Missing Sunny Days...

Remember I was noting that everyday (pretty much) it was sunny and beautiful? Well, almost overnight, with the arrival of grumpy Old Man Winter, its gray every day. :-( Once in a while we'll have beautiful skies for a short time. But, winter is here. Thankfully it's not cold...yet.

It's getting harder and harder to get up every morning, but I kick myself out of bed by 10 am. :-P No excuse for being a total lazy bum! Last weekend we went out to the club in Břeclav and I had one too many of the local drink, slivovice, and I pretty much slept the whole weekend. Was finally feeling myself only on Monday afternoon when we got back to Brno. Can you believe it? Libor said, "now you learned your lesson. Never have more than one shot of slivovice! One shot is good for the stomach, but the second one is not!" He could have simply told me not to have the 2nd shot. :-(

I was telling Libor how I love the way we cook in Brno. We mostly eat vegetables while here, unless we get already cooked meat (either from the store or from Libor's mom). Today we made a vegetable stew. :-D I'm looking forward to eating it - it smells SOOOOO good! Onions, garlic, potatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes, basil, thyme, homegrown marjoram (Libor's Aunt Marie), and parsley. MMM mm! Since I've experienced nothing but frustration in trying to cook with my recipes, Libor's been head chef if we use his cookbook (all in Czech) or I can be top chef if we make up recipes on our own. I'm lucky I read cookbooks and watch cooking shows because the advice they give I'm using in my cooking. :-) I don't normally make soups and that's what we make now so I don't have alot of knowledge in making soups. We are doing okay so far but any tips would be nice! :-)

Last night Libor made bramboraky - potato pancakes. Vít and I were there to watch and give advice on how to cook it better. :-P Vít always says that he'll never cook in this apartment, but he still likes to be the backseat cook - making suggestions in the cooking or preparation. ;-) We offer bites of food to both Vít and Jiří, unless the food is so good we don't want to share! ;-) Jiří is vegetarian so we have to tell him if something has meat or not. He was tantalized by the lovely smell of Libor's broccoli soup one night and was just about to take a bite when Libor suddenly remembered he used chicken broth in the soup. I'm sure Jiří was devastated. :-( We brought back stuffing that Libor's mom baked separate from the turkey. Jiří asked if it had any meat and Vít said, "Yes! It has meat!" He was so mean! I told Jiří no, it doesn't have meat. Vít looked at me and said, "Great, now we have less stuffing for ourselves!" Jiří then called him something that shall not be repeated here.

I got the first of my Christmas cards last week from the Skaveries. :-) Is it that time of year already? The decorations are already up in Brno and Břeclav... on the 1st (tomorrow!) the Christmas market will open in Freedom Square. Wow, tomorrow already? We saw the stalls being set up this week when we did our shopping downtown. Hmm. I've already started my shopping, but now I have to shop with packing boxes in mind - how can I pack as much, as light, and as less fragile as I can? It's a different challenge than I'm used to!

6 1/2 more weeks left before I will be in Rome. I can't believe how time is flying so fast! Sometimes time flies too much - I am learning how to focus on enjoying the moment, but sometimes I lose sight of the bigger picture (the future). I can't believe it. In many ways you can look at life as a series of little moments that are experienced and treasured, but in other ways it is also about the decisions that you make to change the bigger picture. One year ago, I would NOT have imagined myself living in Czech Republic now. One and a half year ago, I never even gave Czech Republic a second thought. Now I'm with Libor who is Czech, speaks Czech, and lives in Czech. And I live in Czech. I like how things have happened... it's like a story with a sudden plot twist that the reader is totally unprepared for and has no frame of reference in order to predict the order of events to come. I feel the same way here. I'm actually living this adventure.

Last Friday I saw so many people I haven't seen in a while, which was nice! I saw Lenka and Tomaš, who I met the first weekend I was in Czech but hadn't seen since. Tomaš is a climber, and he was with a friend who is also a climber, so we in our own made up language mixed up with English, Czech, and gestures, were talking about climbing. He said, "In 7 months, you _must_ learn Czech!" His friend agreed and we dove back into conversation about me going to Italy. When I'm around people who make any effort to communicate with me regardless of how much of a common language we have, I feel very good. I have to admit that I don't talk to many people because I don't speak Czech and many people won't give me even the time of day. It was kind of hard for Libor because some of these people are his close friends, and he realized that it's not fair for me to be with him and his friends when I'm left out most of the time. I don't go out often with him when we go to Břeclav for that reason. Here in Brno both Vít and Jiří speak English with me, and often Vít and Libor are both my translators if we are around people speaking Czech. In Břeclav, Libor is the only one who can speak English except for some people who speak English when they feel like it. It is lonely sometimes. So last Friday was a breath of fresh air when I found people who I could speak with even if it was for a short time, in English or just in gestures. One of Libor's friends came up to us and Libor was busy talking with someone and the two of us ended up talking in gestures and simple words, and we had so much fun. When Libor turned back to us, she told him that I was beautiful, touched my hair, and moved on to another group of people.

There's so much I could write about, but I almost don't know where to start, so I think I'll stop this post for today and start again later.