Back to school!

Well, I've made it to Prague, and has it ever been a whirlwind since touchdown! Last Thursday, I landed with no idea what to expect. Another TEFL girl I met on the plane and I got a ride to our school/hotel (they are next door) and met a few other TEFLers who had arrived early. Soon though, I was told I would not be staying at the hotel, but in an apartment quite a ways away. This seemed a little disappointing at first... before I reached the place and found a quaint, old-fashioned apartment with huge bedrooms, a cozy living area and 3 other roommates.

And close to the center! Bingo. The metro system here is fabulous; it's set up so that it's probably less convenient to drive than it is not to drive. The first weekend here, the TEFL students trickled in, and we explored the city at our leisure. Daytime walks through all of the squares, a tour of the castle, and a big group dinner at a Czech restaurant on Sunday night. Then.... Monday!! The first day of school! I'm not going to lie, I was so excited. I mean, I've been wanting to go back to school since... well, I graduated. So our big group of 30 was divided into 2 classes, and from 10-1:30 everyday we have a variety of lessons; from 2:30-6 we teach. This course is already exceeding the expectations I had for its workload- in addition to planning 2 45-min lessons a week (and I mean planning as in 7-8 page lesson plans), we have a one-to-one student (3 sessions) with a 10 page paper, 3 other papers about our Czech lessons, and of course teaching the class of Czech students twice a week! That's not to mention the fact that we're at school from 10-6 most everyday. Yesterday was our first long lesson, and it went fantastically :) The students are great, and the classroom environment is so fun and engaging. Many of these students have been coming to TEFL Worldwide for years to take our "practice" classes, so I imagine they have a good handle on us beginning teachers :) I'm looking forward to the next 3 weeks; even though it's going to be a TON of work, the group has already gotten very close, and we're having fun while working our behinds off! Last night, we all went out on a (somewhat disorganized) pub crawl. I'm still getting used to the fact that all the bars here are super smoky, but it's all part of the European culture, I suppose. I have yet to see one of these famed European dance clubs- there's a 5 story club that get a lot of talk around here... sure that will be checked out in the near future. It's almost frustrating that there is SO much to see around here, but this course is going to keep everyone pretty busy for the next 4 weeks. I'll be spending my weekends poking around the shops and markets, but I'll probably save the really tourist stuff-museums and guided tours- for after we're done with this. Might take a trip to Ikea though... the idea of furnishing my new room in Prague is just too tempting :)
The roommates and I are heading over to the annual Prague Wine Festival in an hour or so... should be a good, cultural experience! (and, we like wine!) I'm hoping they have some good Czech food there as well- it's been growing on me! I was so sure that all the meat and gravy etc. would totally gross me out- turns out, goulash isn't half bad, and fried cheese sandwiches? Yes please. Also, they have KFC and Starbucks here- probably not going to hit up the colonel, but I do see pumpkin spice in my future. ALSO- they have real Italian gelato! Okay, it must be lunchtime, I've got a one track mind! :) More pictures later!