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Published: September 2nd 2010
Classic Europe
Baker's on the left, Butcher's on the right.Ahoj,
I'm writing to you now from a small café on the main square of Havlíčkův Brod. At the moment, I still don't have internet in my apartment, so I've been coming here instead to check my email, etc. If I haven't responded to your last comments yet, I apologize, and hopefully this entry'll take care of some your questions.
This past week has been very eventful. The last time we spoke, I was in Prague in a hotel enjoying the comforts of having a chair to sit on and a lamp so I could actually see. Oh, and a shower curtain, that was important. After a trip to IKEA and buying myself a small lamp and a shower curtain (Great success!), I went to bed and woke up bright and early to head to Praha 6 (the region of Prague), to find Gymnázium Nad Alejí, a high school where we'd be having our meeting. After having a little confusion with the trams, I finally got to where I needed to be, and was actually the second one there (Steve and Lisa's son, after all...). I took my seat, waited for a little, and in walked my first contact
Liposukce
There isn't a laundromat in Havlickuv Brod, but you can get liposuction if you need it. from the medical high school. Her name's Gabriela, and she sat with me and we chatted for a while while we waited for the others to filter in. I met the other American ETAs (English Teaching Assistants), who come from all over the US (San Diego, Nebraska, Iowa, Seattle, NYC, New Jersey, etc. etc.). They're all really nice and really cool, so I'm pretty excited about that, it should be fun with them. My second contact, Jiří, also arrived, and we chatted a bit and got to know each other. At one point, however, a girl sitting on the end of the table leaned over to me and said, "Are you Matthew Greene from Rhode Island?" I'm pretty certain the entire room went silent from the noise of my jaw hitting the floor. She introduced herself as Calan, and wouldn't you know, she graduated from Chariho! In fact, her mom was my mom's gym teacher at Stonington. Welcome to the freakishly small world of Rhode Island! Anyway, she's a real gym teacher now in Aspen, CO, and is on the Fulbright Teacher Exchange, where two teachers from the US and another country literally exchange lives for the year, swapping apartments,
Main Square
The main square of Havlickuv Brod the night that I got here...and the nice rain clouds. jobs, etc. We chatted for a while about people from home, which left the other Fulbrighters in a slight state of awe that we knew exactly who the other was talking about. Finally, though, the orientation began.
We spent the day learning about the Czech school system, and the Czech mentors also learnt about the American school system and the vast differences across the States. It was pretty interesting (though I admittedly knew a lot about it from my friends here already). I'll tell you some cool culture points, though, that are very different from the US. For starters, in most schools, Czechs all have what they call papučky, house shoes. They wear these naturally at home, and I already knew about this tradition, but what I didn't know is that they also have a special pair that they bring to school with them and change into, so as not to dirty the floor and create more work for the janitors. Even teachers do it. Also, due to the expense of new technology, most Czech classrooms are not equipped with what American classrooms take for granted, such as a projector. Typically, the students remain in the same classroom for
Main Square
Looking towards city hal. the day, and the teacher travels to them, so that not a single teacher gets the preferred classroom. the thing we spent the longest on, though, and what all my Czech friends had already told me about, was the concept of cheating. Cheating is simply normal in Czech schools. Kids are divided into classes of around 30 and they have all their classes for all four years of high school together. They know each other very well by graduation, and so cheating is seen as a way of helping the friend in need, not as doing something dishonest. It's a remnant of the communist regime, since Czechs (and all those living under the Soviet system) always were able to bribe each other with goods, rather than currency, to make ends meet, to get the freshest and best food, etc. As Jiří described it to me, "he who didn't steal from work was understood as robbing the family." Very different from the world of the US, eh? Those are just some of the cultural points we discussed, but as it was only a one day orientation, time ran out and we got on our merry ways. We Americans swapped numbers and
Parking Spaces
I love these parking spaces right along the main square, you pull into them sideways, not like at home. the cities we're in, and we're all already planning on coming and visiting each other everywhere, so it should be exciting. Most of us are all over the country, and I'm the most central to everything, so I have a great jumping-off point.
After the orientation, Gabriela, Jiří and I hopped on the tram and rode to Hlavní Nádraí, the main train station, where we caught the train back to Havlíčkův Brod. We sat in a carriage together, and chatted the entire time about Czech history, places in the US, our lives, etc. It was a fun ride and we got to know each other a lot better, and they both speak English really, really well. Jiří lived and worked in Washington (the state) for a few months in 1993, and Gabriela was actually married to an American for a while. In the end, we arrived back to Havlíčkův Brod, and I went back to my apartment to enjoy my first night of having a lamp and taking a shower with a shower curtain.
Since Monday, I've been going back and forth between the schools, meeting the English teachers (all of whose names I luckily remember), and meeting
Main Square
With the plague column in the middle (I had to do a research project about one in Vienna...). tons and tons of other teachers, whose names I have no idea of. In the medical school, one of the teachers asked me if I by any change I spoke German, and I replied to her the lovely Styrian dialect that I of course did, and so we had a nice little chat. For the month of September, I'll be rotating between four teachers at Gymnázium Havlíčkův Brod, one being Jiří and the other three women, one of whose last names is Dvořáková. She asked me if I knew of the composer Dvorak, and what I replied that yes, I did know him and I also knew how to pronounce Dvořák properly, she was very excited. As some of you know, the letter ř (r with a little v on top of it, in case it doesn't show up) exists only in Czech, and is very difficult for foreigners to pronounce. Libor, though, taught me how to say it. You might now be considering the difference between Dvořák and Dvořáková, and why she would have -ová on the end. That's a little quirk of the Czech and Slovak languages, but formerly existed in all Slavic languages. Like in the US,
Main Square
They're obviously doing renovations. when a daughter is born, she takes her father's last name, but to it is add either -ová, or simply -á, if the last name is an adjective. Thus, the daughter of "Novák" is "Nováková." I have a friend whose last name is Šťastná, which actually means happy, and her father is Šťastný, as -ý is the masculine ending. Thus, when a woman marries, she takes her husband's name, and to it is added -ová. My wife would therefore be Greenová. Fun little quirk, eh?
For teaching, I'll be doing mostly 20 minute presentations on various topics, such as going to the doctor, renting a car, etc. I'll also be talking about American holidays, American history, etc., which will be very interesting. At the medical school, the three teachers are all already very excited for Halloween and want to try to organize something. We're actually going to go out tomorrow night for a beer, as they want to show me Havlíčkův Brod's "pub culture," and get to know me better. At the regular high school (Gymnázium), I was invited on a trip at the end of the month to Italy for about 6 days with a few of the
Church
The church right on the main square, but look closely at the clock...anything unusual? teachers, and I think I'm going to go. None of the English teachers are going, so I'll only be speaking Czech with them, but was also told that one of them speaks Italian, so we can have some way to communicate. I also bought a lamp today, so can't wait to be able to have two (yes, 2!) lights in my apartment tonight.
Ah, that leads me to another point. I'll be moving on apartments on Monday. The apartment I'm in now is waaay too big, waaay too empty, and waaay too expensive to try to furnish for just a year. I'll be moving to a smaller, cozier, furnished apartment, that's actually in one of those massive, communist-era buildings known in Czech as a panalák. I can't wait, I went to visit it and it looked fantastic, and the owner is actually doing some work and updating everything in it, so there'll be a new toilet (I believe), and definitely a new fridge, which is what I'm most thrilled about. Have you tried living for two weeks without a fridge? It really narrows down what you can and cannot eat.
Well, ladies and gents, I apologize that this
The Clock
It shows all 24 hours. entry hasn't had its normal infusion of craziness, there's just been a lot going on with meetings and visits, etc. I have, however, already become quite the movie critic, and have watched nearly all the DVDs that I've brought with me. Here the weather is absolutely freezing already, it's rained everyday for at least a few hours, and people are wearing pants, jackets, even winter hats! I was told, though, that this weather is not normal for this time of year, they've just had a very rainy, cold summer, so who knows what the winter will bring. As a friend of mine told me, though, "ale Ty v Havlíčkově Brodě budeš mít taky sněhu dost," but you'll have plenty of snow in Havlíčkův Brod, too. I thought I escaped Burlington??
Enjoy the few pictures I have so far!
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Mom
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I like the pictures...looks nicer than I thought!