New beginning / Nový začátek

Od poloviny ledna hostujeme v Brně naši novou EVS dobrovolnici Martu z Kanárských ostrovů. O jejím příjezdu do České republiky, jejích dojmech či poznávání Brna si můžete přečíst v tomto článku, který je v angličtině.

Hello everybody! I’m Marta and I have just arrived to Brno. Or not… this is my second week here. All is relative. After taking two flights, sleeping in another city and catching a bus, I got home very tired. I met my three flatmates and I tried to tidy my room as fast as I could go to the bed.

My first week

My first day was about discovering some places that, maybe, will be the ones where I’ll spend a lot of time. The second day was probably one of the best days so far. It started to snow during almost all the day. I was surprised and really happy because on my island you can’t see so much snow! Actually, we can see it only in the mountains…but is not enough.

Oh, I have to confess that my both alarms didn’t work… No one! I was scared of that. Maybe in the Czech Republic, you have to tune them… and I didn’t know it.

This week was really strange but at the same time impressing. It was my first cultural evening where I meet some people and knew a little bit more from Montenegro.

I was playing laser games too. I don’t know if you have ever heard something about it. It’s like paintball but more sophisticated. You enter in a big room with different hidings and you have to shoot people from the opposite team. When you shoot someone, the gun emits a light from a short or large distance. Depends on your buttons. If I am sincere, some of us shoot without understanding how to change them… It seems like a lottery. We laughed a lot and we finished this day very tired.

Weather

How about the cold? I think here even penguins would put on scarves. But for everything, we have a good way to take advantage of that. We did ice skating. Some of us tasted the floor like if you can eat it. But all of us survived. Or I hope so…

Language

The language here is very complicated at least in the beginning. I never thought that I’ll be very happy to meet people who speak English. All my life I was looking for people who speak Spanish! You can’t imagine how I felt when people speak both Czech and English.

As always… everything happens to me – my first week here and I have blocked my mobile phone yet. I was alone on the street in a new city where people, in general, don’t speak English and… without Google maps on my phone.

But as we say in Spain… what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. And I am. Especially, after talking with the technical service in a good mix of English and Sign Language. I don’t know how much Czech I could learn but I’m sure that I’ll get an advanced level in sign language.

It’s fun when you go to the supermarket and you feel like in a quiz guessing all you are buying or when you do a research looking for young people who can translate your product labels into English. Or… when you are lost because of the bus take other direction and you didn’t know it, with your mobile phone off and trying to speak with the bus driver and he can’t understand you. But… I survived too.

Try it!

Living here is a good way to do some things differently. At first, you can be scared of living abroad but each day becomes better for you. You are not aware of all you can go through and how much English or languages you know but definitely you have to try it.