Ready, Set, Teach!

First of all, that last post was a joke largely meant for Pam and Marshall. Those of you who actually believed it must seriously doubt my intelligence, common sense and, most of all, ability to learn from my mistakes! Thanks guys.

Tomorrow is my first day as a REAL teacher! I'm looking forward to it but must admit that I'm more than a tad bit nervous. These people are paying good money to learn English from a smart, professional grammarian and, instead, they are getting me! My days will now be spent navigating Prague's public transportation system, going from one company's headquarters to another, hopefully teaching a little something along the way. I was surprised to find that many of my classes will be held at companies I've actually heard of - Oracle, Boehringer Ingelheim and Honeywell to name a few. I'll be starting bright and early tomorrow morning in the cold and snow with a 7:30am class about 45 minutes away from my flat. That means I should go to bed NOW. Good night!

Not Again!!

I don’t know what it is about this town…

So there I was innocently walking down the street, doing some innocent sightseeing with my innocent friends Sam, Fabian and Kristen. And then I saw it. ABSINTHE SHOP! It was like I imprinted on it (for all you vampire nerds) and could not resist the pull. A little piece of heaven in a snowy, cold, foggy town. I ditched my friends, who are afraid of the “green fairy”, marched right in and ordered a double! Several doubles later, I staggered out of my ‘new home’ and got swept up in the throng of tourists heading for the Charles Bridge. I’m not sure what transpired at that point…I have a foggy memory of a pineapple, Band-Aids and an old lady with a pet monkey. Thank goodness, my friends found me (four short hours after they left me at the absinthe shop) sleeping like a baby on the Bridge. Why do I feel like this has happened to me before?

One Month Down...

The last four weeks have flown by! On Friday, I finished my TEFL course and, assuming I passed, will be a certified “English as a Foreign Language” teacher by the end of next week. So now it’s Sunday morning and there is really nothing I should be doing right now…I haven’t had this feeling in months! I don’t mind it one bit.

The past couple of weeks have been filled with school, school and school, a few dinner parties and one hell of a “End of TEFLing” celebration Friday night. I can’t remember the last time I saw 4:30am…ouch. Now we have the next week off (to recover from Friday!) before we begin teaching on February 16th. Thinking about heading to Budapest and Bratislava for a few days if we can find inexpensive train tickets. If I do make it to Budapest, I’ll be sure and avoid the sketchy “bathhouse” where I was assaulted by an old Hungarian lady 10 years ago. Still having nightmares about that…

I’m going to head out in a bit and go explore my new neighborhood - Vinohrady. Moving into a new flat this week!! I’m going to have a bed that is NOT a couch, a room that is NOT connected to the kitchen, a roommate who does NOT make soup at 3am every night and eat all of my food and a bedroom door that is NOT made out of glass…and we have a piano! Could life get any better?!? I’ll be living with 3 other girls from my TEFL course – Kristen, Anya and Joy. Four is definitely a crowd but the flat is huge (5 bedrooms!) and I think we’ll all get along well. We should have Wi-Fi there within the next two weeks so emailing, Skyping and blogging will be much more convenient. Though I will miss waking up to this beautiful and inspiring piece of art every morning…maybe the landlord won’t notice if I take it?