Slow Tuesday

We have been away from school for four days now as we are off Monday and Tuesday for a Czech holiday commemorating the creation of the state of Czechoslovackia in 1918. Our problem has a very sporadic internet connection to our apartment for some time now. Right now we at a nearby restaurant using their wi-fi because ours is so unreliable. Also, Liz has been having quite a lot of pain in her back that makes it hard for her to get out of bed in the morning - so that is a definite prayer request.

Yesterday we got together with Rebekah for lunch. Rebekah brought of the ingredients for a beet/spaghetti meal that we ate at noon. It was very unusual and tasted better than I anticipated. All-in-all the meal was a rousing success. I spent about three hours putting some foam insulation in the outer windows of the two bedrooms. We had noticed quite a bit of cold air pouring in the bottom of the small bedroom windows. I used about one hundred twenty feet of the insulating foam tape. Yes - we have rather large windows in both bedrooms. An unanticipated result was that the bedrooms are now quieter - a very good thing. I will probably do the same thing in the living room soon.

I will throw in a pictures of our two bedrooms and bathroom for those who have not yet seen them. One bedroom is quite large and the other one (which we sleep in) is much smaller. Our bath is quite nice - but not as nice as it looks in the picture.

Rebekah and Rachel went out together to watch a movie at Rebekah's apartment so Liz and I tried to do some things around the apartment and some school work. About 4:00 PM our door buzzer sounded and it was Sam. He is a K-State student from near Topeka who is in Prague this semester on an exchange program. Sam and Liz seem to have a lot in common as both come from small towns and like quiet and the outdoors, but not necessarily the big city outdoors.

We chatted for awhile and then walked to Wencelas Square and on toward Old Town. We had a light meal at an Irish Pub. One thing that we did not anticipate is that the out-to-eat meal portions are huge in Prague. Liz and I almost always share a meal and often have food left over. We just had pork in gravy and potatoe dumplings and could not finish it all. However we just ordered a chocolate, apricot, cheese strudel desert and a latte. Life can be good in Prague if you don't try and be too American. We do spend quite a bit of time being American here and like to be with other North Americans, but we do adapt to Czech ways when necessary and have learned to go with the Czech flow - which is often a very twisty flow and you can not see around the corner until you are right at the twist.

All for now as my battery is dying and I want to post what I have.

Two Week News Catch Up

It has been two weeks since I added anything to this blog, so I will take keyboard in hand this early Sunday morning and try and catch up with a few events of the past three weeks.

I left off with the fact that my cousins Linda and Bill were visiting us from Tulsa and that they brought us a good supply of such life essentials as chocolate chips, brown sugar, barbecue sauce and other goodies. These were much appreciated. That is the good news. The bad news is that Bill was hit by a car while in a pedestrian crosswalk. He was not hurt badly, but was very, very sore the rest of the stay here. He was a trooper and continued to site see even though he was in quite a lot of pain. An approaching car did stop at the crosswalk and Bill and Linda proceeded into the street seemingly in safety. But a second car failed to stop and hit the left rear of the stopped car and then swerved to the left and went into the crosswalk and struck Bill. It was quite scary as the police, ambulance and all came and took him to a hospital where he was x-rayed and pronounced free of broken bones.

We had a great time with Bill and Linda and hope that such a thing does not happen again to other guests! We are careful when crossing the street as the rule is that when a pedestrian is in a painted crosswalk, he/se has the right-of-way. However, as in most of life, rules are broken by those in a hurry and those who think they can get away with breaking a rule. We seem to have perhaps the most trouble crossing everyday at the street that runs by our apartment. Drivers seem to dare you to step out in front of them so we are very careful on that street. Other streets seem much more tame.

We put Bill and Linda in a cab at 5:00 AM and they left for the airport on Oct. 17th. The cab ride took twenty minutes only at that time of the day, but can easily take forty minutes later in the day. It also was less expensive than in other major cities – including KC.

The last two weeks have been quite busy at school – grade reports due, various teachers gone for a day or two that I needed to help cover for, a staff meeting resulting in a crackdown in discipline at the secondary level, visa/passport registration with Czech Foreign Police, repairing a curtain rod that we pulled off the wall when we hung our sheets on it to dry….

But beginning yesterday there was temporary halt to the busyness as we began a three day holiday from school. I think the holiday is for the creation of an independent Czechoslovak State in 1918. Anyway, we have three days off as the official holiday is two days and CISP has added a third off at the school. This is good timing as we have been going non-stop since the middle of August.

I should be on a retreat with the secondary school students over this weekend, but was just too tired to want to go. Liz and I wanted some time together without cares as we are generally with people and tasks too much of the time – this is not retirement. This is not a complaint either as we want to do as much as possible while here, but slacking off from time-to-time at our ages is acceptable I think!

Just to let you know that it is not all work here, Saturday before last we went site seeing with Leah and Rachel and went to a lovely botanical garden and an exquisitely restored castle not far from where we live in Prague. We had been taking trips outside of Prague on Saturdays, but decided to stay closer to home that day. We had a great time and always enjoy the company of our young friends from the school immensely. Leah teaches a 5th – 6th grade class and Rachel of course is the student teacher who is living with us for three months. Rachel is easy to live with and a great joy to us. Last week she became Liz’s charge after spending six weeks with Leah. So now every night they work together planning the next day’s/week’s events.

Also what made last week busy was that Liz and Rae co-wrote, directed and produced a play about Joseph and “Doing the right thing”. It turned out to be an amazing skit that was well attended by parents and grandparents. It was performed during the elementary school Chapel time on Friday morning. I will include a couple pictures of this event that should be self-explanatory. Note the variety of looks and ethnic groups represented in Liz’s class. There are two Americans, one South African, one Indian, two Koreans, one Cuban/Italian, one Canadian/Russian, one American/Czech, one French/Belgian, one of this and one of that – quite a little United Nations meets in her classroom everyday! On Tuesdays and Thursdays three Czech kids come also – and a Russian child is slated to arrive later in the school year.

Great news is that we are now legal to stay in the Czech Republic until June 30th on paper. We started the paperwork for obtaining long term visas last February and just finished up last Tuesday. We ended up paying a business to do the finalizing of our visa/registration with the Czech Foreign Police as there was a good possibility that would have had to leave the Schengen (sort of EU) area and return. We actually had tickets to Heathrow in anticipation of leaving Prague briefly, but the business was able to arrange things so we do not need to leave – saving us some money. Money talks here just as in the rest of the world.

Since we now had our passports in hand and were legal immigrants, we took our first trip outside of the CR yesterday. We woke up about 4:30 AM, got ready and left home at 5:30 to walk to the metro to go to the main train station in Prague. This takes us about fifteen minutes. There we finally found the proper ticket window for non-Czechs to buy international train tickets and purchased two round trip tickets to Dresden – a two hour twenty-one minute trip. We found the train very comfortable and spacious until the conductor came to check our tickets and told us we were in first class and had second class tickets. No big deal as the lady sitting across the aisle made the same mistake. We found a second class compartment occupied by three ladies and entered – they looked like a quiet bunch and were very so. After a long stretch of silence we found out they were Russians going to Berlin. They live in Prague like we do however. The youngest of the here spoke pretty good English and helped us out by explaining a few things about train travel in Europe to us.

Arriving in Dresden, we found it very chilly. It was 34 degrees F when we left home and it seemed even colder in Dresden. First priority was a latte. Second priority was getting Liz a winter coat as we had not brought a proper winter coat along for her. Dresden seemed to have a much more modern downtown area than Prague – because of WWII I am sure. We found a nice, long, black, down-filled Puma coat that seemed just right, so we bought it and she wore it the rest of the day except for a period in around 1:00 PM when it finally seemed to warm up. The amazing thing about Dresden is the great mixture of very old (by our standards of old) and very modern juxtaposed. About 12:30 after three hours of site seeing and shopping we felt slightly famished and decided to forego German food for a meal at McDonalds. That is about the only place you can get a large soda drink so we occasionally indulge the ubiquitous McDonalds in the Europe.

Then we went on being tourists and walked and saw a few more sites – see pictures below. We then decided to end our touring after about four hours of walking interspersed for an hour or two of breaks for one meal and two stops for coffee – necessities in Europe.

We went back to the train station and tried to find when the next train was leaving for Prague – but had some difficulty reading the schedule. When we finally figured it out (it should have been easy) we realized that the train was leaving in twelve minutes so we rushed to the platform to find no one else there. Then we realized there was a note that must have said that the train was forty-five minutes late, so we sat down to read. I then decided to go to the WC. Upon arrival there I found you need a half Euro coin or equivalent change to enter. I of course did not have such. But there was a bank just across the hall from the WC – but it was closed. So I went back up to the platform and Liz and I pooled our coins and came up with three 10s and one 20 – what a relief (ambiguous statement).

The train did arrive about forty minutes late and we boarded and found a compartment all to ourselves. I pulled the seat cushions in the seats across for us forward to use as footrests and we relaxed and hoped no one else would join us in the six-person compartment. No one did all the way back to Prague so we had a comfortable trip. It got increasingly colder in the compartment so I turned the thermostat up – no help. We put our coats on and watched the beautiful river and cliffs views pass by. The Elbe (or Vltana- the Czech name) river really winds its way from south to north and train follows this winding path. The trees were spectacular in their coloration. The cliffs, the river and the setting sun all made for an eye feast of color and changing scenes.

We arrive in Prague about 6:00 PM and then got to the apartment about 6:30 as we made a brief stop at one of the potravinys run by VietNamese here in Prague. We had decided that broccoli soup would be a good treat for two chilled travelers. We picked up the ingredients and continued home. Then we had a restful evening. We turned the TV onto NASN (North American Sports Network) and watched some of the second half of the KU/TTU football game. But we soon lost interest and went to other interests.

We were proud of ourselves for sleeping so late this morning – until six o’clock. But when I turned the computer on I realized we had forgotten that European DST time ended early this morning so we really got up at 5:00 AM. We are having trouble sleeping late so we end up going to bed early and creating a cycle of too early at both ends.

We will head to the Baptist Church later this morning – a church we really like – great worship, great teaching, great people. See pictures below to check out where we have been and what we have done.

Math and Physics - part of the reason we live in Prague.

John with Martin Luther.

The beauty of the old Dresden is breathtaking and the size of the structures and number of statues exceeds anything we have in the USA.

Liz in her new and warmer threads. Note the warm smile on her face.

A Very Busy Week and Weekend

Last week was incredibly busy as we had to get midterm grades turned in. We have an online grade reporting system that works quite well and makes tracking grades on all homewor, quizes, tests, etc. fairly easy. It even computes the students' grades from the data we enter. I think I mastered the system in time to give all my students the marks they deserve. Grading students is always a bit stressful as we want to give each student the benefit of the doubt while being fair to all - a narrow line to walk. All went well in this regard for Liz and me.

The weekend started a little early for me as I left school before noon on Friday to pick up cousins Bill and Linda Epperson at the Prague Airport. If you do not have a car you might think that meeting someone at the airport would be challenging, but the opposites is true. I simply got on the metro line at our nearest stop - about a five minute walk from our apartment - and road to the end the line. A trip up the long escalator and two quick right turns and I am outside facing the bus stop from which the bus to the airport leaves. Walk across the street and wait in the queue for the bus to arrive - it is simple. Then I have about a twenty minute ride to Ruzyne Airport and get off right in front of the terminal and the arrivals area. I arrive about forty-five minutes before the plane is to arrive and treat myself to a McDonalds Latte. Then a quick check of the arrivals board brings the bad news that their plane is going to be about forty-five minutes late as there is some delay at Heathrow where their Chicago flights lands before the final leg to Prague.

The good news is that they did arrive with all bags and in good spirits and only moderately bedraggled. We reverse the journey and queue for the bus at the airport, ride the bus to the initial metro station and then then the fifteen minute metro ride to our home station. The five minute walk takes us to the door of our apartment building and we carry the baggage up the stairs. Carrying the baggage was a delight as I suspected that their might be some goodies for and we were not disappointed! Items that safely arrived were the biggest bag of chocolate chips imaginable, three bottles of barbeque sauce, two bags of brown sugar, some fish oil, folic acid, eye drops and probably a couple other items we had asked for.

I had hoped to make it back to school to teach my 2:15 class in Algebra 2, but with the plane being late and trying to make Bill and Linda comfortable I choose to let my students carrying on working without me as they are a great group and I felt that I could trust them to work unattended.

After a brief stop at home to unpack and familarize themselves with the apartment we set out to see the neighborhood and work the cobwebs out of the travelers. We met Liz coming home from school and she took Bill and Linda home and I went to the pharmacy to pick up a perscription for Liz. We then went out to eat at a nearby Italian restaurant - enjoying a very good meal. Liz and Linda shared a salmon and spinach gnochi meal, Bill chose speghetti carbonara and i chose chicken curry. We were all happy with our choices and walked home and saw a few sights.
Saturday morning after a slow start, Bill, Linda and I set off to visit Melnik, a small town about forty-five minutes by bus north of Prague. The two pictures of an altar and a pulpit are from a church at Melnik, but the real destination of the trip was to walk through a well furnished small castle that has been restored and well furnished.

We walked around town, had a nice lunch and then headed to the bus depot to catch the 14:30 bus back to Prague. We arrived back at the bus station about ten minutes before the bus arrived - which was good as it came in early and left five minutes before it was scheduled to depart. The return trip was not crowded and we all got seats. On the trip from Prague we were the last three on the bus and had to stand most of the way.

When we returned to Prague, we went straight to the tourist area and saw Wencelas Square, Old Town Square, and other city landmarks. We had coffee at Old Town Square and watched the crowds come and go from our birdseye seats outdoors right on the Square. We then started our journey back to the apartment. I got us on the correct tram to return home, but after about three stops realized that we were going the wrong direction. I hustled us off and looked for the tram stop going the opposite direction - which took a few minutes. Then an uneventful trip home began. We stopped at Lepanska and ambled up hill to our apartment.

We got home about 6:20 - which was later than we wanted to be as the Oklahoma v. Texas game was already in progress. Liz had a great pizza for us to munch on as we watched Oklahoma get the early lead, but the Longhorns eventually prevailed to the consternation of all of us.

Bed time and a good night's sleep got us ready for our Sunday adventures which will be reported tomorrow.

Sunday's adventures turned out to be supurb. Linda, Bill and John ventured out early and hit the Prague Castle area. We waited in line with a large group of jovial Italians before being able to enter St. Vitus. The wait was made slightly shorter as we watched some young Italians play
with a rubber spider. It held a great attraction for them and Bill got in the act and participated with the silliness. After the tour of St. Vitus - which was certainly worth the wait - see pictures of stained glass below. After we saw the castle area, Liz joined us for our tour of the Wallenstien Castle grounds. All the pictures in this area of the blog are from Wallenstien or St. Vitus or the grounds around the Castle.

On our return from touring highlights of Prague we chose to stop by a great restaurant run by a family from Macedonia who have a boy at our school. It is a quite new and lovely place with excellent food. George and Sonya spent some time in Florida and other places before opening Vemeer in Prague. Fortunately it is quite near where we live. We sat on the veranda and had latte's and crepes and chatted about the day's events. The background music was Nat King Cole. There is a park across the street from the restaurant, so the view was grand, the traffic was minimal and the food was wonderful.

Then it was back home to rest and relax. Liz made a lovely meal for us late in the evening and we rested up for the next days' events.

Saturday in the Woods

Saturday morning arrived a little later than usual for us as we slept until 6:00 AM. Liz started the coffee and after it had time to brew I ventured out of bed and read news on the computer. I was surprised that the $700 billion bailout was now a done deal. American politics seem somewhat remote to us unless we are watching CNN or BBC. Both cover the US political scene quite thoroughly. Rachel got up about 8:00 AM. It was then that we started house cleaning in earnest. We vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom, the kitchen, the trash cans, the washing machine (why you ask – everything is just a bit different here is all I can say). We picked up, straightened up, tidied up and then Liz made eggs and toast for us. We made short work of this meal.

It was after 10:00 by this time so we then began scurrying to be ready to leave home by 10:30 for our day’s adventure. To keep life interesting and to keep our spirits lifted we are trying to have one adventure each weekend. We have been traveling out of Prague to smaller places the last few weeks – but today we were off to a different type of adventure. We packed lunches and drinks in our back packs, stuffed snacks, hats and jackets in also. The day’s temperature was forecast to be in the fifties only today with some clouds and perhaps a chance of rain later in the afternoon.

We left the apartment, walked to the nearby metro stop and then rode the metro to the Hlavni Nadrazi train station. There we met up with sixteen people from the International Baptist Church of Prague. We were going together on a seven km trek through the hills and meadows outside of Prague. We were to be led by a Czech gentleman named Karel who attends the English speaking service.




John and Karel on the train as we travel to our woodland destination. The group from IBCP.

We boarded the train and set out for a fifteen or twenty minute ride together to the west and disembarked at a small town on the outskirts of Prague. We set off together walking through the streets until we crossed the highway and entered a more pristine world of beauty and quietness. Our trekkers ranged from nine year old Seoyung, one of three in a Korean family to Liz and I. Karel was probably about our age, but you never know. His daughter Anna went along and she was in her twenties. A family that was half-Czech and half-Ethiopian also went. They are extraordinarily interesting family that has started a ministry to northern Ethiopia. They are actually our neighbors – living on our block. Also the pastor of the church and his wife were also participants as well as an IMB couple from Kentucky. Another interesting participant was Julia – who comes from a Romanian immigrant to Denmark. She is working in Prague at Skoda – the nation’s leading car manufacturer. They make some very nice looking cars and are a subsidiary of VW. Our friend Leah, a Canadian who also teaches at CISP, also went along.

Our trek started out with a kilometer or so of fairly steep uphill. We got thoroughly warmed up on this part of the walk. From time to time we would meet others on the trail either passing our slower moving group or coming from the opposite direction. We started out in deciduous trees and then suddenly we entered a region of evergreens. The land finally flattened out and occasionally we came to a meadow or an to a lovely view of the river valley to our west. The last The group on the trail (left). The four of us from CISP (right)

third of the trek was a downhill portion through forested hills. It was made exceptionally scenic because the forest on the hillside is carefully tended and trees are cut so that there is a spacing of ten to twelve feet between each tree. Hence you can see into and through the forest and grass grows under the trees. I have never seen such a large expanse of trees managed in this way. It is more like someone’s backyard than a US forest.

We eventually reached the end of the trail and headed home on a train. Our group of nineteen just barely made it on the train as it stopped at this little town for about forty-five seconds only. We all hustled on and before we were seated the train was in motion. Public transport is just unbelievably efficient and cheap here. We paid a about fifty cents each to take the two short train rides out of Prague.

We would normally have taken the metro home but it is a circuitous route and a change of lines. However I asked the Ethiopian family how they were getting home. They said that they would walk. I asked them if we could get a tram home from the railway station rather than and they said we could get on our 9 tram at the railway station and get home easily. So we followed them so they could show us the tram stop. However, we were having such a good time talking with them we decided to walk home with them. I think it took us about fifteen minutes or so. It helps to have people who live here tell us how to get around as we would probably have continued taking the metro. I think the tram will be a much faster way to get to the train station and we will use that from now on. We had no idea that the train station is so close to where we live because we have always taken the metro there before.

We got home to a clean house and found the internet down again. We have been having a lot of internet problems the last three weeks. The Internet is back up so I will try and get this off before it goes down again.

Friday Roundup

Friday has come and gone, mid-term Grade Reports are out and the weekend is here. We have our visas and my cousins Bill and Linda are coming next Friday to visit us. We got word late last night that one of the families who have been waiting in the USA for their visas to be approved now has their visas and will be arriving soon. Liz had her hair colored and highlighted yesterday after school and it looks great! How can life get any better?

Well, actually it is better than what I listed above. We see God’s hand working in our classrooms and lives each day here. There are just a number of things that happen here that make it evident that God is really guiding our steps and lighting our paths as we go through each day at school. Somehow unplanned (by us) things just happen that fit into our teaching routines extremely well. Class then becomes more than a success and we wonder, “how did that happen?” The pieces of the lesson fell together beautifully -more beautifully than if we were calling the shots.

We help one another get through the day at school and fill the gaps as best we can. Yesterday I “taught” (I was given lesson plans) a period of World History to the freshmen and sophomores. The class was a delight to teach as the students listened, worked cooperatively and were even disappointed when they were not able to finish their work when school was over – the last period on Friday! Yesterday was a student service day project and students – both large and small – worked around the school’s playground area pulling weeds, raking leaves, cleaning out gutters, cleaning out the sand box areas, etc. Neither of us participated as we were teaching the period when this was going, but it was reported as a great success.

Liz went to her hair appointment at 4:00 PM while Rachel and I went to what I think is Prague’s biggest mall about 4:30. I wanted two items. Some more cup hooks to put up in the kitchen to hang more items in handy reach and a lamp to put in the living room so I can read better while seated on the sofa. We were successful on both counts. The mall was on the extreme east side of Prague so it took us more than thirty minutes to get there. Liz called just as we were getting on the metro to leave to say that she was done a bit earlier than anticipated with her hair appointment. Since neither Rachel nor I had given Liz keys to the apartment, she would go to a nearby restaurant and wait for us there. This particular restaurant is the one run by a family who has a child at the school. It is a new place with lovely décor and superb food. We knew she would get there about thirty minutes before Rae and I did.

We took a chance on our return journey and went on a route that I had never been on before, but which seemed like it should be shorter. Instead of taking the metro the whole way and going too far west and coming back east, I decided that we could get off the metro and take a tram south at the appropriate stop. The only problem was we did not know where to get on the tram. We knew to look for signs pointing to the tram when we got off the metro, but there were tram signs pointing in both directions upon exiting the metro. Of course the signs were also filled with words unintelligible to me, so we took a guess and went left. At first our choice looked promising as we spotted a tram stop just we left the metro station. But there was no Tram 10 listed on the sign – which is what we needed to get back to Zizkov where we live. We crossed the street and looked at the tram stop sign there – but no Tram 10 here either.
We saw a young man who looked like he might speak English and asked him about Tram 10. This turned out to be a good move as he knew just enough English to tell us to go around the next corner to another tram stop if we wanted to go to Zizkov. We arrived at the stop and almost immediately a tram 10 pulled in so we got on and then began figuring out where to get off. We knew we were on the right tram as it was headed toward Flora – a small mall within walking distance of our apartment. We got off at the Perunova stop as we knew that it was fairly close to the restaurant we were to meet Liz. We began walking down the street and saw the tram stop again – just at the corner where the restaurant is.

We found Liz looking beautiful in her new do and with a large plate of nachos – more than half of which were uneaten. So we indulged ourselves in nachos, caught up on the day’s events with the kids, and ordered more food and drink. Liz described many events of the day with her charges and spent much of the description is nearly uncontrollable laughter because of the personalities in her classroom and the extraordinary things that happened. We somewhat personified the loud Americans so famous in Europe – oh well – laughter is good for us.

Shortly after our food arrived, a group of four more teachers from CISP arrived to eat. We chatted a while and explained what we had ordered – mousaka and a monte-christo sandwich. Then back to the serious business of eating before paying the bill and heading home. It was 8:30 by the time we got home, so all we did before retiring was to read email and news on the computers. I think Rachel did have a long conversation with her significant other – who is in Azerbyjan.

Today, Saturday, we are going on a four mile walk led by a Czech from the Baptist Church we have been attending. We plan to do some housecleaning before leaving for the walk around 10:30 this morning.