My week so far

It really feels good to be in one place for a while, and knowing I'll be here for at least another week before packing up and traveling somewhere different as has been the case for a month and a half.

I started my "intensive Italian" classes this week. Being a teacher, I made up a schedule for myself to focus on different aspects of Italian language to prepare me for 6 months in Italy. Three categories so far, but might need to make more - vocabulary, grammar, and reading. I haven't assigned myself homework so far, so I probably need to add that or at least add another category. Writing is of course in all categories. I study for 2 hours every morning, but yesterday I studied for one hour then got hungry, got up to go to the kitchen for breakfast, and never came back. *tsk* This morning I made Libor make me breakfast - oatmeal. Poor guy has never made oatmeal before and apparently I bought the wrong package of oatmeal yesterday that is really like granola than cooking oatmeal because there were no directions for cooking it. All it said was, "mix with fruit or yogurt." He did try to ask me but I told him I was busy studying. The result was a very nice dry oatmeal mush with apples and cinnamon (which I asked for), but a black pot. I asked him why the pot was black and he explained everything. I laughed and asked why he didn't check the internet, and his response was, "you never said anything about water!" Ha. It was still surprisingly good anyway. :-)

Paní Pachtová gave us a bag of apples (among a trillion of other things) when we left Břeclav on Sunday, so yesterday morning (the ill-fated 1 hour class session) I got a serious craving for applesauce. Since Libor was still asleep (getting up early is not in his realm of understanding if it's not vitally important), I went to the store on the corner (by myself!! :-D) and got some water and spices that I would need for the applesauce. The applesauce was SO good. :-) Thanks, Julie, for your recipe!! Libor said that his parents would probably say, "how do you eat this? Isn't it for babies?" So last night I asked Vít to try some and he was like, "isn't this baby food? How do you eat it? Just like that?" heh. I think next time I need to make the apple sauce a little chunkier to prevent these comments!




Reconstruction of "Freedom Square" (Náměstí Svobody) has been finished, so yesterday Libor took me there to see what kind of celebrations there would be. We arrived just as the opening comments were finished and an old-timers band started playing so we decided to come back during the night for the fireshow and a concert with a band he wanted to see. I think we missed the fireshow, but the lightshow was pretty cool - lasers everywhere! And the lasers were pretty neat - they formed these holographic images of skies. They also formed shapes on the walls of buildings but I think everybody was just staring at the images of skies. At one point Libor turned around, saw the images, and started taking pictures with his cell phone, so everybody looked to see what he was looking at and they all turned around! haha. To be honest the concerts were kind of boring. The first one was some Croatian "boy band" but they had men and women both... Libor kept making fun of them and I shut him up by saying, "you're just jealous because you want to be famous like them." He was like, "...yea, you are probably right. But they still suck." Then his band was up... a group of men in their 40's and badly dressed. I rely on my vision most of the time, and they definitely weren't eye candy. Their music sounded like pretty much every other rock band I've heard, so it wasn't all that interesting for me! Libor enjoyed himself though. I enjoyed watching the fans in the crowd, who were emphatically singing along with the lead singer, almost drowning his voice out. (All pics are from
http://brnensky.denik.cz/zpravy/urady/namesti_svobody_je_spravene.html)

We came back to the apartment to watch the 2nd half of the Chelsea/Barcelona match - VERY good. Chelsea is now on the 3rd goalie because the 1st 2 were injured badly in the previous match. The first goalie is Libor's favorite - Petr Čech (pronounced chek, from Czech :-)) - was seriously injured when he was on the ground saving a ball and one of the opposing players kicked him in the head. He had to have surgery because part of his skull was fractured. He's doing fine now but out of commission for a while. The 2nd goalie was injured the same way, but didn't have as serious an injury as Čech. Despite being on their 3rd goalie, Chelsea managed to beat Barcelona, which was the favorite, 1 to 0.

The prize, though, of yesterday's activities, was a trip to the supermarket where we found a liter of olive oil on sale for 200 Krowns! (Most of the standard oils go for 20-some krowns.) We carefully packed up the glass bottle in my bag and it was lovingly placed in our cabinet in the kitchen. I almost dropped it while putting it in the kitchen cabinet and that caused drama for a moment. I can't believe how precious such things have become - olive oil, even soy sauce. Yesterday I was cooking vegetables and I carefully measured out the amount I wanted. In the US I would not have given either one a second thought. Every time we go out, we make a notice of all the health food stores we see, and check out their inventory, their prices. We found a very good one with a very good selection, hopefully Libor remembers where it is because I lost track. :-/ Often we find the things we cannot find in the regular food stores in the health food stores. We are finding that the regular food stores do have a selection of "biologique" food (organic), I think that might be a change from what Libor remembers before he left Czech for the US.

Prices of things have changed a great deal since before Libor left Czech for the US. Things were much cheaper, he said. Now some things are still quite cheap, while other things are quite expensive or on the mark compared to American markets. I am not surprised, because it'll only be a few more years before Czech has to change their currency from the krown to the Euro, which is stronger, of course. So things will gradually become more expensive, but also salaries will become much better. It'll be interesting to see how that changes lifestyles (or not).

Many Czech-owned businesses follow the Czech mentality - only open until 4, usually only one or 2 workers (usually the owner), things are only in stock while in demand. They are only restocked if the product runs out and there is a demand for it. You can find businesses that close for a day here and there for inventory-taking. You can even find businesses closed for lunch, closed "for 5 minutes," or early because there are no customers or the worker/owner wants to do something else. Yesterday we were checking out yoga schedules (no go - Libor won't go at 7am, and I need some help with translation), and the workers of one store locked up the store and Libor overheard them saying they were going to see what was up in Freedom Square. That's the Czech way. On the other hand, there's also foreign businesses here - many German. Those are very on the Western mentality - open early, closed late, lots of workers, inventory is done at night during closed hours. I suggested to Libor that he open his own business (he's got many good ideas), but he says no because he doesn't "live to work" - he "works to live" - and owning a business means he would need to "live to work." Hmm. At first it was very hard for me to understand this, but now I think I do... However I will be watching to see what happens over the next few years as the economy changes. Especially since the evened out currency will allow Czechs to afford more things, more services, travel...

Time for me to go and do other things. I'm still working on the photo website for you ... wish this blogger allowed photo galleries, but it doesn't because of file space. Keep your fingers crossed...