Exploring, Painting, and Talking to Accordion Players

HEY!

So, I’ve been swimming in a sea of college applications, entrance exams, and Czech language. FINALLY today I finished submitting everything for my first round of applications and I’m so relieved — now I don’t have to submit more until next month. Yessssss, finally! It was so much writing, filming supplemental videos, and just general stress.

But I’ll stop talking about that because I should talk about Czechia!!

I’m not really sure where to start because it’s been so long, but I think one of the best ways to understand someone’s life is to look at the ordinary moments, so I’ll just tell you about my day.

I woke up around 8 and made myself some kaše (it’s kind of a porridge — it’s just milk and special flour and you heat it on the stove. I like it with sugar, cinnamon, or granko [chocolate powder]. I make it a lot when I’m hungry because it’s so simple). Then I packed up some stuff in my backpack and walked down by the river to paint. I painted this picture of my school, of the street, and then just a background to a phrase I wrote.

Then I waited for it to dry (which really took a while because it was already drizzling a little — like every day), and then walked to the mall to get some socks. While I was there I saw a kilogram of clementines on sale for 22 kč (that’s like a buck!!!) so I bought that and ate them all day.

I came home and finished submitting some college things, then I rewarded myself by walking to a pizza restaurant a friend had showed me near the Tržnice (the city center). I had some amazing pizza, but when I went back outside, I got really cold because it was raining harder, so I decided to walk into the town center to get some hot spring water. The spring water just comes out of taps around the city so I went to one and filled up my water bottle.

While I was drinking, I heard an accordionist playing a song I recognized from somewhere so I went up to him and asked him what it was called: “dobrý den, můžu se zeptát, jak se jmenovala ta pisnička?” But I guess he was Russian, because he just said, “да да, можно! как вас зовут?” I laughed and tried to ask in Russian but he really didn’t understand so I just said “окей, спасибо” and started my walk back home.

I got home, talked with my host sister, ate some makrové koláč (some kind of poppy-seed cake) and now I’m writing this!

 

Now… Some fun things I’ve done over the past few weeks! Warning: this is going to be super disjointed and random. Sorry, there’s just too many stories and too many different experiences to write coherently!

 

I had a physics entrance exam in Prague so I got to see the famous Karlův Most! My host mom told me that there’s apparently eggshells in the mortar?

So. many. tourists. Welcome to Prague.

 

 

One of the best friends I’ve made here is from Chile and lives in Prague. Last weekend he came to Karlovy Vary and I gave him a tour all around my city (and even discovered new places)!

A beautiful Russian Orthodox Church we found — we noticed the golden domes from the top of the hill and knew we had to find it!

My new friend (I have no idea, this doll was just sitting there)

Sýýýýýr!!!

We took the cable car up to the beautiful observatory tower Diana. There’s even a small zoo up there and they had this peacock out.

The biggest hot spring I’ve seen here — the rest dribble out nicely of a metal chute but this one is the most exciting.

Enjoying the view from the top of Diana

 

Halloween isn’t really celebrated in Czechia, but some people have costume parties and carve pumpkins just for fun. My host family carved this one:

And then we scooped out the insides and I taught them how to make pumpkin bars! We make those every year in my family, so I was really happy to eat them, and my host family thought they were really delicious — the whole pan was gone in 2 days! I also roasted the seeds (they had no idea that you could do that — every year they were carving pumpkins and just throwing them away!) and my host mom showed me how to make pumpkin soup.

Then, the next day, she made duck (or maybe goose? I didn’t understand) organ soup… that was a new one for me! They even let me have the best part — the heart. Yum yum

 

It’s been mostly gray skies and drizzle-y every day for the past few weeks. It kind of bums me out, but that’s autumn here. Also, it gets dark at around 4:30PM already. Oh, it’s going to be a looong winter…

Colorful buildings contrast with the not-so-colorful sky

5PM…

 

By the way, for those people who say that Europeans don’t really have cars…

And then for those who say that portion sizes are small…

The biggest řizek I’ve ever seen in my life — found at IKEA!

This is my favorite Czech food — svičková. It translates to “sirloin” but I don’t think that’s right… it’s meat and houskové (bread-like) dumplings in a special tangy-sweet sauce with cranberries and whipped cream.

Something funny I’ve noticed is how serious Czechs are about their sauce… When I arrived, I thought of as sauce as a compliment to a main dish, but here, it pretty much IS the main dish. This dish’s name is actually an adjective — svičková — meant to modify omáčka (sauce).

See that look? That’s the look of determination. Mňamka.

 

Here’s some pretty pictures I took on my walk home from school yesterday:

 

I found this in the grocery store for $2 so I decided to try making it… It was some kind of dry flour mixture and I just had to add water and then put the dough through a strainer into boiling water. Sounds simple enough, but I couldn’t find a strainer so I had to use some kind of salad bowl tosser and it didn’t turn out that well. But I’ve heard halušky is really tasty! It’s a traditional Slovak dish made of some kind of potato dumplings and served with cheese and/or meat on top. We had it one day at my school for lunch, but I think they make it differently here in Czechia, because there was a lot of cabbage in it. It was really tasty though, much better than when I tried to make it!

 

So that’s my ramblings for now. Since I’ve worked through a lot of my college work, I’m hoping to update this blog at least every 2 weeks, so that they won’t be so disjointed and choppy like this one is, but at least now you know what I’ve been doing!

Brzo napišu!

Emma