Keeping you all posted with a groupie...

Gday/Dobre den friends!

Phew, what a trip! My life is like some crazy dream! I'm on the wrong side of the globe!

Leaving Aus and everything that happened along the way was such a wild ride that arriving here even with it's obvious, surprising and confronting challenges has been relatively easy!

It's totally beautiful and despite the day or so (so far) of incredible cold that will only get worse I feel really at home here. At least I have the feeling that I will more and more, once work is in full swing and I have learned a little more Czech to make getting by and meeting people easier.

From the beautiful nature and "millionaire's weather" of an Aussie spring to being culturally/architecturally(?) awe struck and alternately cold and cosy, moving to Prague was quite a transition. I've been here a week now and after the initial climate shock of day 1 (it was snowing and freezing!), the minor inconvenience of the delayed arrival of my luggage (apparently my pack wanted a short holiday in Bangkok before getting here 24 hours after me), jet lag, accommodation adventures, a minor flu, sleep deprivation and the nervous excitement of meeting my students.... I am really all here now!

My new job takes me all over the city to teach ESL in one-to-one and small group lessons in business houses great and small. The public transport system is amazing! Buses, trams and the metro whisk you from here to there, comfortably heated to human degrees. Canberra especially could learn something! In contrast to the charming superficial cheeriness but underlying conservatism and insecurity of your average Brisbanian, the people here can seem initially cold (I guess that's because they actually are!), but reveal easy minds and warm hearts when they discover you are not an arrogant tourist, and all appreciate, or at least tolerate, my nascent attempts to speak Czech. Daily I am surprised by how many, especially younger, people speak at least some English. I shouldn't be of course, it is the global lingua franca, and English language pop culture is everywhere. I have to watch myself that I don't get too nostalgic for Aus and absent friends when shopping, I have an aural allergy triggered by the same sentimental rubbish you hear in supermarkets back home!

How's that for a travelogue? Casually observant but descriptively inept, slow to form real opinions but handy with a flippant aside, sometimes conversationally reticent but keen to hone my communication skills and get techno savy, your humble friend here would like to blag into cyberspace and invites the time rich and curious among you to check out my blog. It can be found at: www.[here!]

But be warned! It is not art for arts sake or entertainment value alone that I write! I don't know what overwrought pedantic teacher's English or homesick Aussie bastard foulmouthery will appear ()here. I may use (this) to digest as much as serve morsels of what ever I happen into. I don't know yet know how intimate a presentation of my latest adventures and reflections will spill out. I'm not even sure how often I'll write. Maybe I'll be too busy with newness to share my experiences of it ... or I hopefully will have an afternoon a week to post an update and some of my superlative photography. Stop by the site or ignore it at your leisure!

Many thanks to the amazing beings that you are for helping and supporting me in different ways to get on my way. Beyond reason but not without it's rhyme, Norris' one-way relocation circus served it's purpose. I am differently located at last. The climactic act was buying a brand spankers MacBook only hours from my departure! Madness at the time but the obvious benefits for the communication aged nomad are undeniable. She's a beauty too, a pure white beauty, more than meets the eye, I just want to feather her keys all day, slowly discovering and acquainting myself with her hidden charms... as I said, it could get intimate!

Well, what else to say? I'm not permanently accommodated yet, as much as anyone is, my temporary digs are perfect for now but it's an unusual and interesting situation I can't stay in too much longer, and won't say much about, other than by oblique reference with my recent discovery: The best thing about having your heart broken is being able to fall in love again. I could have closed down but I must have been inoculated against it and kept strong with booster shots of heart ache over the years! Another case of no pain, no gain, what doesn't kill you... etc. Serious emotional training for the incurable romantic. Look out ladies, I've got my mojo working... hahaha. Something closer to home; let's see what good comes of my painful separation from my father's land. I did it a little quicker and with less style than I'd imagined I would so in the end it was quite a trip. No doubt there must be some as yet unforeseen benefit for more than myself. At the very least you'll all have a place to stay in Prague, if and when I get settled! So feel free to pop over and visit sometime!

Best wishes from up over,
yous are all awesome eh,

Cheers,
Na zdravi!
Norris