Vienna

I went to Vienna last week to see Seth who is taking a tour through Europe. I took the train from Prague to Vienna which was about 34 euros-- not bad but I could've gotten cheaper going with Student Agency bus.. but whatever.. it was an experience. The trains are really nice.. one of them where I had to change had special glass cabins with energy sockets for everyone! I thought I stumbled upon first class.. but all the cabins were like that! Badass!

I got to Vienna around 7 pm.. and headed to the hostel I was staying at- Vienna City Hostel- cheapest one I could find- 19 dollars a night. Seth and the whole gang were at the Mozart concert until 10 and were going to be dropped off at their hotel after which was in butt-fuckin nowhere! Their hotel was nowhere near the city... it actually had its special train that went out that way that stopped running at midnight. They were just gonna hang out at the hotel so they asked me to just come out there.. and spend the night there. Ok fine-- I wanna see my Seth! What a fiasco it was just to get out there!

So I ask the front desk how to get there.. and he was like.. why the hell do you wanna go out there? There's absolutely nothing to do there! I explained the situation to him and learned I had to take the bus to the train station and find the train that goes to Baden. He told me to get off at Vosendorf SCS. Well I get to the station-- and there are no freakin signs of Baden. I had no idea where to go.. asked some people that gave me a run around.. finally found a guy that worked there and he physically took me to the correct platform. aww how nice! So I take the train.. and get off at Vosendorf and see that yea.. there is absolutely nothing out there.. call Seth and my phone minutes run out.. shit!

I pop into a small little bar at the station and ask for directions and this older drunk guy comes up to me and informs me that I got off at the wrong stop-- there are apparently 2 stations named Vosendorf and the SCS part of it was kind of important. I need to go to the next station which was about a 15 minute walk into pure darkness-- umm hell no. It was already 1130 and I was afraid there was not going to be another train going out there.. but he walked me to the station map and saw that the next train was going to come a half hour later.. fuck!

So he asks me if I want a drink.. and I refuse.. and he kept prying and saying no... you have 30 minutes-- you can't wait out here by yourself.. come inside.. we'll buy you a drink! I said.. ok I'll take some water just so I could appease him... and he said-- NO! We dont have water here! No.. so I was like fine.. I'll take a beer. Man the day had been shitty already.. I might as well get a free beer out of this. So he makes me take his arm and walks me back to the bar-- really cute-- super small. Gets me the beer and him and his friend are just mesmerized by me. Maybe I was the only brown person they had seen. Well anyways.. I talked some broken English with them.. they were actually really sweet and nice.. and I finished my beer and didn't want to miss the last train so I headed out. I gave them all high-fives and the guy grabbed me and made me hug him.. uggh.. This shit has to happen to me!

Finally got the hotel.. find my way inside-- with NO LIGHTS and see this handsomely dressed man in black with a tie come up to me and ask if I was Sapna. I was like.. yea... umm? who are you? He says he's the manager.. lol I was like .. ya ok.. But I see Seth and he introduces me to Chad-- his friend on the trip (not the manager lol). Just had a lot of beer with them.. Saw Katrina from AZ and they made 2 Aussie friends- Lauren and Chad, and New Yorker friend Lisa. It was just really nice to see all them and they were all soo friendly! Nothing major happened.. just caught up on things and drank heavily.

The next morning.. Seth was going to spend the whole day with me while the rest of the tour group went on some tours of the city. We finally make it into the actual center of Vienna and ohh my.. soo beautfiul!! The main cathedral was right in the city center and we just roamed around for a long time.




















Stumbled upon many fountains and cool buildings.





















Found the main government buildings and just walked around all that.

The group still had another small tour later in the day- schnapps tasting- yuum.. but Lisa and Seth weren't going to go on it. So we decided to go to the Belvedere which was a museum that was featuring Gustav Klimt's: The Kiss- which I snuck a picture of.. oops!


Some amazing paintings inside and beautiful architecture of the whole building. The outside gardens were also amazing. The place was just massive with an upper and lower palace. We just went to the upper one and were just soo tired from walking-- we couldn't be bothered to go down to the lower one.








We left and decided it was time to drink! Found a lively bar called 1516 and sat outside- and what did we find?-- they had 7 different flavors of Schnapps! So while the tour group was doing the tasting.. we decided- we should do a tasting of our own! The mayhem began...






All were pretty disgusting.. even the pear/pear apple/ some sweet one (they said was for chicks)-- the only one that was really good was the cherry one which was the only one dark in color. We liked it so much that we took several of those.. so you can imagine that we were prettty hammered at this point.. what with like 10 shots under our belt-- granted it was a 2 hour period maybe-- the others from the group joined us and took another cherry shot with us. We decided it was club time!


We were directed to this club that had a substantial cover-- but decided it was worth it and went it.. Had a great time with the group! Just danced and drank and danced some more. There was a lot of eye candy too!


It was coming up on 1am and the only option to get home was to take a taxi. I was really sad because this was meaning that we had to part ways. The whole tour was moving on to Munich the next day. I was soo sad I couldn't go with them! They were so fun.. and soo welcoming! We promised we would meet up again-- possibly in Amsterdam! (which didn't happen)


I had booked an extra night in Vienna thinking that I could do some more sightseeing when everyone left. This was a great idea.. because then I went to the main palace the next day. I walked along and saw the Palm House and some amazing gardens. Then I continued along this long green path.. and stumbled upon many statues and side gardens.








I finally came up to an opening and looked up and over-- and there was a massive open garden that just took my breath away. I literally gasped. The gardens stretched out to this big gate on the far side and on my left was the main palace. I climbed up the stairs and took this picture. The picture just doesn't do it any justice-- you have to see it yourself!

I just walked around after that taking it all in.. stepped inside and was highly considering taking the tour, but decided against it cuz I was soo tired and hungry! I went back into the center found an Italian place and finally had some pizza-- really good stuff too! Drank a beer and ate a whole pizza by myself on the streets of Vienna-- that was great!

Shopped at H&M and decided to head home cuz it started to rain. It was probably only around 7 when I got home and just slept the entire night!! It was worth it.. I finally got to catch up-- the bed was comfy.. no one was in the room.. it was great!

Next day took the train back home-- ended up getting off at the wrong station!! How does this happen to me?!? But got back onto another train and made it back to Prague and checked into Chili Hostel-- right next to The Globe cafe-- which is one of my favorites in Prague.

Aww-- Seth: I miss you!! And all of your friends too!!

Celta Course is OVER!- Pt. 2

So again.. the course is over which is fantastic... however, this also means that all the friends I just made are leaving! Boo! Friends that are staying or are Czech residents anyway include: Fran, Stephanie, Lenka, Alena, and possibly Sophie. At least I got a good home base of friends and then everyone else I'll just have to visit ;) that's fine with me- I'll have a couch to crash on in every major country! (In the right photo- Fabrizio (deep voiced Italian) and Galina (gorgeous Russian dancer))

So we had our last nights together as a group. Everybody got crazy last friday night. Many people were leaving the first thing the next morning so we had to go out with a bang. Well we all met up at Rodust at I.P. Pavlova- really cool swanky lounge bar. I felt so bad.. I made Lenka take a shot with me because she never drinks with any of us.. and I see why now. She had taken a shot earlier in the night and I guess this one sent her over the edge- when she drinks her body physically hurts. I've never seen that before- like instantly we take the shot with Tim and she couldn't move off the bar stool. We were like what's wrong? And she just said that she can't walk- it hurts! Oh my gosh.. I will never make her drink again! Sorry Lenka!

Downstairs is a dance floor- all black walls and really techno-e music. This is a nice group shot of all of us at least.

It was cool.. we were all just trying to have a good time and relax. I took a shot of absinthe with Sophie and that was the nastiest shit of my life. I've taken it before in Portugal.. but I feel like this was waaay harsher. We were all trying to get drunk because honestly I was soo stressed out the whole course that I couldn't physically get drunk! Every time we would go out.. I'd drink like a fish and I would feel nothing! So we were determined that night! But again.. all that alcohol and I was only feeling a minor buzz. oh well..


It was the last night the the three of us roomies were going to be together.. aww! Everyone kinda pooped out of Rodust cuz they couldn't stand the music anymore and went home. But of course the 3 of us roomies with Elise and Sophie's friend Kim had to make our way to Nebe which seems to always be the after party hangout. We danced there to actually good music and headed home.





Next day with my roommates gone I made it down to old town to meet up with some other friends who were in town for one more night. I finally got to see the dancing house. This looks really strange but it's modeled after Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire- I thought that was really cool! I wanted to take a picture in front of it with a boy doing a waltz dance but there was nobody with me.. aww!








We walked around and went to a hookah bar. I've never smoked hookah or anything in my life! But this time.. the sheesha was non-tobacco so I was like.. hmmm ok.. I'm gonna try it. It was kind of interesting. The hookah tube that you suck the air out of was a snakes head! It was really creepy to do. But I was surprised when I inhaled it- it was actually really refreshing! Like minty and just cooled my throat down. Very strange.



















So we did that for a while and then walked along the river at night.. And Oh WOW.. the sites of the castle with the river are just amazing. It really made me want to be there with someone special. It was just the perfect place to sit along and cuddle. Just gorgeous. So we wanted to drink somewhere along the river.. so along one of the bridges- by staromestka station, there's a bar pretty much on the bridge next to the river. We got the castle view and delicious drinks-- what more do you need?














So we decided to go a little crazy the rest of the night and go out with a bang cuz some of the girls were leaving the next day. We found a bar next to the Mustek station and had tequila shots! So crazy.. Elise- knows how to make an absinthe shot but doesn't know how to shoot tequila.. so funny! When she took it.. she fell in love with it too! We all went out for a ladies night and found a bar called Americo something- and the placed was packed with "pub crawl" people- tourists who pay certain amount of money to go around to different bars with a huge group of people and get free drinks at each place-- you have to wear a specific shirt though while in the club to get the drink. We were really tempted to do that.. but they were meeting at 830 and that was too early for us.


So the music wasn't the greatest... but for some reason everyone was dancing and just having a great time! everyone all loosened up! We even danced on the table where- oh yea btw- a topless dancer was dancing! She had a bikini top and kept taking it on and off.. so weird!

So it got really hot in there and so we all decided to take a break outside on the curb- just sat down lookin like a bunch of hookers lol! Soo many people came up to us then. Lots of stag parties walking by.. and one group of Dutch guys stopped by and talked to us. The bachelor was wearing a horse costume-- really strange.. and his friend I was talking to was holding the whip! I thought that was soo sad and the bachelor showed me his scars from the whip! Poor guy! So I grabbed the whip from him and they were like have a go at it.. so I just whipped the air. But they insisted I whip the bachelor! I really didn't want to hurt him so I just lightly whipped him-- I couldn't even make it crack.. But Janette saw me doing it and she wanted to have a go at it too and really cracked it on the guy! Haha she is the last person I would expect to have fun doing that! haha But it was a great night! We met these other Italian dudes-- really hot! And went to another club with them but ended up going home shortly after. Fun night!!

Now we've just been chilling around Prague- meeting for drinks and hanging out. I moved into Janette's flat for a couple nights and last night everyone came over here for a family dinner and drinks and we played cards. That was awesome.. I love it when everyone is together just relaxing!

Tomorrow morning I'm going to Vienna to see one of my favorite people in the world-- Seth!! I'm soo excited! He's doing a tour through Europe and he's going to be in vienna for a couple of days. Since I have nothing else to do and vienna is only 20 euros away- I'm off to see him! Can't wait! That's going to definitely be worth blogging over!

Celta Course is OVER!- Pt. 1

CELTA IS OVER!!! Gosh this class took over my life! But it's finally done so Yay.. I can finally walk around Prague and do whatever I want. So about 35 days of my 90 tourist visa is over and of course if you're planning on staying longer you have to job search right away because it takes forever to get your long term visas. So apparently in order to get your long term visa you need:

1. work permit- applied for by the company - to get that started you need proof of Bachelor Degree- they need the actual original copy of your certificate. When I learned this.. I was like ummm.. I haven't looked at my degree since I got it last year and I have no clue where the thing is. I don't even remember what it looks like! Great.. so I ask my parents to look in my file cabinet which I presume it must be- He found it! Yay.. so I'm having that mailed to me right away and hopefully it won't get lost in the mail.

2. Once you get the work permit which takes about 30 days- and your tourist visa is almost up- you need to apply for a short term visa. You do this because it only takes 5-10 days to receive and then you can start working. woo!

3. You apply for a long term visa at the same time as the short to get the ball rolling and within a month or so you can get the long term visa and then you're good to go! phew!


So with all that.. first you need to find a job to sponsor you right? Well---- I HAVE A JOB!! I applied for Channel Crossings when I was applying for several other schools and they were the first to book an interview with me. The other schools are pretty biased against non-EU's cuz they don't wanna deal with the visa issue- ugh! My friend Stephanie had already applied the week before and got the job the same day I found out I had an interview-- she put in a good word for me so that might've helped. I had to do a demo lesson on Monday. It was a one-on-one (which I had never done before) on 3rd conditional statements. I was actually really proud of my lesson.. she was complimenting me on the logical lesson and said that my teacher-talking-time (TTT) was just the perfect amount. Yay-- F U SHAWN! - my tutor who kept saying that I had too much TTT the entire course even though everyone in the group saw the huge improvement by the last 2 weeks! whatever

So yea.. we're just waiting for my degree to get here and the short term visa to be processed and then I can start working--- probably around the end of september. The money's ok- around 20,000 crown a month which translates to about $1000 US. Not too shabby considering it's super cheap to live here and the main cost is going to be rent.

This is the school I'm working for: http://www.chc.cz/en.html
They specialize in special purpose English teaching and with my banking and medical jobs in the past I was a good candidate for them. So basically we would teach small classes at local businesses tailoring the English that we teach to specifically fit their needs. Seems like a lot of work but I think it'll be cool to go to different places and work. We also have courses at the main school and exam courses that I might get. The only thing is that I don't have a set schedule so that's kinda scary cuz I have no idea how my hours are going to work and where or what I'll be teaching exactly until my visa goes through.

Friday-24th

I'm so sad that there hasn't been that much going on for me to really comment on. The course sucks! It's a lot of work. This upcoming week (August 3-7) I have 2 assignments and 2 lessons to plan for. I finally finished one assignment (that needs a great deal of revision) so I feel like I can reward myself by making a new entry in the blog. This weekend I didn't do much but just went to Jarmark with friends after school on Friday and drank the delicious Kozel beer. Me and Elise (girl in the picture) were the only ones that were up to go out and take advantage of a night of no school work. we went to the same place we went to Friday-24th so that was fun. I'd rather talk about the 24th's experiences since I have pictures of it... so here it goes.

Friday- 24th
After giving a shitty lesson on the use of "can/can't" and "have to/don't have to" and getting royally chewed out by Shaun -the asshole tutor I have and director of the whole god damn operation... I was desperately needing a drink.. or rather.. MANY drinks. Everybody was pretty much in that mood of letting loose and finally relaxing. We met up with everyone and I.P. Pavlova where a girl from the course- Elise told us to meet up. She's a really cool girl- only 19! but has been living in Prague for a year now. She had some favorite places to hit up, so we all trusted her to take us on a night out in the town! We went to this place called Heaven I believe and it was a pretty cool atmosphere there. That's the place me and Elise went to again by ourselves a couple nights ago. They have pretty good music and have some decent looking men. It was packed with people. This black dude just popped into our picture. The only guy that came out with us is this guy-Tim. He's in the next picture. He has a British accent.. but defiantly wants us to say he has an English accent since there are many different between all the nations of Great Britain.. uggh whatever. Everybody was pretty pooped after this place and wanted to go home- it was around 2am anyways.



Of course, me Elise and this girl Crystal (three of us down below) still wanted to keep going. So we decided to check out this club called Mecca and see what it was like. Elise had never been there, but I was up for just trying something new. If it sucked.. we'd just go home. Well it was pretty far to get there. We took trams and busses (all without a ticket) until we arrived and realized it was totally dead. I mean the music was ridiculously loud where it was straight techno and you can feel your heart pumping out of your chest. I had to pee really bad when I got there, so as we were crossing the dance floor to the lieu, a guy grabbed me and pushed me up against a wall to dance with me! I was like wtf.. but then I looked at his face and discovered he was actually quite nice looking. That's the most action I've had this whole trip! But I decided it was too weird.. and I still had to pee really bad.. so I told him I have to go-- didn't see him the rest of the night.. :(

We came back up and looked around and noticed that we were the ONLY ladies out on the dance floor! Every single person in the club was a dude! We were contemplating whether we stumbled into a gay bar? But guys were talking to us and dancing with us so it didn't seem like it was. Just really strange! A guy Elise was talking to- very French looking- shoulder length black hair, tall, open button up white shirt was really into Elise.. but then his friend (man-friend) came up behind him and put his arm around his chest- giving him a hug but from behind.. ummmmmm weird!

We just stayed there.. danced for a bit.. called it quits and took the MORNING metro home! The metro closes at midnight and opens again at 5am! It was 530am when I got home and I slept in and started working on my assignments the rest of the weekend!

Now back to this weekend..(31st-2nd)-- not much development except Friday night with me and Elise that I already mentioned at the beginning. Met some guys.. Canadian guys. Nice-- danced.. whatever haha..

My lessons went great this week at least and I'm hoping for a repeat this next week when we change teaching levels. I had pre-intermediate before which was REALLY hard because I had to grade my language and not say complicated instructions! Next week I get upper-intermediate which is cool cuz I can actually talk to them and not have to be patronizing. But-- the bad side- my first lesson is grammar- first conditional and future time clauses-- WTF?? Friday my lesson with the pre-intermediate was How to Write a Postcard! hahaha so this is a huge change! So ok.. I need to get back to work now! I'll probably update next weekend!

Random Good Stuff/Funnies

So I've found just random things in Prague that I must comment on.. here are a few:

All of the bathrooms I've encountered have had some weird little picture on the door to distinguish between male and female. I haven't really seen too many bathrooms that have a simple Men/Women signs. They have some really funny figurines and displays. The first one I encountered was pretty graphic I thought- a little boy pissing and a little girl sitting down. Well I guess it gets right down to the point. If you can pee standing up... go in this door, if you have to sit down go into this door. I had to do a double take on it when I first saw it at Jarmark- the restaurant at the metro station with the beer taps in the middle of the table. Then I saw it again at a little cafe in the center. It's like both of them are trying soo hard.. their squinting! haha
The next one is just freakin hilarious!! They have the "stick"figure people but its such a huge display on the door with a ridiculous action. We saw this at a cafe at the metro station- Deja Vu- which has become one of our favorite after school hang outs-- mainly because we can receive the KFC internet in there. Entitle: I really can't hold it! Enjoy!
So --- EVERYBODY in Prague has a freakin dog!! Most of them don't walk them on a leash which makes me think that they are probably really well behaved! Except this one time when I was walking back from the metro station in the evening and a woman was walking her little puppy which was on a leash. I was a few feet behind her and all of a sudden I saw this big black dog heading straight for the woman and her dog. The woman was so afraid and gasped and as a reflex pulled UP on the leash (attempting to save her dog from being attacked) but actually lifted her dog up off the ground by the leash! The poor dog was being choked! hahahahah.. I was just stunned for a moment and tried to assess the situation- I'm not a fan of big dogs anyway.. but then I finally came up to them and yelled at the dog to get away. The woman was panicking but she found the owner later and started bitching at him in Czech.. soo weird what you see on the walk home!

When we were in the center by the Astronomical clock.. everyone was crowding around this man- not looking at the clock at all. We were wondering what was going on.. so we managed our way through.. and saw them holding a dog. I looked and I yelled "That is NOT a dog! That's a freakin wolf!!" My friends were interested and talked to the owner and learned that it was actually HALF WOLF and half dog! AHhhhhh Creepy!

BEST BEER EVER!! Kozel-- I think you pronounce it like gozel the dark kind is delicious!











Amazing food everywhere.. and I love the presentation of it all! Very nice! (I'll try to add more later.. I have to work on an assignment now!)