A glimpse into adult life: New room, building IKEA furniture, desperate victory. Not sure who writes those instructions, but they have a sick sense of humor sometimes. Ah well. It's almost Christmas, how the heck did that happen? I really feel like I've been in Berlin both forever and that I've just arrived. I've been here four months and about a years' worth of things have happened, I'd say!

Wow, I am finally back in Berlin and my life is slowly coming together! I still need to find a permanent flat, but I even almost have a weekly routine schedule! So, updates!

#1 Flat

I thought getting a job would be the hardest thing here, but I managed to find two jobs relatively quickly and am still working (3 monthslater) on finding a long-term flat. Basically, my experience of my flat search is sort of like a really, really long tour of Berlin. I've stayed with two friends and in two sublets so far + my 7 weeks in Rostock. I have this current one until 1. December and we'll see what happens from there! The whole thing basically seems like an awkward, warped form of dating. I obsessively check the flat websites, send out lots of messages telling people about myself and responding to what they said about them, get answers to about 10% of my e-mails and invited to view about half of those answers. I go and get a tour, make awkward small-talk and sometimes make friends who want to bake cookies with me, but still no flat! Either the flat ends up being weird or I wouldn't want to live with the people! Though my budget is actually pretty reasonable for Berlin, I am being very picky with location. I really do want to settle in Berlin and moving is traumatizing so I'd rather wait out my future I-get-a-realy-good-feeling-about-this room in a flatshare (WG). Hopefully I'll get something soon as I just want to unpack, buy lots of things you wouldn't while living out of a suitcase (re: spices, curry paste, kitchen appliances, boots that take up space, big sweaters). I've been in Germany three months now and still feel so unsettled on this front!

I realize I have yet to write about actually living in CHINA on this blog so I thought I might indulge you a bit. I arrived in Shenzhen, Nanshan, PRC on September 15, 2011 con mi hombre numero uno Thomas Prufer. If you are interested in living in China I suggest finding a handsome Chinese-speaking westerner to guide your journey. It really helps to smooth out the bumps along the way, such as, talking to people. Shenzhen is a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on the Southeastern tip of China, the PRC's most esteemed SEZ in fact. It is attached to Hong Kong island via a series of impressive bridges, and just a short ferry ride from Macau. I am literally at the front of the world-the land of the rising sun. I am a 15hour time difference from my homeland of California. Oh, how I miss those beautiful west coast sunsets!! The weather is tropical--hot, humid, and a sizeable amount of rain. It is completely opposite to that of Boston weather which I have endured (lovingly) the past four years. However, I have never been a huge fan of clothing, particularly layers. I am an á natural sort of girl and am loving the hot days and warm nights. I do miss the changing colors of Boston and sitting by the Charles River everyday. The air was always so clean and crisp and you can always smell the sea. But if I never have to put on 5 layers and drudge through the snow for 20mins to class in 10 degree weather with a side of frosty wind again--I will survive.

It’s getting to be that season: Christmas trees are in the shopping malls, strands of white lights ribbon around unidentifiable buildings, and one September TEFLer is homesick (ok, it’s me). Though it is undoubtedly the most wonderful time of the year, it can get a little cheerless if you’re not with your family. The fact that Thanksgiving is not an official holiday in the Czech Republic only makes it worse.

A lot of humans like to sing the praises of democracy and free choice, and yet give us free reign to do whatever we want to and we draw a blank. An open road that goes in a million directions, a blank slate on which we can write anything, can be massively daunting. Have you ever been overwhelmed because a menu contains just too many options? Torn apart by career decisions because there are just too many interesting things to do? I know I have, and so I know that many of us as stumped when we are given a class to teach for a year and zero to little instruction on what to teach.“Oh, they’re level B2,” they might say, or “well, it’s kids, just do colours and stuff.”When you have a year’s worth of lessons to think about, an entire language and a sea of topics to choose from, it’s hard to think of a lesson plan without plucking random strands of thought from mid-air. So, if you’re one of those who hasn’t been given a syllabus/curriculum to work from, I’d suggest that you get hold of a book anyway.

Wow, have I been busy! Teaching an intensive course for 7 weeks is taking it's toll! I'm really rather getting the hang of it though. We have quite the little routine. Warmer, review the grammar we did yesterday, new grammar lesson, textbook activities and then English trivia or music quiz with the occasional test or field trip thrown in.

I have to give props to anyone who tries to deliver jokes in a language that is not his or her native. A hard thing to do I’d imagine. I have never attempted a Czech joke, especially not one about a gruesome murder, but there is still time. However, on the ghost tour I took with a few friends last weekend, our guide (with a thick accent whose origin I could not identify) combined spooky stories with one-liners in a way that would make any American proud.

So, here we were, speeding up the Danube at 70km/hr, trying to avoid drunken Smurfs and keep some vague semblance of tidiness to our hair while taking sunset shots from the deck, when Bratislava came into view. Devin castle sat proudly on its hill while twinkling city lights welcoming is into the city, and a boat with a married couple (or a couple in the process of getting married) sailed past, much to the delighted whoops and cheers of the stag parties. Suddenly it seems that everybody is getting married.

One may assume Praha 4 is near Praha 3. I thought so. I was anticipating a leisurely commute to my job interview when I first saw the address…then I got the directions. One end of the metro line and a bus ride later and there I was. At the bus stop. I still had to walk to the school, following a homemade map with running ink due to the rain. Yet I found it, and I think the interview went well.

I was now armed and dangerous with my TEFL Worldwide certificate, but I'd taught before - how different could it be? More importantly, will it make me a better teacher? First things first, job needed. So, I got the inside info from Hana (Worldwide's Prague jobs specialist), went to my interviews, did my sample lesson plans and teaching (using my TEFL Worldwide lesson planning and lesson experience to cut down on unnecessary time wasting and make myself look super clued up) and got some offers. Great start! I chose my school, the biggest in the Czech Republic. Incidentally, I'd been refused a job previously on the basis of being unqualified. Feel good factor – through the roof! My confidence was running high, so what could the first week of the school year throw at me to change that?

I survived the first week! It's been interesting to say the least, I think I'm finally beginning to get the hang of my routine. Though I normally live in Berlin, my boss asked me if I could teach an intensive English course in Rostock. I said yes, so now I teach 9 students who're currently training to work for Deutsche Bahn as the people who collect and sell tickets, check the tickets on the train, etc. As part of their training they're required to take a 6 week intensive English course. After that, they have to take Swedish and Danish. Crazy, huh?

When I first considered moving to Prague, my thought was admittedly “Woo! Now I’ll be able to pop to various European countries on weekends!”

Well, folks, I’ve come to a few realisations. The first is that I’m a fool who didn’t take opportunities when I had them; flights from the UK to different cities in Europe seem to be cheaper than flying from city to city on the continent itself. This makes about as much sense as the discovery that a flight to Thailand would cost around the same from London as it would from Japan, and I can only conclude that for some complicated reason involving fuel surcharges or supply and demand or witchcraft, UK-based companies like Jet2 and Easyjet are able to offer ridiculously cheap flights from Britain. I did find the Czech-based http://www.smartwings.cz/home.php?lang=en, but finding cheap flights out on Friday evenings that land conveniently on a Sunday evening is quite the challenge. Then, of course, there are trains and buses – and this is where it gets tricky. While I hardly blinked at a 4-hour train ride from mine to Jeff’s in Japan, I’m suddenly balking at the prospect of 9 hours to Budapest – partly because I had convinced myself that it was “just down the road”. This brings my other realisation – Europe is huge. And if Europe is huge, that means that the world is ridiculously massive.

I have finally gotten my visa! My appointment wasn't until October 4th, so I decided to brave the Ausländerbehörde before that because my job needed me to start working sooner (and money is always nice). I woke up at 4:30am on September 12th and made the trek over there. By 5:45am I was waiting outside the doors, an hour and 15 minutes to go before they opened. There were already 6 or so people in front of me and 30 minutes later the line was curving down the pathway. For those not in the know, the Ausländerbehörde is the immigration office in Germany. Berlin apparently has the biggest one in the country, which isn't surprising. In Berlin, all of the language schools (except one that I know of) hire people on a freelance basis. This means you can apply for a freelance visa and are then responsible for buying your own health insurance, paying your taxes, etc. and don't ever work for just one school. On the bright side, you don't owe any taxes until you've earned 8000 EUR and can then deduct all your expenses (i.e. health insurance, transportation, books, etc.) from that. Doing my German taxes sounds terrifying, but luckily I don't have to think about it just yet!

So, here I was again at a familiar crossroads – Should I spend the money on a TEFL course? I had been teaching for the majority of the last 14 years in the Czech Republic and had satisfied language schools and companies and students' exam results to reassure me that I had at least some talent for teaching. Never having had a pedagogical education and getting into teaching at a time when a week long internal training and being a native speaker were more than enough to be in demand, my lack of qualification was becoming more and more restricting in the current climate of ISO and guaranteed performance of modern language teaching. The same old questions reared their heads: What will be taught? Can the trainers teach me anything new? Do I really need the qualification? Is it worth the time and money?

Well, here I am, nearly a week after the TEFL course finished, and I’m feeling pretty exhausted. It was intense, challenging, and a lot of fun – and definitely not made any easier by my quest to find jobs and an apartment within the first two weeks of my being in Prague. After lots of flat viewing, job interviews, demo lessons and decisions, I sit here in my pretty yellow flat, scheduling classes from three different schools in Excel, craving some extra sleep in my comfortable new bed.

Yesterday was the first (and hopefully annual) Prague Pride Festival. Thousands of people came out to celebrate, party and be a part of a day of acceptance and tolerance. I was one of them. I marched through the city center rubbing elbows with drag queens, bears and trannies wearing my DIY pink PRIDE tank top. Not since I lived in San Francisco have I had the opportunity to hang with such a great gay community.

"Prague never lets you go... this dear little mother has sharp claws." -Franz Kafka. A friend sent me this quote when I was preparing to move to Prague, and I laughed at her. After all, my plan was to get my TEFL certification through TEFL Worldwide www.teflworldwideprague.com, maybe teach for a couple of months, and then move on to Spain. It turns out the joke was actually on me, I ended up staying in Prague for nearly two years. I had so much fun in the TEFL class, and fell so in love with the city, that I found myself signing a year-long lease and job contract within one week of the course’s end. I loved my new life, and based on my success in the TEFL course, I thought teaching would be easy. It wasn’t boring, that’s for sure!

One night shortly after my roomies left I got drunk, convinced a friend to go to London with me, and bought tickets for about 10 days later. I'd been wanting to go for months so it really wasn't that spontaneous of a choice, and I was really glad I'd convinced Kindra to go with me. The cheapeast flight involved leaving on Friday night and coming back Monday morning, so we arranged it with our employers and eageraly set off on Friday night.

My experience at Oktoberfest last year was so disasterous that I knew I had to go back this year. Way back in April, my roomies and I began planning it (it was actually the first trip we all planned together,) and I was determined to do it right this year. That meant a)spending the entire weekend and b)actually having tent reservations. In order to stay the weekend we needed a hostel/hotel/somewhere to sleep, and decided to take care of that first. Turns out Germany uses Oktoberfest as an excuse to massively rip off everyone who wants to go, as after hours of searching, the cheapest pension we could find was $200 each for two nights. And that was if we crammed 6 people into a 5 bed room. What's $200 really though? Of course we booked it:) Step two proved to be a little more challenging. Six months in advance is clearly not sufficient to book a table at Oktoberfest; people really take their drinking festivals seriously. At this point we had the hotel reserved so it was too late to turn back, and besides, I figured I had learned enough from my mistakes the previous year that it would be ok this time around.

As I said in the first post about this road trip, the drive through Bosnia was amazing. It wasn't until we got close to Croatia that the vegetatian changed. Our arrival into destination #1, Dubrovnik, went quite smoothly. We found a cheap campground near the city with little difficulty. Upon parking our car we went to reception to see about checking in. We were informed that there were free sites, no we didn't need to pay, we could pick any site we wanted, and all they needed were are passports..."you're Canadian, right?" "no we're American." Cue a joking stare followed by "oh we don't accept Americans here" and a wink. Guess it's not only the Bosnians who get a kick out of us.