Rozjedem!

Čau z České republiky!

After getting some requests both from the United States and from Europe, I've decided to start another blog chronicling my life and adventures here on the Old Continent.  Here we go...

My plane to Spain, 9/13/11

To get you up to speed, my name is Matthew, I'm a 23-year-old American from the tiny state of Rhode Island, though here I most often claim New York City or Boston as my hometown.  This is my third time living in Europe, the first being in Graz, Austria, where I was an exchange student at Karl Franzens Universität and had potentially the best year of my life.  Last year, I lived in Havlíčkův Brod, Czech Republic, as an English teaching assistant by way of the Fulbright scholarship.  Now, I'm back in the Czech Republic, living in Brno, the country's second largest city with about 400,000 inhabitants, not too far from the borders of Austria and Slovakia.  I'm studying at Masarykova Univerzita, in English Masaryk University, in a program called Čeština pro cizince, Czech for Foreigners.  I love it, it's so much fun, my classmates are great, and our teachers are outstanding.  I won't get a degree from this program, but I will get something similar to a diploma proclaiming my competence in Czech.  I go to school for about 17-18 hours a week, where instruction is only in Czech, and I straddle two groups, "Intermediate 2" and "Intermediate 3."

Building "D" at Masaryk University.  Not very pretty, but don't worry, the others buildings we have classes in are classic European buildings.

I know a lot of you back in the States aren't familiar with Czech, so here's just an example.

Čeština je západní slovanský jazyk, který je podobný slovenštině.  Česká republika je malá země přesně upostřed Evropy, jejími sousedy jsou Rakousko, Slovensko, Polsko a Německo.  V České republice bydlí Češi, kteří jsou nejvstřícnější národ v Evropě.

In other words, it's a little bit different from English.  What I just wrote is, "Czech is a western Slavic language, which is similar to Slovak.  The Czech Republic is a small country exactly in the middle of Europe, its neighbors are Austria, Slovakia, Poland, and Germany.  Czechs live in the Czech Republic, and are the most warm-hearted nation in Europe."

School is great, and my classmates are awesome.  It's a very interesting mix of students, ranging from Sweden and France to Russia and Belarus.  There are even some students from Asia, and one girl from Israel.  There are some other Americans in the program, mostly older than me, who have lived in the Czech Republic for several years as English teachers and the like.  I've become friends with several of the kids in my classes, we hang out and chat a lot, and it's great because we speak almost solely in Czech.  We've had some really interesting debates, ranging from the best place to travel to the way that atomic energy is perceived in our countries.

My first few weeks here were a little shaky, since most of my stuff was left around the country.  I still don't have everything, a lot of it is still at my friend Libor's, but it's not a problem.  I already moved from one apartment to another, and now I live in a big apartment in the middle of the city (literally), two tram stops from school, with six other people (five Czechs, one Spaniard).  I'm on the hunt for a job, so that I can secure a visa, as well as make some money.  Hopefully something will come up from the applications I've sent out.

The house I live in.

Well, I can't think of much else to write at the moment, but I'll try to put some updates on here from time to time so that you can all hear what's going on.  It's taken me a while to start something like this because our internet wasn't working, but my landlord appears to have fixed it, so I can start writing here, uploading pictures, and making phone calls.  If you want my address, shoot me an email, you all know how I feel about getting mail.  If you want to make donations to my bank account, well that'd just be real swell.  Just kidding (or am I?).

My backyard: Petrov, the city's cathedral.

Přeju vám všem hezký den z Brna!