Another Sunday

I didn't end up going mushroom picking last week.  I got an invitation to go to Prague for a free rock concert with my friend Matěj instead.  I stayed late after class to help Petra prepare our classroom for her teacher's meeting by drawing a mural of sorts on her blackboard-or blue-board, rather.  We were talking for a while and listening to music, and I found out that she read my resume and hand-selected me to be the teacher at Husova!  She also asked me if I would consider working directly for the school next year, because my company is expensive and they would rather pay someone directly.  I really like my job there and the life here so it is tempting, but I am pretty sure I want to go home and get something settled there before I go off traveling again...I said I would think about it more over Christmas.  Anyway, I finished the autumn scene on the blue board and left from there to pick my passport up from the office and catch the bus to Prague.  I made it to the festival without any problems, but my friend wasn't able to get there until a few hours later, so I bought myself a burger and a beer and made it my mission to enjoy the music and find some people who spoke English.  It wasn't much of a challenge, since the music was great and I ran into some people who were fun.  We ended up going on two rides at the adjacent carnival together:  A mini roller coaster and something that spun around and lifted you up...called "Twister", I think.  The group was really fun, but I left them and met up with my friend once he got there, since I only had about 15 minutes left to hang out before I had to leave and make the trip back home or I would miss the last bus to Liberec and not be able to make it to school on time with the first one in the morning...It was a tempting option, but I'm a teacher now, not a student.  

While on the bus, I ended up in a long conversation with the guy who was sitting next to me.  He is a teacher at the technical university here in Liberec and was on his way back from a trumpet gig in Prague.  He invited me to come to the next show that isn't too far and told me yesterday that he knows a band looking for a singer...I'm going to check them out this Thursday or next and see if it's a good fit!! Very excitied.  Anyway, I was supposed to go away with the 30-yr-olds for a birthday hiking weekend at a cottage, but Misa, the poor birthday girl, was too sick =(.  Instead, I decided to join Laura in Prague for the weekend an hour before the bus left.  We went to book a hostel but remembered that we have a coworker and friend Nicole living there who said we could crash at her place.  We were very close to missing our bus to Prague...we literally had to run with our bags and JUST made the tram with enough time to get to our bus before it left.  We had a crazy fun night with Laura's friend from home, Nicole and two of her good guy friends, though I have no idea what hour in the morning we got back and went to bed at.  I found pieces of a phone on the ground in front of one of the discos, out it together, and texted the recently talking friends to find out how I could return the phone.  Luckily the phone was much like mine in the States so I could use it, the guy spoke English, and it was pretty easy to meet him in front of the museum the next day.  Laura and I passed through a techno festival parading through the center of Prague on our way to meet the man who lost his phone, and I almost laughed aloud when I realized it was the guy from Ireland who proposed marriage to me before he even introduced himself to me.  Fun Friday led to a pretty lazy Saturday, though, and Laura and I couldn't stay at past 1:30AM with the guys from the night before at a birthday party at a bar because we were too tired.  

Our trip back today was rough to say the least.  I accidentally bought a child's ticket and got stopped by a controller and had to pay 800ck-roughly $50.  Kind of frustrating because it was an honest mistake and I'm not rich, but it certainly could have been much worse.  When we finally did get on the tram, we witnessed a mugging of an old lady in our section of the tram.  We heard a commotion and saw an old lady pulling the hair of a woman in her early thirties who had been rummaging through the lady's purse while she was being distracted by the girl's guy friend or something.  The tram doors closed quickly and the old lady was seriously ruffled and upset, but it was so fast there was nothing anyone could do.  I'm not sure if those two were able to nab anything of hers, but she was so frazzled!  Shaking uncontrollably, it was horrible.  In contrast, the two 17-year-olds across from Laura and I were making out and groping each other as if they were in a private space somewhere.  Really a disturbing series of events.  This may be too much information, but I had a cough to to congestion all morning (most likely due to inhaling too much cigarette smoke), and as we sat there and wondered where our day went wrong, I coughed again, turned to Laura, and said "On the bright side, I think I just coughed up a booger." I know it's disgusting and I'm sorry I wrote it, but you must know that we both fell into laughter that we could not shake for five minutes straight or so.   

I am home and happily so, at this point, but must get to my lesson planning and such.  

Dobrou noc!