The Last One

I have been given a choice. Either I can travel with school to France, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, or I can attend the final Rotary weekend in the Czech Republic which involves rafting and camping on the Vltava River (This is in June, by the way, but I need to decide soon). The upsides to the first one are pretty obvious; completion of a lifelong dream and experiencing Western Europe (finally!). The upside to the second one would be the experience of camping, although I'm not quite sure that's an upside, rafting, and the chance to say a proper goodbye to the new friends I've made here that come from all over the world. Right now I'm leaning towards the trip to Western Europe, but I'd like to know what you think. Post your thoughts in the comments area prosim. <-- That means "please"

Taipei 101

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1! Happy New Year! With every number, one floor of Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world, lights up in a different color. When the countdown is complete, fireworks erupt off of the building in every direction and the New Years Eve celebration is complete. It sounds amazing and I really want to be there one year to see it happen. I learned all this after asking my new friend who I met at the Rotary Weekend in Jindřich Hradec last weekend. She is from the capitol city of Taiwan; Taipei. She told me that every New Years Eve there are huge celebrations in the streets and many performances in front of or near Taipei 101. Apparently this causes massive traffic jams that make a twenty minute usual trip home into a three hour trip home. Anyways, she's the only one here from Taiwan and she knows Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English and she's learning Czech with the rest of us. It was so interesting to learn about Taiwan, since I've never been there before and we've never learned about it in school I didn't know anything about it. Did you know that they only get air conditioning in their last year of high school? Did you know that their last year of high school has 14 hour days? Did you know that China claims it rules Taiwan? I didn't know any of this! Anyways... I felt like it was a really good example of Rotary helping to bring about cultural learning and understanding, and it was really interesting...so.

While the rest of the weekend wasn't quite as interesting, it was very nice. To get there I took a bus with my friend from America who is staying in another town that is sort of nearby. I went from Uhersky Brod to Brno, an hour and a half. Then from Brno the Jindřich Hradec, four hours. And then we missed our stop. Five hours. And then we waited for the kid who missed his train stop. Six hours. As you may imagine we were a wee bit late. Instead of walking to the hotel, though, we got to be driven by the Rotarians who were searching for us; every cloud has a silver lining I guess. I felt a little bit like Harry Potter after he missed the Hogwarts Express and arrived, by car I might add, late to the opening feast. We were late to dinner as well. After dinner we took a language test on Czech, you may remember it from my last post. So I ended up getting a perfect score on my test which was very nice to hear considering I've been studying like crazy to learn it. After that was a dull speech about stuff we've already heard before and I don't feel like reliving again here on the blog so you can use your imagination to decide what the Rotarians spoke about and spice things up a bit. Post speech about [insert whatever you imagined here] we got to just talk and hang out and my Czech notes I made were requested by people. Then we went to bed.

On Saturday we had breakfast. After breakfast we went sightseeing in town and that was when I talked to my Taiwanese friend. Since I was talking to her, I didn't take many pictures of the town. Later we carved pumpkins and made food. We had Chocolate Chip Cookies, Brownies, Monkey Bread, Pumpkin Seeds, Pudding, and some Taiwanese food. Brownie Mix would be greatly appreciated here. For dinner we went out and had a Czech version of Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Cranberry Dressing, Green Beans. I feel that this is a good time to tell you that I've lost weight here, instead of gaining it. So after dinner we played games. We had to build the tallest tower we could out of marshmallows and spaghetti. Then we had to get an apple out of a bucket of water and then a gummy bear out of a tub of flour, hence the pictures of me on Facebok with flour all over my face. Then we had more free time and then bed.

On Sunday we got up and had breakfast and then left. We were the last people to leave. Also on the way home we had McDonalds, I was pleased.

So I went and had dinner while I was writing this and we were watching the news and I learned that my parents make as much as the drug dealers in Juarez, Mexico do. I wanted to tell my host family this, but felt it would be an akward conversation so I'm posting it here instead.

Grandpa, Miss Barbara, Dr. Witherspoon, Bertie, Saturnin, Aunt Catherine, and the Narrator

These are the seven main characters of the novel Saturnin, by Zdeněk Jirotka (pronounced Zdeniek Yirotka.) It was one of my birthday presents that I got from Rotary last week. It's apparently a very famous book, and I now understand why. I thought it was hilarious, it was very well written and a really excellent book. The plot was really spectacular and the characters were all really well done. It feels great knowing that I finally got some real Czech literature seeing as I'm an avid reader I couldn't wait. If you can find a copy, I would definitely recommend it.

But onto bigger and better things. So Monday was the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany. I know because it was all over BBC World News. It was so interesting to watch the ceremonies and events that took place and to see what the wall looked like and how Berlin looks now. It wasn't a huge event here in the Czech Republic as I didn't even know until after school, but the big event here will be next week. Next week Tuesday is twenty years since the Velvet Revolution in Prague and the beginning of the end of Communism. As far as I know, it's going to be a pretty huge deal here. On Monday we only have two classes so home at nine forty and on Tuesday we don't have school at all. Also on Monday the town is having some sort of mini festival, I'm not sure on the details but it should be fun and historical all at once. I've already spoken with my host mom about living under communism and I can't even imagine what it must have been like. I'll be sure to put picture on Facebook.

Speaking of pictures that I've taken, I was recently in Prague. It was rather chilly that weekend, only 2 degrees. Which is 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Anyways it was a beautiful city as you may have seen. The Astrological Clock in the Square of the Republic is like the oldest thing ever, it's close to a thousand years old I believe. The castle was gorgeous, and enormous. Apparently President Vaclav Klaus, (pronounced Vatslav) was also there since that is, indeed, where the President lives. King Charles' Bridge was also very nice too. According to legend, they builders needed something to hold the bridge together so they used eggs. Apparently it worked well as I can testify to the stability of the bridge, having walked across it myself. So Prague was amazing and I can't wait until I return in December.

So this weekend I have a Rotary weekend in Jindřichův Hradec. It's Halloween/Thanksgiving themed so we'll be carving Jack-o-Lanterns and having Thanksgiving dinner. Also, there will be a language test. I'd prefer to not even think about that right now since Czech is officially the hardest thing in the history of everything that ever was. It's like they set out to make the hardest, most complicated, and most ridiculous language with the hardest pronunciations ever and actually managed to do it. Anyways it should be pretty fun and we'll be doing some sightseeing. Although considering it's been a torrential downpour this week I'm not sure how we'll be going anywhere at this point. I honestly didn't know that a landlocked country could be wetter than one with two oceans by it. I've never had so much rain in my entire life except for that June when Amy graduated and it flooded.

My birthday was last week Friday so I'm officially seventeen now although here that doesn't mean anything since rated R movies don't exist here, they're just all non-rated. Anyways I ended up with two parties and six cakes so it was pretty decent. My class at school threw me a surprise party with three cakes and it was really great, there are pictures on Facebook. Rotary threw me a party with two cakes and I got a lot of čokolada so it was very nice. Finally, my host family gave me a cake on my actual birthday and it was really great celebrating with them. Although there was a little bit of an excess of cake... more like a cake-a-palooza if you ask me. We were giving in away by the boxes and we still have some left, but that's ok with me. All in all, it was a really super birthday.

So that's about it for now, I'll post about this weekend probably or at least have pictures. My host parents twenty-fifth wedding anniversary is soon so we'll be having a big party, I plan on making pumpkin pie. My school schedule is probably going to change soon after I asked to drop my French Language class, but otherwise that about wraps things up. I'll keep you posted on the going-ons here especially next week.

Oh also, dear Mom and Amy, apparently the capitol of Canada is Ottawa, I looked it up during Geography today. Huh, who knew?