Я не понимаю!

Greetings from chilly, rainy Europe.  You're probably curious about the title of this entry.  It's Russian, and that's the Cyrillic alphabet, the alphabet used by Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Belorussian, Serbian, and a few other languages.  In our alphabet, the Latin alphabet, it would be written something like this: Ya nye panimayu!  In Russian, it means, "I don't understand!"  You'll see why...

This week's been pretty busy, but rewarding no less.  Last Friday, I took off from Brno in the morning with my ever-present sidekick, Libor, and we headed north to his home village, Linhartice.  I'd chosen this weekend to go visit, because there's a Czech band that I really like (named UDG, if you're interested in Czech music) who had a concert in Moravská Třebová, the city next to Linhartice.  We didn't end up going to the concert, it was on the expensive side and Libor said the club it was in was one of the skummier places in Třebová.  Instead, I had a nice, relaxing weekend.  We just hung out around his house.  I should say, at least, that I mostly hung out.  He's finishing his master's degree in February, so is working 'round the clock on his master's thesis, which is designing an entire badminton hall.  I pretty much just hung out, napped, read my book, did some homework, played with Lenka (his 9-year-old sister), and enjoyed being in a house, not in an apartment with my slobbish roommates.  On Saturday I went to his soccer game, where I nearly froze.  It started at 3:30 in the afternoon, and the temperature was supposedly about 73°.  I don't believe that at all, and by the time the game finished at about six, it was below zero.  It was a nice weekend overall, though, and the best I've eaten since I got here.

Bicycle races in Třebová.  The incline is wicked steep; Libor, Lenka and I hiked up there in the spring.

The Czech is not impressed.

This week has otherwise just been busy in Brno.  I've got lots of schoolwork, which I'm not complaining about, because I have to say, I'm really happy to wake up every morning and go to school.  Our teachers are absolutely amazing, they're so friendly, so much fun, and quite honestly some of the best teachers I've ever had.  They really love teaching Czech, they love interacting with all the nationalities present in school, and they're so talented at explaining the most complicated words to such a wide audience and the various ways we interpret them.  For example, try and think of how you would explain the word "responsibility" to a group of 15 people, each of whom come from a different part of the world and speak a different language.  Not so easy, is it?  It's just a really great program, and I'm elated that things have worked out the way they have and I'm able to partake in it.

A lot of it comes down to the kids I go to school with, of course.  I straddle two groups, but both of them are full of such interesting, funny, and friendly people.  I definitely got very lucky.  I love hanging out with them, and we all chat all the time now, even outside of school.  I mentioned some of the nationalities in my first entry, but here are the ones represented in the two groups I'm in: USA, Russia, Poland, Sweden, Israel, the Ukraine, France, Belgium, Belorussia, Serbia, Slovenia, Hungary, Finland, Germany, Austria, Korea, Latvia, Italy and others, which I'm surely forgetting at the moment.  Everyone is great, though, and so interested in Czech and the Czech Republic.  The long and short of it is, they're as big of dorks as me!

Last night, Wednesday, there was a gathering in a Ukrainian restaurant here in Brno.  There are quite a lot of Russians in Brno, and also people who just speak Russian.  Back in the days of Czechoslovakia being a Soviet satellite, everybody was required to learn Russian in school.  At times, they actually spent more time studying Russian than Czech, if you can believe it.  All the kids from the Ukraine and Belarus can also speak Russian just as well as they can speak their first languages (Ukrainian and Belorussian), so they have little gatherings to meet.  My friend Yevheniya from the Ukraine invited me, so that I could hear some Russian and Ukrainian, as well as try Ukrainian food.  With my trusty sidekick along for the ride, Libor and I met Yevheniya, Ola (Poland), Dina (Russia), Anton (Russia), Kristina (Israel/Russia), and Łukasz (Poland).  We took the tram to the restaurant, where there were other people, and spent the evening there.  It was pretty cool, hearing true Russian spoken, and talking to people from all over the east.  Unfortunately, my Russian is limited to saying, "I don't speak Russian.  I don't understand," but everybody wanted to teach me something, and otherwise spoke Czech or English with me.  I guess it's time for me to start learning some Russian, so that I can say something besides Я не понимаю!

Борщ aka boršč aka borshch, the first Ukrainian food I've ever had.

By the way, tomorrow, October 28th, is a holiday here in the Czech Republic.  It's the day on which Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918.  Celebrate!