Friday, October 2, 2009
Legs
I know I've been talking a lot about hills lately and a lot about my legs in life generally. But I would just like to say that, thanks to all these hills I have to walk up and down daily, I am going to come back to America with beautifully sculpted calves and to-die-for thighs. If my legs weren't so short, people would be asking me to be a leg model.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Napoleon Complex
I didn't realize dogs could have an ego until I came here. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised--Freud was born in the Czech Republic. Obviously there must have been something in the air here that made him put a name to such self-awareness and, well, ego. I have met my fair share of people who think highly of themselves, but I have honestly never met a person with such a bloated sense of self-importance as some of the dogs I have seen here.
This observation may stem from the fact that I have had my fair share of interaction with dogs since I got here. The family I am staying with has two big dogs: a German Shepherd, and a dog that's part "Czechoslovak wolf" (I used to think this was a breed, now I think it just means "wolf"). These two dogs are total sweethearts, though their physical size combined with their tendency to bark at anything that moves is a bit overwhelming at first. Whenever anyone walks by, the dogs know, I know, and the neighbors (much to their dismay) know as well that there is someone outside the gate. I have to say that I think their senses of self-worth are much higher than they should be, though given their size, I will let it slide.
However, there are some dogs where I don't understand where it comes from. Big dogs? Sure. They are large and could maybe kill you. They have a right to feel like they are superior to me. Little dogs? Not a chance. I have found that little dogs know just how to position themselves so that their barks will echo as you walk down the street, making you shiver and stop in your tracks as you look around, wondering if a German Shepherd is about to launch itself over some garden gate to kill you. But when you look around, all you see is a beagle, looking you straight in the eye, it's little (very little) body quivering as he tries to make you back down.
To these dogs, all I can say is, "Really, dog, really? Dog, you are about two inches tall. If you pissed me off, I could pick you up and put you in my pocket before you had the chance to attack me." And then I continue walking. This interaction continues to happen, so I can only assume that they only understand Czech and that the language barrier is the one thing that prevents them from understanding that I'm not impressed.
Honestly, weiner dogs don't scare me, and I don't think they ever will, regardless of how loud they bark. Or maybe if they were somehow able to hide from me the fact that they weigh twelve pounds on a good day, I would be a bit more scared. This is another problem. And I tell this to them sometimes when they are barking at me. Sometimes I say, "Dog. I can see you. You are behind a gate, not a wall. I know that I could step on you and crush you if I weren't paying attention. Show a little respect." Once again, language barrier.
And I have had a lot of opportunities to experience these dogs. The Czech Republic is teeming with dogs. They are literally everywhere--on the metro, on the tram, sitting outside grocery stores, walking in parks, playing in the grass, pooping on the sidewalk, killing wild hedgehogs, etc. If I were told to think of one word that would give the essence of the Czech Republic to other people, I would without a doubt and almost immediately respond with, "Dogs." They are impossible to escape.
Part of the problem with them may be that none of them are neutered, so they keep reproducing at incredible speeds. I don't know what another reason is, except that the Czechs like dogs. In class yesterday, we asked our teacher about this phenomenon. A couple of us were discussing it amongst ourselves, trying to find the reason. When we asked her about it, she responded with, "Yes, I suppose we do have a lot of dogs," and then continued on to say, "I'd say we have more dogs than Germans."
I'm still trying to decipher exactly what she meant by the "more dogs than Germans" comment. She either meant, in the Czech Republic, there are more dogs than German people, or else she meant, there are more dogs in the Czech Republic than there are in Germany. Either way, there are a lot of dogs. I like to think that there are more dogs than Germans here, just because it has a nice, somewhat xenophobic ring to it.
Well, I just looked it up (on Wikipedia) and I have discovered that Germans make up 0.4% of the population in the Czech Republic. I am going to take a wild guess and say that there is a considerably larger population of dogs here, judging from the number of dogs I have seen on the metro compared with the number of Germans I have seen (please take into account, though, that I have no idea what real Germans look like). It is difficult to say this for certain, however, because unfortunately the CIA World Factbook does not (apparently) consider dogs to be a minority, and therefore have no listing of them in their demographic statistics.
Regardless: dogs in the Czech Republic are like the ugly frat boys on campus--they think they're hot stuff when really it's too easy to ignore them.
This observation may stem from the fact that I have had my fair share of interaction with dogs since I got here. The family I am staying with has two big dogs: a German Shepherd, and a dog that's part "Czechoslovak wolf" (I used to think this was a breed, now I think it just means "wolf"). These two dogs are total sweethearts, though their physical size combined with their tendency to bark at anything that moves is a bit overwhelming at first. Whenever anyone walks by, the dogs know, I know, and the neighbors (much to their dismay) know as well that there is someone outside the gate. I have to say that I think their senses of self-worth are much higher than they should be, though given their size, I will let it slide.
However, there are some dogs where I don't understand where it comes from. Big dogs? Sure. They are large and could maybe kill you. They have a right to feel like they are superior to me. Little dogs? Not a chance. I have found that little dogs know just how to position themselves so that their barks will echo as you walk down the street, making you shiver and stop in your tracks as you look around, wondering if a German Shepherd is about to launch itself over some garden gate to kill you. But when you look around, all you see is a beagle, looking you straight in the eye, it's little (very little) body quivering as he tries to make you back down.
To these dogs, all I can say is, "Really, dog, really? Dog, you are about two inches tall. If you pissed me off, I could pick you up and put you in my pocket before you had the chance to attack me." And then I continue walking. This interaction continues to happen, so I can only assume that they only understand Czech and that the language barrier is the one thing that prevents them from understanding that I'm not impressed.
Honestly, weiner dogs don't scare me, and I don't think they ever will, regardless of how loud they bark. Or maybe if they were somehow able to hide from me the fact that they weigh twelve pounds on a good day, I would be a bit more scared. This is another problem. And I tell this to them sometimes when they are barking at me. Sometimes I say, "Dog. I can see you. You are behind a gate, not a wall. I know that I could step on you and crush you if I weren't paying attention. Show a little respect." Once again, language barrier.
And I have had a lot of opportunities to experience these dogs. The Czech Republic is teeming with dogs. They are literally everywhere--on the metro, on the tram, sitting outside grocery stores, walking in parks, playing in the grass, pooping on the sidewalk, killing wild hedgehogs, etc. If I were told to think of one word that would give the essence of the Czech Republic to other people, I would without a doubt and almost immediately respond with, "Dogs." They are impossible to escape.
Part of the problem with them may be that none of them are neutered, so they keep reproducing at incredible speeds. I don't know what another reason is, except that the Czechs like dogs. In class yesterday, we asked our teacher about this phenomenon. A couple of us were discussing it amongst ourselves, trying to find the reason. When we asked her about it, she responded with, "Yes, I suppose we do have a lot of dogs," and then continued on to say, "I'd say we have more dogs than Germans."
I'm still trying to decipher exactly what she meant by the "more dogs than Germans" comment. She either meant, in the Czech Republic, there are more dogs than German people, or else she meant, there are more dogs in the Czech Republic than there are in Germany. Either way, there are a lot of dogs. I like to think that there are more dogs than Germans here, just because it has a nice, somewhat xenophobic ring to it.
Well, I just looked it up (on Wikipedia) and I have discovered that Germans make up 0.4% of the population in the Czech Republic. I am going to take a wild guess and say that there is a considerably larger population of dogs here, judging from the number of dogs I have seen on the metro compared with the number of Germans I have seen (please take into account, though, that I have no idea what real Germans look like). It is difficult to say this for certain, however, because unfortunately the CIA World Factbook does not (apparently) consider dogs to be a minority, and therefore have no listing of them in their demographic statistics.
Regardless: dogs in the Czech Republic are like the ugly frat boys on campus--they think they're hot stuff when really it's too easy to ignore them.
Home Again
Over the weekend I got the opportunity to experience what the East Coast Experts I traveled with deemed to be the New Jersey of Europe. Take that to mean what you may. Having never been to Jersey, I can only assume from the way they said it that this is not a good nickname to have. Despite their apparent disgust with Poland, I was still able to find some good things in it because I'm just a positive person like that.
In no particular order, my favorite things about Krakow:
- Pierogi: Dumplings that can be filled with meat, potatoes or cheese. Obviously at the top of my list. Not only do they taste amazing, they are also dirt cheap (and coated in butter).
- Food in general: If there is one thing that could make me love Poland, it is the food. They eat like the Czechs, but do not have sauerkraut, from what I can see. It is also amazingly cheap.
- Cute markets: They have this cute market in their Old Town Square (though really it is not all that old because they had to rebuild it after a war, I think). I was able to find some [really cheap] hand-knit wool sock/slippers. Amazing.
- Salt Mines: I do not think I have ever come across a country where the people say to themselves, "Well, I work in a salt mine. I think I will carve five chapels out of salt," or "Hmmm...I seem to find myself with some extra time in the salt mine, after spending all day in this salt mine. I think that, instead of coming above the surface and going home, I will carve a statue of Pope John Paul II out of salt." It's very endearing how attached they are to their salt.
- Auschwitz: I can't say that I "like" it, but I can say that it is an incredibly interesting [and draining] place. Auschwitz-I is not at all like what I pictured it--it looks more like a New England college campus than what I picture a concentration camp to be, but this makes it all the more creepy. It's the facade of normalcy that makes it so unsettling. Auschwitz-II was more how I expected it to look. It was just as unsettling, though this time it is not the normalcy, but instead the great expanse of emptiness, marked by traces of what was once there, combined with the incredible amount of work the Nazis did to create this place. They built Auschwitz-II for this specific purpose, and when you look at it all, it feels as though the broken down chimneys, all that's left of the buildings they burned to try to cover their tracks, could continue on for miles. It was an interesting place, though one that I think a person could only handle once in their life.
- Swing: It's a jazz club Eric, Maddy and I found the first night in our attempts to get into the nightlife despite being deathly tired. We enjoyed it and the live music it provided us. The second night we went back and discovered we it was a hotspot for old people with no dance skills. We went back the third night. It was closed. This did not ruin our love of the club.
- Fat Boys: I am not being insensitive, I am merely calling them by name. Fat Boys are giant bean bag mattresses meant for, at most, two people. Eric, Maddy, and I, in our first ever couchsurfing experience, had to share one because a British guy was sleeping on our host's couch the first two nights we were there. The last night we shared the Fat Boy because we didn't know anything different.
- Bathroom Sign: The last night we spent in Krakow, we pooled our leftover Zloty to buy ourselves one last round of drinks. The bar we went to had the most inviting bathroom sign, and I almost felt the need to take it up on its offer. Because I didn't have any good reading material with me, however, I decided against this, and instead spent my night in the company of my friends rather than a toilet stall.
- Exchange rate: Everything was cheap cheap cheap!
In no particular order, my favorite things about Krakow:
- Pierogi: Dumplings that can be filled with meat, potatoes or cheese. Obviously at the top of my list. Not only do they taste amazing, they are also dirt cheap (and coated in butter).
- Food in general: If there is one thing that could make me love Poland, it is the food. They eat like the Czechs, but do not have sauerkraut, from what I can see. It is also amazingly cheap.
- Cute markets: They have this cute market in their Old Town Square (though really it is not all that old because they had to rebuild it after a war, I think). I was able to find some [really cheap] hand-knit wool sock/slippers. Amazing.
- Salt Mines: I do not think I have ever come across a country where the people say to themselves, "Well, I work in a salt mine. I think I will carve five chapels out of salt," or "Hmmm...I seem to find myself with some extra time in the salt mine, after spending all day in this salt mine. I think that, instead of coming above the surface and going home, I will carve a statue of Pope John Paul II out of salt." It's very endearing how attached they are to their salt.
- Auschwitz: I can't say that I "like" it, but I can say that it is an incredibly interesting [and draining] place. Auschwitz-I is not at all like what I pictured it--it looks more like a New England college campus than what I picture a concentration camp to be, but this makes it all the more creepy. It's the facade of normalcy that makes it so unsettling. Auschwitz-II was more how I expected it to look. It was just as unsettling, though this time it is not the normalcy, but instead the great expanse of emptiness, marked by traces of what was once there, combined with the incredible amount of work the Nazis did to create this place. They built Auschwitz-II for this specific purpose, and when you look at it all, it feels as though the broken down chimneys, all that's left of the buildings they burned to try to cover their tracks, could continue on for miles. It was an interesting place, though one that I think a person could only handle once in their life.
- Swing: It's a jazz club Eric, Maddy and I found the first night in our attempts to get into the nightlife despite being deathly tired. We enjoyed it and the live music it provided us. The second night we went back and discovered we it was a hotspot for old people with no dance skills. We went back the third night. It was closed. This did not ruin our love of the club.
- Fat Boys: I am not being insensitive, I am merely calling them by name. Fat Boys are giant bean bag mattresses meant for, at most, two people. Eric, Maddy, and I, in our first ever couchsurfing experience, had to share one because a British guy was sleeping on our host's couch the first two nights we were there. The last night we shared the Fat Boy because we didn't know anything different.
- Bathroom Sign: The last night we spent in Krakow, we pooled our leftover Zloty to buy ourselves one last round of drinks. The bar we went to had the most inviting bathroom sign, and I almost felt the need to take it up on its offer. Because I didn't have any good reading material with me, however, I decided against this, and instead spent my night in the company of my friends rather than a toilet stall.
- Exchange rate: Everything was cheap cheap cheap!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Housekeeping
Just a few housekeeping things before the weekend starts, just to get you all up to date on where I'm at (mentally--physically I'm at home in Prague).
1. Patrick Swayze died. I just learned this. Apparently news travels slower across the Atlantic than mail (Grandma sent me a letter on Monday and I got it today, and by my calculations, it took me 10 days to hear of Patrick Swayze's death).
2. Bob Barker is 85. After I heard the unfortunate news about Patrick Swayze, I checked on Bob Barker to see where he's at. He's still fighting for animal rights, it would appear.
3. Everyone hates Poland. Whenever I tell [Czech] people that I am going to Poland this weekend (by the way, I am going to Poland this weekend), they all ask, "Why?" I never know how to answer this because, honestly, I don't know. I am hoping that when I get there I find something to do, but looking ahead to this trip, I have to ask myself, "How am I going to keep myself occupied for the next three days?"
4. My blog has had 43 views. When I discovered how to check how many views it has, it had 40 views. Since then I have checked it three other times to see how many views it has. It figures.
5. I hate sauerkraut. This is not an overstatement. This is probably the truest statement I have said thus far in my blog. Sauerkraut is quite possibly the bane of my existence (in the food world at least) apart from animal organs and mushrooms. It is therefore most upsetting to me that I have stumbled upon a country where sauerkraut seems to be its own food group. Everything else about Czech food makes my mouth water--goulash, dumplings (both bread and potato), potatoes, meat, and beer (only when washing down dumplings)--but sauerkraut makes me sick. The first time I had it, I was fooled until I sat down at the table. They had told me we were eating cabbage. They served me sauerkraut. I didn't even realize that sauerkraut comes from cabbage--it smells like some vile substance that could not have come from a plant, or at least if it it come from some formerly living thing, it would be from onions which already smell weird (though taste delicious).
It kills me that they keep feeding it to me. When eating it, I have to make sure the meat and dumpling to sauerkraut ratio is in my favor, though this gets difficult. Daka has taken it into her head that she will send me back to the States with curves. I am fine with this--as long as the curves come from food that tastes good. Meat? Fine. Dumplings? Sure. Chocolate? Sign me up for gaining 5 kilos. Potatoes? Definitely. Sauerkraut? Please shoot me in the foot and never allow me to eat again.
Honestly. Sauerkraut sucks all the fun out of eating.
Tonight we had sauerkraut. It was red for some reason, I'm assuming it's from the sauce. And dumplings, and veprove (pork). They gave me four dumplings, two and a half pieces of meat, and a veritable mountain of sauerkraut. I would have just eaten the dumplings and meat, but Daka was watching, and already the rest of my food had been contaminated by the "cabbage," so I decided to make everyone (except myself, my stomach, and my tastebuds) happy and ate it.
To review:
Patrick Swayze: dead
Bob Barker: alive
Poland: universally loathed (by the CR)
Blog views: 43 (about 75% are from me admiring how nice it looks)
Sauerkraut: bane of my existence
1. Patrick Swayze died. I just learned this. Apparently news travels slower across the Atlantic than mail (Grandma sent me a letter on Monday and I got it today, and by my calculations, it took me 10 days to hear of Patrick Swayze's death).
2. Bob Barker is 85. After I heard the unfortunate news about Patrick Swayze, I checked on Bob Barker to see where he's at. He's still fighting for animal rights, it would appear.
3. Everyone hates Poland. Whenever I tell [Czech] people that I am going to Poland this weekend (by the way, I am going to Poland this weekend), they all ask, "Why?" I never know how to answer this because, honestly, I don't know. I am hoping that when I get there I find something to do, but looking ahead to this trip, I have to ask myself, "How am I going to keep myself occupied for the next three days?"
4. My blog has had 43 views. When I discovered how to check how many views it has, it had 40 views. Since then I have checked it three other times to see how many views it has. It figures.
5. I hate sauerkraut. This is not an overstatement. This is probably the truest statement I have said thus far in my blog. Sauerkraut is quite possibly the bane of my existence (in the food world at least) apart from animal organs and mushrooms. It is therefore most upsetting to me that I have stumbled upon a country where sauerkraut seems to be its own food group. Everything else about Czech food makes my mouth water--goulash, dumplings (both bread and potato), potatoes, meat, and beer (only when washing down dumplings)--but sauerkraut makes me sick. The first time I had it, I was fooled until I sat down at the table. They had told me we were eating cabbage. They served me sauerkraut. I didn't even realize that sauerkraut comes from cabbage--it smells like some vile substance that could not have come from a plant, or at least if it it come from some formerly living thing, it would be from onions which already smell weird (though taste delicious).
It kills me that they keep feeding it to me. When eating it, I have to make sure the meat and dumpling to sauerkraut ratio is in my favor, though this gets difficult. Daka has taken it into her head that she will send me back to the States with curves. I am fine with this--as long as the curves come from food that tastes good. Meat? Fine. Dumplings? Sure. Chocolate? Sign me up for gaining 5 kilos. Potatoes? Definitely. Sauerkraut? Please shoot me in the foot and never allow me to eat again.
Honestly. Sauerkraut sucks all the fun out of eating.
Tonight we had sauerkraut. It was red for some reason, I'm assuming it's from the sauce. And dumplings, and veprove (pork). They gave me four dumplings, two and a half pieces of meat, and a veritable mountain of sauerkraut. I would have just eaten the dumplings and meat, but Daka was watching, and already the rest of my food had been contaminated by the "cabbage," so I decided to make everyone (except myself, my stomach, and my tastebuds) happy and ate it.
To review:
Patrick Swayze: dead
Bob Barker: alive
Poland: universally loathed (by the CR)
Blog views: 43 (about 75% are from me admiring how nice it looks)
Sauerkraut: bane of my existence
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Vltava Boating
No snarky comments, just pictures of a beautiful day in a beautiful city on a beautiful river.
Sleep
Well I didn't realize that it was possible to be this tired and still be alive. It's not that I didn't sleep a whole lot (I got nine hours last night) and it's not that my schedule was all that hectic today (only two classes, and a seminar that I am sitting around waiting for right now). I don't know what it is...maybe just the fact that I have two classes on complete opposite ends of the day. Or maybe it's that I had the additional stress of trying to meet the Czech university student who I am helping teach English at the right time.
I actually ended up being late for our meeting today. I thought that half an hour would be enough time for me to get to the stop on the metro we were supposed to meeting from the stop on the metro where my school is located. Apparently I was wrong. I forgot to factor in that I had to walk up a hill, make a pit stop for the bathroom, and that I was wearing shoes that have been known to draw blood when worn for 10+ minutes. It was because of all these things that I showed up late to the metro station.
Luckily, though, the meeting went well. Somehow he had found a book of English grammar, one that is pretty obviously directed towards towards already English-speaking people. So we went through the first 10 lessons of the book, passing up the things that I felt I was unable to accurately describe because for me, there are no descriptions. They just are. But after every verb tense we went over (he knew them all already, so I felt that the grammar book was unnecessary), he would look up at me and say, "Do you actually use this?" I'd look back at him and say, "Yes, but I honestly can't tell you when."
Honestly, it is impossible to describe the difference between the tense where you say, "I have done something" and the action is completed, and the tense where you say, "I have done something" and the action is still ongoing. After staring blankly at the book for a while, I told him to just listen to the question and use the words that they use in the question to formulate his response.
We finally gave up with the grammar, and I moved on to something I knew I could teach him: slang. I taught him all about "chillin'":
"What are you doing tonight?"
"Chillin' with some friends. You?"
"Yeah. I plan to chill out too. What did you do last night?"
"I chilled."
"Sweet as."
In addition to "chillin,'" I taught him about "hanging out" and what "That's a bummer" means. The hanging out was particularly confusing for him. I had used it earlier in an email to him. He asked me what it means...the only way he had ever heard of it was used in regards to laundry. It was this "hanging out" conversation that led us onto "chilling."
I have to say I was a little bit offended by the direction the conversation turned. After a while he asked me what I did every day. I told him, with the times, until I ended it by saying, "And then I go to bed." "And what time is that?" he asked. "Eleven, maybe 12," I told him. He looked at me aghast. "But you're young! You should be out with your friends! At the disco, at the pub!" I felt as though I had to justify it to him--"But I like sleeping. Plus I have to get up at like 6.30 a couple days a week for class." "Okay, okay," he said, "What time do you go to bed on Saturday?" To avoid his ridicule a second time over my sleeping patterns, I gave him a meaningful look and said, "Late." I figured this was the best answer, and allowed him to interpret it as he would, choosing not to give him another opportunity to be shocked with my sleeping habits.
Later, though, when we were making plans for when to meet the next week, he said he would be available on Wednesday. "Great!" I said. "Me too!" "Well, I have swimming thing, and I will be getting back at seven." "That's fine," I said. "We can meet when you get back." "But you go to bed so early...!" "It's fine." And I decided to never discuss my sleeping habits with him again.
I actually ended up being late for our meeting today. I thought that half an hour would be enough time for me to get to the stop on the metro we were supposed to meeting from the stop on the metro where my school is located. Apparently I was wrong. I forgot to factor in that I had to walk up a hill, make a pit stop for the bathroom, and that I was wearing shoes that have been known to draw blood when worn for 10+ minutes. It was because of all these things that I showed up late to the metro station.
Luckily, though, the meeting went well. Somehow he had found a book of English grammar, one that is pretty obviously directed towards towards already English-speaking people. So we went through the first 10 lessons of the book, passing up the things that I felt I was unable to accurately describe because for me, there are no descriptions. They just are. But after every verb tense we went over (he knew them all already, so I felt that the grammar book was unnecessary), he would look up at me and say, "Do you actually use this?" I'd look back at him and say, "Yes, but I honestly can't tell you when."
Honestly, it is impossible to describe the difference between the tense where you say, "I have done something" and the action is completed, and the tense where you say, "I have done something" and the action is still ongoing. After staring blankly at the book for a while, I told him to just listen to the question and use the words that they use in the question to formulate his response.
We finally gave up with the grammar, and I moved on to something I knew I could teach him: slang. I taught him all about "chillin'":
"What are you doing tonight?"
"Chillin' with some friends. You?"
"Yeah. I plan to chill out too. What did you do last night?"
"I chilled."
"Sweet as."
In addition to "chillin,'" I taught him about "hanging out" and what "That's a bummer" means. The hanging out was particularly confusing for him. I had used it earlier in an email to him. He asked me what it means...the only way he had ever heard of it was used in regards to laundry. It was this "hanging out" conversation that led us onto "chilling."
I have to say I was a little bit offended by the direction the conversation turned. After a while he asked me what I did every day. I told him, with the times, until I ended it by saying, "And then I go to bed." "And what time is that?" he asked. "Eleven, maybe 12," I told him. He looked at me aghast. "But you're young! You should be out with your friends! At the disco, at the pub!" I felt as though I had to justify it to him--"But I like sleeping. Plus I have to get up at like 6.30 a couple days a week for class." "Okay, okay," he said, "What time do you go to bed on Saturday?" To avoid his ridicule a second time over my sleeping patterns, I gave him a meaningful look and said, "Late." I figured this was the best answer, and allowed him to interpret it as he would, choosing not to give him another opportunity to be shocked with my sleeping habits.
Later, though, when we were making plans for when to meet the next week, he said he would be available on Wednesday. "Great!" I said. "Me too!" "Well, I have swimming thing, and I will be getting back at seven." "That's fine," I said. "We can meet when you get back." "But you go to bed so early...!" "It's fine." And I decided to never discuss my sleeping habits with him again.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
What I Miss Most
What I Miss Most About Home. A Short Essay by Emily Rose Oachs
I feel as though I have shorted myself on some of the abroad experience by choosing a country that does not speak English. Obviously, my experience is that much more intense for the sole reason that I do not speak the language and have no way to communicate with about 75% of the population (that's my statistic, not an official one) except through hand gestures and praying for some kind of divine intervention so that the other person will understand. This is all good, and helps me learn how to deal with people who are different from me and everything, but there are some things I really miss. And by some things, I mean one major thing.
People consider us to be "loud Americans," though I really think this is a bit of an unfair generalization. At least coming from them. They are the pot, we are the kettle, and look at that!
We're both black.
It's the combination of their loudness and my inability to understand the language that makes me miss being able to eavesdrop. They sit in restaurants, on the tram, in the metro, on park benches and hoot and holler and chit and chatter about this and that. It kills me that I have no idea what they're talking about when I know full well that if I were in English speaking country (or else understood the language), I would know their first and last names, birthdates, and addresses by the end of my eavesdropping session.
Instead I sit, glowering out the window, at my plate, or at a tree, imagining what they are saying. I naturally imagine that they are talking about me, and laughing uproariously over the fact that they are obviously talking about me, but I am oblivious. It's a vicious circle, and it kills me that I can't turn to them and say, "I know you are talking about me." If I were to attempt to do this now, I would have to point to myself, point to my head, point to them, point to their mouths, point to me. This is a very long and difficult process and is something that I think would only prompt more ridicule and jokes at my expense.
After having had two weeks of Czech class, though, my desire to eavesdrop and understand has only been heightened by the few, select words I have learned. When listening in on conversations, I am now able to pick out some words, mostly numbers, and these only heighten my curiosity about what these people are talking about.
I will be sitting, minding my own business on the metro, with a couple sitting next to me, talking about something obviously important. I naturally tune them out, until I hear them say, "jedenact."
-- Oh jedenact, you say? I think to myself. Eleven what? Eleven hours, eleven days, eleven years, eleven o'clock? The possibilities are endless. Please explain yourself further.--
I then listen closer, trying to figure out why they decided to talk about the number eleven. And then I hear, "Dvanact."
--So you're counting? Very nice. Well I can do that too. And I bet I can predict what you're going to say next. Trinact. Oh wow. Aren't I impressive?--
Though eventually it becomes apparent that they were not counting at all. Instead they say devet or pet or maybe even ctyricet sest, but the trinact never comes and I am left with even less of an understanding of the purpose of their conversation than before I began listening.
At times I get so disgusted that I can't listen in on their conversations, that I listen in extra hard, trying to discern any word they might say. This isn't me trying to put to use my Czech skills, this is instead an attempt to listen so hard that somehow, magically, their Czech morphs into heavily accented, though understandable English. I think if I were a superhero, this would be my superpower. Unfortunately, languages don't morph like that, and as hard as I try, Czech will never sound like English or be remotely related to English.
This is my dilemma: I am forced to live four months in a country where I do not have the skills to eavesdrop. When I get home, I am going to ride the 16 back and forth from Minneapolis to St Paul for a day, and I will eavesdrop on conversations, and I will add in my input to them, JUST BECAUSE I CAN.
In other news:
Laundry day. You know what that means. Embarrassment today, chafing tomorrow.
I feel as though I have shorted myself on some of the abroad experience by choosing a country that does not speak English. Obviously, my experience is that much more intense for the sole reason that I do not speak the language and have no way to communicate with about 75% of the population (that's my statistic, not an official one) except through hand gestures and praying for some kind of divine intervention so that the other person will understand. This is all good, and helps me learn how to deal with people who are different from me and everything, but there are some things I really miss. And by some things, I mean one major thing.
People consider us to be "loud Americans," though I really think this is a bit of an unfair generalization. At least coming from them. They are the pot, we are the kettle, and look at that!
We're both black.
It's the combination of their loudness and my inability to understand the language that makes me miss being able to eavesdrop. They sit in restaurants, on the tram, in the metro, on park benches and hoot and holler and chit and chatter about this and that. It kills me that I have no idea what they're talking about when I know full well that if I were in English speaking country (or else understood the language), I would know their first and last names, birthdates, and addresses by the end of my eavesdropping session.
Instead I sit, glowering out the window, at my plate, or at a tree, imagining what they are saying. I naturally imagine that they are talking about me, and laughing uproariously over the fact that they are obviously talking about me, but I am oblivious. It's a vicious circle, and it kills me that I can't turn to them and say, "I know you are talking about me." If I were to attempt to do this now, I would have to point to myself, point to my head, point to them, point to their mouths, point to me. This is a very long and difficult process and is something that I think would only prompt more ridicule and jokes at my expense.
After having had two weeks of Czech class, though, my desire to eavesdrop and understand has only been heightened by the few, select words I have learned. When listening in on conversations, I am now able to pick out some words, mostly numbers, and these only heighten my curiosity about what these people are talking about.
I will be sitting, minding my own business on the metro, with a couple sitting next to me, talking about something obviously important. I naturally tune them out, until I hear them say, "jedenact."
-- Oh jedenact, you say? I think to myself. Eleven what? Eleven hours, eleven days, eleven years, eleven o'clock? The possibilities are endless. Please explain yourself further.--
I then listen closer, trying to figure out why they decided to talk about the number eleven. And then I hear, "Dvanact."
--So you're counting? Very nice. Well I can do that too. And I bet I can predict what you're going to say next. Trinact. Oh wow. Aren't I impressive?--
Though eventually it becomes apparent that they were not counting at all. Instead they say devet or pet or maybe even ctyricet sest, but the trinact never comes and I am left with even less of an understanding of the purpose of their conversation than before I began listening.
At times I get so disgusted that I can't listen in on their conversations, that I listen in extra hard, trying to discern any word they might say. This isn't me trying to put to use my Czech skills, this is instead an attempt to listen so hard that somehow, magically, their Czech morphs into heavily accented, though understandable English. I think if I were a superhero, this would be my superpower. Unfortunately, languages don't morph like that, and as hard as I try, Czech will never sound like English or be remotely related to English.
This is my dilemma: I am forced to live four months in a country where I do not have the skills to eavesdrop. When I get home, I am going to ride the 16 back and forth from Minneapolis to St Paul for a day, and I will eavesdrop on conversations, and I will add in my input to them, JUST BECAUSE I CAN.
In other news:
Laundry day. You know what that means. Embarrassment today, chafing tomorrow.
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