Sunday, October 26, 2008
Christmas is here...?
This past week we were out looking for a turkey as we had the whole team over for Canadian Thanksgiving on Thursday (will write more about that later). We went to a huge Tesco, equivalent to a Superstore over here, looking for that turkey, will didn’t find one but being that it was attached to a mall, noticed that there were Christmas trees everywhere! Then looked through the store and saw all the Christmas candies, chocolates and cookies out. Wow, so crazy! It’s not even November yet. My dad would love this as after Halloween he usually starts up the Christmas songs, so here he could be singing them for two and half months. I think part of the early start is that they don’t really celebrate Halloween here, so why not start with Christmas early? We’ve been invited to a friend’s Halloween party on Friday so maybe after that I’ll be able to start thinking about Christmas.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Stromovka Park
The amazing thing about living in Prague and the location I am at is that we are about a ten minute walk from two amazing parks. Actually we are right in the middle of the two. The first one you have seen pictures from, Letna Park, a park perched up on a hill overlooking all of Prague. The second park is called Stromovka Park. This park is even bigger than Letna and has a couple of ponds in it along with a waterfall. It’s actually really beautiful with trees everywhere, my favourite being the willows which run along some of the paths making it a great place to go for a run. When you’re in the park, you actually feel like you’re not in a city of close to two million people and feel like you could be out in the country.
So this past Friday Arielle and I went to the park to explore around as I had only ever run through it and Arielle had never been there. We had a great time walking through the leaves and feeding the ducks at the pond. Granted I couldn’t believe how friendly the ducks were and had a couple of close calls where they almost pooped on my shoe! Here are a couple of pics...
A glimpse of one of the paths
Me hanging out by a tree
Arielle, actually hanging out on a tree
The duck pond
Arielle and I using her self timer
Feeding the ducks and trying not to get pooped on
Pretending we're photographers and trying to take cool pictures...turned out not too bad.
So this past Friday Arielle and I went to the park to explore around as I had only ever run through it and Arielle had never been there. We had a great time walking through the leaves and feeding the ducks at the pond. Granted I couldn’t believe how friendly the ducks were and had a couple of close calls where they almost pooped on my shoe! Here are a couple of pics...
A glimpse of one of the paths
Me hanging out by a tree
Arielle, actually hanging out on a tree
The duck pond
Arielle and I using her self timer
Feeding the ducks and trying not to get pooped on
Pretending we're photographers and trying to take cool pictures...turned out not too bad.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
An Update for “One of Them Weeks”
I thought I should post an update to a couple of posts ago where I was having a really bad week. So to start with that update...I did finally receive that package from my mom from DHL...a month late of course. It was an amazing package! If you’ve ever lived overseas, or away from home you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say that getting packages in the mail from home is more exciting than Christmas morning. The package made my week! Granted I’m not sure if I’ll be receiving any more because of the problems we were having and if so don’t think my mom will be using DHL again.
Regarding my job, I did end up getting a raise which is great, but...they kill you with taxes over here, so what I’m being paid is still not that great. At one point I was told by the financial guy at the school that if my team pays taxes on my salary then I should not have to pay taxes on my salary at school. Then talking to him the other day it didn’t seem like this was the case, but I apparently should get some back at the end of the fiscal year. I am kind of having a hard time understanding him as he is Czech and can’t quite explain everything to me. But I have decided to stick with the job as I will be getting 5 weeks paid holidays...can’t complain about that! Things are going great at the school. I’m the Special Educational Needs Instructor so things are finally rolling along with that. I have a bunch of pull out sessions with kids working on anything from math to handwriting. It’s funny because some of the things I’m teaching, I really don’t remember learning and have to figure things out fast, aka sounds or different tricks in spelling, like why do you spell height with ei and how is it ei and not ie. Don’t worry though, I know the tricks now. Swimming is also going well. I’ve removed the water wings from one of my kids, and also had a student take off his life belt for the first time the other day. That was seriously a huge step because the first time he was in the water he was clinging to me the whole time.
Then with the whole furniture thing...well that’s still not exactly sorted out. We did have a meeting with our owner the other week and got stuff kind of hashed out with that. But we’re still waiting on him for the furniture as I guess he has to get in contact with our trainer/equipment guy who has a truck and can move the stuff to our apartment...we are hoping this will happen this week. Then for internet, well let’s just say we really need it! We are waiting for some sort of thing to come in the mail from our internet provided. I guess when we have this “thing” (I’m thinking a router of some sort), then we’ll be able to set it up and have it! So I’m hoping that it will come this week as well, but then again you never know.
So things are getting somewhat better, but I will let you know when we have this whole internet thing figured out so then I can be online more than once a day or every two days and will also be able to use our Vonage phone!
Regarding my job, I did end up getting a raise which is great, but...they kill you with taxes over here, so what I’m being paid is still not that great. At one point I was told by the financial guy at the school that if my team pays taxes on my salary then I should not have to pay taxes on my salary at school. Then talking to him the other day it didn’t seem like this was the case, but I apparently should get some back at the end of the fiscal year. I am kind of having a hard time understanding him as he is Czech and can’t quite explain everything to me. But I have decided to stick with the job as I will be getting 5 weeks paid holidays...can’t complain about that! Things are going great at the school. I’m the Special Educational Needs Instructor so things are finally rolling along with that. I have a bunch of pull out sessions with kids working on anything from math to handwriting. It’s funny because some of the things I’m teaching, I really don’t remember learning and have to figure things out fast, aka sounds or different tricks in spelling, like why do you spell height with ei and how is it ei and not ie. Don’t worry though, I know the tricks now. Swimming is also going well. I’ve removed the water wings from one of my kids, and also had a student take off his life belt for the first time the other day. That was seriously a huge step because the first time he was in the water he was clinging to me the whole time.
Then with the whole furniture thing...well that’s still not exactly sorted out. We did have a meeting with our owner the other week and got stuff kind of hashed out with that. But we’re still waiting on him for the furniture as I guess he has to get in contact with our trainer/equipment guy who has a truck and can move the stuff to our apartment...we are hoping this will happen this week. Then for internet, well let’s just say we really need it! We are waiting for some sort of thing to come in the mail from our internet provided. I guess when we have this “thing” (I’m thinking a router of some sort), then we’ll be able to set it up and have it! So I’m hoping that it will come this week as well, but then again you never know.
So things are getting somewhat better, but I will let you know when we have this whole internet thing figured out so then I can be online more than once a day or every two days and will also be able to use our Vonage phone!
Friday, October 10, 2008
An Interesting Situation
We had an interesting experience/situation come up the other night after practice. To set the back ground of the story I’ll have to give you some information of our rink. Hockey rinks in the Czech Republic are not like those back in Canada. Pretty much all of them have a restaurant inside. Granted some hockey rinks in Canada do as well, but they are usually more like canteens. These are actually restaurants. Along with this there is in most cases a hotel attached as well. By our standards it would be about a 1 to 2 star hotel, so not very nice, but practical to hold teams for camps and tournaments. So the rink itself is quite a big structure.
So after practice on Wednesday night we were running around the rink on the outside doing our cool down when we turned the corner to the back side of the rink and saw an elderly man face down on the ground, half of his body still on the one step and half inside the door to his room. Oh boy! So we run towards him and Chelsa’s asking him in Czech if he needs help, what’s wrong and so on. He mumbles a bunch of stuff in Czech which we can’t understand. Finally Chelsa is like “can we help you up?”. That gets a “ano” out of him and so Chelsa and Arielle start lifting him up. They get him to his knees back inside his one room closet which smells just rancid by the way. They thought they had him balanced enough so he could hold himself up, but then he starts to tip over again...yep he’s drunk, if you didn’t figure that out already. They are trying to get him onto his bed somehow so he can pass out there. At this time I’m like, I think we should go get the rink guy. So I run into the rink and find the rink guy finishing up shovelling the snow off the ice, and in my best Czech say something like “there is an old man who needs help outside, we need you to help us”. So he finally comes with me back outside, but by this time Chelsa and Arielle have gotten in back in to his bed and shut the door.
So come to find out from the rink man that he’s pretty much just the local drunk, and that he starts drinking when he wakes up. Okay what a weird situation, for one who knew that there was this little closet room at the back of the rink where this guy lives, this is my second year here and I had no idea! Two who is this guy, how did he come to live in that room, and by the looks of it he can’t afford to buy alcohol, so how does he get it. All these questions, not sure if we’ll find them out, but there is never a dull moment over here that is for sure!
So after practice on Wednesday night we were running around the rink on the outside doing our cool down when we turned the corner to the back side of the rink and saw an elderly man face down on the ground, half of his body still on the one step and half inside the door to his room. Oh boy! So we run towards him and Chelsa’s asking him in Czech if he needs help, what’s wrong and so on. He mumbles a bunch of stuff in Czech which we can’t understand. Finally Chelsa is like “can we help you up?”. That gets a “ano” out of him and so Chelsa and Arielle start lifting him up. They get him to his knees back inside his one room closet which smells just rancid by the way. They thought they had him balanced enough so he could hold himself up, but then he starts to tip over again...yep he’s drunk, if you didn’t figure that out already. They are trying to get him onto his bed somehow so he can pass out there. At this time I’m like, I think we should go get the rink guy. So I run into the rink and find the rink guy finishing up shovelling the snow off the ice, and in my best Czech say something like “there is an old man who needs help outside, we need you to help us”. So he finally comes with me back outside, but by this time Chelsa and Arielle have gotten in back in to his bed and shut the door.
So come to find out from the rink man that he’s pretty much just the local drunk, and that he starts drinking when he wakes up. Okay what a weird situation, for one who knew that there was this little closet room at the back of the rink where this guy lives, this is my second year here and I had no idea! Two who is this guy, how did he come to live in that room, and by the looks of it he can’t afford to buy alcohol, so how does he get it. All these questions, not sure if we’ll find them out, but there is never a dull moment over here that is for sure!
Salzburg and Oktoberfest
Last weekend we have off from hockey, so in my world as you probably know by now that means I’m traveling somewhere. This time it was Oktoberfest. We had talked about going awhile back in September on this weekend, but as we started looking most things were completely booked up or the hostels that were left were a little too expensive for our tastes. We talked about sleeping in the car, but then when Adi and Marie were here they other weekend, they offered us a place to stay at their house in Salzburg and suggested that we just take the train up to Munich. It’s only a two hour train ride that cost 10 Euro each there and back, pretty much the right price for us!
The drive to Salzburg was pretty nice, granted it rained most of the way so you could not see the mountains. Luckily the drive home on Sunday was sunny and the views were just amazing, with mountains and rolling hills everywhere! Upon arriving at Adi and Marie, we hung out with them in their flat for awhile and then went on a little tour of Salzburg in the rain and cold. Even though it was raining, the city was beautiful. It’s pretty picturesque almost fairytale like in the setting. There is a river running through town with old buildings lining it and on top of a hill overlooking the whole city is an amazing castle! You can see from the pictures below how beautiful it is!
A park in Salzburg where they filmed the Do-a-Deer song in the sound of music.
Roomies on the step...this is after Arielle and Chelsa renacted the song from the movie.
A view of the city on a Sunday, when it was not raining outside!
So beautiful!
Hanging out in the park
Picture of the scenery on the drive home.
After walking around for awhile, we then headed to the St. Augustine Monastery to eat and try some of the best beer there is, according to our friends. It was a pretty cool experience as the place is like an original beer hall. There are a couple of huge rooms full of tables, then outside a couple of hallways where you can buy different types of food, mostly Weinersnitzel and Knudel type of foods. Upon coming in you pick your size of glass...1 litre or half litre, then rinse it out from this big tap and then get it filled up from one of the many wood barrels full of beer. I’m not a beer lover at all, but mixed with Sprite or lemonade, also called a Rattler, I don’t mind it. And yes this was really good! Afterwards we took a long walk through the town at night looking at all the sights. It was pretty awesome at night as everything was lit up. Unfortunately I didn’t see everything in the city, nor explore all the places but I’ll definitely be going back.
The girls picking out their cups...
.JPG)
Hanging out at the beer hall...I woke up with an eye infection that morning - awesome!
A view of the beer hall
The next morning we took the train to Munich. Pretty much our whole train was full of people heading to Oktoberfest wear all the traditional garb. It was pretty crazy to see people drinking at 9am, but then again that’s normal on football game days in Wisconsin. We got to the Oktoberfest grounds at about 11am and things were pretty crazy by then already. It was a Saturday and the second last day of Oktoberfest so things were packed. We walked around for awhile taken in all the sights, then tried to head to a beer garden. Well they were all full, only a couple of areas outside were open. Would not be too bad if it was a nice day, but it was raining on and off all day, so we were looking for someplace with shelter. I ended up finding a side gate that was open so just walked right in to an area outside one of the beer gardens, with a bunch of tables and heaters set up outside. We found a table and sat down only to look back at a huge line of people lined up just to get into the overflow area where we were. We were all pretty excited to be in that area under some shelter and enjoy some beers, or rattlers, and German food. I really enjoyed meeting other people, mostly a German guys that we talked with for a long time, who enlightened us on the beginnings of Oktoberfest and all the traditions. It was a pretty awesome day hanging out with Chelsa and Arielle (Jeni was in Vienna) and enjoying the festivities, and eating the German food as you can see below...
An example of a beer hall
Hanging out with some German guys
.JPG)
Arielle and I eating 1/2 meter long bratwursts!
Arielle and I - would be a better picture if that guy wasn't in the background, but it was pretty much crowded everywhere you went!
The drive to Salzburg was pretty nice, granted it rained most of the way so you could not see the mountains. Luckily the drive home on Sunday was sunny and the views were just amazing, with mountains and rolling hills everywhere! Upon arriving at Adi and Marie, we hung out with them in their flat for awhile and then went on a little tour of Salzburg in the rain and cold. Even though it was raining, the city was beautiful. It’s pretty picturesque almost fairytale like in the setting. There is a river running through town with old buildings lining it and on top of a hill overlooking the whole city is an amazing castle! You can see from the pictures below how beautiful it is!
A park in Salzburg where they filmed the Do-a-Deer song in the sound of music.
Roomies on the step...this is after Arielle and Chelsa renacted the song from the movie.
A view of the city on a Sunday, when it was not raining outside!
So beautiful!
Hanging out in the park
Picture of the scenery on the drive home.
After walking around for awhile, we then headed to the St. Augustine Monastery to eat and try some of the best beer there is, according to our friends. It was a pretty cool experience as the place is like an original beer hall. There are a couple of huge rooms full of tables, then outside a couple of hallways where you can buy different types of food, mostly Weinersnitzel and Knudel type of foods. Upon coming in you pick your size of glass...1 litre or half litre, then rinse it out from this big tap and then get it filled up from one of the many wood barrels full of beer. I’m not a beer lover at all, but mixed with Sprite or lemonade, also called a Rattler, I don’t mind it. And yes this was really good! Afterwards we took a long walk through the town at night looking at all the sights. It was pretty awesome at night as everything was lit up. Unfortunately I didn’t see everything in the city, nor explore all the places but I’ll definitely be going back.
The girls picking out their cups...
.JPG)
Hanging out at the beer hall...I woke up with an eye infection that morning - awesome!
A view of the beer hall
The next morning we took the train to Munich. Pretty much our whole train was full of people heading to Oktoberfest wear all the traditional garb. It was pretty crazy to see people drinking at 9am, but then again that’s normal on football game days in Wisconsin. We got to the Oktoberfest grounds at about 11am and things were pretty crazy by then already. It was a Saturday and the second last day of Oktoberfest so things were packed. We walked around for awhile taken in all the sights, then tried to head to a beer garden. Well they were all full, only a couple of areas outside were open. Would not be too bad if it was a nice day, but it was raining on and off all day, so we were looking for someplace with shelter. I ended up finding a side gate that was open so just walked right in to an area outside one of the beer gardens, with a bunch of tables and heaters set up outside. We found a table and sat down only to look back at a huge line of people lined up just to get into the overflow area where we were. We were all pretty excited to be in that area under some shelter and enjoy some beers, or rattlers, and German food. I really enjoyed meeting other people, mostly a German guys that we talked with for a long time, who enlightened us on the beginnings of Oktoberfest and all the traditions. It was a pretty awesome day hanging out with Chelsa and Arielle (Jeni was in Vienna) and enjoying the festivities, and eating the German food as you can see below...
An example of a beer hall
Hanging out with some German guys
.JPG)
Arielle and I eating 1/2 meter long bratwursts!
Arielle and I - would be a better picture if that guy wasn't in the background, but it was pretty much crowded everywhere you went!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
House Guests
This past weekend we were ask by our friend Dot to babysit her dog, Maysea as she was out of town for the weekend. Of course we said yes as our whole house has dogs back at home except me. But I am a fan of dogs so had no problem having her stay the weekend...granted I forgot how much they smell, and the shedding that happens. She is a black lab and very well trained, kind of reminds of two amazing black labs Mac and Riley) that I used to babysit back in high school. After this weekend I think it's hands down that if I were to get a dog it would be a black lab...but maybe they would be and outside dog. It sure was fun to take Maysea on walks and we even took her to practice with us where we had her running alongside for our warm up and cool down. Let's just say she was pretty tired that night as when I was petting her later on and she couldn't even keep her eyes open! Too funny! I must say that we all had a blast taking care of Maysea, and hope she comes to stay again!
Rebecca,me, Jeni and Arielle with Maysea at Letna Park
The other girls with Maysea, notice the beautiful background!
Myself, Arielle and Maysea...I'm trying to get her turned around for a picture, as the background is super beautiful. Of course that never worked!
The background I was trying to capture...with Maysea and myself in it.
Then on Sunday it was Jeni's Birthday...the big 2-5, she's now a quarter century like me. Kind of scary really. After our game on Sunday we headed off for some North American food at TGI Friday's. It was sooo good and worth the expense! Then after we had a party at our house to celebrate. It was the first party at our new flat, and the last. Kind of funny as most people were hanging out on the floor or one of the four lawn chairs that we have because of the lack of furniture. Pretty much our whole team came, along with two of our friends from Salzburg. We just played them that day and they ended up spending the night and a couple of days touring around Prague. Chelsa and Jeni tried to organise some games to play, but the Czech girls weren't quite having it. But we did end up convincing them to play Chubby Bunny...hilarious! Jeni, myself and three other teammates played. I haven't heard some of the Czech girls laugh like that before!
It was also super funny to watch how awkward it was when Jeni received her gifts from some of our teammates. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before or not, but it's normal here for friends to kiss on the lips when greeting each other, or for special occasions. As in if you haven't seen a good friend for a long time, you would say "Ahoj!" and then give them a quick peck on the lips. Yes, very awkward to see that if you have no idea what's going on and of course the first kiss you receive from a friend is also awkward. Granted that kind of means they've accepted you and you're one of locals. Well Jeni's not really a touch/feely person. So this was super funny. Chelsa and I knew it was coming, so we pretty much lost it when all the girls lined up to give her gifts and birthday kiss. Chelsa got it on camera so it was even better! But Jeni was a great sport and it now just like one of the Czechs.
Marie, Adi (Salzburg friends), myself and Rebecca
Chelsa, Arielle and Jeni
Some of the girls hanging out in our living room.
Chelsa, Eva and crazy Bara
Sonja, Jeni, and Vay Vay
Rebecca,me, Jeni and Arielle with Maysea at Letna Park
The other girls with Maysea, notice the beautiful background!
Myself, Arielle and Maysea...I'm trying to get her turned around for a picture, as the background is super beautiful. Of course that never worked!
The background I was trying to capture...with Maysea and myself in it.
Then on Sunday it was Jeni's Birthday...the big 2-5, she's now a quarter century like me. Kind of scary really. After our game on Sunday we headed off for some North American food at TGI Friday's. It was sooo good and worth the expense! Then after we had a party at our house to celebrate. It was the first party at our new flat, and the last. Kind of funny as most people were hanging out on the floor or one of the four lawn chairs that we have because of the lack of furniture. Pretty much our whole team came, along with two of our friends from Salzburg. We just played them that day and they ended up spending the night and a couple of days touring around Prague. Chelsa and Jeni tried to organise some games to play, but the Czech girls weren't quite having it. But we did end up convincing them to play Chubby Bunny...hilarious! Jeni, myself and three other teammates played. I haven't heard some of the Czech girls laugh like that before!
It was also super funny to watch how awkward it was when Jeni received her gifts from some of our teammates. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before or not, but it's normal here for friends to kiss on the lips when greeting each other, or for special occasions. As in if you haven't seen a good friend for a long time, you would say "Ahoj!" and then give them a quick peck on the lips. Yes, very awkward to see that if you have no idea what's going on and of course the first kiss you receive from a friend is also awkward. Granted that kind of means they've accepted you and you're one of locals. Well Jeni's not really a touch/feely person. So this was super funny. Chelsa and I knew it was coming, so we pretty much lost it when all the girls lined up to give her gifts and birthday kiss. Chelsa got it on camera so it was even better! But Jeni was a great sport and it now just like one of the Czechs.
Marie, Adi (Salzburg friends), myself and Rebecca
Chelsa, Arielle and Jeni
Some of the girls hanging out in our living room.
Chelsa, Eva and crazy Bara
Sonja, Jeni, and Vay Vay
Friday, September 26, 2008
One of Them Weeks...
Have you ever had one of those weeks where previously things were just going along great, life was going by with not a care in the world...well maybe a couple of minor issues here and there...then all of sudden...BAM!! Everything is going wrong all once and you’re like...what happened?
Well, this past week has been like that for me. Where do I start...hum...first off I’ll start with DHL. My mom sent me a package, about three weeks ago through DHL and I still have not received it yet. The kicker being that it has been in Prague for 2 of those weeks stuck at the customs office. My mom did receive a message saying that customs had opened the package, taken everything out, and made a list of all the items in it. They then wanted her to email back with a value on all the items in there...probably for tax reasons. Okay well this happened two weeks ago. Two days after my mom sends them the list I call the DHL office here in Prague wondering why I haven’t received it yet? Oh yes, well you have to fax me a copy of your passport in order to claim it, and then we’ll send out your package. Great...when were you going to tell me this? I fax a copy of my passport out that day. Two days later...no package...I call again...what’s the status of my package? Oh well we have to send you a copy of a power of attorney statement that you need to sign, give the power of attorney to DHL so they can get the package from customs. Okay...great why didn’t you tell this to me on the phone two days ago? So I receive the email from the lady with the documents, call her the next day as I had some questions regarding it. Okay I’ll have my colleague call you back in two hours. It’s the next day and I still haven’t talked to him. I did end up sending in those documents to them yesterday so in a perfect world I should be receiving my package today...but that probably won’t happen. Moral of the story, I would caution anyone from using DHL when sending packages to the Czech Republic as their office here is not exactly the swiftest that I have seen.
Next up...my job. First thing that went wrong was that I started working this past month without a contract. I did get hired two days before school started so I understand a slight delay in the contract. And I did ask what my pay was going to be but they kept saying that they had to write up a job description for me first. Okay well, the waiting is over and I just received my contract on Tuesday, and let’s just say it’s less than stellar. Basically if I had known I was going to be paid so low I would have not have accepted the job and would have looked elsewhere. I realize the pay scales are lower here than they would be back in Canada, but when I was making slightly more per hour last year working at a Czech daycare with little responsibilities at a job that requires hardly any qualification, I feel we have a problem. The work I’m doing now requires a bit of planning and a ton of responsibility as I am working with Special Education Needs students in pull out sessions and am working on their IEP and am writing assessments at the end of it. On Wednesday I had a talk with my principal regarding a raise and she was going to take it back to the finance board. So we’ll see where that goes, and if it goes nowhere I think I’ll be moving back to my old job or finding babysitting jobs where the pay is just as good. Really disappointing to say the least!
Then there’s the whole fact that we still haven’t gotten our furniture or internet yet for our apartment. We really do appreciate living in a lovely big apartment, but we honestly need furniture and more importantly internet. We have been lucky enough to be able to steal a very weak wireless signal when we are in Chelsa’s room. This has been our saving grace as we are at least able to check internet once or twice a day depending on how strong the signal is, otherwise we would be spending tons of money on internet cafes. We feel like we’ve been super patient in regards to waiting for our furniture but on the other hand we have a contract that both parties have signed stating that we are provided with a furnished flat that includes internet. The hard part about everything too is that we’re always told that it will be coming soon. As in two weeks ago we were told that the stuff will be there that weekend, well that never happened. Then we’re told that everything is waiting for us in a warehouse but they’re just waiting to find a time when our manager can come bring it to our house. Then talking to our manager he said he was never told this information. So it’s been frustrating for sure. We’ll be taking our contract with us to practice tonight and showing it to our coach to see if he can have any pull as we think we’ll be starting to give them deadlines as we have been upholding our end of the contract by producing on the ice!
So as you can see it’s been a frustrating week for me, but I’m hoping things will get better. It’s Jeni’s birthday on Sunday so we’re looking forward to that as we’re having a bit of a party at our apartment after the game that day. But granted life isn’t all that bad as I’m still living in Prague and playing hockey!
Well, this past week has been like that for me. Where do I start...hum...first off I’ll start with DHL. My mom sent me a package, about three weeks ago through DHL and I still have not received it yet. The kicker being that it has been in Prague for 2 of those weeks stuck at the customs office. My mom did receive a message saying that customs had opened the package, taken everything out, and made a list of all the items in it. They then wanted her to email back with a value on all the items in there...probably for tax reasons. Okay well this happened two weeks ago. Two days after my mom sends them the list I call the DHL office here in Prague wondering why I haven’t received it yet? Oh yes, well you have to fax me a copy of your passport in order to claim it, and then we’ll send out your package. Great...when were you going to tell me this? I fax a copy of my passport out that day. Two days later...no package...I call again...what’s the status of my package? Oh well we have to send you a copy of a power of attorney statement that you need to sign, give the power of attorney to DHL so they can get the package from customs. Okay...great why didn’t you tell this to me on the phone two days ago? So I receive the email from the lady with the documents, call her the next day as I had some questions regarding it. Okay I’ll have my colleague call you back in two hours. It’s the next day and I still haven’t talked to him. I did end up sending in those documents to them yesterday so in a perfect world I should be receiving my package today...but that probably won’t happen. Moral of the story, I would caution anyone from using DHL when sending packages to the Czech Republic as their office here is not exactly the swiftest that I have seen.
Next up...my job. First thing that went wrong was that I started working this past month without a contract. I did get hired two days before school started so I understand a slight delay in the contract. And I did ask what my pay was going to be but they kept saying that they had to write up a job description for me first. Okay well, the waiting is over and I just received my contract on Tuesday, and let’s just say it’s less than stellar. Basically if I had known I was going to be paid so low I would have not have accepted the job and would have looked elsewhere. I realize the pay scales are lower here than they would be back in Canada, but when I was making slightly more per hour last year working at a Czech daycare with little responsibilities at a job that requires hardly any qualification, I feel we have a problem. The work I’m doing now requires a bit of planning and a ton of responsibility as I am working with Special Education Needs students in pull out sessions and am working on their IEP and am writing assessments at the end of it. On Wednesday I had a talk with my principal regarding a raise and she was going to take it back to the finance board. So we’ll see where that goes, and if it goes nowhere I think I’ll be moving back to my old job or finding babysitting jobs where the pay is just as good. Really disappointing to say the least!
Then there’s the whole fact that we still haven’t gotten our furniture or internet yet for our apartment. We really do appreciate living in a lovely big apartment, but we honestly need furniture and more importantly internet. We have been lucky enough to be able to steal a very weak wireless signal when we are in Chelsa’s room. This has been our saving grace as we are at least able to check internet once or twice a day depending on how strong the signal is, otherwise we would be spending tons of money on internet cafes. We feel like we’ve been super patient in regards to waiting for our furniture but on the other hand we have a contract that both parties have signed stating that we are provided with a furnished flat that includes internet. The hard part about everything too is that we’re always told that it will be coming soon. As in two weeks ago we were told that the stuff will be there that weekend, well that never happened. Then we’re told that everything is waiting for us in a warehouse but they’re just waiting to find a time when our manager can come bring it to our house. Then talking to our manager he said he was never told this information. So it’s been frustrating for sure. We’ll be taking our contract with us to practice tonight and showing it to our coach to see if he can have any pull as we think we’ll be starting to give them deadlines as we have been upholding our end of the contract by producing on the ice!
So as you can see it’s been a frustrating week for me, but I’m hoping things will get better. It’s Jeni’s birthday on Sunday so we’re looking forward to that as we’re having a bit of a party at our apartment after the game that day. But granted life isn’t all that bad as I’m still living in Prague and playing hockey!
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