Dublin!

Top of the mornin' to ya!

     This past Monday was the Czech Republic's Independence Day from Communist Russia. It was the last holiday until Christmas, so Mariah and I took that opportunity to go to Dublin, Ireland for the weekend!

     The flight to Dublin from Prague was about 2h and 10m and a 901mile journey, which was as close as we have been to home since we left. It was a very smooth ride and a great experience all around, seeing that we had never been to the Prague airport. If you are ever coming to the Prague airport, don't worry, everything is pretty clearly marked and things are in English and in Czech. Also, the bus will take you to and from the airport and has English and Czech announcements when anything involving the airport is mentioned. 

     When we touched down in Dublin it was raining and cold, this is apparently typical. We were very worried that this was going to be the forecast for our entire trip but luckily we had great weather all weekend. We hopped on the shuttle from the airport (Airlink) and were dropped off at our hostel. The hostel that we stayed at was called the Abbey Court Hostel. It got some great ratings on hostelworld.com and for good reason. The staff was friendly, the hostel was HUGE (it was like a maze), the all-you-can-eat breakfast was good with a lot of options, and there were a lot of cool things like a computer room, movie nights, music nights, and such (all of which you can check out on their website; www.abbey-court.com). It is also in the perfect location! As much as we enjoyed this hostel, we realized something pretty important... We are not hostel people.

     Like I said, it isn't that we didn't enjoy the accommodations, our opinion on hostels in general was not shaped by them. We are just not about the hostel environment. People in hostels are often young backpackers that are pretty much traveling to make friends and to see the world. That is great! I think that the world needs more people like that, but that isn't us. We enjoy our privacy and would much prefer staying somewhere that we can go back to in the middle of the day or at the end of the night, and not worry about other people sleeping, not worry about them smelling, farting, snoring, all that good stuff. Again, not the hostel's fault in the least, but our room accommodated 42 people and it smelled like a middle school boys' locker room (or as we quoted from The Office's Michael Scott, "a dirty fart patch" hereby referred to as DFP for the remainder of this blog post).

      The first night we just walked around and got a feel for the city. We couldn't see much because it was raining and dark, but we had a wonderful time just walking around. We then went to McDonald's and had a feast that could have fed a small family. Then we headed back to the DFP and slept.

     We woke up the next morning and ate the breakfast offered, which like I said, was very filling. We then went to a coffee shop across the river that had some cheap coffee (remember this point, it comes back later [I feel like Stephen King, foreshadowing an event, but you know...he doesn't blatantly point it out like I just did]) The hostel is also great because they give recommendations for some free walking tours. We of course took advantage of this. The tour was awesome! Our guide was an Irishman named Rex. He was very informative and energetic. It was a 3 hour tour around Dublin and hit almost all of the main places. It was really great! 

     We then went to the National Museum of Ireland - Archeology. It was very interesting but the most interesting thing was the mummified humans that were found in peat moss diggings. Mariah thought that she would really enjoy that part of the museum, but it was actually pretty gross haha! We spent the rest of the night walking around Dublin and sitting in the McDonalds reading so that we didn't have to go back to the DFP. 

     The next day, I am embarrassed to say, we were sore from walking so much on our tour. We took it easy and had a slow morning at the Costa Coffee reading and having an amazing Gingerbread Latte. Then, we went back to some of the spots of our tour but spent more time looking around at the architecture and surroundings. Our tour, oddly enough, didn't include St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was right down from Christ's Church, so we of course stopped there. It was BEAUTIFUL! There was a lot more that we did but I won't bore you with reading about it, I will just include pictures below :)

     In summary, our Dublin trip was awesome! Some advice, Dublin can be done in 2 days really. Even Rick Steves says so. A walking tour is the best way to see the city for sure and it gives you insight to the city that you may overlook even if you do a lot of research. The food is amazing (See below the Cottage Pie that we had at The Old Mill on Temple Bar) but a little pricey (especially compared to Czech prices… yikes!). It is really a beautiful place and almost everything that you would want to see/do is FREE! We would recommend it to anyone :) 

Enjoy the pictures! 

River Liffey

The bell tower at Dublin Castle. 

This is  the organ inside The Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle (used for the filming of the show "The Tudors")

 Our tour guide Rex in front of the memorial of Veronica Guerin (1956-1996).

If you don't know her story please research it!

That line is not a mistake, that is the Spire of Dublin. It is 398ft. tall and was supposed to be finished for the Millennium. It was completed in 2003... Oops!

 It is hard to see because there are so many different off shoots, but this is Christ Church Cathedral.

The beautiful St. Stephen's Green. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral

In the 90's Ireland was the wealthiest country in Europe, so there are many extravagant apartments that you can look into as you walk down the street. We especially loved the amazing chandeliers, like this one!

Cottage Pie! Oh My!

A New Job!!!

Wonderful news! Mariah has successfully landed a new job here in the Czech Republic! We were both working for Caledonian School, which means that we are working with adults in businesses. We both loved it! But, Mariah was really missing teaching children and applied to a school on a whim. She heard back from the school in about an hour and they asked for an interview as soon as possible. At her interview, she got some amazing vibes from this school and the people that run it. They asked if she would come back and perform a demo lesson with the kids. So, a couple of days later, she taught her demo lesson. I was at home awaiting her return, and when she finally did, she had the biggest brightest smile on her face! A week later, with a LOT of praying she got the phone call saying that she got the job!!! We were so excited!

So what does this new job bring? Well, I'm sure that Mariah will be telling you later but here are some little spoilers... working with little ones, enhancing their music program (possibly a choir!!!), and more money which equals more travel =)

Congratulations to my wonderful fiancée (snoubenka/half wife as my students call her)!

National Holiday: Czech Independence Day

Hello, friends! :)

Last Tuesday was a national holiday celebrating the Czech’s independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because of this, Josh and I didn’t have work. Woot woot! Their independence is definitely different from ours in America. No grills were fired up, no fireworks shot off, and certainly no excessive drinking of alcohol occurred (at least not more than what is normal here!). To take advantage of the day off, we decided to do some touristy things. About two years ago Linette bought us a travel guide book to Prague and it had some guided walking tours in it. We decided to do the walk through Petřin Park. It was absolutely beautiful and we were so glad we did it in the fall! The trees were breath-taking and the colorful leaves everywhere made it seem like something out of a movie. Our walk started at the Kinský Summer Palace and continued along a path in the woods that led to a beautiful pond with small waterfall. Next, we saw the Church of St. Michael, a tiny, completely wooden folk church that was built in the 18th century in the Ukraine and was torn down and rebuilt here. Then, we walked along the Hunger Wall at the top of the GIANT hill. The wall was built as a fortification for the castle to keep away any intruders. However, the Czechs also believe a myth that it may have been built simply to give people a job during a time of famine, thus the name, “Hunger Wall”. It’s really an impressive structure! We continued on to the Observation Tower, which is a replica of the Eiffel Tower, but only about a third of the size. Lastly, we went through the beautiful Strahov Monastery. All along this route were INCREDIBLE views of the city so we took some amazing pictures! The Monastery is a part of the Castle Quarter, so we left and walked around there for a bit. It was an excellent way to spend our day off!

So excited for the fall leaves!

A beautiful view of the city

Friends and Mushroom Picking

Hello! 

     Saturday, October 25th was a truly special night. We were invited by our dear friend, Vlasta, to come to her house and go mushroom picking in her forest and to have a traditional Czech dinner! We had been talking about getting together and doing this for a long time. But, with our busy schedules during the program, we had no time. We were so excited to finally be able to do this and so was Vlasta.

     We took the train 20 minutes out of the city, which was a really cool experience. It was such a smooth ride. We arrived at the station and Vlasta was waiting for us with a big smile on her face! We got into her vehicle (a Chevy Orlando) and went to her house. The house was BEAUTIFUL! She and her husband started to build the house in 1998, moved in in 2000 and though it is finished, they say it is still in progress. When I say they built it themselves I mean she and her husband literally laid the bricks with their own hands! 

     Vlasta has told me before that her hobby is to garden. I had no idea. It isn’t just gardening, it is landscaping! I have included pictures below. She was embarrassed because nothing was in bloom but we didn’t even care! It was gorgeous and you can tell that in the summer it’s truly an oasis.

Vlasta made this. Beautiful!

     Mushroom picking is a big deal here in the Czech Republic. Everyone does it growing up, everyone does it on the weekends, and everyone can name you at least 15 different types of mushroom. You aren’t a real Czech if you don’t pick mushrooms. And surprisingly, we LOVED it! It was so much fun!

So proud =)

Selfie with my mushrooms

Our bountiful harvest! This was pretty good for how late in the season we went picking. 

     When we couldn’t feel our fingers or toes anymore, we turned around and went home. Vlasta prepared our lunch of typical Czech food and we talked to her husband about their travels. They have been EVERYWHERE! 

     I have never had that much food in my life. Cathy Seymour, I hate to say it, but it topped the amount of food that I am accustomed to with you. Everything was truly amazing! She sent me the names of everything on Facebook but  for some reason messenger deleted it…. oh well. It was incredible! We had a wonderful evening talking about everything from their lives to the different sounds that animals make in Czech. Yes, even the animals speak Czech haha. For example, in English cows say “Moo” and in Czech they say “Buú.” I can’t wait to do this again!

Bye for now! =)