My least favourite road rule

Photo from BBC. 

Driving in Czech was one of the things I was more scared of when I moved. The change to driving on the other side of the road was the thing that was most on my mind. I’ve now owned a car here for almost fourteen months and I’ve yet to drive on the wrong side of the road.

Of course, remembering what side of the road to drive on is not the hardest part of changing sides of the road. Sixteen months of living here and I still instinctively almost always at first go towards the wrong side of the car. I’ve found the issue with changing side of the road is actually in changing sides of the car – the car has always been on my left as I drive and now it’s on the right.

The other change has been the scale of the driving. In Northern Ireland I could drive to Belfast in thirty minutes, and most of my journeys were simply up to Saintfield, a journey of five minutes. And I drove on the motorway just a couple of times a year.

Here, if I am leaving my town it is usually to go to the office or Ostrava and both places are forty minutes or so from my home. And both involve driving along the same stretch of motorway where the speed limit is 130 kmph or 80 mph.

Before moving here I didn’t really think about needing to learn different road rules. But this has probably been the most stressful part of driving here, because learning new rules make you feel very unsure of yourself.

And quite quickly I figured out my least favourite road rule. Thankfully it’s not a rule I have to deal with every time I drive but it’s still my least favourite.

Generally this rule only comes into force after 6pm and only in certain places.

At 6pm some traffic lights change to being just flashing amber lights. It doesn’t mean get ready for a red light, or prepare to go when the green light appears. It means obey the road sign on the traffic light.

Photo source - it's actually a road I drive on all the time!

Each traffic light that changes to a flashing amber light also has a road sign. When the traffic lights are working you ignore the road sign and when the traffic light just flashes amber you obey the road sign. The sign might be a stop sign, a give way sign, or a yellow and white diamond that indicates you have the priority.

I think the reason I dislike this rule so much is the couple of junctions in my town – the ones I often find myself navigating after 6pm – are complicated or staggered junctions. And I sometimes don’t understand how a junction can warrant a light at 5.59pm but not at 6.01pm.

I have no doubt that a lot of people have prayed for my driving in my sixteen months here, and, when it comes to rules like this, I’m very grateful for those prayers!

What your home says about culture: the front door

Have you ever thought about how your home reflects culture? 

The above photo shows my porch/front doorway area. 

The front door of my flat is just outside the photo on the right. The door you see is for the toilet, and I'm taking the photo from the bathroom (well, sink, shower and washing machine room). Just outside the left of the photo is the doorway to the kitchen. 

Now you're situated, can you spot what's cultural about this photo?

Here are some closeups to help you out. (And, yes, I really need to put my birkenstock sandals and other summer shoes away!)

My (fixed!) front door (And I will soon have some actual winter coats hanging here).

Any guesses?

Well, the first thing you do when you arrive in a Czech home is take off your shoes because shoes are not worn inside homes. So all (in season) shoes live in the hallway and you only put them on when you are on your way out the door.

This rule applies whether it's your home or you're a guest in the home. 

And in my home I have my own slippers that I happily wear around my flat. But what about guests? That's why there's a little box filled with various pairs of slippers in different sizes. 

Sometimes when I am about to head out the door I realise I've forgotten something I need. If I have my shoes on I battle taking them off or not. If I'm running late normally they don't get taken off - but I then feel horribly guilty, and tip-toe across my kitchen floor to get whatever I need.

When I first started coming to the Czech Republic we were told about this rule and it seemed rather strange. But now? Now I feel rude when I'm in someone's home in the UK or US and have my shoes on. And taking my shoes off as I enter someone's home has become automatic.

It makes a lot of sense too - it keeps dirt off hard floors and out of carpets. And anything that helps reduce the amount of cleaning that has to be done sounds like a wonderful idea!

I love this little rule in Czech, and, if one day I find myself living somewhere else, I imagine it's a rule I'll carry with me to future homes.

Photo Friday - 31st October

My favourite walk in my town - this is the start of it, about five minutes from my flat. I then walk along the river for twenty minutes or so, sometimes crossing into Poland. 

I do this walk three to four times a week, and the colours at the moment are stunning. 

The Tesco flier from this week - if you're not sure what these are you should check out this blog post. 

Tuesday was a national holiday here, as we celebrated the establishment of the state of Czechoslovakia after World War One in 1918. Some of us got together that night to celebrate Josh's (the guy on the very left and closest to the camera) birthday before he left on home assignment. I'm so thankful for the community I have here!

Another beautiful walk!

I worked entirely from home this week. So from my kitchen table I skyped with Bulgaria, Romania and Albania. Here you can see Gabe Hillman, the Josiah Venture country leader for Bulgaria. It is such a privilege to serve the wonderful people serving camps in our countries. Their enthusiasm and passion to see their nations reached for Jesus gives me goosebumps.

Another wonderful skype happened this week. Last time Julianne and I hung out in person was two years ago this week. Julianne and her husband were living in Toronto and I visited just after having new missionary orientation with my organisation in Chicago. And last time Julianne and I skyped she was still pregnant. But look at those two adorable six month olds! I'm so thankful for long skypes with dear friends, and meeting these two cuties.

How do you know it's October?

One of the weird things about moving to a new culture is you lose cues for dates and months and important things. The seasons are a little different in Czech than they were in Northern Ireland. The seasons are... deeper. They are more extreme here. Already it is down around zero some days (all day) and soon zero degrees will be a high in a day.

My birthday is in early November and in the UK my cue for my approaching birthday is poppies people are wearing for Remembrance Day. Here there is no such cue.

But there is a definite cue that it's October. I've taken all these photos, in various locations over the past month or so. Can you see what is in all of these?

One grocery shop.

The local home/diy store (in Poland)

Tesco!

The cart in front of me as I bought me food for the week.

The flier I read from Tesco today.

What you see above, whole aisles of them, whole pages of adverts for them, are graveyard candles. They are candles people put on the graves of their relatives. Some places say it is to help them to remember to pray for their dead relatives, and other places say it is to give the dead light while they journey through purgatory. 

In some places there are also a tradition of baking food for the dead, to appease any souls that might be roaming the earth on All Souls Night. 

What I think is crazy is the sheer number of candles available for sale! In the diy store there are pallets and pallets of them, stretching the length of the photo. Or the man in front of me who had twenty-one in his trolley. 

It'll be interesting to see what the town looks like on the night of November 1st.

The Great Catch Up!

I love doing my "Photo Friday" posts where I blog a photo a day from the week before. But over the summer I got very behind with them, which I hated because they serve as such a good reminder of what I have been doing. 

Well, I just sat down and put together all eleven weeks that were missing! I wanted to put the links to them all in one place in case you wanted to play catch up too.

Photo Friday - July 18th, the week of English Camp

Photo Friday - 25th July, the week after camp

Photo Friday - 1st August, including our S-Team retreat.

Photo Friday - 8th August, a catch up week at work.

Photo Friday - 15th August, a quiet work week.

Photo Friday - 22nd August, a week off from work after a busy summer!

Photo Friday - 29th August, a week of Czech study.

Photo Friday - 5th September.

 Photo Friday - 12th September.

Photo Friday - 17th October, and my first doctor's visit in Czech.

Photo Friday - 24th October, a week where the weather changed a lot!

Photo Friday - 24th October

Playing about on Saturday.

On Sunday the weather forecast looked like I'd made a really good choice in getting my winter tyres on so early! Thankfully (kind of) it didn't actually snow. But the temperatures got a lot lower than they predicted too. 

Erm.. apparently Christmas is just around the corner? But it's only October 19th! 

I hosted our ladies' Bible study so made an apple cinnamon crunch. I am so grateful for the community of women I get to do life with and alongside. It is always such an encouraging time as we share what God is teaching us and pray for one another.

Decorations at our conference centre, where I was invited to lunch. Tuesday was bright, sunny and crisp - perfect for boots and a puffy sleeveless jacket. Wednesday and Thursday it did nothing but rain and I had my Wellington boots on. And then it got very cold. 

An early early birthday present from a friend! I left it in the office so I wouldn't be tempted to open it.

This year I am hosting a small group Bible study for girls from our youth group. And at our first meeting of the year I was the one asked to prepare a talk. It was fifteen to twenty minutes and I did it in Czech! Horrible, bad Czech that I just read from the page. But to be able to communicate in Czech, share prayer requests and understand the ones that had been shared, to chat about life with these girls? It was incredible and worth all the studying.

And this is a result of a good night: lots of used teabags and bowls dirty from dessert. I loved hosting small group on Friday night!

Photo Friday - 17th October

We had a "together youth group" event - we invited several local youth groups to our church and the president of Josiah Venture spoke. It was wonderful to see so many young people, they filled our church. 

My church turned fifty! And I blogged about this here.

Eggs with soldiers. 

I had a week of not feeling great at all, I felt nauseous pretty much all day every day, and was given firm instructions to rest. So this was my view for much of the week.

And for the first time I went to the doctor here. It was.. interesting. But I got some tablets that really helped with the nausea. 

I've finally figured out internet shopping here a little better and it has been a big help - it's easier to find stuff by searching for it online than hunting through many, many stores.

I was taking it very slow until the next week but I managed to get my winter tyres put on my car, something that must be done (it's a legal requirement) before November 1st.