My Birthday!

To start off, here's a pic. of the lovely bouquet my host family got me!

I am officially sixteen today! Go me!

Anyways, today was really nice. I woke up, went to school, learned some stuff and also, found two major culture differences to tell you about:

First:

I had French today, second period, but lo and behold, the French teacher comes in, rapidly explains something in Czech that Niky explained had something to do with her friend being in trouble, and left for the rest of the period. I was amazed. She just left us there, in the classroom, UNATTENDED! Most of the schools in America would have a minor breakdown if a teacher did that.

Second:

When we were cutting *ahem* my birthday cake, one of my teachers just handed me a pocketknife and told me to give it back to her later. Shall I say it one more time? MAJOR AMERICAN SCHOOL NIGHTMARE! It was a little strange for me, Mrs. Phebus (My middle school principal) would hav fallen off of her segway and had a heart attack then and there!

It would seem people here are more trusting of kids here than they are in America.

Anyways, so yeah, today was my Sweet Sixteen, do I feel any different? No, not really, I feel about the same as I did yesterday, and besides the fact that I am now living in a foreign country, nothing much has changed.

Okay, one more story. So there I was, chillaxing in Math when the teacher called on me. Can you say THRILLED???!!! I got to participate in class! OMG! I am a student. I love Math now because that is the only subject in which I can actively participate and do and understand. Math really is a universal language and I am definitely going to try harder at it from now on because it's nice to know what I am doing in at least one subject.

'kay, picture time!

Here's me in the London airport looking like crap on pancakes next to a really cool elephant. I had been awake for 26 or so hours at that point....

This is the view of Kromeriz from the hill right next to where I live, it's a little hard to see, but the church spires are in the distance.

This is the town square, yeah, I think it's pretty cool too :)

'til next time!