Two weekends in Check... I mean Czech

First Weekend
The first weekend in November was my fall break. My roomie, Karin, and I went to Praha (Prague) for 3 days since we had never been. It was beautiful. My Slovak friends are always saying how beautiful Praha is and how much they love it and I must agree that it is beautiful, but I love Bratislava. We wandered around Praha on foot mostly, taking in the Charles Bridge, the Praha Castle and the old town. We met up with some other English teachers and had dinner with them one night. It was nice just to be relaxed and taking in the sights of another city.
A story to share with you. We were walking to a restaurant for dinner. It was dark outside and there were six of us. All of a sudden, Karin starts pointing into the window of a restaurant we are passing by and saying, "Texas!!!" She is pointing and very excited. We all, of course, go to the window to see what all the fuss is about. Inside the restaurant, on the back wall, are two Texas posters, one of which says, "Don't Mess with Texas!" The funniest part is that there is a table in front of the window. And the man sitting at the table had this confused and almost panicked look on his face. Imagine this from his point of view. You are sitting enjoying your steak and red wine, when all of a sudden, someone outside the window starts pointing at you and shouting, although you can't make out what she is saying. She is obviously excited (or maybe agitated) about something. She keeps pointing (at me? you think) until a small crowd gathers around to stare at you. I think we creped this poor gentleman out. He will go home and have a story to tell though, that's for sure.
The last day we were in Praha, we went to visit the old castle, which is just outside of the old town. We walked through the ruins, as that is all that is left of the castle. There was an old cemetary and we spent almost an hour walking through it, reading the old headstones and observing all the people who were there cleaning the stones, planting flowers and lighting candles. It was very touching as it was the weekend after All Saint's Day, so there were many, many people there. It think this was my favorite part of our trip. It is always interesting to see castle ruins and I love to meander through graveyards.
If you ever get the chance, I would put Praha on your list of places to visit. There is a reason that so many people visit it every year.

Praha

Second Weekend
The second weekend was our TeachOverseas Thanksgiving. We celebrated with all the TeachOverseas teachers from Czech, Hungary and Slovakia. The Hungary and Slovakia teams met up on the train, where we took over almost a whole train car, with our American hugs and greetings. We had a short ride to the border town of Breclav. There we met up with the Czech team and took over the train station, as there was 40 adults and 7 children. We were the loud Americans while we waited for our bus. We then took the bus for about an hour to a nice hotel out in "the nature." We checked in, got our roommates for the weekend and gathered for the first of many meetings. We were informed that we would be having dinner at six. Those of us who are alums just crossed our fingers, remembering the interesting (processed ham with cranberry juice over it, dry mashed potatoes with no gravy) Thanksgiving dinner we had last year. However, one of the alums cheered us up by saying that Kelly (our retreat planner chief) had emailed them recipes in Czech and had even converted all the measurements for them. Glorious hope of a real turkey dinner!
So, at six we all gathered in the dinning room, which was nicely set and were happily talking, like you would a family reunion/class reunion. And then the wait staff started bringing in the wonderful hot meals.... of wiener schnitzel and cold potato salad with carrots, peas and corn. Say WHAT?!?! What kind of Thanksgiving dinner does Kelly have? Because this was not what we were expecting. But we all decided that we should be thankful for it. We started to eat, and it was very good. A few minutes into our dinner Kelly made an announcement that there was a mix up. We would be having a real turkey dinner.... at 9pm. Somehow the staff got mixed up and thought that the turkey dinner was in addition to the regular dinner. So, we decided to call this dinner the appetizer or first dinner. Even though it was very delicious, I only ate a little so as to save room for the real turkey Thanksgiving meal to come. And it was worth the wait. A real turkey, stuffing (which I normally don't like), mashed potatoes (maybe they were from a box -but no one was complaining) and gravy. Oh, so good. The thanksgiving and jubilation were visibly present in the room.
And after second dinner, around 10pm, we had PIE. Oh, PIE! Everyone brought pies, cakes, cookies and other baked goods. My favorites - a pecan pie (I was in heaven), a pumpkin cheese cake (made with real Philadelphia cream cheese) and a snickers pie. We talked and ate and talked and ate and talked and ate some more. Then off to bed. No sleeping in for these teachers.
Friday we had a time of worship, prayer and devotions, then some classes about teaching, kind of a refresher courses (and how we are able to take 2 days off of school). We had some free time and in the evening, we had first dinner again, followed by the 2nd annual talent show. The talent show featured a lengthy trivia quiz ranging from thanksgiving, to movies, to art history, to churches, to science. My team came in dead last (if you can't be first, be the best at losing, right?) but we had fun. My favorite act was the "I like Toast" song by Amy Mann, accompanied by a toaster drum and two wooden spoons. If you have never heard this song, your life is missing something. I love this song!
Saturday, we had another time of worship, devotions, an extended time of prayer and communion. It was a wonderful time to bask in the presence of the Lord and His family. When we woke up on Saturday, it was snowing. It continued to snow through the day until we were on the bus and halfway back to Breclav to catch our train.
All in all, my two weekends in Czech were a wonderful time. I am thankful for the time off, for the friendships that were renewed an the ones that were made. I am thankful for my Slovak family and my Wayne Manor girls. I am thankful for my students, my colleagues, my administrators. I am thankful for the snow, the sun and the rain. I am thankful for warm boots, wool coats and thick socks. I am thankful for first dinner, second dinners and PIE. I am thankful for all the wonderful friends, family and supporters that God has blessed me with.

Czech Thanksgiving