Prague
Over the past months I've resisted deleting my blog, mainly because I have every intention to write a little about what I've been doing and my thoughts, even if it's just a log of what I've been doing to remind myself! I am sure, though, that the big events of the last 2 months won't be forgotten because since I last blogged things have been rather busy. The biggest change has been moving to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, to study for a year.
I've been for just over 6/7 weeks and so far things have been excellent. The City is very impressive, extremely beautiful! If you have facebook then there are quite alot of photos of my first few weeks here, with loads of pictures of the stunning buildings, some banter and some of my trip to the south of Prague.
There are 15 people from the UK here at the University (ČVUT). Two girls from England who study at Heriot-Watt Edinburgh (Civil Engineering) who are lovely. Also my friend Rachel from Northern Ireland, who I know from Strathclyde CU (Christian Union), is here. She studies Mechanical Engineering as do 5 guys and a girl, who are all from Scotland. And there are 5 of us Civils guys from Strathclyde, 4 boys and 1 girl, who I obviously knew before but its great to get to know them better! Twelve of us live in, the magnificent Strahov Block 8, next to (according to wikipedia) the
2nd largest stadium in the world! I'm sharing a room with the legend that is Keiran, a fellow Civil from Strathclyde, and the other room in my domitory there is (King) Seb, one the Strathclyde Mech Eng guys and (The man himself) Gabriel who is a frenchy and a top guy. He has quickly learned to understand our Scots slang and has prefected some typical scottish chat up lines ;) All in all the flat and the flat mates are great! A special mention must go out to our shower, I would be lying if I said it was anything less than an immense showering device!!! The only issue is sometimes you have to wait for the water to be heated before jumping in, but this only add to the excitement and anticipation of the event..... I love you shower.
We live one floor above the gym, 3mins from the swimming pool and across from us are 4/5 5-a-side pitches, a basketball pitch and some tennis courts! It is excellent and so far I've been able to get fitter and a little stronger :) Also, by playing fotsal against Spanish, Portugies and Italians 2-3 times a week I can feel some improvement in my play, but I've still got my scottish style. I.E. Get the ball and try to put it in the net ASAP. Cheesy as it is, sport, especially football, is a universal language, sometimes I play with Czech's who can't understand me and I can't understand them, but we all know what we are doing when we get on the pitch. I'm hoping to get into a routine, and come back to the UK a better player, we will see how it goes!
The University work has been ok, trying to sort out the classes to fit with the ones we should be doing at Strath has been difficult but we think we have got it under control. At one point I was doing nearly 2x what a Czech student would do, thankfully it has calmed down. The work is a little more applied and I'm already really seeing the benifit of working over summer at a Civil Engineering Company (Mott MacDonald), maybe more on my summer in another blog post..... The course's this year are a more applied to realistic engineering problems and solutions as we begin use the theory which we have been learning up until now. It's interesting because next year I will be doing my disertation and could possibley graduate, so I feel this year I need to be working out which feild of Civil Engineering I would prefer to specialise in. Thus far, in my short career, I've been trying to keep my mind open and become a broad and well-rounded engineer. My aim is very much to take advantage of university and leave as equiped as I possibley can (everyone's aim I guess). I really enjoy doing this but acutally learning a subject, rather than learning to pass the exam requires a lot more work and I worry this year that I could just go down the road of trying to get the grade rather than doing the work and taking as much of the knowledge as I could. I am though very much enjoying Water Engineering, at the moment it seems the field I would most likely want to go to into.
Life away from home thus far as been...uneventful? (in the sense of missing it)..... while I haven't missed home much neither have I gone crazy like many people do when they leave. (I feel bad writing that I don't miss home, but I know the guys at home know how much I love them). Something I've noticed about myself is that I never really seem to be aware too much of how my heart is feeling so maybe I have not noticed? I did though notice in the first few weeks after arriving I missed having people around who I knew well which led to me being a bit lonely and thus not really being myself. Thankfully, this had the effect of bring me closer to God and I'm feeling much better now. My Parents and sister came out to visit me a few weeks ago which was great. I think they had fun! They where here for arguabley the best weekend, weather-wise, of my time here. Their hotel was excellent and I got to stay because they had a free bed, sadly though the shower wasn't as good as our one at our flat. Once they left I was a little scunnered for a day or so. But other than that I've been feeling good. I guess the fact I had so long to get used to leaving (3-9months) has helped a fair bit.
I'm heading back to the UK in a couple of weeks but only flying back to Bradford. There I'll be meeting up with some good friends and going to a large church (The Abundant Life Church) for their annual Men's Conference. For me the best thing will be meeting up with some of my closest Christian friends, who I all are very much my brothers in Christ. Infact my younger, but taller, brother Alan will be meeting me down there. It will be great to see him, sadly due to his immence cleverness and therefore a busy schedule, he was unable to to out with the rest of the family to vist. I very much enough his company and I am very proud of the young man has become, especially over the last year or so. It shall be great to hang out with him.
Back to the conference: The last two years I have gone its been great, opening my eyes, challenging me, making me ask more questions of myself, God and the Church. Infact last year after the conference was when I decided I needed to take a risk and come out of my comfort zone in Glasgow by studying abroad. So it should be good, being around the guys I feel at ease being myself we have a laugh, discuss and sometimes/all the time argue. It is always refreshing and enjoyable hanging out with them. I'm looking forward to learning! More on this in another post I hope.
Since arriving here I've visited a only a couple of churches. This is largely because getting across town for 10-11 starts on a Sunday is difficult, but this is no excuse, sadly there are very few churches which meet in the afternoon/evening. The first one I visited I won't be heading back to as I disagreed on a number of theological issues in the sermon and there didn't seem to be much masuculinity (whatever that mean) which is an issue for me. The other one I've gone to a few times now and I'm still not sure what I think. To be honest I need to get my finger out and get along to things. I think before I arrive I was looking forward to getting involved in a theologically strong, moving church with strong men but never really considered that their might not be such a church in Prague and if there was God might not want me to go to it? Anyway, it's something which needs to be sorted. I'll keep praying. I was reading in the first 8 chapters of 1 Corinthians and found how Paul says when people refuse to turn away from sin but call themselfs Christians (possible over simplification of the passage) they should be left to Satan, which from my reading seems to suggest kicking them out of the church from a time, to let them learn. I am very aware that without a regular fellowship and accountability I am an easy target. With God's grace so far he has kept me close to him, praise be to God.
Finally, (blooming massive post, if you have got this far well done), I have to mention the ISC (International Students Club) here at the University. It is an amazing organisation where Czech speakers volinteer to give International Students the time of their life here. They arrange massive parties and trips, games, languages classes etc. etc. For me the best part of the whole thing is the Buddies. Each International is given a Czech buddy who is their freind when they arrive. Gabriela adopted all the Scots and basically saved us! She sorted our accomidation, transport, food, showed us how to get around, was a friendly face, took us to the zoo and spent days helping us all settle in, thank God for her cos Czech is flipping impossible!! Basically we love her. Then I had the honour of meeting my real buddy Zdeni who was away in Finland when I arrived. She is awesome too and has helped me sort loads of problems out including my classes as she is also a Civil Engineer, one year ahead of me. As well as speaking Czech and fluent Spanish her English is superb and her scots is greatly improving :) To be honest I've been put to shame. Though I have learned how to speak "International English. My family met Zdeni when they came and she took my sister to the Ballet (I went with my mum as well, was rather good!). Obviously we didn't scare her off and she's planning to come to Glasgow after Christmas for a vist! I highly doubt either of them will ever read this post but they are brilliant!
Anyway, I better go, I have too much work to do to spend it writing anymore. I hope to blog again soon, maybe about the amazing Czech beer which costs like 80-90p in a pub and is about 10x better than any beer in the UK. Honestly I have no idea how I'll drink the rubbish we have in the UK when I get back!
(Spelling is bad, sorry, my spell check isn't working, I hope to tidy it up soon)
