Mám dárek pro mou sestru!

Czech word of the day: dĕkuji
Meaning: "thank you"
Pronunciation: "dyek-wee"

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It's crazy how quickly the weather is changing here. Today the high was almost 50 degrees. It was so warm that I didn't even wear my big winter coat and I wore flats instead of boots for the first time. It felt so good to wear normal shoes again! The snow's all gone now, and it's hard to imagine it coming back, but the forecast is already calling for more snow later this week.

They're having a world film festival here, so tomorrow I'm going to go see two movies, one Iranian and one Georgian. I was able to order the tickets online and choose which seat I wanted, which is really cool, and the tickets were only about $4 apiece! That's crazy! The theater is conveniently located near KFC, so I'll probably treat myself to fried chicken tomorrow between movies. I miss my car, but it's nice to live in a city where I don't really need it for once!

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Kutná Hora was pretty awesome. All the museums and touristy stuff were closed because there aren't many tourists in February, but we visited two cathedrals from the Middle Ages, and I got to see the ossuary that I mentioned in the last post, which was really cool. I took too many pictures to post here, so they're all collected on Flickr here.

The train ride to Kutná Hora itself was really interesting. I got to see a lot of the countryside. It's crazy - every single town we passed had an old gothic cathedral. Every single one. I mentioned this to my Czech guide, and she said, "Well, these buildings aren't really that old. Go to Rome. Those buildings are old." I said, yes, that's true, but buildings from the Middle Ages are still ridiculously old to me. There's nothing even close to that old in the United States.

I'll be spending next weekend in Prague with the International Students Club, so I'll take lots of pictures there, too.

I also saw a drunken bar fight, and rode on a train with a guy who was too drunk to sit up straight, let alone walk. (He got kicked off the train after two stops for not paying the fare.)

Speaking of drunk guys, the guy behind me in line at the supermarket today collapsed in a drunken stupor. It's amusing how unconcerned people here are when a drunk person falls over. The lady at the checkout counter barely looked at the guy on the floor. Everybody just kind of watched him until he managed to stand up and wander out, leaving his would-be purchases on the counter.

I think I'm going to do all my grocery shopping at that supermarket from now on rather than at Tesco. I hate going to Tesco. The workers there always seem miserable, and they let it be known that my not speaking Czech is just one more inconvenience for them.

The place I went today is a smaller supermarket just down the street called Albert. People there are so much nicer. The lady that checked me out today just smiled when I told her I didn't speak Czech, and she understood me when I asked in English for a bag. Albert is more expensive than Tesco in the same way that Walmart's always cheaper than everywhere else, and Albert's bread is less fresh than Tesco's, but Albert is closer to my dorm and, more importantly, I don't feel like an inconvenience to anybody when I shop there.

There are things I haven't been able to find here, though. Things from home that I'm running out of include sunflower seeds, Crunch bars, and Cheetos. I've already run out of salt & vinegar potato chips, which is a flavor they don't have here. They do have flavors like ham and paprika, but I'll pass on those.

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And now, a little bragging.

I'm owning my Czech class, despite the fact that it's meant for more advanced students. Score one for the linguaphile. At this point I've studied so many languages that there's hardly a grammatical concept that I'm not at least a little bit familiar with. I got all my questions right today in class, and I've already completed Wednesday's homework.

Grammar just makes so much sense to me. It's all rules-based: if A, then B. If the noun is masculine inanimate, it retains its form in the accusative case, but if it's masculine animate, add -a at the end of hard nouns and -e at the end of soft nouns. Easy. It's a formula. It's the way math is supposed to be, all simple logic, but unlike math, grammar actually makes sense. Equations are just numbers; they don't mean anything. But words mean something. Words matter. If I get an abstract equation wrong, nothing happens. But if I mess up a grammatical formula, I create a whole different meaning.

And yet people think math is more important than grammar. Pfft.

Anyway.

I'm about to put my love of grammar to good use. I've volunteered to teach an English class to local Czech students once a week. I have no idea how to teach anything, but I'm probably going to have to spend a couple of years teaching English abroad to get into a top master's program in my field, so this'll be good experience.

My first class is Wednesday night. Wish me luck!