ESL Blogs

"Home sweet home!" This saying I find so true and if somebody uses it, on my mind is automatically my hometown, the city I can call without hesitation my heart issue.

I am proud of being Czech, I love my country and whenever I hear our anthem, it gives me nice inner feeling, which is for sure one of the proves of my patriotism. Sincerely, I dislike if people talk bad about my country and I am anytime and anywhere ready to fight for it and persuade them how wrong they are ( even though sometimes they might be right :D ). Another kind of patriotism wakes up inside of me every year during the ice-hockey world championship. I consider myself crazy fan and support our team as if it was a matter of death and life.

I come from the third biggest Czech city, I come from Ostrava where I was born, I grew up  and so far just with one exception I have lived only here. My hometown is industrial city, actually it is situated in the region of mines, heavy industry etc., in short one would maybe run away from here but that's why I love it. It has its special magic and I am pretty sure that only Ostravian people are aware of it.

Once I have left my lovely hometown for longer period and I have to admit I struggled a lot to settle down, to get little bit of inner peace in my lonely soul. I moved to Prague (the capital city) to get better job and of course better money as well. Honestly, I am thankful for this experience because one year in the city distant 400km from my hometown gave me a lot. I proved myself I am independant but on the other hand I felt homesick surounded just by few friends, moreover I was able to visit my family only once a month. Anyway, such experience opened my eyes, showed me where I belong to, where my roots are.

Everytime I come back from somewhere and see the first chimneys of my beloved black Ostrava, I feel some kind of excitement and happiness. As if the city was able to greet me, as if it was saying: "Welcome back, you were being missed here a lot!"

What about other countries? I am not against living somewhere abroad but for sure my only one condition is to be there with my family. Since I love traveling and visited as a tourist about ten European countries, I can say Greece is the country I somehow consider the closest to my heart. I like their cuisine, their history, local climate and friendly Greek people. I can imagine myself as a retired woman living in one of its islands but hard to say because who knows, maybe my hometown would call me one day back.