Back to School, Back to School...

Look at how mac hipster I am...  you can't see it but I'm wearing a scarf, blacked-rimmed glasses and a beret.

It is so very strange to be back in a classroom after a 3-year hiatus.  It's true that you never really realize how much you love something until it's gone.  Education was a given for so much of my life that I never stopped to realize how much I loved learning and how much I would miss it once it was gone.  But now I've been reunited with my old friend and we have been painting the town....

I am having a blast teaching english.  I'll be honest and admit that the idea of teaching was more a means than an end, but now that I am actually doing it I can't believe that it wasn't my plan all along.  Learning english from a grammatical and functional point of view is way more interesting than I thought it would be.  I've always known English was a wonky language but it's great to be able to learn specific examples.  For instance, the other day one of my Czech students asked me why in the sentence:

She doesn't have to go to the store.

we use "have" instead of "has" since the general rule is:

I have
you have
he/she has
they have

The reason....?

Be-Cause.

We never use "has" after "do/does."  Say "Doesn't Has" to yourself and a little red light will go off in your brain.  As a native speaker you know the right answer but we rarely know why, and many times there is no "why."

Do or do not.  There is no why.

So for those of you without a deep and passionate interest in english grammar here are a few truths I've learned while on Safari here in the wilds of Central Europe:

• Swans are terrifying.
• There is a guy in Prague whose full-time job is to dress up in a full-body shark costume and wander around town"eating" tourists. 
• Ask a Czech how they are doing and they will literally tell you how they are doing.  "Well, my mother, she die this weekend and I am greatly depressed.  Also I eat too much cabbage last night and I am having much gas this morning."
• The CZ is such a wonderful breath of fresh air:
• Get beaten up by a bouncer at a club?  Tough.  Maybe you shouldn't be a dick.
• Don't like smoke in your bars?  Don't go to bars.
• Every bar has an average of 3 animals walking around inside.  Awesome.
• Vegetarian or Vegan?  That's your problem. If you complained at a restaurant here about the lack of vegetarian offerings on the menu the waiter would literally stare at you then walk away. It's not that anyone has an issue with you being vegan.  It's just that it isn't their responsibility to cater to your diet.  That being said there are a number of vegetarian restaurants around town which are delicious.
• Gluten-free?  Good luck.  I'm pretty sure the Czechs don't even have a word for that.  Thank God that out of the entire population of the Czech Republic, not one single person has a gluten intolerance...... I mean what are the odds?!
• Just about everything you can think of is tolerated just about anywhere at just about anytime.  This philosophy is wonderful in theory and hilarious in practice- Is that guy drinking a beer on a public bench at 9am?  Yep.
• Becherokva is my Shepard.  I shall not want.

I'm still in a state of stimulus overload so I'm having trouble gather all my thoughts together but hopefully these posts will get increasingly more focused and less rambling.  Until then, keep on fighting the good fight everyone.  I'll talk to you soon.

In the Beginning...

First, a gigantic thank you to all of you who made my last two weeks in America a pinnacle of awesome.  We laughed, we cried, we took a few years off our lives, and I for one will likely never top that stretch again.  Now it's all downhill from here... Cheers!


And now for something completely different...

It's....

I made it!  A snowstorm, two flights and the wonderful sound of the lady in front of me vomiting repeatedly, and I have arrived well-rested and ready for action.  Screw first class.  If you want to fly in luxury, book the Swiss Air flight from ORD to Zurich on a Tuesday and get a seat in the middle towards the back of the plane.  I had four seats to myself, which, when all tilted back make the most comfortable cocoon bed you've ever slept in.  Top that with my signature drug cocktail I've named "sleepytime" (for vague and esoteric reasons), and you'll sleep better than you would in your own bed.   All in all it was definitely a step up from the house of horror that was flying out of Tokyo.  Picture sailing through a hurricane in a caricature of a plane (google Japanese capsule hotels and you'll get an idea of what the ANA engineers were going for).  BUT all that is irrelevant because...

Prague!  I had completely forgotten how magical this city is.   I spent the day revisiting all my favorite places.  It looks so familiar and yet so different under the winter sun.  "Winter" by the way, is hilarious here.  I walked around most of the day with nothing but jeans and a hoody while the rest of the populace (who clearly didn't just come from Chicago) were bundled up in their finest polar vortex gear.  That's a bit of an exaggeration but here's something that isn't: if it was -20 in Chicago a few weeks ago then it was 65 degrees warmer today in Prague. #math.

And here I thought ''February and 'Happiness' were antonyms.  Look at that.  Prague is turing my worldview upside-down already.  

It's wonderful to be back in Europe again but there isn't much more to say at this point.  I will leave you with the only picture I remembered to take today - The Vltava river with Prague Castle in the background.  I will try to get better at this.  Na Shledanou.