Where In The World Is Scotty Sandiego?

Alrighty! First things first! Time for a little geography lesson! Some of you peeps have been inquiring about my whereabouts. Now I know that all of you know where I am, but many people are like "So you've moved to Prague! That's great! Ummm....where, exactly, is Prague?" Let the geographer in me enlighten you! :-)

Prague is a city, not a country. In fact, it is the capital city of the Czech Republic.

SPECIAL NOTE: Prague is NOT the capital of Czechoslovokia! Czechoslovakia no longer exists! In 1993 the Slovak half decided to go solo and has since then left us with two new, fully indepedent nations - the Czech Republic and Slovakia. If I catch *any* of you asking me about how life in Czechoslovakia is you'll get a firm and prompt spanking from yours truly!

Okay the above map is a little small and hard to read, but if you look for the dark green ovalish blob in the middle of Europe - that's Czech Republic! If you want greater detail, click here:

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_MAP/1_map_europe_2001_enlarged.htm

I don't remember Prague's exact latitude, but I believe it's around 50 N, which incidentally is pretty much the same latitude as Vancouver! (Or just a degree or two further north than ol' Thunder Bay.)

And, as you can see from the super-handy map that I've included, it is located in the heart of Europe and shares borders with Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Austria. I heard the other day day apparently there is a field near a town just about 30 or so kilometres east of Prague with a post that supposedly marks the geographic centre of Europe. At least according to the local tourism market in such said town. I'm a little skeptical of this myself as who the bloody hell knows exactly where Europe begins and ends? Okay obviously on the west side with the Atlantic, but how far east does one have to travel before you're 'not in Europe' anymore? In high school we were taught that the Ural Mountains in Russia mark the boundary, but no one in Europe seems to know about that, and it *is* their land after all...

So what does one include as Europe then? (consulting my Risk boardgame didn't help me very much either with this situation, if including 'Siam' and 'Kamchatka' as political entities within asia are any indication, I should not use the ol' 'whatever is blue in Risk' as a means of answering this question.) So what do I include then? Half of Russia? None of Russia? Only EU members?

God, good luck with using that as a means to measure Europe's frontier! With new members being added every year who can keep up? I mean yeah we're thankful that the Czechs are members now, but these days the once exclusive club seems to be willing to let in just about anybody. Apparently all one needs to do in order to be accepted into the EU is to remotely vaguely share a geographic proximity, be willing to drop capital punishment, and be able to spell E-U-R-O-P-E. Romania and Bulgaria are about to be admitted in January, things are lining up for TURKEY of all places, and there's even talks of Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus being added in the future. Okay the Ukraine I could maybe see - things with Chernobyl have settled down a bit so now only 44% of the country remains uninhabitable, but no one in Brussels can even find Moldova on a map, and HELLO! Belarus remains as the only military dictatorship government left in the Western world. So now they can come to the EU party too? I'm all about being inclusive and welcoming, but let's get serious here folks - someone's gotta draw the line!

However... *pondering deeply*

These invitations en masse do seem ripe for hatching my long-planned ultimate goal of having Canada ditch NAFTA and join the European Union. CLEARLY this is in our best interests. Canada keeps getting screwed around by the States (example: softwood lumber, salmon, oil and gas deposits in the Arctic), we started off as a European colony and many of us have grandparents that were born in the 'The Old Land', and we're still a happy member of the Commonwealth. God save the Queen and all that shit, right? Our dollar has been gaining strength (and could potentially pass the US dollar in value one day?) and, these days anyways, culturally we have more in common with our trendy and fashionable Euro cousins than our neighbours to the south. (The decision to stay out of Iraq, the legalization of gay marriage, the decriminalization of small possession of marijuana...) And hey I don't know about you but I'd give up my left nut to have in my hot little hands a real proper EU Passport. It would sure as hell save me from a lot of bureaucracy over here in the Czech Republic, and it would also mean that I could don a fake unidentifiable Europeanish accent in order to impress friends back home! And that is *definitely* something worth ditching NAFTA for! ;-)

Okay this entry was just supposed to be an excuse for me to test out the images section of blogger, and include a map of Europe, but now I've rambled on and on (quelle surprise!) and in the process pissed off both the frontier Eastern Europeans *and* my American pals. Uh-oh - looks like Scotty's blog is back in business! ;-)

Back From The Dead - Finally!

Wow! Talk about a major time-gap in the ol' blog! Where's a boy to begin?

Well... as most of you know, after 5 months of backpacking around Southeast Asia, a la Project Wanderlust, Scotty returned to the land of ice and snow - aka: Canada - just in time to welcome in old Saint Nick. A short two-month rest at home quickly transformed itself into an 8-month stint after a brief glance at the ol' bank account. I ended up staying in the hometown of Thunder Bay til the end of July, living with the 'rents, working at Starbucks, saving up $$$, and along the way and completely unexpectedly, making a whole new group of uber-amazing friends.

After ripping myself from the nurturing womb of SLEDD - the greatest band that the world has ever seen - I decided to Go Continental and make a sweep of the nation before disappearing off the map again. Three cities, two weddings, and one busy whirlwind month later I had whisked myself through Canada's Big 3 - Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. I got to participate in two truly beautiful weddings, caught up with friends old and new who I hadn't seen in ages, and reconfirmed to myself that Vancouver is indeed the most amazing city on the planet - and where I ultimately want to end up once this strange compulsive travel affliction of mine wears itself out (and the crowd asks - 'But will it ever, Scotty?')

A magically-free flight and short visit in London - what just may truly be *the* centre of western civilization - (although I've yet to visit New York and that city just may trump London as World Capital) - courtesy of my wonderfully generous and well-connected buddy Benoit, and it was off to yet another airport for one last final flight. Just how many airports has this intrepid global explorer been thru in the last year you may ask? Too many to count, methinks...

I arrived in Praha - Czech for Prague and known affectionately as 'Little Mother' by the locals - late on a Saturday night, feeling tired, worn, excited, and anxious. What to expect from this new life? A new continent, a new country, a new chapter in life...

For a brief moment I wished I had a universal remote not unlike the one in 'Click' where I could, just for a second, hit the pause button. A city and country can only ever be new to you just once in your life. For only one brief fleeting experience can a landscape start off as a blank map, an empty slate, as virgin territory, as a land yet undiscovered and unconquered. The instant you arrive it all starts to reveal itself, one page, one day, one street at a time, and this is when all your expectations and imaginings get to be shattered and rearranged and thrown out and disposed with. This is a moment that I wanted to savour - the moment of Prague The Unknown. But, alas, no such universal remote exists - at least not in my possession - and so it was time to dive in, head first.

I was picked up at the airport by the school driver along with Zoe and Lauren - two other girls in my course. A short drive through Prague suburbia led us to my new home. (on a side note, officially the first English song that I heard in the Czech Rep. was some deliciously cheesy Rick Astley 80's tune that I had never heard before, but now goes down into the annals of history, for better or for worse.)

My new home turned out to be...strangely familiar to me... It was a large rectangular soulless concrete tower monstrosity, surrounded by rows upon rows of other large rectangular soulless concrete tower monstrosities... Hmmm....dejavu here....can you say HELLO KOREA!? I ventured into my 9th/10th floor flat and was promptly met by my two new roomies - Dan from England and Greg from Texas. Both boys were in the course as well and had already been in our flat for a week! They were both really cool guys who I got along with really well - and as an added bonus to their company was their infinite knowledge of the neighbourhood - where to get groceries, where to catch the bus, etc. Very very handy!

I spent the following day exploring the beauty that is Prague with my Czech buddy Stepan. I'm ommitting details of this day for now as an Ode to Prague and all of its architectural and historical glory will come later in a future blog entry...

And then there was CELTA...not my raison d'etre for being in Prague but definitely my ticket to future jobs and...higher education? I don't even know where to begin with my description of CELTA.... (FYI: CELTA = The Cambridge Certificate In English Language To Adults)

CELTA turned out to be the hardest, most intense, most stressful, most exhaustive, most psychologically and physically and emotionally and spiritually draining experience of my entire life. Basically, it was really really fucking hard, and infinitely even more pressured and stressful. Although it was only 4 weeks long, it's like completing an entire Bachelor of Education degree in that short time-frame. I had 8 lessons to teach (yes to real paying students) - all of which involved being judged and scrutinized and picked apart and analayzed under a microscope by a tutor - and 4 major assignments to write. Plus loads and loads and loads of paperwork...my god it never ended...

You would have thought that CELTA would be a breeze for me considering my past experience working at rather-busy POLY School in Korea...but if anything it almost made things more difficult. A lot of things that I had believed to be true and valid in my past teaching career apparently turned out to be shite. I guess I had picked up a lot of bad habits, and it was CELTA's job to beat them out of me. Being battered and bruised and bandaged on a near-daily basis by the barrage of brutally-honest criticism did indeed lead me to become a better teacher in the end, but not without shattering my confidence for a good while and making me want to cry/pull my hair out/drown myself in to Vltava. There were definite moments during Week 2 and Week 3 where I was doubting if a) I was going to pass the course and b) whether or not it would all be worth it.

But, in the end, yes, I'd say it was worth it. Would I do it again? HELL NO. Am I glad I did? Yeah I guess... What I recommend the experience to someone else? Well...yes...but certainly not lightly - unless my friend was h-core into sado-masochism, or truly serious about teaching.

The course was so intensely busy that I had virtually no life outside of school. My days were spent travelling only from the school to my flat, with occasional refuelling stops at restaurants, pubs, and grocery stores. There were days/weeks when you actually forgot that you were in Prague. I had no time to explore the city, play tourist, or wander around like I'm so used to when arriving in a new city. This was especially painful as Prague is a place that I've dreamed of living in since I was a teenager, and to have it so close yet so far was almost too much some days... But, like a good little student, I tried to stay diligent with my studies and kept excursions into the city kept at a minimum. Friday nights always were 'Let's All Go Find A Bar In Prague To Drown Our Stress In' avec my 18 CELTA comrades, but other than that I stayed close to home for pretty much the whole month.

And so, because of this, September 2006 will forever be known as The Month That Time Forgot. It was like I left this earth and disappeared into THE CELTA DIMENSION. There were definitely days when I didn't think I'd ever make it back to normal existence, but somehow I've made it through the trenches, have come out on the other side, passed the course (YAH!) and returned to the life that the rest of you peeps call home.

Now comes the next adventure....

This brings us to present day, where Scotty is living quite the Bohemian Life here in Prague. I'm officially jobless *and* homeless (beat that combo!) and living life inbetween the Czech cracks. Neither the Canadian nor the Czech government knows where I am, what I'm doing, or what move I'll make next. As my friend Jason back in T-Bay is fond of saying, I'm officially living 'Off The Grid!'

And I have to say I kinda like it....more than kinda actually...

Now most normal sane humans would be petrified, or at least slightly perturbed, at the thought of living in a foreign non-English speaking former-communist bloc country sans job and sans flat, but NOT ME! Scotty walks to the beat of a different drum, and for whatever reason, I'm not feeling too bothered by the current living/employment status. Maybe it's just post-CELTA exultation, but I'm so not stressed these days. I'm not actually homeless per se, as in living under a bridge or wherever, cause I'm crashing on the living room floor of my way-cool fellow-colleague friend Carolyn in her amazing art-nouveau trendy-neighbourhood of Vinohrady.

And while most of the 18 CELTINIANS have buggered off back to their home countries, a very cool bunch has decided to stay like me, and we've become one big instant happy family. We're all in the same boat together, and keep each other company while looking for respective jobs and flats. In fact, one of them, a cool chap named Alasdair from England, may be my future room-mate... I've got two job interviews lined up for teaching positions at language schools - one tomorrow, one Monday - and hope to find a flat soon thanks to the help of some Czech buddies.

Of course as soon as the course finished the weather has turned to shite - grey, rainy, and bloody cold - but hey I'm LIVING IN PRAGUE and what could be awesomer than that!? I've accomplished my dream of living in Prague, and while I may not have all the specifics worked out yet, I'm here, and loving it! It's now official - Prague and the Czech Republic are fucking amazing! Woohoo!

So it's gonna be my goal to write in here about once a month, so sleep in peace knowing that regular fabulous entries are coming your way, now and way way into the future... So check this space often, and please please PLEASE leave me love notes via the comments button on the bottom. It totally makes my day when I hear from someone...

And also, for all of you waiting for personal emails (last total of said folks - 12,849), know that I haven't forgotten about you all and will indeed write you back soon. I promise. In the meantime, read away, and know that I'm thinking of you all often and love you all very much.

PEACE OUT FROM PRAHA!!!