Yedno, Dva, Tre strikes your out

So I actually wrote this entry last Sunday, but since I’m an idiot I accidentally deleted it while typing. Let’s try this again.
Things here are great. The course is going really well and I’ve learned tons in just a week and a half. The first week went pretty slowly, however. Everyone getting to know each other and our teachers just giving us a basic intro to teaching. Not to say it wasn’t fun. I got my luggage Sunday night around 12 and was pretty pleased to be able to wear clean clothes to meet the other students in the course. Eleven students, three guys, 8 girls, and I’m only one of four who has previous teaching experience… Monday was half a day in class and a tour of Prague in the afternoon. The tour, however, was canceled due to a torrential downpour. The streets (coble stoned, beautiful) were flooded and it hailed before nightfall. Really weird. So our tour was postponed till Friday which turned out to be cloudless and scorching. We wandered around the city with one of the head teachers, Brian, giving a pretty entertaining tour filled with ghost stories, tips on where to pick up girls and drunken ex-pat stories. This was a perfect lead in to the course sponsored pub crawl that evening. But is it really a pub crawl if you only go to two bars? It was more of a pub sit-in but fun nonetheless. I tried absinthe at the first place (and drank it incorrectly, apparently) with no peculiar effects. I did however end up dancing till five with a few people from the program and left feeling much more at home in the Czech Republic. You really don’t feel at home abroad until you are rejected by a local girl on the dance floor.

On Saturday I went to watch the Euro Cup Baseball Championships. Czech Republic vs. Italy. I was pretty excited to see the best Europe had to offer on the baseball diamond and it was easily the most embarrassing baseball game I’ve ever witnessed. I didn’t think that many errors was possible in one game. The Czech pitcher walked in a run in the first inning with no outs! Brian and I spent most the last three innings yelling at the Czech third base coach who we blamed for the Czech loss, 6-1 We were also the only ones who (a) sang ‘Take me Out to the Ballgame’ and (b) knew the answer to the trivia question was ‘Cooperstown’. .It was a fun time, despite the loss and I got a great picture out of the deal. The man in the green hat scowling at the camera is actually the Czech President. He was there to throw out the first pitch and this picture was taken just as he was leaving. He stood not ten feet from me, apparently angry that an annoying American was taking his picture. I wish I had had the balls to overcome my total lack of Czech language and shook his hand. Hopefully I’ll get another chance.

So that was my weekend. This week in class has been much more intense than the first. We have been studying English grammar all week, teaching a lesson a day to actual Czech students, and we just began our Czech language lessons as well. The course is supposed to be intensive and it’s in no way overwhelming, but I’m glad I have the experience teaching in Kstan. Looking back I notice so many mistakes I made when I taught there. After this course I know I’m going to be a much more effective teacher. Two weeks left and I still need to find a flat and a job. That’s what this weekend is for.