A Relaxing, Eventful Weekend; Plus a Little More

So, many of you probably thought I got lost somewhere in the wilderness of the Czech Republic or was kidnapped by some gypsies. However, for you teachers, you probably understand my lack of posts. The amount of time I am putting into planning and doing extra tutoring has been tremendous. I know have my regular teaching jobs, which are 24 lessons per week plus about 10-12 tutoring pupils. Most days I get home completely wiped out. The more organized I get, the more free time I believe I will have. This is actually my first week using a lesson plan book and it is saving me more time than I could have ever imagined.
As I mentioned before about getting kidnapped by gypsies, it brings me to a very interesting and disturbing fact about some of the Czech people. I am sure it is not all of them, or probably not even close, but I was sitting at a café with a couple of the men from my adult course, working on their English. It was then that a person of color walked by and one of the men tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, hey, look at the gypsy.”
It turned out as I explored the topic a little further with the two men that all people of color were referred to, at least by those two men, as “gypsies.” They told me about the fact that the Czech Republic had been almost completely a Caucasian population. And now, since the fall of communism in their country all these gypsies were moving there and they were good for nothing. All they do is spent their time at the pub and casinos, never working. As one of the students put it, “They just live off the government.” As soon as he said that, his face took on a look of such disgust and hatred. It looked like he was about to spit on the ground or something.
In our conversation, as these were students of mine, and I did not believe I could communicate my true dislike of what they were saying I simply went into American’s history of integration and the struggles it took. I explained that changes must come through education and positive actions on both sides.
There were actually three other very interesting aspects of this conversation beyond the fact I had a complete misconception of what a gypsy was. I had always thought they were simply, from my own stereotypes, traveling men and women who traveled from place to place, would maybe put a curse on you or tell you your fortune. As I think about it, as I write these words my conception may be close to as bad as theirs. However, the other interesting occurrences during the conversation, first, whenever the two men spoke about their feeling about gypsies they would always speak in a whisper as if they were not, and I am sure, proud of their racist remarks. Second, we had just finished talking a little about politics of both the US and of the Czech Republic, and both men had told me they considered themselves as liberal. Lastly, and the most strange occurrence, as the men were completing their rant about “The good-for-nothing gypsy,” a women, young, and of a much darker complexion came and sat down. She was a friend of one of the two men. They both treated her politely and neither showed any signs of hostility toward her. Was she not a gypsy in their eyes? Was I missing their definition of gypsy? Was it only certain people of color who were gypsies?
Well, beyond that, which I did find extremely intriguing, Andrea and I have tried to keep ourselves very busy. Just to let you know this is the third time I have sat down to write this one post, please forgive me if the post seems a little scattered. Anyway, like I said Andrea and I are trying are hardest to do whatever possible to occupy our free time. Me, I have spent a large portion of that time reading and writing, trying to get some work prepared to submit to several Universities for Graduate School. When I am able to be with Andrea on the weekends, including Friday, and on Wednesday nights, the one night I have off from tutoring we have a lot of fun. I have probably found it much more fun than Andrea. We do not do anything special, but the time we get to spend together is without distraction. We never find ourselves sitting in front a television not saying a word to one another. I find it to be building our relationship stronger and stronger each day. Doing something like this, for any relationship would be unbelievable, I know it is not possible to go somewhere like this for as long as me and Andrea are here. The discovery of what is your relationship and how strong is your relationship can be answered most definitely with a period of time where the distractions are few and the time discovering one another is tremendous.
As for what Andrea and I have been doing lately, well after our trip to Vienna we had to take it easy on the traveling. So, last weekend we just spent a quiet, but unbelievably fun weekend in her small city. One night we went to the movie, “Inglorious Bastards.” The funny part, we asked to make sure the movie was in English and, yes, some of it is in English. However, there are many parts that are in French and German. Andrea and I were left to read Czech subtitles to French and German monologue. It took a lot of concentration, but I do believe I may have some ideas about what was happening in those scenes, no idea what was being said, but some understanding of the context of the scene.
It was after the movie that we jumped on a bus back to Andrea’s new apartment (I’ll explain more in a little bit). The bus explicitly read that it was going to the HD Terminal, which is where Andrea’s apartment is. Even as I got onto the bus I said to the driver, “HD Terminal.” He nodded his head with a sign, or at least what I thought was a sign, of, yes, we are going to the HD terminal. I now had the bus schedule, which told me we were headed in the right direction, and I had the bus driver give me confirmation. But no, about ten minutes into are ride I turned to Andrea and said, “I don’t recognize anything were passing.” Right along with my observation about two minutes later the bus driver pulled up to a stop, stood out of his driver’s side, made a big sweeping arm motion, said something in Czech, and everyone exited the bus. Andrea and I were once again kept from very a completely carefree night once again by the wacky Hradec Kralove bus system; maybe it is punishment for me never taking the time to accent the letters in the city’s name.
We were somewhere in Hradec, but neither of us had the slightest idea where. Surprisingly, and luckily, out of nowhere someone started speaking a mix of English and Czech to the bus driver. It was a med student from the Philippines. He had already been living in Hradec for a year and had learned a little Czech. He was about to start his second year out of five at the University in Hradec. He spoke perfect English, which he learned while studying as kid in the Philippines, and when learned this all from him as we walked in the direction of the town square. Our new friend was able to at least get the bus driver to point which direction the main terminal was in. We had been dropped off on the complete opposite side of the city than where Andrea’s new apartment was located. The trip didn’t take too long. We had our new Filipino friend to chat with and ask questions to. To me, the trip flew by as we enter the town square, Andrea and I had are bearings, and our Filipino guide departed from us. He did not want to come into the pub we stopped at to rest. Interestingly enough, he told us he was just one of eighty students from the Philippines that were studying at the University.
After one drink we made it back to Andrea’s new apartment away from the mean and cruel hotel cernigov (I won’t even capitalize the hotel’s name, that is how bad it is). I like Andrea’s new apartment. It is a basement apartment, but she does have much more room than at the aforementioned place. I can stay there, a definite plus. No ladies at a front desk acting rudely. The apartment did not come with a kitchen though. That was until today, Andrea called and told me her school had purchased a refrigerator and it had been delivered. I think, she and I will look into getting her a hot plate and she will be set. Most importantly, I think maybe to her more than me, is the fact she now has 24-hour wireless Internet access. To say it has helped brighten her sprits would be understatement.
Now Saturday was actually the experience I truly enjoyed, not that I did not enjoy the m. It would be impossible to explain with full credit due, but I will try to give you an idea nevertheless. Saturday was the day on some big festival in Andrea’s city. It was held in one of parks and I have no clue what it was celebrating. (This is now the fourth time I am sitting down to right this. It is probably completely incoherent and way too long, as I have just noticed. So, I will try to wrap it up quickly)
The highlights of the fair, which I thoroughly enjoyed, as I said before, were the food and the shows. First, the food, both Andrea and I got something like pizza. I was a very doughy and very delicious deep-fried bread of some sort with ketchup or pizza sauce, we couldn’t agree on exactly what it was. Then on top of the sauce was un-melted freshly shredded cheese. Some of the cheese melted on top of the sauce and I ate mine down quickly. Then the number of pastries at it must have been twenty to thirty different booths was particularly nice, I believe that has been one of my favorite parts of this whole trip, trying each and every pastry I can get my hands on. Before we had lunch we enjoyed watching a baton twirling competition. There had to have been over fifty teams competing. I was very funny and at the same time pretty darn amazing. After lunch, we watched a puppet show for a few minutes, and then a dog Frisbee catching competition, the dogs were definitely a remarkable sight to see. They were so well trained. The fair was so much more, but I will leave it at that. Hopefully, some pictures will be posted on Andrea’s Facebook page and it will help do it justice.
That night we went out to a nice dinner and the next day we spent lesson planning for the next week of school, which definitely was a major help this week. My classes ran much smoother. Anyway, I did my best to wrap it up quickly. Andrea is coming to my small town tonight as I am playing basketball with the locals. Then tomorrow we leave for a weekend in Prague. I should have some fun adventures and misadventures for you after the weekend and I really do plan on trying to stay on top of our trip for you much better. So, stay tuned.