In 2018, Amanda Meyer Barkley left her dwelling in Louisiana for what was meant to be a brief trip in Prague. She deliberate to stay for just a few weeks, then return to the United States earlier than transferring on to China for a instructing job.
Nearly a decade later, she continues to be in the Czech capital — now in her 30s, married, and elevating two younger youngsters.
Prague, a vacation spot typically referred to as the City of a Hundred Spires, has turn out to be dwelling.
Barkley and her husband spend their summers with their youngsters in parks like Letná, Stromovka and Riegrovy Sady, or at the National Agriculture Museum, a brief stroll from their condominium. The metropolis’s many dětské koutky — youngsters’s play corners tucked into cafés and public areas — make on a regular basis life with younger youngsters really feel manageable, even simple.
“It really is just the most beautiful city with so much history…” Barkley says.
“Between the beauty of the architecture. The city itself, all of the parks and outdoor spaces… It’s clean. It’s safe. It’s just a really incredible place to live. I feel really lucky to live here.”
Eight years ago, Barkley couldn’t have imagined this life. When she arrived in Prague in January 2018, she was in the center of making ready to relocate to China for work. She had enrolled in an in-person teaching-English-as-a-foreign-language course in the Czech capital after studying she wanted certification to safe the place in Asia.
But she was so enthralled with the metropolis that she didn’t get on her return flight the following month.
Prague was not new to her. She had first visited in 2015 whereas touring by way of Europe and admired the metropolis’s well-known sights — Prague Castle, Old Town Square — however felt extra drawn to Berlin. “I could live in Germany,” she remembered pondering.
Back in the United States, she labored as a trainer and continued to journey, together with a yr in Australia. When a instructing alternative in China got here up, Prague appeared like a sensible cease — a spot to get licensed and then transfer on.
It was a transfer that will change the complete course of her life.
She arrived in the metropolis with only a backpack and the intention of specializing in her month-long course. But issues began to unravel when she discovered that, as a result of she already had a instructing diploma, the China job didn’t require the additional qualification.
Initially she felt annoyed and upset at losing cash on the airfare to Prague and on lodging for a month. Yet she quickly discovered herself having fun with the metropolis, “hanging out with all these cool people.”
“So I just kind of pivoted and said, ‘What would it take for me to stay here now.’”
Just a few weeks later, Barkley despatched an electronic mail withdrawing from the function in China. Then got here the onerous half: discovering a job and a spot to reside in a metropolis that she by no means meant calling dwelling.
She took on many part-time jobs instructing and bartending earlier than securing full-time work later that yr. Starting a brand new life midway round the world additionally meant she wanted to purchase new garments so she “could wear something other than the six shirts” she’d initially introduced alongside along with her.
Things weren’t simple at first. Because the transfer to Prague wasn’t deliberate, she says, she wasn’t ready for lean months. Needing to journey to her a number of jobs, however wanting cash, she lived frugally, generally counting on a weight-reduction plan of eggs and potatoes to hold prices down.
“That was definitely my toughest period, financially,” she says.
But socially, life was opening up. She fashioned a close-knit group of mates, a lot of whom she met by way of the instructing course. One of them was Blake, one other American.
“We were just friends for a long time,” she explains. “But about three and a half years later, we said, ‘Maybe we’re not just friends.”
They married in 2022. Their two youngsters, now aged one and two, had been each born in the Czech Republic. Barkley presently has an worker card, which is a long-term residence allow, legitimate for up to two years, for non-European Union nationals staying in the nation for over 90 days for work.
Over the years, the couple have mentioned returning to the United States. For now, they’ve chosen to stay, deciding it’s the greatest place to be for their household.
They reside in a two-bedroom condominium in Holešovice, a laid-back neighborhood north of the river, and recognize how simply they will journey throughout Europe. Road journeys by way of Austria, Germany and Italy have turn out to be a part of household life.
“These opportunities and experiences that would be a lot more difficult to give them if we lived in a different part of the world geographically,” Barkley says.
Living in Prague has required cultural adjustment. Barkley, who chronicles her life in the metropolis on her Instagram account @mandameybar, says she discovered rapidly to drop her “American smile.” Czech individuals “do not do that at all,” she says. There’s simply “blank stares.”
“Now I’m very used to it, but I’m from the American South where everyone smiles and everyone talks to you,” she says, including that she has to remind herself to smile at individuals when she visits the United States.
“I would say Czech people in general, are much more reserved than people in a lot of other parts of the Western world,” she provides, emphasizing that she has discovered them to be “genuinely so warm, kind and generous,” even when that heat takes time to reveal itself.
She has made some Czech mates, however says most of the couple’s mates are fellow foreigners, a actuality Barkley partly places down to the language barrier and partly down to the proven fact that she works primarily in English-speaking environments. She has taken Czech classes “on and off” and says she “can definitely get by,” although bureaucratic duties stay difficult.
One of the most significant variations, she says, has been the nation’s method to household life.
Mothers in the Czech Republic are legally entitled to 28 weeks of paid maternity go away and can take up to three years with their employer’s consent. Barkley has been on maternity go away since 2023 and plans to return to instructing in late 2026.
“It’s been pretty incredible to stay home with the kids…” she says. “To have the choice to stay dwelling with them for a short while… When I moved right here, I used to be single. I used to be in my 20s, I wasn’t even occupied with that in any respect.
“So just the fact that I ended up in this place that’s kind of given us this opportunity to be there for so much of their young life, it’s really great.”
She additionally describes a special tempo of life — much less pushed by what she calls American “hustle culture.”
“I’m sure there are people that feel that way,” she says of her adopted nation. “But I feel like the focus is more on people and families and enjoying life.”
Barkley says “everything is a little more minimalist,” in the Czech Republic, and this “kind of spills over into a lot of different areas of life.”
Parenting, too, feels totally different. She notes a extra hands-off method, with better independence given to youngsters and a better degree of belief — together with youngsters touring alone on public transport at younger ages. As a trainer, she has additionally observed what she sees as better respect for educators.
Although she loves residing in Prague, Barkley nonetheless feels the pull of the United States, getting stronger as time goes on.
“Being so far away from family was hard before, but it’s a different level of hard once you have kids,” she says. “And they’re growing up and changing so fast.”
After a latest Christmas go to, watching her youngsters with their grandparents and cousins stirred doubts. But she suspects they are going to fade with the return of heat climate. “I’m never leaving Prague, because this place is amazing,” she imagines herself saying.
Sometimes, she nonetheless wonders what would have occurred had she boarded that flight to China.
“It’s crazy how much life can change,” she says. “And I don’t think I would have lasted long in China, to be honest… Maybe I would have ended up here eventually.”