The Sunday Post

Morning to you all (even though it's afternoon here!)

I know, I know, I said that there wouldn't be any weekend posts. But Megan has a laptop with a wireless connection, and she lets me use it in exchange for the occasional beer/coke light/reading of her assignments. :) It's a good deal, so I thought I'd take advantage of that and fill you in on my quiet weekend.

Friday afternoon we stayed at the school and worked on assignments. There wasn't as much to do this week, so we got away a bit earlier than expected. Yay! Megan and I went to a small "Italian" place near the school for dinner, and had quite good pasta for dinner. We also had the "hot pear in carmel and chocolate" for dessert. Oh man... mum, you would have loved it. Delicious!

We went back to the flat and just sat around for a while, enjoying the fact that it was indeed Friday, and we were indeed free from obligations for a few days. Then we met up with some others from our group (Josh, Lucy, Sydney and Fernanda... I'll try and get some pictures to put up if I can, but no one has a digital camera) and went out salsa dancing. It was a lot of fun! Not many people there spoke English... but instead of it being all Czech, it was mostly Spanish and Portugese! It was a really neat experience. Sydney is from El Salvador, and is very Latino is his flamboyant personality, and he a had a great time trying to teach Lucy, Megan and I how to dance. Fernanda, being from Brazil, didn't need to be taught anything. Man, when she and Sydney danced togther, it was a sight to be seen! In the words of Minnie Johnson reporting the Gwynne news... "a good time was had by all."

Saturday was a relatively lazy day. Lucy and I went and did a bit of grocery shopping. The Albert's (the store we go to) plays a... variety of English music. We heard Wake up Little Suzie, Stuck in the Middle (Bob Dylan), Flashdance, and a Britney Spears song. :) The Britney Spears song is a terrible pop thing about trying to fly, but failing miserable, and it's slow, and pathetic, and I got a little weepy in the ice cream aisle... how sad is that! Maybe I miss you guys a bit more than I let on. ;)

Megan and I headed into the centre after that, and had a nice afternoon wandering around. We found the post office, and it's one of the most beautiful places I have EVER been in. It's like a big open area with the most beautifully designed and decorated walls and ceiling. I could have sat there for hours. We also found a bank machine that gives a chequing/savings account option, and so I was able to get my card to work. Thanks for the tip about the account thing, Bari, you were totally right. Megan's card suddenly didn't want to work at all! She was a bit stressed, and told me she had more sympathy for me over these past few days, but was able to get it sorted out with a phone call to her parents. *phew* Thank goodness for parents and cellphones! :D

We were extraordinarily proud of ourselves, because we made it to one of our favorite restaurants in the city without having to have Josh (our friend who knows Prague and acts as a guide to all of us) take us there. This place has THE BEST cabbage soup. mmmm. And the prices are ludicrously reasonable. Anyone who comes to visit me, be prepared to go to "The Soup Place." I would likely also take you "The Salad Place" if you're in the mood for an excellent salad, or "The Dirty Place" if you want some goulash. The Dirty Place is tricky, because there are some rather "coarse" cartoons on the walls, so you have to stay very focussed on your dining companions to ignore them. However, it has some really excellent goulash and dumplings that you just can't miss out on.

As we exited the soup place (have you noticed that we don't know the names for anything? This is because a) Josh doesn't tell us the names, b) the names are often not posted, and c) if theyare, they're in Czech. I don'tspeak Czech. Megan doesn't speak Czech. Do you speak Czech? No? Ok then. Until YOU come and tell me what the Czech name of these places are, don't complain, and just go with "The ______ Place") we found a pashmina place! They had some exquisite pashminas that were in rich autumn colors with exquisite patterns. Megan bought a deep purple and antique gold one, and mine is burgundy, black and gold, done in a large paisley design. They're beautiful, and will be perfect for the fall here. They were also on sale. We like sales! :)

We met up with Sydney for a movie after our pashmina purchasing, and went to see The Island with Scarlett Johannson and Ewan McGregor. It was a pretty good movie, and it was English with Czech subtitles, so it was fun to try andguess what the Czech words were for a while. Pretty soon I was so engrossed in the movie that I forgot the subtitles were even there. It was a good way to end a Saturday night.

Today has been very quiet. Megan needed to go to Albert's, so I joined her for the walk, and to pick up some fresh fruit. One thing that's very different here than in Canada is that the entrees very rarely come with any vegetables. I've gotten into the habit of having salad everywhere I go, but I still miss out on a lot of fruit with all the eating out we do (lack of stove/kitchen sink = more eating at restaurants). The fruit here is unexciting. The only think I noticed was that bananas cost more per kilo than nectarines! Craziness! We came back here, had lunch, did some homework, read, listened to music... just a quiet Sunday.

Megan and I are quite excited because we're going to look at an apartment next Saturday, and it seems like it would be quite nice for us and our needs. Here's a couple of photos (Hilary said that she'd like more photos on the blog, and since the guy sent us these ones, I can share them with you!) This is a one bedroom, but it has a large living room and a large foyer, so we're going to see if we can maybe convert one of those into another bedroom. Then we'd buy a second-hand futon and cupboard of some sort for clothes, and be set to go! The place is fully furnished, which is sweet. If this one doesn't work out, we've also expressed interest in several other places through a rental website, and we should hear about being able to go and see those early next week. All in all, I don't think that finding a place is going to be too problematic. Yay! Hopefully, job hunting goes as well as ap't hunting seems to be.

So here you have it folks: pictures of the place we might move into. Let me know what you think! (I think that bathtub looks amazing... one of us could just sleep in there!)


























I love and miss you all. Write to me soon if you have time.

Love,
Elizabeth