Thursday, June 21, 2007

Czech Adventures II

It’s raining really hard outside... luckily I have already had class, and don’t have to leave the room. It is a serious thunderstorm- Czech news stations said that the chance of rain was “100%”. Haha, is that even possible? I don’t think that news stations in the United States do that.
I’m kind of hungry. I’m trying to budget my resources, so I can have more money to travel. So I have been having smaller lunches. But I think it balances out with some of the dinners. There food can be pretty rich. I used to get dumplings when I was in Prague 7 years ago. However, I’m not sure if I really like them anymore. They are usually served with either beef or pork in a gravy like stew and sauerkraut. I like this sauce more now, but the dumplings are kind of gross. They are like half-cooked bread... not that cool.
I really want to go to the Ukranian or Romanian countryside. Taking a train through the “old country” would be an amazing time, wouldn’t it? I think I should only take one trip, because my goal is to learn Czech, so the more practice I have the better, right? I’m having less difficulty with the “ř”. It is still hard, but when I get the letter I am really excited.
I’m still amazed at the power of the Czech language. The second you speak in Czech, you are treated much more politely. They respect you for trying and realized that you are staying longer than a couple of days. I really get excited when I find a shopkeeper that doesn’t speak English because than I’m forced to speak Czech. I know I mentioned this earlier, but you also get deals on items. Not like you really need it. One really nice thing about staying in Prague is that the prices are much lower. For a dollar you get about 20 krowns. I’ll give you some examples of what I can buy with such little money:
1.5 liters of water at Tesco? 4 Krowns
2 liters of sparkling grapefruit juice at Tesco? 3 Krowns
A banana? (Or banan) 5 krowns
A loaf of bread? 10 krowns
T-shirt? 200 krowns (about 10 dollars)
I’m trying to limit my expenses to 200 krowns a day. So far, that looks plausible. They give us breakfast, and I have been buying ingredients for making lunch. Unfortunately, there isn’t a full kitchen (just a kitchenette) so I don’t have the capability to actually cook. With the cheap prices, it almost seems smarter to just go out to eat for dinner. You can get a full meal at about 4 dollars if you go to an average restaurace.
The storm actually just finished, and I think I might go to Tesco (the Wal-Mart of Prague, but full of European goods and a little classier) to buy some groceries.
NA SHLEDANOU! (good bye)

No comments:

Post a Comment