Prague - An Amazing City

We are very tired tonight, but I must convey some of the interesting events of the day. Today was "open house" at school today - the first time that the new secondary school rooms have been presented to the public. We left for school a little before 8:00 as we wanted to be the first there so we could print some documents that we created last night. I was the first one to the printer and got the laptop hooked up and then realized that I had created my documents on our other laptop and we had only Liz's documents with us. Oh well, I have become flexible, so it was not really a big deal. So I set to work cleaning and tidying in the new secondary classrooms, which at this time in the morning were not really presentable!



We had staff meeting at 9:00 which was very good. In addition to working out details of the day and the week, we listened to a very inspiring DVD by Dr. Wong on how to be a great teacher. We have listened to other talks of his on the previous two days and he has given me some good ideas. After the staff meeting the secondary staff sets out to make the rooms presentable. We need to move some furniture around still. Now in the USA moving furniture would be easy. We would have the proper dollys and carts and stuff to move it easily. Did I mention that we are in the Czech Republic and our building is one hundred or more years old. The elementary school is on the second floor. The secondary school is on the second and third floors. Our furniture storeroom is in the basement. Two things make this seemingly simple task more difficult. The floors are about twenty feet above one another, so going up or down on story is equal to two normal stories in the USA. Because there is a Czech nursery in the building and they really own the building we can not pass through their wing. Hence to get from the elementary section where most of the books and extra tables now reside we must go from the second floor down to the first floor and back up to the second floor. The hallways are quite lengthy also. Trust me that I went up and down about one hundred normal flights of stairs today carrying books or chairs or tables most of the time.



By some miracle - God is really, really, really evident here - we got all the stuff moved by the 2:00 PM open house start time. Lots of people helped and it happened! The open house went fine. I did not have much responsibility for interaction with parents today other than on a social level for the most part. Liz of course had many parents and students and made a presentation in her classroom. The Principal spoke for the secondary staff. After the open house we again scurried around moving chairs down a floor that we had moved up a floor for the open house. Then all the tables in the hallway that had been used for display and food had to be moved down two flights for storage. I left about 5:00 PM and went home to lie down awhile.



I mentioned above that God is evident here. He is looking out for we inept earthlings all the time here. We all have too much to do and forget a lot. The Czech office administrator politely calls us "absentminded", but we really just don't have the brain power to remember everything at the beginning of the school year. Well, Mindy comes in and asks our Principal - who is on total overload - who is picking up Rachel at the airport. Leslie has not arranged for the pickup, so Mindy just says she will do it. If Mindy had not asked Leslie at just the right time, poor Rachel might still be at the airport. Rachel is our student teacher. She is from Prince Edward Island and we will want to get to know her. I think she will work with Liz some.



The best news of the day for me was that I found a lovely small room just across the hall from Liz's room. I had not seen this room before. I asked the principal if I could teach my two really, really small classes in that room (Calculus has one student and Pre-Calc has two). She said that will be fine. This will give me two things I need: (1) a nice quite classroom with good acoustics and (2) an office space. It really made my day to get this room as it is part of the Discovery or remedial lab, but they are the only people who have more space than they need at the moment.



Liz prepared a great supper of the rest of the barbeque chicken (she made the barbeque sauce) and mixed vegetables. For desert we had the very blan English style biscuits with Nutella on them to make them palatable. She has been great and we have taken turns helping each other out when one of us is unusually tired. Supper rejuvenated me and went on a walk as Liz wanted some apples to take as a snack for her kids tomorrow.



On the walk tonight we discovered more of what makes Prague so special to us and such a great place to live. You must imagine block after block after block filled with fairly large apartment buildings. On the ground floor of these buildings are shops of all kinds. We are continually amazed and pleased by the shops on the street level. There are little grocery stores called potravinys on nearly every block. We have one almost across the street, but our favorite one is about a block away because it has such a great selection of fruits and vegetables and then just a little of other things.



On our walked we preused the menus of many restaurants and walked on some nearby streets that we had not previously traversed. One store was so apealing looking we went inside only to discover it sole mostly Russian and German food. A shopkeeper spoke just a little English, but we got a little info from her about what was in the shop. Much to my delight they had a bottle of barbeque sauce, so I latched onto it immediately as we browsed. It was not a brand we are familar with however as it is made in Russia. I cannot wait to taste Russian barbeque sauce. We then could not resist a bottle of wine from Moldova. We stopped our buying spree at that point. But the shopkeeper gave us each a delightful little chocolate candy treat. We will definitely go back someday and buy some of those.



We kept hearing sounds like a loud party or something but had trouble finding the origination of the souund. But on our way home, the volume increased so we figured it must be in the park at the TV tower - and it was. It was some sort of very lively food, drink, socializing, dancing affair quite near us. We never could discover whether it was a private affair or some public affair, but we did not go in as we had already eaten all we needed.



Just about two minutes ago we heard some loud sounds that I first thought were the trash/recycle people picking up their loads, but as it kept going on and increasing in intesity we realized it was fireworks from the party we had overlooked at the TV tower. The fireworks were short lasting and sounded very echoing as they passed down the street between the apartment buildings.



Enough for tonight, the students come tomorrow!