Greetings Friends!
This week was just chock-full of new things. I showed off my office coffee-making skills to my new colleagues. I dropped a lot of umlauts at IKEA. (Why doesn't the word "umlaut" have any umlauts?) I survived a national emergency without really even knowing it. I played another 18 rounds of fotbalgolf. And...I pet a cat that should only be pet when the wind is blowing because of the amount of shedding! So it was an eventful 4th of July week.
And believe it or not, there actually is a 4th of July in the Czech Republic! There is also a 3rd and a 5th of July. Now, I have to admit, I didn't miss having fireworks going off at all hours of the night!
I love my home country, and I am growing to love my new adopted country. So it's not lost on me that I am now the immigrant, and so how citizens of any nation treat the sojourner and the foreigner is a very personal issue for me. I have been received by a nation that has welcomed me, and has not given me any real cause for fear...in spite of the fact that it (like most of Europe) is now wary of U.S. foreign policy. Today my counterparts in my home country do not enjoy that same freedom from fear. I see this from a new perspective now. "America, America, God mend thine every flaw; confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law."
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I've met many foreigners who have lived here for years but don't speak any Czech. In a place like Prague, that's possible. But I know that this is not my calling. Now more than ever, I am motivated to learn the language. And I've found that most people will humor my clumsy attempts with their language, at least until I become so flustered that they take pity on me, which happens a lot!
I'm scheduled to move into my new and permanent living situation next week, tentatively on July 15. There's already a lot of my stuff in that apartment. I will miss this quiet village, and the evening walks through the fields of barley--the amber waves of grain if you will--but I look forward to finally being able to unpack and set up a household.
Well, it's time to finish my homework and get to class!
Blessings...until next time!
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