from the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam

Czech word of the day: Tak
Meaning: "So." If you want to sound like a real Czech person, start every other sentence with "tak," and murmur it to yourself occasionally while thinking.
Pronunciation: "Tahk"

-

The weather this week in Brno has been absolutely crazy. Last weekend it snowed and stuck. On Monday, there were snow flurries on and off all day long - even when the sky was devoid of clouds.

Literally. The sky was sunny and blue and there was snow falling. Central European weather patterns are the weirdest.

And then today the high was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. It was actually too warm for the sweater I'm wearing.

The people here are funny about weather, though. They seem to think, "It's winter, so I'm going to bundle up," no matter what the weather outside is actually like. Today I was sweating in my sweater and people were running around with heavy coats on like it was freezing. They're just used to living in a warm climate; wearing warm clothes is second nature to them.

I, on the other hand, come from a warm climate, where we generally wear the smallest amount of clothing that we can possibly get away with. Here, that means seizing every opportunity to wear T-shirts and slip-ons rather than sweaters and boots.

Apparently, that makes me a little odd.

Everybody here - not just Czechs, but all the other Europeans - think I'm really, really weird for kicking off my shoes whenever possible. And, okay, even at home, I draw attention for going barefoot more often than average. But at home people at least understand the impulse to go barefoot, and people regularly slip their shoes off when sitting down.

But here, when the first thing I do before sitting down anywhere is kick my shoes off, I get weird looks from people - not just at places you'd expect, like a restaurant or on a park bench outside, but also in class, in the computer lab, even when cozying up in someone's basement to watch a movie. (On the latter occasion, a Slovenian guy told me I was "Very weird girl.")

Today it was so warm out that I slipped my shoes off while I sat on a park bench reading for about an hour. At one point an old Czech lady came up to me, giggling, and tried to tell me something. When I told her I didn't speak Czech, she giggled again and said something else in Czech, pointed at my feet, and walked away.

-

I'm also considered weird here because of the way I eat. In the southern U.S., we eat pretty much everything with our hands, but here they actually make use of dining utensils. They're very dainty with everything they eat, even fried chicken. At KFC here they give you one napkin - ONE, for all that greasy chicken! - and most people eat their chicken with a fork, which I cannot bring myself to do.

Each Wednesday, the students from one country give a presentation over their native country - history, interesting facts and places, famous people, etc. They also prepare a few traditional dishes from their home country.

Last night was the United States' presentation. There were sloppy joes, cheese dip & nachos, peanut butter cups (which don't exist here!), and sweet tea. Oh my God, I thought I had died and gone back to the South. It smelled a little weird but it tasted like a family reunion. I literally jumped over five rows of chairs to scramble to the front of the pack and claim a cup of sweet tea before they were all gone, and I drank it all in one go. I don't know which of my fellow Americans made it, but I was grateful.

The reactions to the American food were amusing, though. Sweet tea is completely foreign to everybody else here; I got everything from "I'm not sure how I feel about it" to "I could not deal with that stuff" to "How do you make it?" (The answer to the latter is, of course, "Make tea normally, then dump a bunch of sugar in!") These dainty eaters didn't know what to do with sloppy joes (we call them that for a reason), and most of them had never tasted peanut butter cups before - which is kind of crazy, if you think about it. Try for a moment to imagine a world without Reese's. See what I mean?

The presentation itself was a hit, too. It was basically a parody of American stereotypes, including obesity (a Science Channel clip about how the US is the fattest country in the world), ignorance (the Miss Teen South Carolina "like, such as" video), arrogance (clips from Talladega Nights), commercialism, and, of course, politics (several choice Family Guy clips), interspersed with helpful definitions of American slang such as "aiight," "off the chain," and "pwned."

The Talladega Nights clips got the biggest laughs, though, because most of the audience hadn't seen that movie. People especially liked the scene in which Ricky Bobby is asked by Sacha Baron Cohen's effeminate Frenchman to describe what America has given to the world, and his responses are "Chinese food, pizza, and chimichangas."

The video also consisted of a few quintessential American songs, including Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" - which everybody in the room knew the words to - and that most American of songs, Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue."

By the end, I felt equal parts embarrassed and nostalgic. Oh, America. ♥

Having said that, I've now been here in the Czech Republic for a month. It's begun to dawn on me how little time I have left. In no time I've become comfortable here, and now that it's getting warm, I don't think I'll ever want to leave.

If only I could import American food, American TV, and my loved ones here, I think I'd be content to stay forever.