Nemluvím česki....

Today is the second official day of my stay in Prague, and unfortunately I don’t have any interesting thoughts to share with you yet, or any adventures to tell. So today, I’ll be brief.
I arrived Tuesday morning, dressed for Dutch weather, exhausted after only four hours of sleep and nervous as hell. My roommate/’landlord’ A. picked me up from the airport, which was very sweet of him. We drove through some lovely Bohemian villages towards Prague, and it was hot as hell outside. Finally ‘home’, I met my other roommate E., who had just woken up. A. left for work, E. let me unpack quietly and I found myself all alone in my room, wondering what the hell I was doing here. My first night was restless; I dreamt of people walking in and out of my room, and in the morning I was completely disorientated.
The past three days were spend walking around, getting to know ‘my’ neighbourhood. I live on the outskirts of Prague, and though the centre is not far, it’s far enough to feel like I am really in a Czech city, and not in tourist-hell. Because the tourists are here, and they come in numbers. It seems that the single tourist has died a sudden and silent death, since it’s merely groups that flush the centre of Prague; German, Japanese, British and French tourists wearing similar hats or flags, following group leaders as if their lives depend on it. It’s fascinating and repulsive at the same time.
‘My’ neighbourhood, however, is still dominated by Czech people. And they hardly speak English, which is an even bigger encouragement for me to learn Czech as soon as possible. With my dictionary in one hand and the biggest smile on my face I have managed to order coffee, ask for a specific type of sun cream, buy groceries and envelopes and, the biggest hassle so far, buy a month-pass for public transport, for which I needed to fill in a form that was entirely set up in that crazy language that doesn’t make any sense to me yet. It’s a slow process, but there is progress.

I hope that within a week, I’ll wake up in the morning knowing exactly where I am and what I’m doing here. For now, I just give myself time to get used to everything, try to feel at home and miss my loved ones like crazy. Nashledanou.