Do they know it's christmas time at all?

Hello! I am still tying to get used to the fact that it is still 10 sleeps til xmas! I don't feel festive. Despite the fact that every school I have been to I have been enduring xmas carols and other fun stuff like rehearsals for plays, reading '6 white boomers' everywhere I have been, kids making decorations, and school classrooms that look like a tinsel monster threw up in them! I have no decorated anything, partly because I have nothing to decorate things with, and partly because I wont be here for xmas, as I am going to the rellies, so I don't see the point. I am most missing my xmas nails tradition, as thats what gets me in the mood for xmas.

We had our band concert last weekend. It went ok. Considering a lot of the pieces I have no played the whole way through at a rehearsal (due to me missing some, and due to us not making it through in one go) it could have been a lot worse! The conductor(s) were pleased, so I spose we didn't do anything too bad!

I am waiting for a phone call at the moment, as I have been in demand for work! The school I have done a lot of work at, I got approached by the Head Teacher (what we know as a Principal) who asked if the Deputy Head had found me to discuss dates for next year. I then went off in search of her in the afternoon, and she said she had heard lots of good things about me, and how consciencous I am, and asked if I was interested in covering a couple of the teacher's PPA (programming time), as I had been requested. I said yes, gave her my dates I am going to be on trips for, and was told they would call Select who would call me. I am now waiting to hear back from Select, I just rang them and asked them to chase it up, as it could be 2, maybe 3 days work. Probably 1/2 days, but I can find additional work for the other 1/2 of the day, and at least it is teaching, so if they gave me a 9 hour nursery shift (like they did yesterday... in Swindon again) i would still be earning the same amount as 3 hours teaching! So, the moral of the story is, I am brilliant!

I have discovered the worst thing about working over here. It's not the traffic jams from hell, it's not the shocking education system, its not the unenthusiastic teachers, nor is it the lack of pay...it's the playground duty when it is gale force winds and 6'C before you factor in the wind!! I tried to keep my hands in my pockets but the kids found a worm, so I picked it up for them to look at, and I couldn't put my hand back into my pocket then as it had worm guts and dirt on it!

I don't think I have anything else to share with everyone, so I will leave you now. I am going up to Northampton for xmas, and I will try and write more during the xmas/new years break, as I am taking the laptop with me, but until then, MERRY XMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

ahoj!

Yes, I know i haven't blogged in a while but there's only so much you can ramble on about how boring work is, so I thought I'd wait until i got back from Prague. I got back Wednesday but then I went up to visit my Aunt and Uncle as they live only 30 mins from Birmingham airport, not 2 hours. OK, so... i have filled half a notebook on jottings from my time in Prague, and I'm sure I will bore you all stupid if i re-write that all exactly, so I will just summarise bits of it. With the odd pretty picture for those who dislike reading!

Wednesday 22/11- I arrived at the airport a good solid 4 hours before the flight, however they let me check in, so at least i was through to the interesting part of the airport. They are allowing fluids on flights now, but no more than 100mls and u have to put them in a see through carrier bag. And they made me take my shoes off to walk through the metal detector...not just me, everyone, not that I can fit anything in there except socks, orthodics and feet! Then the dude checking the passports just looked at the ticket and said "Prague hey? cultural trip" and gave it back. Didn't even look at the passport photo! But that's ok cos i don't have a bomb in my shoe! SO, i board the plane, and I notice a major difference between BMIBaby and Thomson... on the safety card it says to pull out the exit above the wing and escape over the wing.. however Thomson is intelligent enough to put a picture of flames outside the window and a cross, but BMIbaby assumes people will not open it if the wing is on fire! never assume anything with the general public!! The flight finally left 40 mins late yet we arrived on time, according to the captain "thanks to the traffic control giving them a good tail wind" ... since when do they control the weather?? So i got an airport shuttle transfer organised, lady holding a card with my name on it, and off we went. Glad I did, cos i would never have found the hostel by myself! I get shown up to the 4th floor... all stairs... no lift... and the room I have by myself as I asked for a female only room and noone else had. So I found the sheets with the least stains and the pillow without the black mould and made the bed using their base sheet and my own pillow case and quilt cover as theirs came with added hair! Then I went to bed.

Thursday 23/11 - I had a crappy night sleep and gave up at 7.30am when I showered (smashing my foot when getting out of the shower) and headed out into the gorgeous blue skies, but freezing weather! 4'C! Jeans, long sleeve t-shirt, jumper, jacket, gloves, beanie and scarf and still cold! I walked towards the old square, or Staromestske namesti (with lots of accents on everything) and fumbled around there for a bit. I saw the astronomical clock, which chimes every hour, and stumbled across the Vltava river. WOW! It was pretty damned impressive! Then from here I walked over a bridge and up the hill towards Prague castle (Prazsky hrad), or so I thought, but I ended up walking further than I needed up a steeper hill, and then coming down on the castle. At least there were good views. I walked round a corner and saw the castle, this awesome view, and there was a 3 piece group busking with classical music and it just was the perfect soundtrack for the view! Inside the castle I went to the cathedral and went to a classical concert in one of the rooms of the castle, where a pianist, flautist and violinist played a range of classical music for an hour. It cost me 390Kc (about $20) for the experience. My knees and feet were quite sore from all the cobbled streets and hills, so I went back down, via a supermarket, where I shopped by picture! Any country that sells smurf marshmallows is alright by me! And realising I hadn't eaten anything all day and it was 4pm, I had traditional Czech KFC and went back to the hostel. I got 3 drips of rain on my as I turned the corner into the hostel street, but that was all. I took off my shoes and my foot that I smashed in the shower decided to be excruciatingly painful, so who knows if i have broken anything? Oh well.

Friday 24/11- My foot killed as soon as I stood on it, but I don't have time to rest it and see a doctor and blah, so I'll just cope. I caught the metro into the old square where I had decided to get a tour out to somewhere else for the day. It was another glorious day. I got off at Muzeum instead of Muztek and walked further than I would have if i just walked from the hostel, so everything was already really sore by the time I got to the square, including a blister I was starting to rub from walking funny! The tour was me, an Irish couple who whinged about everything and I know all the intricacies of her bowel issues, and Julian (sigh) a Canadian who's work paid for him to come cos it was the same cost as a flight home. He made the trip worth while! We went to a church called the Ossuary which was AWESOME! They had to make the land smaller, so they dug up 40,000 people's bones and the dude who was the curator or whatever at the time didn't want to throw them away cos they were someone's history, so he decorated the church with them! Then from here we went on to Kutna Hora which is one of the many Unesco listed towns in Czech republic, where we walked (hobbled) around a bit and then had a traditional Czech lunch (mushroom soup, chicken steak and potatoes and an icecream cakey dessert). From there we went into St Barbara Cathedral which had really nice views. Then from there it was back on the bus and back to the hostel.

Saturday 25/11- I got up at 6am and went to take a photo of the sunrise, having found the perfect spot on Karluv most (Charles bridge) so I walked around to there, having got off at the wrong metro again, and my foot was in agony, plus it was freezing! Then I made it to the bridge, sat there for about 1.5 hours, realised the sun had risen but was behind clouds and went off to do other stuff. I got on the funicular railway that took you to the top of a hill where there is a little mini Eiffel tower called Rozhledna which is 60 metres high and was built for some Jubilee expo. Of course it is all stairs too, and being cloudy there was not a great view, but it was quite good. It looks very stable but it actually sways at the top when the wind picks up! Then back on the railway, which is on about a 45' angle back down. I wandered for about 3 hours, in agony, looking for somewhere to sit (there's nowhere!) but I did get some more xmas gifts for people. Nowhere sells charms for my bracelet, which is annoying, cos everywhere I asked answered like they had heard the question 1000000 times, so why hasn't someone cottoned on to the idea that there is a market for them? Then I hobbled back to the hostel and rested my foot. I met 3 other people in the hostel. Jan (yan) from Slovakia who smoked like a train, Paul and his friend who I never heard his name from England who were there together. We chatted and stuff until about midnight. The smoking didn't help the cough I seem to have developed though.

Sunday 26/11- I went on another outing to Karlstejn Castle which was beautiful, but painful. 2.3km up a hill between 15' and 23' the whole way (according to a sign) and of course about 750m into this my right knee (same as sore foot) committed suicide cos of the way I have been walking to compensate foot, plus cobbles, plus hills! So I was in agony for the whole day. The castle was very nice, and we were the last tour through before it was closed for the winter, so that was handy! There's a room in there with relics in it and some of the jewels. There is a crocodile skull that king Wenceslas bought as he was told it was the skull of the Dragon that St George slayed. So it is the most expensive crocodile skull in history! There is also a patch of blood still on the floor from when one of his wives used the secret passageway between his bedroom and her bedroom, but he was out and she forgot his hunting dogs guarded the room, so she was mauled to death. I made a compromise on the charm for the bracelet and bought a small garnet as they are mined in Bohemia which includes Prague. The people on the tour were French and Russian as well as English, but they spoke when the tour guide was giving his blurb in anything other than their language. He even turned around and yelled at them at one point cos it was so rude! I got back, showered and sat on my bed with my leg elevated. If anyone else was in the pain I was in today they would have been screaming on the floor. It took me the whole 45 mins we were given after the tour to get back down the hill cos my knee was so sore. But I didn't have time for agony, so it would have to wait.

Monday 27/11- I got up at 6am again and headed to the same spot, and again the sun didn't come up! I wasted the 2 days of sunshine cos it has been cloudy (but not rainy) every day since. GRRRR. I sat on the bridge listening to classical music on my ipod which was a bit surreal but seemed appropriate. The metro was much more crowded, being a work day, all it was lacking was the guys in Japan who shove people on! First thing in the morning the Vltava looks like a scene from Titanic as there are hundreds of seagulls and dozens of swans just floating on it in the darkness, semi-asleep. Very odd. I gave up after the sun failed to burn through again, and headed off to the Mozart museum, which was really the Mozart 7 minute walk through 4 rooms. I even read every single thing in English on the walls. I then went back to the hostel via the supermarket again. Riddle me this... when is a Smartie not a Smartie? When it's a Lentilky! I got back, had a chat to the boys about soccer and cars (wow) then Jan and person who's name I don't know went off to get a very cheap student meal that Jan knew about (he had been there for 2 months). It was traditional Czech mystery food! You got to pick a number based on a photo of the dish you want. Who knows what they were. I think I had beef goulash and bread dumplings. I also bought a ticket for a tour for Tuesday which is a 10 hour tour, hopefully not 2 hours travel and 8 hours walking, cos I will cry!

Tuesday 28/11- I woke up to discover another 2 girls in my room! I had no idea what time they came in so I must have been really tired! I slept from 9pm to 7.30am, which is good for me! I missed the sunrise, but it is cloudy again anyways. I went on a tour out to Karlovy Vary which is a spa town. There is the locals down the bottom and then a town of all hotels up the top which is where people come to have treatments. The people that go are called patients, and some go to escape the rat race, and others go cos they have medical disorders. But you go and included in the hotel price is 3 meals a day plus 3 spa treatments a day (massage, sauna, colonic irrigation) and then u walk around the town in between and sip water from the 12 different mineral springs that are channeled up through taps. The peak time is summer, so there was hardly anyone there as stupid as us an enduring the 2'C temps! We got lunch included here too, as the aperitif was Becherovka which is Czech vodka, and I had a sip. It is strong stuff that is herbal, so u can't even mix it with anything cos it tastes like grass clippings (to me who doesn't drink). Then vegetable soup (with more mushrooms), goulash (with 3 pieces of meat hidden in a pool of sauce) and no dessert. Bastards! We were shown where part of the new James Bond film was made (I saw it on Saturday with the rellies) and it's the bit where they say they are in Montenegro or somewhere, the poker scene. He stays in the hotel I have a photo of!

Wednesday 29/11- I decided to not get up early for sunrise, which was good cos it didn't... again! I packed all my stuff up and checked out at 10am, then went to the old town square where I did some people watching while I ate a traditional Trdelnik which is bread rolled in nuts and sugar and cinnamon and vanilla. It looks donutty but it rather thin bread, so stale is a word that sprung to mind! It crumbled to the floor as I was eating it so I had a collection of pigeons by my feet eating the crumbs. This old lady brought her 3 yr old (?) grandkid to watch the pigeons and they stood and watched me feed the pigeons and when I had finished walked off, so now I'm the crazy pigeon lady! I got to the airport about 8 hours early because I couldn't really go anywhere with my whole backpack and everything. I read a dodgy UK magazine I paid way to much for and was just about to lapse into a coma (there are 3 shops in the bit before customs at Prague airport) the 2 Malaysian girls who are also staying in UK working and travelling... the ones who I discovered in my room... showed up and luckily they brought extra trashy UK mags so we traded mags and then I headed through, got on the plane and drove to my Aunt's place where I spent the last 4 days.

I learnt a couple of Czech words:

Tam = Push

Sem = Pull

Yay me! Everyone spoke English, so why learn such a confusingly hard language! I ate traditional Czech food. I drank traditional Czech drink. I went to places outside of Prague. I met people. I broke myself. I survived the cold. Oh... in addition to the smashed foot, blisters on foot from walking funny, buggered up knee, sore calves from cobbles, bruise on hand from taking on and off backpack, cough (which turns out to be asthma cough and I am on medication)... I somehow managed to roll over in bed and smash my head into the bed post which woke me up and i let out a scream... only to discover this was the night I had acquired 2 people in my once empty room! But other than my general ability to injure myself in unconventional ways, I had a very good time, and Prague is so far the most beautiful place I have been to, because of the hills, which allow perspective and you can see more than just what is in from of u. Shame about the sunrise/sunset photos.