GreenJoy Travel

Hello, everyone!

Many of you may know me from http://gwynniegoesjapan.blogspot.com – which I still intend to update.

For those of you who don’t, my name is Gwynnie, and after teaching English in Japan for the last 16 months I am moving to the Czech Republic with my boyfriend (who I met in Japan). I am originally from Wales in the U.K.

So far, the plan is to complete a 4-week course with www.teflworldwideprague.com and to apply for English teaching jobs from there. We will stay in course accommodation for the first month, during which time we will search for long-term accommodation. August/September is peak hiring season, and with my British citizenship I won’t require a working visa, but my American man won’t be so lucky.

So, here I am, leaving my fun and easy job, my nice big apartment, my friends in Japan, my super cute students and melon soda… to live in a country that I have never visited, with no job lined up, nowhere to live (yet) and where I know absolutely nobody.

A lot of people talk about doing “the Prague thing”, but they usually refer to a weekend of gazing at beautiful old buildings through beer goggles. I don’t know what to expect or what the future will bring, but it gives me a strange kind of comfort that I can take you will me on my adventures, dear readers – if you’ll join me, that is.

So, how am I feeling now? A mixture of excitement, trepidation, fear, sadness, curiosity. There are less than two weeks to go until I leave Japan, then another two weeks in the U.K. before I hop on a plane to Prague. I have already said my last goodbyes to some of my students and friends, and to some of my favourite restaurants. My heart is heavy and I feel increasingly like I am walking through a dream, but this feeling is no stranger to me. My heart was in my throat before I left my comfort zone in the U.K. back in March 2010, and Japan turned out to be the single best decision that I have made in my life thus far. The difference then was that I’d had months and months to prepare, and was flying into the waiting arms of a job. Now, I am flying into the unknown, and for all I know it will all end in tears.

Still, how can we know until we try, eh?

This blog will be more than just a journal of my adventures in Prague. It will be a diary of my travels across Europe, perhaps the world; my thoughts, my discoveries, my life. For I believe that “the Prague thing” is more than simply being in a city; it is a state of mind. It is the dream of the backpacker, the artist, the sophisticate, the architect, and of every self-proclaimed Bohemian idealist, dreamer and seeker out there.