Here!

Sorry these are going to come in a heap of postings at once, however I still have yet to figure out how to access Internet on my laptop, thus can’t officially update. I guess “wifi connection” is slightly harder than imagined to translate into Czech. I got to Prague last night around 6, but didn’t get out of the airport until 7-ish because Heathrow somehow misplaced an entire truck of luggage, so one of my bags was delayed. One of the museums employees (I want to say its Jedno, but I probably butchered that spelling/pronunciation) picked me up from the airport and brought me to Lidice. They say it’s a village, and I guess it is, but their village is more like our suburbs. If Monson were half the size and had fields instead of trees, then you’d have Lidice. It’s a cute place though. Photos should be attached. Much closer to the city than I imagined—only like a 5 minute drive from the airport. The museum complex takes over the better part of the town. At one end you have the gallery and gallery offices/apartments and then maybe ½ mile down the road you have the museum exhibition on a hill overlooking the destroyed village (which is now just an open field with a few monuments/town remainders for remembrance). I was in the museum today and will probably be there tomorrow afternoon. I’m supposedly in the gallery tomorrow morning.
The museum’s exhibition director Anco (insert little v thing over the c because my keyboard wont..regardless, pronounced kinda like “ahnch-oh”) was super happy today I guess because the Czech minister of culture came to the museum today with one of his University groups and was apparently surprised/happy about them hiring and American for the summer hahaa. I didn’t get the whole story, as the director doesn’t speak a word English, however he kept coming up to me saying “Le Chef! Le BIG Chef!” and pointing at the minister when he turned around. (Chef=chief/boss/super important guy) I guess the minister didn’t speak English either, but I got a hello that I could understand, and he smiled when I threw out the “nice to meet you” in Czech.
The non-English speaking thing is common around here. Uhmm, I’m pretty sure I have only met one person thus far that I’d say had decent English skills. Two others (the guy who picked me up at the airport and Pavel, an older guy at the museum) try really hard and aren’t too bad, but still hard to understand. Basically, I’m working on my Czech to make these next few weeks as easy as possible haha. You’d be surprised how much you can actually communicate with limited languages in common. (sidenote to self: DEFINIELY should have started German first semester THIS year rather than next..grr)
I’m working Mondays-Fridays 9-3ish pending on the crowds. Even though it’s not my normal work time, I was invited to attend the 76th(?) anniversary of Terezin (the concentration camp) this weekend. It is about 30 miles from where I am now, so the surrounding areas/museum employees are taking a bus for the event. From what they’ve told me, it’s a huge political/historical event in the country—supposedly even having the President speak at it (their president of course, not GW.. lol). After the ceremony, speeches, and whatnot they said that they’d be giving tours and such. Also, I was told that on Saturday there would be an opportunity to see the Czech national gardens? As to what that is, I’m pretty sure it got lost in the translation, but I’ll keep ya’ll updated because it sounded kinda cool..
My time zone is 6 hours AHEAD of ya’ll. Thus, 5:56 pm here, 11:56 am in MA/East Coast. My address will stay at the top of the page for further reference/those who said they were interested. Regardless:

Sarah Richard
TOKAJICKÁ 152
27354 LIDICE
Czech Republic

I’m going to go nap until someone who knows how to set up internet for me comes back.. hmm.. yay jetlag =)

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