Days 10-13 - Lessons, lectures, and learning the Polka

Lessons continued on as usual, with the odd lecture in the afternoon as a little nap-break during the day. Unfortunately as these lectures took place in the second week, they decided that by now we should be able to understand speedy and complicated Czech, thus preventing them from saying any of it in English. For us this meant that once every couple of days or so we'd head into a nice cosy room, sit down on a comfy chair, and fall asleep to the sound of a teacher speaking very fast Czech about some very interesting things that we had no hope of understanding...

Nic and Michael balloon dancing

The highlight in amongst this sleeping was the Polka lesson, which is supposedly one of the most common and popular dances in the Czech Republic (along with the rest of Eastern Europe). Our lesson on Wednesday was very amusing, as our teacher decided to introduce the balloon into the dancing. For reasons I still don't fully understand. This essentially meant blowing up a balloon and having it in between your face, and the face of your partner, and the aim was to prevent it from falling. Essentially impossible for us beginners but led to a funny hour of chasing balloons and generally dancing like the (clearly) elegant people we are!