I wasn't originally planning on writing so much on every single week of school, but I keep having new experiences everyday that are worth writing about. So here's to another long one! : )
On Monday, it was already the beginning of my second week of school. This week we would start going to all of our classes and getting out of school at 2:30 instead of 12:45, like the first week. After school on Monday I went to hang out in the city center for a little while until I met up with another exchange student. There are supposed to be 5 exchange students between the two clubs in Brno, but so far I am the only one from my club, and Ana (who is from Mexico) is the only one from her club. She and I had been trying to meet up since school had started and we had finally done it! We wandered around for a bit until going to a café that she had been to earlier. We got drinks and just talked about our exchanges and our families here and back home. It was nice to hang out with someone who is the same age, and having the same big experience as me. Most people can try to understand what we are going through, but nobody will every fully understand what it's like to go on exchange for a year unless they have done it themselves.
Tuesday was another long day of school where I didn't understand anything, but I am still enjoying just being in the school environment here. After school a couple of girls invited me out for coffee, so of course I said yes. We went to a cute café and talked for awhile. We asked each other many questions about what we like to do on breaks from school or in our free time. After coffee with them, I made my way to Robert's office, which I have now mastered how to get to without any maps or directions. He took me home and we had a little snack before we did some chores outside. We went and picked some walnuts and.... more pears because why not? After more picking we came in and made a quick dinner for when Zora and Ruda got home from the city. For awhile I felt like my Czech was taking a break from really progressing, but I can feel it starting to get going again.
Wednesday I luckily didn't have to be to school by 7 like the week before. Instead I didn't start until 9, but Ruda started at 8 and both of my host parents needed to be at work. So we left at our usual time. At school, my I.T. teacher is determined for me to understand what we are doing in class so I am attempting to learn how to program something.... I think. I had to stay late in that class to figure something out, so for the first time since I started school I ate lunch by myself. When I first started school that was one of my biggest fears, having to eat by myself, but instead I actually didn't mind being alone for once. After lunch my Czech language teacher asked me to write down all of the Czech words and phrases I knew so that he could see where I was at. I was proud to fill one page of a mini notebook, which isn't much but it's a start. I also have learned a small bit of German now. "Ich bin Aurelia. Ich bin sechzehn. Ich komme aus Amerika". After school Ruda taught me how to take the buses home from the city, and it turned out to be even easier that I had thought it would be. Once we were home, I didn't have much to do, so I decided to take a shower and teach myself how to french braid my own hair. I am able to french braid other people's hair, but I have never been able to do it on myself. I was actually quite successful for only trying a couple of times. While I had been braiding my hair, Robert and Michal had been picking another trailer load of pears and mashing them to put into more barrels. When I was done with my hair, I helped Robert mix sugar into buckets of water to add to the barrels. Robert told me that he had gone to pick up some of the alcohol from the distillery from the barrels of pears from a month before. He said that they got about 34 liters of 70% alcohol, which they of course dilute down to somewhere around 50% alcohol. After making more barrels of pears, we had a quick dinner before going down to the club.
Thursday was another normal day of school except we ended the day with our first PE class. Pretty much the whole class was playing different running games after warming up with running. So as most of you know, I hate running and if you see me running, there's probably something to run from. I guess saying yes to everything was the only reason I was running in PE, but in the end I made it through the class and participated in every activity. After school I walked through the city center to the main train station with a couple of girls from my class. There, I said goodbye as they left to go home, and I walked back to Zora's office. Zora and I had plans for the next few hours since we had to stay in the city to pick Ruda up from baseball practice a few hours later. She and I went to one of the bigger shopping malls and shopped for 3 hours. We were on a mission to find me some comfortable shoes to wear for dance class, and a dress for the class as well. After trying on at least 20 different pairs of shoes in 5-7 shops, of course I went with one of the first few pairs I tried on. Then was time for finding the right dress. Luckily that didn't take too long, since I was tired from walking around so much after running in PE. We found a few cute dresses in the second store we tried and I had to send pictures to my mom to help decide. After all that shopping we stopped in one last shop to grab a quick snack and coffee before going to pick up Ruda. We got home and of course I had to put on the dress and shoes all together for some pictures to send to everyone. I think Zora and I would agree we had a good and successful first host mom and daughter shopping experience.
Friday I didn't start school until 9 again, but we had to leave a little extra early for school since the day before they closed another road to the city for construction. Since we got to the city so early I went to Zora's office and took a nap before I walked to school. On Thursday I had been grateful that it wasn't raining like it was in Eugene, so of course it started raining on Friday. Nothing special happened at school on Friday which was a nice relaxing way to end the week. I was super sore from all the running the day before so I was happy to hear we would be going in the car for a few hour drive to Plzeň.
We had another fun filled weekend with the family that deserves it's own post.
I can certainly understand and appreciate your struggles with learning a second language! After almost four years in Colombia my Spanish is just enough to get by and keep me out of trouble! And hearing your struggles reminds me to be more patient with my ESL students. Thanks sweetie.
of course another great post. As I try to remember things from my history, especially the special events, I am appreciative of your !writing, and of course your adventures. Would love to also hear how you feel about things, ie the trying times? the challenges? it is all GREAT!