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Showing posts from June, 2016

American vs. German school

All over the my F acebook feed, I am reading about the school year ending .   Meanwhile, we still have about 6 weeks of school left. So I figured I'd do some more random notes but this time they all have to do with differences we have notices between American and German schooling . - First and most obvious one is that German kids have much sho rter summer breaks.  It's only about 6 weeks long .  However, there are longer vacations throu ghout the year.  For example, E aster is 2 weeks long and win t er break is about 4 weeks long.   -There are no crayons here - as in they do not exist.   Everybody uses pencils and markers, even 3 year olds.   This is more than ok by me since I grew up in Russia and crayons didn’t exist there either , b ut still different f rom USA. - Back in the beginning of the school year I had a conversation with a teacher who explained to me that I have to make sure that pencils are of the appropriate length.   Basically anything that’s sho

Pilsen, the beer city

Pilsen is a town in Czech Republic that we passed on our way from Frankfurt to Prague.  It's located less than 60 miles away from Prague.  We stopped to wonder around the town because reading about it seemed like a worthwhile stop.  It did not disappoint.  We stopped by a bookstore where Ilya found a book that he really wanted - Kang Fu Panda coloring and sticker book in Czech.  Czech has a decent amount of similarities to Russian language but is definitely different enough that some of the time I have NO clue what it says.   On the way back from Prague we stopped in Pilsen again and this time we visited Museum of Demarcation Line.   It was extremely interesting to say the least.  I use the word museum loosely since it’s basically a depot of vehicles used in World War II including over 150 tanks and armored vehicles.   A lot of the equipment is Soviet but definitely some German stuff plus some American Jeeps.  Did I mention that some people were driving the