Good evening! It's been a while since I've written, which is probably testament to the fact that I've been keeping busy and making the most of the time in which I'm not at work. We've had some mixed weather recently here in Prague- last week we witnessed a LOT of rain, but the weekend was largely beautiful! In fact, I have had various reports from England of rain, rain and more rain beating down the doors and windows, while at the same time I have been eating on restaurant terraces and swimming in open-air pools. But wait! The laugh will be on the other side of my face, once the snow sets in and all my friends back there DON'T have to wear thermals and a ski jacket to work. For now, however, I shall enjoy the advantages of living abroad!
In the photos above we have two shots of Slapy, a river/dam/lake/nature reserve (we spilt wine on the map, so couldn't quite make out which). On Sunday I joined Anuska, Rhian and Sarah for a day out of the City. We started at 11am with a trip to Tesco to stock up on all the good things in life - cheese, bread, olives, crisps, chocolate biscuits and of course Pinot. Astonishingly I refrained from the Pinot, since I fancied a 'healthy' day. Pah! the crisps soon made up for that. Anyway, we took the bus from Smichovske Nadrazi up to Stechovice and on to Slapy, in total around 40 mins' journey from Prague, and all for the princely sum of around 30kc. It was a lovely journey, with the sun shining into the bus, beautiful views all along the river and plenty of woods to make up for the fact that I am missing the New Forest a little! Once in Slapy it was down to Sarah to read the Czech map (pre wine-spillage) and get us to the beach by the riverside in Rabyne. This ended up being a one-and-a-half hour walk, which was enjoyable apart from the constant stream of very loud motorbikes passing us. We eventually made it to the little beach and commenced our picnic, joined by Jon (another work colleague) and his partner. All in all a very pleasant day of walking, eating, nature and conversation was had, and I am grateful to my 'new friends' for looking after me so well! (They had warned me, 'Sarah - our picnics are epic/intense/massive' - and they weren't wrong. Which is the way I like it.)
The other picture is from U Knihovna or similar, a nice Czech restaurant down in Stare Mesto, in which we Newbies celebrated having survived our first week of school. Friday evening was spent here in the company of Chris, Dave, Tara, Aileen, Lyn and Katie, the other 'new starters', plus another Katie from our rival school (!), and her boyfriend Neil who is currently visiting. I enjoyed a 'Kureci Hawaii', a chicken steak topped with ham, pineapple and cheese, complete with fries and garnish for just over £3. Recommended.
The night proceeded to become much longer, taking us to the Pirate Pub (arrrr! one for Phil Seaman there!), the Grossetto restaurant in a breathtaking location by the river and to which I shall henceforth be taking ALL my visitors for its 'wow' factor, then on to the very smoky Blue Light bar and yet further to Popo Cafe Petl, by which time it had somehow become shockingly late/early and so I made the executive decision to head home. I do believe that a good night was had by all, as they say.
INTERRUPTION - I am officially slightly silly. The oven timer just rang to signify dinner was ready, and I answered the front door. Hmmm, I'm not so sure that living alone is all that good for my sanity...
School continues to delight, with lots of very nice and slightly cheeky students. On Friday I had the pleasure of a day-hike with my Year 12 tutor group, and since then I feel I have struck up a slightly better rapport with some of them... but they still don't really talk much. A couple have signed up to D of E though, and we have our first camping weekend this Friday, so we shall see how that goes. Today my efforts were mostly taken up by the initial research for a German trip, much like the one we ran at Mountbatten. Things are looking good for that project, I am pleased to report - more news as we get it up and running.
Other than that, not much to add - life carries on just fine and the learning curve is nice and steep, which is what I had hoped for. D of E will take over most of this weekend, and arriving next Thursday is my first visitor! Better start cleaning the apartment...
Hoping all's going well for everyone reading this, thanks as ever for following, it's nice to know you're out there. I've had a few lovely phone/Skype conversations with some of you recently, which has reminded me how much I miss you all and what funny times we had last year! Keep in touch - it's always nice to hear a friendly voice and receive an update on what I'm missing. Rain, most probably.
Love to all x
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