České Vánoce

I'm not sure if you remember, but many moons ago I said that I would write about Christmas in the Czech Republic. However, a few less moons ago I found myself on a Delta flight across the Atlantic with an end destination of Albuquerque, New Mexico; a story for another time. This being said, my Czech Christmas only spanned November 11th (yes, this is when many of the decorations went up) to December 21st. I was able to get a pretty good idea of some of the Christmas environment and traditions here before departure though...

Malls and shopping centers tossed decorations up as early as November 11th here. This photo is a photo of the inside of Nový Smichov, a huge shopping center in Prague 5. 

Starting in late November and early December the "Christmas stands" and Christmas markets started popping up in the streets. These stands are your one-stop shops for everything you could ever need for the season. They sell everything from gold and silver painted mistletoe to every size of Christmas tree imaginable. Stands and markets can be found all over town in any public space. There is one 'main' Christmas market in Staré Město (Old Town), but this is considered very touristy and a little more expensive. However, this makes it no less impressive, and it is always worth a trip to see the gigantic Christmas tree. This year's was at least 50ft tall, taking up an epic portion of the square. 

Lady in the tram with her mistletoe in hand

A Christmas stand outside Nový Smichov

Christmas tree in Old Town

Christmas market in Anděl, the district
of Prague in which Nový Smichov is located

Christmas stand (notice the painted mistletoe) outside of the Hůrka metro
station. This is an area that I have an English lesson in

To the chagrin of  many of my Czech friends,
Santa Claus has made it to the country

Christmas stand on Náměstí Míru (Square of Peace)

You can see the arbitrary location of Christmas
stands

A bag of scrumptious homemade Christmas
cookies that one of my students was kind
enough to bestow upon me. (I was ordered to
take them back to the U.S. with me and share
with my family. I can't say the cookies arrived
in one piece, but their taste was complete.)

This is a free Christmas concert that was being given in the Hlavní Náddraží (main stration) 

The Náměstí Míru Christmas market...just a couple blocks down the street from
my house at the time. Náměstí Míru was my main metro station start point for
teaching travels

Some interesting Christmas tidbits/traditions are:

• Christmas Day in December 24th in the Czech Republic, not the 25th as it is in the U.S. Christmas consists of three main days: 24th-26th.
• The traditional Christmas meal is carp and you can find fishmongers at all Christmas markets and street corners with tubs of live carp starting around Dec. 20th
• The Czechs do not have Santa Claus, but Ježíšek (baby Jesus) delivers the Christmas presents during the meal on the 24th
• During the Christmas meal all eaters must stay seated once they have sat down, as it is considered bad luck to leave the table (I have found bad luck to mean anything from bad health to death)
• After dinner children will often melt lead ingots and then poor them into water. The shapes can reveal some hint about the future if you look hard enough and are able to find something
• The arrival of Ježíšek is signaled by the ringing of a bell and a parent encouraging the children to hurry and look, the baby Jesus is about to escape! The children never seem to quite reach the room in time to catch a glimpse of the little trickster
• Walnuts are often halved and then set with a candle. They are then placed in a bowl of water. Each family member has one of these 'ships' and their movements tell something of what the coming year holds for the family and its various members
• It is common to fast Christmas day before the main dinner meal. The goal is to see a golden pig, which brings good luck. If you fail to see the golden pig it is, of course, bad luck or death the coming year

A couple New Year's traditions:

• One must eat plenty of lentils on New Year's day, as they represent money/wealth. The more lentils, the more money. Needless to say, bowls are better to count in 
• One mustn't eat poultry on New Year's, as anything consumed with wings will cause your luck to fly away

After returning to Prague on the 6th of January I was met with a sad, sad sight: the death of Christmas. All through the streets you could find poor little Christmas trees whose time was up...really driving home the fact that the holiday was over...

The 'Local's Tour'

There is a little joke between some friends of mine and me about the "local's tour". It basically centers around the idea of exploring Prague as in-depth as possible, finding the secret gems of the city (or maybe not-so-secret), and successfully being able to navigate oneself back to them at a later date. Extra points are awarded for efficiency. Extra points are awarded for authenticity.

Anyway, I have been the successful leader of a couple 'local's tours' and would like to take you on a small virtual one right now. Before I begin, I must cover my back and say that I am by no means the only guide for these tours, lest I face retribution upon my return to camp. The whole of our group have led many successful 'tours' and that is what makes it fun, we each find something unique one day and share it with the rest of the posse.

This is just a small collection of various photos taken at differing locations around Prague. While I by no means would seriously consider myself a local yet, I will say that I am able to quite easily navigate the city and am becoming increasingly more confident giving directions or answering questions about Prague. This being said, I will include a little caption describing each one, but it will be very general and I will save detailed explanations for later posts. Here's the little sampler...

The metro exit to Korunní street, where Mark
and I share a flat. It is extremely close to the gothic church
 Náměstí Míru, which will be included in a later blog
about the churches here

An automatic milk machine and a couple sweet old ladies trying to figure
out how it works. I've never seen one before, but you grab the size of
bottle you would like, insert coins, insert bottle, and fill 'er up!

Václavské Náměstí (Wenceslas Square). This famous statue of Wenceslas on his
horse has become one of the typical meeting points for groups, as it is a huge
site in the city, is central, and directly on the intersection of two metro lines

Climbing up Petřín to reach the tower at top. You can see the segway at the
bottom right of the photo. These have become a huge form of touring in
Prague, much to the dismay of many locals. They do get quite obnoxious as
they zoom around.

Strahov Monastery...also turns out to have quite
a nice IPA that they brew. 

There are so many secret passages and alleyways
connecting the streets of Prague. This is one up by
the Prague Castle

The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square seen from the side.

An example of the different periods of
architecture found in Prague. There are
obviously also many ultra-modern buildings

Art at Národní Třida

The Infant of Prague. This church and the infant will
also be described in more detail in a future
post

Karlův Most (Charles Bridge) on an overcast afternoon

Where the tracks end...

The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, a
few blocks away from the flat in the opposite direction
of Náměstí Míru

Vyšehrad, a second castle in Prague. This
is one of my favorite places to spend time
and will certainly have its own entry
to come

View of the Vltava from Vyšehrad

Street art by the school

A view of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle from across the
way in the royal gardens/orangery 

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Jiřího z Poděbrad square at sunset

The spirit of Prague

A cool shot of an apartment building and its various doors

View of Prague from across the Vltava in Letna beer garden. The City of a Thousand Spires 

 Hope you enjoyed the local's tour and it gave you a little taste of the city. Expect the next entry to be about Christmas in Prague.

Pavlik v Praze

I am officially the first Pavlik living back in the Czech Republic! I have a home, have a job, have a bank account, have health care, have a visa good until April 1st, and have just received my trade license, which allows me to legally work here as my own business. It took three months to get everything together, though. A looooot of running around and scrambling to collect necessary documents and information!

As you may know, after Patrick Murphy went back to the U.S. to begin his career as a physical therapist, I continued with my TEFL course here in Prague. The Teaching English as a Foreign Language program went well and I received a high pass, guaranteeing me a job at the school, where I have been working since September 8th. 

The following photos are all taken during the month of the TEFL program as the rest of my classmates and I were first exploring the city and getting our bearings. During the program I stayed at "The TEFL House", a house owned by the school and reserved for students in their class to stay at during their month-long sentence. No, it was a blast, didn't feel like we were serving time at all! We had a community kitchen and living area where we would all gather and do homework or work on our various lesson plans and projects together. The 10 of us (full capacity for the house) would often undergo the 40-minute commute to the school together in the mornings. Looking back, the house was a fantastic entry into the Czech world and workplace, as it created a sense of community, built friendships, and provided a sort of 'easing-in'. 

The TEFL course consisted of teaching/educational courses every morning from 8.00 to 12.15. These courses ranged from theory to how to teach young learners to differing styles of grammar lessons. We had 3 instructors who shared these courses: Peter, an Englishman, Jarmila, a Czech, and Jiri, a Czech. After these courses we would have about an hour-long lunch and then would return to the school for teaching practice. Three groups of Czech students had volunteered to be 'taught' by us, and effectively functioned as out guinea pigs for the month. Each student had to give six 45-minute lessons during the course of the four weeks and one 90-minute lesson.

However, three-month-old news, while being new information, can hardly be called news! Hopefully this post offered a little insight into the whole TEFL program process, but expect another current one in the next two weeks! 

A couple walking beside on old building on the riverfront (river opposite)

Patrick made a quick excursion to Warsaw, Poland and then returned to
Prague for the weekend. This was a basketball tournament that was
happening. Needless to say, the performance was quite dismal when compared
to U.S. ball.

Doing the walking tour: at the summit of Petřín hill

St. Vitus cathedral in Prague Castle....easily
one of the most impressive cathedrals in
Europe. It is impossible to get a sense of how
absolutely gigantic it is until you walk inside.

The free access to the cathedral allows viewing
of roughly four of its magnificent window. There
must be closer to 10 in all.

This is the CLT (Communicative Language Teaching)
method that we learnt during the program. It is designed
to promote more student participation and discovery and
minimal teacher lecturing

Patrick throwing down some verses during our
last poetry session before he left for the U.S.

My new world. The school has an entire
library of teaching resources, many of
which are a little outdated

The school I now teach at...Caledonian is
the biggest school in Prague and well-known
for their business English in-company courses.
Which means that I get to travel all over
Prague to various companies to teach...

....so this becomes routine, searching a route
to your next course and how one can go
about making it there using public transport

Introducing Mark, one of my TEFL course classmates and
my current roommate

Early morning Prague

Helping Mark move some luggage...yes,
we took this bad boy on the public bus...then
the tram...then walked with it. At one point
a man asked "What do you have in there, a
body?" Mark's response: "Two."

My first care package from my sweet mother! Always
happily accepting letters!  Even more happily
accepting Reese's ;)

Went to a Bohemian BBQ and Bluegrass festival
that we spotted in town. Needless to say, it
was delicious and the music was great