Another new school

I have had quite a busy time since my last post, I would say the most fun part was having a visit from my brother from England over the last weekend. We had a full weekend starting with a visit to the Zoo on Friday, and a further long walk after this, until we ended up in the night club (sort of) on Friday evening. The club was great, it had an 80's and 90's music night and I have to take my hat off to them as they played some real crackers. My brother managed to mix a few drinks in too short a time and was a little sick, also the club got too busy at around 1am so we left for home, catching the bus back. Saturday we were quite tired because of the long day before so we didn't walk quite so many miles. In the afternoon we went to the cinema and watched Hannibal the beginning, it was good and later grabbed some dinner at Colloseum, and walked it off around the old town. Sunday was another long walk to the Castle etc.

On Monday I started a new school, which I have to go to every morning for 3 hours this course will be for 3 weeks then I will be able to do another 3 weeks at the next level. After that I don't know what to do, I can continue with my evening classes as long as I want to.

It's raining again, but I am glad that we had a dry weekend, This afternoon I would like to go out on my bike but we'll see how it goes, I also have a lot of homework.

Brush with the Police

It's been a very busy week, I have been continuing to view flats, mainly in the Troja or Letna area of Prague. There is a street in Letna called Ovenecka which is a really nice place, it almost doesn't belong in Letna because I don't think any other quite matches it, it's a bit wider than most and at one end you are close to the Tram stop and supermarket and the other end has an entrance to Stromovka park. The street is also lined with trees and almost all it's buildings are reconstructed. Unfortunately, so far, the flats I have seen there are too small, but we have concluded that it would be a pretty good area to live. Also since my last post I have seen another flat in the big mill house at Troja, this one was 67m2 which is much better than the 52m2 ground floor flat that I had seen before. I would have preferred to have the one at 80m2 on the 4rd floor, however, it is already reserved. It had windows to the back of the building which was a negative as you could only see another building which was in need of repair, but the size and price were excellent. I am hoping that both of these will now be viewed again with Petra, so that we can decide if we are heading in the right direction.

I have started looking for come Czech language course full time, every day for a number of hours, so that I can begin to improve faster and learn better, I don't know why I haven't already done this because it makes so much more sense to be able to get on which the job hunting. So the plan is to study maybe 25-30 hours per week, of course this is quite expensive, but I feel that it will help me to find a better job, therefore help me to earn back whatever I spend out on the course.

I had a really good second interview on Tuesday evening, with the CEO of Holmes Place, it was an English guy who runs the licence for Holmes Place Israel and other European countries like Poland, Hungary, Austria, Germany. I came away from the interview feeling confident that in the near future, I will have a job offer which I hope will be for a new opening or something as exciting, hence my desire to secure this with better language skills.

Again this Friday I went for a swim to Podoli pool, I feel I must remark again on the temperature of the pool, bearing in mind that a skinny Brit like me who is used to a pool temperature of 29-30 degrees I find it really shocking to my system to swim in this pool which is always around 26.3-26.5 degrees, the difference may not seem a lot but I can assure you it is.

I have been riding my bike a fair bit lately to, which on some days has been great because of the sunshine but on other has been bloody cold and wet. One day this week though I had an incident with the police because I had apparently been riding my bike the wrong way in a one way street, they pulled me over to their parked van and started speaking to me, I told them straight away that I am English and speak only a very small amount of Czech, so he just carried on telling me stuff in Czech, I understood that he wanted to see my passport, which I did not have with me, this is a no no here, as you are expected to carry your ID or passport at all times, I tried to explain that it was at home along with my permanent residence permit, although I don't know why that would help as I had neither of them with me. He continued to speak at me and I couldn't understand what he was saying, but I gathered that he was saying things like, you must have your passport with you, and you cannot ride this direction in the street. He then got called back to the van with his colleague who appeared to be bored with our interlude and told him to send me on my way, but on the cycle path. He came back to tell me that next time I will have to pay, so I guess I got away without a fine or something.

This weekend Petra had a massage which I could have had to but I chickened out because I felt a little shy to have some woman I didn't know with her hands all over me! Petra came back and told me it was a nice young girl..... DOH! The good bit was, that she also found out that the girl works with a guy who is a physiotherapist so I can go to him and try and get my foot fixed as I am still having a lot of pain with it.

Today is another beautiful sunny day, so we will go for a bike ride and try to buy some Rollerblades over at Kobylisy.

Trojska Mlyn

I spent a couple of hours yesterday viewing flats, firstly I went to an area called Troja just about 5km north of Prague centre, it's a very attractive area and is home to many Villas, the Botanical Gardens and Troja Mansion, and also most famously Prague Zoo. The flats I viewed were in a magnificent building that has been reconstructed and is situated next to the Zoo and River Vltava. The building was once a mill and the centre of the structure has been kept authentic, even with a common area on the ground floor which has an old mill stone on view. I looked at 3 flats, one of the ground floor was 53m2 and unfortunately I think it was too small, but secondly we don't want a ground floor flat. The next was on the 3rd floor and was 80m2, this was much better with 2 bedrooms, but it didn't have any good views as it was at the back of the building. The last flat was at the top, built into the roof it has a mezzanine floor which would be the bedroom, and a large open space for living room and Kitchen etc, it also had 2 bathrooms. This had excellent views over the Zoo and south over the river to Prague and Stromovka Park. Unfortunately it was also 7 million Kc which is above my budget. Next I walked to a new development adjacent to the mansion. There is a small complex of about 6 apartment blocks around a very attractive landscaped garden over underground parking. This is a very nice area to consider living, but we must think carefully about the transport as you must take a bus to the nearest Metro station at Nadrazi Holesovice or to a tram stop which gives a number of routes to and around Prague.

Yesterday evening I went along with Petra to a spinning class at the gym, which i enjoyed, having not been in a class for a long while, the music was motivating but as usual I found the instructor to be lacking in motivation and accurate teaching technique. however, this type of teacher is in the majority rather than minority, it's a shame but a fact. I was glad to see rather large lady there participating, good on her for getting out there and doing it.

Podoli Swimming pool

Took a trip to the pool at Podoli today, I have been looking forward to it for a while, and arranged to meet Radek at 2 o'clock. The facility is really quite old and tired looking but it is the biggest and probably still the best in Prague and although it's old and worn, it's not actually dirty so still it's worth going. The charge is for a time period and the first tarif is 80 Kc for 1.5 hours then 100 Kc for 2 hours and so on. The pool temperature is kept around 26/27 degrees which is fine for the Czechs but a little colder than I am used to. So I have to swim fast or stay only a short time!

I started off in the indoor pool and initially forgot that the pool depth is much greater than UK pools so first off I got a couple of good dunkings, the indoor pool was quite busy and had a few kids lessons so after a short while Radek talked me into braving the outdoor pool, which means a quick dash outside in the freezing air, trotting across the walkway squeeling like a girl because of the cold. Once in, the pool felt great, really refreshing and big enough to stretch my body out as I swam, the sunshine even came out and made it feel spring like. I thought for a moment how it is so unlikely I would have been in the outdoor pool in the UK on the 9th February!

Looking forward to warmer days and roller-blading in the park.

Blood Diamond

Went to the cinema yesterday evening to watch Blood Diamond. I recommend going to see it however, it does provoke thought and interest. It also has a great deal of blood and gore so be aware if you don't like that sort of film.

From the website "Set against the backdrop of the chaos and civil war that enveloped 1990s Sierra Leone, "Blood Diamond" is the story of Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ex-mercenary from Zimbabwe, and Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a Mende fisherman. Both men are African, but their histories and their circumstances are as different as any can be until their fates become joined in a common quest to recover a rare pink diamond, the kind of stone that can transform a life...or end it.
Solomon, who has been taken from his family and forced to work in the diamond fields, finds the extraordinary gem and hides it at great risk, knowing if he is discovered, he will be killed instantly. But he also knows the diamond could not only provide the means to save his wife and daughters from a life as refugees but also help rescue his son, Dia, from an even worse fate as a child soldier.
Archer, who has made his living trading diamonds for arms, learns of Solomon's hidden stone while in prison for smuggling. He knows a diamond like this is a once-in-a-lifetime find—valuable enough to be his ticket out of Africa and away from the cycle of violence and corruption in which he has been a willing player.
Enter Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an idealistic American journalist who is in Sierra Leone to uncover the truth behind conflict diamonds, exposing the complicity of diamond industry leaders who have chosen profits over principles. Maddy seeks out Archer as a source for her article, but soon finds it is he who needs her even more.
With Maddy's help, Archer and Solomon embark on a dangerous trek through rebel territory. Archer needs Solomon to find and recover the valuable pink diamond, but Solomon seeks something far more precious...his son."

The weather is pretty depressing at the moment, just rain and rain, and I still feel the winter blues, I can't wait til spring when it'll warm up a bit and we can do more stuff. My brother is visiting in a couple of weeks which I am looking forward to a lot. Petra surprised me with a couple of tickets to a concert here in March, this'll be fun to, (don't laugh, but the concert is 'Lional Ritchie'). Pity it wasn't Shakira eh, who is also performing here.

Tonight I have school which is always a bit of a laugh, and thank goodness it's Friday tomorrow!

Tuesday Social

I have now got over a recent dose of food poisoning, something like my seventh or eighth now. It's not like I don't watch what I eat either, so forgive me if I feel a little pissed off about it. I would like to share with you the story of me in the bathroom one night acting like a garden sprinkler, however, it's not really for sharing even though it was bloody funny to tell my brother.

I have just got back from a school social evening, the first in fact that I have been to, and I think it was the first that the school has run. Without wishing to offend anyone, I guess the politest way I could describe it would be to say, 'not my thing' and leave it at that. I'll give you a little more sustance then! Pub no bigger than a shoe box, with the appearance of Mary Poppins attic, bunch of people sitting around not in the slightest bit interested in talking to anybody they didn't already know before they got there, one guy sitting in the corner juggling with his balls (he must have been a budding juggler!) and a DVD realeased in 1984 about a Czech brewery manager and his wife who appeared to be the only woman in the village and was idolised by all men. There were a couple of laughs in it but I did struggle to keep awake.

Just one point of interest, I find it fascinating how cultured the Czech people are, from young to old they know about and are passionate about all famous Czech Artistes, Composers, Writers, Artists, Singers Actors, Painters, Sportsmen, Architects and so on, it's quite impressive how knowledgable the locals are about the history of the arts. I certainly didn't experience this in the UK, at least half the kids in my school wouldn't know who the lady on the front of a £5 note is. (I'll give you a clue-her first name is 'Queen')