Cozy weekend

This was a great week!

We had a substitute teacher in school, and he was awesome! He had us talking almost the entire class. It was fun to really focus on speaking, and I was really encouraged.

Here he is totally catching me taking his picture :) He did a great job this week.



The drawings in our Czech language book are just so funny sometimes. I texted this picture to Clay near the end of class on Thursday.



Our regular teacher was out of town this week, but she sent us a post card! I don't know why this impressed me so much, but it was just the sweetest thing! And she even addressed it to the "Best Class of Students", and promised to bring us koločky (kolaches) from her mother when she returns :)



Another neat thing that happened this week was that my Czech friend Keri came over and did a baking class in Czech for 2 students in my class and me. It was so fun to learn some baking and practice Czech at the same time.




Keri, Sue, Hye Won, and me. We had a great time!



This weekend has been a really good one. Our weekdays are really busy, and to make it all fit we have to run by a pretty strict schedule. So to have 2 days with a looser schedule, and some free space for spontaneity, has been the most refreshing thing for me.

We just spent some fun time with the Keller boys this afternoon. They have been teaching Clay their favorite Wii game :)



And then a little hot chocolate to celebrate it being fall and a wonderful Sunday afternoon :) (Thanks for the care package with the marshmallows, Ellsworths!)



Off to do some homework and enjoy the rest of this weekend.

Thanks for checking in!

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!