Day 9 (i think?)

I'm warning you right now, i'm starting to get delirious. Too much travel and too much Czech language can make you a confused girl! So if this post is a little non-cohesive, please forgive. Today was our "regional visits day". The good news is that unlike the US, you can cover most of the Czech Republic by car in 3 hours or so. So regional visits can be made very quickly. Our first visit was to Karlovy Vary, which is the spa town where Casino Royale was shot. It was GORGEOUS!!! I hope to post pictures tonight so you can share in my wonderment. Now, the thing that Karlovy Vary is known for is it's healthful mineral spa waters. They have 13 "spas" around the city that look like fountains. People walk around with little cups, filling up the cups and drinking this "health" water. Now my first clue that this might not be a good idea is when I started to notice that the design of the cups was to drink through the handle (so you don't smell the water- not good). So our host went and got us a bunch of cups to "take the waters" with. Being the good sport that I am, I tried it. Holy cow. It was NASTY. You could taste alot of iron, it was salty, and it was warm. I did by best to swallow it down but I was done. Afterwards all the Czech people we were visiting with told us their "I tried the water once and was sick for 5 weeks" stories. I was thinking "thanks alot guys!"

After that, we were taken to a local brewery that has a small restaurant in a cave. Our host (Roman, one of the GSE team members from the Czech team) has a funny sense of humor so he told us he would order an appetizer, but we had to promise to eat it. Since I've liked Czech food so far, I thought "No problem". Except that he ordered cow tongue. Which, I figured when in Rome, do as the Romans! I ate cow tongue. It tasted alot like roast beef, but the texture was alot spongier (this grossed me out and I wouldn't eat another piece). Between the cow tongue and the water I was a little woozy!

After that we went to a gorgeous local monestary and catherdral that we toured. They had an extensive library which included English books from the early 1900s! However as I looked closer at the books, I noticed that even though they were all very professional faced and edged towards the edge of the shelves, they were held in place by fishing wire! I laughed as I thought of the time and hassle that would save if we did that to our library. No one would ever mess up our shelves again!

In between our visits, Roman took great delight in giving us "Czech Language Lessons" in which he taughts us how to say various swear words in Czech. Now I know just about as many swear words as I do real words in Czech. To his credit, he also taught us how to ask for chocolate at a store.

After our time at the monestary we buzzed back to Pilzen just in time to see the "Thank You America!" celebration at the "Diky Amerikco!" monument. We were with a locally renowned architect who took us to his office which overlooked the ceremony. We watched as the Czech Military Band played the "Star Spangled Banner" and it was quite a touching moment to think about how grateful this country was for the aide we provided during WWII. Our architect friend, Mr. Jan Soukoup provided us with books about the liberation of Pilzen which had beautiful black and white pictures of American tanks rolling through Pilzen on May 6, 1945 on the very streets we were walking and being received with a warm welcome by the Czech People. It was a very moving moment.

After this, it was time for dinner and we were taken to a restaurant called Simsalumbim! which had a magic/wizardry theme. It was actually a very cool restaurant and I was really digging the theme until I realized that they were piping in music you might hear in an elevator. Kenny G. really ruined the "magical mood". But the cool thing is that our adventurous team member, Butler ordered "Kangaroo Steak" and he let us try some. It was interesting, not bad. So in one day I have had: mineral water from Karlovy Vary, Cow Tongue, and Kangaroo. I live life on the wildside!

My words of the day: I'm trying REALLY hard to learn how to say Librarian in Czech. So according to my non-swear word Czech lesson from Roman, here are my words for the day: Kniha (prounounced "Ka-nee-ha" which means book), knihovna (prounounced "Ka-nee-hov-na" and means Library), and knihovnik "prounounced "ka-nee-hov-nik" and means librarian). It's actually alot to remember!

And i'm starting to learn numbers: i learned how to say: jeden (prounounced "Yed-na" which means "one")

So basically to ask for chocolate politely in a store you would say: Jeden chocolada, prosim." See my first Czech sentence!