The Curse of the WeeBrie

I hate flying. I am always the one left off of planes, told to go to the wrong gate, and delayed. I always get x-rayed, felt up, bags torn apart and rescanned a dozen times. My planes always have broken phalanges, missing navigation systems and malfunctioning landing gear. People dread flying with me. I tell people who pick up me up expect me to be delayed - because it’s me and the entire airline industry hates me. 

This time though…It was all my fault. Completely. I had zero problems in Chicago. My plane left on time. Zero turbulence. It could have been my best international flight ever (minus my seat partner. Yes, PARTNER. Seriously, man. Stop not only hogging the arm rest, but taking up half my seat with yourself. And MY seat is not an acceptable water bottle holder for YOU.) And then the meal came. 

Dear Future Lactose Intolerant Self: when propositioned with the option of Wee Brie - DO NOT go, huh, wonder if I can eat brie without dying? YOU ARE CONFINED ON A PLANE, YOU IDIOT! For the next 7 hours (one had already gone by.) You will be in an inordinate amount of pain. You will be unable to sleep. You will pay back the large, spastic guy in 37G for encroaching on your territory for the entire flight with a variety of sounds and smells. You will wonder why you decided to attempt to eat brie while on an airplane. Please learn from this. 

Love Present Lactose Intolerant Self.

PS, I got to fly over fjords at sunrise while drinking coffee! And yes…dying from attack of the brie.  

PPS, I think the Stockholm airport was designed by IKEA. 

Anyway, back to the trip. Passed out on IKEA benches for the 3 hours of my layover. Totally passed out. Great sleep. Slept most of the way to Prague on the plane. Even though the Swedes did their best to keep me up - seriously, the whole plane knew each other and they were very loud. And kept talking to me in Swedish…might have been because I was trying to read Swedish magazine articles. Not sure if they ever figured out that I was American…I nodded and smiled and pointed a lot. And they continued to talk to me in Swedish. Even though they know English perfectly. 

Martin got me at the airport and asked if I was hungry - YES. Now, you would think that the fact that I felt like my intestines were in the middle of a civil war would be a hint to me that I should not eat any dairy for the rest of the day. Imagine my surprise when I ordered basically fried cheese for lunch. By lunch time, most of my WeeBrie Curse was finally lifting and I was feeling much better and not like I was on my death bed. So when Martin went, all Americans love this. It is a local specialty. I went, OK! Bring it on! Oh, and yes, I would like to try a local beer too - never mind the fact that I haven’t eaten since the initial attack of the Brie back over, oh, Canada. It’s only a good 12 hours later. Of course, the rest of the meal with the WeeBrie was HUGE! Biggest meal I have ever been served on an airplane, but either way, that was like a day ago. I’m famished! In conclusion, there were many prayers that the fried cheese would go down without issue. I only ate about half the meal thereby freaking Martin out that he had told me to order something I didn’t like. I took it to go and promised to eat it later. He informed that because I was a woman, I’d probably start eating it in the car. I think we’re going to have a fun 90 days together. 

Martin showed me around the school a bit (um….let’s just say I’m glad that I’m getting another tour today. I was so tired and directionally challenged at this point) and then around my apartment. I managed to stay up till 9pm unpacking so I’m proud to report that I’m all moved in! …Well, other than putting my art up. I still have to figure that out. I have figured out my toilet (yeah, you pull up…), my shower, and my stove. Have not figured out the oven, toaster or washing machine. And I think I should maybe put dish washer on that list too, but I haven’t attempted to figure it out yet. OH, and the Czech keyboard…yeah…I had to go get Martin for help. All I needed was one little @ sign… ctrl64 and a switch into English mode later, I could get into my email. 

And then I had supper… Seriously, it’s like the WeeBrie attack didn’t go on for 12 hours. I warmed up my fried cheese, potatoes and then rummaged through the fridge. Hmm….this could be some sort of cream cheese type thing. Don’t know. Let’s ingest it. See how it goes. At least I had enough sense to take milk pills. It’s like I have an inability to learn or something. I totally do it to myself. 

A Touch of Plzen

Plzen is awesome. I’m already starting to freak out that I only have 86 days left here. Yes… I know… I’ve been here four. It’s like the worst countdown ever. I’m finding this whole tourist visa very unfair. I don’t want to leave in 90 days. I don’t want to have to be gone for 90 days. Why can’t I just stay?! (Pouting face attempting to work up a little tear.)

Anyway, Friday, Saturday and Sunday I walked around and got to know Plzen a little bit better. Jarka (the secretary at school/church) took me around on Friday. She is AWESOME. I remember my first weeks in China and they were less than easy. I think Jarka eased me into life in Czech really well. As we’re walking around she’s explaining different things. We get on the tram - she not only points out the buttons I need to push, but makes me do it so I remember. She points out the train station, bus station, different stores, even walks me through a grocery store explaining different foods to me. It was amazing! We went for lunch at the Brewery Museum Pub where, GET THIS! I voluntarily ordered beef. First. Time. Ever. But…it kinda sounded good. And there’s just so much red meat here, it’s unavoidable. Might as well start liking it now, I guess. I’m pretty sure pork is the national meat of Czech. I think I’m going to have to learn to like it. And I’ve never been more scared in my life. Pork is icky! There are currently four different kinds of creepy pork lunch meat in my fridge (that I can’t do more than pick up in the package because the second I contemplate putting it in me, I start to have some gag reflex going on) and the potatoes for my first meal here had chunks of ham in them. And the best part of this dilemma is that while eating my slabs for lunch, I realized that I don’t really know how to eat large chunks of meat. Especially when you have to eat Euro style with the fork in the left and knife in the right. At least, eating left handed I don’t feel that I stab and manhandle my food as much with a fork as I usually do. Really, though, can I traipse around with a set of chopsticks (or “those crazy sticks” according to Martin)? Probably not. I have to eat LARGE slabs of meat. I kinda contemplated being a vegetarian, but I just don’t think I can never eat meat around people. My theory is to eat a lot on my own so I can steer clear of the red meats as much as possible and just have to be meated out when eating with other people. Also, I’ve had beer with every meal I’ve eaten with other people…. 

While Jarka and I were out doing this, Martin was off at the airport again getting my new roommates: the Schewe’s. They have worked here two years in the past and are back now to go to a wedding in Slovakia and to see their daughter in Germany. They have been so amazing. We walked around downtown Saturday and they were explaining different things to me. Telling me where to do this, where to do that. All that information that you have to get from other people who’ve been here in the past. There were some crazy event involving weird boats down at the river and then there was a demonstration complete with reenacted sword fights behind the big Plaza shopping center. OH! And! There are weddings almost every weekend at the town hall off the square. Hello future Saturday plans. I will be parked out on a bench taking photos of crazy Czech brides, remembering crazy China brides. In conclusion, Plzen was a happening place which is odd for a Saturday (or so I’m told). 

Went to Czech Church today where I had a couple of realizations. One, I am not to the point in my Czech where I can understand words. Two, I have a chance of being able to sing in Czech - goes much slower. Three, talking in Czech…with people who speak Czech…goes way too fast and I can barely comprehend the letter combination on the paper and form the correct sound in my head by the time they are on to the next line. I met one of my future tutor students, so by next week, hopefully, I’ll have a very tiny little income! And it’s really sad how excited I am about this because it’s going to be like nothing, but when you haven’t worked since JUNE, like nothing is better than actually nothing. After church, Schewe’s and I went downtown again to one of their favorite restaurants where again, I realized a couple things. One, after living in China where there are no boys worthy of looking at, I’m virtually drooling at all times over here. Two, I think I should just brush up on my German, and master simple Czech. Like hello. And goodbye. And thank you. And excuse me. And then only speak in German. Mrs. Schewe speaks great Czech, so she’s been asking a lot of people if they speak English. They usually answer with, No, but I speak German - in German. As though answering the question in German will help the English speaker attempting to talk to you in Czech… But this is my solution to my only being here and not knowing any Czech other than my numbers 0-10 (and by knowing my numbers I mean that I can say them. I can’t understand anyone saying them to me), yes, no, yep, and hello. Oh…and I can read some food labels. It’s like I’m set for life!

Wode Beautiful Wohnung

Um…As you can tell, I’m having a few issues keeping my brain in one language. As I just FBed over to Kristy who’s currently speaking Spanderin, I’m speaking some sort of Germanderinglish. And it is not a pretty sight. I try to speak in German because there’s an actual possibility that I could communicate with Czech people…what pops out? Germanderin. And then I get to a point where I only know the word that I want to say in English. It’s a problem. But let’s just focus on the pictures, shall we? Here’s my apartment which I’m quite certain might be the same size as the main floor of my mom’s house. Mmm, might be larger actually. 

Here’s the building I live in….pulled off their website cause it’s freezing and rainy and icky and cold and I’m four floors up and lazy. I believe that the second window from the left on the roof, is the window in  my bedroom. 

Welcome to the apartment. Here’s the bathroom(s). 

See the little nob thing on the toilet? This is what you have to pull up to get it to flush. Took me ages to figure it out in my jetlagged state. 

Well, look at this China. An entire room for a shower and a washing machine?! Actually, that washing machine has been described to me as crazy. Both Martin and Jarka looked slightly fearful as they were showing me how to use it. 

Ok, we just walked in the door and turned right. Directly to my left is the toilet bathroom. Behind me down a little hallway is the shower bathroom. This is the kitchen/living/dining room. 

GASP! Counter space! But on a not so happy note, you can’t really see how very close to the floor the fridge door is, but let’s just say that if I make it through the next 84 days with my right big toenail still intact, it will be a miracle. I’ve already plowed it over 3.6bajillion times. And every time, I go, (@#*$(*#@(*#$ OOOWWWW!!!!!! Seriously! Lowest door ever!! LEARN!!! But as we witnessed through the WeeBrie, my learning abilities don’t really register on the scale. 

Let’s go look out the window!

Hi Plzen! Don’t know what direction we’re looking at, but all the commie buildings are nicely repainted. They’re trying to get them to last as long as possible. 

Hi me! This is the hallway down to the bedrooms. Schewe’s are currently in the first one on the left.

We’re using the last one on the left as the computer room as it’s the only room with an ethernet cable. One day, I will have one in my room…hopefully. I have the port, just no cord. 

My room is the one on the right. Process of elimination, I know. 

I have never had a bed this big in my life. And if that wasn’t enough space, there’s always this bed too. 

Und zhege is wode beautiful Wohnung. 

Presentations

I’m a volunteer, right? I’m the first one this school has had - at least in the complete volunteer capacity that I’m here in. That sentence makes no sense but do you get what I’m saying? I’m doing something that’s not been done before. Yay, me. Plowing my own way into the unknown. Anyway, the director wants me to do some presentations in each of the grades. At first it sounded like one presentation a month in grades 4-9 which I was less than thrilled about, but now it seems to be back down at just one presentation for each of those grades. Much more manageable…although I would still put money on me ending up doing one presentation a month in each grade…. Now, let me share the um…Thematic Ideas that director had for me. 

_______________________________________________________________

4+5 Grade
Original Population In America 
Do you know the original population in America?
North American Indian tribes who were the the American Midwest?
The names of these tribes?
How these tribes lived?
There are Indian reservations in the U.S.?

How do I know China?
Pictures?
Map? How big is China?
What intrigued me most in China?

6+7 Grade
Original Population In America
Do you know the original population in America?
North American Indian tribes who were the the American Midwest?
The names of these tribes?
How these tribes lived?
There are Indian reservations in the U.S.?

Washington
When the U.S. was founded?
Who was the first president?
Why is was the U.S. capital Washington DC name?
Where else can find the map of the U.S. Washingthon name?

How do I know China?
Pictures?
Map? How big is China?
What intrigued me most in China?

8+9 Grade
Original Population In America
Do you know the original population in America?
North American Indian tribes who were the the American Midwest?
The names of these tribes?
How these tribes lived?
There are Indian reservations in the U.S.?

Washington
When the U.S. was founded?
Who was the first president?
Why is was the U.S. capital Washington DC name?
Where else can find the map of the U.S. Washingthon name?

Menacing date: 11 September
In which year was terrorist attack?
Where it happened?
How many people died?
What is terrorism?

Cosmos
Gemini 5, Apollo 11

How do I know China?
Pictures?
Map? How big is China?
What intrigued me most in China?
_______________________________________________________

Um….right. So I busted out laughing at the Cosmos idea. And at the menacing. And at the obsession with Indians. 

Went grocery shopping today….oh, so confusing. I happened to run into Petr on my way to Lidl and he was like, “oh would you like a ride? I forgot my money here, so I have my bag of groceries at the store and I am now going back to pay.” “Why, yes, that would be awesome!” So, he drove me and then waited in the car while I shopped. Right as I was coming up to get in line, he came back in and went, “I thought maybe you could use some help.” “Well….yeah, but I’m done trying to find things, so I think I will just buy these and try again another time.”

Picking your nose

I had my first typical Czech meal Friday night. And going into it, I was terrified. I was mentally preparing myself to eat pigs without gagging. I was bracing myself for little nasty piglets. I was freaking out over the mere idea of ingesting swine.

I head downstairs a little before 6pm to wait for Mira and Kuba to pick me up. Two people I have never met before. One is a parent, one is a child at the school. I get to the front door. Try to unlock it. Nope. Try again. Nope. Try again. Nope. Stupid Czech doors!! How am I incapable of opening you?!?! (I have walked floors out of my way because I can’t get doors to open.) Drop the bag of garbage I’m trying to take out. Utter frustrations at the door. FINALLY. Get it open. Head outside. Throw out the garbage. Wait for some unknown car to pick me up. One comes squealing up the little driveway. Guess that’s for me. Little boy pops out. “Hello. I am Jakub D-. This is my father Mira D-. He doesn’t speak English. Only my mother and me.” Oooooh, Kuba is a nickname for Jakub. I get it. And I like it. Nice. OK….we get in and Mira drives us to his house. I get out and Kuba lead me into the apartment building and to the tiniest, creepiest elevator I have ever been in. Literally, a taped door opened into this little floor covered with plywood. And when the door closed, you could see the floors move. You could touch them if you wanted.

Walk into their house, meet Dana and she 1) points out their view of Plzen which is beautiful and 2) asks me what this (takes her finger and mimics picking her nose) is called in English. She wants to yell at Kuba for it. First words I say to this woman, “Don’t pick your nose!” You know your evening is off to a great start when you teach people how to yell at their kids for bad habits. Second question “Do you drink wine?” Um….yes….And so the bottle opens. My goodness this continent drinks. A lot.

Dana heads into the kitchen and finished off supper (drumroll please!): wild mushrooms in a cream sauce with dumplings and curry chicken and rice. Yumz! Thank you God, no pigs! I love wild mushrooms. They are way less grotesque than the standard American white-grey nasty shroom. Mira had found this mushroom out in the woods that day and so it was cooked up for my enjoyment. We talked and laughed and translated and ate and drank until 11:30 when finally, I was driven home. Kuba and I talked about music a bit on the way home, so I think I’m going to try and print out some music articles for him to read and find other music activities for us to do during tutoring.

Get back to school and stupid Czech doors! I unlock it all and then go to open the door - door handle falls off. GREAT. So, I pick up the pieces outside, continue to work on unlocking and opening the door, finally get inside, pick up the other half of the doorknob, jam it all back into place, attempt to relock the doors, go in, turn off the blaring alarm, run over to the elevator to call it down, hold the door open, turn on the alarm, it blares, race into the elevator and pray that I set it right and no police are on their way. I ride upstairs and see a note from Linda on my door: tomorrow we will leave at 8:30 to go to Karlstejn Castle.

Update: realized the reason I had problems with the door on the way in that night was because I forgot to lock the doors on the way out, so I locked myself out and then broke the door handle before unlocking the doors and prying them open. I am that amazing.

Polish Shoes

And so my busy weekend continued on Sunday with an afternoon with Petr and his family. Czech’s, possibly all Europeans, make a big deal about mineral water….I don’t get it. It’s water. Sometimes it’s got bubbles. Sometimes it’s got flavors. Awesome. It’s…still kinda water. But, I did enjoy the flat grapefruit mineral water that they had. I might get it sometime. If I can find it. Apparently, they’re Lidl lovers, so it should be there…. Maybe. We sat around and talked while Gabi finished up lunch - another typical Czech family meal that did not included pigs! I’m loving this! Also, putting watermelon in cream helps it to not be disgusting. So, good for me, the watermelon hater, to know. 

After lunch, we went for a walk in the woods, and if we happened to find any mushrooms along the way, great! 

As we walked into the field, Gabi turned around and said, I just love the view through this corn! I turned around and saw….corn. The entire family busts out laughing. Gabi goes, you will have to come back after the harvest. Petr laughs even harder, I thought you were going to say come back after you grow some more! Ah…good times being shorter than everyone else. As we continued walking, the corn got a bit shorter and the road went a little higher, so finally I was able to see through the corn. 

The goal of the walk was to come out over this hill that overlooks the village where they live. Petr wanted to take me all the way to the edge of the coal mining hill, but no one else in the family wanted to walk that far, so this is the view that I ended up with. Still looked great to me.

We headed back to their house, and then Petr drove me back into school. Martin had emailed me on Friday inviting me to go to a mission church outside of Plzen with him and then go out to supper afterwards. I didn’t initially agree to anything because I didn’t know how long I would be out with Petr and his family, so when I got back at 4, I called him up and asked if he was still free. An hour later, he picked me up and said that because we were early, we were going to go climb a tower. My initial thought? Um, Martin, I climbed all over a castle yesterday and I walked all over hunting for mushrooms today. And now you want me to climb UP a tower? Just how early are we because I feel that stairs are going to be involved…. We drive to the north part of Plzen and and I see this tower looming ahead of me. Oh. My. How high are we going to be climbing?! 

Here’s the view of the tower from my apt and the arrow is how high we climbed. Up circle steps. I. Was. So. Dizzy. We get up to the top, and both Martin and I are gasping for air. Finally, when we regain the ability to stand up straight and speak to one another, I whip out my camera that was still in my bag from my afternoon in the woods and Martin starts pointing out different things around Plzen. 

This is his favorite ruin. That’s all I know. I’m sure if I asked him about it though, I would get a detailed explanation about what happened there and how it affected the course of history as we know it. 

Below the ruin, there is a church spire - that is the central square in Plzen. St. Bartholomew’s. 

Here is my apartment in the grand scheme of Plzen. Sorry, really tiny arrow. Kinda in the center of the picture. 

Martin had started telling me about this tower on the way over, saying we could see Germany. My reaction? Shut up. No way! Yes way! You can so see into Germany today! It is good…good…visible…you can see a long way today. Good air. So, when we get to the tower, Martin slowly moves from right in front of us to the right pointing things out. And see my favorite mountains over there? They look like woman’s breasts? The left breast is Czech. The right breast is Germany. Oh Martin. Let me count the ways I enjoy you. 

And here is where I was earlier in the day. The left arrow is the village where Petr and his family live. The right arrow is the woods we were walking in. 

After we work our way around the tower, we go to head down. Martin: you go first so when I fall, I will flatten you. Me: I am SO glad that I met you. Martin: evil laughter. Then we drove out to the village where the mission is and he showed me around where he used to pick up people to take them to church, and where they used to have services before going to the community center where the services are now. There were three cute, little, old ladies waiting for him to arrive, and they flipped out when they saw me. Oh, you are so beautiful! Oh, you have beautiful eyes! Oh your smile is so beautiful! All which Martin got to translate to me. I greatly enjoy this whole, one person says something nice and then another person has to tell it to me thing. It’s greatly entertaining. I got to sit through a second Czech service that day. This time though, Martin had found a WELS hymnal, so I translated the Nicene Creed and the Lord’s Prayer during the sermon. Figured out lots of words. Discovered that Czech is ridiculous. Stupid synthetic language! I actually think Chinese is easier because of it’s lack of grammar. Afterwards, the ladies asked me some questions, and then Martin and I went out for supper at a bowling alley. Supposedly, back in the day they were very busy and it was fun watching people bowl and all, but that night we had the place to ourselves. It was rather interesting, as we were laughing hysterically together in English, and there were two waitresses chatting in a corner in Czech. Each party, just in their own world. And so my busy weekend finally ended and I realized just how much I had to get done for this week…

Oh, and Polish Shoes has nothing to do with this, I just couldn’t think up a good post title. During a game a catchphrase earlier in the week, Danny - an American, said Polish (like the country) Shoes and everyone else went, huh. What are Polish shoes. Kept playing the game. Probably an hour later, Danny went, I wonder if that was supposed to be Polish (the verb) Shoes…. We all busted out laughing. And Danny will never live Polish Shoes down. 

Blunt, much?

I adore the way some things just pop out of people’s mouths. Any dead-panned, factually stated comment that causes me to bust out laughing. Love them. Sometimes, the obvious is just great.

Petr. 

We were doing our English Bible Study tonight. Jaro was going on and on and on and on and I was…not listening. He had already stated as much of a point as he was ever going to get around to making and I was just zoning out waiting for Petr to cut him off or steer him to the point. All of a sudden, Jaro switched into Czech and Petr goes, sacrificing? Not really. Now, not really can be stated in such a way that you are merely disagreeing with a person and not shutting them down. This was not Petr’s inflection. Petr basically inflected No, stop talking. You’re wrong. at him. I had to look away and try not to laugh out loud. Jaro didn’t catch on that he was babbling the same 5 words. 

Martin.

On my tour of Plzen up in the tower, Martin started pointing out this new road that was going in and why and what it was connecting and all that jazz. At one point in the explanation, this sentence happened: The water pipes are blue. I crack up immediately because, let’s face it, it’s what I do best. Martin hauls off and slugs me and wants to know just what he said that was so funny. I mimic the “water pipes are blue” statement in between laughter. And Martin goes, Yes, well, they are. And the gas pipes are yellow and- “Wait…you mean that you have a system? Different things are different colors? Yes, of course we have a system. “Oh, that makes that statement not so funny. I only saw the blue pipes and I was just going, DUH Martin, of course they are blue… Sorry.” And then Martin understood what was so funny. 

Simca.

I went to Prague with the 2-4 graders on Tuesday (NOT a good idea. Do not take 2 busfulls of children across the Charles’ Bridge. AH! Terrifying!) Half way to Prague, children start running up to the front, I need to go to the Bathroom! Simca looks at me and goes, If we stop, half of the bus will get off to use the bathroom. But we stop anyway. And all but ten kids get off the bus. Simca turns around and goes, I was wrong. More than half the bus. They don’t even have to go! If one person goes, they they all have to go. Why can’t not going to the bathroom be cool? Simca and I stay on the bus and talk. Then this little girl runs to the front and out the door. Simca gets up, yells at her in Czech and then turns around to me, Annecka….She drives me CRAZY! No you can’t go to the bathroom! Sit down!! as she runs off the bus behind her. There were many statements like this uttered that day.

Jarka. 

Today, Jarka told me about what I missed when I was in Prague. In 1B…three kids cried. Two girls. And that boy. That boy that cried last time. The two girls, they didn’t learn their memory work. They were supposed to learn the prayer before you eat. In Czech! And they forgot to learn it. I go, girls! Why are you crying! They didn’t learn their memory work. Girls! You don’t need to cry. You can tell me next time. But they cry anyway. What am I going to do with that?! Then that boy. I go, why are you crying?! He didn’t know. And his teacher, she said he cry every day. What is that?! Ah, tears. It’s wrong that I’m a little sad that I missed out, right?