many people would come up to the bar and they'd be like hey man, it's my birthday, can i get something for free. I told them, no they couldn't. They'd proceed to badger me about it and they'd say, "But it's my birthday." Then I'd just tell them it was mine too and they'd be a bit more silent. And the last fun notable comment of the evening is when the future Heisman winner was sitting at my bar and i had to tell him that he couldn't sit there because he isn't 21. :) My birthday ended anti-climatically and I got home the day after my birthday and went to bed. Thus... another year down, another year yet to come. Let's hope it's a good one. Thanks to everyone for the messages and calls.

The Turnpike

2008-10-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

In Oklahoma we have this highway that you have to pay money for every time you drive on it. It's the main connection from Tulsa to OKC. It's nice and really fast, but there is the problem of having to pay for it every time you go on it. The cost is approximately three dollars and fifty cents.

I went to Tulsa last weekend to hang out with my family a bit and it was a great time. I got to spend time with my nephews, talked on the phone to a friend and watched movies with my mom. But all that aside (that's not the cause for a story). I made it to Tulsa ok, but the problem was going back home.

Sunday morning I headed off and as soon as I got on the road, I realized that perhaps I didn't have the mandatory amount of money to drive on the highway home. As I was driving, I started to count my money (not a good idea to do when you're driving on the highway, but nevertheless...) and I finally counted out that I had three dollars and 44 cents. I needed only six more cents. So as I was still driving on the highway, I looked around my car. I reached in all sorts of places and yet, I couldn't find anything... :(

I finally came to the toll booth and I was thinking to myself... "So many people drive through this each day that they must have run across this problem before. They must accept credit card or something. I pull up and the guy asks me for my money. I ask if they accept card and he says no. I then proceed to tell him that I am lacking 6 cents. He hesitantly accepts my money and puts it in the register and lets me through. Before leaving I apologetically ask, "Is it ok?" he begrudgingly answers, "I GUESS so...". Really rude. I drove off. But i was a little upset because if he was upset about it or didn't want to accept it, I would have accepted responsibility for my actions. I had realized that it was my fault and that I would have to pay the consequences. But he just acted a bit rude and let me go on through, like he had to. But he DIDN'T have to. So if he wants to let me through, he should have acted a bit nicer to me. At least that's what I think...

International Schooling and American Independence

2008-10-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Friedman, I teach fifth grade reading and social studies at the Annie Wright School, a private school in Tacoma, Washington. While many of the families I teach are ethically diverse and well educated, most are white, upper middle class American families. I recently rinished your new book "The World Is Flat." I wish i could have shared these thoughts with you before you write this. Parent conferences are one of the more interesting aspects of my job; I never realized that they were such a cultural study, though. Two parent conferences two years ago were my flat earth moment. One conference was with Deven and Swati Vora. (Guess where the Vora family immigrated from?) As we chatted about their daughter Sonia, they told me not only did our school not give enough homework but also that it wasn't challenging enough. Later that day in another conference, Irena Mikeladze, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, wanted to know why her son Timothy had no science book and such a flimsy science curriculum. How could we be a competitive school when we didn't have a science book? Representing two different national characters, the three parents made me think. Sadly, many... white, American, middle class parents told me that the fifth grade work was too hard on their kids. They couldn't possibly complete it and have time to "be a kid." Soccer, gymnastics, music lessons and dinner out squeezed their education time. Some parents would ask for my colleagues and me to lighten the load. These worrisome parents merely set low expectations for children by running interference; the scary parents... think everything is great and never demand more. If their kids do OK and have fun, then they must be getting a great education. Our schools tend to live back in an 11/9 mindset (referring to pre-internet era). I know as a school, my school compares itself with schools down the road or in the next town. If my students' parents believe that we are better than the local public, parochial and private schools, then they are content. As you wrote, and I realized in the two conferences, the real competition is not from the next town or the neighboring state any more. You're right - in many ways we are fooling ourselves. In an academic sense we lost our hunger (except for cheerleading and football and failing bond measures). We're complacent and headed for trouble. Sadly, national leadership is worried about not leave kids behind, and states like Kansas and Georgia seem more concerned with elimination Darwin and adding intelligent design. If one puts his ear to the flat Earth, one can hear the competition from overseass. My goal as an educator is to stop being the best local school, or reagional school, and start being the best on the planet.
-Malcolm Davidson, a high school teacher in Washington State

Having taught English and lived in a society that is gravely different from that of the American, I feel I am able to see both sides of this. Americans see more importance in extracurricular activities and sports, while other cultures place more importance on education. And this is something that I really do feel strongly about. I think that we haven't been pushing our kids enough in the school system here in America. I feel like it's just not being expected to get these kids prepared for what life is really going to test them on. I hope I'm wrong, but because the American education system is so different internally (from school district to school district, from state to state), I don't feel that things are ever going to be regulated the way they should be.

About our country, I feel that it's just too big. To be honest, I think our country would be much better off if it were 50 actual independent states and not unified. I think that when the country gets so big, that it's hard to keep an eye on everything. Things get thrown by the wayside, they get forgotten about and things are more difficult to manage. I think if the states were independent, we'd be able to really knock out many more of the problems that are facing our society today more precisely. We'd be able to concentrate on things with a smaller scale and with more rigidity. Gosh, wouldn't that just be so great. The President wouldn't be so so far away, the people would feel much more involved, and I think that funding would be more feasible.

Those are just a couple of quotes I've run by recently. Enjoy. I'll try and be more up to date.

Quotes and Comments

2008-10-12T17:28:00.001-07:00

I've been reading this book recently for a Graduate class called "The World is Flat". It talks about how technology has connected every part of the world to each other. ANyways, I'd like to first note some really great quotes and then talk about them in turn... maybe...

"Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford University (June 12, 2005)

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life...
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt ery strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the might asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But i naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class patents; savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so i slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cents deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every SUnday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus ever poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans typefaces, and about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them... Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, harma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

I just love this quote! It's so strong to me right now personally. It's something that I firmly believe, and especially right now, in this transition semester for me, it's something important for me to cling to. I mean, I'm just working and teaching and studying and frankly it just really sucks and it would be really easy to get frustrated and hopeless about lots of things, but this quote really bangs home the things I've been thinking quite recently. Unfortunately, the waiting thing is the hardest for me. I want to see results now. But patience is something that I feel like I need to learn some more, even though I'm a shade under 24 and still haven't a clue what's next

Chinese pity comes from their belief that we are a country in decline. More than a few Chinese friends have quoted to me the proverb fu bu guo san dai (wealth doesn't make it past three generations) as they wonder how we became so ill-disciplined, distracted and dissolute. The fury surrounding Monica-gate seemed an incomprehensible waste of time to a nation whose emperors were supplied with thousands of concubines. Chinese are equally astonished that Americans are allowing themselves to drown in debt and under-fund public schools while the media focus on fights over feeding tubes, displays of the Ten Commandments and how to eat as much as we can without getting fat.

-James McGregor, a journalist-turned0businessman based in China, and a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, writing in the Washing Post, July 31, 2005

Ugh... I just really don't like this quote... Why? Well.. because it's just sad. I didn't say it was true, I didn't say I agree with it or disagree. I just don't like it. I think that we need to do a better job of finding what are the most important things in our society... but it seems clear to me that we already have. And it becomes more evident what these things are from an outsiders point of view. The strange thing is that unfortunately, we aren't outsiders here in America. These are actually us! And the problem that we have in America is that we don't care at all about these things. We know and see the same things that the outsiders see, but it really doesn't hit us that these things are really as prevalent as they really are. How could we let our society come to this? How could we let our civilization become known for this? Do we even care? It's disgusting how we can let other people talk about us like this and not care at all. Thus, once again I'll say... U just really don't like this quote.

Wow... sorry all

2008-10-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

It seems as though September 2008 was the first month in over three years which did not merit a post. It's sad, but true. As things in America are fairly busy and uneventful, I haven't been that motivated in writing what things have been going on.

THough something did happen to me the other day. I woke up ready to drive to school the other day and was duly surprised to come to the conclusion that my car engine wouldn't turn over. The engine just couldn't get going and i got scared. Luckily, my roommate was able to take me to school where I was first of all... late, but my nervousness didn't end there. I still had the big problem of getting the 3 miles home after school finished at 4, fixing my car and then getting to the bar for work which is 1.5 miles away all in an hour. Luckily, I was able to get a ride with my teacher, but only after Jeopardy was over at 430 and I got home, and had to keep my fingers crossed that my other roommate would be home... which he was... I was batting 1000 so far, and I had a hunch of what the problem was for my car, so I had to get my roommate to take me to the nearest gas station (I figured it was just out of gas... or so I hoped) to get some gas. I made it back fast and put the gas in my car and it started!! Wow... i was lucky... I quickly darted off the work and made it there just 3 minutes late! WOW... talk about a stressful day... but it all worked out in the end and I was happy.

Stories from the Bar

2008-08-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

So, since I've been there, it seems that there are always a few funny or interesting things that happen. Things that are a little beyond what I'm used to in my normal everyday life. I've never been one to go out to the bar like these kids do at Brothers.

First story: 4 frat boys come in on a dead night and start ordering shots. One of them claims he's paying. And after 20 minutes they've had 10 shots each and racked up a tab of about $200 which one of the kids easily pays with daddy's credit card. Then he goes and misses the bathroom and pukes in the back near our ice machine. This was the night where I wasn't doing anything, just standing next to them as they did this and the kid asked if he could tip me. I was just standing there. I said yes, and he gave me 5 bucks. Then he tried tipping us 100 bucks for his tab but drunkenly came back for a more normal tip. I guess that's college life.

Story number 2: Not as interesting. I just met Sam Bradford, the next Heisman winner there and he was a pretty cool guy. I was pretty excited. And i'm excited to start watching him play, starting next Saturday!

Number tres: Wednesday's are big nights for us. Hundreds upon hundreds in the bar and just getting crunked. A few fights, some blood and several cops. 230AM, everyone is out and on the street and there are several cops also. The street we are on is a one way street and there are two cop cars there with their lights flashing just talking to drunk people, maybe giving some tickets. That's when it happened. Some underage kid, drunk, turned down this street going the wrong way. Think the cop gave him a ticket? It gets worse. He hit the cop car and pinned the cop in his door. Charged with assault with a deadly weapon, this kid's parents probably weren't too happy about that.

I'll write more as they come. Hope all is well. talk to you all soon.

Adventures in a New Job

2008-08-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

So, i've been living back in Norman for a few weeks now and have been working pretty a lot for over a week now. Put in more than 40 hours my first week and on pace to smash that record this week. Just in time to get ready in time for school to start on Monday. Wow. I'm lookin for things to slow down ,but i really don't see that happening. At the moment, I'm not really allowed anything more than maybe a 3 or 4 hour nap at night time since i get home at about 330ish in the morning and a 2 hour nap in the afternoon when i have a break between the morning and evening shifts. But things are good I think. I am happy i was able to find a job so easily and i hope to continue here during the school year. I'm really tired now, so i hope to keep up some more notes as the year progresses.

I feel things will start to become steadily crazy busy as school starts and i'll be at high school all day and then at work all night and then try and find time to attend my other college classes and do homework and maybe see my family every once in a while. we'll just have to wait and see. I'll fill u in on any fun stories as they come. I think i can think of some, but i'l write them soon, just not now.

Back in Norman

2008-08-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

I've moved once again. I feel like the next year will be a lot of moving around, and a lot of tedious motions at that. But we'll just have to wait and see what plays out i suppose. I've moved back to Norman, OK. I've been living here again for about a week or so and I've moved into a cute little house with some of my friends. Things I've missed about living in a house:
- having my own room
- not sleeping on a bunk bed
- sleeping on a big comfortable bed
- getting good air circulation in my sleeping quarters
- having a big backyard so i don't have to walk my dog 3 times a day
- having a dishwasher
- having a patio to go outside and chill under

And there's gotta be hundreds others but that's just what i could think of off the top of my head. It's going well here though, I'm enjoying everything and how it's going here. I have a semester of living here in Norman. If you don't know, I'm living here because I have to take 12 hours of Graduate credit (which includes my student teaching) in order to finish my teacher certification so as to be a certified history teacher here in America. So life will prove to be really really busy this semester. I think it'll be safe to say that my time won't belong to me. This isn't really a semester that will be fun, but moreso a semester of necessity, which i need to understand before the semester starts. I just need to pray daily for energy to make it through the day. For i believe I will be at the high school from 8-2 mon-fri and all thurs taking classes and the rest of my free time will be devoted to working my ass off so as to make enough money to survive off of for the following few months.

I've recently gotten a job at a local bar, Brother's, on Campus Corner and I've been working hardcore recently and will be working hardcore next week in preparation in getting trained up in time for the football season. It's fun there, and I enjoy it and they're the only ones that have given me a job so far, so i feel lucky to have it and to be making some money.

My student teaching will be taking place at Norman North High School. I'm looking forward to starting that next Monday and seeing what it will be like. It will be interesting to compare it to my time in Czech Republic in many ways:
- difference of teaching History instead of ESL
- teaching in America (rules, rules, rules)
- teaching American kids v. Czech kids
- everyone understanding me (mostly)
- staying in the same room all day

And many others. We'll just wait and see and I'll keep you all updated on it all. Hope all is good. Thanks

New Wheels

2008-08-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Movin back to the land of driving, I had to submit to the lifestyle and buy myself something as to get around it. Therefore, here we are, with me and the new 94 Accord

Got My Bag!

2008-08-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

Got back on Wed, and they said, yea, it'll come on the late flight, don't worry. The next morning, they said, yea, it's been scanned to come on the morning flight, don't worry. I called back later that afternoon and they said, "Well, we have no idea where your bag is, it wasn't scanned to be on any flight." Later that day, i talked with a guy who told me that they usually find the bags within the first 24 hours, so i told him that they have about 3 hours left... He said they should find it in the next 3 hours :D 2 days later, the lady brings the bag to my house and as I'm signing for it, she says, "Whoa, you came on Wednesday? That was a long time ago." I said I know and gave her a nice smile.

Wrap Up and Let the Adventure Begin

2008-07-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

So, right now I'm sitting on the airplane just crossing the southern tip of Greenland. Unluckily, I'm sitting right in the very middle of people, so no aisle or window seat for me, but oh well, life throws you rotten apples sometimes. Anyways, I got a lot to catch up on since I feel like I've been so busy as of lately. I'd like to tell you about the last few days for me. It's been a busy, crazy, relaxing, stressful time for me. Let's start with last Saturday when I left for the mountains to a friends cottage for 3 days.

Last year me and some of my colleagues all went to a cottage in Sumava mountains. Last year was really fun and we were walking so much and wow. This year was a bit different. I think last year we walked something like 14 miles or more last year one of the days cuz we got lost and blah blah. This year we weren't so lucky I think. There were six of us there which included some of my first guys I became friends with here, some colleagues that is, it also included my school principal which is a good friend of ours also. It was fun just all of us having fun, acting like good friends and no worrying about anything else except being on holiday. We got there in the evening after buying lots of food at the supermarket (i think it was more beer than food though. They said it was a men's weekend). But I thought that was ok. We hung out the first night just collecting wood and sitting around the fire and and just talking and having fun. After dinner of sausages and bread and beer, we decided to go to this "Western Ranch" which was 2 km away. It was really funny because they tried to be all western and even had an American flag as well as a Confederate flag. There were teepees there and everyone was around some campfire and it was funny to see. We stayed for a while but then it kinda got boring and half of us wanted to leave, but the other half didn't. But in the end, we ended up walking home and stayed up late. I was the first to go to sleep since I got bored and tired since i didn't understand most of the conversations.

The next morning I slept late since I had only maybe 4 hours of sleep the past 2 days since I was working or busy packing or doing something important I'm sure So... we got up and started out on our hike at about 11 i guess and we walked to this nearby village which had a castle which was pretty cool. We sat down for maybe the longest lunch of my life, It had to have been at least 2 hours, probably close to 3. And it was good food but just too long for me. Benji was with me and he was getting restless and no one was talking to me, so after a while, me and benji went exploring and went to the castle. It was really cool. We came back a half hour later and met the guys and then walked a few more km to a small pond for some swimming. This was fun because it was Benji's first time in the water that I know of. After much discussion of where on the pond we should post up, we split and me and Benji went to the water. Well, actually it was more like I went and tried to get him in, but he wouldn't. No problem, he had fun running around. And I met the only other English speakers at the pond. They unknowingly swam right up to me. After this we decided to leave, and i was ready to go. maybe 40 more minutes of waiting for them to really get ready to leave, we left. We walked for a while longer and split up. But not to worry, after a few more km, we met up at this pub. Again, but it was ok, and I got a snack and water. It was a really hot day, and I got a bit sunburned. After this, I was happy to go home because I really didn't like sitting and waiting while they just relaxed, drank, and smoked, and me and Benji were just chilling. So we walked maybe half a km and what do you know, another pub. They stop again which frustrates me a bit cuz we have beer at our place, but it's ok I guess. I just wasn't prepared for what the trip would be like. I told them I wasn't going and they all went to the pub and I walked 5k back to the cottage with benji. It was a great relaxing walk. I hope I force myself to go on walks next year. I've recently understood the fun in them.

Anyways, to make a long story short, the next day we went for a short hike because they wouldn't wake up cuz they stayed up real late (me not) and we walked for an hour and then me and my friend Filip drove back to Kralupy. It was great. We stopped at this castle with a moat and walked around it and it was pretty cool I thought. But I had to come home early on Monday because I was preparing a meal for my neighbors who had been such a help for me the 3 years I was there. It was the least I could do for them I thought. So I really treated them well with a meal of tacos, refried beans and fried rice, really homemade style. It was great. I was really afraid at how it would all go actually. There's 4 of them, two sons of 19 and 12. And I was afraid cuz none of them can speak English, only the youngest son cuz he is learning at school, but it's still minimal. I thought that they'd come over for maybe an hour and then out of there. It spent maybe 3 hours under the skillet cooking and pouring my heart into those tacos :) or something like that maybe. They came and brought stuff also! Wow, I was so shocked that they brought stuff also. But it was good and nice. I explained what the meal was, and was surprised that they actually understood what I was talking about, though it looked quite strange to them, especially the refried beans and the salsa. But they really liked it, so I was happy and they really ate so much, which I was happy too cuz i thought that I would have made too much. But we were talking and talking and talking about so many things. The highlight for me was when they asked me how many states the US had and then they wanted me to explain the pre-communist relationship with America and Cuba. :D It was great because I really know so much about it, but it was so difficult because I really had no idea how to explain myself in a different language. Anyways, to make a long story short, we had a really great evening with each other and I was so happy that I could treat them to a dinner. They stayed for about two and a half hours and then went home (5 feet from my place). Then the cleaning starts. Cleaning the dishes after a big dinner like this takes hours. But I did it and was done with it.

Then we come to Tuesday, which was by far the busiest day of this month. The day started later than I had wanted due to another late night. But at 930 I was out and working hard. My friend Honza came over and helped me out so much this day. I don't know how I could've gotten everything done without his help. First we were packing all my glasses into a box and also my map and other pictures and then we took them to the post office so as to mail them home. Because I didn't have enough room in my suitcases for them. After this, we went to Tesco so as to give away 3 big bags of clothes which had accumulated through the years by old roommates leaving them and then no one wanting them. But it was great. We got there and there was this homeless guy there and instead of putting the bags in the bins, we just gave them to him and told him to pick out what he wanted and put the rest in the bins. He was so happy and grateful. We gave him a winter coat, some boots, and as we were leaving tesco, he was trying on a swimsuit that i bought at WalMart several years ago. He was so happy and thanked us so much. It was great. After this we drove to Prague where I had to change most of my money into dollars since I wouldn't be able to do that in America for a good price. That was quick and nice. Then later, we went to the vet because Benji had to get a checkup to say he was healthy to fly and also get microchipped. We stopped there quickly only to notice that the doctor was on holiday for the week!! Oh no! I heard there was another vet on the other side of Kralupy, so we went there and she was so so nice. and even spoke English for me. And I think Benji liked her also. We got all that settled and then we left, everything finally having been settled. After this, I went home for a few hours of cleaning, throwing stuff out, more cleaning and packing. So so busy. About 9pm, I went for my last time to Piano the pub which has my favorite beer, Hoegaarden and my favorite waiter, friendly bald guy. It was great, I went there with a few friends and said bye to my waiter friend and ;came home about 1030. From 1030 to 330am, I was just cleaning, drinking coffee and preparing to leave my flat for the last time.

At 320, my kind friend Jarda picked me up and helped me get all of my stuff, including my dog into his car. And it all barely fit, especially the crate for Benji. And we drove happily there. I left my SIM card there along with the keys that I had had on my keychain for 3 years. It was sad. And driving there, I think my heart was beating a million beats per minute. I felt so nervous about everything: leaving, traveling with Benji, leaving, and traveling with Benji. We got there before 4 (good timing, my plane left at 615. And I hat 2 carts with everything including Benji. It was difficult to push them until i realized I could act like a train and push one of them with the other one. I said farewell to Jarda and prepared for check-in. I was one of the first one's there, got to the lady at 420ish and she looked at my itinerary and there was a problem. Of course there's a problem. There's always gotta be a problem. Apparently, I have tickets to Frankfurt and Chicago, but from Chicago to Tulsa my flight doesn't exist. I'll see soon enough if it really exists or not, but I think it'll be ok. She said that she couldn't check me in until we figured this out. I said what, excuse me? Please just check my stuff in. I don't care if I don't get on the plane to Tulsa, I'll figure that out later, just let me on now, she said no, and that I had to wait and solve the problem at the ticket office which opened at 5! Oh gosh, waiting half an hour, and I was scared I'd miss the flight. I waited and talked to this old Czech couple who were told they didn't have reservations to Vancouver but they did, but they ended up not being able to go and are flying out one day later. Finally I got to talk to the person and she said that it did exist, and then she talked to the other lady and then she decided that it MIGHT exist. I don't care, I'll figure it out later! So they finally let me go. But... I had to pay for Benji's transportation first. I had called and they said it'd be about 200 bucks. I thought, fine, it's not so bad I guess. I go to the guy and he says... ok... 500 bucks. I said WHAT?? Sorry sir, but I thought it was gonna be much cheaper. They told me on the phone that it'd be half that at least! He said... let me look again. I was about to pay it when he said, "Well, since they told you that on the phone... ok," so i finally paid him something like 250 bucks and we called it even. That was just so unbelievable for me though. Then I had to go get my boarding passes again and check my luggage in again and finally it was like 545!! Oh no!! What about Benji!! What do i do with him!! They said take him over there to oversized luggage. So i did and they put him through some machine. Then they stopped and said... "Don't you wanna take him out?" I said why? They said because. I said out where? But apparently it was an Xray machine, but he went through anyways and i ran to passport control and to the metal detectors. But the line all of a sudden grew enormously!!! OH NO!!! I ran back to the ticket lady and told her my problem. She gave me a fast pass which let me go ahead of everyone and I finally made it to my gate for the last boarding call just after 6. UGH!!! It was so crazy. I'm pretty sure I slept on the flight since i hadn't for a few days and then getting to Frankfurt I had to, as usual, walk 5 km to the other side of the airport where my next plane was. WOW! In the end, I made it and now I have 3 more hours til I get to Chicago. I just want this day to be over. Anyways. enjoy your day! :D

A Spiteful Experience

2008-07-17T23:51:00.000-07:00

I visited the doctor several months ago because i was all out of contacts and i needed a new prescription for glasses. I wanted to go here so as to avoid paying lots of money in America for a visit to the eye doctor and to get some contacts... enough that would last me for a while. It was a funny ordeal the first time, but I managed and I got my glasses a week later and I was happy, but my contacts he said would be a month. With my glasses, the prescription is perfect, left eye 7.5 diatribes, right eye 7 diatribes. I can see beautifully, after one month, the doctor, who said he'd call me when my contacts came in, never called me. I was shy, so I waited a few more weeks to call him. "Yea! Of course they're in, come and get them," he said.

I went there and he told me I should try them out and see what I thought. I put them in and said that they were really pretty good, but my left eye, he had 7 diatribes and not 7.5. I told him that I needed something a bit stronger, but that they were really good. He gave me this pair and told me to come back in a month (2 weeks before I leave). I said... ok, no problem. And thanked him and left.

As I told you in the last post, I went there on Monday and he told me that he had the right eye, but that he lost the left eye. God, why does this have to be so difficult. You only have one responsibility! My contacts! It's not like he's a supermarket. It's just one small little stupid office. How is there even enough room in there to lose something. But oh well... didn't matter. So... I went back yesterday and told the lady (who still isn't able to recognize the only foreigner who comes more often than anyone to pick up their contacts) that I had an appointment and I needed to pick up my contacts. This lady explained me that these contacts can only be used for a month. And... she gave me this small little box... I looked perplexed cuz it looked just as big as the box that had only my right eye contacts when i was there on Monday... I asked her, "Uh... excuse me, how many are in here?" She replied, "two pair." Awesome... I waited all this time, 3 months, for them to give me two months worth of contacts, because the stupid doctor lost my full set of contacts. Hm... I like how they do things here. And then the doctor who was busy with someone else came out and apologized and told me he was sorry, but if i wasn't leaving, they'd have more time to get me my contacts, but as it is, they can't. This is the best they could do... A lovely story, isn't it... :)

But that's not the end of the story, I paid them a lot of money for only two months of contacts and left. (I guess it was 3 months worth since i didn't have to pay for the contacts that he gave me a month before while I was waiting for these contacts to come in, but that's beside the point). So... I came home... and I decided that I wanted to have a look at these contacts. And as it be, I waited actually more than a month for him to change me contacts from 7 diatribes to... what's that?... yes, that's right... if you can read the picture, they finally gave me 2 months worth of contacts that are actually weaker than the ones that I had even previously ordered. 6.5 diatribes

What's the moral of the story? When you need to go to the doctor... make the experience as short as possible. Accept less and don't complain, or you'll be waiting months to get actually even less than you had to start with. :D

Good story though, huh? It's all really funny, but oh well. It'll be better than nothing.

One funny thing, the doctor was kind enough to write on my contacts (as you can see) "LEFT" as to help me out to decipher which contacts were for which eye. Wow! That was really such a nice thing for him to do! I really appreciate that. He knows I'm American and that I don't speak Czech very well. Hm... so why didn't he ever try to explain one of the difficult things to me in English... no no... or even one of the simple things. Or just say ANYTHING in English! :D And then he writes LEFT on my contacts. :D You can't help but smile at the whole experience. :D

Another funny thing is that there are supposed to be 3 pairs in the box, but they opened the box from the side (in the picture, you can see that one of the sides is opened) and took one pair out! :D I really just don't get it! :D but he explained to me that I was only paying for 2 pairs, and that I wouldn't pay the normal price. (oh good, he's such a kind man).

The Eye Doctor... Not Finished Just Yet

2008-07-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

Today was the 3rd time that I have been to my eye doctor in the last 2 months. He's supposed to have my new contacts prepared for me. So i went there again today to finally pick them up since i'll be leaving in 2 weeks. He told me that he'd have them and that there'd be no problem?

I came in and the assistant told me to have a seat and the doctor would be right there. The doctor came after a minute and I smile and say hey to him and he looks at me and tells me that there is quite a problem. I say what is it? And he says that something is wrong with my contacts that i'm supposed to pick up. I'm curious what the problem is. He says that he only has half of the contacts. Only contacts for the right eye. Interesting. What happened to the other half? Well... he doesn't know. He told me that they just disappeared. How do they just disappear? It's a good question that I will probably just never figure out. So... he called some offices and asked them if they have what i need. they said no.. he asked them next if they have something similar... They said no again. Then they asked him if i could wait another month, he said no. And then he hung up and told me that i should come back on thursday cuz they'll be here...

So i'm not sure what i'll be getting on Thursday. Maybe they will have lost the other contacts by then also. :) We'll see... but it was a funny situation. It's not a big office, so i really don't know how they disappear. This is his job!! It's not like it's something on the side. Oh well... I'll go back on Thursday and see. He was quite apologetic though. Really overly apologetic which was quite nice. I couldn't help but smile at the situation. It was really quite comical. So that's my 2 cents for the day.

Cleanin, Packin, and Moneyin...

2008-07-12T03:54:00.000-07:00

Things go slow here at times, but not at these times. Less than three weeks now and my life is busy with lots of cleanin and packin. I clean something, and then i find something else that needs more cleaning, and then 2 days later, it's almost like nothing was done in the first place. And the tedious job of packing is something that is never ending. Finding what stuff needs to be packed, sorted and put with other like things, throwing some stuff away, deciding what needs to be left and what needs to be given away. Sucks. Thus is life.

And i found out yesterday about my student loan for next semester! I'm getting money. Pretty cool, and 500 bucks I won't even have to pay back. Happy birthday to me.

Poor Drivers

2008-07-06T03:40:00.000-07:00

I was surfin on NY Times today, and came across this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/business/06tank.html?ex=1373083200&en=93b3af51607d2e99&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
At $100 for Tank of Gas, Some Choke on ‘Fill It’
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG
Published: July 6, 2008
Owners of large vehicles have hit an uncomfortable price milestone and are cutting back on recreational driving.

This article tries to stress the sadness of those poor luxury car owners who have to pay more than a hundred bucks to fill up their cars. Reading the article, I don't know if we're supposed to feel sorry for the person who bought a brand new SUV with leather seats and mini tvs built into the seat backs or what. Poor them, they bought a $100K car and now they have to pay more money than economy car owners on gas. Or maybe we should feel sorry for the guy they interview who owns 3 hummers, cuz they only get 8 miles a gallon.

I just really don't get what the whole purpose of this whole article what about.

Not Much To Say

2008-07-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

School's been finished for a few weeks now. It's been really a sad time, as I say bye to so many students who have impacted me and vice versa in the last three years. It's really inspiring to see people who want to say bye to you and see that they truly are grateful for my friendship and such things as that. Since the last post, lots of things have been going on. Let me just quickly note all the things that have happened in the past week or two:

- We had our End of the Year School Pool Party. It was really a lot of fun which i was happy to have been a part of. I actually participated in a floaty animal toys race in the pool and just about drowned with my killer whale. For the first time in 3 years, it was actually good weather and I was happy to enjoy the music, fun, friends, and a few good last moments.

- We had a last teachers meeting where we were wished a happy summer and leaving teachers had to say something. I was scared to say something, but i did, and it went well. Sad to say bye to the teachers also, but I feel like for the most part, most of them liked me as well.

- I visited one of my good colleague's wedding reception. It was really a great party at this guy's farm near Kralupy. I saw so many people there including my old Czech teacher from a year and a half ago who i had really wanted to see before leaving. We played softball there and I was the champ of the game, although we ended up tying 6-6, but i felt good.

- My roommate Joseph went home. So now it's just me and Benji here living the bachelor life. It was pretty sad to think that we won't be living with each other again anytime soon. He was definitely one of the best roommates I'd had. Great guy that'll go on to do great things.

- My best American friend over here, Stephen, is getting married tomorrow, so we've been spending time in preparation for that. We've been having some good times of last minute singleness chat, and the we also had a bachelor party for him in which we to a small village near Prague and played paintball in this ridiculously huge place. I think it was an old industrial factory. That was a lot of fun actually.

- And today we had a rehearsal dinner and was able to spend time with some people that I probably won't be seeing again or at least anytime soon after the wedding.

And then we have things to come. Nothing really is for certain right now, but I believe that tomorrow I will be going to the wedding of two of my good friends in Prague, and after that, there's a lot of unclarity. I will be having some parties with some different people I believe, and I will be meeting with other people, and I will be saying goodbye to other people, and I will be visiting a cottage again with other people, and then on July 30th, I will return home.

The End of the Line

2008-06-23T14:20:00.000-07:00

As I sit here looking at my cutie doggie Benji, I think of the last three years. The last three years have been full of so many moments that I never want to forget. There's people here that are more important to me than I would have ever imagined. The good times far outweigh the bad times.

In the last few weeks, I have some good times and bad times. I've been utterly sad and happy. I've learned so much, yet yearn to learn more. I really can't express how much these years have showed me. When I came here, I was nothing. I was a little kid who had just finished college, and who didn't know, but wanted to know so much, what life was all about. Who wanted to know about the world. Who wanted to know what was really out there. At this point in my life, I'm still only 23 and therefore I can't say that I have a good grasp on what life is all about. Quite the contrary, I feel that there is even more out there than I could've realize before. But I feel like also that I will never know enough to truly see what i need to see to fulfill the life of what I want.

That's where the whole thing about trust comes in. I have faith and trust that my life has a purpose and I know that, though there are bad times there are good ones also and that I will learn from the good ones and exponentially from the bad ones. I hope to really find myself in these last few weeks here. I really can't believe how fast the time goes. three and out; it's an unbelievable feeling. How could it go so fast. I know I'm gonna look back in 20 years and be like, wow, how the hell did it go so fast. how can life just sail by? So... how can I relish it? The thing is that I really need to cherish the time I have. Life happens fast, and if you don't cherish it, you're not even gonna realize what you're experiencing. You have to really reach out and touch what you've got in front of you and live life like it's supposed to be lived.

Day of the Goat

2008-06-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

So, last Saturday, I took part in an adventure with 3 of my former students Tomas, Tomas, and Pavel. We made the journey down south of Prague to the city of Velke Popovice. In the village is brewed the beer called Kozel (goat). We got there about 10am and started with the festivities. I was really hungry, so i started off spending way too much money on what I thought would be some cheap pasta. Bad move on my part. We sat down and had a look at the festivities of the day. During the day they had really bad country music bands and between sets, they'd try and break world records. It was really funny to watch. For example, one guy tried to balance a soccerball on his head for 2 minutes, but on the soccer ball was a bottle of beer.

After this we went on a tour of the brewery. Nothing special really, just another one of those. Seen one, seen em all. The MC of the day was a really funny guy and did crazy things also, but the craziest thing he was doing (I thought) was wearing the shirt he was wearing. If you have a look, his shirt is from some auto dealership in Wichita :)

Continuing with the day, many people found it necessary to visit the head, or the mass of portapotties in sight in the corner, but if you get closer, you see something that I had never seen before. I like to call them porta-urinals. Interesting for me. But weird to have people staring at you, I waited my turn in the normal ones.

This is a picture of me and Tomas with our goat beards which we received complimentary for being so awesome.

We left the Day of the Goat and headed back home. It was difficult getting back since it was a weekend and there were less buses but more people who wanted to go home. We were finally able to cram onto one of the buses, but unfortunately, about 10 minutes into the drive, the bus broke. It was really sad.

After about 45 minutes, a new bus came and we finally got back to prague safely and continued onto Kralupy. It was an interesting day, and a Saturday well spent

Bad Luck

2008-06-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

If you're not familiar with the Euro Cup, it's the World Cup but in Europe and it's way cool. Anyways, the Czech Rep. was playing the other night and so far, we had won one game and lost our second game. In order for us to advance to the second round, we would have to defeat the mighty Turks. In the past, the Turks have ravaged the land and plundered the villages, but the luck of the ungods were on our side. As the game drug on, we got out to an early lead of 1-0 with a spectacular head shot. I was sitting at home watching under the most dire of circumstances. As the game rolled on, I continued to clean my flat. and before the first half, I was all cleaned out!!! Wow, great, I love football. And I love cleaning. So... what should I do now? The answer was clear, We're winning 1-0, so I'll go shower.

When I got back from the shower, what was it to my surprise that we were winning 2-0!! Wow, how was it possible. We weren't supposed to match up very well to the Islamic Front of the East. The game dragged on and on and of course, they managed a goal against us, but that was it... until the end of the game, when in the 88th minute I believe they managed another goal, and in the 89th, a sorry play of events occurred and the distraught Czech team went home wet from (not the rain, though it was raining... ok, it was from the rain, but also from the tears of a team that would undergo a fortitude of changes in the next years). Good luck in South Africa in 2010. They'll need it.

Wine-0s Galore

2008-06-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

Last night was a very fun and special night for myself. One of my adult students, of who I have been teaching for the duration of the school year him and his family several hours a week, was throwing a party for his customers from his private company. The party, as it turned out was quite an interesting and fun adventure of which me and my fellow comrade-in-action took part in.

The party was at quite a nice restaurant/club in the center of Prague. The basement was reserved and there were about 50-70 people there I believe. The first action of the night was the wine-tasting. We were tasting wine from Moravia, from the selection of red, white, and rose. Lots of really high quality drinks also. (Let me not forget to mention everything was free). After the wine tasting, we continued on our extravaganza of food and a continuation of any of the wines we felt necessary to indulge in once more.

Next I would like to mention the food. First off, we came there and there was lots of cold food such as roast beef and cheese and great things like this. After a while, they brought in a 2.5 foot loong pig (head pictured below), and after this was the opportunity to partake in a side of prime rib. Wow, really excellent time. And the desserts were just as delicious.

In the end, I bought a really tasty bottle of wine, and am looking forward to the christening of something important with it. Wish you all could have experienced it with me. It was def a night of magic and remembrance.

Last Retreat

2008-06-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a trip in south eastern Bohemia. Pretty fun. It was the last official retreat that I had with my organization and my American friends in CZ. It was really fun. The weather was perfect. We stayed at this camping ground with several cabins and most of the weekend we were having different meetings and then just walking around or sitting and talking and playing cards. It was nice because it was basically just us there and there weren't many people to bother us. We had a cookout one night and made another campfire on the second night
Anyways. we've got only a few more weeks of grades at school and it seems like things are starting to wrap up pretty quickly. Hope things end up well. I'll keep u posted on what news is going on in the final 2 months I'm here. Thanks

Tennis Anyone?

2008-05-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

I took this picture today from the balcony of the school. After a long day of working and testing students i walked up the school stairs with no one at school anymore and saw the doors to the balcony open, I went out there and just decided to relax and soak up the silence. i just think it looks cool. no photo cropping was done. i'm just a magical artistman.

Back to Square One con espanol

2008-05-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

I've finally realized and come to grips with my Spanish Language ability. I was excited the other day because they extended the subway in Prague to a cool shopping center, so i went there and was in search of something I thought if any place had it, they would. There's a big supermarket there and I went there and to my luck, I found what I had been looking for. I had found it!! In clear print, it read... Frijoles Refritos (or refried beans). I had been looking for them a few weeks ago when i was cooking dinner for some friends, but we had to make due without them for mexican night, oh well. it was still good.

But that wasn't the problem. The problem was when I was trying to read the can of beans. It was all in Spanish. No problem, but it was, I couldn't even speak anymore. My English accent is so strong and it just feels disgusting to me when I read it. But it was so easy, and it's much easier than Czech pronunciation, so it should be easier for me, but it's not. Oh well. Life doesn't treat us well sometimes.

But then I'm thought of the reason I stopped with spanish 5 years ago... because i decided I didn't like the language. So... then... I guess I'm not really that sad at all.

To London and Beyond

2008-05-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, What a trip! Sorry for the delay in relayin you all the crazy info, but I needed some time to regroup and refresh myself before i began to inform you about the interesting and crazy time of the trip. First... pros and cons of the trip:

Pros:
- Amazing weather the entire time!!

- Fun talks and time with students

- ... that's about it.

Cons:

-stupid travel agency

-stupid tour guide ("umbrella lady")

-always late everywhere

-not enough time

Now let me tell you about the experience we had there. So, to start off, we left on Wednesday at about 230pm... wait... scratch that... the bus was 3 hours late, so we left closer to 6. About 4 hours into the trip, we had a problem with the engine. One of the belts broke. And had it not been for one of the adults on the trip who had a nice flashlight, the drivers woulda never fixed it i believe. Thus, we missed our 530 am ferry time and instead hit the 1030 one up. And therefore got to london at about 130ish. Fun times. We saw all the fun sights. Quite briefly though. Nothing of significance to note about though. We saw most of the fun stuff I suppose.

We were 2 hours late meeting our British families so some of them were a bit perturbed, but that's ok I guess. But there were some arguments between our teachers and the British people, so that was fun to watch, the next night was even better. The British speak with an accent (no problem for me to understand, but a bit of a problem for our English teachers at times I thought) and especially our tour guide to understand. To state it simply, our tour guide couldn't really speak english too good. Therefore, Whenever we had to communicate with British, whether it be for tickets or anything of that sorts, I would make sure and be there just to make sure everythign was understood and that they understood us. Big point to make: Our guide could speak English a bit, but even me, when i tried to speak in my teacher voice (nice and slow and simple), she usually didn't understand, so i stopped speaking English cuz she was just too stupid. My students asked me "why doesn't she speak to you in English?" That's simple, cuz I knew she could understand me when i spoke Czech and of course I understood her Czech, no problem.

Second day we spend in Stratford where Shakespeare was born and we spend 3.5 hours looking at his grave and the business of his sister's husband's business and then we went to the grand city of Okford and spent there less than an hour. That's good planning if you ask me :) More problems ensued with the British families after a long traffic jam along the highway.

The next day we visited the Tower of London and then headed to Paris. We got to our hotel at 10pm because apparently, our tour guide said that that was the time that this 24/7 hotel stopped having receptionist services (good job stupid). We got there in time instead of having time to stop by some store and pick up some good food for the following day.

Next day we spent in Paris. Beautiful day and great weather. Lots of great times, just long. from 9am to midnight. Wow, long day. I think everyone was ready to go home, but it was nice. Back home was 13 hours and a really relaxing (not) bus ride. I tried to sleep but always woke with a bad neck cramp. Ah... what a way to bid farewell to my InterEuropean travels. We got back about 2pm and I had to work from 4-8pm. Monday was a beautiful day :)

Let Me OUT!!!

2008-05-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

To a Island of Desperation

2008-05-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

So, after a long time coming, I'm finally getting to go to the British Isle. The famed island that has caused so many world problems. But I don't blame them, they all seem like good people. I'm actually looking forward to getting to be able to see the place. Not as excited as other places, but i still feel like it's a necessity in life. The infamous island that I only know by air looking over the not so vastness of it. It'll be cool, but I'm not getting my hopes up, which could also be a good thing.

We leave tomorrow by bus. We're going with the school here and taking 30 students. It will be an interesting time I feel because it's like 16 hours or something like that to the English Channel and then another 2 hours after the ferry ride. And I just hope it will be a good time. We'll see lots of places and try and enjoy ourselves as much as possible. :) We'll visit London, Shakespeare's birthplace which is apparently a big hotspot for tourists, and Oxford, where the famous British Greats, such as Beowolf and his friends corralled each other day and night at. From here we'll travel back across the channel and head down to Paris where we plan on spending a day visiting the sights. Luckily I've already been here, cuz i feel that one day isn't enough to spend here. But it'll be an enjoyable time nonetheless, and then we arrive back home Monday around noon. Whoa, it'll be a fast trip to admire some kinda cool places.

Don't worry, I'll let you all know how it goes. I'm looking forward cuz most likely this will be my last big trip before coming home, so I'm ready to relax and just kick back and be happy. Ok. so that's it for now. Talk to you all next week.

Find the Odd One Out

2008-05-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

Top 10 "Hells On Earth":

10. Baghdad, Iraq

9. Dhaka, Bangladesh

8. Yakutsk, Russia

7. Mogadishu, Somalia

6. Chernobyl, Ukraine

5. OKLAHOMA CITY, USA (but apparently it's not as bad as...)

4. Pyongyang, North Korea

3. Bujumbura, Burundi

2. Linfen, China

1. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Now, you can check out the website here http://www.askmen.com/fashion/travel_top_ten_200/226_travel_top_ten.html

The opening paragraph says this: While most travel brochures wax lyrical about the world’s paradises, they often leave out those cities that the industry would rather forget. Whether it’s violence, pollution or an inhospitable climate, some places just don’t function as cities in the modern world, let alone attract a throng of flip-flopped tourists through its airport security. These places are simply known as hells on earth.

So, the next time you moan about a sun-drenched resort not having poolside service, take a moment to think about how much worse your vacation would have been had you visited this lot of hells on earth.

Now, they claim that OKC is so bad because of our "weather". But come on. to say that OKC doesn't "function as a city in the modern world", you've got to be kidding me. It just makes me laugh when I think of which cities OKC is worse than.

So, for example: You would have a happier, more fulfilling life living in the radiation-enriched Chernobyl, or the war-torn Baghdad, the anarchical Mogadishu, or the bustling broken-down Siberian city of Yakutsk. Or Bangladesh, a poor place also. Words can't describe. So... i guess I'm leaving the Czech Republic and I'm gonna be moving to the epitome of sadness.

New Views to Behold

2008-05-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I visited the eye doctor a few weeks ago to get my eyes examined so as that I could acquire a new pair of lenses (due to the fact that mine were all scratched up and 6 years old and really weak) and to order some new contacts since I was done with those as well.

Anyways, today was the special day and I am now the proud new owner of smaller, lighter, stronger, prettier, more expensive, less scratched (actually i dished out a little more dough for the special lenses that are actually scratch-proof) and happier. That's right, I'm a happy boy who has perfect vision once again.

Not My Strongest of Moments

2008-04-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

There's a small city near Kralupy, just 10 minutes by train. This place is home to a Nuclear Research Center and i think 2 or 3 pubs. There's really not much to this town. And it's train station holds the only pedestrian bridge across the River Vltava as far as the eye can see. I have had a few mishaps with this train station dating back to the beginning of my days here to just recently. The town is called Řež.

Maybe you remember a post 2 and a half years ago I made. I taught English at the Nuclear Center, and it was one of my first times there (maybe 3rd or 4th to be precise) and I was patiently waiting for the train to arrive in Řež. I looked up, and saw that we were there but I was too late, and the doors had closed. I got off at the next stop and had to run back and made it barely in time for my class at 830 AM.

(You see here the station and the little booth where I was sleeping through the train arrival)

(view from the bridge)

But that story is a walk in the park compared to what I'm about to tell you. Anyways, the other day my friend was having a birthday party in his garden and the garden was in Řež. I decided to make it an all day affair and went about lunch time. Me and Joseph went by train and after you get off the train it's about another 20-30 minutes on foot. The day was great and I was talking with friends most of the day and eating sausages and it was great, until the clock stroke 11pm. I was talking to a friend, and I was wanting to take the train at 11 but obviously that wasn't going to happen due to the 20 minute trek back. But I kept getting more tired and more tired. The next and final train back to Kralupy left at 1250 AM so I had to wait. But I really didn't want to any longer. So I decided to head off early and just wait at the train station. I enjoyed the fresh air and walked back to the train station to wait for my train. I got there with about an hour or maybe just 45 minutes to spare and I decided I'd set my alarm and just take a nap. Go figure, I forgot to set my alarm and I fell asleep on the bench. I awoke freezing my butt off and I looked at my watch only to see that it was 110!!!! Oh no, I missed it. And it was freezing and about 8 miles back home. I played around with the idea of walking back, but then pulled myself together and opted against it. I called my friend and asked him to call me a taxi cuz I didn't know the number to any. So, after freezing for about 30 more minutes, the taxi finally came and took me home which took about 20 minutes. The whole time the guy had the heater on and i was just soooo frigid. But the taxi driver was nice. He was tellin me I made the right decision instead of walking and told me I was lucky that no one else was at the train station cuz it's really secluded and I could have easily been robbed. But anyways, I got home and fell asleep to my nice warm homestead.

Some Sights from Prague

2008-04-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was in Prague and we went on top of the Hybernia Theater to take some snaps of the beautiful view of Prague that it offers. I hope you enjoy them. I think it offers some of the best views in the town perhaps. Well, perhaps it encompasses most of the most desirable sights. I'll show you.

In this picture you can see most of the cool things of Prague. You can see most close, the Powder Tower. Then you can also see in the distance the Petrin Lookout Tower (which is a replica of the Eiffel Tower) as well as the Prague Castle. And then in Old Town Square yo can see the Tyn Church and the Astronomical Clock

In this picture you can see one of the main pedestrian streets. This on os called Na Prikope. It has all the main shops and is a cool place to walk along. It leads to the main square of Wenceslas and then continues to lead to the Vltava River. It is pretty cool to see and to see so far along it for me. You can also see to the left the National Bank with the statue of some dude on a lion. That's cool too

That's about all the coolest shots I took. Hope you enjoyed it. It's cool though. Just trust me. Life was good that day.

BBQ Weekend

2008-04-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

The Past weekend, I had myself a big killer weekend of bbqs. It was really a great weekend for me to just sit and relax with some of my friends that I don't get many opportunities to hang out with so much. Not concerning the weekend of bbqs, first I visited for the first time one of the biggest and coolest parks in Prague, called Wild Sharka. Sharka is the name of a girl in Czech and the name of this park perhaps dates back to an ancient myth, perhaps. It was really cool to walk around and feel like i wasn't in a big capitol city full of pollution and it was nice to just walk around and feel free for a few hours.

Next, on Saturday, concerning bbqs I travelled to the nearby town of Odelena Voda to 2 of my friends and students' house. My friend makes gardens and so their house was really awesome and new and full of artwork and different things that they had gathered from their trips about the world. Their garden was really sweet with a pond and a stream and fountain and lots of plants and trees. They had a huge-ass dog, named Mustafa. I'll share a picture of him with you. Though I might mention that it's only a pic of half of him. Anyways, it was a fun night of mingling with their friends and lots of good moments and memories that will stick for a long time to come. I ended up sleepin on an airmattress in the spare bedroom with Benji, and we slept for a long time and then awoke and enjoyed a beautiful lunch in their backyard with the sun and relaxing moments were had by all.

The second bbq of the week happened on Sunday when, first I had to travel back to Kralupy with Benji and then we didn't have much time to recup... well, he had all evening to recup, cuz he didn't go with me, but for me, the minutes were dwindling quickly. But anyways, I turned back around and went to another bbq in yet another small town about a 20 min. train ride from kralupy to one of my colleague's and a good friend of mine. We spent the evening there making yet another bbq and talking about lots of just random things that are happening and about Czech and American politics. The weekend was really good, but completely exhausting and I was so happy to get home early, around 9 and get some much needed sleep before the week brought on a new load of adventures in teaching

Beetles

2008-04-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long time without a post. I don't have to apologize often, but i just have felt that there really hasn't been much to talk about lately. But recently, I went to the local college, and saw this directional flyer for a meeting that was going on. I hope you can take pleasure and laugh at it as much as I did. Just picture what it's talking about.

From One Fair to the Next

2008-04-01T05:18:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, after I was skiing on Saturday, I wasn't one to forget to move the time up an hour and lose yet another hour of much needed sleep after the long trip of skiing. I awoke and headed off the the swimming pool at 845 for our good friend Honza would be getting baptized. It was a really awesome experience.

After this, I headed off to the Convention Center in Prague where a trade fair of organic and healthy products were a wry. It was really cool and lots of organic things there such as wine, beer, beef, and so many other cool things. I bought some coffee and some tea which has fruit already in it. It was a wild experience. Also at the trade fair was an esoteric side which we quickly breezed through almost without notion. In the end, we ended back in the organic side and were lapping up all the enjoyment and pleasures that one could desire.

Since this is right next to the fair that comes once a year, we walked right into the fair which was extremely overly crowded due to the fact that the weather was belligerently nice. It was great, so we were walking around, weaving our way in and out of the crowds, bobbing and weaving, bobbing and weaving. We made it to the little carnie games which were quite fun to watch. Ever since my days of working them in Santa Cruz, I always enjoy just standing and watching the people play them. It's enough for me. It's crazy though. I almost forgot how people would just throw away their money on those games for the stupid little prizes. It was cool though and I enjoyed it heavily. In the end, I came back to the train and peacefully let myself sulk in my glory, knowing that I had accomplished a lot this weekend.

The True Alpine Ski Experience

2008-03-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

So, as of Saturday, I can mark off one of my lifetime goals which was to ski the the infamous Alps. It wasn't like the biggest or greatest mountains, but it was pretty cool given the stature of the mountains. Now I can count off stating i've skied in 3 different countries, which is cool for any American. But the trip was interesting nonetheless

We went with a travel agency and left kralupy by bus at 11pm on Friday and headed southwest to Austria. We arrived at our destination at about 730 AM to a ski center near Salzburg. The mountain that we went to was called Muelbach. The highest peak was 1900 m (or a bit more than 6000 ft) It was pretty sweet. Most of the slopes were (for Americans) mostly blues. There were only a few greens and a minor amount of blacks.

In Europe the markings of the slopes are different. Greens are Blues. Blues are Reds. And blacks are blacks. We skied for hours and hours. We stopped for lunch at one of the slopes and I had some gulash mit wurst and we listened to a German band for a while and continued skiing til 4. The skiing was perfect. In the morning, it was really great snow conditions and then the sun came out and lit our way the entire day. It was really a perfect day of skiing. The best that you could ask for. The ride was really quite interesting even.

We went by bus and the bus advertises as a bed bus where the buses turn into beds. After a few hours, we got off the bus and they turned the seats into beds and we continued on our way. It was a bad sleep cuz i thought i'd fall off the bunk bed bed bus. But it ended ok. and we finally came back at about midnight on saturday, just in time to change the clocks for Daylight Savings Time. Wow, it was a crazy day, but well worth the fun. It was totally sweet.

Clinton Sucks

2008-03-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

After a turn of events in the news, Sen. Hillary Clinton had a speak and spoke about her trip to Bosnia 12 years ago, she stated that, "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

You can see on CNN actually on the article here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/25/campaign.wrap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Make sure to watch the video also. In the video it shows her calmly walking with her daughter along the tarmac. It's quite comical. But watch the video. It gives you perspective.

But the really funny thing that I can't get over was her response when she realized that she's so stupid. Her response was that she misspoke... in layman's terms... She straight lied. When you misspeak, it means you don't say something clearly, not that you say something completely different from what you actually do say. When you lie, we would have this definition.

Anyway, her response was "I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.

Poor her she says MILLIONS OF WORDS A DAY!! How can we be held accountable for ourselves when we say MILLIONS OF WORDS A DAY!! For those of us who only say thousands of words a day, now then we should really watch ourselves, but when you say MILLIONS OF WORDS A DAY, then really, you shouldn't really be held accountable for a little lie or two that you say to the media.

Hillary, you're so stupid. That's like saying, "I wanna kill myself or someone," on national television, and then I don't really understand why the police come and take me to the psych ward... I mean seriously I had already talked to so many people and talked about dinner at McDonald's and talked about my favorite color for 2 hours and stuff like that (but only to a few people), and then when I tell the whole nation at a live press conference of my intentions to harm someone or myself, I get all self defensive. That's pathetic and so are you.

Other pathetic excuses from the Clintons:
"I didn't inhale."
"That depends on what your definition of "is" is"
I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

Family of sad cases.

My Easter Daze

2008-03-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

If you all don't know about the famous Easter celebration over here, check out my April 5, 2006 entry. Anyways, I had a funny thought go through my head the other day. First of all, Czech celebrate Easter over here on Monday. It dates back to Slavic traditions and is quite different from our Easter. Anyways, it's also a big time for many people to take trips, so many of my friends were away, but a few of my American friends stayed and wanted to have a lunch on Sunday to celebrate Easter, and it struck me as a bit of a surprise, cuz I kept thinking. "Why are they wanting to celebrate on Sunday, cuz Easter is on Monday." And then after a few more moments, it hit me that, no, we actually celebrate Easter on Sunday in America. I felt stupid, but that's ok. I didn't go anyways. I was relaxing. And now everything is happy and sober.

Freedom in My Pocket

2008-03-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

During the long 5 day weekend that I am on right now due to Easter holiday, I've found lots of time to really enjoy myself. I've found time to relax, to spend time with an array of different people, and even do some shopping. The other day I went to the mall because I had to go looking for a new wallet because mine had unfortunately busted. Well the zipper had which contained all my coins and the such, so without gettin this fixed up, there'd just be change flying everywhere and it would be a small sense of mass chaos all over the world. So anyways, I found a sweet new wallet. It's cool. Well... it's just normal. But not bad.

In addition to this cool change of events, we ended up eating there in the food court cuz they got some wicked food there, most of it being quite expensive. But, I was figurin, "What the heck, why not. I'm allowed to spice up my life every now and then, huh." So, to the cool Indian restaurant. I'm pretty sure that I really haven't eaten real Indian food... or maybe so, but i just can't put my finger on it. So, we ate there. They even had the chocolate fountains there and I woulda gotten one, but we decided after the meal that it wasn't really sooo necessary, so the eating was accomplished in a healthy manner, and back to the homestead where life boringly continued as usual.

Cancun, Eat Your Heart Out, The Balkans are This Year's SB Extrrrravaganza

2008-03-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

So, we got into Sofia late in the night of Saturday and on Sunday we walked around Sofia in the morning to get our car. We saw some sights on the walk and then got the car and started out on our journey. Briefly recapping it for you and then below is a bit more detail, we travelled across to Macedonia, and drove through the capitol of Skopje which seemed more like an African market, and then down south to the Albanian border where we spent tine at the UNESCO-protected Lake Ohrid. Then we continued to Albania and around the country and then back to Ohrid. Then up to Kosovo and across Serbia...wait, strike that, we were denied entrance, so back across Macedonia and the last 2 days in Sofia and Plovdiv. Hope you enjoy the pics. This is most of the fun stories I think... I'll start you off with our first story though ,and definitely our most adventurous.

In Vienna, we met a Bulgarian living in UAE. On the plane, he showed us photos and the such, and offered to take us to our hostel in Sofia. We hesitatingly accepted. After his friend picked us up, he told us we needed to go somewhere first, where he proceeded to drive in the outskirts of the city and to some dark apartments where his friend apparently lived. It was at this point we thought we were goners, cuz i thought that this guy was too nice to be real. But it ended up, that he just was that nice. He drove us and helped us out so much and even wanted us to cancel our plans in Albania and go skiing with him in the Bulgarian mountains. Well.. maybe next time. It was a great trip full of good moments.

This is called just the Russian Church, but also cool

Here is the President's Building straight ahead adn to the left is the Party Building, maybe parliament, I think. Or maybe it's some old Communist building.

This is the most famous site in Sofia I think. It's the Aleksander Nevski Church. And that's me with the church. Our rental car agency was a little past this so we were able to take a short walking tour around the area.

Lots of interesting and nice acrchitecture in Tirana. The mayor is kinda an artist so he approves all this cool new stuff. Though driving around Tirana isn't really the most advisable thing as I would suggest. Actually, it's almost outright suicide, but it was an experience that I'm happy I had. I feel more experienced now because of it. It's the craziest thing though when you're driving and 4 lanes suddenly turns into 2 lanes and nothing has street signs so you don't really know where you're going to begin with, and also not to mention that people don't really mind the fact that their country as crosswalks, nor do they mind that the streets are full of cars, s o there are also people just walking across the street everywhere. Oh yea, and let's not forget the lack of stop signs, but really it didn't really matter too much cuz even the drivers didn't bother to look at them. And oh yea, to top it all off, throw a bunch of potholes in the mix...everywhere...

But Albania was a lot of fun. We met with some of Joseph's friends there and saw lots of sweet things. We even got a cassette to listen to during our drive of biggest hits in Albania in the last year (Am. hits that is).

We spent time at Lake Ohrid both before and after our sidetrip to Albania. It was definitely worth the 2 days we spent there and def coulda spent more time there. Even the whole week. Cool. And us Americans are highly liked here. I was stopped in Ohrid for having a Bulgarian car, but once i showed him my passport, he was all smiles and told me to continue and have a nice day.

This is the kind gentleman that helped us so much. This is Kosta, from Kosta Apartments. He was maybe one of the nicest guys ever. And he really liked saying my name. Everytime I saw him, he had to scream my name and smile. He was a really nice and hospitable character and really happy. It was perfect our accommodations. And the prices were a steal.

This is the Church of St. Bogorodica Perivlepta. This is really famous and beautiful. We accidentally stumbled upon this our first night in Ohrid just walking around. We were looking for a place to eat and we saw this church. Thought we'd have a look, so we started to walk in, but as we were walking in, there was a wedding procession coming out. We quickly got out of the way, but not before I got the glare from the bride. It was funny though.

Some pictures around Lake Ohrid

This is the walkway we took one morning on a hike to the church you will visit next on the continuation of reading.

All over the Balkans they have a huge problem with stray dogs. It's really sad, but it's true. They're everywhere. But, we met this one little cute shaggy mangy dog one morning on our beginning of our hike and he decided he was up for a little adventure. He followed us up the hills and travelled with us the distance until we finally got rid of him near the theater

In one of our mornings, we walked to this church that is one of the most beautiful places in Ohrid. It's called Saint Jovan. This is the entrance.

This is maybe one of my favorite photos. This was really a cool place. This little church on a small cliff peninsula overlooking the town and the lake. Really cool

Us with St. Jovan chapel

The ancient ruins of Ohrid. maybe 4th or 5th century

This is the church of St. Clement. His remains are here apparently. We didn't look. They have here ruins of older churches and stuff and the church is just an added bonus I guess. The people were really friendly. I mean the workers were.

This is the theater in Ohrid which is 2000 years old. It was used for poetry and such but after the Roman invasion, they took out the first 8 rows to use for blood sports. You can see the restaurant maybe above the theater is called the Gladiator. Kinda ironic...

The fortress atop the hill overlooking Ohrid

Starting the travel back from Lake Ohrid, we drove north back to the capitol of Skopje and we continued farther than our years would have ever dreamt. We continued north and north until we entered the "Forbidden Land" of Kosovo (the newest country in the world according to some countries).But as we entered through the customs, we noticed this interesting little sign

After crossing into Kosovo, nothing of interest really happened. There were times when we would drive past armored tanks or something of that instance, but it was pretty uneventful. In most of the Balkans they don't really have road signs anywhere in the city, so we drove to Pristina and got easily lost, but the people there were friendly enough to not tell us how to get back on track (cuz they didn't really speak English), but rather they actually had us follow them to the highway. It was great. We decided to continue on to the Serbian border and back to Bulgaria from there, but we had a minor setback. We got to the Serbian border and the border guard just started yelling at me for something I did wrong. It was in English, but I'm still not sure what he said. Then another guy came and took our passports and came back tellin us that we can't enter Serbia through Kosovo, we have to do it from another country (I guess they just don't like the whole independent Kosovo thing, so we turned around and the 1st guard came back and said Sorry, you can enter... So I was again confused. Did they change their minds again? No, the guard really said "can't", but was more or less a jerk about it, but it was cool. Just added about 3 hours or 4 to our arrival time back in Sofia. Had to back track across all of Kosovo and then across Macedonia and back

Funny story. It's night time driving back, about 9 and we're in Bulgaria and the roads are horribly marked. At one point, we were 30 km from Sofia, but we thought we were there so we were tryin to find the center and all that but we just couldn't. I stopped frequently to ask and they'd always say a few km. We finally made it there but it didn't look like the center. It was strange. Then I asked someone where in Sofia we actually were, but they didn't speak very good English but they were having fun with it. We were in Pernik, not Sofia. I came back to the car and told Joseph we weren't in Sofia and told him we were in Belgrade. He started freakin out until he realized how ridiculous that possibility was. It took us more time to drive around in circles until we realized we had to turn around to get to Sofia, but it was good, and we finally made it to the hostel 6 hours after I had originally told them.

We travelled to Plovdiv on our last day which is a pretty big city in Bulgaria. It was really cool but trying to find the Old Town was a big pain, but we finally did. This is the Church of St. Constantine. It was cool. well, actually this is just the wall outside of the church, but it's cool enough. Driving here we had terrible fog on the highway but it was no problem

This is the old ancient theater in Plovdiv. It's the main attraction in the old town and it's pretty cool and worth it i guess to see, but it did take us about as much time to finally find the old town as it did to actually get to Plovdiv which was an hour and a half from Sofia. But It was cool. we walked around and then ate at this kinda small but good restaurant which was cheap as always.

So, in conclusion, the trip was a lot of fun. We met a lot of fun people at our hostel the last 2 nights and had some good chats. But it was really nice to get back home. After 1200 miles of driving, and after not driving for a few years that much, I was ready for a relax. I'm pretty sure I slept most of the plane and bus rides back. So, hope you enjoy the pictures and stories.

The Kitchen of Prosperity

2008-03-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

We go from the past...

to the future in one single bound

Tired

2008-02-28T05:33:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit tired lately. I'm looking forward to next week having off and hopefully getting some fresh air with the windows rolled down. I miss that. I'll write more later.

Spinning to Fitness

2008-02-20T09:33:00.000-08:00

Last week I started a new beautiful thing that has been a lot of fun... I call it working out ;) Actually, maybe you remember me telling you that I won about 30 bucks in the raffle at a school dance to the local fitness club, and so I decided to try out a bit of what they got, since it's free and all.

So I looking into it and found this thing called spinning, which i for the longest time was something like twirling, but really it like riding on a stationary bike for an hour with an instructor at the front pushin you and it all to the rhythm of the music with the lights off with some neon stuff glowing, so it's pretty cool. I had a difficult time at first when i went to sign up cuz the little girl was one of those blabbety blabbers and it was tough to really get what she was saying, but when i came for my actual time of class, i was lucky cuz one of my students was working at the reception and then I went to the spinning room and you wouldn't believe it but my teacher was the girlfriend of one of my good friends, so that was helpful cuz i didn't know how to set up anything and it was just really helpful and i was lucky.

And I came again, yesterday for round two and it was pretty cool cuz i knew about half of the people in the class. Actually cuz they were my students, so that was fun, and even the teacher was also. It was a lot of fun and it's something that i look forward to enjoying more in the future.

Your Marsupial of Choice...

2008-02-10T02:07:00.000-08:00

So, yesterday I was treated to something that I haven't experienced before. and it was really good actually.

Yep, you guessed it... kangaroo. Really quite interesting. Didn't really know it was some kind of delicacy here. Well... it's not really, just something that's tasty that some restaurant wants to charge a lot for. But anyways, it was cool and it was quite good. Just another kind of beef really, so it was satisfactory.

2008-02-05T02:59:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of my dog and my roommate. Don't they look happy? This was just taken before Benji dumped on 'im. Well it was more of just a bit of seapage, but u get it i'm sure. It was happiness at it's best...

Findin Me Some Fitness

2008-02-03T11:24:00.001-08:00

So, yesterday was my last senior dance of the year, and it was awe-inspiring. Well, it was nice, we'll just say that. Why was it so nice you might ask? Well the reason is because in the raffle, I won myself 30 buckaroos at the local fitness center where I have the option to either lift weights or attend a spinning class. What is a spinning class you might ask? No, it's not what I thought, which is like a twirling class, but it's a workout with a group and an instructor on stationary bikes. Wow, I'm lookin forward to attending my local fitness center which is comically named "Party Klub".

Lunch... put you in the mood

2008-02-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

So, today was quite a fun little time. We went down to Prague to have lunch with one of our fellow good friends Mr. Kynes and he took us to a little nice place near his pad called (translated to be English-friendly) "The Itty Bitty Basement" :) It was a pretty cool pizza place. The pizza cheese seemed to stick to you mouth like Velveeta or something, but it was pretty tasty and a nice little fun moment.

But during our "horribly served" time there, we experienced a short power outage. THe pizza was cooked over a fire, so it wasn't a problem. But the place was almost pitch black, and no one came around to say anything to all of us. We just kinda sat there and enjoyed the peace and darkness. After about 5 minutes the horrible waitress came around with little baby candles (one for each table) and after this was accomplished, you could see the gleam shining into everyone's eyes and smiles. It was one of the most picturesque and heart-warming moments I've had here yet.

In this picture you see the fire stove and the tables to one room. We would be sitting at one of the front ones, fyi.

The Brightness of Whiteness

2008-01-29T09:38:00.000-08:00

I made my second trip last weekend in two and a half years to the famed store of IKEA in Prague. It was quite an adventure for me. But well worth it. I went there, mustering the courage of the 90 minute one way trip which takes me from foot to train to metro to bus and the final stretch on foot again. I wasn't really quite sure of what to expect seeing that I had only been there once previously and that one time i wasn't really in the mood to spend lots of money seeing that I didn't have any money to spend.

So this time, I decided to just sit back and enjoy the show. I walked the galactic-sized pathways through the store to see what I could see. After a rushed 90 minutes of walking through it, I had a pretty good idea of what maybe I would want to buy. So, I was ready for round 2. I'd pick up odd things here and there, a blanket or a pillowcase, or some scented candles, but what really caught my eye was the "glory upon glories". That beauty of a coffee table is what my eyes cast themselves upon. It was something only God Himself could have constructed, and for such a reasonable price also!! It was too perfect to pass up.

So... when I finally ended with everything, I had bought this big box that contained my glorified table but yet also a huge blue IKEA bag filled with just a bunch of sweetass awesome stuff. Now... once I finished with this part, the fun started to happen. I finished, and I said to myself... "you know dude, those 50 cent hotdogs over there look really good." So, I lugged all my belongings over there and set my table down and my eyes were on it the entire time as I was ordering my hotdog and even when i had to walk to the condiment table even farther away to get some ketchup. No one, and I repeat no one, was going to get the best of Zach Barnes today.

From here, I dragged/carried my table and big back back to the bus where I reconvened after this in carrying it to the metro. From the metro, I continued to carry this 40 pound table (maybe 100 pounds...) up the escalator and to the train. Luckily, from the train station with just the final haul left in front of me (yet the 10 minute walk seemed staggering to me), i was actually taken that last little bit by car in order to save a little dignity. And after that, and after a bit o time puttin it together, I finally had in my living the Brightness of Whiteness...

English with the Commies

2008-01-27T00:43:00.000-08:00

So, the last week I was able to borrow an "English Conversation" book from one of my students when she was in college. The book was published in 1979 and had no native English speakers as authors, just 3 Czech people. But it really wasn't bad, I mean there weren't mistakes or anything, it was just horrid. But I did quite possibly find the best sentence ever.

In an exercise in which you are supposed to find as many possible answers as possible, I found this question to meditate on for a the time being...

"Muriel is a bit ticklish on the subject of waste, isn't she?"

Pulled Over on the Sidewalk

2008-01-22T03:17:00.001-08:00

So the other night, I was walking home from the train station. It was about 115 or so and it was drizzling a bit, but not too bad. Ok, maybe a bit more than drizzle, but still quite bearable. Anyways, I was walkin home and I saw these police cars driving by, and then I saw another and a bit later, another. I noticed the strangeness of it. When I was almost at home, there was another one that drove by my and i didn't pay attention to it really until it started going in reverse at the same speed as me. I looked over but then continued to ignore them. Then the dude rolled down his window and asked me where i was going (i think) and so i said home. He then told me to come over there to his window. I did... still strange... and he proceeded to ask me questions. (like the cubed root of 432. i told him i wasn't sure about that) But then i told him i was a teacher at the school here and he kinda mocked me.

It was quite strange and I tried my best to answer the questions that i thought he might have been asking. He asked my my last name, first, dob, and then where i live. I finially told him at the school. he then said ok, bye, and then they drove off. Really strange I think. I think it must have been obvious that i was no trouble to them, but it was strange. I had always wondered what it'd be like to be stopped like that by the police

well... i guess that means i can mark that off my list of life accomplishments

2008-01-15T03:35:00.000-08:00

My French Jew brother in law also got me it. It was way pretty.

Everyone Lies...

2008-01-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

The moment that I wasn't looking forward to (yet also hastily looking forward to) has come. I have recently finished the third season to the tv show House. It was pretty good. I got it as a christmas present from my sister and me and Joseph watched it quite quickly. I saw parts of the 2nd season as I was in America this past summer and it was nice. But the ending was sad to my soul cuz now I have to figure out productive things to do instead of watching shows. Though when the times have came over the past few years when we get some tv show, it has always been accepted openly and warmly and is a nice break from reality.

My latest Christmas Present

2008-01-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

This here is my latest Christmas present. It came with my meal the other day. What is it exactly? I'm not sure, but what I am sure is that it's a piece of plastic about the size of a penny.

I found it in one of my favorite little pub snacks which i translate as "drowned-man sausage". It's cold sausage marinated in a jar of oil along with onions... Dig in...

New Year's Package

2008-01-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

Due to my stupidity and my overdrafting of my account, I had to go through some loops and get a new debit card, and i got it in the mail today, but that's not all... no sir, thanks to the aid of my mom, I have been treated with Zija ;) http://www.zijapower.com. She always knows what makes me feel right at home.

"What do you get when you combine the MOST NOURISHING PLANT on the planet with THE MOST CONVENIENT and EFFECTIVE DELIVERY METHOD?"

The answer if you haven't figured out yet is Zija, the itty bitty can of goodness. Nourishing the World, Making Waves in America

What's in Zija™?

Zija contains leaf powder, leaf puree, seed cake, fruit powder, and fruit juice harvested from organically grown Moringa oleifera trees.

Zija is made from all natural and all Generally Recognized As Safe ingredients, is hypoallergenic, celiac tolerated, gmo free, gluten free, no preservatives or stabilizers whatsoever, low in naturally occurring sugars, fat free, trans fat free, hydrogenated fat free, no artificial coloring, no animal products, soy free, corn free, and wheat free.

Zija is simply good stuff that's good for you.

After a close examination of the Presentation DVD that came with my 6 pack, the baby 5.5 oz. cans are obviously the world's greatest drink, and that can't be denied. You too will be swayed once you listen to the 30 minute interview with the two expert doctors and watch the history of the plant that grows with Asia which according to the film has "potent goodness". I'm at a loss for words cuz i was really worried how I was going to make it through these last 7 months over here, but now, finally, I have my answer. I feel that now I can do anything. I feel strong, and this quite possibly could be one of the strongest feelings I've ever felt before.

Thanks Mom... but more importantly... Thanks Zija.

Christmas Tidings and the Jolliest of New Years

2007-12-30T08:47:00.000-08:00

Well... as the show continues to go on, I take pleasure in every passing moment, or so it seems. The last week or so, I've been on vacation and I've been in the same place I started. It's been nice to relax and have lots of fun doing it. Me and Benj have been on 2 really long walks, I've seen lots of movies (I brought a projector down to my place and have been watching movies on the big screen (or rather the big wall as you might have it).

Sadly to say, but the Christmas season in Prague is simmering to a dull glow at this moment which means that there won't be a Christmas market after a few more days. It's quite sad actually, but not for the reason you might have it. (First, here's a pic of the Christmas Market in the Old Town Square)

At these markets, you can get all the fancy little special trinkets that can be found in most places, but it's special christmas trinkets, which doesn't really mean anything new. They have the same special sausages and fried cheese and whatnot. Special for Christmas season, they do have cool things such as:

- First we have the Trdelnik thingy which is like bread with cinnamon and sugar. It's pretty good.

- also we have something called a Super Vafle (Waffle) but it's different from a real waffle. It's super big first of all, and second, it's like two pieces of really thin bread with caramel in the middle. It's really cool. Couldn't find a pic, sorry.

- ANd what would Christmas be without Roasted Chestnuts

- Other such things that can be found there is hot spiced wine, or mulled wine, and a nice hot honey liquor

-And there's probably lots of other tasty things that you can get here, but these are the most important things... but I'm leaving out the most important thing. I'm quite happy that I was able to make it down to prague quite a few times this past month for various reasons because every time I made it into town, I made it a point to buy myself a nice freshly made langos (langosh). What it is is simple... It's just fried dough and then they add garlic, ketchup and cheese. It's really good. Explanations can't be deemed at this proper moment. Just look at it in it's glory...

That's all I have to say for now. Take care.

You Decide...

2007-12-21T04:03:00.000-08:00

Which is which... apparently with my spectacles atop my head, the school populace is at a loss for words...

An Upgrade...? Or a Suckgrade...?

2007-12-15T08:34:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas to my flat. As it so has it, my flat got a very merry Christmas present... or did it. On the pictures below, you will see the new couch that we got!!! Wow, our old couch was old and broken and falling apart and everything was wrong with it, but I have to admit, some nights I found it more comfortable than my bed. And also we got a normal pretty armchair and some foot rests. All these things are a set which means they all are the same design and everything, mind you that the couch in the picture has some blankets on it as to protect it from anything...

And another reason for it... well... we looked at our room and realized that our room didn't really match beforehand, but now especially, it just looks ridiculous with this horrible black designed stuff, but let's not get things misunderstood, I'm highly appreciative for the new upgrade that my school has provided for me... but just one more thing to discuss here...

You see... who knows how long our couch had been here at our flat... it had to have been at least a million years old... but it was nice. Now... our new furniture had been donated to us by another teacher who had apparently gotten new furniture. But the question is... if you got new furniture, would you honestly want to give your old furniture to someone instead of throw it away? Of course you would!!! But wait... how bout this thought process... "I know what we can do... we can give these people our futon which is obviously not as comfortable as a couch and make these people throw out their perfectly fine couch... oh yea... their couch doesn't have any major problems with it, but we'll give them our futon which is completely BROKEN in the middle. Completely broken in the middle, that's right, that's what I said. There's just a big uncomfy hole in the middle

So... now, what have we done to remedy the problem? Well... we turned it around, and tried to make the backrest the seat, but it doesn't quite fit all the way, so now our futon is in like a constant position of a reclined airplane seal. Wow, more reasons to stay...? Or leave perhaps...? It definitely something to raise thoughts and questions about life. Take it any way you like and please stop by for a visit sometime to try it out yourself.

School Zone Ahead

2007-12-13T23:49:00.000-08:00

I've always thought this was really funny. You see... last year, they repainted the white signs on the street, crosswalks and stuff, and then they repainted the School Zone markings. I wanted to take a picture of it last year before they tried to cover it up a bit, but as you can see... it is quite visible that they workers started making the drawing going the wrong way, then realized the error of their way and made it going the right way. This sign is directly in front of our school. It makes me smile every time I walk by it.

American Madness

2007-12-13T23:41:00.000-08:00

I forgot all about mentioning something important that happened last week... sorry. About 10 American guys from VA came to Kralupy last week to help out with building an apartment for workers of this ministry directed towards helping people with addiction, both drug and alcohol from what I gather. But... since I have contacts with the people at this ministry, I suggested that maybe some of them come to some of my classes if they'd be interested in getting a more feel for things here. They came and talked and talked to 4 of my classes (which was awesome by the way) and then we sang some songs, preferably the Beetles, and then they embarked. But before them embarked, we had an English Cafe at school on Friday and all the Americans came and also some of our students came also. It was really cool. Everyone seemed to have fun talking and rockin out hardcore. I regrettably only have one picture of the even which i captured on my new handy dandy mobile phone

This was at the cafe where we had a lot of fun and good times. If I stay here next year, I look forward to the time when they are coming again

A Piece of Change

2007-12-10T12:58:00.000-08:00

After tonight, and the last few days, sometimes with the conversations you have, you really, though you've been living in the place for long enough, realize the impact that the culture has on the lifestyle of its inhabitants. As I see how much Christianity plays a part of the culture and lifestyles of Americans, I've been awakened again with the impact I see on Atheism and its role and influence on the lives of the people here. Sure I've seen it time and time again, but for some reason, it seems to have been quite pronounced as of lately and I strive to compare the religious implications that both these religions (or nonreligions have you) have on the culture.

Because when I look at American culture, I see something, that something is Christianity and how it has overpowered our culture. Everyone is a Christian, and if they aren't, then they still are, but maybe they don't want to be. To me this sounds ridiculous, but when you look at every single other modern culture in the world, it's similar (not in the Christian aspect, but in their own prominent religious aspect). For example, here, with Atheism.

Here is a pronounced and declared Atheistic state. Ask anyone (anyone that has eyes) and it's obvious. Sure there are several that desire this, perhaps even a majority, but I've seen, personally, that although there's a majority, there is a big part of that majority that question their own atheism. They're sad because they know it's the way they have to go, but they wish and even hope that there is something different out there.

Now... it's true that this isn't true for most of them. Most of them don't care about the opinions of others, but even moreso than in the US, people are interested in what you have to believe, and that's just a straight fact. In the US, missionaries are dedicated to "initiative evangelism" but here, even if you don't try to do even indirect evangelism, it comes to you, people want to know of other possibilities. Some people don't, but it's undeniable that many people do. With 1% of the world being Atheists, Czech are in the minority and that's the fact. 99% of the world believe in something, and with that astounding percentage, the number seems to be rising.

Here's the facts as I see it, and that's all I got to say about that. Maybe some of you Czechs don't agree with the statements I've said. Maybe it's not true for you, and you think otherwise for the majority as I've spoken, and if so, I would still disagree with you and say that people are interested in what's out there, and that's just a fact. Our minds are meant to think of abstract things to not be able to see the extent of those abstract things. It's not a matter of opinion, it's just how it is. If you care to discuss, I'm always willing.

Christmas Joy

2007-12-07T06:02:00.000-08:00

So i recently got a Christmas card and also a present in the mail from my brother. But the card is quite different (as you see Benji has it in his mouth right now, but this was the only time). The card is with Steve Carell and he talks about the joys of Christmas and reasons why to be happy... but he really actually speaks! The card speaks to you... which was quite a shock to me as you can imagine when I first opened it. Well... as time has gone by, the card itself just freaks the heck out of benji and he runs away even at the sight of it from now on and when you open it, wow, he just seems like the most scared dog in the world. Anyways, it's a funny card. Thanks bro. Merry early xmas.