Pilot

I'll follow the format of every other exchange blog and tell you a little about myself.  I suppose my name is a fair place to begin.  I'm Anna, American, 17 years old, and tomorrow at 5:50 AM I leave to the Czech Republic for my senior year.  The line between excitement and anxiety has since faded and I don't know how I feel at the moment...hopeful and also afraid, afraid of what, exactly, I can't identify.
My program: AFS (American Field Services).
My placement: Jindřichův Hradec, a half-hour's drive from Austria.  A town of around 20,000 people, roughly the size of my town here, that being Kalispell, Montana, USA.
My family: Host mother, Martina.  Her boyfriend, František.  Host sister, Valentína. Valí will be turning 15 in September; we'll be attending the same secondary school (gymnázium) in JH, though our home is outside of town, in a village called Otín.  This is all very GoogleMaps-able, just so you know.  :)

Contact!
 I won't be using Facebook while abroad, so if you're a relative or friend and want to keep in touch\receive a postcard from me at some point, you can email me.  Send your address and I'll gladly send a letter or postcard.  My email's in the sidebar at right. If you want to send me mail, I'd also happily oblige you with my address :) You can email me for this or ask one of my parents for it.  My skype address is anna_elizabeth_h - remember that I am 8 hours ahead, so you had best talk to me beforehand to arrange a time.

I think it might be helpful to write a quick Czech pronunciation guide to give the mental reading voice in your head a leg up.
The biggest rule is that the emphasis is always laid upon the first syllable, giving speech a general downward intonation.  For us English-speakers, this is unbelievably weird.
Czech's (and a few other Slavic languages') idiosyncratic characters:
ě - puts a "y" sound before the e.  Like "yeh" instead of "eh".  děkuju (thank you) = dyeh-kwoo.
š - sh. František = Fran-ti-shek
č - ch.  Česká Republika = Ches-kah Re-poob-licka
ž - zh, like in leisure or pleasure.  žena (woman) = zhenna
ň - puts a "y" sound after the n sound.  úroveň (level) = oo-roh-ven-yeh 
ř - a rolled, Spanish-like "r" immediately (simultaneously) followed by a ž\š sound.  The most difficult sound you will attempt in your life

ý - ee.  pěkný (pretty, lovely, nice) = pyeck-nee
á - ah, in the short "o" way, like the o in mom.  já mám (I have) = yah mahm
í - ee
é - eh, but longer
ů, ú - oo.  úraz (injury) - oo-ruhz

c - ts, like the last sound in cats. vejce (egg) = vay-tseh
j - y
ou - oh. na shledanou (bye, in the au-revoir sense) = nuh sled-uh-noh

d', t' - adds a "y" sound after the d or t.  náklad'ak (truck) = nah-kluh-dyahk.  Say it aloud, it's fun.

I think language-wise this about covers everything.

Now let's talk about packing.  I am allowed a seemingly nightmare-ish carry-on of 22 pounds and a checked bag of 44.  I ended up with a lot of extra room, somehow, and therefore got to bring a few more unnecessary clothing items plus The Collected Poems of WB Yeats.  I still have half my carry-on empty and my larger suitcase is far from pushing its maximum occupancy.  For any outbounds reading this, the rolling technique is a great one.  I also shoved socks into every shoe, nook, and cranny I spotted.  That said, it's definitely not space that's your enemy, but rather weight; i.e., get yourself a mother of a tote and stuff everything into that -- jewelry, chargers, journals, language books, laptop.  Also, don't think you have to pack, like, 2 weeks ahead of time.  As usual I did my homework just before deadline.  Easy-peasy.
Before weeding, my room looked like this:

Pretty sure half of those 44 pounds are in toiletries.

The finished product...

I have a few-day orientation when I arrive in CZE so I'll be next posting sometime in the following week. 

XOXO