Well, I'm officially sick for the first time in the Czech Republic. I woke up yesterday with a sore throat that continued to be sore throughout the day, along with coughing and one of those really bad, can't-do-much-of-anything headaches. Went through the night feeling the same way and now by this afternoon my headache has eased a little bit. I still can't get myself to do much though, and the headache worsens when I try to think lol. What better time for a blog post, right? :)

We had a nice low-key week this past week. It was a great reprieve from all the baking and eating craziness of last week. The Christmas markets opened up around town and I spent an evening there with Michelle. It was fun walking around and looking at all of the Christmas decorations. There was even a choir singing outside of the church! I'll have to go back again sometime soon to finish my shopping.







Michelle and I were also planning on going downtown to another celebration this weekend (until I got sick). It's for St. Nicholas, and for the Czechs it's the day when St. Nick, an angel and a demon (basically the Devil) come and either bring gifts if you've been good or capture you and take you away if you've been bad. Get this - the teenagers all dress up as Devils and you can find flyers around town with numbers to call for them to come to your house and kidnap your kid!! The little kids get seriously freaked out, but apparently it's a big "fun" family tradition. Pretty interesting to say the least.

The also have a tradition like Santa Clause, only instead of a big jolly man with flying reindeer, it's "Baby Jesus" who brings the gifts. The sad part is, the kids literally think "Baby Jesus" is some sort of mythical creature who comes and brings gifts. If you ask them what he looks like they will most likely name some sort of animal, like a porcupine (how else would he be able to carry all the presents if he didn't have something to stick them on?). Anyways, I'm curious to see what my students think about it all, and introduce them to what many "Americans" believe about the subject...