3 yrs ago, I moved to Brno, Czech Republic from my native Tampa Bay area, Florida. I've repeatedly gotten the question 'Why the Czech Republic?' 'Why Brno?' or the most exasperated of people ask 'Why'd you leave FLORIDA?' Wondering how I could leave my sunny homeland for the dirty, cold ex-communist CZ.
The long and short of it is, there is no clear answer. I wanted some adventure. I wanted a new life. I wanted to try something new. Make something of myself. Do something fun and cool. I wanted to live in Europe and the CZ seemed like as good a place as any.
And Brno has been a great place. I couldnt have picked a better place or time to move here.
It seemed like it was fortuitous. I met great people. Jobs were a plenty.
Friends: I was fortunate enough to be introduced to a website called Couch Surfing where people request to stay at your place while they are traveling. The site also has city forums where people in the same city can communicate different things about travelling or events in the city. This is where/how I met the majority of my friends here in Brno. And some of my best friends have come from here. I always say my first year here was a drunken miasma of choas. I barely ever taught sober and I went wild and crazy.
Job: I came here with the intention of getting some experience teaching. I had thought that I wanted to be a professor. Now, Im not so sure. Im not really sure I will ever know what I want to do but right now, I dont wanna teach.
So, I got my TEFL cert and started teaching all over Brno. Maybe describing how teaching english in the CZ works should go into a seperate post. Its a complicated story but well worth the info for future teachers.
My original plan was to stay 1 year, if I could. I didnt have much faith in my abilities to survive away from my family. Im kinda irresponsible or something like that. Maybe distracted and careless is a better description.
But 3 years later, Im still here and thriving.
I realized though that I need to go home and see whats what.
I tell people all the time that I can do what I want, go where I want. I have no kids, no house, nothing holding me to any particular place. So, I will go back to the one place where I do have family and see if I can still call it home.
This is my journey back.
2 comments:
Nice sucessful experience. And a good reason to go back to Florida! Good Luck Elaine, it was a pleasure to meet you!
So far it has been a successful experience. I really cant complain too much....just the winters :P
Post a Comment