Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Kutna Hora and the Bone Chapel

Kutna Hora, a town that lies an hour outside of Prague, is a town that is not just home to a bone chapel but it is also home to a great part of Czech history.  This town used to be the economic power house of the then called Bohemia Kingdom.  It was the sight of sliver mining, and because it became so prosperous, the town was able to attract the attention of many Bohemian kings.  If the silver mining industry had not died out, Kutna Hora may have very well been the capital of the Czech Republic instead of Prague.
town of Kutna Hora on a clear (cold) day
Now that you've had your Czech history lesson, it's time to move on to the bone chapel.  There are approximately 40,000 bones and skulls that lie within in this chapel.  Interestingly enough, I believe (if memory serves me correctly) there are bone chapels in Portugal and Rome that hold many more bones and skulls than this one does.  One of those chapels has at least 80,000 bones and skulls in it.  Anyway, these bones and skulls aren't just simply laying all over  the floor in piles.  They have been put together to decorate the basement of the chapel.  There's a chandelier, a family crest, a bone monstrance (that's for all my Catholic friends and family) among many other things.  It's not as creepy as it sounds; it really is more fascinating and intriguing.  Have a look:
Chandelier

Family Crest

Monstrance

If this is what 40,000 bones can do, can you imagine what 80,000 must look like?

Just chilling (literally) with the skulls

After visiting a few other sites in the city, we finished up with lunch. This is Wild Boar Goulash  with "dumplings". Pretty tasty!



Sunday, February 26, 2012

Prague: It's like little America, except they don't speak English

I am fresh off of 12 days of nonstop traveling throughout Europe. My 12 day European tour consisted of the following places: Prague, Brussels, Antwerp, Brugges, Dunkerque, Dinard and Mont St. Michel.  Not to worry, I will be blogging about each one of these places, which means that you all will have some excellent blog posts to read in the upcoming week!

Let's start with Prague, which was definitely a trip highlight.  My friend Emily and I landed in Prague on Saturday morning (the 12th), where we promptly figured out the metro and bus so that we could get to the place where we were staying. We started out our trip by taking a free tour of the city with the Sandman's New Europe company (they are a pretty awesome company, I'd definitely recommend them!) The tour we took gave us a good feel for the city, plus some history, and allowed us to figure out just exactly what we needed/wanted to see during our trip. There was one downfall to the tour, however: IT WAS FREEZING!!! I think that day in Praha as the locals say, it was -17 degrees Celsius, and the mountains had hit -42 degrees Celsius that night. Emily and I learned to layer our clothes very well so that we wouldn't freeze to death. A typical outfit for a Prague day consisted of the following:
-Tights
-Leggings
-2 pairs of socks
-Jeans
-leg warmers
-Ugg boots
-shirt
-long, thick sweater that goes all the way to my knees
-Fleece jacket
-Trench coat on top of all that
-hat
-gloves
-scarf (which I left in Montlucon- sad day)

If you look at some of my pictures and wonder why I look like a puffed up marshmallow, now you know just how much I was wearing.

Ok, enough about the cold....I bet you are eagerly awaiting some pictures of the city.  I promise that I will not disappoint you!

Here is the Astronomical Clock that is located in the Old Town Square of the city:
The explanation of the clock is pretty cool, but you're going to have to go to Prague to hear about it! :)

The Municipal House is quite a gorgeous building that served as the seat of the kings of Prague (aka Bohemia) from the beginning of the 14th century till about 1483.
During the day

At night...I prefer the nighttime picture
The National Gallery during the day:
 And at night

Prague Castle 

in front of Prague Castle
If I was writing a book, I'd need to devote a whole chapter to my 5 days in Prague; that is just how much we saw and did in our short time there. One of the trip highlights was the Beer Tour that we did on our last night, which happened to be Valentine's Day (best VDay to date, as a matter of fact).  The Czech's pride themselves on their beer, and they are equally as proud that they consume the most beer per capita in the entire WORLD.  That's right folks, the most beer drank per capita happens in the Czech Republic.  On our beer tour we learned about Czech beer, and we even got to taste a little bit of it as well:
Stop 1: We got to sample different flavors of beer. This place has over 30 different flavors!

Stop 2: Drinking the REAL Budweiser 

Budweiser is Czech in origin.  The American Budweiser was started by a Czech beer maker and has evolved into the American brand we know today.  The true Czech budweiser is different in taste.

Our trip was a lot of fun, and I definitely learned a lot of historical information that I did not know before.  Everyone believes that because Prague is in Eastern Europe there is a fascinating, drastically different culture that exists there.  I found that it was not the culture that was vastly different.  Indeed, the language was pretty intimidating and overwhelming, but you'd be surprised at just how modern Prague really is.  I mean, we found a TGIFriday's there for goodness sake! What is vastly different however, is their history and how they came to be the Czech Republic. If anyone has been thinking about visiting Prague, I'd say do it.  You will find an incredibly enchanting city, rich with history that has shaped it's national identity to this very day.  One piece of advice I will leave you with about Prague: plan your trip during the warmer months; you will be much happier walking around in shorts and t-shirts than 15 different layers.


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Tongue Twisters

As  I was searching around on the web for a good warm up activity to do for all my classes this past week I came across a list of tongue twisters, and I was struck by an idea. Tongue Twisters are excellent in aiding non English speakers with their pronunciation of the sounds that are repeated throughout the sentence.  I immediately printed off the list, and came up with this idea: each student is to pick a tongue twister from the list; they get 5 minutes to practice and learn it now, and then as they leave for the day they will have to recite their tongue twister to me.  I thought it was a great idea and was excited to try it out. Well, it was a hit all around.  The kids loved getting the list, and they especially loved hearing me say all of them extremely fast (I did Peter Piper and How much wood would a woodchuck chuck so well I actually got applauded).  These were some of the favorites off of the list:

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.
Madame Minnie made a mound of many melon.
The red bug bled on the black bug's bed.
Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers
What noise annoys an oyster? A noisy noise annoys an oyster.

I had a few brave students who tried the infamous Peter Piper and How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, but I think I heard the ones above the most.  The activity was so well received that even a week later two Terminale (High School Seniors) were coming up to me and repeating the sentence to make sure they still had it right!

Of course, since I was testing their English pronunciation the kids all thought it would be great to give me a list French tongue twisters that I could practice my pronunciation with (I was sort of hoping for this reaction, because I plan to do this activity when I'm back teaching stateside).  Any of my former WCHS Frenchies take a look at "ces virelangues" and try them out!

Les chaussettes de l'archi duchesse sont-elles seche? Archi seche? (this one is super difficult!)
Un chasseur sachent chasser sans son chien et un bon chasseu!
Je veux et j'exige d'exquises excuses.
Agathe attaque tac! Attaque Agathe!
Panier, piano ( apparently this one is very difficult for them. I said it so many times and so fast that I was once again rewarded with rounds of applause)
Trois trres gros, gras, grand rats gris grattent.

After this blog post I'll be taking a 2 week hiatus....we have upcoming winter holidays and I will be away the whole time traveling and exploring Europe! You can look forward to blogs about the following places:

Prague!
Brugges!
Antwerp!
Brussels (maybe)!
Dunkerque!
Mont St. Michel!

Stay tuned!