Of Prague and Stomach Flu

The last week has definitely been an adventure. Not going to school everyday means a couple of things. One: I no longer had access to internet. Two: I have to find a job! Three: I had no reason to wake up in the morning. Four: Ergo, I had no reason to go to bed at night. However, except for an unfortunate incident where I accidentally ended up in Zizkov at 4am, everything was going ok. I even have a very good chance at a full-time gig at a very good school named St. James. Good pay, good benefits, great reputation, etc. Thursday night rolls around which some of you may know is also our school's "pub night". All the teachers and students get together and knock back a few at the local pub "Konvikt". Friday turns out to be a Holiday in the Czech Republic, I'm not really sure why, it has something to do with independence in 1918. Anyway, none of the students attend. Only teachers. Among other things this means we all fit in one room, and everybody can talk to everybody. It did get a little out of control. There is a new class there to replace ours, and ours is starting to break up and go about their business, so everyone was feeling pretty open. Eventually I left, a little early, because I was already starting to not feel so good. I didn't leave alone however, and it was my first night to eat at McDonald's since arriving. Nothing else was open, and she was hungry, so we stopped in. Oddly enough (or perhaps not) it tastes exactly the same.
I didn't get much sleep that night. By the next morning I'm feeling kinda yucky. After escorting my friend to the metro station, I almost didn't make it back up the stairs to my temp apartment. When I finally did get there, I passed out cold on my bed. On the bright side, my room mate Kurt never came home that night, so I managed to sleep undisturbed throughout most of the day. Problem was, I had committed to dinner and drinks with a large contingent of other teachers for Friday night (7pm IP Pavlova). So, basically around 4:30, I pull myself out of bed, stumble into the kitchen, make myself some coffee, and try to pretend that I'm not getting sick. In hindsight, I probably should have just turned in for the night.
Kurt (who finally came home) and I made it to dinner. I wasn't feeling well, but put on a happy face, and hopefully nobody noticed my frequent trips to the bathroom. After dinner most of the other teachers peeled off and went home, and the one person I wanted to be there had not made it. Did I go home and get some rest? Perhaps take some medicine? No, no, there's a band playing over in Mala Stranska, can't miss it. So Kurt (who walked his girl home before meeting us at the next bar), Erica, Adrian, and myself head off on the tram to Mala Stranska. The band was interesting. Actually the music was pretty good, but the singing was awful, plus it was in czech, which is a language not suited for rock n roll of any kind. Sorry.
After the band we decided to head back to this little brewery in the basement of our building since we'd be moving out in a few days and hadn't tried it. I thought this was a great idea, as it got me closer to my own apartment, and nearer an opportunity to climb into my bed. After a few drinks the place closed down (everyone was closing early because of the holiday), so we headed back into town on foot, and wandered the streets a little aimlessly. We happened on this little family pub where this friendly older man was there with his daughter and golden retriever (someone remind me to write a piece on Prague and Dogs). I fell in love with the dog (lily) and she fell in love with me, but she went home with her owner I'm afraid. We hung there for a while before heading to the night trams and homebound.
So Saturday is kinda dark. I rolled around in cold sweats all day, frequenting the bathroom and trying to take in more water than I was putting out. It didn't work so my muscles started to get weak from dehydration. Unfortunately, I had committed to bringing a group to a Halloween party on Saturday night. My fear was that the hostess, who had not planned things very well, would have no guests if I didn't bring some, and it might get very awkward sitting there alone just me, her, and her boyfriend. I had promised on Thursday night to bring as many people as I could, and had set that in motion on Friday, so now there were people meeting to follow me to the party on Saturday. I managed to slide out of bed around 5:30 or so (meet was 6:30 IP Pavlova) and cowboy up and get my ass party ready. I marched down to IP Pavlova, rounded up my guests, and went to dinner. We made the party a little after nine, and I had brought more than half the guests, so I felt good about that. We had fun, though the party was a little subdued, and then our hostess got incredibly drunk and we made our way to the night bus.
When we got back into town we split up, some heading home, some to Hard Rock, and I followed Curtis to a club that his room mate DJ's at. Danced, had a beer, then headed home.
Sunday I finally decided to take it easy. My muscles were sore and cramping, my stomach was in knots, I had the shakes, and I guess it was about time I took a day off. Then today I had to move all my stuff across town into my new apartment.

SO the good news is, I'm now in my new apartment. That means internet whenever I'm home, and the Phone is now hooked up all the time. Yea! Oh and I am feeling a little better, but I need to get to bed cause I have an interview tomorrow!

I graduated

So I managed to graduate from TEFL school. That means...well it means that I can show people a little cert that means I am capable of teaching someone else my native tongue. Here's the tough part: I have to find a job. I did pretty well in the class so I am hoping that wont be too hard. Also I have no money. In case you hadn't heard the bank turned off my credit card, so I had to have money wired over (thanks mom) so that I wouldn't starve, and could pay for an apartment. The good news is I found a place!(harder than it sounds. House hunting in english is a contact sport in Prague) That means that I will have my phone working full time in about a week. I have an interview this week with a great school, so maybe that will work out as well. Keep your fingers crossed. On the romance front, I've made no real progress since coming here(except Eilidh, which is admittedly a big exception), but hopefully that's just because I haven't had time. It also hurts that I don't speak Czech. I got involved in this very intense flirting thing with this beautiful Czech woman at a club the other night, but eventually we had to give up, as we simply couldn't communicate. Oh well, motivation to learn I guess.

So for those of you reading this (both of you), please send more email!! Also, if you don't mind staying in a hostel, I'm now open for business as a host. (Also you could check out couchsurfing.com). My place though very nice, is also tiny and shared with three others. (have my own room, and a washer and dryer!!)

My weekend

Having recently come unscathed from a near pickpocketing incident, which I tried to publish on the blog, but somehow screwed it up, I had decided to have a quiet relaxing weekend. I went on Friday to watch the Red Sox/White Sox game, which was a lot of fun although the Red Soxs lost, the team I was apparently rooting for. All was well, went home at a decent hour, got a good night's sleep. I woke up relatively early the next morning to stroll around the neighborhood and see close up some of the sights I had only seen in passing, and head to some gardens for a rareish sight of green. So here was my plan for Saturday: a) meet classmates for lunch b) go home and work on my teaching project c)meet a few of the classmates, who were off to sight see, at a neat little hooka bar near old town and drink tea over a relaxing water pipe c) drink no alcohol and call it a night early, so that I could get up Sunday and do something productive. I was doing fine right up to the lunch!
After lunch I promptly went home and fell asleep. However I did manage to meet the gang at the hooka bar, and got back on schedule. Afterwards we all went to grab a snack before splitting up again. Here's where it all sort of fell apart on me, in what turns out to be a spectacular way. The Dutch it seems were having a victory party in the old town square. The square filled to capacity with orange jumpsuits, and Dutch flags, all surrounding a big brass and drums band that were playing rollicking good songs.
Of course we had to join in, we didn't have a choice. While we danced and sang, and cheered with the Dutch, one of my classmates met two very lovely young Scottish girls in town for a holiday. He was kind enough to introduce himself and then me (I can hear you smirking Joan). They followed us to a Jazz club where we had a beer, and then to an ex-pat dance club called Le Chateau. We danced and drank and had a merry time. Things got a little out of control by the time we left which includes one of my classmates doing a fascinating dance with a scarf, and me kissing a guy. Finally we decided to leave (in reality Penny who was with Kurt decided to leave. Eilidh and I were doing just fine). Anyway we walked the girls to a cab, though again Penny kept having to come back for Eilidh (pronounced Ailey) and myself, which was kinda funny, though not to Penny. Finally I managed to stumble home with the promise of dinner the next night from the girls. I slept most of the day on Sunday, and then managed to pull myself together to meet my friend Megan who is shopping for an apartment, and I went along as muscle. We went to lunch and then I went home to prepare for the Dinner on Sunday night.
We met at the Jan Hus statue in Old Town Square, where I arrived early to listen to the bustle and babble. Off to dinner we went, when everyone arrived. Then we sort of pub crawled along the Vltava back to my place where I could drop off some stuff. We split up with plans to meet at the Hard Rock Cafe (everything else was closed by now). Kurt and Penny had trouble finding the place, so we all met back at my place about an hour or two later, (I lost track of time)(Turns out Kurt told me it was actually more like 3 or 4 hours, sorry Penny). Finally the girls went home, and I crawled back into bed. We met them for lunch on Monday, and then went to a park to just sit in the sun together. In the end we said goodbye in front of our school, exchanging email addresses and promising to keep in touch.
So essentially, I failed in almost every way to accomplish anything over the weekend, but it was fucking worth it!