Lows/Highs of the week.

Lows:

*Almost crying in class- twice. This language hits a snag in my brain sometimes, ya'll. And the rest of my class seems to charge ahead like it's nic (nothing).

*Breaking a dish at the store below our apartment. I was sliding leeks into my backpack at the checkout, when the leek tops glanced the little serving plate offering samples of the shop's fine meats and cheeses. The whole thing flew to the floor, scattering sausage everywhere. And I shrank like the lady in that old sexual harassment commercial (remember?). I paid for my veggies, ran upstairs, threw my school bag down, and cried and cried. This was the final straw. The breaking point of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Yuck, what a week. Though it kind of makes me laugh looking back at it now :)

Highs:

*On Thursday this chart cured my current Czech-learning woes.

*On Friday we learned the word for gnome. 

*On Friday after school, I ended up in Old Town. We hardly ever find ourself in that part of town and it was just so fun. I ate my thermos of soup and listened to some live music. It was so good to be out, to be free from school for the weekend, and to enjoy living in Prague.

*I saw a Siberian Husky puppy. It had all of us strangers swooning as we rode up the escalator behind it.

*These GAPS appropriate green beans. Fresh green beans cooked down in chicken stock with turnips. Then fried a little with onions in lard. Clay said they tasted "like Thanksgiving". Holy cow they were good.

*The way kitty sleeps in my rocking chair with me in the mornings while I read, even though we both barely fit.

*The way our apartment smells like fall now thanks to a Yankee candle I found! 

*And being ready for Christmas, too :) I couldn't believe I found these here!

*Our Saturday walk to the farmers market and then a little picnic lunch on Zizkov hill. 

Looking back to the beginning of the week, it really was a doozy. And by the end, I was singing a different song, thankful to be where we are and loving it.

A full week.

A day in the life: Megan Edition

I thought some of ya'll might like to be able to envision our fall days. 

And so I present... A day in the life: Megan Edition!

A typical week day starts around 6am. We have a great view of the sunrise from our bedroom and kitchen. The kitty likes to go out on the porch first thing, and it's always nice to greet the morning sun. I love our mornings.

First thing is to get some broth heating on the stove along with whatever other GAPS food I'll be eating for breakfast and then packing for lunch. (Notice my handy thermoses. Mom, this was the best purchase!)

Then, depending on the morning, we either spend time praying together with the Kellers or I spend time in our room reading and praying by myself. 

That morning sky again. I can't get enough of this view from my chair.

On some mornings there is homework that wasn't completed the day before… And you can see our little Czech assistant is always ready to join in the studying.

Close to 8:30am I meet Rachel at the tram stop to catch our morning ride. 

City life without a car = occasionally standing in the rain. I am so thankful for our waterproof jackets- and for REI :)

My view for most of the day:

Sometimes I take pictures of the board because I can't write and listen at the same time. But she is just too fast sometimes! My teacher's name is Eva and she is wonderful.

Here's the board from one lesson. Czech has 7 cases and in this picture we are working on the genitive case.

My class is so fun and a true delight to be with. It's random too. Scott ended up with a tiny guitar in his hands a few days ago. The language is hard but these people make it fun :)

After our test a few days ago we all gathered outside the building to talk about how we thought we did. 

Since we were all together we decided to go grab something to eat. Here is Maho and me.

The rest of the day is a combination of studying, cooking, cleaning, meeting with the Kellers and hanging out with new people we are meeting. 

The days are full and we try to go to bed early so we can have the energy to do it all again well the next day.

These are good, busy days here in Prague. Learning the language is challenging, but the progress we are seeing is super exciting.

And these fall evenings can't be beat. Absolutely golden. Like the fall mornings, I can't get enough of them.

I hope you enjoyed a peek into my daily life. If Clay were to post, his day would look different though have the same themes: Team, prayer, language, new friends, mixed in with normal household stuff. 

We are thankful for where God has us and what he is doing in our lives.

Austria

This past Friday was St. Wenceslas day, and in his honor I had the day off from school! Our teacher told us that this was the one holiday falling on a weekday all semester so we should make the most of our 3-day weekend.

You don't have to tell us twice!

One of our favorite things to do is road-trip together, so we rented a car and drove to Austria!



The ride was absolutely gorgeous. As we got further into Austria you could start to see the beginning of the Alps.



We stayed in a cute little village. Here is the view from the window. If gnomes existed, they would live in Austria.



The other window looked down into this yard:



It was seriously the cutest little yard ever. I wanted to move into their garden shed.

The weekend was quiet and peaceful and a nice break for our tired Czech-learning brains. Every time we heard German it was a relief to know that it was a language we didn't have to try to understand or speak. It was an English kind of weekend and it felt good :)



Lots of walking and talking. Can you find us in this picture?



And oohing and aahing over all the automatic lawn mowers we saw. We stood at this point staring for a really long time.




We both had objectives for this trip. Clay wanted to a) hike on a mountain, and b) have good coffee and dessert.

Check.



Double check. (Actually triple check because we found this little restaurant at the top of the mountain we were hiking on :)



My objective was to scout out flea markets (flohmarkt in German). We found several and it was so fun to dig around.

On the way home we stopped at this gem once back across the border. Clay is a champ. Man I love digging though junk.



It was a great weekend and we came back feeling refreshed. (And for those of you tracking with my GAPS progress, this weekend was my first time traveling while on the diet! We made sure to find a place to stay that had a kitchen, then loaded up the ice chest and some of my essential kitchen utensils. It was a huge encouragement to be able to get away while on the diet. Freedom!)

So now we're back in Prague and the week is underway.

And I have my first test tomorrow!! Study study!

Ya'll have a great week!

Full swing.

We celebrated that first week of school well.

And with that, fall was in full swing!

I enjoyed spending some time with my friend Keri one day after school. The days keep getting cooler, and it was fun to sit on the porch enjoying the sunshine.



Last weekend we went on a fun hike with our friends Marek and Ewelina.





We took the train out to one town and then walked to another about 13km away. It was fun to be out of the city and see some of the country side.




Several of the paths were lined with apple trees. And they weren't bad!



Can you see the mushrooms in this car? Czechs are big foragers, sometimes spending their early weekend hours combing the forests for mushrooms. I would love to find a guide and try this. What a fun thing!



There were lots of limestone formations that were fun to explore along our walk.



Here is Clay leaning out over a cavernous pit that scared me to death.



We tried out some late summer corn.



And then finally reached our destination town. Gorgeous. Reminded us of Belgium.



We collapsed at this restaurant. It was such a neat view and fun end to our day trip.



The rest of the week was filled with language study and meeting and working with the Kellers. A full week. By Thursday my eye started twitching in class and by Friday I almost had to lay my head on the desk. This whole full-time student thing is going to take some adjustment. But it is so good, and we are both learning so much.

This weekend is a momentous one because this precious little Love…



…turned ONE YEAR old!!!



What a delight. I am so thankful for Skype, texting, and phones to soften the challenge of living so far away. Happy Birthday, Clara!

The rest of the weekend will be spent doing homework, resting my twitching eye, and snuggling under blankets to chase off this fall chill!



Have a great rest of your weekend!

Welcome back, weekends.

The week was so great! My class is so great! There are 3 Americans and 8 others from the Ukraine, China, Korea, and Japan. There is so little English spoken during class, and I am really looking forward to studying this semester and improving in Czech!

Here are some shots of my class.

This is my view during school. It's a fast-paced class- I'm going to have to study hard to keep up!

Clay enjoyed his first week too, working with a tutor and taking several classes through different language companies in town. It's fun to compare notes on what we are each learning and be able to teach each other new things.

It's also fun to study with this by my side :)

Being back in school has brought back the sacredness of the Friday night. It's like the weekend hasn't truly even begun yet so you feel like you are on stolen time. 

Last night was such a good Friday night. 

The weather has turned gorgeous and cool, so we took a walk. Sometimes we get so busy we forget we live in this gorgeous city. 

I love walking over this hill. Knowing the view is coming.

We love this city. 

This morning, we embraced weekend again with a walk to our favorite coffee shop across town.

I love the view when you turn this corner. Hello, castle!

Our favorite coffee shop. We love this place.

After that, the farmer's market. I just started the GAPS diet, so I've been keeping the Prague area farmers in business :)

There's soup on the stove and we're settling in for some Czech study. Tomorrow is a hiking day with our friends Marek and Ewelina.

Welcome back, weekends.