Friends at breakfast and La Traviata

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Almost every morning we eat with three young women. Katarzyna (Kasha) is from Poland, Denitza is from Bulgaria and Johanna who is from Hungary. Why? Are we unfriendly with everyone else? Are we the outcasts eating at the table for the untouchables? No, we eat with them as the five of us are the only ones in the cafeteria at seven-thirty.-we also eat with them because I like them a lot. We don’t have much time to talk but we always catch up on the weather report, what we think about something or the other and just enjoy a friendly feeling with three very nice young women. Occasionally we are joined by Erjona, who is from Albania, but usually it is just the five of us in the large dining room. Most mornings the only other person in the dining room is the lady who keeps the big cereal bowls stocked, the milk pitcher full, runs the cash register and gives us our ticket for the next day’s lunch. She always seems very happy to see us. She opens the dining room quite early and we are her first guests of each day. She greets us happily in Czech and thanks us and I believe wishes us a good meal and a good day. She is very motherly in her kindness to those of us who can’t speak Czech and seems like she wants us to learn to speak. How I wish the language were less daunting.

On weekdays, at breakfast, we look over tomorrow’s lunch menu and select the lunch we want. There are always three choices. As my Czech is nonexistent I hold up one, two, or three fingers depending on which lunch I want. She hits a few keys on the cash register, a small slip of paper is printed and she rubber stamps a large 1, 2, or 3 on this slip. When we go to lunch, we hold up the slip of paper and the young man working behind the counter dishes up our food from the hot table. Often our selection is somewhat of a mystery as meaning is lost or has become foggy in the translation. For instance we had discovered that “omelet” means crepe or pancake, “nudle” means noodle. I have discovered that the other Slavic students are also mystified by many of the choices. They think they have read it correctly and order and then find the Czech version of a dish they know well from home is quite different. I enjoy almost everything I am served. Well, many of you know my appetite and how much I love to eat even if I am skinny. One of my favorites is the supposed omelet. That is a delicious choice each time with a lovely crepe around mushrooms or some other treat. The other day I had a very odd lunch. I don’t remember what it was called in the translation. But it was four big steamed buns looking for all the world like Chinese steamed buns. But inside they had apricots and an apricot sauce instead of pork or red beans. They served it with a sugary sauce poured over top and then powdered sugar sprinkled all over it. It was fabulous! But it was totally a desert in my book and not lunch at all. I have had other surprises too. I chose potatoes with poppy seeds the other day. The potatoes had been mashed and processed in some way into little rolls like long tootsie rolls. They were absolutely covered with poppy seeds and melted butter was poured on top. Bill persuaded them that he didn’t want the seeds or the butter. He ate his potatoes with ketchup. I enjoyed it the traditional way but had toooo much. Friday I had mixed vegetables, cauliflower and a enormous pile of boiled potatoes with butter poured over them. I think I am getting a life time of vegetables since 9 out of 10 times I choose #3 which is the vegetarian meal. I can’t manage pork, ham, beef, sausage, etc. as you may know. If they have fish or baked chicken, I get those two.

Harold’s wife, Deb, arrived last Sunday. They rented a car and drove around the Southern Czech Republic and returned today. The trip back to Prague was a wild adventure. As a person travels south from Prague the land rises. The Austrian Alps are not that far from the Czech-Austrian border. Harold said there is a lot more snow in the south, the wind was blowing, snow was drifting, the most of the roads were narrow and slick. Fortunately they arrived safely in Prague, but saw many accidents and cars off the roads as they drove. Deb is the executive director of the American Baptist Historical Society with archives in Rochester and Valley Forge.

The four of us had tickets to see the opera La Traviata at the State Opera House. The performance began at seven. We left the seminary about four-thirty, had our evening meal in the old bell tower, the same one we at in a few weeks ago and made it to the opera house with about ten minutes to spare. The opera house is within easy walking distance of the bell tower.

A music teacher from England with ten of students sat beside Bill. It was interesting to hear the teacher and students discuss the opera during the two intermissions.

“The soprano’s voice is just magnificent,” I heard her say. “She really got into it after about three minutes.”

Her students agreed.

The soprano’s voice was not the only magnificent voice. The man, a Brazilian, who played the part of the father in the opera also had an amazing voice, very rich and very pure in tone.

I have been impressed by the acoustics in the theater. The pea house was built in 1887. There is no use of microphones or amplification of the voices. There is a scene in La Traviata where several men are sitting at a table, gambling with cards. When one of the men slapped the deck of cards on the table we in the top balcony could hear the cards hit the table.

Later I overhead her saying, “No matter how often I see La Traviata I always cry when she and the young man part. It always grabs me, even more than her death at the end.”

One of her students, a young man, sitting behind Nancy and Bill had tears streaming down his face at that point in the opera and Bill noticed his face was wet when the opera ended. I guess he is a kind-hearted, sensitive young man.

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Photos

Kasha and Denitza
Kasha is from Poland and Denitza is from Bulgaria. They are almost always the first in the dining room in the morning.

The Czech State Opera House
Looking to the upper rear balcony where we have been in the three performances we had attended, Turandot, Carman, and La Traviata