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Published: January 26th 2012
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It’s coming up to my one year anniversary of escaping the north of England and moving to Prague. I moved here to do get my TEFL qualification (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and then see where life took me. Circumstances dictated that I stayed in Prague and so far that decision has turned out to be a good one as Prague is an excellent place to live as well as to visit.
Now the bragging begins. By some lucky fluke, I live right in the middle of the beautiful Old Town and from my bedroom window I can see the thirteenth century Tyn Church at the end of my street. Imagine how much how difficult it would be to find a place next to Big Ben or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. By expat standards the flat is pretty cheap when shared amongst five of us – all teachers made up from Britain and the Commonwealth. When we moved in it was completely unfurnished and uniformly painted in white which led us to believe that a grisly murder or suicide pact had taken place in the property but no haunting has occurred so far. The flat is perfect except
for the odd homeless person we find sleeping outside our door on fourth storey of a securely locked building but more often than not they placidly grovel Czech apologies whilst we shepherd them out on the way to work.
Knowing that my only transferrable skill is my mother tongue I came here to teach English. I often get jealous of people with real jobs as I think of the distorted British phrase ‘Those who can, teach’ that more famously became ‘Those who can’t, teach’ but I’m pretty happy doing it nonetheless. Finding a job if you are an EU citizen is very easy but Americans and Canadians may have to leave it a little to luck and I’ve seen many leave after failing to get a Visa.
I work full-time for a school that uses its client database to give me lessons with adult learners either in businesses or public courses in their premises. Like with any job, teaching English has good points and bad. For one thing, it’s an incredibly disjointed affair as a typical day involves four hour-long lessons spread over twelve hours with the gaps usually filled in with lesson planning and travelling to far
flung areas of Prague. Since Capitalism began steamrolling through the country post-1989, multinational corporations have been popping up in every spare space in their glass fortresses. So, this forces me to regularly travel from one end of the Metro line to the other then to Narnia and finally to the Centre of the Earth, with a good book as an essential anti-zombie device.
On the other hand, the pay is pretty decent. It’s nowhere near the standards of the gold mines of South Korea and the Middle East where they pay you in Swarovski diamonds and leprechaun dust but I earn enough to live in a flat in the most beautiful area of Prague next to the Old Town Square and eat out and casually drink more than I could ever afford to in the UK. This is subsistence living though as I’m very unlikely to ever save for as much as a pair of jeans. What’s more, I often have long days but I don’t work long hours. Not many other jobs would give me the time and flexibility to lounge around a park all afternoon when it’s hot, watch a Tuesday morning Sopranos marathon in my boxer shots or write this blog in the middle of the day (fully clothed).
The differences in language and culture allow for many humorous moments to collect and share. Take the following disturbing exchange from my first ever private lesson whilst still in training.
“So Katja, what are your interests?”
“I like my dogs.”
“Okay, what else?”
“I like baking cakes.”
“Nice.”
“And I like handjobs.”
“... I’m sorry?”
“Handjobs.”
“Hmmm how do you mean?”
“Sewing, knitting...”
Once I had worked out that she meant
handicrafts, my heart retreated back down my windpipe. After all, Katja is certainly not a beautiful, blond Czech nineteen year old but a housewife in her sixties who likes knitting jumpers and baking chocolate sponges.
This experience so far has taught me that it is not inevitable that, even if you are living in heaven with a pet unicorn and a gold plated harp, you get bored of your surroundings. So much has happened in the city since I moved here. The spring and summer welcomed many free music festivals around the city and the numerous beer gardens were always lively. ‘Night of the Museums’ meant that for one night entry to many museums and galleries was free, a night-time 10k run through the Old Town was pretty special (even if, without my glasses, I couldn’t see) and the sprawling Christmas markets were good for glühwein and over-expensive Christmas presents. There was also the sad but incredibly moving spectacle of Czech leader Vaclav Havel’s death and period of mourning. The Czechs actually showed some public emotion and came out in their hundreds of thousands to pay respect to a great man.
I’ve also managed to get out of Prague and visit many of the surrounding towns and cities, including the famous beer producing town of Plzen with a great brewery tour and a football game featuring the country’s champions Viktoria Plzen, and the beautiful medieval city of Český Krumlov where we partied hard with middle-aged Germen men. With my girlfriend, I travelled hundreds of miles to a music festival near Trenčín in Slovakia to see Pulp and Madness – two bands from the UK who are getting old fast. Vienna was a more wholesome trip and an attempt to sample some culture at a famous film festival in Karlovy Vary went spectacularly wrong as we got there six hours late to find that all tickets had sold out shortly before my girlfriend had her purse stolen and we nearly froze to death camping in a tent in the local football stadium.
Dresden has been my favourite destination so far due to the surprise factor as I only knew of it as the place the Allies bombed flat during World War Two. The city is roughly split into two areas – the Neumarkt and the Altemarkt –with the River Elbe providing the boundary and a very charming place to relax and stare at the attractive cityscape. The Neumarkt is the youthful and exciting part of town where a lot of the hostels and bars reside on a few tightly-packed streets. This close proximity allowed for a great night out within a manageable stumbling distance and we met people who were also generally more open and friendly than the introverted Pragites to the South.
Obviously, there are bad points to living in Prague too. The tourist hordes can get annoying as they spread out across the pavement in formation like a fighter squadron whilst taking no notice of the nice English teacher they are making late for his lessons. There are the groups of merry people at 1am in the summer, only distinguishable in nationality by whose anthem they are singing. Finally, there is the incredibly rude service industry where we are continually ripped off and treated with contempt. I have seen Americans – used to the sincere ‘Have a nice day’ culture – nearly moved to tears by their abuse at the hands of Czech waiters. Poor things.
Overall, I’m really happy here but what I really want above anything else is some mature cheddar cheese, a spicy curry and some Yorkshire Tea.
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