I’m well into my third week of my TEFL course now and it’s hard to believe that the course will be finished in just a week!  I have learned so much in such a short time and have a new appreciation for the work that goes into teaching.  I’ve always been a huge proponent of education and had great respect for teachers, but never knew how much preparation went into sometime as short as a 45-minute lesson.  Everyone in the program spends 4+ hours on the development of our lesson plans and then even more time actually writing and planning out details.  We’ve been told that it only gets easier, thank God!  One of our course teachers said that his first year of teaching it took him forever to plan anything, but every year it got easier.  What use to take him 2+ hours now takes him about 10 minutes. He has so many resources and such an advanced gauge of how students at different levels process information. Hopefully I’ll develop similar abilities with time…

In addition to our 2-4 lessons a day we each teach twice a week. One group teaches Wed/Fri. and the other Tues./Thurs.  The first two weeks I was in the Wed/Fri group, but I’ve switched to the Tues./Thurs. section for the final two weeks. Thus far I’ve taught Elementary, Intermediate and Upper-Intermediate classes.  Every class has been unique and rewarding, but I think the upper-intermediate group has been my favorite.

In addition to the rotation of groups, we also get the opportunity to plan and execute a variety of different lessons.  I’ve taught reading, listening, speaking, writing and grammar. I enjoy the reading and speaking activities the most and absolutely abhor the grammar sections.  I do have to admit though that my grammar has improved a bit and the lessons we’ve had on it weren’t as bad as I anticipated.  I’ve found that as long as you have some context with your grammar it tends to go over easier, i.e. a story students can pull examples out of or a video clip that shows a specific tense or form.  Next Thursday we have our big final exam/grammar test so I’ll be spending a good deal of time this next week learning even more about things like past perfect, 3rd conditional and future perfect simple…sounds exhilarating doesn’t it!

Teaching has been much more challenging, but much more rewarding than I ever imagined.  I still can’t imagine a job that I’d love more than the job I had at Northeastern (I still miss it terribly!), but I think teaching will be an invaluable way to see education from a new perspective.  I’ve been on the administration side of schools for the past four years and am curious about the faculty perspective.  I’ve started to search for jobs in Berlin, but haven’t had any luck yet.  I’m hoping to send out many more resumes this weekend and hopefully I’ll get a bite soon.  I’m going to try and not worry too much though, but rather enjoy the rest of my time here in Prague with my lovely classmates and teachers!  Weekend here we come!

Dave came to visit this weekend and I was SO happy to see him! Two weeks is a long time to be apart and it was so good to be together again. He got in on Friday evening and we started the night off right away- drinks with everyone from the Hotel! After a few ice cold pivos and some shots of a traditional Czech liquor, Vaječný Sen (translation: Egg Dream) we headed up to meet the rest of group downtown.  We ended up spending most of the night at a club in Wenceslas Square, sharing some beers and Absinth shots.  The rest of the group headed to another club around 1:30am, but Dave and I headed home so we could get enough rest for a full day of fun on Saturday.

True to plan we woke up early on Saturday ready to get in some sightseeing.  Of course- we had to stop by Bohemia Bagel for a post night of drinking breakfast (delicious as always!).  After breakfast we walked through Old Town Square, checked out a cute street market and then jumped on the 22 tram up to Pohořelec. I wanted to look into to visiting Strahov Monastery, but it was closed for lunch break.  Rather than waiting around we decided to venture up Petrin Hill and visit the observation tower.  Basically we did the reverse of what Maddie and I did last week.  Last week we walked up the hill and then took the tram back down.  Dave and I opted for the easy ride up and a stroll down (much more my style).

After our lovely and lengthy stroll we headed into the city of Prague to check out some of the biggest tourist attractions.  Since we’ve both been to the city before we were able to be a bit more relaxed about our touristing (but I still managed to get in some good photo ops!  We stopped on a park bench for 45 minutes or so, soaking up the sun and watching locals enjoy the afternoon.  We made a slight detour to the Lennon Wall, walked over the Charles Bridge, back into Old Town Square and then made our way home.  We saw a lot, including something I hadn’t seen before- the Love Lock gate.  Legend has it that when you find your true love you carve your names on a lock and lock it onto the gate. You then throw the key in to the canal, “locking” your love forever! We overheard a tour guide telling her group that the locks started appearing in 2009 and have grown in popularity since.  I thought it was a romantic and touching site. Dave and I didn’t have a lock on us, but I found one lock in the shape of a heart with the words, “For lovers only” and decided it could be our symbolic lock.  Maybe one day we’ll go back and add our lock to the masses!

After a long morning of walking and taking in the sites we came back to the hotel for an afternoon nap.  Instead of napping I found out that South Park Studios (the official website will full length South Park episodes) plays full episodes in Europe!  So of course I had to catch up on the new season…For those of you who haven’t traveled internationally- most free streaming sites, like Hulu, NBC, ABC etc…don’t work in Europe.  So finally finding a way to watch high quality episodes of my favorite shows was a fantastic find!  We didn’t have much time though because we were meeting up with about 10 people from our group for an evening soccer game (or “football match”) between AC Sparta Prague and Mlada Boleslav.  The game was a lot of fun, though Sparta was suppose to win and got their asses kicked! We got half litre beers and sausages for 75 korunas (a little less than $4 American) and noticed that it cost 80 korunas for the soda and sausage deal.  Man I love being in a country that takes their beer seriously!

The game ended around 8:30 and Dave and I departed from the rest of the group for a late dinner.  We stopped in at a fantastic and traditional Czech restaurant a little outside of Old Town Square.  I got goulash (my 5th plate in two weeks?!) and Dave ordered something called the Peasant Plate, which was essentially a pig knuckle, i.e. a giant pig knee. I was a little nervous to try it, but it was pretty delicious. I love my adventurous carnivorous man- always getting me to try new things!

We wanted our final day together in Prague to also be low key.  Since we both love zoos- when we lived in D.C. we lived only a 15 minute walk to the National Zoo and walked through about once a week- we decided to check out the Prague Zoo.  We’d heard good things about the recent renovations and were not disappointed!  The zoo is huge, well priced and beautiful.  We spent more than 3 hours wandering around, checking out animals and enjoying the beautiful Fall day.  My favorite animals were, of course, the elephants.  Dave was excited to see the moose (a Maine thing I guess), but unfortunately they weren’t out.  Luckily he was greatly impressed by the polar bears and claimed they made up for missing the moose.  We also both loved the seals, mountain goats, gorillas and birds of prey.  In the birds of prey area they have a spot for visitors to view the animals with no net or fence.  Because they’re birds of prey there was some pretty rank smelling rotten meat carcasses lying around their pen, but they were fascinating to watch.  The only part of the zoo I didn’t like was the free roaming bat section.  You walk into this spooky, dark cave (for nocturnal animals) and in one section bats are able to fly freely around your head.   Needless to say I was not impressed and made a beeline for the exit.  Dave thought it was pretty funny, but we’ve had two experiences in the past year with bats in our room/house and I’d be happy to never see another one again!

After the zoo we ate a hearty Czech lunch consisting of many beers and some fried cheese.  Later that night we went out with a few people to catch the Patriots v. Steelers game at an “American style bar”.  This place was more like the basement of a dirty frat house, but it did have the game.  Though the end result was less than ideal (the Pats lost), it was still a lot of fun to get our “real football” fix.  We got back pretty late, but because Day Light Saving Time took place across the EU this weekend the game ended an hour earlier than usual- just for this week though!

Overall it was a wonderful weekend and it was so good to be together again.  Dave left early yesterday morning and by time I woke up I already missed him.  Only two more weeks until we’re reunited forever! Good thing we’re both loving our programs and are super busy- the next two weeks are going to fly by!

It’s a cold, rainy Fall day here in Berlin.  I’m super comfy lounging in my sweats, wrapped up in my favorite UPS blanket.  It’s about 3:00pm and I have to admit that I haven’t left the apartment all day!  As I sit on the couch reading and writing email, posting new Facebook photos and surfing the net I decided that it’s probably a good time to start brushing up on my English grammar. For those of you who don’t know, I leave for a 4 week TEFL certification program in Prague this upcoming weekend.  I’m excited to get started, learn more about teaching and begin to search for jobs in Berlin! I’m also looking forward to meeting some fun new people!  One thing I’m not excited for however, is the glaring fact that my English grammar capabilities are gravely lacking.  Seriously, I have not even attempted to improve my grammatical abilities since Mr. Bernstein’s 9th grade honors English class (and let me say that after that class, I moved out of the honors track and back down to “regular people” English).  I’ve been doing a bit of reading online, but if anyone has advice on a useful (and possibly fun) way to improve my grammar in mere days I’m all ears.

Other than grammar preparation, I’ve been going over what I need to pack and what I’ll want to make sure to do while in Prague.  I’m sure the city has changed since I studied abroad back in 2005, but there are definitely some spots I don’t want to miss! Additionally, Maddie will be visiting me while I’m there.  I’m so excited to show her “my city”!!!  We’ll definitely be hitting up the big tourist spots- Prague Castle, Old Town Square, Pivovarský dům, the Charles Bridge etc…but again for those of you who’ve been to Prague more recently than myself, I welcome any and all suggestions!

Other than minimal Prague preparations, we’ve been taking it pretty easy. Yesterday Dave and I decided to check out a Berlin museum and headed over to the Altes Museum. We had a great time looking at the vast collection of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan art.  My favorite piece was a sarcophagus featuring the story of Jason and Medea from Euripide’s play Medea. Essentially, Jason and Medea are married, but he leaves her for the daughter of the king. She doesn’t take the news well and while pretending to give her blessing plots her revenge.  Basically, Medea poisons the new wife, the king and then kills her and Jason’s children before offing herself.  (Don’t mess with that woman!)  A little morbid, but the carvings on the sarcophagus were gorgeous.  See the pic below!

After our museum outing we grabbed some delicious German food (lots of meat and potatoes) at a restaurant close by.  A couple of half litre beers were also on the menu:) And that brings us to today…

We hope you’re enjoying our blog so far and would love to hear from you! Especially about when you’re planning your trip to visit us!!!

I had my first classes this week since graduating from UPS more than 4 years ago. It was certainly weird to be back in the classroom, taking notes and looking over a syllabus again, but I am really excited about the opportunity this time around. There’s nothing like having to go to work to make you excited for school!

I am enrolled at the Berlin School of Economics and Law in the Master of Science in Finance program. The program lasts three semesters with an optional internship for a fourth semester. The final semester contains one course: writing a thesis. The first semester, which I just started this week consists of four courses: Econometrics, Financial Economics, Corporate Finance, and Corporate Financial Theory. Each class has one four hour lecture session each week until late January of next year when we will have exams, which constitute 100% of the grade.

As you might expect from a Masters program, the Professors take a very “hands off” approach to teaching. They leave it up to us students to do most of the work, providing us with only their lectures, reading lists and information on exams. Very little hands-on teaching is involved, although all the professors made sure to provide their contact information and office hours and made a point of saying do not hesitate to approach them if you are unsure of the material. Two of the professors also scheduled social events for us to meet up and have a beer after class next week… now that’s an assignment I can handle!

I can already tell my favorite class will be Financial Economics. Much of our reading list for that class consists of articles that are very relevant to the current Euro crisis, which is ubiquitous over here on the news. The hardest class will be Econometrics; our professor has a PHD in theoretic physics so it’s safe to say that course will be fairly math intensive.

One thing that I like about this program is all my fellow students (there are 36 of us) take all the same classes together. That has made it fairly easy to get to know people. I am the only American in the program but it has been fun to get to know some of the other students from around the world.  So far, I have made friends from Italy, France, Lithuania, Russia, Bulgaria, China, Canada, Uzbekistan and of course Germany. Everyone is really nice and they seem to have similar thoughts and opinions as me about the professors and the program in general so that is very comforting. It is nice to feel like part of a group, especially when given a daunting task, which on its outset, this Master Program certainly seems to be.

Hello! Welcome to our blog!

For the next who knows how long we shall be using this space to record stories of our travels for our friends and family and for our own posterity. We hope you enjoy our photos and writing and please feel free to comment or email us with advice or feedback.

Happy Travels!

Dave and Adrian (Daverian)