Want to see the animals?

Last year between Christmas and New Years Eve I spent a few days in the south of Czech Republic in a city called České Budějovice with my roommate, Jana, and her family. Jana's parent's own a pub there which is conveniently attached to their home. How amazing would that be to just go pull yourself a pint whenever you fancy? Amazingly dangerous me thinks...

On my first full day at her house, Jana and I were chilling in the pub enjoying some delicious food her mum had cooked us and some nice cold beers. When we finished up she turned to me and asked me if I wanted to see the animals. Being an animal lover I said that I did, I figured that they must have a backyard with some farm animals, maybe a small barn I had missed since I had arrived in the dark.

Well, not exactly.

It turns out the animals were, um, not so alive. She opened the door proudly to bunnies, deer, a wild boar, ducks and pheasants all hung frozen in the -20 air.

And I just...stared.

A poker face has never been my strong point, I have very obvious facial expressions when shocked, I recover quickly, but the damage is done by that point and it's plain where I stand. And let's just say, I was shocked, I was expecting Charlotte's Web and ended up with a nightmare from the Enchanted Forest.

'Oh. Wow.' I said trying to convey interest, this was my first time ever being up close to dead animals that were not packaged neatly, I mean we put my dog down when I was 19 and I was there, but that was different.

Hunting isn't really something I have given much thought, I know the stereotypical Canadian is supposed to wear plaid and run about killing moose (and no the plural of moose is not meese), and I am sure this generalization is no doubt founded on fact in some regions, the truth is I have only ever wielded one gun (an AK47 at a shooting range in Vietnam) and only ever been served wild animal while abroad. So I don't really fit that stereotype, I'll just put it out there right now that I also hate the cold and don't say aboot. In fact I don't know anyone that says aboot. But I digress.

The more I thought about hunting the more OK with it I was, I mean at least these animals led natural wild lives unlike the very unnatural factory farms popping up the world over. These animals weren't missing beaks or eating off conveyor belts, they were just out for a pleasant stroll in the winter sun when they were taken out by a predator, or something like that. I suppose the gun aspect isn't exactly natural, but you can't very well expect people to run about karate chopping deer and let's be honest vegetarianism is definitely not for everyone, especially Czechs whose traditional diet is basically just meat, meat and more meat, in fact the only vegetarian option offered at most restaurants here is fried cheese or tomato salad, which is quite literally a bowl full of tomatoes. Nothing else. Just tomatoes.

So the idea of hunting is rather refreshing when you think about it, which I was, when Jana pointed out which animals we would be eating for dinner. Turns out that night would be my first ever taste of venison and wild boar, both of which were surprisingly pleasant.

So I guess the moral of the story is you just need to be open to being surprised, because as it turns out Bambi is rather tasty.

You're moving where? Honestly. I don't know. (Oct 2010)

Well I suppose it's update time since when I left no one knew how long I was going for or for that matter where I was going - honestly I didn't even know...in fact I didn't know anything until Tuesday - as in yesterday. Before that I was very much on the brink of coming home, but alas randomness was (and probably still is) in my favour and so I will stay in Europe, but not even close to where I thought I was potentially going. And so the (lengthy) story goes...

What I really wanted was to live in the UK, which clearly the world did not want, from the moment I sent out my application for an Ancestry Visa, all hell broke loose. I had to make a trip to Vancouver, postpone my flight, have my fingerprints taken, assemble 1000 documents, train a monkey to do kung fu and pay ridiculous sums of money only to be rejected on the basis of applying with the 'wrong birth certificates'. Not that I sent someone elses, because that would be odd, but in Canada we (apparently) have two different birth certificates, a short form (the card that can't be laminated so mine is wrapped in Saran Wrap and Scotch Tape) and an elusive long form birth ceritifate that no one tells you about until you really need it. So I applied for mine and sent an appeal to the UK Border Agency.

Unsure of how long this would take, I rang up the Appeal Centre to get an estimate, the response?

'6 to 8 months.'

REALLY? 6-8 months? I could have a premature baby in that time. Clearly this entire operation is being run by the Government, because who else would take the gestation period of a reindeer to look at a piece of paper and determine that THEY had in fact issued it. To top it all off Visa Services doesn't have a phone number. Not just they are unlisted. They simply do not have a phone. Apparently they are operating in some sort of pre-Alexander Bell era where it is ok to only respond via telegraphs and carrier pigeons.

So my choices were: postpone my flight until an undetermined date and not make my goal of reaching 25 countries by the time I turned 25 (which at this point was a week and a half away and I only needed 2 more countries to make it) and pay an additional £100 or I could say stuff it and go, reach my goal and see what happened.

My decision was made on Thursday and Monday I set off for Seattle. Upon arrival in the UK I was detained at Immigration and put in a little roped off square of shame which was mostly filled with refugees, criminals...and me, all because of my as of yet failed application for a UK visa, when they finally let me go, 2 hours later, I had to run to the train and then to the bus, which I very nearly missed, to get to Leeds where I would visit my friend Charlie & her family.

My week in Leeds was fabulous, Charlie's family was wonderful, I got to go to a wedding, visit York and eat at a Jamie Oliver restaurant. The only downfalls during that week were that my visa card was 'comprimised' and then cancelled, followed by the buttons on my phone refusing to work (which ultimately means I am carrying around a phone to look cool...one step further than Visa Services I might add).

A couple days in to my England trip I received an email from my mum saying that Visa Services had overturned the decision on my appeal and just needed me to send my passport to Ottawa...well that was all well and good except I needed it to fly to Denmark so I could go to Sweden (where I would stay with another friend and visit both Denmark and Sweden completing my 25 by 25 goal), and so I assumed (wrongly) that I would just send my passport back to Canada after I arrived in Sweden, they'd put the pretty little visa in it and then I'd be off to the UK to work.

I was separated from my passport for exactly one month.

At some point during that month they decided to tell me (which was very kind of them since they didn't find it in their interest to correspond with me very often) that I couldn't have the visa because I was outside of Canada.

Fine. Whatever. I give up, just send me my passport back.

But due to the fact that they operate with the speed and efficiency that one can only expect from a government agency I did not hear back about my passport until Monday morning. As in Monday October 19th (I sent it to them on September 22).

At this point I couldn't find a country where I could get a visa without returning to Canada and I was quickly running out of money because Sweden is expensive, like $21 for a dish towel expensive. So I decided that it was time to get over it and go home.

But, life had different plans for me....

Last Thursday I got an email in my junk box about a job in the Czech Republic teaching Kindergarden (I had signed up months ago to receive updates regarding job postings for Europe, but as of yet, none that I could actually apply for) so I figured 'why not?' and sent in my resume.

The next day I got an email saying that I was one of their favourite applicants (they actually wrote that. Favourite.)  so if I could please complete a two page application form and make a small (humiliating) video clip of me introducing vocabulary to children (that I don't have) and post it on YouTube (where the whole world could view it) they would set me up for an interview via skype.

I did everything they asked and sent it all Monday morning. Interviewed with them Monday afternoon and was offered a job on Tuesday. They asked me to start ASAP so my mum FedExed my passport to me and booked my flight (I couldn't because of the whole visa card drama. She's pretty great like that.) So I fly Friday morning for Prague! What? Seriously. I know. I am moving to a city called Liberec (which I had never heard of until yesterday) but it has a hockey team and I'll be working at a Kindergarten.

And so this next part of what can only be described as an adventure begins! It will probably take me awhile to motivate myself to sit down and write a long update such as this one...and half of you probably didn't even make it to the end because it is closer to a short novel than an appropriated lengthed update...but a sequel will come eventually.