What have we been doing since my last post on this blog? We have entertained visitors Trevor and Jennifer for a week over Christmas. We have stayed close to home. We have relaxed and taken lots of walks. We have shopped and eaten out with T & J. We have had friend over to eat and play games. Life has been good. tomorrow we go back to school! But school is the reason we are here, so it is not bad.On the left is the front door to our apartment building. It is not beautiful, but is functional and safe. Also it is convenient. When we leave, it locks itself automatically. Some of our friends live in places where it must be locked manually. This means that if someone is visiting you and they leave, you must acompany them to the door, unlock it, let them out and then relock it. Not convenient if you live on the 4th or 5th floor.
Below - perhaps - I have not mastered the fromatting in Blogger - is the street sign on our building. Note that Czech is language that requires different marks for letters. Czech has one grapheme (letter) for every phoneme (sound) in the language by adding accents to some of the letters. For example, in Czech the sound ch, as in church, is written č as our street name starts with. The next two pics after the street sign pic show our apartment building. You see our window on the Ondrichska street side just above the ubiquitious graffiti. Grafitti is everywhere. It freaked us out when we first saw the building - wondering - what are we doing in such a neighborhood. Now we know it is a regular, nice, safe neighborhood. I have a whole series of pictures in this blog to show you around our neighborhood which is called Zizkov. Zizkov is a specail place with convenient little potraviny's (tiny grocery stores), larger grocery stores, the most restaurants per capita of nearly anyplace in the world. Clothing stores, shoe stores, hardware shops, even a really nice, modern mall is just about five blocks from our apartment. A metro stop is four blocks south of us and a tram stop is three blocks north of us. We live in the same block as the famous Zizkov TV Tower that you will see in later pictures.
The next picture shows our apartment building on the Cajkovskeho stree side. We have three window on the side where the cars are parked - just above the graffiti. Kathleen, a teacher new to CISP has the next window for her small apartment.
You will see a picture of a truck in the street parked by some cars. This is a Police tow truck that has spotted an illegally parked car. The driver stopped to potentially tow the vehicle by passing large, strong straps through each of the four wheels and then hoisting it straight up with the trucks boom arm, swinging it onto the bed of the truck and driving away. Space is so tight here, American style tow trucks could never get to a vehicle to move it. The Czech have a great system for the narrow streets and tiny cars - though I have seen Lincoln Navigators and Chevorley Suburbans here - even a Hummer.
Then you see a picture of the Zizkov TV Tower. Our apartment building is about 200 meters to the right of the tower.
Many Czechs have dogs. We have only JJ, our granddaughter's stuffed dog who tavels with us. JJ is kinda like an imaginary friend except that you can stuff him in your pocket and take him with you. You see him playing with one of his neighborhood friends. The dogs in Prague are much better behaved than the average American dog.
Then you see, but you must look hard, several dumpster like things on the corner. These are recycle bins for plasic, paper, glass, milk/juice carton. Recycling is big here. We have a small trash can inside. We just take a bag of trash outside to a trash dumpster about every two or three days. We carry plastic bottles, paper and glass bottles and jars out as we accumulate them.
Other pictures show a landmark "modern" Catholic Church building built in thd 1930s and designed by a prominent Czech architect. I think it is very attractive in it simplicity, though some would disagree with me. With the TV Tower in the background, you see typical building with shops, restaurants, etc. on the ground floor and apartments above. You see Jiriho z Podebrad Square (Namesti) metro stop. You may be able to pick out the entrances to the metro - steps going below ground covered by various strong, fixed canopies.
You can see an 11 Tram stopped at Jiriho z Podebrad taking people to the Muzeum and farther south and east. Then you see the inconspicuous entry to the International Baptist Church of Prague - our home church here. You walk through that door on a busy street, walk through a courtyard, enter a door, go down the hall, up the stairs and you will find great English speaking people from all over the world. About on third are from various African countries, one third from the USA and one third from Asia, Europe or Australia, etc.
Other pictures include my favorite ATM in a small square in the sunshine, the Czech school building we rent space in - the two pics with the red car across the street. Also, just street scenes within a few block of our apartment.
All for now.
