December 20

Well, today was the last day of school before Christmas vacation.  This was a tough week, because I had lots of problems outside of class, and it was hard to concentrate on finishing well (especially since the students are all too happy to not concentrate).  I have enjoyed my time here so far at Gymnazium Nad Aleji, and have gotten to be friends with several of my students.  I don't know what next year will bring, though.  Everything seems up in the air.  God is faithful, though.

Over the break, I will probably relax, and do a little Christmas shopping.  Dad is coming to Berlin, Germany, on the 26th, and I will take a train up there to meet him.  We'll spend a few days there, then come back to Prague on the 30th.  I won't have a chance to send my Christmas presents before he gets here, so I'll send them back with him when he leaves.

As I said, everything is up in the air right now, and I don't know how long it will be before I can update the Web site again.  Probably mid-January.  I hope to work a little on a history of the Czech Republic, since I promised it a long time ago and haven't done any work on it besides reading.

Merry Christmas to you all!

December 7

Last night was the big Maturita Ples ("Senior Ball") for Gymnazium Nad Aleji.  It was held at the Lucerna Music Hall downtown, close to Wenceslas Square.  There are a few major differences between their ples and the American prom:

First, it is not only the seniors who are invited.  Anyone can buy a ticket, and it seemed that more than half of the school was there on Friday.  It was held in a huge oblong music hall, about the shape of a roller rink, with a bandstand at one end.  All of the teachers sat in private boxes at the other end, and either side had rows of tables packed with students.  There were three levels in the hall, including the dance floor level.

Second, Czech students know how to dance.  They don't simply fling themselves around and call it dancing, like Americans do (well, like I do); they all take lessons for several years leading up to their ples.  They all know how to waltz, to jive, to foxtrot, and several other dances that I've never heard of.  There is a student-teacher dance, and I had to learn how to waltz for that.  I only danced (with a partner) one other time, when one of my students taught me (well, tried to teach me) how to jive.  Later on, someone on the bandstand taught some dances that no one knew how to do, and so I felt much more comfortable getting out there for them.

Third, there are dancing exhibitions.  Several students from the senior class choreographed two dances (at different points in the evening, with different outfits), and they were very well done.  The girl who danced with me for the student-teacher dance, Veronika, was one of them.  I felt terrible for her, since she was such a good dancer and she had to endure me stepping on her feet. 

There are innumerable other differences, as well (like the throwing of money for the senior classes into big parachutes).  The pictures that I took on my digital camera didn't turn out well, but hopefully the pictures on my 35mm one will.

December 1

November was a month of vacations.  It seemed that I could barely get settled into a teaching routine before the school or the government insisted that I take a few days off.  The first major vacation took place during the third week of November.  There was a huge NATO summit here in Prague, wherein hundreds of delegates and thousands of journalists descended on the city to discuss what should be done about terrorism and to invite seven new countries to join the NATO club.  Many schools and places of business closed down during the summit, because it had been projected beforehand that the city (or some portion thereof) would be blown up by terrorists.  No one wanted to go to school or work, either because they didn't want to leave their home for fear of terrorism, or because they wanted to throw rocks through the windows of McDonald's during demonstrations.

My school was one of the ones which closed its doors during the summit.  Rather than stay in town and watch people throw rocks, I went to Romania with a couple of other teachers.  The main draw that Romania had for me was that it was a far place to go, and it has Transylvania (cue eerie organ music and maniacal laughter).  I didn't imagine, when I went, that Transylvania would really be a land of vampires and werewolves and things that go bump in the night.  But I DID imagine that shrewd Romanians would want to take advantage of Transylvania's reputation and that there would be many cheesy tourist attractions.

We left Prague at 11:22 on a Tuesday night, and arrived in Brasov, Romania, a mere 20 hours later.  In the meantime, I read about half of Bram Stoker's Dracula (which I had brought in an effort to creep myself out), Ann cross-stitched like a fiend, and Alyssa did a lot of staring out the window.  We all did a lot of staring out the window, in fact, because the lulls in the conversation often lasted for several hours.  I don't mean to imply by this description that the ride was boring, though.  It was an enjoyable and relaxing part of the vacation.

When we got to Brasov (which is in the middle of Romania, snuggled against the Carpathians, and on the edge of Transylvania), we needed to find a place to stay.  We were armed with a guide book with some hotels in it, the ability to say the numbers 1-10 in Romanian (which a nice lady who spoke no English had taught us on the train) and our wits.  All of these got us about three steps on the platform before we were accosted by Maria, a woman who rents private rooms.  We decided to trust her, since her name was in our guidebook (and described as "a little pushy," which was true).  She also has a day job as a meteorologist; and while meteorologists can often not be trusted in their professional capacity, they don't seem like malevolent people on the whole.  She whisked us away from the train station to a bank where we got millions and millions of lei, and then she whisked us from the bank to the rented rooms.  She sat us down in the kitchen and planned our itinerary for us, then we went to bed.

The next morning, a driver arrived to take us to Sinaia (main attractions: two castles, a monastery, and skiing) and Bran Castle (called Dracula's Castle, although the real Dracula, Vlad "The Impaler," probably never set foot there).  The drive to Sinaia, through the Brucegi Mountains, was beautiful.  Peles Castle was closed for cleaning.  But we saw Pelisor Castle, which is just up the hillside.  The monastery was also great.  The Romanian people are generally much more religious (Orthodox) than Czechs, and it took a little getting used to.

Bran Castle had some lovely Dracula-themed markets a few hundred meters down the mountain from the castle, right about where you would imagine the posse of angry villagers would set out from with their torches and pitchforks.  In the castle itself, I bought a sweater from about six insistent ladies.  On the way down from the castle, I was attacked by one of the many Romanian dingos, who was trying to protect her puppies (which I was not close to, mind you).

We then went back to Brasov, had dinner, and went to bed.

Friday was Brasov day.  We saw all of the tourist attractions in downtown: the Black Church, the main square, the synagogue, the victims of Communism monument, the McDonald's. . . everything.  In the evening, we ate at a restaurant on the main square.

Saturday there was some more whisking by Maria, but this time it was back to the train station for our departure.  We left at around 10, and returned to Prague at 6 the next morning.  I highly recommend viewing the Romanian and Hungarian countryside if you get a chance.  I would describe it to you, but I don't think that I could do it justice.  I would show you my pictures, but the blurred and distorted horse-carts wouldn't adequately convey the impression, either.

This vacation was followed by three whole days of teaching before we were given another vacation, this time for American Thanksgiving.  All of the ESI teachers in the Czech Republic went to Olomouc, a city in Moravia (eastern CR), where we stayed in a hostel and listened to a speaker, talked about teaching, enjoyed each others' company and, of course, had Thanksgiving dinner.  On Friday we had an Open Mic Night.  People read poetry, performed skits, and sang songs.  The Scrawny Pale Guys even performed a new song, called The Apathy Blues (I'll try to write an essay soon about this strange, yet somehow popular, band formed at ESI training in California).

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about how all this vacation time has related to my profession of missionary teacher.  After all, it doesn't seem as if much in the spiritual realm is going on while I toddle off to Hungary or Romania for the weekend.  But the more I think about it, the more I believe that teaching isn't my only ministry.  My ministry ought to be my life, and what goes on in a train on the way to Romania is no less important that what goes on in class every day.  I have no idea what the cosmic significance is of all that I do, and it is not my job to know.  It is my job to be obedient.  Besides, the things that happened on vacation may be just as important as teaching.  Here are just a few examples: we had a joyful, non-drunken Thanksgiving dinner in a public restaurant in Olomouc.  We broke a light in our hostel, and promptly paid for it.  I had a chance to study and to pray on the train trip to Romania.

All of these things (and things that I haven't mentioned; things that I haven't even thought of) may prove to be more significant than teaching, for all I know.  My point is that ministry is not something that I do when I am teaching, and then take off like a robe when I am done.  Ministry is always happening, or at least, should be.