settling in Prague

a note before I begin: I am really enjoying the comments posted to the blog from my friends and family. But please remember, since I made it anonymous, you should sign the comments or I have no clue who is writing and I would really like to know that. Thanks.

So it has been almost a week since I arrived, and that feeling of panic and regret is fading. I am asking myself less and less, what am I doing here? I am beginning to get to know my neighborhood and settling it a little at work. This city really is straight out of a fairy tale and I can see how people just fall in love with it.

The hardest part right now is of course not speaking the language. Although most people day to day speak some English, it's not what you hear when you are walking down the street and it's not what labels the food in the grocery store. It's amazing the things you can decipher by looking at the packaging and the pictures on the labels. My first go at grocery shopping was a blur. I got in the store, walked around, didn't recognize anything, panicked and just bought bread. I have been back a few times, found most of the things I need or at least the things I can figure out, and it's much less stressful. I can't seem to find peanut butter (um, or tampons and whoever visits me first will get a small list), which is sad, and I don't know how to ask for lunch meat from the deli yet. It's not like the words are anywhere close to the English version, so really I have been sticking to vegetables and pasta... at least for now.

Take for example my phone call to Cesky Telecom to get Internet hooked up. I had called once, spoken with an English-speaking operator with no troubles and was planning to call back the next day to line it all up. Well, the next day, the operator and I had some difficulties. I was spelling for her the name for the contract (Ron Grant) and all was fine until the T in Grant.
Me: G-R-A-N-T
Operator: G-R-A-N-G
Me: T
Op: G
Me: T as in Telecom
Op: Please, I need the surname.
Me: Yes, this is the surname. Grant. G-R-A-N-T.
Op: G-R-A-N ... C
This went on for no kidding 15 minutes. I had the Czech dictionary out and was saying words that start with T with no luck. Finally she had her colleague call me back and it worked much better... Although for some reason, the price had gone up to 980 Kc a month (still really cheap) plus the modem and instead of it taking 5 days to hook up it will take two weeks.

This is one thing I am finding out about myself. The things I thought were important, that I thought I couldn't live without or would make me crazy don't really matter. There's nothing you can do, so your priorities change and you learn to just go with the flow. Spotty communications? No big deal. (By the way, telecom here is really expensive. Calls to the States are easily 50 cents a minute and about a quarter within the Czech Republic. That's why everyone text messages, which is only a couple crowns. What they do have that is good is mobile phones where you don't have to sign your life away, and just pay as you go.) Being abroad, I think, has made me much less tense (when I think I expected the opposite) and relaxed about certain situations. It's a different pace of life, different way of doing things, and you just have to get into it.

My roommate, Kate, has been such a joy as I have been settling in. She has been helpful and kind and patient, and I really appreciate that. She has been here since October and spent time here before that, and she's Canadian, which right away makes her nice and chill, right? So the apartment is in Vinorhady, which I hear is one of the nicest neighborhoods, but it's expensive by Prague standards and hard to find flats. (It is much cheaper than Chicago, though.) We are renting it from this guy, Ron, who my professor knows who fell in love with Prague and bought a flat and comes here in the summers. But he just got it maybe six months ago, hasn't spent a summer here yet, and hasn't really furnished the place. My room has a bed and a couch. No shelves. No closet. No table. But Kate and I are planning a trip to IKEA tomorrow and billing Ron for the goods.

I started work at the Prague Post on Wednesday and it is slow getting into. See, they aren't the most organized of folks, so even though they knew I was coming, they didn't really seem to know what to do with me when I got there. They put me at a desk with no phone. (As a reporter, a phone is a basic and necessary tool, perhaps more than a computer) Also, I arrived at 10, as instructed, and no editor was around until after noon. By Friday, they were kind of realizing I was there for good, and began, I think, to think about what I can be writing and what they need me for. It's a good thing I am not shy about pitching stories and asking people for work. It looks like I will be writing mainly for the business section, but I plan to pitch news features fervently while I am here. There was some talk of doing longer form investigative stories, but I want to make sure I am writing a bunch of weekly stories as well. I am sure all that will get ironed out soon.

The folks in my office seem nice so far. In the business section there are three other reporters and an editor, and the news section seems to have the same plus a couple of Czech researchers that get bogged down looking up English-speaking contacts and other stuff we can't do on our own. It seems like most people speak some basic Czech, but not enough to conduct interviews. They seem to be from all over - one dude from North Carolina, a Latvian woman, an editor from Kansas who most recently lived in Azerbaijan (wherever the crap that is...), a Slovak and of course a few Czechs. And I am trying to drag the folks out for a beer after work soon, so more on that later.

Now time for the latest installment of a few of my observations:
- Like much of Europe, everything is smaller here. Grocery stores are tiny and you bag your own groceries. Heads of lettuce are miniature, cars more compact. Also, a lot of places are quite energy efficient, like our apartment's has motion-censored lights.
- Again, people don't smile as much just walking down the street. They are far more reserved, and definitely won't just greet a stranger on the street. That's hard to get used to, and often I feel like a grinning idiot.
- A lot of men stink a little like body odor. I thought it was a sunny afternoon phenomenon, but was greeted with the smell again this morning in the Internet cafe.
- It's not the most diverse of cities, to say the least. Unlike Brussels, it's pretty homogeneous here, and I think I saw my first black person all week in an expat bar last night. Also hard to get used to.

And a few jems:
- I found a Turkish restaurant around the corner that serves amazing tomato-based lentil soup for about $1 for a big bowl.
- There is an H&M on nearly every corner here.
- An English-language book store and cafe has been a welcome oasis and I am heading back there to load up on English newsmagazines.
- And to Dave and others who recommended, I went to Radost last night, which is a really neat, very expat, lounge and club. (I stuck to the lounge side) You forget you're in Prague almost, but it was a good spot with apparently a great bruch. That's for next time.