1 year anniversary

It was one year ago today that we arrived in Prague. It is hard to believe that a year has gone by. It is hard to even remember those first few days in Prague. We arrived bleary eyed off the plane and we were met and transferred to our apartment. I had no idea what to expect since I had never been to Prague before. Our apartment was empty. Our stuff hadn't arrived from the US. Everyone spoke a language we couldn't understand. We had left all our friends in the US but we were still happy and excited to be here. A year later many things are different.

We are still happy and excited to be here. Comparing today to a year ago is amazing. We were at a birthday party for our friends children and therefore we were surrounded by many of our new friends. Hard to believe we have made that many friends since we arrived. We had to go across town to go to the birthday party and we knew where we were going. We didn't have to worry about how to buy a ticket for the metro or where to get off the metro. We didn't need a stroller to get there. (We still use the stroller at times for Ali but a lot of times we can no go stroller-free). Our apartment is no longer empty but filled with our stuff. We have finally begun to truly decorate and even have curtains up now. We still can't understand a lot of the language but we can speak some and understand some. We have also learned enough to make ourselves understood in many situations. The language isn't nearly as scary anymore. We have figured out the grocery store (mostly) and where to get hard to find items (this sometimes means having it shipped from the US). I can even offer newcomers to Prague helpful hints....who would have thought I would be able to do that??

We are looking forward to our next year in Prague. We have found a place where we love to live. Yes, there are things that would be easier if we lived in the U.S., but there are a lot of things that are easier here. Coming here we have found many things to the thankful for. We have a nice apartment, great landlords, wonderful friends, a beautiful city at our doorstep, a great school for the kids, a teacher that Sofia loves, and babysitters for our children and our dog. Jason and I get to have a date night every Friday and we get to exercise in the morning without having to get up at 5am. We have children who get to experience a different culture here in Prague as well as the chance to travel to many different countries (5 in the last year). Sofia figures out how far things are by how many planes it takes us to get somewhere. For example, Spain is two planes and a car. Sofia gets to go to school and have kids in her class from all over the world. There are children from Prague as well as Mexico, Holland, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, New Zealand, and the US as well as a teacher from Canada and a teacher from Scotland. Ali will have the same opportunity in school next year. For now Ali gets to play with her friends that we have met over the course of the last year. They are also from different places...two friends who are Czech/American, a friend who is Czech/Australian, and friends from the U.S.

I will keep posting on the blog to keep everyone updated on our adventures. Please feel free to leave comments if you have questions or want further detail on a post (or if you just want to say hi). Thanks for reading about our adventures.