Learning Czech and Upcoming Vacation

I hope it's been a good week for everyone. My week was very nice. Karen, Amy, and I spent most of Sunday in a Pizzaria with two of my beginner students (Jana, pronounced Yah-na, and Lucka, pronounced Loots-ka) and one of their friends (Hanka). They were able to teach us a lot about the Czech language. Karen, Amy, and I are the only teachers here who are actively pursuing a knowledge of Czech. That's understandable given the difficulty of the language and the miniscule amount of time available to us. I'm about to give up reading on the metro in the mornings and evenings in order to study Czech and Spanish full time. Language learning is more than learning vocabulary and grammar. It's learning an entirely different way of thinking about the world, which is right up my alley.

Anyway, Monday and Tuesday were Czech national holidays, so we didn't teach our intensive courses on those days. I had a regular course to teach Monday evening, but other than that my days were free. This was an incredible chance for much-needed rest. On Monday Jerry, Tanya, and I went over to the girls'apartment and ate breakfast which Sissel and Marsha prepared for everyone. The rest of the day was spent hanging out and staying away from the school as much as possible. Then on Tuesday I played squash with Marsha and Sissel in the morning and relaxed until Spanish class at 6:15 in the evening. This coming weekend is our free weekend, which means that we are getting out of Prague once again. This time Tanya, Marsha, Sissel, Jerry, and I are going to a spa town called Karlovy Vary. It's another typical European tourist town, with nice architecture and plenty of nature surrounding it. I'm sure you'll hear more about it once we get back.