Prague and Carnival

After returning from Tabor last Saturday I met the family by a bridge in Prague. They had gone on a boat cruise on the river. Their boat was a good deal later than they had thought, so I had some time to wander with my camera and the driver guy. We strolled up and down the quay. We have spent a lot of time together recently, mainly driving to and from Vienna. So I was sleeping and he was driving...He doesn't speak much English and my Czech is just embarrassing, so we do a lot of miming back and forth. And we laugh, especially when we cannot understand each other.

I am not in Prague very much at night since I am "on duty" afternoons to evenings. It is always a treat to be out and about when it is dark. (I sound like a vampire or other nocturnal beast. I am not.)

Here is the bridge where we waited, Jiraskuv Most.

Some swans in the river. Evil, evil swans.

I was trying to do a longer exposure to get the cool lines of light from the cars...think it is more migraine inducing than artistic, though.

Who knows what this is. But I like the squiggles.

And the Dancing House. Not on fire.

The mom and grandfather and boys finally returned. Honzik had a huge black spider painted on his cheek, and Lukas was sporting an awesome dog face. He looked hilarious, especially when he fell asleep immediately in his car seat. He seemed to be a sort of human bull dog wearing a baseball cap. Adorable.

The next morning the grandparents and I walked the five minutes from the house to the main square of the town. There was a carnival! Also adorable.

The boys loved it. More swans.
Lukas and the balloons.

Sometimes Lukas is very affectionate and cuddly. I taught him to say "big hug" and he likes to surprise hug me and say that. But sometimes he will see me and just say "Don't look at me, Cam-ur-ron!" This does not hurt my feelings. 1. He is four, I don't take it personally. 2. Sometimes I don't want to be looked at either, so I understand. 3. His English! Hurray, hurray! He has gotten so much better from when I first arrived. At first he said "No!" when he saw me. Then it became "No look!" Then "No look at me!" and now, after much repetition, he says, "Don't look at me!" I am so proud. And it has been quite amusing to work on that phrase with him. His little face gets all scowly and he says "No look at me, Cam-ur-ron!" and I calmly and kindly reply, "Don't look at me, Cameron. Don't look at me. Okay, Lukas?"

Honzik is seven and he takes some English at school, plus he was born in the US and heard English for his first two years. So he understands a lot and can speak pretty well. But when I first got here he would get frustrated when he couldn't understand me and when I couldn't understand him. Now, fortunately, our conversations rarely dissolve into tantrums. It is really neat to see him get more comfortable and confident with English. Basic sentences are within his grasp, now. And he has started to venture out of what he knows and try to create new phrases. I can see his brain whirring as he tries to respond to me or ask me questions.

Unlike Honzik, Lukas did not understand that I didn't speak Czech for the longest time. He would speak to me in Czech, chatter on and on, and then look totally confused when I did not understand him. He only recently, in the past month or so, seemed to get that English and Czech are two different languages. It has been a fun transformation.

He tries to take advantage of the barrier sometimes, especially when I tell him not to do something, like "Don't ride your bike down the slide, Lukas." He looked at me and said, angelically, "Ne resumim," which means "I don't understand." He did understand, though. And he didn't ride his bike down the slide. Victory! He has gotten into the habit of saying "Ne resumim" when he doesn't want to understand, and sometimes he says it to his mom or grandmother when they tell him something in Czech. Which is pretty funny.

His latest thing is to compare words in Czech and English. It started when we were eating pizza. I must have said "This is good pizza" or something, and he stared at me in wonder. "Pizza?" he said, "Resumim pizza?" "Yes, I understand pizza," I said. "Pizza is English." He clapped his hands, "Ceske: pizza!" "English: pizza!" I said, feeling like Henry Higgins. "Ceske, pizza, Anglicky, pizza!" he cried. Then we played the game with "pasta." But it sort of ended there since he isn't very familiar with Italian food words and I don't know enough Czech to find other similarities. We still play that game, and he also likes to test me on Czech words. For instance, "Resumim ano?" "Yes, Lukas, I understand ano." (ano means yes.) Before I could barely get him to answer me "yes" or "no" in English, but now he actually asks me what the English words for things are, and he is even teaching me some Czech.

We play "Go Fish" and "Uno" a lot. These kids had never played cards before and were amazed when I brought some from America. Go Fish is great for numbers, and Uno is great for colors. They don't like to sit down and get quizzed on numbers or colors, which I understand, but they love playing cards and they don't even realize they are practicing English. I have learned that child care is basically distractions and tricks. Nice tricks, though.

It is the little things that make this job fun. And I am really proud of how much English the boys have learned. I chatter away at the baby, too, in the hope that he will speak English along with Czech when he does start talking.

Here is a picture taken from my window of the Nove Straseci lake all covered in mist one morning. It has gotten sort of chilly and grey here all of the sudden. Where did summer go? I feel like I missed the summer completely, since this summer was so different from all my other summers. Also, the fact that I have not started school for the first time in what, two decades? I am disoriented.