Welcome to Prague!

Friday we had our first meeting as a class and got to know each other. There are nine of us. It's a fun group. Some people are really into language with degrees in linguistics. About half the class has a Master's degree. Some are here for fun or an adventure before they start teaching in a regular school system in the States. Some people just like this side of the world. We are American, Canadian, Czech, and Russian. The ages range from 22 to me!

We received a pile of books and our course syllabus and homework assignments. Later our guide told us, "you are going to be overwhelmed by how much work this is - don't waste time whining - just do it." He warned against past behavior he had seen in the course where some students get behind because they are our partying and just quit coming to class. They just end up living in their apartment until it's time to leave.

So I've decided "no fun allowed" for my first month here. I will really focus on the course and explore Prague afterwards. It's just one month.

After our course orientation, we were scheduled to have an orientation tour of Prague. I thought it would be like a sightseeing bus tour. It wasn't. It was an incredibly useful orientation to practicialities: this is where you get a mobile phone, this is where you can get help with your computer, here's a mall, and here's how the metro and tram work.

Our guide suggested we get to know one Metro station in particular, Meztek (sp?), because it's so huge and such a labyrinth. It's a transfer point between the yellow line (which I live on) and the red line. He said you want to know this station completely before you have to teach at 6:30 a.m. in the morning at some business you've never been to, when you're still half asleep, and you have no idea which of the 20 exits from the station you need to take to get to your class and you're running late.

He said the most common ways teachers get pick-pocketed on the metro was not due to someone bothering them during the day. Rather young teachers go out partying and fall asleep on the metro on the way home. Then the driver is waking them up at the end of the line only for the teacher to discover that his wallet and phone are gone.

I appreciated our guide because he made it clear he had our backs if we ever needed him. He was referring to young men who drink too much but it's the idea that counts. He gave everyone his phone number.

Our group then went out for our first dinner together at a pub across from our school. I don't have internet access in my apartment or I'd post the pics. We all had the famous Czech beer Pilsner Urquell. It tasted great but I'm not a beer expert. The subtleties of it's awesomeness might be wasted on me. Who knows, maybe living in the Czech Republic will turn me into a beer snob.

Denver to Chicago to Warsaw to Prague

My flight over was an absolute delight and didn't contain an ounce of hardship. It was one long interesting conversation after another. I met a gentleman who just finished a book on Japanese counterculture, a couple who were off to hike the Grand Canyon for her 50th birthday, two young professionals from Virginia who were joking about being from the fake part of Virginia (according to the McCain campaign) and happy to pay the taxes for the schools and roads of the real part of Virginia, a young Polish man who will make a fine husband for the girl he is still looking for, and a young Czech executive mother who is now my first new Czech friend.

The people of Chicago are excited that with Obama winning their chances of landing the Olympics just increased.

My flight over did not feel foreign at all because it was all Polish people. What city in the world has more Polish people second only to Warsaw? Chicago. The Warsaw terminal was brand new and spotless. Spoken Polish sounds pretty.

The Warsaw terminal was also full of young people in uniform. I had to restrain myself there because everytime I saw a young military person, my first instinct was always to "thank them for their service to our country." I kept forgetting. We don't share a country!

It finally felt foreign when we boarded the plane for Prague. We did not get on the plane through a gate terminal but took a bus out to the airfield and then boarded a prop plane in the dense fog. I was immediately struck by what a romantic picture it was. I felt like Elsa in Cascablanca! And now here I am, in Praha!

Czech Republic Here I Come!

I'm so excited to see, hear, and enjoy other points of view.

I can't wait to get there. Luckily, election exhaustion will make my 9-hour flight over the ocean a lot faster. I'll probably sleep the whole way.

Ciao for now.

It's a Beautiful Day!

I am so proud of the citizens of the United States of America with our open hearts.

Daughter #1 was #51 in line when the polls opened yesterday.

Daughter #2 arrived at her polls at 5:45 a.m. to cast her vote and was voter #9. Their first election! They were so excited to participate.

Election day yesterday, all day long, was one long spiritual moment.

I am so proud of my country!

Yea! It's Election Day!

Could a democracy be more robust or exciting than America's is on this very day? This has been the most exciting, most nail-biting, most fascinating, most emotionally-exhausting election I have ever seen in my entire life. And today history is made with a new African-American president of the United States of America. I'm proud to go to a new country tomorrow, the Czech Republic, represented by such a wise and inspiring leader.

Is it just me or did this election make you cry a lot? All of the women in my family cry at a drop of a hat, and this election it seemed like it was all the time. Barack would make me cry at least twice a week as I heard him speak; watching the pride of old black people at Barack's rallies made me cry; hearing a young college woman stand up and say to John McCain in a quavering voice, "Thank you Senator, for your service to our country. I appreciate my freedom." All of it made me cry!

Probably the clip that reduced my family to tears the most is Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama when he asked us "doesn't the little 7-year-old Muslim boy have the right to dream that he too can be President of the United States?" I believe that clip will be played as often as Martin Luther King's clip asking for his children to be judged on the content of their character.

The aspect of the campaign I found most worrisome was not the racism expressed, or the judging of some parts of the country as anti-American. All of that was overwhelmed by the large number of people wanting to be unified, not divided.

I was worried by what I see as an institutionalized anti-intellectualism in the Republican party. What does it say about education levels in our country when one party constantly stokes resentment toward the educated calling them "elite?" The Republican intellectuals abandoned ship in disgust.

No one really challenged John McCain when he repeatedly derided giving $3 million to the world-class Adler Planatarium in Chicago for it's overhead projector of the night sky. Thousands and thousands of schoolchildren go to that planatarium on field trips. Don't you want to increase America's scientific literacy rating from 17th in the world to 1st, John?

No one challenged him when he derided DNA studies of grizzly bears. Don't you want grizzly bears to survive in your America, Senator McCain? I do. Let's study them.

The voters who made me most personally proud were the 2.9 million people of my home state of Iowa. The voters of this state, mostly rural and 97% white, which collectively have created two universities ranked in the top 100 globally (through taxes, I might add!) proved two things before anyone else did: 1) white people will vote for a black candidate, and 2) young people will turn out and exercise their right to vote. Iowa is where it all started for our new President. That too made me cry in hope and pride!

I told all of my friends it was going to be a landslide. We'll find out tonight!

There are no atheists in a Rocky Mountain hot tub

Recently, my sister and I were petsitting at a friend's house when my sis told me about an incident that happened to the lady of the house when she was sound asleep. The lady woke up with a start -- there was a giant crashing noise in the kitchen. When my sister's friend went into the kitchen to investigate, she found a bear with his paw deep into her bread machine pursuing that fantastic fragrance that apparently could even be smelled outside. The bear went out the same way he came in (through the kitchen window) as soon as he saw the jig was up.

Later that night, after my sis had shared that story, we went out to enjoy our friend's hot tub. The stars were drop-dead gorgeous, so gorgeous that the next night when I used the hot tub I didn't turn on any of the patio lights so I could see all of the constellations better.

All of a sudden, in the dark, an adolescent bear pads up to the edge of the hot tub, not five feet from me, and sniffs the air with curiousity. We made eye contact! You're not supposed to do that with bears! I tried to shrink as best as I could into the water. He then turned around and padded up to the window where my mom and sister were watching TV, and then came back to a higher patio ledge overlooking the hot tub. Now he could get a running start to jump on me! Fairy tales provided my imagination all of the start-up it needed. "It's all the better to eat me with!"

What was I supposed to do??? I thought of getting under the cover but could picture the headline "visitor drowns in hot tub - no one knows why." I could try and run but I knew he could outrun me. I could go under water but I'd probably have to come up for air right where his big giant teeth would be waiting for me. All I could think of was that scene in the movie "The Parent Trap" where the two twins try to submarine their future stepmother by teaching her to hit two sticks together to keep the animals away. But I didn't have any sticks!

Eventually he wandered off and I rushed into the house back to civilization. I'd had enough more than enough wildlife for one night.

Trick or Treat!

In Estes Park, it would be dangerous to have house-to-house trick-or-treating in the neighborhoods because of the wildlife. People take in their hummingbird and bird feeders at night to avoid tempting bears. Can you imagine how yummy a little kid would look to a mountain lion or coyote? So instead the entire town heads downtown for trick-or-treating from store-to-store.

I was utterly charmed by what a multi-generational, family event this was! Estes Park has a very large retired population and the retired people had some of the best costumes. I thought this guy was the most creative. He was a U.S. Department of Treasury Bailout Specialist. He gave me a billion dollars and said he only had to give out 699 more.

You couldn't have Halloween in 2008 without McCain and Palin!

Mars Attack! One of the most awesome movies of all time!

I followed these two for half a block
and could not figure out what there were.
Ketchup and Mustard!
Of course!