Organic beef, with a side of frustration

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I think today I may have been closer to my “breaking” point than I have in quite a while. It’s unfortunate that I’m getting fed up with and frustrated by so many little things now, but I guess that’s a sign that it’s about time for me to go home. I suppose a bit of explanation would be helpful. To start off with, there is a hideously irritating song that one of the Czech students has been playing incessantly for the past few days. It’s absolutely maddening to me and it was played rather loudly directly behind me this morning. I think I’m nearing the point that I don’t even care about it anymore, but really I’ve tried asking him to not play it, turn it down, play something different, anything, but to no avail. So on top of that my iPod committed suicide this morning. It’s had what I’ve been referring to as screen cancer for probably the duration of the study tour (some weird black line squiggling its way across the screen). Well apparently it spread and deleted all of my music. I seriously thought I was going to cry for a minute. My music is my happy place…and now I don’t have it. This all occurred on the bus ride to our first farm of the day, an organic farm with beef cattle (I think; they were Galloway, so I’m pretty sure that’s beef but who knows here). Michael told us that the first farm makes 70% of its income from subsidies. That really makes me wonder what taxes are like here. While we were listening to the farm’s owner talk, some people kept throwing things and tickling each other with grass. Normally I wouldn’t care; let people have fun. But today I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

We went to another organic farm before lunch. It was interesting because the owner has branched out into “agritourism” and has a fitness center on his farm. He also told us that he was into the organic farming for the money, not because he believed in the organic system. Personally I thought it felt more like he ran a fitness center and had cows than he had a farm with other activities on the side. After the farm we went to a cheese factory/museum. They made some type of ripened cheese called tvargle, I believe. They offered us samples and I took one. The best way I can describe the taste is to compare it to when I dissected a cat in high school…formaldehyde soaked cat carcass. Appetizing, right? I felt about half-sick afterward. After the cheese museum we made a stop in Oskar Schindler’s hometown and saw his childhood home and a monument to him. I’d like to point out that I was slightly frustrated here too, mostly because it takes Vlasta entirely too long to actually say anything and it’s starting to wear on my nerves. I realize I probably shouldn’t be as negative as I am right now or criticize everything quite so much, but I’m really getting irritated by certain things.

I was fully intending on writing one or two of my papers tonight at the hotel, but I got here only to realize that the internet refuses to work with my computer. How utterly fantastic. I guess I can’t really complain - it’s my own fault for waiting so long to do them. But it’s kind of like the icing on today’s cake.

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