Vienna waits for you...

So, I didn't realize how long it had been since my last post. Sorry about that! Most of last week is kind of a blur... Had class all day Wednesday and country presentations Wednesday night. We saw a presentation of Slovenia and of France and ate homemade crepes and baguettes. The French presentation consisted of naked women, naked men, a few pictures of the french landscape, a few more naked pictures, and a slide show of the french students showing some skin. Needless to say, it wasn't very riveting for me. The Slovenian one, however, was enthralling. Especially since prior to watching it, I knew NOTHING about Slovenia. By the end of it, Rachael and I had decided we wanted to go to Slovenia the next day. So that night, we did some research to find out the price of train tickets to Slovenia, a cheap hostel we could stay in, and a few must-see places to visit while we're there. We were really excited and bright and early the next day went to the train station to buy our tickets. Unfortunately, our Czech still is not very useful, and by the time we explained to the lady where we wanted to go and when, we had already lost all hope of being treated fairly. Some people in Brno love foreigners. Mainly because we are ignorant enough to be taken advantage of. It was pretty discouraging to literally watch the lady change the price on our tickets from 500 crowns to 2000 crowns (about $25 to $100) Rather than let ourselves be cheated, we decided to save Slovenia for another time when the Slovenians could share some of their traveling secrets with us and instead, go somewhere a little closer. So we headed to the student agency stand and left with round trip tickets to... you guessed it- VIENNA! We were to leave Saturday morning at 6am and leave Vienna Saturday night at 9. We figured since it was still winter and pretty cold, we would just spend the day and save a longer trip for later in the Spring when it's warmer and prettier outside. It was gonna be me, Rachael, Ruthie, and Jeongmin. We were stoked.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and spent the two hour trip to Vienna listening to music, drinking tea (compliments of the bus stewardess!) and watching Rumor Has It in Czech. Once we got to Vienna, we found our way to the information stand, picked up a few maps, located our location, and set out to stumble into whatever adventures we could. We decided not to take advantage of the trams or buses and instead walk around the city to see whatever we could see. It was such a fun day. We ate really good food, saw beautiful things, ate some more really good food, saw some more beautiful things, and ended the day with some more really good food. It was such a successful trip. We never got lost and we saw a lot of the things our friends back in Brno recommended us to see. While I love it here in Brno, it was such a refreshing break from reality to spend the day wrapped up in the beauty and romance of Vienna. Vienna is incredible and I can't wait to go back.

















































This was my absolute favorite place in Vienna. In front of that huge, magnificent castle was an ice skating rink and also an ice skating trail. Basically, you could either skate in the big open area, or skate a loop around the castle. It was absolutely enchanting. I felt like such a little girl, in complete wonder of the whole place and captivated by the beauty of it all. Unfortunately, we were running out of time, so we didn't get to ice skate. But I will go back someday and ice skate there. :)






























On the bus home. We were all sound asleep within minutes. It was such a fun day, though and worth every second and every cent. :)

He wraps the world in Light.

Tonight, as I was walking home after a long day of learning AND teaching, I had my headphones in and the song "How Great Is Our God" came on. I was very attuned to the lyrics and as I listened, I couldn't help but look around me and be reaffirmed of the truth behind the words. It has snowed pretty steadily here the past couple of days, and as a result, the streets and sidewalks have a good foot or so of crystal white snow layering them. In the darkness of the night, I was amazed at how vibrantly white the snow still was. And though snow and I are typically not good friends, I had to admit that it really is a beautiful, wonderful thing. There's not much else in life that, surrounded by nearly complete darkness, can continue to shine so bright. I started to think of the line that says "he wraps the world in light" and realized that it is so true. God is so evident here in Brno. I was trying to think of all the places I've seen God since I've been here, and I have yet to run out of places and things. He is here. He has wrapped Brno in light. There are still so many people focused on the darkness, but the city is wrapped in Light. And I have hope that the dawn is near. I know without a doubt that people are beginning to see the light, every day. Since I've been here, I have met so many solid Christians, from all over the world, worshiping God with the same passion and sincerity of heart that I have seen among Christians back home. God is not dead in Europe. He is alive and well. And he still works miracles.

Yesterday I was invited to observe a friend teaching her beginner English class. It was so much fun, and so refreshing. I didn't realize it until yesterday, but I have been desperately missing kid interaction - being around little kids. Her class wasn't big - three little seven year old boys. But they were so stinkin cute and I loved every second of being there. I plan to go back next week and hopefully (if my schedule permits it!) teach a class on Friday mornings to Czech kids. I am pretty excited.

Today I had my first teaching practice. Me and three of the other TESOL students played a BUNCH of ice breaker games with a group of 15 Czech students, ranging in age from 21 to 51. It was interesting, to say the least. They are upper intermediate students, meaning they know English quite well, but after talking with a bunch of them, realized most of their knowledge is of grammar and their weaknesses and insecurities are in conversation and listening. The students were all so gracious and very patient with us, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun teaching them and also learning from them. But it will definitely be a challenge. Being a native speaker, I feel sort of at a disadvantage because English comes so naturally for me. I've never had to think about what I say or why I say it, and for non-native speakers, this can be quite troublesome. I was told more than once that I was talking way too fast, and found myself staring into fifteen confused faces after saying something they didn't understand. Not only that, but most of them have learned English from British English speakers, which has several differences than American English. For example, today I was leading this "catch phrase" sort of game in which I would write a word on the board and the class had to prompt one of their team mates to guess it without actually telling them the word. I wrote the word "pants" on the board and listened as the students stumbled over words and eventually found out, none of them actually knew what "pants" were. They knew them as trousers. Oh, life. :) All that to say, this semester is going to challenge me and stretch me and grow me and hopefully improve my English speaking and teaching skills so that I can communicate with non-native speakers in a meaningful way. :) Magda told me today that I should get credit for being her roommate because I am constantly explaining things to her and correcting her English (only because she told me I was required to!) Today she started a journal of all the American English slang she's been learning. Some of the words include "juke box" (I told her she was like a juke box because she would sing 10 different songs in the matter of 2 minutes) "awesome" and "Bummer, dude" It's pretty fun to talk with her. She's been trying to teach me polish words and phrases too, though I'm not such a good learner, I'll admit.

Lately I've spent a lot of time with this one group of people - Stephanie from Virginia, Rachael from Nebraska, Brian and Ruthie from Wisconsin, and Jeongmin from S. Korea. We went out for Ruthie's birthday last night. I am really getting tired of going from pub to pub and drinking SO much tea (okay, i'm lying, i will never get tired of drinking tea!) but each night I sit and wonder how many more hours until I can be sleeping in my bed always ends with the moment that makes it all worth it - when everyone is just tired enough to let their defenses drop a bit and talk about real things. Every time I hang out with these people I am more surprised at how much they have experienced in life. It makes me love and understand them more and more and see more of their desperation for a FULL LIFe. Ruthie especially. That girl has seen more in her 20 years of living than anyone should ever see in a lifetime. Her stories are absolutely CRAZY. Sometimes I feel like she's just making them up based off of some horror movie she has just watched. She's a pretty regular pot smoker and gets drunk almost every night, but since she's been here, she has not smoked pot and she only goes out 2 or 3 times a week. Getting to know her has been so cool, and I know that God has brought her here for a huge purpose. I only pray I get the privilege of seeing what that is. Please be praying for Ruthie.





Brian, Ruthie, me and Jeongmin

I can show you the world...

Magda and I have been spending a lot of time together. She is so funny. We mostly just laugh together. Which is such a blessing, because language barriers tend to make joking around really hard. But she has a great sense of humor and can take a joke just as well as she can dish it out. It's so fun. Yesterday, I showed her the video on youtube of that boy singing A Whole New World, both parts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9-CS2v8wcc) Magda LOVED it and I think we've probably listened to it about 34 times since then. haha. We also spent about 30 minutes watching Pocahontas videos on youtube in different languages. There's a really cool one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooo2oNqbDhE Anyways, it's been nice to relax and just hang out and not always be out and about going and going. Especially since every person that knows anything about the TESOL program has said it will basically be the death of me. As in, a LOT of work and all-consuming. So I am soaking up free time now while I can. :)

I finally took a few pictures of our room so you can sort of get a feel for how we're living. I was wishing the other day that I had brought my bonnet and apron, because sometimes I feel like I'm living Little House on the Prairie. The only things missing are the horse-drawn buggies and wood stove fireplaces. They probably just haven't made it here yet ;)

So, without further ado, I introduce to you Vinarska 5, room 6:




The hallway entrance. Notice the lack of a door handle. You can't come in the room without a key, even if it's unlocked. It's been 2 weeks but I have yet to lose my keys. I'm hoping my history didn't come with me... :/



This is what you see when you first enter. That doorway straight ahead is the entrance to our bedroom.



The bathroom. Good thing neither of us is claustrophobic!



Our abundant storage space!!



The shower room. I don't even have words... I'll just be honest, I think since I've been here I've taken 4 showers. You can do the math. (Hey, on Little House, they only got showers once a week, so I'm doing pretty good!)



Our spacious and elegant kitchen! To the left, you can see our stove, useful for boiling water. And that's pretty much it. Under the counter in the corner is our fridge. We sometimes have a hard time finding enough things to fill it! And of course, plenty of room to store all the food we eat :)



My side of the room. I was so pleased to find that beautiful gold tapestry when I first got here. It sure makes me feel like a princess.



Magda. haha. She was most likely singing. I love that about her. Some of her favorites include Selena, Madonna, and Rihanna. haha.



Our room. That door is the door that leads to the hallway and eventually, the outside hallway.



Another view of my beautiful, oversized bed. It sure is going to be hard getting used to sharing a bed after having this huge one all to myself!



This is my couch. I know, it looks a LOT like my bed, but trust me, it is a couch. (I think back home you call them futons)



My desk.



The balcony, from the inside looking out.



View from the balcony!



I was making progress on drying these until the snow started falling this morning... I feel so Amish, though... :)

So there it is! I hope you enjoyed your virtual tour. It's okay to be jealous, we are living the good life here in Brno, that's for sure :)


Today, I don't have class so I will probably go out exploring a bit in the snow. This morning Jeongmin and I had made plans to go running, but then we saw that it had snowed and decided to try out the gym here in Vinarska. We went there and knew we had to pay but weren't exactly sure who or where or how much. There was a lady in an office so we went to try to talk to her, but she didn't speak any English. She showed us a few documents with unfamiliar words all over them and pointed to a few things and then went back to her Sudoku. We pretended like we knew what she was talking about and walked out. At that point, a younger guy came in and we asked him how we could get to the gym. He explained to us the best he could that we needed a note from our coach but that he would show us how to get to the track if we wanted. We figured it was the best we were gonna get so we followed him. I am still laughing thinking about what happened next (it's too bad I didn't have my camera with me..) He took us down a flight of stairs and through 2 locked doors (apparently the track is so valuable they need to secure it twice!) and we stepped into a darkened corridor. There were no lights and no windows. It was just a long hallway with some sort of matting on the ground. Except that the mats were all uneven and didn't match up properly and were bulging in places. The track. We decided we would probably be better off waiting out the snow. I love this place. :)

Though I walk through the wilderness...

One thing I really appreciate about being here is that God continues to provide constant joy. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I went to the first country presentation the other night (Every Wednesday night, students from different countries create a 20(ish) minute presentation about what they think are the most important things to know about their country) This past Wednesday was the Czech Republic/Slovak presentation and though it was pretty interesting, it was very discouraging. The whole thing centered around (and accurately represented the central focus of the student population in CR in general) partying and getting drunk. The student audience went wild when the subject of pivo (beer) parties and more parties was brought up. It was just really disheartening to be sitting in a crowded room of people and feel like the only one not excited about the raging parties. I came back to my room feeling the most alone I've felt since being here, and yet God reminded me that he is near to the brokenhearted. The next morning as I headed to class, I passed by this sign and had to laugh:





It's little things like that that remind me not to take life too seriously. And even when I'm feeling alone, it's okay to laugh. In fact, that little sign ended up shaping the rest of my whole day. I was much more joyful and probably more enjoyable to be around.

But it didn't stop there.

Last night, I went to the first meeting for the English Christian Fellowship which meets at the Salvation Army. I was so thankful for those two hours of being drenched in fellowship and the Word, hearing others share the same feelings of solitude and fears that I had been thinking I was alone in feeling. There weren't many of us (2 Czechs, 2 Americans (myself included), an Indonesian, a Mexican, and the Dutch woman in charge of the Salvation Army Brno, all girls) We talked about the scripture in Matthew dealing with judging and criticizing others and all left feeling humbled and renewed to go back to Vinarska and love our new friends. Thursday nights will definitely be a night I will look forward to for refilling and refreshing my spirit. It's encouraging to know there are other Christians here in Brno fighting the same battles I am and that there are people I can turn to when I need encouragement. But God continues to remind me not to seclude myself within the comfort of Christian friends. He has called me here to be light to non Christians, to share love and freedom that comes from knowing Him. And so that's what I will do. But I am thankful that he has provided me Thursday nights with my 6 Christian friends. I am so blessed.

ALSO, exactly 4 months from today I am getting married to my best friend and the funniest, most wonderful and faithful servant of Christ. I am convinced I am the luckiest girl on this planet.





Today, please be praying for the international students in general. There are about 300(ish) of us living in the confines of 4 floors. Pray that God would use our close living quarters to provide opportunities for meaningful conversations and places to let our guards down and be real with each other.




Blessed be the name of the Lord! :)

A Garment of Praise

Sorry I haven't updated this thing in a few days. I have to be honest - I really don't love to blog. In fact, there are very few spots in my heart that enjoy it at all. But I know I'll appreciate it in the end and I know a few of you crazies are actually interested in these, so I shall continue...

These past few days have been somewhat uneventful. Classes are gearing up to start (slash, have already started) so orientation activities are becoming fewer, meaning less organized fun, more spontaneous fun. Or something.

So just to recap and highlight some of the more interesting things:

Sunday morning, my friend Rachael and I braved the fierce -1 degree (C!) rain to attempt to find the only English speaking church service in all of Brno (according to a few various sources). Even though we gave ourselves 45 minutes to get there, between getting on and off all the wrong trams/buses/trollies and trying in vain to not step in massive puddles in hopes of keeping our feet semi-dry, we ended up being about 10 minutes late. The service was located in the upper room of a church and about 30 people from all over the world were in attendance. Technically it was considered a mass, though from my one time experience and Rachael's lifetime experience, we both would've considered it a very loose interpretation of Mass. The service itself was really cool. Imagine 30 people from various corners of the world squished into a tiny upstairs room all singing and sharing in English, though I would say only about 4 of us were native English speakers. The music consisted of a few voices leading the way, with 3 or 4 kids providing instrumental accompaniment in the form of wooden sticks, triangles, cabasas, bells... It was definitely different than anything I've ever been to, but in a really cool way. At one point, I couldn't help but think that heaven must be something like that... On a much larger scale, of course. While at some point I would love to attend a Czech service, I think Rachael and I are going to continue going to this one and hopefully get a chance to spend some quality time with a few of the people there afterwards! We found a really cute cafe just across the street and I ate the most delicious crepes (complete with bananas and nutella) and she had some sort of tasty espresso cake. Definitely worth a second visit, that's for sure! We decided we would treat ourselves there after church and use it as a time to pray for each other and the friends we are making at school.




Yesterday, the sun came out (first time since I've been here!) and so Jeongmin and I decided to do a little exploring in a less popular part of town. We wandered up and down streets, in and out of shops, and basically just spent our afternoon enjoying the city and the beautiful weather (a nice brisk 2 degrees - I didn't even wear a coat!) When our stomachs were so empty we couldn't bear it anymore, we went searching for the cafe Rachael and I had found in hopes of satisfying our craving for crepes. Unfortunately, I've inherited my mother's sense of direction and our quest turned into a wild goose hunt. By about the third "I'm pretty sure that's it!" we decided to give up and go in the next restaurant we saw. Little did we know it would be one of the fanciest restaurants in all of Brno. We knew the moment we walked in and saw the waiter standing there in a full tuxedo that we were in a little over our heads. But after perusing the menu and noticing that the prices weren't outrageous, we giggled to ourselves and decided to go through with it. We ended up being the only ones in the whole restaurant, and the waiter got a big kick out of us because we were certainly not dressed appropriately and the few words we knew in Czech were heavily accented, to say the least. Luckily he was very patient with us and enjoyed our own amusement. We ended up each ordering a complete lunch (originally we were just gonna go for soup and appetizers, but everything sounded so good!) I had Roast Duck over Red Cabbage with Czech Dumplings and Jeongmin had "something like pasta, i think"








My lunch. I ate every bite and loved every second of it. SO good.




Jeongmin's pasta that she later coated in Tabasco sauce after a confused look from the waiter.




The restaurant. Those people left right about the time we sat down. I'm not sure if that was just a coincidence or not... :/

After lunch, we ended up stumbling upon a similar cafe to the one we had been looking for all along and treated ourselves to - you guessed it - GELATO. Yum. So good, and SO cheap. Which is quite dangerous, really.









Today, I was supposed to have my first class for the TESOL program, Applied Linguistics. We had received an email saying to meet in classroom 301 in Building A of the Faculty of Arts at 1300. I ended up getting there about 15 minutes early and waited with two of the other American girls in the program until about 1330 when we decided maybe we had gone to the wrong location. After a fruitless search for the professor or someone who could speak English well enough to tell us where to look, we decided to go to the Czech class which started at 1400 (Originally we weren't going to be able to go) The second part of Applied Linguistics was supposed to start at 1500, so we asked our Czech teacher if we could leave early to see if the professor showed up to that, only to find out the classroom where we were supposed to meet was already being used by EU Translators. The lesson learned? The Czech university system and the American university system are not the same. One of the most frustrating things has been the lack of communication between faculty and students. Whereas we are used to being told beforehand when and where things are and what to bring and things of that nature, the Czechs have a much different way of doing things. The whole computerized system is absolutely CRAZY! Nothing is in the same place (ie, the place to register for classes is completely different than the place where you check your class schedule) It's so confusing. Tomorrow we are supposed to be meeting at 10am in the CELTA classroom to start our seminars, so we'll see how successful that is. :)

As for me, I've been feeling pretty anti-social lately. I'm not really sure why. But I've been keeping to myself a lot which is not really the best thing ever for me to be doing. So I guess just pray that I would have more of a desire to go out and meet more people and spend time with them. Especially these next few days. Magda is home in Poland straightening out her plans to stay here longer, so I have the room to myself. It's been really nice, but it just makes it a lot easier to stay in the room when nobody else is here and I can do whatever I want. Not to mention it's been snowing all day and it's absolutely frigid outside! But anyways, I need to be meeting people and pursuing relationships more, so please be praying for me!

Also, pray for my friends Toni and Laura. They are from Finland and both very sweet. They are actually engaged to be married! (Though, the date is some far undetermined far off time) They are not religious, but not antireligious, either, if that makes sense. Laura is very quiet and so nice and really does not care much for the whole party scene, whereas Toni is much more outgoing and loves a good party. Of all the conversations I've had with Laura, it's obvious that she is desperate for something more from life. Pray that God would provide one-on-one time for us (it is not very often that she is apart from Toni). Pray also that God would use that time with Laura to work in Laura and Toni's relationship. :)




"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." Isaiah 61:1-3