Saturday, February 4, 2006

Learning Czech has been very challenging but very fun for me. I forgot how much I enjoyed learning conversational Spanish so learning Czech for the last two weeks has been much more of a joy than a burden. We took our final Intensive test yesterday and I got the highest grade in my class. When I spoke to the teacher, she told me I was "gifted in learning languages." A little overstating it, yes. True, absolutely not. Flattering, definitely. I wish I could have gotten more use out of my gift during college but I guess I've had other priorities.

This afternoon, I went to see Sharks in 3D at the IMAX theatre one stop away from my flat. It was completely in Czech but was one of the best cinematic experiences of my life. I actually picked up a few random facts, like that manta rays are 8 meters long. I may see more films in Czech in order to congratulate myself for retaining some of the information.

Last night we went to see the opera, Rusalka, which was basically the story that The Little Mermaid was based on. The opera house was this gorgeous romantic building that had a bar on each floor. The opera itself, my first ever, was pretty good except they used a large film screen throughout the forest scenes and I thought it looked bad. But overall, I really enjoyed myself and can't wait to see Don Giovanni in a few weeks.

While I'm still living in the honeymoon phase of my trip, I'm starting to really miss people from home. I talked to both Bianca and Ian today and they both told me that everyone at school misses me. Not to put myself down, and I'm not looking for sympathy, but I never really thought I had a personality that would be noticeably missed. I guess I don't value my own presence enough. There is definitely something to learn from this experience.

Now that it is getting warmer (only compared to how freaking cold its been), there are more tourists. And I hate them. They're taking over! I don't know what I'm going to do in the spring but the fact that I'm already possessive of Praha means that I'm a snob. Or I love it here too much. Or that I can say that I live here.