Time goes by - not slowly at all!

So guys, after the On-Arrival Training we didn't have too much time until the next project started - Beyond the Veil, a project about producing movies. And although Joana and I did not officially take part in this project, there was quite a few experiences we shared with the group.

It all started when Joana and I got very excited for the Portuguese participants. Joana because she'd be able to speak Portuguese again FINALLY (although she told me both of them had a very "fancy accent from Lisbon", whatever that means) and I because those were fellow veggies - a vegan and an ovo-pescetarian (a person who doesn't eat meat or dairy, but fish and eggs). And as it so happens in Czech Republic, eating veggie here can be a little bit of a challenge since traditional Czech cuisine is basically meat in potatoes in all shapes, flavors and sizes (I got the chance to try vegan guláš in Prague tho). So on one day Veri asked me whether I could prepare the lunchbox of the two for a hiking trip and I was like YES PLEASE. Joana knows how much I love feeding people. This sounds so wrong. ANYWAY...

The trip was awesome, although it was pretty misty on top of the mountain and we all had a great time. On the next day we had a trip to a catholic TV station, it was pretty interesting and one of the participants, Sveta from Moldavia and now living in Romania, actually got live on air! The evening was fun as well, first we had an "intercultural evening" where every country brought something from home (pictures, stories, food, alcohol...a lot of food and a lot of alcohol in total) to present to all the others, but before we had to write down what we knew about all the individual countries or what stereotypes we might have. There was a very clear gap in knowledge about Estonia or Latvia and Italy or France, but we had a decent amount of statements written down for each country. We danced and we laughed...and we cried, and had a very very very good time!

But since Marek lives in the house were Trendum is located and he wanted to sleep somewhen, we just transferred our funny evening into a nice small club on Stodolní Street for the rest of the evening. And then came...the next morning. Waking up at 6.30 to prepare some snacks for the participants. That was a kind of torture, but we made it on time - and went back home after, only to come back in the afternoon to visit the "industrial ruins" of Ostrava, looking at the city from above. There's something about this city. I call it beautiful ugliness. And the rusty machines blending into the grey air, the cold wind dragging at our clothes...all of that has a melancholy to it, that calms me down and makes me feel weirdly comfortable.

So that project went by, normal work began again... we hung out with the senior club of the parish and had a great presentation at Nová Šance, a group of people who are looking for a new chance in life after drug addiction and prison. And man, we talked a lot - specifically about immigration, since Germany has a high rate of immigrants.

Now in November we got introduced to a new school, nobody really speaks English there, but that's okay, my Czech is improving and I started talking to the kids actually. So let's see what the future holds, there's definitely more to come again!