Monday, October 26, 2015

October Update

Well we used to do a good job at updating more frequently, but here's what's been happening this month for the Huddlestons in Prague!

SCHOOL-RELATED:
- English Drama Club has started! We have been enjoying time once a week with these weirdos playing improv games & getting to know the new members. We've also chosen the play we will be performing in April so it's exciting to have that underway.
12 of our crazy EDC students :D
- English Movie Nights! We've met three times so far with students after school to watch some favorite English-language films & have small discussions after. So far we've watched Oceans 11, Psycho, & Hocus Pocus. Our next film will be Monty Python & the Holy Grail!

- Brittany has been meeting once a week with a manager at our local Starbucks to do English lessons. She has really enjoyed making this new friend and being paid in coffee!

CHURCH-RELATED:
- We have been attending a community group Bible study each week at one of our pastor's homes. It has been a wonderful place to meet people & get to know them better. This has been a huge blessing to us this fall especially as we've missed a lot of Sundays at church.

- We were able to attend our church's first church-wide retreat last weekend! About 80 people from Faith Community Church went to a small campground about an hour outside of Prague. We left Friday evening & came back Sunday afternoon. It was a great weekend of fellowship and spiritual rejuvenation as we talked about the power & trustworthiness of scripture.
Most of our Faith Community Church group at the retreat
- Jadon has been attending a men's group every other week. They are reading through and discussing Timothy Keller's book "Every Good Endeavor" and getting to know each other over delicious Czech pub food.

EXTRA STUFF:
- We were able to go back to the USA the weekend of the 10th for our friend Rebecca's wedding. The trip was a bit of a whirlwind as we left Prague on Friday, and then left Virginia on Sunday. But it was such a joy to spend time with our friends Laura & Kayla as well as celebrate with Rebecca & Eric.
Enjoying some time at a pumpkin patch!
With the beautiful couple!
- This weekend we had our Thanksgiving meal with our Teach Beyond team. It was early for the Americans & late for the Canadians, but it was great afternoon of good food & time together.

Our Team Beyond team (minus 3 people who couldn't be there) at our Thanksgiving meal
- Yesterday we got to go to the Rudolfinum concert hall to see a fantastic orchestra concert featuring the movie music composed by James Horner. We've been to quite a few concerts in the past year, and this was our favorite so far!

Outside the Rudolfinum after the concert
 Prayer Requests:
- Health. Brittany has been sick this past week, and many people from our church have had the flu.
- Traveling. This week we're off from school for fall break & are hitting the road again, so prayers for safe travels are appreciated.
- Rest. This fall we have been SO busy doing so many fun things, so we need to make the most of time we have to rest.

Praises:
- We get to go back to Paris this week as well as travel to Belgium for the first time! We get so much joy from these travels & are so blessed with the travel opportunities we have.
- Getting connected with church family. We've loved the community group & fall retreat and hope to continue making connections with these great people.
- Prague friends. We really feel like we are making so many great friends in Prague, and are so grateful for the people who are investing in us & those that we are able to invest in.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Visiting Krakow, Poland

September 28 is a holiday in the Czech Republic, which means we got a three day weekend! When thinking of places to travel for this short holiday, we realized we had not yet visited eastern Europe and wanted to change that. Krakow is close to the Czech border and easy to get to via train or bus. So on Friday after school we got on a train to Ostrava, Czech Republic and from there took a mini-bus (which really turned out to be a mini-van. it was weird) to Krakow.

Our route from Prague to Krakow
We arrived late (and in the rain) on Friday, but found our hotel fairly easily. Saturday we planned to be our sightseeing day. We were armed with our umbrellas and Rick Steve's book on Eastern Europe which included a great walking tour of Krakow. It rained ALL day on Saturday, but that ended up working to our advantage. Even though it makes the pictures of such a beautiful city look a bit dreary, it allowed us to explore Krakow free from the press of crowds, which we really enjoyed!

The Barbican - fortifying Krakow's ancient city walls!
We began our day in St. Mary's Basilica which is famous for it's beautiful High Altar. Each day the altar is opened by a nun from the church, and many tourists come in to see this moment. The whole altar is made entirely of wood and is HUGE. The statues inside the altar piece stand over 8 feet tall! It was masterfully made and the opening was a beautiful moment.

St. Mary's Basilica
Gorgeous High Altar
Krakow is a city filled with churches. There are 142 churches & monasteries within the city limits, and 32 of those are within the Old Town. Churches are one of our favorite places to visit when we travel, so this was great! On Saturday we visited at least 5 churches within about 3 hours. We also were able to see both the church and home of Pope John Paul II who was from Krakow.
St. Andrews Church - and directly to the left is the Church of Saints Peter & Paul
Another thing we really enjoy about traveling is trying new foods, and perogies, we have discovered, are DELICIOUS. And we wish they were popular in Prague, though it's probably good that they aren't, because we had perogies for both lunch and dinner on our Saturday in Krakow!
YUM!!!!
Our day ended with a trip to Krakow's Wawel Castle, which was a gorgeous castle and one that really reminded us of castles we read about in books. When we pictures mythic or fantasy castles,
Wawel Castle is what we see. Outside the castle's walls there is a dragon which breathes fire! This was the end of our day and such a great little must-see of Krakow!

Entering the Castle grounds
With the dragon!
On Sunday we had the privilege to visit Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau. This was a difficult and sobering trip, but it was one that we believe is important. It is impossible to put into words what we experienced there, so we won't even try. We took only a very few pictures, but we encourage anyone who has the opportunity to visit and learn and remember.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau: train tracks & main gate
Auschwitz II - Birkenau: end of the train line
Arriving back in Krakow the sun was shining, so we did a bit more sightseeing in the sunshine! We spent more time in the main Market Square trying new foods and shopping for gorgeous Polish ceramics.
The Cloth Hall in the main Market Square
We were so pleasantly surprised by the beauty of Krakow, and highly recommend it as one of Europe's best kept secrets! We hope to be able to return there again some day!

I mean, how cool is this?!
To see the rest of the pictures from our trip, click here!