Tonight, on the metro, I noticed a sticker advertising a place that does body piercing. Without thinking, I said, “Hey, I should check that place out – best prices in Prague!”
And then I was thrilled to realize that that was the first natural translation to happen.
Nejlepsi ceny v Praze. (Not entirely correct because I don’t have the ability to type the little accents and hooks used in the Czech language.) “ney-lep-shee tsen-ee v pra-zay.”
More and more of the language is becoming familiar. I’m recognizing words and the noun cases. My Czech teacher even said to me, when I was in the room alone with her, “You are very good, have you been studying long?”
*smile* It thrills me.
Tonight I had a night of local fun. I went to see a hockey game – HC Sparta vs Karlovy Vary (Sparta being the home team and K. Vary another town not too far away).
I felt like I was in Philly – they played all the EXACT SAME SONGS you’d hear at a Flyers game. The same chants and 3 seconds of song to rev up the audience. Except the cost of 2 tickets for this game was about half the price of one ticket to a hockey game in the States. And they had these poor cheerleaders that no one paid any attention to.
I felt very local and non-touristy as I stood at one of the high metal tables eating my leg of roast chicken, sweet pickle, piece of rye bread and spoonful of horseradish.
I was hungry and it was either that or kielbasa, ya know? (“But I thought you were a vegetarian?” you ask. Well I was. Are. Errr… ok, I started eating chicken every once in a great while a couple years ago. In Portugal you pretty much had to eat chicken or starve – well, I had to eat it or starve. The other options were pork and red meat and I will never go down that path, I swear. I had a small piece of my mom’s meatloaf years and years ago and I was sick for a day. Physically or mentally, doesn’t matter. Red meat is gross.)
So – local Czech winter fun. Cheap tix, you can always get good seats and our team won. It was a shut-out! 7-nuthin’!
Next month I’m hoping to take some classes. I’m waiting for the Winter schedule of a community center to come out to choose classes for myself. I’m eyeing up a Czech architectural history class and creative writing.
It no longer feels foreign here. I’m absolutely fascinated by Czech history (which I intend to tell you about one of these days) and the more I learn, the more I want to know.