Farmers Market and a Movie: My Kind of Day

No one in my apartment has Friday classes so the weekend started today. We all slept in, before walking to the adjacent district to visit a farmers market. It totally made my day. It was about 40 degrees here today so it was absolutely gorgeous. On our way to the market we stopped to take some pictures of a couple beautiful buildings that we wished we knew more about.

Gorgeous church on the way to the market 

Mystery building and adorable puppy next to the market. The market is just the left of this frame.

At the market there were booths selling hot traditional Czech foods that looked and smelled delicious. I tried some sausages that were yummy, and I bought some delicious cheese from some a Slovakian man who did his best to sell me everything at his booth. (At the moment, I'm actually eating some of that cheese grated over a bowl of tomato soup that I made using the beans I botched rather badly yesterday. Yummmm.) I also got some carrots, beets, and cabbage (also in the soup).

Fermented foods at the market

 Bread at the market (there were lots of booths like this one)

On our way home, we stopped at a mall and discovered that it contains an enormous supermarket. I'd been worrying about how I was going to adjust to the rather small offering of ingredients at the store closest to our apartment, so the aisles and aisles of choices were very comforting. Everything is still different, but there's a much wider variety there. And you'll never guess what they had in their international section:

I almost bought it out of Austin pride, but it was $8.50 and that was a bit much for me (though really not expensive considering how far it had to travel).

 

Pretty view on our walk back from the market. That's Prague Castle in the distance.

Prague's main train station. If you look closely you can see "PRAHA" written on the side.

Beautiful building at the north end of Karlovo Namesti park, which is one block from my apartment.

After we returned to out apartment, I decided to go on an adventure on my own. Part of our orientation was a tour around our neighborhood, and on it our tour guide (named Vitek) informed us that the mysterious-looking building two doors down from our apartment was an independent movie theater that often showed popular American movies. I stopped by a couple days ago to pick up a copy of their schedule (in Czech), and discovered that they are showing a bunch of movies that I want to see (The Book Thief, Gravity, August: Osage County) and that tickets cost about 115 Kc (about $6). There was a showing of August: Osage County at 5:30 (er, 17:30) today, so I ventured over armed with my Czech language dictionary.

Essentially, I just said the word for "ticket" ("vstupenka") to everyone I encountered while gesturing to my copy of the schedule. I was directed down a set of stairs at the back of the restaurant that is on the first floor, and then to the back of the basement where I found the ticket counter. After exchanging a bit of broken Czech on my part and broken English on the her part, I managed to purchase a ticket from the woman at the count. I checked my coat at the counter, accidentally said "please" instead of "thank you" as I walked away, and found my seat in the theater (they assign seats!). The movie was in English with Czech subtitles and it was great. Meryl Streep was fantastic, as always. Mostly, though, I just loved the coziness of the theater. There were only about 25 seats in the room. They showed just two commercials before starting the film promptly at 5:30. Once the movie was over, the lights stayed dimmed and almost no one left the room until the credits were done rolling. Outside the theater, there were people eating dinner at the restaurant attached to the theater. I realized as I left and walked the 15 paces back to my apartment that it felt a lot like the Violet Crown theater in Austin, which both eased and exacerbated the homesickness that has begun creeping in.

Once I climbed the seemingly eternal stairs to my room, I made that tasty tomato soup I mentioned above. It's the first meal I've made here that actually turned out well, and I have some leftovers for tomorrow. Whoopee!

I'm thinking tomorrow will primarily be filled with a trip to this park that found online called Dikova Sarka. It's about a 20 minute tram ride away (or at least I think it is). Sometime next week we'll be getting our "Open Cards" (aka public transportation passes) but until then we have to buy individual passes. Luckily, it will only cost me about a dollar each way. I'm looking forward to a leisurely hike there. Hopefully my knee holds up well!

Na shledanou!