Meaning: "please" or "you're welcome." Salespeople and people at checkout counters greet you with "Prosím," so it's also the Czech equivalent of "May I help you?"
Pronunciation: "pro-seem"
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I finally got the internet in my dorm room back! Hopefully it will stay this time.
I realize I never reported back about the trip to Macocha Caverns and the Černá Hora brewery, so I'll do that now.
The caverns were beautiful. The first part looks pretty much just like all the other caverns in places like Tennessee and Virginia, but then we came to an underground river and we got in a boat that took us through the rest of the caves. The water temperature was about 2 degrees Celsius, and in places the river was 100 meters deep. It was so cool. I wanted to swim in it. The crowning glory of the caverns is the Macocha Abyss, which is a huge sinkhole with the river flowing through the bottom. We came out of the caves into the bottom of the abyss and looked up. It was an awesome sight. I wish I had some photos to post, but the fee to take pictures was 30 crowns, and I could buy 30 pieces of Czech bread for that amount, so no thanks.
The brewery was less than awesome. Everything was metal and rubber tubing. It struck me as basically a chemical plant. They just take hops and malt (which stink, by the way), mix them with water, and let them sit in huge, metal vats for months while they ferment and become even more foul-smelling. Foam collects on the surface of the beer and hardens to a brown crust. It was pretty disgusting, and it solidified my resolve never to try beer. After the tour we ate Czech dumplings at the brewery restaurant and they let us try several different kinds of beer. I was one of about 3 people who refused the beer, so they brought me something else to drink. I have no idea what it was, but it smelled weird, so I was wary about trying it - I guess I was afraid they would slip me beer anyway in hopes of getting me hooked - but it turned out to be some kind of soft drink. I liked it, but I still don't know what it was, so I guess I'll be sticking with Coca-Cola.
Czech dumplings, by the way, are served with just about every traditional Czech meal, but they're not your average dumplings. They're more like spongy bread.
See the bread at the top of the plate? It's not. It's Czech dumplings.Tomorrow I'm going to Kutná Hora, a medieval town complete with a crypt full of thousands of dead people's bones artistically arranged to form decorations. I'll take pictures if I can, but there are already plenty of pictures of the place here. It looks awesome!
In other news, I seem to be getting over whatever bug I caught, and it looks like I'll be able to catch up quickly in my new Czech class.
I also finally tried eating at McDonald's this week. There are three McDonald's in Brno that I've found so far. I usually wouldn't go near the place at home, but it's cheap and they speak English there, so it's an easy meal when I'm in the city center. It's substantially different from home, though. The menus here (and this goes for KFC as well) are much simpler than at home. There aren't as many combinations available. At home, you walk into McDonald's and tell them all the little specifics you'd like, and you get angry when they don't provide the order exactly to your specifications. Here, they keep several different choices pre-made - cheeseburgers, hamburgers with the works, chicken strips, the basics - and you order one of these basic meals, and they provide it for you in about five seconds.
So when I walked into McDonald's and asked for two hamburgers with ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise and nothing else, it blew the girl's mind. She asked, "Without meat?" I had to explain to her that I still wanted meat, I just didn't want any of the usual extras like onions or pickles. It took her forever to enter it into the register, and it took twice as long for the order to arrive - alas, without mayonnaise, but it was good enough.
KFC's quicker on the uptake, but they still have problems connecting the English phrases and the items I want. I have to order in English because if I try it in Czech first, they'll ask me questions like "For here or takeaway?" in Czech, and I'll have to tell them I don't speak Czech and we'll just wind up speaking English anyway. But I can't ask for mashed potatoes or they'll hear "potatoes" and give me fries. I have to use the Czech word, "kaše." And they're still not quite sure which part of the chicken the "breast" is, so I have to clarify using the Czech word, "prsa." (Googling "prsa" is, incidentally, also a good way to find Czech pornsites.)
And speaking of Czech-English miscommunications, I've discovered another one. The Czech word for "yes" is "ano" (which is already funny because it means "anus" in Spanish). But Czechs often shorten it to just "'no," which, as you can imagine, can be quite confusing for English speakers - especially when the Czech person knows you're an English speaker, and you're not sure whether they're answering you in English or in Czech!
I usually try to keep to myself in public, but when a Czech person randomly tries to start up a conversation with me, it can be interesting to see their reactions when they find out I can't understand them. Some just dismiss me and turn away, but others laugh or even try to keep talking to me anyway. One old man chuckled and joked, "Špatná" ("Bad").
The other day a kind old lady started talking to me at the tram stop, and when I told her I didn't speak Czech, she laughed and started trying to think of something I'd understand. She spluttered a little bit, trying to think of some English words, until I finally said, "Dobrý den!" which means "Good day." She laughed again and replied, "Dobrý den!" When we got on the tram, she sat down beside an old man and started talking to him, and even though it was in Czech, I could tell she was saying, "I just started talking to this girl at the tram stop and it turned out she couldn't even understand a word I was saying!" She was one of the good ones, somebody who was very good-natured about the language barrier and didn't stop trying to exchange morning greetings with me just because I couldn't understand her. For every person who ignores me, there's somebody who keeps trying, or laughs, or smiles and says something that I can't understand but in a tone that says, "Ah well, good day anyway!" ♥
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It was only a matter of time before I started titling my posts with song lyrics. It's easier. This one's a line from the operetta Candide, which has inexplicably been stuck in my head for days.
In other news, I seem to be getting over whatever bug I caught, and it looks like I'll be able to catch up quickly in my new Czech class.
I also finally tried eating at McDonald's this week. There are three McDonald's in Brno that I've found so far. I usually wouldn't go near the place at home, but it's cheap and they speak English there, so it's an easy meal when I'm in the city center. It's substantially different from home, though. The menus here (and this goes for KFC as well) are much simpler than at home. There aren't as many combinations available. At home, you walk into McDonald's and tell them all the little specifics you'd like, and you get angry when they don't provide the order exactly to your specifications. Here, they keep several different choices pre-made - cheeseburgers, hamburgers with the works, chicken strips, the basics - and you order one of these basic meals, and they provide it for you in about five seconds.
So when I walked into McDonald's and asked for two hamburgers with ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise and nothing else, it blew the girl's mind. She asked, "Without meat?" I had to explain to her that I still wanted meat, I just didn't want any of the usual extras like onions or pickles. It took her forever to enter it into the register, and it took twice as long for the order to arrive - alas, without mayonnaise, but it was good enough.
KFC's quicker on the uptake, but they still have problems connecting the English phrases and the items I want. I have to order in English because if I try it in Czech first, they'll ask me questions like "For here or takeaway?" in Czech, and I'll have to tell them I don't speak Czech and we'll just wind up speaking English anyway. But I can't ask for mashed potatoes or they'll hear "potatoes" and give me fries. I have to use the Czech word, "kaše." And they're still not quite sure which part of the chicken the "breast" is, so I have to clarify using the Czech word, "prsa." (Googling "prsa" is, incidentally, also a good way to find Czech pornsites.)
And speaking of Czech-English miscommunications, I've discovered another one. The Czech word for "yes" is "ano" (which is already funny because it means "anus" in Spanish). But Czechs often shorten it to just "'no," which, as you can imagine, can be quite confusing for English speakers - especially when the Czech person knows you're an English speaker, and you're not sure whether they're answering you in English or in Czech!
I usually try to keep to myself in public, but when a Czech person randomly tries to start up a conversation with me, it can be interesting to see their reactions when they find out I can't understand them. Some just dismiss me and turn away, but others laugh or even try to keep talking to me anyway. One old man chuckled and joked, "Špatná" ("Bad").
The other day a kind old lady started talking to me at the tram stop, and when I told her I didn't speak Czech, she laughed and started trying to think of something I'd understand. She spluttered a little bit, trying to think of some English words, until I finally said, "Dobrý den!" which means "Good day." She laughed again and replied, "Dobrý den!" When we got on the tram, she sat down beside an old man and started talking to him, and even though it was in Czech, I could tell she was saying, "I just started talking to this girl at the tram stop and it turned out she couldn't even understand a word I was saying!" She was one of the good ones, somebody who was very good-natured about the language barrier and didn't stop trying to exchange morning greetings with me just because I couldn't understand her. For every person who ignores me, there's somebody who keeps trying, or laughs, or smiles and says something that I can't understand but in a tone that says, "Ah well, good day anyway!" ♥
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It was only a matter of time before I started titling my posts with song lyrics. It's easier. This one's a line from the operetta Candide, which has inexplicably been stuck in my head for days.
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