Saturday, October 27, 2012

The Nameless Frog Goes to Cesky Krumlov

My classroom is decorated with frogs. It all began, because right before my first year of teaching, my mom and I found some frog stuff left over from her last year of teaching fourth grade. It spiraled from there...

When I moved into my flat in August, I saw that one of my flatmates had left a stuffed frog sitting on my shelf, and through a series of events I decided he would be my classpet. I just haven't told my kiddos about it yet (I was waiting to take the frog on an adventure first). So, finally Fall Break came and it was time for the nameless frog to go on his first adventure--to Cesky Krumlov, a medieval town not to far from Prague (although, compared to other places I've lived--like Seoul or Guatemala City--Prague is a town, so really Cesky Krumlov is more of a village--it's quaint, it's fairytailish, it's small). But, anyway, back to the Frog's adventure.

 Froggy visited the castle. He even climbed the tower--but I forgot to get a picture of this, because he was in my backpack. He strolled through the castle compound (still in my backpack) and finally was taken out of it when I saw frogs as part of the fountain in the castle garden, reminding me he was there!

 Here is poor Frog trying to get to his friends in the middle of the fountain. Alas, they were too far away and he is one of the few frogs in the world who doesn't like getting wet. Poor froggy!

After that, I took Frog back to a part of the castle where you can overlook the village-town. He really enjoyed the view and was ever so excited to have his picture taken here. He was still sad that he missed seing the view from the tower. I know--I'm such a terrible person to have forgotten the stuffed animal in my backpack.
After all the wandering, my travel buddies and I were getting hungry. It was also getting cold. We decided that a nice, heart Czech meal was in order. Both Lonely Planet and Rick Steeves has recommended a restaurant called "The Two Marys". It served traditional Medieval Bohemian food. We got the old style Bohemian feast, which included smoked meat, potato cake, chicken, potato dumplings, millet cakes, cabbage, and salad. It was quite delicious. Actually, the whole trip was wonderful--even if I did get several strange looks from people for taking pictures with a stuffed animal. I'm an elementary teacher--what can I say.


PS--The Nameless Frog has since been named "Billy Bob" :)