Sunday, August 18, 2013

Landed On The Other Side

Well, we made it safely back to Czech. The flight was not as bad as it might have been. In truth, the five hour New York layover broke things up nicely. It would have been even better if it was long enough for us to see so e of the city, but I guess that will have to wait for some other time.

I meant to be keeping up with blogging better, and filling up my posts with pictures,but things have not gone quite as nicely as I would have liked for that to work out. For whatever reason, we are having troubles with our Internet connection, which has made it impossible to upload any photos. I guess I'll just have to post pictures when we get back to the US. Not quite as exciting for the moment, but it means there will be something to look forward to.

So far we have mostly been just settling in. With only tee weeks, there isn't a whole lot of time to waste, but jet lag is a powerful beast to reckon with, and spending time is the primary reason for this visit, so it sorta makes sense.

I have been once to Cheb already, and was able to visit my former colleague, Tammy. We taught together with the same organization for three years, so it was nice to catch up on things. This is actually her last month in Czech, and after eight years here, she will be returning to the US a couple days after us. She is currently planning to move back to Washington State, so there is an option for more visits in the near future, which is nice.

During the few hours I was in town we randomly ran into two other of the local native English speakers who are attached to Czech women. It's a small town, after all, and we English speakers do stand out. We also saw our former Czech co-teacher, Tomas, and former boss, Jarmilla. Clearly it was all destined nicely to be. Amazing how things work out :)

Besides that visit, we have been working on the garden, and I have already had another Czech cooking lesson. There is hope that I will yet learn to feed my husband properly :)

Today, Sunday, we took a nice trip in to Prague to see the exhibition of Tutankhamen. Everything in the exhibit is a replica, but it was still really fascinating. On the drive home we stopped at the Koneprusy caves. These are the largest caves in th Czech Republic. It was quite a warm day, so an hour underground was a pleasant respite. Interesting note, these caves were used as a hiding place for a money counterfeiting operation back in the late 1400s. Pretty fascinating bit of info.

From there we headed into Plzen where my mother-in-law and I had a very brief (in our opinions) shopping expedition. She says we will take the bus one day and leave the men at home so they won't have to endure the horrors of shopping :) should be good fun then.

So there you have a decent update. I've been working on the final draft of my Challenge novel, and trying to reconnect with my journal as well. Little steps to reconnecting with myself on this brief journey.

2 comments:

jennifer said...

Will you take long, languorous train rides across country? Add to the allure of the cottage life you're living.

Transient Drifter said...

I will be taking a short train ride to my old hometown again this afternoon, but it's only twenty minutes, and all the trains seem to be updated now, so they're slick and silent and air conditioned. Sorta kills the romance, but makes for a smoother ride :)