May 16

Let me say, first, that today is my brother Jas's birthday. Happy birthday, Jas!

Let me say, second, that today is also Ryan Hall's birthday.  Happy birthday, Ryan! I'm glad you both were born.

And now, third, I will tell you all what my schedule will be like for the rest of the year.  This week I took on a lot of new hours at a Unilever soap and margarine factory in a little town north of Prague called Nelahozeves.  It's a charming little town on the Vltava river, and is famous for its castle and for being the birthplace of the composer Antonin Dvorak.  Actually, the only bad thing that I can say about the town is that the Unilever factory and its rotten egg smell are there.  Thankfully it doesn't reek up the landscape like a paper mill, but things can get pretty rough olfactorily when I'm waiting for the bus in the afternoon.  But I'm still glad that I have all these new hours, because for a while there I was only teaching 13 hours a week.  This was pleasant, but didn't give me much to live on.  Now I have gone to the other extreme, and teach more than 30 hours each week.

Monday I teach at Shell Gas from 2-3:30. I can sleep in, and get to Shell by tram from my flat in about an hour.

Tuesday I have to be at the metro station Nadrazi Holesovice at 7:15 to catch the minibus that takes employees to the Unilever factory.  After a drive through green and hilly countryside, we get to the factory at around 8.  I then teach from 8:15-2:30, with a lunch break and a shorter break thrown in.  At 2:30, I take the bus to Kralupy, another city on the Vltava that is bigger and about 4 km closer to Prague.  From 3:30 to 8, I have four individual lessons.  Then I go to the pub with Kevin and John, ESI teachers who live in Kralupy.  The Green Tree pub is just across a small square from the Dvorakovo Gymnazium, where they live and teach.  I spend the night on their couch.

Wednesday morning, at least this Wednesday morning, I get up and walk to Nelahozeves.  There is a bus, but in inquiring among my students about how to get there, I found that there was a dirt trail between the two towns.  So I set out on Wednesday morning at 7:30, and walked along the shady path with the river on my right and the cliffs and train tracks on my left.  The only thing that marred this very pleasant experience was that I was 10 minutes late for my first class.  On this day, I teach until 4 and take the minibus back to Prague.

Thursday morning is the same as Tuesday; I go to Holesovice and just barely make it onto the minibus.  At 4, I finish teaching and get a nice drive through the country back to Prague.  I get back to the flat at around 5:30.

Friday, I go to Holesovice AGAIN (the reason for this is that it is the most northerly metro station) and this time take a bus at 7:55 to Rez, and the nuclear research institute.  Rez is another town on the Vltava River, but it is a little closer to Prague and on the east side of the river (Kralupy and Nelahozeves are both on the west bank).  I teach two hour-and-a-half classes and one hour class there, and take the 1:17 bus back to Prague.

This is a packed schedule, in case you couldn't tell, especially with all the travel time.  I don't mind it so much, though, as I only have to do it for a short time and I'm getting a chance to meet lots of new people and see new places in the Czech Republic.  I'm also hoping that they will take me on a tour of the nuclear institute someday. I'll let you know if that happens.