Midnight train

So I thought I'd add a bit to that last post about the train ride, because the week's adventure certainly didn't end there.  Thankfully, my Czech is rapidly improving.  After a jaunt from the train station in Ostrava to a nearby tram stop (looking ridiculous with two laptops), the trams seemed to be running terribly infrequently.  By that, I mean they seemed to be running not at all.  I stared at the yellow sign next to the usual schedule of trams posted at each stop (unusual schedules or any changes are always printed on yellow paper here) before realizing that the trams, in fact, are not running all weekend, and that I needed to try to take a bus back to my dormitory.

Unfortunately, it's been so foggy in Ostrava that I don't know major landmarks very well, and I certainly don't know the streets yet.  So after a bit of searching, I found a bus stop and found the number I needed to take.  When the next bus pulled up to the station, however, it had (instead of a number) just a picture of a tram.  I looked confused enough that the woman next to me explained that this bus was running along the tram lines that had been rerouted.  This seemed like good fortune, so I got on, only to be told two stops later that the bus line was terminating a few miles from where I needed to be.  More walking and confused looks later, and I finally managed to get a transportation officer to point me in the direction of the bus stop I needed. 

So I made it back to my dormitory, and the security guard (one I haven't seen before) didn't believe that I live in the building.  To be fair, I didn't exactly look like I belonged - I was wearing my Trinity College Dublin sweatshirt, carrying two laptop bags, and speaking funny-sounding Czech (to him).  After I pulled out my key to show him that I really do live here, another woman came out from somewhere.  She asked if I lived on the third floor, and when I said yes, she said "oh, ok then.  Good."  Apparently "3rd floor" is the magic password into the dorm on the weekends...who knew :-)

I had one other Czech language adventure today at the grocery store.  I can tell my langauge is improving, lately, because I'm able to fake that I speak Czech for awhile, at least when someone approaches me on the street, in a store, or on a train.  Today, a babicka (grandmother) saw me squeezing packets of mozarella cheese, testing for firmness.  She'd been staring at the mozarella for awhile, then finally asked me if it was salty cheese.  I told her no, that I didn't really think so.  She then asked if it was like tvaroh, which is a kind of sweet-ish Czech cheese.  So we got into a discussion about how I think tvaroh is kind of sweet, but she really didn't think so.  So I described mozarella as being somewhere in between this tvaroh and sliced Edam, the plain, white, hard cheese they sell here.  She wanted more information about the texture, which I then described as being closest to korbacky, a cheese that is very salty but shaped something like shoe laces.  See the picture (and my yellow bowl, to which I am very attached), here:




I hope she'll be satisfied with my comparison, since the chances of me running into her at the supermarket again are high.

I'm feeling nervous about teaching this week...I think just because I've been away from the kids for over a week, now.  I've got a good lesson planned to practice the present simple and present continuous with my 11 yr old students, though, and I hope it'll go over well with the teachers.  Wednesday will be my first after-school English club, and I'll be helping run lines with kids who are putting on a non-Shakespearean English version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I hope to choose a book for our after-school book club this week, as well.  So far I think that Tuck Everlasting will be a good fit, but I'm accepting suggestions for texts around that skill level.

My research has just turned up that tvaroh cheese is also called quark cheese.  Strange.