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October 30, 2006
Tesco, God's gift to eastern Europe
As promised... the grocery store story. So there is this amazing store here called Tesco, pretty much the super Wal-mart of Eastern Europe. The store is not quite as big, but really it has everything you could ever want. I am always very excited to go to Tesco because it is like a little adventure every time. We have a bus stop very close to our street where a free bus comes to take you away to the land of amzingness, and we can go to Tesco just about any time we want.
The first time Jen and I went to Tesco it was a bit nerve wracking. We had no idea if we were taking the right bus, but we got on the bus that said TESCO in big letters, and figured it was probably the one. Now, I don’t know if you have ever been to a grocery store in another country where everything is written in a different language, but it means that you have to do a lot of relying on pictures to get the kind of food you want. This can also pose a problem because no matter how good the picture is, you can never be quite certain what you are getting. Now, I could easily pick out things like spaghetti noodles and fruits and vegetables, but things from the frozen section got a bit tricky. There were certain things that looked good from the pictures, but uh, I had no idea how to cook them because the directions were in Czech, French, or Italian. Our first time there we saw a whole tank full of live fish. Jen thought this was pretty funny and pulled her camera out of her pocket to take a quick picture... the store owners didn’t like that very much and yelled at us in Czech...but again, we gave them a look like a deer in the headlights and ran away because we had no idea what they were saying.
Other comments on Tesco and grocery stores in the Czech Republic
1)Oh baby, it’s Europe, we are in the land of Nutella! And not only that, but there are like three different off brands of nutella here too. Man, why can't we have that in the states?? It’s so cheap too! I am bringing a butt load home with me and hoping that I don’t have to claim it or it doesn't break and spill all over my luggage.
2)Tesco has the biggest isle of cheeses and meats I have ever seen in my life. It is especially hard picking out meat because I can look at it, but I still really have no idea what is in it. Last time I got these hot dog looking things and found out that they were chicken dogs...mmmm, nummy. My favorite meat so far is something called Hercules...yeah, not quite sure what it is, but it tastes good and has a cool name none the less.
3)My search for milk continues. I am seriously having milk withdrawals and I think I will have to suffer through them until the end of my trip unfortunately. Try one I picked out this carton looking milk thing only to discover that it was like soupy sour yogurt. Try two I picked out something else that looked like milk and it was so thick I about gagged. So I have pretty much given up, and I will admit that I am very afraid to try the milk in boxes that they don't refrigerate. Elizabeth tells me the enzymes in the milk are different here anyway, so I think I might not try any more milk...strike three you’re out, right?
4)The best part about stores here, there are always at least two isles dedicated to cookies and chocolate! Which really surprises me that everyone here is not more fat then they are. However, I don’t have any problems reaping in the benefits of the amazing chocolate selection. And, you say, what do you do without your favorite candy bar Kit-Kats? No fear I say, they have Kit-Kat Chunky’s (Big Kats they are called in the States) all over here. And not only that, they have a peanut butter Kit Kat version here that I have not seen in the States. Wow, I came to the right place.
Ciao for now!
Posted by Amber Ruppert at 09:48 AM | Comments (6)
October 24, 2006
Gymnazia Studentska
My first day of school was last Tuesday (again, sorry know that happened awhile ago). I was nervous because I guess I wasn't really sure what to expect. The first day I actually had no idea where my school was, but I walked to Jennifer's school with her (Jennifer and I teach at separate schools), and one of the teachers from my school came to pick me up. It turns out that instead of working with just one teacher I work with 8. I honestly think their goal is to get me into as many classes as they possibly can, which I am ok with, but it tends to be a bit stressful when trying to remember names and faces. Especially when they are not names that you have ever heard before because they are in a different language. It can also be a bit stressful and unorganized as far as who I teach what lesson… I have to keep very good notes.
So from the first day they threw me head first into the water, a sink or swim type situation. I went into the classroom, and they immediately expected me to talk about myself and answer any questions the students had about me, or anything they wanted to know about the U.S. Oh man, talk about the firing squad. And like I mentioned, this wasn't just the first day, it was for the whole week because I kept meeting different groups of students! Now, I must admit, I knew that my students knew English, but what I didn’t know was just how much. It differs between classes, but most students know a good amount of English. I found out just how much English some of them knew when I was in a class where a student gave a presentation about domestic violence. Yeah, nothing like tackling the tough issues, and not only that, but not even in their native language!
So needless to say they asked the tough questions right from the beginning. Do you like president Bush? How do you feel about terrorism? Are you scared of terrorists? Do you think that 9/11 was a conspiracy? What can you tell us about Indian reservations? And my favorite- "How do you feel about (whispers something in Czech to the teacher) black people?" Gee Wiz! I realize that some of these questions also stem from the age they are (teenagers, geesh) but for real.
Other than that I really do enjoy the teachers and the students. It is very customary here that wherever you go, they serve lots of coffee and tea, as a way of being polite. I think that in the first couple of days in my school I was pumped full of more tea than the Boston harbor when the Boston tea party happened. Thankfully I like tea, but if I come back to the states and start drinking tea everyday, don’t be surprised. I am slowly starting to recognize more and more faces, and starting to work on pronouncing the names right, but so far things at school have been a great experience.
Seriously, I am going to tell you about my trip to the grocery store. Seriously, real soon…
Dobre Den (Good day)!
Posted by Amber Ruppert at 09:00 AM | Comments (1)
October 20, 2006
Hav-e-jov!
After we were done in Praha, it was time to travel to our ‘home base’ as I like to call it in Havirov, Czech Rebuplic. It is pronounced Hav-e-jov, and Jennifer (the girl who is here with me) and I love saying it with kind of a dramatic pronunciation. It just makes it sound that much better. Havirov!
So we were in Praha and arrived at the train station to get ready to make our journey. Again we had a print off of what train we needed to be on and when it left, but we had no idea what track it was leaving from or what. Plus, we didn’t even know where to go to find the trains and we had about 100 pounds of luggage that we were hauling around with us. Yeah, everyone in the train station was saying to themselves, “look at those stupid Americans.” To make a long story short, we were confused, frustrated, and couldn’t really talk to anybody, but somehow again, we managed to get on the right train. Someone so kindly put our 50 Ib. bags in the overhead compartment for us, and we were ready to go. Well, kinda. We sat in these seats on the train, and as we sat down I think this lady tried to tell us in Czech that they were reserved seats, but uh, we didn’t understand, so we didn’t get the message. Well, we found out later, found a different seat, and were ready to go.
We arrived in Havirov, and a teacher from Jennifer’s school picked us up at the train station. We went right to our flat and met our new roommates, Marek, the P.E. and English teacher, and Lucie, his girlfriend. As I said before, I was a little worried about living with a boy, but really it is turning out to not be to bad. This is for a few reasons 1) Jennifer and I have our own room and Marek and Lucie have theirs, as long as Jennifer and I aren’t trampsing around in our underwear, I think it should be fine. 2) Marek is very nice and already has a girlfriend, so I don’t think Jennifer and I have anything to worry about him as far as hitting on us or anything. 3) It is actually very helpful to be living with him because he can speak both Czech and English, and if there is something language wise, or culturally we don’t quite understand, he helps explain it to us. He is also very interested about what it’s like to teach in the U.S. so Jennifer and I have had many conversations with him. The one thing that I think may be frustrating for the two of them is that as Marek can speak English pretty well, Lucie can not. She can communicate a little bit with us, but really not much. Many times Marek has to translate for her, and I wonder if that puts a strain on their relationship that he can communicate with us and she can’t. Lucie actually knows more Spanish than English, so sometimes her and Jennifer can speak in Spanish to each other, but I am not so lucky as to know Spanish, so uh, no go there. But we are all learning, and we teach them more English and they teach us more Czech.
When I got here I also found out that I will be teaching English at the gynasium, or the U.S. equivalent of High School (well, kinda, some can start the gynasium at age 12, but most start at age 14). So, well, less then ideal, and I am not licensed to teach high schoolers, but I don’t mind because they can communicate a decent amount with me. At the school they have 45 minute periods, and I will be teaching about 19 periods/lessons a week. The nice thing about this though is that I start at about 7:55 in the morning, but I am done everyday by 12:30 or 1:30. Plus, they are giving us free Fridays to travel. So, I only have to teach 4 days a week! It is so crazy, but it is not unusual for the students not to go to school from 8-3 anyway. Usually their day only lasts until about 1:30 or 2:00 also.
More to come!
Ciao!
Posted by Amber Ruppert at 07:17 AM | Comments (2)
October 19, 2006
Prague, Czech it out!
So as Elizabeth kindly pointed out, I am indeed a complete idiot. Yeah, who spells ciao, c-h-o-w. Yeah, pretty stupid. Anyway, I said ciao, because even though it is an Italian word, wherever I go in Europe it seems to be used as an informal way of saying hello and good-bye. Please forgive me.
Wow, I really have a lot to catch up on! So much to write! So I will start at Prague (or Praha as it is called in Czech). The first night we were in Prague was a little distressing. Jennifer and I were both SO tired from our long trip, and not only that, but we were in a strange country where we didn’t know the language. We were still adjusting. Plus, when we got to the hotel, they told us that we had received a call from Andrea, one of the teachers we would be working with. I called her back and she informed us that when we got to the town we were going to be teaching in we would be living in a flat with the P.E. teacher and his girlfriend. Wait… did she just say… HIS girlfriend? I was a bit shocked, and a little nervous that we would be living with a boy.
So I will be honest with you, the first night I cried myself to sleep. Not because I didn’t necessarily want to be where I was, but because it was so overwhelming. I thought to myself, “What have I done?”
With the morning came a new day and I felt a little more confident. It was so funny because while we were in Prague people kept talking to me in German. I don’t know if it was because of my good ‘ol German roots or what, but thankfully I could understand some of what they were saying to me (I took German in HS). Anyway, we wanted to venture into the city but weren’t quite sure how to get there. We asked the hotel attendant, who spoke some broken English how to get downtown, and she tried to tell us how to get there using public transportation. Jennifer and I didn’t completely understand, but we got downtown where we wanted to go, so we considered our first experience using Czech public transportation successful! We rode on the bus, tram, and underground train and got on and off at all our stops successfully, all without using or hearing any English. We felt pretty proud.
Prague is a beautiful city. It is so historic and I couldn’t help thinking how much history was rooted just in the small area we toured. We took a walking tour with a guide in English, and met some other English speaking friends from Canada, Australia, and Scotland. We walked and saw the old town square, Jewish quarter, lesser town, Prague Castle, and Charles bridge. The Charles bridge was by far my favorite. It was built in the 13th century and has many statues of saints or famous Czech figures that were placed there in the 17th century. The most popular statue is probably the one of St. John of Nepomuk, a Czech martyr saint who was executed during the reign of Wenceslas IV by being thrown into the Vltava from the bridge. Touching this statue is suppose to bring you good luck and ensure your return visit to Prague.
Prague is also full of so many different kinds of churches and mosques. They are very beautiful and our tour guided explained a lot to us about the protestant revolution and how it changed the face of religion in the Czech a long time ago. It is very interesting to me though, that even though Prague has such a rich religious history, only about 30% of the people believe in any kind of religion here now. Most are atheist or say that they have no interest in church or religion. I know that this has a lot to do with the countries history in communism, but still, I find that statistic very interesting.
I think that is enough for today, but until my next adventure…
Na shledanou! (good bye in Czech)
Posted by Amber Ruppert at 10:07 AM | Comments (3)
October 17, 2006
Yes! I am in Europe!
Believe it or not fine friends that i am indeed writting on my blog! I know, try not to have a heartattach.
Ok, two things before i start blogging, 1 On the Czech keyboard i am typing to you right now the z and the y are in different places. So, if i am tryng to say the word my for example i might accidently type it as mz. 2 I can not type my entery in word and then copy and paste it, so i may have many misspelled words... sorry about that! 3 all the gramatical marks are in different places, so if i screw up periods and commas and things like that, you know why.
With that said, a big hello from Europe and the Czech Republic! I arrived in Prauge safely on Friday the 13th, whewh, and stayed the weekend there until i travled by train to Havirov, Czech Republic. I'll start off with filling you in a little bit about the trip and my initial impressions, and will have to elaborate more a little bit latter. Right now I am at an internet cafe paying for my internet service, but within the next week or so we are hoping to have internet at our flat, or apartment as you may call it.
From Chicago, we flew the German airline Luftanze, to Frankfort Germany. The flight went great, a little turbulance here and there, but all in all not too bad. As i already e-mailed some of you, when i fly, my most favorite thing to do is look at the clouds. Yeah, I know that i am a dork, but there is just something about flying above those big puffy things that i love. We also watched some great movies, including the Lake House, which I REALLY wanted to see. In the end though, i was a bit dissapointed, and a little confused. Oh well, it was still a good movie to watch on a 7 hour flight. We had a bit of a layover in Frankfort and then flew from Germany to Prauge, where we were thrown off of the plane into the brave new world. Notice here friends who like to make fun of me for spelling plane wrong, that i just used the right kind of plane...
Alright, so i will admit it, getting off the plane and adventuring into a country where i didn't know the language was VERY scary. First, Jennifer and I could not read any of the signs. My dad tells me before i go, yeah, most of the airports have signs in English when you travel in Europe... well Prauge didn't. We followed the arrows and somehow found our way out. Next, we needed to find our way to the hotel. We didn't want to get a taxi that would rip us off, so we tried our best to find a service that was legit. Again, a bit stressful seeing that we couldn't communicate with anz of the drivers. So, we picked a Taxi, got our luggage loaded in, and pointed to the paper where the address of our hotel was written. By God¨s grace we got to the right hotel about 15 minutes later.
I am sorry that this might seem very short and vauge today, but again, i am on a time limit. Next time I will let you know about how the weekend in Prauge went, and how my frist day of school went, which was today.
I'll keep you updated as much as possible and can't wait to tell you all about my trip to the grocery store... oh man, it was quite an adventure.
Chow everyone!
Amber
Posted by Amber Ruppert at 11:38 AM | Comments (6)