Exchange in April

Hey all,

I'm doing great lately, and I have been taking alot of pictures so I have some more of my town random buildings and the such. here is that link below

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010843&l=81941&id=1447620606

Allright so whats new with me? Well I just moved to my 3rd host family this weekend, and it's a single mom right now named Elen. Her daughter is in the US in California for exchange and comes back in about a month. Speaking of which I leave on June 10th.. it's creeping up on me like crazy i have 60 days tomorrow 2 full months left ahead of me. So I have to get on it, as in do everything I wanted to do here.

So I had a kind of random Friday night this last weekend, to say the least. Jeff, Thomas, David (2nd host bro) and myself were all waiting at the train station to go to Ostrava. It is 20 km north of FM and it's 3rd largest city. Anyway there was 2 homeless guys there and they were both causing trouble with the taxi drivers inside the train station for whatever reason. After getting escorted out by the taxi drivers a couple times, one came on to the train platform where we were waiting for our train.
Now, this homeless guy has a name and that name is FRANTA!.. sounds like fanta but with an R. and after him telling David that he wants us to vote for him in the next Czech election which he wants to run for president of CZ in. haha The funny part to that is he didn't know that Vaclav Klaus was re-elected this year already and he thought we were saying Santa Claus..they sound kinda different ;)
Then our train came and Franta decided to go with us to Ostrava, we proceeded to videoing our conversation with him for about 10 mins. getting pictures and it was funny. He also started touching Jeff's hands saying they were to cold and then he kissed Thomas and Jeff both in the ears..that was awkward. Then at the end we gave him our 2 liter of pop because he wanted it and we went to meet up with our friends. (the end of that story)

Today I went to Elen's work (host mother) she's a surgeon at the hostpital and I got a little kind of tour it was cool. I also started talking to all of her work friends/colleages they asked me how I like Czech food and things like that. Elen is really cool I like her alot, she's currently remodeling her house and it's kinda crazy but it doesnt really bother me. Also she speaks English but not very much and so 100% talking to her is in Czech which is really good for me. It is my first host family to do this with so im excited. It's difficult and I make her laugh alot but she does that normally. Also on Sunday were going to Bald Mt. which is the 2nd highest peak in the CZ..but its also really small haha. I climbed it with my first host father Tony, and it took like an hour at most I think but it was fun.

Tomorrow a friend on exchange in Prague is coming to FM to visit to Sunday so he will be here for four days. So that should be fun I will post what we do, and im guessing we will have alot of pictures as well.

Then on April 28-30 we have a Venice trip and Jeff, Thomas and I are trying to stay later and travel because Jeff has family that lives in Italy but we shall see how that goes.
So thats all for now
-Harry

long time no blog..

ski week, daily life, new semester, website, this last week, return date

First off I’m putting a link to a map of all the cities I’ve traveled to so far since being on exchange. It shows my favorite places and a big map/small map of the world. (got it from facebook)

second which is ski week, which was amazing by the way. I really love snowboarding, and it’s an independent sport/extreme so that’s probably why I liked it so much, plus I was pretty good for starting out here. I ended up boardsliding a box rail, if any of you know what that is, I will put pictures up from that. and this weekend I’m going to steal Jeff’s camera and take at least 100 pictures of Frydek-Mistek, he doesn’t know yet but he will soon :) Ski week went like this, ...let me start from the begginging. A friend on exchange who lives in another city about 5 hours came from his town to visit us guys in FM for the weekend before ski week. We went out to a school ball we got invited to (although we don’t go to that school), and that was Friday. On Saturday I think we went to the cafe and just chilled out for the day. Then on Sunday, it was my host brother David’s birthday and Jeff and Trevor (friend from Cali) came for that and there was more hanging out. Then Monday morning the starting of ski week us 3 guys (Thomas was in Switzerland) and one more guy on exchange from Canada went to the total opposite side of the country 10 km away from Germany. It's called Spicak and we were also in Zelezna Ruda. The train ride there took about 12 hours, we had a delay in every city and we missed our train in Prague because our train was late. Anyway it turned out to be a great week because it was my 3rd day snowboarding and I got into the advanced group...haha it wasn’t that hard because everyone was starting either skiing or snowboarding, and out of 14 kids 5 were in the advanced group which was cool. I was in the group with Jeff, Nate, Trevor, Julie and myself. We all ended up being snowboarders and really hitting the snow park hard. I’m the only one from the group that didn’t get hurt to badly, except for when I was doing a 50-50 to a frontside boardslide on a box rail and slipped out on the boardslide and smacked my face on the rail...except for that which didn’t hurt that much except for me biting my lip I was the least hurt from the advanced group. :) haha.. Jeff kind of had a minor concussion, Trevor fell off a jump and couldn’t walk for a day, Nate messed up his knee and could kind of walk better than Trevor, and Julie I don’t remember but she hurt more than me.!? lol..

As for my new semester of school, I’m no longer taking typing class or a second German class. But I do have Russian now, and more English classes. I actually like Russian more than German because it’s a lot like Czech. the only problem is azbuka but that’s fun to read after you get it basically..unless your teacher writes it in cursive on the board, you read it in print in the book, and your writing yourself is chicken scratch..and did I mention that I’m being taught it in Czech? but that’s ok the teacher is also my Czech teacher at school so whenever I get a bad case of...what?/I don’t understand this she just translates...which seems to happen often.

Daily life is going pretty well, not much to tell there other than the fact that not much has changed. Except for my month long no school, that’s not fun not having it but I’m over it, I had to much free time anyway. I’m still mainly going to cafes, or what us guys have started doing is going to Jeff's flat and watching episodes of scrubs, lol yea its fun and sometimes we practice Czech we made up some flash card games which makes it fun to learn... yay! ..haha :) but all in all I’m mostly just enjoying what I can here, and experiencing as much as I can.

Stating with last Thursday I’ve had a great jam packed week. David (host bro) Jeff, on of David's friends and myself went to Ostrava to go see a thaiboxing tournament. It was really cool, I’m not much of a boxing guy myself, but it was cool to bet fake money on whose going to beat up who for 10 minutes each.
Then on Friday I had my schools ball, and that was a lot of fun. I don’t see kids from my school out and about much but when I do see them at school parties or wherever I do seem them I always have a lot of cau's or ahoj's the next few days at school. (hi's hey's)

Saturday was a good day also, it was a lot of relaxing but it was fun. Jeff and I didn't do much but hang out and watch more scrubs, and go to the cafe but thats it.

I don't remember doing anything to interesting Sunday, and Monday but I'm pretty sure it was fun. Tuesday I had my Rotary presentation for my club, Jeff and Thomas also had there presentations. It was in Czech and I kinda got everything caught in my throat so it didn't turn out for the best. But it's okay I'm studying Czech more now and that will help me out a lot (yes i know thats an obvious answer)

Wednesday which was tonight, Mark who is living in Ostrava (Canadian) came to FM to get some money from Jeff so we went to the cafe, and hung out for a while. Except for missing skype with my mom its been great week. : `

And finally for now, I'm trying to set my return date for June 9th.

-Harry

1. Vail, CO, USA


2. Frydek-Mistek, Czech Republic


3. Avignon, France


4. Marseille, France


5. Washington DC, DC, USA


6. Tulsa, OK, USA


7. Prague, Czech Republic

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been a while heres an update

alrighty then, here we go

ive gone snowboarding once more since my last time, wow...sorry christopher i know you were only 3 years old but i didnt mean to sideswipe you... :) yea i hit a jump to it was crazy...haha

The only sad thing that happened when i went to visit Prague and Třebíč (can you say that?) was that 2 of my good firends here had to go back to Australia. there school years are from jan. - jan so thats how they exchange..it sucks because i loved those guys and they are alot of fun..

Ive got a ski week coming up where i will be snowboarding at and thats at the end of jan-start of feb so that should be fun.. not everyone is going though because it is expensive but enough of the exchange students are going for it to be alot of fun.

The 24th will mark me being gone for 5 months, and if thats not hard enough to believe its harder to believe for me that my exchange is half over! seriously where does all the time go? but lets not get me started on the concept of time im not really sure it exists.

I have just been doing average day to day things here, i dont have school this month because my school has exams all of jan. so its really nice to be out of that thing..except for my english test im studying for on czech history for tomorrow..which is kinda lame.

basically ive just been chilling out in cafe's or at my house or jeffs flat... and facebook can always kill some boredom (not that im bored here by any means). haha A friend of ours is coming up for the weekend next weekend so im looking forward to that, should be fun.

Im not playing bass as much as i should be, but i just hate not having an amplifier..kinda blows but whatevs maybe i can just suck it up and keep practicing because god knows i need it.

Nothing really else to report, nothing out of the ordinary going on here, just living in the CR an enjoying every minute of it :) im basically just at a slow point right now without school and ive ngot really no extra curricular activities so im just relaxing...

harry


ps ive got idea why but spell check is like "i hate you" so thats not working out right now

tak cau

Snowboarding!

ok soooo today i went to a nearby village to ski, and it was super busy because of the christmas holidays, lots of people.(20 mins 1 line for ski lift) Jeff snowboards and i have always skied right? ...well today i rented a snowboard ((it was just jeff and i today to ski) i borrowed skis from my host nephew) and learned how to snowboard... what can i say IT WAS SO FUN! haha but seriously im not gonna lie.. im not goign to go back to skiing much now. ps. i need to buy gloves, and snowpants. So jeff was really surprised at how fast i picked up snowboarding because he said that after 5 runs, which was all i boarded today.. that he was really impressed i picked it up so fast. im guessing that after skateboarding for so long, and skiing for a while it would come naturally but geez on my last run down the moantain..if you can call it that (nothing compared to colorado) i only fell 4 times! do you understand what that means? can you comprehend this monstrosity? i think im in love! haha but seriously like i hit 2 jumps today, and did a really crappy 180 also. on both jumps i landed it ok enough and then i fell over a little bit after out of surprise that i landed it...now of course i got like 2 feet of air? maybe 1? but still i was so surprised and its so much fun! jeff and i are goign to get season tickets somewhere but we dont know where yet...and im really excited for ski week because jeff and i are going to pwn! (see WoW for the def. of pwn) : ) oh but on my third run down oh man...i might have run into 2 people..within 2 minutes. now the first time was not entirely my fault i was going kinda fast but a skier came by right out of nowhere and i ran into her..jeff was watching and he said she skied away on one ski for a second and then fell over..i felt bad taht time but it gets worse! :( haha but she was fine she got up and skied away (and i said sorry in czech of course) now the second time it happened which was right after this almost i was heading towards this old couple just chilling right next to some mogles right?? and i hit one behind them and of course jeff saw this also he quote said "harry you helicopter chopped that grandma in the boob and made her fall over" end quote..haha my board was above my head and i totally bailed hard that time but after saying sorry again in czech and her husband just amazed at what he had witnessed she got up and was fine..luckily! i know i know...i need to be careful more next time and i will. lesson learned.. dont go snowboarding when its so busy..so i think were going back thursday? or whenever rotary pays us next which is soon. :) and thats my story of snowboarding.

Christmas Holidays!

Christmas here is much better than i could have expected! :) On the 23 my host parents family started showing up, and there are 5 extra people here right now. Later tonight there will be another 4 here, and with so many people its hard not to just enjoy a Czech Christmas and not be as homesick as i expected.

I went to a rock concert/show on the 23rd it was a Slovak band named Horkže Slyže haha try to pronounce that! :) The next morning was all about some sweet bread and not eating much so that if you save your appetite for the night supper you get to see the Golden Pig (zlaty prase). Basically you eat soup for lunch, bread for breakfast and if you are good and don't cheat by eating to much food you see the Golden Pig which is part of tradition...don't ask how it started i have no idea. :)

Also those of you that know me wouldn't think me to be much of a sports person, or at least i don't consider myself to be much of one, but since being here i have played tennis which is a lot of fun. Yesterday though i played hockey and oh man, that sport is fun if its for fun..haha it was 2v3 and of course the 2 people one, my host dad and his son versus me and his 2 grandsons..i mean it was like this
15yr + 18yr +20yr vs. 37yr + 67yr (last 2 ages are guesses) and they won! haha :)
Yes hockey is a lot of fun, oh and i chopped firewood with Martin for the Xmas fire, that's always fun who doesn't like to handle and axe.
We had carp and potato salad for our Xmas dinner. Czechs always eat these 2 food it is very traditional, yes no turkey, but this stuff was still really good :) Also they open presents on Christmas Eve, I'm not use to that but i didn't mind, haha why would i?

I hope everyone else is having a great Christmas as well, and that you also have a great new year!

In half an hour I'm going to be playing hockey again, and then i will skype with mom and dad, what could be better? Nothing, i am 100% enjoying this experience and it is so worth it.

love you all
Harry

Mixture of all..

good days/bad days,food,money,language,bob evans,snow,stoun,ice skating

So today I had quite a good day, not any real reason I did not do anything special it was just a good average day. Lately I have been a little bit down, missing home a lot and wishing that they had thanksgiving over here which for whatever reason they don't! haha Yes, I understand it's an American thing but come on who doesn't like to feast?? Czechs I guess.. Anyway back to the reason I had a good day, woke up semi-late like usual, and met Jeff at the train station. There we chilled for about 25 mins and did nothing but talk. School did not start today until 8:50 because I don't have first class so it was nice. I went to computer class, played random games online checked facebook of course. Then I had English, German, and Gym class.. it was the first gym class I have been to because for whatever reason we just never went.. which we found out is quite common with many of the students. It was a lot of fun though and we will now go to all the rest of them for the year. haha.. So nothing special I was just in a good mood for the day and it was pretty outside with all the snow we have over here.

It snowed for about 3-4 days on and off, no more than 5 inches i would guess that might be pushing it, but enough to make things pretty. Also the temperature over here is kinda cold..-3 C -3 C..is what it has been the last week. brr is right! haha David told me it was around 70 F still in Oklahoma thats so crazy, im just enduring cold weather here and back in OK its just nice and not chilly at all. This winter is going to be cold over here because it started early and Tony said that they usually do not get snow this early.

Wow, Czech.. you are all lucky your not having to learn this to survive! No joke! haha I have been told by around 4-5 people that czech is one of the hardest languages in the world. Some said only Japanese is harder, some said Finnish was harder, and one said Czech was the hardest. I don't believe it is the hardest to learn but I would guess top 5. Let me give you an example.
Thursday in cz = čtvrtek and the c is a ch sound in English
or the word surprise in cz = překvapení and the r has a j/z sound added to it! so difficult!
A funny thing though about Czech is that if they are hungry they would say this.
Mam hlad = i have hunger mam = i have hlad = hunger ....but its funny because if they are frightened they would say i have fear, etc.

Tony took me to the hockey arena yesterday to go skating for a while. Yea i'm not gonna lie i'm not that good, but it was fun none the less, something different.

On a totally different note than skating, but on the same note as different. DO NOT say you like some type of food if you think it is only decent, because it will be cooked for you again! haha I learned this with sourkrout oh man! That stuff is so sour tasting its just like oh man put me out of my misery haha not that bad but close..

On the weekends I usually go to the diskotek or Stoun which is a an old bomb shelter where there is live music. Well if you can call rap/hip hop music, although they had a good ska band a couple weeks ago there. It's all in Czech of course but fun anyway. Thats usually Fridary or Saturday, and on the rest of the weekend I just relax, take naps, eat good food, read which I'm doing alot of and so on.

Also, if you know Bob Evans keep him in your good wishes for he is very ill. I'm thiking of you Bob and don't worry about me I'm not going to the dark side...ever! :)

Love
-Harry

I'm finally writing once again, after many years.

I am currently uploading pictures, listening to a new band I found, and wishing I had been a genius before Jeff. Let me explain that sentence. Jeff told me to unplug the internet for my host family's computer and to put it in my laptop. (that way i could upload pictures at home..not school) As for the cd I heard half of one of the songs of it at a music store and it turned out to be a great album, bands name is Swell Season, or it might be the album name not sure.

Ok so I'm here in the Czech Republic where they don't celebrate Halloween, but don't worry I survived it. There was a Halloween party in a town in the most south east corner of the Czech..I am living in the opposite side of the country. Thomas Jeff and I left FM (frydek-mistek) at 7:00 and got to Jindrichruv Hradec at 12:30 that town is halfway to Cesky Krumlov which is where the party was at. We spent Friday night in JH, with a couple rotex and other exchange students. We ended up getting costumes for ourselves there and, that night we went to the diskoteka, which is very popular over here. Saturday we woke up early again and got to Cesky Krumlov at 2:00. If anyone has seen the movie Hostel this is where that movie is filmed. In the movie they go to Bratislava but its really CK..don't watch the movie unless you like gore/horror films...i have yet to watch it. Anyway we got to see a torture museum which actually use to be a dungeon that they tortured people in...creepy. there was also a ton of old buildings that have been there a few hundred years which is always cool. As for traveling back to FM...wow what a long day of traveling ...for 10 and a half hours, by bus and train, and to many layovers to count.

and if you were wondering I was a girl for Halloween, I borrowed a cute dress and shawl...I remained straight throughout this process on account of not wearing makeup or shaving anything. I did wear a headband..but i do that on regular days so it was not a big deal.

SCHOOL...what can I say other than I am learning very little in school, except for Czech of course. Seriously though this is an average day for me.

Wake up between 7-8 and wish I was still sleeping, eat, get ready/hygiene thing. 20-30 minute walk to school depending on how tired/lazy I'm being that day. Some days school start at 9 or even 10 on Tue. I have between 4-8 hours of school everyday..and Wed. is the best because there is 4 hours of school. Basically we have a crazy schedule. All the students are 19-23 so, and because its like a trade school jr. college everyone commutes into school. So the majority of our classmates live in villages like at least 20 km away from FM which is not very good for us, because it's harder to make friends that way.

Last week my Rotary club had a bowling competition between Ostrava which is a large city 20 km away from FM. Our Rotary club won by about 2 pins and I thought it was funny how some of the old guys bowled. It's to complicated to explain when writing it..but if you remind me whenever you see me next..(never) and I remember I will tell you. :) The funny thing about Czech bowling is that the pins are attached on the tops with cords. So they still fall over and everything but then it pulls them up and puts them back down...so I think it is easier to knock them down because they are not as heavy, also they spin around a lot and hit the pins next to each other and knock those down as well. haha I think its hilarious.

Then not even a week later one of classes I'm in at school had a competition with another class I'm in for a school party type thing..in bowling. No one really knows how to bowl so it's more fun because I'm not the best by far.

Oh and it started snowing here like crazy! wow, 3 days in a row it has snowed, and I still don't have a winter jacket. Snowing in Europe means that it is below 0 Celsius which means it's cold!!

So that is all for now, the Internet at my house is slow for uploading pictures so there is only like 10 more up so far and I've written this whole blog and done other random things..lame

love you all
Harry