I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life

Yeah, yeah, I stole the title from a country song. But I hate coming up with my own!! :) It's been a pretty awesome week, though, so it seemed like a good choice. The time is flying by here (it's almost the end of February, yikes!), and I'm loving life in Prague. I'm officially on my longest homesickness-free run, so that's exciting. :) I'm not feeling in such a hurry to head home now!

My workweek was pretty ordinary, teach during the day, meet Courtney and Lucy for dinner (Monday), teach, meet Courtney and Lucy (Tuesday), teach, meet Chris (Wednesday), teach, meet Courtney for dinner, then the others for pub night (Thursday). Then on Friday (yesterday, I guess!) both my students cancelled, so I slept in, cleaned, showered, napped, read, and got ready to have guests. Last night 8 of my friends came over for dinner. I cooked the main course (BBQ chicken and pan friend veggies), and my mates brought salads (Marta's was incredible - the girl has salad skills!) and we just hung out and laughed and talked and listend to music. It was great!!

Today, I slept in, napped, read (I'm sooo lazy), planned a lesson, cleaned up the remains of the party (Lucy and Courtney are so awesome, they did most of the cleaning up last night), and now I'm just chilling. I'm meeting my mates for some rugby at the sports pub in an hour or so, and then we're going to see a band that contains a student of someone I know. The music has been described as "jazz and hiphop combined," and as "German brass band cross English golf." Huh. We figure we have to see it just to see it!

Tomorrow, Chris and I are going to the zoo. I've wanted to see it since I got here, so I'm really looking forward to it. I hope the sun shines. It was lovely for a while today, but it's all clouding over now. :( I can't believe I've been seeing him for a month now, it's crazy. Time is just flying by. My friends and I have (officially) decided that Prague lies directly across a wrinkle in the time-space continuum, and that time makes no sense here. January draaaaaaaaaged on at the end, and now all of a sudden it's going to be March!

Speaking of time, today's my 6-month anniversary in Praha. I'm quite amazed. In some ways I think I've been gone forever, and in others like I only just left Canada. I also can't believe that I've actually managed to survive! I know some of us had our doubts as to the success of this little endeavor of mine, but I'm doing it! wOOt!

I'm off to put on some make up and real pants (I do love sweats, but they look out of place in the pub!).

Bye!
Elizabeth

Don't Worry

Be Happy!

I've had several very nice responses to my blog yesterday, but there seems to be a general undercurrent of concern re: me wanting to go to Halifax. I have decided to address that (valid!) concern here.

I know, I know. I've found it pretty darn hard to be so far away from home this year. But I'm currently on my 2nd longest homesick-less run since I've been here. Give it another week or so, and it'll be the longest. Why? Because I've finally settled in. And if I can do that here, in a country where I don't speak the language, where I have NO family nearby, and phone calls cost a bomb, then I'm confident that I can do the same in Halifax.

Another thing is that I've grown and stretched and challenged myself right out of my comfort zone continually since I arrived. And as weird as it may sound, I'm not ready to give that up. I am not the same person I was six months ago, and I like the new and improved me a lot better. I'm braver, more patient, more confident, happier, and more willing to step up and ask for what I want in a non-confrontational manner. Edmonton is a comfortable place for me - everything will fall into place with no challenges to speak of. Halifax is new - and it will continue to push me out of myself and into a better, stronger woman. And that's what I want.

Halifax also has an excellent SLP progam. It's 3 years long (as opposed to UofA's 2), and you get extra practicum time in that period. You also have a wider variety of colleagues, as they don't expect you to have one specific degree coming into the program. It's a very community-based program that encourages its students to network and develop relationships, something that also appeals to me. Is UofA's program awesome? You bet. It's a GREAT program, and I'm certain I'd be happy there, too. But Halifax is drawing me for a lot of reasons, and the fact that it has a high-quality program only encourages me to want to attend there.

Now, before I get too defensive or excited, and before you start buying me shirts that say "My Other Home's a Car Dealership (The Heart of the Wetaskiwin Automile!)" to wear on the east coast, keep in mind that I haven't been accepted ANYWHERE yet. I don't have a place in either program, and I have no idea if there's any scholarship money forthcoming - something that I NEED in order to be able to head out East. So all I'm saying here is that my current preference is Dal, but I'm well aware that there are a whole lot of things that have to fall into place for that to work.

Time for lunch! (mmm, lunch). Hope you're all having a good week so far.

Love,
Elizabeth

My Weekend - A Written Composition by Elizabeth Huebert

Happy Monday morning! Hope all of you had as good a weekend as I did!

After crawling out of bed (again… I needed a nap on Friday before I could really get going. It was one heck of a ½ birthday!), I met Chris for a walk after lunch. We wandered around the Old Town Square (which I think is my favorite part of Prague), and then headed back up to Wenceslas Square where I met Elly and Liana. They got a bit mixed up with the train, and had ended up getting off at the stop that is NOT in the centre! We headed back there, and picked up their luggage. We then spent a bit of time at the flat, just chatting and relaxing. I took them on a quick tour of Old Town Square (I think… I can’t quite remember. I know there was walking, but I think we were more focused on chattering than on where we were going!!). We went for dinner at Ade and Courtney’s, which was awesome. They made a sort of chicken curry/fajita deal that was spicy and delicious. We sat around and gabbed, and then headed home for bed.

Saturday we went down to the potraviny and picked up breakfast supplies. We had a lazy morning getting ready, and then went out on the tour. I took them to the disintegrating man (a series of statues commemorating the victims of communism), and then we rode the funicular up Petrin hill. We wandered down the hill, looking for the view I promised Liana (things really do just up and disappear in this city….) I managed to find it eventually, and we took some lovely photos. Then it was down the rest of the hill, and across the Charles’ Bridge to look at the view and the souvenirs. We went for lunch at the soup place, and they were confused because there are only 2 soups there. Well, it isn’t “the soup place” in general, as in “a place of many soups,” but “the soup place,” as in “a place of one particularly excellent soup”! I guess I should have made that clear a little earlier on! We spent the afternoon shopping (ah, new clothes) and wandering, and then met up with Tiffany and Chris for dinner at the dirty place. Which, once again, is not physically dirty, but rather has naughty cartoons on the walls, and the best goulash I’ve had yet. We then went back across the Charles’ Bridge to see the night view (gorgeous!!) and had coffee in my favorite little café (smoke free!). It was a great night.

Sunday we had a lazy morning (I like lazy mornings!!), and then went shopping again, just for a bit. Liana had some money she needed to spend (I wish I could say the same!), and I wanted to find a shirt to go with the new skirt I bought on Saturday. Then we went into Old Town Square to watch the clock strike (“Wow,” said Liana. “It’s as unimpressive as you said it would be…”) The clock IS cool… but the actual chiming of the hour is somewhat… anti-climactic. Like Christmas! ;) We wandered around Old Town, and then picked up munchies for their train ride home. Then I took them to Hlavni Nadrazi, and said goodbye. L It was too short a visit, and I’m sad that they’re gone.

After they were safely at the train station, I met Tiffany and we went to a late church service at a church I hadn’t been to before. It’s very near my flat, and I enjoyed it. Should I ever have some free time Sunday at 4:30, I’ll be going back! J Then it was off to the movies, where I met Chris to see Memoirs of a Geisha. I loved it. He thought it was Ok. I’m a girl, what more can I say? I thought it was a beautiful movie, and I want the DVD already!

Today I got up (it was hard… the movie went a bit late last night), and wandered off to teach my first class. Now I have a bit of a break, and I’m going to plan a couple lessons, and try to write a letter to Grandma. Then it’s off to teach two more classes. It looks like my schedule should be a bit fuller now, which is good, because I was starting to worry. Ooh, and we bought our tickets to Budapest this weekend, too, so I can start getting excited about that. Tiffany and I also bought tickets for Swan Lake which is coming in April. Fantastic! It’s getting to be time for me to start looking into tickets for Italy, too… so much to do, so little time!

I realized that I never publicly announced what happened with my decision about when to come home, so maybe I’ll do that now. I’m returning to Edmonton on April 27 at 10:30 PM. I’m going to spend a week or so in the Wetaskiwin/Edmonton area, and then the (tentative) plan is that I’m going to fly out to BC and spend my summer working in Campbell River, living with my brother and his wife. Then, come September, I’ll be (contingent on being accepted) going to grad school in either Edmonton or Halifax. Truth be told, my heart is starting to settle on Halifax, so I’m praying that the scholarship money might come through so that I would be able to do that.

So that’s the news! Hope you’re all doing well, and that spring is creeping into your cities, too. It was +5* this weekend here!

Love you,

Elizabeth

Happy, happy birthday...

It’s official – I’m 22 ½ now. I’d like thank those of you that have made it possible for me to come this far – mum, thanks for giving birth to me. You really got the ball rolling. Dad, thanks for that extra X chromosome; I do love being a girl. Michael and Kathie, thanks for torturing me through my childhood (Hey, let’s pin Elizabeth down and stuff dad’s sock in her mouth! That’ll be funny!) And all the rest of you, who are too numerous to name, you rock, too. After all, you’ve gotten me to this major step in my life – and we all know how important the 22 ½ birthday is in today’s culture. ;) /

So now that I’m done being a retard, I’ll tell you all about my “celebration” yesterday. A group of us met up for dinner at the “Dirty Café” (it’s got naughty cartoons painted on the walls – but the goulash is phenomenal, so we just try to keep our eyes on our plates!), where we met Rob’s friend Ron, who is living in Estonia. He’s a pretty cool guy, so the group of us had an enjoyable dinner. Note to future visitors: “pork leg” is someone’s idea of a joke. Courtney and I both ordered it, and it turned out to be sausage…. J After dinner, we headed over to the Konvikt, where the usual crowd was gathering for pub night. We hung out there for quite a bit, chatting and drinking beer. I met a few new people, which is always excellent, and succeeded in getting the incredibly surly bartender to smile at me. wOOt! ;)

We then proceeded to Nebe, an ex-pat dance club that’s in an underground cellar/tunnel/cave-thingy. They play a lot of indie music (read: I didn’t hear one song that I actually knew!), and it’s pretty danceable, so Tiffany, Lucy and I burned up the dance floor for a few hours. At about 1:45, I was wiped, so I headed for home, stopping for the ever-important gyros on my way. I got home shortly after 2, and crawled into bed. It was such a great night!

Reading back over this entry, it doesn’t really sound as though anything too exciting happened. And that’s right, nothing too exciting DID happen. But my friends here are so awesome that just hanging out for the evening was enough to make this my best birthday yet. It would only have been better if Hils and I had been able to go for some free birthday breakfasts at Denny’s (for those of you not in the know – Lar and I share a bday!).

Hope you all have a great weekend. I’m meeting Elly and Liana today at 3, and we’re going to spend the weekend together. Rock on!

Love,

Elizabeth

Oh memes

Ok, if you're sad that this is a meme, scroll down. I posted a real post earlier today, so you can't complain. :)

4 jobs you have had:
- TEFL-er
- Youth worker
- Meat wrapper!
- Seller of Paint and Painting goods

4 movies you could watch over and over:
- Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
- Some Like it Hot
- The Party (Peter Sellers)
- Roman Holiday

4 TV shows you love to watch:
- no TV right now, but in Canada:
- CSI
- CSI: Miami
- CSI: New York
-... Grey's Anatomy!

4 places you have been on vacation:
- Prague (does it count as a vacation?)
- Salzburg, Austria
- Munchen, Germany
- Isle of Wight, England

4 websites you visit daily:
- www.gmail.com
- www.alongyarnallwoundup.blogspot.com
- www.baripulles.blogspot.com
- www.ucomics.com/forbetterorforworse

4 of your favorite foods:
- sopsky salad
- mum's homemade macaroni and cheese
- gyros!
- spaghetti with meat sauce

4 places you'd rather be right now:
- well, given that I'm living in a beautiful city in Europe... ;)
- Munchen (I liked hanging with Bari. The trip was too short.)
- At the pub we're having dinner at (as opposed to being on the computer at work)... I'm hungry.
- Someplace where the sun is shining...

4 places you've lived
- Wetaskiwin, AB
- dorms, Edmonton, AB
- condo, Edmonton, AB
- Prague, Czech Republic

Love you!
Elizabeth

Mǖnchen

Hi everyone! Long time, no post, I know, I know. Life's been busy!

Last week was cool. I think I last posted on Tuesday.... Wednesday was classes (3 out of 4, wow!), and then I met up with friends for dinner. Lucy loaned me her teeny sleeping bag to take to Munich with me, and it actually fit inside my shoulder bag. Crazy! It's the cutest thing ever, though I confess I was worried about whether or not I'd be warm enough. Thursday I taught my classes, went out for dinner, and wound up at pub night, which I hadn't really been planning on. There were a couple of Scots there who joined our group, and who were absolutely insane. We had a great time! They got me saying "aye" and I got them saying "eh" and everyone generally had the giggles and enjoyed themselves immensely.

Friday I taught my first class (second one cancelled, darn!), and then hustled to Hlavni Nadrazi (the train station). I caught my train to Munich, and was on my way! I like train journeys. I read or sleep or listen to music. This one was good til the transfer at Furth i Wald, where too many people got on the train. I had a seat, but there were no extras, and a woman with a baby and a toddler got on, and was standing in the hall, as there were no rooms in the inn (sorry, wrong story). I gave her my seat, because I felt bad as I watched her trying to hang onto the toddler, and keep an eye on the baby, but that meant that I had to stand in the hall! For over an hour, a whole schwack-load of us were crammed into this narrow corridor, and people kept shoving through trying to find seats (you know we're all standing here because we just didn't feel like sitting today... of course there are seats in this car!!). It's a good thing we got to Munich when we did, because I was suffering some serious train rage after having been slammed into the window 62 times!

Bari met me at the station, and it turns out my train was late (oops - downside to not speaking the language that the announcements are in). But she didn't seem too angry, and didn't remove any limbs for me. :) She promptly took me back to her flat, which is sooo cute. Her bathroom looks like a space pod... I thought I was going to take off when I flushed the toilet. :)

She fed me yummy supper, something that sounds like "kay-za-shpay-tzuh" but tastes like heaven. Then we went to a wine and cheese party that her friend hosted, where we laughed and ate delicious food and laughed some more. We headed back to Bari's, where we played 4-hand crib with some of her friends til about 4 in the morning. Phew! The sleeping bag ended up being totally toasty, and I slept like the dead - amazing!

Saturday we wandered around Munich, looking at the buildings and Bari filled me in with lots of history and stories. Her university is beautiful - You can't even start to compare it with the UofA!! We rubbed the lion's noses and made wishes (they're little statue/plaques on a wall), which I thoroughly enjoyed as well. I like wishing. :) I still wish on my mandarin orange peels, if they come off all in one piece. We spent the afternoon making me a CD (Bari has good music. Goooood music), and chatting like only girls can. We had spaghetti for dinner (damn, but that girl can cook, given that she's got a mini fridge and 2 burners to work with, and that's it!), and then went to a little pub to watch some Olympics and play crib.

Sunday, we got up lateish and went for lunch at the Hofbräuhaus - Munich's most famous beer hall. Here, I attempted (and failed) to drink a stein of dark beer. Too much beer at lunchtime... but they don't sell it by the pint! :) Bari took a picture of me (see below), and I took one of her, but I haven't loaded my pics onto the 'puter yet, so y'all have to wait a bit. Sorry!

We spent the afternoon at the old Pinakothek (art gallery) which was INCREDIBLE. I saw Rubens, da Vinci, Boticelli, Cranach... and a Hobbema! That's right - the reserve is named after a 17 C. Dutch artist. And I saw one of his paintings! It was phenomenal.

Bari got me to my train and time, and we said goodbye. *sniff* I wasn't ready to leave! Thank you, Bari, for such an incredible weekend! Man, an awesome weekend in Salzburg, and and inredible one in Munich... I'm getting so excited for Budapest in March!! :D

Now I'm back to the grind, working for the man. However, tomorrow is my half-birthday, and I do believe that the celebrating will be rather exciting and fun!! I'll try and remember to post about it.

Love,

Elizabeth!

Tuesday already?

Hi guys,

man, the days are flying by! I can't believe that it's Tuesday.

I had a good weekend. Friday was coffee and walking around the city (the weather's slowly improving, yea!) and then Bible Study. Saturday was napping and reading and housework. I also attempted to teach Chris how to play cribbage. He's obviously an arts major. He kept insisting that I was making up the rules as we went along. "What do you mean, you get a point for having a jack in the same suit as the turned-up card? That's nonsense!" I think I may have to attempt something simpler... say, crazy eights?? ;)

Tiffany and I met up and saw Lord of War that night, and it was really good. The narration is very breezy, which is bizarre given the heavy subject matter, but I do love Nicolas Cage, and this was a pretty good movie. Biggest weakness? Twenty years pass between the start and end of the film, and neither Cage nor Jared Leto age. At all. Huh. Guess all that arms dealing keeps ya' young.

Sunday was church. At the end of the service, during a very serious song that the choir (of which I am a part) was singing, someone dropped a small song book from the second floor, and it hit a man in the head on the main floor. The choir was trying desperately to maintain straight faces, but it was difficult. This was made worse by the fact that we were pretty much the only ones who saw the whole thing, so the congregation was a bit confused as to why the choristers were fighting the giggles when singing "he heard my cry/and pitied every groan." Ah, life. Tiffany and I grabbed some lunch afterwards at Paneria. After I finished that survey (a couple posts back) I realized that Prague is littered with Panerias, only Tiffany tells me that they are different here than in the States. Whoops! I studied some Czech, and saw Harry Potter for the 2nd time, since Chris hadn't seen it yet. It was better the second time.

Yesterday I taught my ONE class (3 cancelled. Three!), and then met Lucy for dinner. Afterwards, we met up with Tiffany and our friend Josh from the TEFL course. He's been in Kuwait for a couple months now, but is back on a break. It was great to see him again! We went and saw (dear lord I've seen a lot of movies recently) Hooligans with Elijah Wood. Excellent. Movie. I highly reccommend it. Lots of violence and swearing, so beware, but the plot line was excellent. I loved it!

Today is pretty ordinary. Doing some teaching (3 out of 4 classes - pretty good!), and a friend who is new to teaching is going to observe one of the classes. I'm pretty tired, so I may actually just go home afterwards and go to bed. Unheard of! Another friend has come down with the dreaded gastro-enteritis, so I'm dispensing good advice, and staying far away. I do NOT want THAT again! *shudders*

Hope y'all have a happy Tuesday.

Love,
Elizabeth

Poetry

I've seen a number of my friends doing this, so I shall, too. (Lemming! Lemming!) It's a silent poetry reading, where you post a poem up on your blog. I wrote this one in 2002, and I still like it... hope you do, too!

Whirligig

joyous childlaughter
barefoot in the grass
dance to the song of the sun's beams
beating out their rhythm on
the taut drum of my soul
face to the heavens
hands to the wind

Photo

Ok guys. This isn't the greatest photo of me. For one, you can't tell just how skinny I am now.. ;) Ne, ne... I shall never be skinny, but there's sure a lot less of me than there used to be! And also - I do NOT have something bright red stuck in my teeth. I swear! I'm not sure what David's camera did.... The others are members of my Bible study. Enjoy! (PS - the hair's pretty hot, eh?)

This was a very vain post. Let's blame it on me being tired. Love you!

Elizabeth

PostScript

Almost forgot - I dyed my hair on Monday to a dark reddish-brown, and then I straightened it yesterday for the first time in 6 months - I almost didn't recognize myself! I will try and take some photos this weekend. I look quite different now than I did when I left on August 25!! :)

Loves you!
Elizabeth

Falling Behind

Wow, I really do suck! I went from daily posts, to every other day, to... well, it's just about a week now. I guess I've been busier than I thought!

So, I last posted on Friday. I can't remember what I wrote, so I'll try not to repeat. Friday, I met a friend for coffee, and we went to the national museum (their taxidermy is not of a high quality!), and then out for coffee again. It was one of those days where you just wander around and look at stuff and chat. Then I went off to Bible study, which was, as per usual, good. A friend of mine was there that I haven't seen in a few weeks, so it was good to catch up with her.

Saturday, I spent the morning in bed, alternately reading and dozing. It was soo nice to have such a lazy morning. In the afternoon I ran a bunch of errands, and in the evening I went and saw "Walk the Line" with Chris. Excellent movie. Highly recommend it. Being me, I wanted to get up out of my chair and commence with the dancing. I managed to control myself (phew!).

Sunday was church, then out for lunch and a walk all over the city centre. In the evening I met up with Tiffany, and we cooked spaghetti together. I brought the dessert - dark chocolate and fruit for fondue! We ate it standing over the stove while the chocolate was still melting. So delicious my friends, so delicious.

Monday and Tuesday I taught my reduced number of lessons, went to the library, and had dinner with Courtney. They were very mellow days. Yesterday, I taught my classes, and then met with a friend from church (Victoria) to go out for coffee before she leaves for her native Ethiopia for a 3 week visit. We had such a good time chatting together. You know, one thing I'm getting much better at out here is maintaining conversation with people I don't know very well. I'm quite proud of myself, actually!! Later that evening, I met up with Chris, and we went for dinner at this neat little restaurant that has a live piano player. I'll definitely be going back there!

Tonight it's back to pub night for the first time since before Christmas. Tomorrow is class, and then I'm meeting Tiffany for dinner before Bible study. Saturday looks like another lazy day, but I think I'll meet up with Chris in the afternoon, and who knows what in the evening! Sunday is church, and hopefully I'll see Courtney and/or Lucy. Oh, and I suppose I should do some lesson planning in there somewhere!

Ok. Not a great update, but sufficient, I think. Have a happy day!

Love,
Elizabeth