Sunday, September 20, 2009

Moving Day

After my windowless room at the hotel I'm happy to report this is the view from my new room!

At the end of the course we had a champagne celebration and then everyone from the group went out all night long. I got home at 5am and then got up at 7 to pack up my room at the hotel to move to my new apartment. Needless to say it was a very hard day! The only time I've ever taken a taxi in Prague was to move...
I found an apartment in a neighborhood called Vinohrady, in Prague 3. It's about a half hour walk from my apartment into Old Town, but it flies by quickly because it is a beautiful walk through Wenceslas Square and through the winding, cobblestone streets to the famous clock. I live a couple of blocks away from the famous TV tower and one block away from Church of the Sacred Heart, designed by a Slovenian architect. The Church is very modern and far from being beautiful, but you can see the clock from my apartment and it's quite a silhouette at sunset.

My apartment is one block away. You can see the Church of the Sacred Heart and the famous TV tower.


This is the courtyard of my building.


I originally lived with two guys that I took the TEFL course with, Devon and Keith. However, Keith was unable to find a job in time to complete the visa process before his three month tourist visa was up. One doesn't have to be extremely aggressive to get a job, however the people who treated this as another study abroad experience ended up regretting their procrastination and paying for it with a crappy job, or in Keith's case, going back to the States.
Devon and I found a job at the same company and so we live and work together. He is from Scottsdale, Arizona and is a recent graduate like me. He has pretentious taste in music, like me, and is easy to boss around. Therefore we get along splendidly. He's a great guy and my closest friend here.
Keith's replacement is a guy named Pete. He's from England, and has been living in a lot of different places the past couple of years, including Australia and Vancouver, Canada. He and I have been on a run or two together and I'm happy to be living with him.

Me and Devon. I call him Strawberry because of his complexion and strawberry blond hair.

Of course any living experience wouldn't be complete without a crazy landlord. Ours isn't an exception. She's about 50 or so and is very particular about every detail of the apartment. She doesn't speak very much English, and I don't speak Czech, so her particularities come through in pointing at things and shaking her head or waving her hands dramatically and saying "No! Yes? No!". She also says "Hello" as a greeting and a farewell. So after yelling at us, shaking her head, pretending to pull her hair out, she leaves the apartment with a "Hello."
She also comes to clean the apartment every month when rent is due. Which sounds nice, however the relater told us this was so she could check up on things, to make sure we're not destroying the apartment. She also cleans our rooms, and we have a feeling goes through our things.... All in all I appreciate the cleaning however, because living with boys is hardly a clean experience.

2 comments:

  1. I am LOVING your blog, and the photos are beautiful. Thanks so much for the update! Love you! xoxo Jenny Poo :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carrie! I'm reading your blog and loving the opportunity to see pictures of the life you've made for yourself! Beautiful baby!
    Keep the updates coming.

    ReplyDelete