Wednesday Morning in Prague

This morning I went into Prague to find one of the English bookstores (The Globe) and three yoga studios I am checking out.  Although I got out at the correct metro stop and should have been within two blocks of The Globe, I still got lost and it took me about a half hour of wandering to find it.  It was still only 8:30 am and the store didn't open until 9:30.  Rather than wait I headed off to the yoga studios.  I am taking it one step at a time--first research, then find the location, then go in!  It might take me two or three days to actually enter a store, but I have plenty of time...

I found myself in a very Baroque, colorful section of the city.  It was one cupcake facade after another.  The buildings looked like meringues in mints and pale blues and peaches and pinks and soft yellows.  Really lovely.  And yet a little silly, too.  Here is a video of some exceptionally ornate buildings right by the river.

This street is where a yoga studio is.  The picture doesn't do justice to the yellow, green, and pink colors of the buildings.

There are lots of onion-y topped towers and intricate balconies and windows.  

Breaking up the Baroque and neo-Baroque is the Fred and Ginger building, or Dancing House, designed by Frank Gehry with the Czech architect Vlado Milunic.  It stands directly across the street from the above building.  The Fred and Ginger building looks a little like two dancers, hence the names.  

To me it also looks a little drunk.  

I bought a funny croissant at a bakery and made my way to Old Town Square.  I was hoping to tour the old Jewish section of Prague but I was so worn out from my directionless wandering that I only strolled through.  I will return another day.  I enjoyed visiting the synagogues and museums at the Jewish ghetto in Venice, so I definitely want to check out Prague's.  

Then it was back to the metro and back to the bus stop and back to Nove Straseci.  

Monday--Pool and Pedicure

On Monday morning I wandered around the village some more.  Here is a rather shaky video of the home for abandoned children, a lovely garden shop that my Czech mom frequents, and the elementary school.

  

When the boys got home from school they went swimming.  There is a semi-indoor pool in the backyard.  I  have gone swimming a few times in the morning.  The pool is not very big so swimming laps is hard, but it is an "endless" pool.  You push a button and the water starts shooting at you.  (It sounds more violent than it is.)  It is a water treadmill.  I have always wanted to try one of those, and now it is right in the backyard!

Anyway, the boys don't use it to swim for exercise.  They like to cling to the edge of the pool right where the stream of water starts and then let go and shriek as the water pushes them away.  They also like to position themselves so the water pulls their swimming trunks off.  Boys.  

Here they are in the pool.

After dinner one of Eva's friends came over to give us pedicures.  She is on maternity leave from a nail salon and is making house calls on the side.  It was certainly different to have a pedicure at home!  She didn't speak any English but she was extremely nice and my feet look great!  The boys had never seen a pedicure so they pulled up chairs next to me and watched with their mouths open.  

The Czech Republic gives mothers lots of paid maternity leave.  They get one or two years of full or almost full salary and then a third year of slightly decreased pay.  And their employer has to guarantee a job for them when they return.  I asked Eva about multiple children, and she said that you get the same benefits for each child.  So, if a woman spaced it right, she could have one child every three years and get nine years of salary with a job waiting for her.  I think that is what Eva said.  

I have now overseen bath time for all three boys and nap time for the baby.  I have fed the baby his various meals and changed lots of diapers without gagging (aren't you proud of me, Mom?).  And I have put all three boys to bed.  I feel much more useful.

Now that I am more comfortable with the home routine I am looking for life outside the house and the village.  Unfortunately there is really not much here for me in Nove Straseci.  I think you could call it a bedroom community.  As far as I can tell most people commute to Prague or bigger towns for work.  The gym has a few treadmills and weights, but no fitness classes, and there is no movie theater or exciting shopping.  They do have a nice soccer complex and clay tennis courts.  Eva likes to play tennis so hopefully we can play together.  I have never played on clay, but it looks like fun!

There is lots to do in Prague but it is about an hour's journey--35 minutes on a bus to the closest metro stop and then about 30 minutes to the city center.   I am looking into Czech language classes or maybe Italian.  I know Czech makes more sense while I am here but I enjoyed speaking Italian.  I am also looking into yoga studios in Prague.  There are three or four that teach classes in English.  I wouldn't mind taking in Czech (I took fitness classes in Italian in Venice and it was a nice way to learn the language!) but I would love to meet some English speaking people.   I am also going to stake out the English bookstores and perhaps the study abroad offices...I feel a tad isolated here and I would like to meet some people close to my own age who speak English.  I have a few contacts here but if anyone knows anyone...

Sometimes this whole thing seems quite silly for me to have done.  I mean, a shy introvert homebody like me moving to a tiny town across the ocean where I don't speak the language and know no one?  But it will get better.  I am having small waves of homesickness pass over me, but I have only been here for two weeks.

I am starting to plan little weekend trips.  As this is their summer vacation, too, I will not have many weekends free.  They have trips planned for almost every weekend this summer.  But that will be a nice way to travel around the Czech Republic.  

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your comments!  I love hearing from you!

Shopping Trip

Today the weather was crazy--beautiful blue skies and sun one moment and then pouring rain and tremendous thunder the next.  Eva, the mom, said that the weather is not usually so freakish.  Eva and the baby and I headed to a shopping mall on the outskirts of Prague since we couldn't go outside.  (The two older boys were with their grandparents.)

The shopping mall has an attached parking garage, but rather than take stairs or an elevator to the mall entrance, each floor of the garage has glass doors leading directly to the shops.  It was weird to go from underground concrete parking garage to artificially bright mall in one step.

It was also weird because there is a HyperMarket (I think it is their word for supermarket but it makes me chuckle every time) in the middle of the shopping mall.  It looks as though a Harris Teeter or Whole Foods or Lowes was pushed against the mall--picture walking through the big entrance to Belk or Dillards or Macy's and instead of a department store there are aisles of food.  And even weirder (word of the day) is that people will come out of the HyperMarket (chuckle) and then stroll around the food court or in and out of stores--pushing their loaded grocery carts.  Weird!

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, but I would like to share some of the store names.  There is a western-y clothing store for hip young people called Marlboro Classic.  A little down the mall was Pall Mall Clothing, a similar clothing store.  Cigarette chic?

The Chevy Cafe with old fashioned Coca Cola signs and pictures of Marilyn Monroe seemed popular, and there was a line for Asian Sun.  The customers were probably drawn there by its imaginative slogan, "Good Food."  But my favorite name/slogan of the day was the delightfully contradictory sign over a nail salon-- "Euro Nails: American Style."  Classic.

To liven this text up I will now add some pictures.  My goal is to get a picture of the baby with his super cute chubby cheeks as well as a picture of me to prove that I am indeed here.  But for now these will have to do.  This is a rather menacing view of the statue of Czech reformer/heretic, (depending whose side you are on,) Jan Hus against the spires of the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn in Old Town Square.  The statue is part of the fountain in the middle of the square dedicated to Hus.  Sort of a cruel, ironic joke to have a fountain...since he was burned to death for his reformist views.

This is a view of Prague from Prague Castle.

A slice of Venice in Prague!  This is right next to the Charles Bridge.  

This has nothing to do with the Czech Republic.  Just couldn't resist.

Doors and other things

I saw some beautiful doors this morning in my village.  They were all on one normal looking street. 

I also saw a very sleek black rodent lying dead on a country road.  (No image.)  

In Prague on Monday I saw this sign which made me chuckle.  

Across the street I saw this intriguing advertisement on a bakery window.  I have no idea what "Hot Love" would be.

My Village

This morning I wandered around Nove Straseci, my village.  It is rather small and quiet, though at noon it was bustling with people on their lunch breaks and mothers picking their kids up from preschool.  The image above is the main square.  It is about the size of a college soccer field.  Two roads line the square on the long sides and buildings, the city hall and the high school, stand at the short ends.  There are several teeny tiny grocery stores, a few cafes and restaurants, a shoe store, an outdoor store, an electronics store, a few clothing stores, and some other miscellaneous shops.  But--and I almost squealed when I saw it--there is a knitting and needlepoint store!  Hurray!  And the yarn on display in the window was "Carmen" brand.  It is a sign!  I will visit soon.  

Today I just strolled.  I found the post office and the church (yellow), and a cute little sweets shop that my Czech mom recommended I try.  

 

This lovely decrepit but blooming corner was right across from the church. The town is a funny mix of beautiful, charming old buildings and run-down Communist era (or so I assume) featureless monstrosities.  I liked the contrast in this view by the bus stop.  

The green and beige apartment building looms over the ancient looking barn.  I recognize my own bias towards "charming," "picturesque," views...perhaps the green block thing is very comfortable to live in.  I have talked with my Czech parents a lot about the shift from Communism and the Velvet Revolution in 1989 (Jan was in college at the time and went on a sort of lecture tour to high schools to inform students about what was happening since news was being censored.)   They point to advantages and disadvantages (mainly advantages.) For instance, bus and train service is not nearly as extensive now as it was under Communist rule.   Transportation companies don't make enough money going to small villages so they have cut down their routes.  The Communist government wasn't running the services for profit, so they were able to have buses and trains running through the small villages frequently.  So grocery stores and other businesses were supplied more often, and the villages could more easily sustain themselves.  Now some of these towns are losing residents.  And there ends that tangent.  

I didn't take many pictures because it felt very intrusive, like I was a spy or a hard-nosed reporter a la Hildy Johnson.  This is not a tourist town.  I was the only one walking around with a camera.  I am sure I didn't stick out as much as I felt I did; regardless of that reality I tried to be very sneaky with my camera.  It felt rude to be taking pictures of the village.   I will sneak around another time, perhaps early in the morning or in the evening when there aren't so many residents milling about.  The "main drag," if one may call it that, is about a six minute walk from my house.  I love being able to walk everywhere!  

 

Welcome!

This is my blog about being a nanny in a small village about 35 minutes outside of Prague.  I have been here less than a week and I am still exploring the village, learning about the three boys I am looking after, and trying to pick up some Czech...The parents speak great English, but the boys (ages 7, 4, and 9 months (obviously)) do not.  Not many people in my village speak English, either, but hopefully I will learn some more Czech so I can communicate.  It is strange to have a four year old chattering away and feel that he is much more articulate than I am!  The seven year old understands that I do not speak Czech, but the four year old will speak to me very earnestly in Czech and I have to remind him that I do not understand.  He asks me about every ten minutes if I speak Czech, as though suddenly I will be able to understand him!  I wish.

I have a great third floor apartment with a big, light room and bathroom.  This is one of the views from my windows.  The blue, green, and yellow bins are the garbage and recycling containers.  They are pretty serious about recycling here.

Everyone is very welcoming and patient with me as I learn their routines and customs.  The food is different but good.  They eat a very big, heavy lunch with soup, meat, pasta, rice, bread...and then a light dinner of a salad or bread and cheese and fruit.  So I am adjusting to that.  

On Friday afternoon we drove about an hour away for the mom's company's retreat.  The company owns a summer camp type place so we stayed there.  There were games for the employees' kids and bouncy castles (The Office anyone?) and lots of barbecues and grills.  It was fun to run around with the children.  You don't need a common language if you are playing tag!  We also played some soccer.  Finally something I could do!  I think the seven year old was excited to see that I can play with him.  I was sure I was going to fall down (it rained on and off so the grass was slick) and pull something or break my ankle and then they would have to take me to the hospital and it would be a huge mess.  I fell one time--got too tricky against a nine year old opponent--but other than wet jeans I was fine!  

This is Honzik (7) and Lukas (4) watching the bouncy slide inflate.  They are pretty cute!

I will try to update this blog regularly...check back for more!

Day in Prague

On Monday I spent the whole day in Prague as a tourist.  Jan (the dad) works in Prague so he drove me to a metro station right outside of Prague and then we rode into town.  I found my way to Old Town Square.  I got there about 8:30 and it was quiet and fairly deserted.  The square is such a lovely contrast between light, colorful buildings and the ominous Church of Our Lady Before Tyn that towers over the square.  Every time I see it I think of how perfect Malifecent's purple dragon would look clutching the towers and breathing fire.  

At 9:00 I watched the medieval morality play above the astronomical clock.  On the hour, a figure of Death pulls a golden bell signaling the beginning of the performance.  Two doors above the clock slide open and the twelve apostles glide out.  Vanity, Corruption, and Greed dance below them with Death.  Rather neat.  

According to my guidebook, the Municipal Council blinded the clock's designer so that he could never make a clock surpassing Prague's masterpiece.  Rough.

I must admit that after watching the apostles I popped into Starbucks for a coffee.  With my latte in hand I felt brave enough to venture out of Old Town Square and to the Charles Bridge. Of course I got lost even though on the map it looked very easy and straight.  But that's okay.  I expect to get lost and I am astounded if I actually find my way the first time.  Besides, sometimes I find the most interesting things in my confused wanderings.  For example, I saw a homeless man defecating on the street when I was trying to find the Charles Bridge.  A little later I stumbled onto the Canadian Embassy.  So that was nice.

Eventually I found the Vltava River and the Charles Bridge.  It is under construction so half of the walkway is covered in scaffolding and tarps.  This distracted from the stately beauty of the bridge and its somber statues.  Then to Prague Castle!  Here is the view of the Castle from across the river.

Amazingly, I got lost trying to find that, too.  Even though it is straight up the hill and it is so huge you can practically see it from every street.  It is the biggest castle complex in the world.  But I wasn't totally enthralled by it.  I enjoyed St. Vitus Cathedral (video) and the Riding Room with its delicately ribbed ceiling (2nd video), but besides those, and I hate to sound so ignorant, it looked like a lot of other palaces.  

I had an excellent lunch at Bohemia Bagel down the hill from the castle, and then I wandered back across the river to Wenceslas Square.  After some browsing in various shops it was back on the metro to the bus station where I caught a bus back to Nove Straseci, my village.  I hope to go to Prague two or three times a week.  I have most mornings off, and I will have weekends free in a few weeks.  They asked me to hang around Nove Straseci for the first weekends so that I can spend more time with the boys and become fully integrated into their lives. 

Thanks for reading!  I will keep experimenting with pictures and video and formats...