yo

Hello again. A week has passed since our last entry, and we are getting into a bit of a routine. This week of school for me (Heidi) was much like reliving my first year of teaching, and anyone who has ever taught knows what a nightmare that first year is! Lucky for me I do have a few years of experience to help me recover from the feeling of inadequacy! The language barrier is the biggest challenge, obviously, because I am quite in the dark as to what is going on/what should be going on. I'm sure as the weeks progress, I'll get better acquainted with the language and the routine in the office. The girls are getting used to their schedule as well, and everyday they come home with a few more Czech words and phrases. Mariana is learning the language faster than the rest of us; we went out for pizza Friday night and she was able to order hot chocolate successfully! The hot chocolate, however, was not quite what we expected. It literally is a chocolate bar heated up, which turns out to be a very thick, hot liquid. Still, we enjoyed the experience and we were all proud of Mariana's language use. We keep looking to her for the correct word or phrase when we're out, though she's not quite that fluent yet! Mark is also settling in - he bought a bike this week and has been enjoying riding around the countryside. It's hilly enough that he's getting a great workout at the same time. His books also arrived this week, which got a bit wet in the transport, but overall, he's happy to be here. He's really happy that he gets to sleep in - no more 4:20 a.m. alarm clock!! He's got the apartment all set up for us to live comfortably albeit in a rather small space. I like the coziness. He's happy when he gets some space for the morning when the girls and I leave for school! Overall, we're quite content, and we're thrilled to be here.

We try to travel on the weekends - yesterday we went to a local village for a harvest festival, and I nearly cried when I witnessed the "medieval" parade that ran through town - I was witnessing a mock of the medieval world, of course, but given the fact that I was watching it next to a cathedral that overlooks the old medieval walls (from the 12th century, mind you) I couldn't help being a bit giddy! One of the above pictures is of the cathedral - we're standing next to the old medieval wall across the way. It's all quite picturesque! The other picture is one of many harvest arrangements that were in the cathedral as an offering, I suppose. I was mesmerized by the designs of the produce, so I had to take a picture of one. Everything in the arrangement is real - no plastic substitutions! I wanted to reach down and take a bite of the apples, but I thought I that might be a bit irreverent! Mariana writes a bit on the festival too, so I'll sign off and let her tell you of her experience! We're headed to Prague today. I have my Fulbright orientation this week, which comes with 2 or 3 crash courses in the Czech language! A very good thing!!! Till next time,

Heidi

When we first moved here, it was very surreal. It's been a month and it is still like that. People in the town know who we are. Nobody has asked us if we are American because they already know. It's not like we are typical Americans and come in with our minivans and wave our flags around and make people in the restaurants make French fries for us. We actually try to blend in. But I guess they can still tell because we are new. The first week of school was really hard because people would stare at me. Now this last week, it has been a lot better; people are a lot friendlier.
Yesterday we went to a really cool town called Znojmo. It is about 10 minuets from the Austrian border. They had a festival there that celebrated new wine. They had lots of things we could buy and they had several churches and a clock tower we climbed that was very old. They have a rotunda that is over a thousand years old. The whole town has about 40k people living there.
This next week we are going to be in Prague for some meetings. While we are there, we are going to have dinner at the ambassador's house and go to the opera.
yeah! Bye for now,

Mariana