le mot "děkuji" - (Prague)

On Tuesday, I took a train from Annecy to the Lyon airport, where I met up with my fellow travelers.  Two English assistants (Nikki and Katrina) and Anna, Katrina's friend from when they studied abroad.  EasyJet really is a no frills airline.  I opted to just do a carry-on and not pay the extra 15Euro fee per flight to check baggage.  They really do only allow one bag, so it involved a lot of rearranging (putting my purse in my bag with the zipper open, hiding stuff in my coat that I was carrying, wearing extra layers for what I like to call the "EasyJet look").

This is all I took for the Prague-Budapest-London leg of the journey.  And I was wearing the boots!  I left a bag of ski stuff with my teacher.

Nikki had printed off basic Czech words and expressions, and we all practiced "děkuji" (thank you) right away.  It's pronounced "dyay-koo-yi."  We got into Prague pretty late, so we went next door for dinner.  We stayed at the Pension Brezina.  If you ever go to Prague, I highly recommend it!

Anyway, the next morning, we wanted to make sure we could at least say thank you correctly. Nikki and I went to talk to the front desk guy.  The exchange went something like this.

Me:  Hi, we have a question for you.  How do you say thank you?
Czech Man: Thank you.
Me:  No, but how do YOU say thank you?
Czech Man:  Thank you!  You should say thank you in your own language.  Otherwise you won't be smiling.
Me: But really, how do you say it.. Dyaykooey?  Dyekooyeh?
Czech Man: It doesn't matter!  Speak with your mind and your heart.
Me: Okay, I'll take three postcards.
Czech Man: 15 crowns.
Me: Děkuji.

Walked around the main square.  Tried to get a photo of it snowing while it was really sunny out.

Walked up the stairs in the Prague Tower.

View from the Tower

Another view

Now that's a coffee!  This is how an espresso is served in Prague.

Famous Charles Bridge.  It was cold!

Inside St. Vitus Cathedral, as seen in the background of the previous photo.

Anna had the idea to go to the opera.  Front row seats for Il Trovatore.  It was fun, I'd like to go to the opera in Chicago sometime. (Famous part I recognized: YouTube clip.  Wow, the production we saw was a lot more sparse than the one featured on this video.  It was pretty much just the actors and one set of risers that they moved around!)  The subtitles were in Czech and English.

Main square at night, with astronomical clock.

Cool logo at the Office de Tourisme.

I kept saying I wanted to see live music.  We ended up going to Jazz Republic, which was sort of underground, not in a cool way, but in an "on your way to the metro" kind of way.  Haha.  To my dismay, we had just missed "Stan the Man Bohemian Blues Band."  He had played the night before.  There was a big band with many horns in small, enclosed space.  The music was fun, and my group took advantage of the exchange rate and got some White Russians for probably a third of what it would cost in France!

We also visited the Communist Museum.  It was interesting, and at the end featured a video with a song that said "děkuji" many times.

Czech words I learned in Prague (spelling?):

exit - vychod

please - proseem

ATM - bankomat

thank you - děkuji

strawberry - jahoda

strawberries - jahody

soup - polevka

coffee - kava

hello - dobre den

hot chocolate - horka cocolada

of - od

fried cheese sandwich - smaszeny syr

On Saturday, we got up early and took the 7 a.m. bus to Budapest...

le mot "combinaison de ski" - (Annecy)

Just got back from a whirlwind two-week winter break to Annecy, Prague, Budapest and London!  I still can't believe I was able to do it.  Thanks to EasyJet airlines (the "Southwest" of Europe), Student Agency Bus (their website has a lot of exclamation points, and it's kind of hilarious, but it's ALL true!  I took advantage of five movies and five "hot drinks" aboard the bus!), an Eastern European hostel, a good exchange rate and the hospitality of an old friend, it was actually not as expensive as you'd think.  Because it sounds like such an expensive/luxurious trip, I decided to only tell my teachers I was going to Prague, which ended up being a bad idea because I ran into one of my students at the airport on the way home from London, and I'd like to tell a teacher about that, but she doesn't know I was in London....but more on that later! :)

A few weeks ago, Catherine, one of the teachers I work with invited me to her family's house near Annecy, France to go skiing.  She said I just needed to bring sheets and a pillow case, and some money for the ski lift.  So, on Saturday, Feb. 11, she and the Taiwanese high schooler she's hosting this year picked me up at 9:30 a.m., and the vacation officially began!

After about three or so hours, this is where we arrived...

The family house in Saint-Jorioz

Catherine, her parents, and her eight brothers and sisters own this house.  It basically used to be two houses, and then they built a galley that connects the two upper floors and there is outdoor parking beneath it.  Here's a tour of the house...

Stairway up to the room where I stayed.  On the wall is a chain of little books.

The room where I stayed.  I did the math, and there are about 19 rooms that can accommodate 2-3 people each!

One of several bathrooms.  

This is the galley between the houses.  It doesn't have heating, so people don't stay here during the winter, but there are about five bedrooms and a kitchen.  I did a lot of running through this part of the house because it was so cold!  The shutters on the right are open during the summer.

The main kitchen.  Through that door is...

The dining room.  There were at least 18 people at dinner every night.  Every lunch and dinner included a cheese course.  So good!

One night Catherine made a "courge farcie" (stuffed pumpkin).  It was filled with rice, ground meat, and dates.  It was big enough to provide dinner for 18 people and lunch the next day!

Walked around Annecy the first day.  The centre ville where we walked around was really cute and colorful.  I bought a large green scarf, which will be featured in future photos.

I went skiing on Sunday and Monday.  They let me borrow skis, so I just had to rent the ski boots.  They also let me borrow a combinaison de ski, which.... well.... I'll let the picture speak for itself.

Stayed very warm, saved a lot of money, but did not make any friends on the slopes. :)

Parking lot of the ski slope before it got filled with cars.

Taking a break from the slopes.

Tuesday, before I left, we took a walk to Lac d'Annecy, about a five minute walk from their house.  Beautiful!

I mainly hung out with Catherine's 19-year-old daughter, their Taiwanese exchange student and their high school friends.  I was the only one who had a brought a seche-cheveux (hairdryer), so I made friends really fast.

It was really cool how different people would arrive or leave each night.  Every day it was a different group of people and you could tell everyone felt really welcome in their home.  I feel really lucky to have been able to go.  I stayed from Saturday to Tuesday, since I had already made plans to go to Prague, but it sounded like she expected me to stay the whole week!  The whole weekend reminded me of a genre of French movie where 10-12 people from different walks of life arrive for a vacation at a house, resort, etc., and hilarity ensues.  Luckily, hilarity did not ensue, and it was just a fun, board game- and ski-filled weekend!  The French really do know how to vacation.