Our biggest success was buying our furniture! We bought an "L shaped" sofa that will take approximately 8 weeks to arrive. Unfortunately everything takes forever here. The other 2 pieces we bought the floor models. We bought a low table to put our new TV on and a tall bookshelf-type fixture. It has square cut outs in it so we can pretty much put anything in it. I loved the wood of both of those pieces, its a grayish brown color that makes it look a bit rustic. The wood is VERY thick, making it extremely heavy. We could have taken those 2 pieces with us that day but due to the fact that I am extremely weak and I would be no help carrying it up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment we decided to have it delivered with the sofa. Hopefully all 3 pieces will be arriving in early November.
For Labor Day weekend we had hoped to go to Prague, unfortunately things did not work out as planned but we were able to make some quick other plans. We ended up going to the Asian Markets in the Czech Republic first on Saturday. Accompanied by our friends AJ and Christina, we were prepared to do some major bartering. It was advertised that there were 600 booths. Upon arriving we were a bit disappointing that most of the booths had the same things! Lots of Adidas sweatshirts and Monster t-shirts. We were able to find a few unique things thought. My first purchase was more of a warm up for me. The woman wanted 5 euro for a cashmere scarf. I ended up getting it for 4 euro...not a bad price but not the best bartering I could have done.
We then moved on to shoes. I found a pair of boots I really liked that were similar to a pair that had been destroyed in the middle of the night by a mysterious leather chewer (known fondly as Rocco). The woman wanted 29 euro for them. This bartering was a bit difficult because she did not know numbers in English so we were outlining numbers using our fingers in the palms of our hands. I ended up getting them for 19 euro. I do have to say that I was very impressed with how many languages the people there were able to speak. Most people try to speak to us in German and I felt rude most of the day because I was pretty much ignoring them because I didn't understand. I usually just smiled and nodded and said "no danke shun"...forgetting that I was combining 2 languages.
The final purchase of the day was at the crystal store. They had a pretty good selection of Bohemian Crystal. I was in search of a wine decanter. We ended up finding one that we liked that was 55 euro. Now this woman was extremely persistent. I offered her 25 euro for it and she very quickly said no and kept flicking the decanter so we could hear how it sounded like real crystal. I was a bit afraid that it wasn't big enough to hold a whole bottle of wine so I was considering leaving it. As I tried to leave she kept lowering the price. I ended up getting it for 29 euro! Not too bad!
After leaving the Asian Market we headed to Pilsen, where Pilsner beer was founded. Pilsen is a small town that we really pretty. We toured the underground cellar system that they used to use. Unfortunately our tour was in German so we had to use the little handsets to understand what was going on.
We also had to wear helmets because it was wet and everything was cobblestone.
I'm pretty sure we were the annoying Americans that laughed a lot because we really didn't know what was going on, but it was fun! We even got to try some beer! It was pretty neat. The woman poured the beer from the tap with no carbonation. Then you took a heated iron stick and put it in the beer as fast as you could to carmelize it! It was pretty cool. AJ and I both got to do it. I was surprised that although the beer was very dark I still enjoyed it!
After the tour we walked around the city center and went into the Gothic Cathedral which was very beautiful.
On Monday we took a trip to Nuremberg to go to IKEA. Although I wanted to avoid buying furniture from there we were in need of some immediate pieces for our apartment. We ended up buying a dresser for the bedroom, a bookcase to hold our thousands of books that we have collectively, and a great rack for the kitchen. I am proud to say that I made the dresser all by myself! Shayne made the other two pieces. All of these have really helped our unpacking process.
Last week was a pretty quiet week which did include a gelato date with some friends! But it also did mark 2 full weeks with the kiddos! The group of kids I get to work with are great! I do have a few tough cookies to deal with but nothing compared to my class last year! Over the course of the day I go into 3 different classrooms plus an hour in the resource room and are assigned to work with 7 kids. Obviously, as a teacher I could never limit myself to working solely with my assigned kids. As teachers, we all know there are always other kids in the classroom that are in need of help and for many different reasons they don't get the support they need. A few of the kids I'm working with will be PCSing (moving to a new base) during this school year and I will be sad to see them go. The high mobility rate of the Army is definitely not beneficial to these kids because they need more consistency. I really enjoy working with the kids I work with each day. The staff is much different than what I came from. On a typically Friday afternoon we were planning a happy hour some where (and YES I did see that you all went out last Friday and I was very jealous that I could not be there with you!). My new school goes out for coffee Friday afternoons...a bit different crowd.
This past weekend we were again joined by our friends AJ and Christina and we traveled again to Nuremberg. When we first got there the boys took us on a detour which turned out to be really cool. We went to the building where Hitler gave his speeches.
It was really neat because that is exactly where he stood and you could walk right up on it. I wish I was more of a history buff like my husband, but I think it will come being in Europe where everything is so historical.Then we went to do some shopping! I was on a mission to find a heavy winter jacket. I am so unprepared for the winter ahead. I loved Virginia winters because they were fairly mild (with the exception of the Snowpocalyps and Snowmaggedon). It is going to be quite different here so I really need to stock up on my heavy sweaters! I was able to find my jacket so I considered the shopping trip a success. After we shopped in the city center for a while we continued on to the Herbstvolksfest. Volksfest are the summer festivals that happen pretty much every weekend in the summer in different areas. Now I'm pretty sure that this was one of the last ones considering summer is pretty much over. I really wanted to go because I missed most of the other ones in our immediate area. This was a pretty big one from what I was told. It was a lot like a carnival or a state fair (for those of you that I have been to one, apparently I am in the minority that has not). There were lots rides and tons of great food! We started out by going to a food tent and enjoying a beer. Shayne and I shared half a duck that was cooked on a spit. It was pretty good! After that we played some games and wasted tons of money. I was more interested in trying the food. We had some chocolate covered raspberries, which were delicious, and a chocolate covered chili, which was VERY hot. We had a slush, which was nothing new and special. My last food experience of the day was what I had been looking forward to since I got there! I had a crepe with Nutella, which was delicious! I have found a new love of Nutella, but I won't allow myself to buy it due to the fact that it really isn't too good for you, so I enjoy it whenever I can. The boys enjoyed going on a ride that Christina and I chose to watch from the safety of the ground.
Shayne and I did have fun on the giant slide...although I obviously lost the race.
AJ and ChristinaAll in all it was a great day! Sunday we spent most of the day cleaning and ended the weekend with a BBQ with friends!
Next weekend is Oktoberfest so I will promise to update after that! Which also means that dirdl and lederhosen are being purchased this week!
Tschüss!
