the blurred edge

a collection of vignettes, true stories and random thoughts

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Friday, April 25, 2008

Doobrey-den! (that is phonetic Czech for Good Day!)

Only four days in the country and I am picking up my fair share of bad Czech. Tania's language skills have always amazed me, but this language is very difficult to understand, it is truly impossible to seperate one word from another and I hear it is a grammatical nightmare of Latin proportions, so I stick to the greetings and thank you's I can handle by hearing them repeated to me and let Tania tackle the big questions like, What would you like to drink?
The city itself is so beautiful and I wonder how I could have been here and not remember any of it, really and truly. I never did drugs as a teenager and I wonder if someone slipped some in my drink when I visited here before becuase it is officially wiped from my brain. Tania has a 9 to 5 job with NYU so I've been putzing around town, taking in a site or two before landing myself in a coffee house to soak up the true Czech culture, surrounded by smoke, earthy music and really good and cheap coffee I feel I could get to really know this place well.
The city itself is breathtaking and there is so much culture, musically, architecturally, historically that you can't help but to want to know about this building or that bridge, what that word means or what there deal is with the Russians. But all of the Czech people that I have met have been so warm and open, with an amazing grasp of English, that I feel I could ask them anything and they would oblige me with an answer.
Words I have learned...spelled phonetically as I understand them not as they are-

Ahoy - Hello/What's Up?
Ciaoooo- Goodbye
dra-coo-you - Thank you
Pro-seem - you are welcome
Protoge(like we would say it)- Because
Pro-tch - Why
Becarovka- Amazing drink that "tastes like Christmas" and makes me feel better about not being able to drink the beer here which flows into big beer steins like water.