Sending Us Mail

Since we receive mail at our school here in Prague, if you want to send anything to us from today (June 15) until August 15, please mail it to either Jadon's parents or Brittany's parents in the States.

We will be at school until June 30, but it is unlikely that anything mailed after today will reach us before we are done for the school year.

If you need the address for either sets of parents, just email one of us (bhuddleston@teachbeyond.org OR jhuddleston@teachbeyond.org), and we can give you that information.

We'd love to hear from you this summer!

Hokejbal Czech Championship!

Written by Jadon

A couple of weeks ago, Brittany and I had the chance to watch a friend play in the Czech Championship in Hokejbal (Hockey Ball in English)—a sport that since the beginning of the school year, it seems, has been mentioned once every week or so in one of my English Conversation classes—and being fans of hockey, we had so much fun!

Basically, Hokejbal is ice hockey without the ice and without skates. The game we saw took place on a pavement surface similar to blacktop, and the players, though dressed in all the other typical hockey regalia (pads, helmets, etc.), wore tennis shoes and ran back and forth rather than skating. The other major difference is the “puck.” Instead of being a flat rubber disk, Hokejbal is played with—you guessed it—a small orange plastic ball. There are a few other minor rule differences, but they are somewhat technical, and I won’t get into them. This means that someone like me—who can’t skate worth beans—could play Hokejbal, although it still takes a lot of skill with a hockey stick.

Hokejbal face off

The last game of the Hokejbal Championship—the one we watched—took place in Kladno, a medium-sized city only a 25 minute train ride from Prague. Kladno is where all the best Czech ice hockey players are from, and quite a few of our students as well. This was our first time in Kladno, and we are glad that we went with Czech speaking friends, because there is not nearly as much English spoken in Kladno as in Prague, and our Czech is still quite limited. But Kladno is much more similar to Bourbonnais/Kankakee in size and atmosphere than Prague, and it was great to get out of the city.

In the stands with my former student Nikos and his brother!

And they won!! It was so much fun to watch Jakub and his team become the best Hokejbal players in the Czech Republic. And we really enjoyed hanging out Nikos and Vašek –the four of us were the best fans, except for the guys with fireworks… And, Jakub, if you are reading this, let us know when your games are next year!!  

Crazy Hokejbal fans celebrating the victory!

 

Czech Culture: Maturita Exams

Written by Brittany

During the first and third weeks of May, our fourth year (senior) students took their final exam called the Maturita.

This is different than any type of exam we do in the US. Each student picks 3 or 4 subjects they want to graduate in. Within those subjects there are 25-30 topics they must be prepared for. So within the subject of English, they could be asked anything ranging from American cuisine to Irish history to places to visit in Australia. Needless to say, the range is very broad.

Students begin with the written portion during the first week of exams. They take a written exam for each of the subjects they have chosen. Most of our students said that the written part was the easy part. In English, the written portion consists of reading, writing, & listening.

The second week of exams is the more difficult part: the oral exam. For their oral exam, students pick one of the 25-30 topics from a bag and have 15 minutes to prepare what they will say. The oral exams are “open to the public,” which means anyone can come and watch them. We were able to watch three of our students do their oral exams. This is helpful for the younger students so they can see what the exams will be like, but I’m sure it is an added pressure for the students being examined.

There are two types of Maturita:

1.     The State exam – the state exam is a little easier. This type lasts for 15 minutes, but the students have to speak on their chosen topic for only 5 minutes, and then their teacher gives them other speaking tasks. These tasks would include describing & comparing two pictures and then having a short conversation with the teacher based on a given prompt.

2.     The School exam – the school exam is more difficult. Students have to speak for 15 minutes on their chosen topic. The teacher is allowed to ask questions to help the student think of more things to say, but for the most part, the student should be able to fill the full 15 minutes.

We were able to observe both types of exam, and the students we watched did very well. This exam is also much more formal than any US testing as the students and teachers (and even observers) should dress up for the exam. All our students wore suit coats and ties or skirts and blouses.

And Hallelujah, all our fourth year students passed! We are very proud of them & all the hard work they had to do to prepare & complete their exams. Now they are preparing for their university entrance exams – here you don’t just apply to university, you have to take a test to be accepted. So if they want to apply to a few universities, they have to take an entrance exam with each one. We wish them so much luck as they continue!!

Prayer Requests:

-       We go home in less than a month (yay!), but we still have 3 full weeks of school before we leave (Czech schools don’t get out until June 30), so prayers that we finish well and with good focus.

-       Our Visa situation – we’re now playing the waiting game again, so prayers for our peace/patience and that everything goes well.

-       Some members of our Teach Beyond team are moving back to the States this month and many others are traveling home, so prayers for safe travels as well as good transitions back into life in the US.

-       The American university students from CRU were a great group to have in our classrooms and have made some good friendships with our students, so prayers that those will continue even once they’ve left Prague.

Praises:

-       Our power went out for a while on Saturday night, but our landlord came over after 9pm to fix it for us. So grateful for him & his kindness!

-       We have friends from home coming to stay with us today, and they’ll be here until Friday!

-       We’ve had hot days, but have managed to find good shade outside & bought a new fan, so we haven’t suffered too much without air conditioning!

-       We have been meeting new people and making new friends at our church!

Visa Update: Post-Appointment

This morning we had our appointment to get our Visas renewed.

This was our first of three appointments we will have to complete the process. Today was when we took in our applications & officially applied for the renewal.
We now wait to hear if we are approved.
Once approved, we go back in to get our pictures & fingerprints taken.
And then for the final appointment, probably about 3 weeks later, we just go to pay for & pick up our new employment cards.

Our current cards don't expire until August 31, so as long as nothing goes terribly wrong, we should have everything completed by then.

We were blessed today to have a secretary from our school come with us, and it turned out to be very helpful because there were a couple moments that could have been very stressful/confusing, but she was able to take care of it for us.

Blessings upon blessings everywhere we turn.
Thanks for your prayers! Please keep our visa situation on your prayer list for the next couple months as everything gets officially worked out. We'll keep you updated on our next two appointments.

Quick Visa Update!

Somehow it has already been 3 months since our employee cards were finalized, and now they are about to expire.

SO we start again.

We have been told that the renewal process should be much easier (no trips to Berlin necessary!), and we hope this to be the case.

Tomorrow (Friday) morning we have an appointment to go to the Ministry of Interior at 9:00am. We think we have all the paperwork necessary and hope that it will be an easy appointment.

So if you would please add our Visas back on your prayer list, we would very much appreciate it. Prayers that all our paperwork is together & correctly filled out, prayers that the appointments go smoothly, & prayers that we can have peace about it whatever happens.

We will update again on Friday afternoon with our (hopefully good) results.
As always, thank you for the prayers & support!

Birthday Weekend in Salzburg, Austria!

Written by Brittany

My birthday, May 8, is a national holiday in the Czech Republic. It’s called Liberation Day and is similar to our VE Day, celebrating the end of WWII in the CZ. Because of this wonderful coincidence, we did not have school on my birthday, which was the second Friday in May.

When we first arrived back in the fall, we looked ahead at all our school breaks and tried to figure out what we’d want to do for each one. This was the easiest one to plan. There was a perfect tour we could purchase for two nights in Salzburg during my birthday weekend. The “tour” included our accommodations as well as a 4-hour Sound of Music bus tour. So the trip we had booked since September was finally here!

We arrived in Salzburg around 11am on Friday and went to our hotel. Our hotel was probably the highlight of the trip. The hotel shared grounds with the Palace Leopoldskron, which was used as the grounds & garden for the von Trapp house in The Sound of Music! If you remember the scene where they capsize the canoe on the lake, that’s where we were. (There were two houses used, the other for the actual building and where we stayed for all the outside shots of the grounds.) So when we first arrived we spent some time just walking around in awe of the view  and reenacting some of the scenes from the movie.

The view from our hotel!

Since it was still early in the day, we ordered a picnic from our hotel, complete with blanket & map of picnic places, and found a public park nearby to relax with a beautiful view of the Alps. It was a wonderful way to actually spend time relaxing together. And really just the picnic and the amazing hotel already made it a fantastic birthday. 

The view from our picnic

After that we walked about 20 minutes to get to Old Town Salzburg and did some sightseeing. There were many beautiful squares, old churches, and souvenir shops. My favorite place of the whole trip was Mirabell Gardens, where much of the “Do-Re-Mi” sequence was filmed in the movie. We went there each day we were in Salzburg, and it was so beautiful.

Dancing around the fountain like they do in the movie!

More of the beautiful gardens!

That night we went to see a Sound of Music show at a marionette theater, which was a new experience for both of us. It was both very silly & very impressive.

On Saturday we had our official Sound of Music tour. Our hotel was the first stop of the tour, but since it is considered private property, the closest the tour group can get is a view from across the lake. We were so glad we had a more “up-close” view of such a beautiful place!  On the tour we also got to see the 16 Going on 17 gazebo; Nonnberg Abbey, the church where Maria & the captain get married; as well as some of the vistas that were used in the opening scenes. The tour ended at the Mirabell Gardens. Probably the most interesting thing we learned on the tour is that The Sound of Music is not popular with Austrians. Most of them know the real story of Maria & the von Trapp family, but don’t know anything about the musical. It’s mainly people from English speaking countries who come to Salzburg excited about the film.

After the tour we did some more exploring of the old town on our own and found other places featured in the film, including this view of Salburg which is also part of the “Do-Re-Mi” sequence. (Really the part of the movie was filmed ALL over Salzburg, so a lot of what we saw was from that song.)

That night we went to a Sounds of Salzburg dinner show, which was a great way to end the day. It featured songs from Sound of Music, Austrian folk songs, and pieces form Mozart’s operas. (Salzburg’s other claim to fame is that Mozart was born there. We didn’t learn too much about him this time, so we’ll just have to go back!) There were other people from our bus tour who were also there that evening, so we were able to enjoy the time & bond with some other Sound of Music fans from Australia, LA, & Scotland.

Our final day there we did our last bit of sightseeing, visiting the Palace Frohnburg, which was the actual building used for the von Trapp house. Also there is the lane where the children are climbing the trees & where Maria sings “I Have Confidence.” One more visit to the Mirabell Gardens and some final relaxing with the view at our hotel, and then it was time to go.

This was such a wonderful trip, and I’m not sure another birthday will be able to top #28!

For more pictures from our trip, click here!