Typical weekday

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Our typical weekday is to get up about six-thirty and be ready for breakfast by seven-thirty. During that hour, as we get ready have the TV on to either CNN or BBC. The most important news for us is “how cold will it be today?” The cold air mass seems to have settled over the area, determined to stay as long as possible.

After breakfast we go to chapel at nine and then to the library to start work. Most days we are scheduled to cover the circulation desk for a period of time. Sometimes only thirty minutes while someone eats their lunch. At other times we are scheduled to cover the circulation desk for several hours. There is a computer at the circulation desk. When there are no students or faculty members requiring our attention, we can continue working on our projects.

This morning there was a rush of students returning books and paying fines for overdue materials. I am not sure if the rush was simply a coincidence or if it was because today is the first of the month. Regardless of why, a lot of books were returned and a number of fines were paid.

We can go to lunch any time between twelve noon and one-thirty. The lunch we eat each day was selected we went to breakfast the day before. There are always three selections. Meals one and two are usually meat based meals while meal number 3 is always a vegetarian meal. Interestingly, at least to me, sometimes the vegetarian meal is deep fat fried veggies. Yesterday Nancy had deep fried mushrooms, french fries and brussel sprouts. Brussel sprouts, the most disliked vegetable in the States, is the most liked vegetable here in the Czech Republic. They are served as the vegetable of the day two to three lunches each week. Since Nancy declined the french fries the young man serving the food gave her a double portion of brussel sprouts ... fortunately Nancy likes they way they are prepared here. If we go to breakfast right at 7:30 we get to eat with some very early risers who, like us, want their breakfasts early in the morning. One young woman is from Poland. She is ALWAYS the first person there. We are not sure if her friend who accompanies her is also from Poland or not. We will ask tomorrow. The other young woman who comes very early is from Hungary. This week she is home celebrating with her parents on their 25th wedding anniversary. Having delightful young people to eat and talk with makes breakfast taste even better. When we first got here I ate everything they offered. I had a bowl of dry cereal, yogurt and milk on my cereal, bread with jelly, two or three slices of different kinds of cheese, tea, orange juice and often a mug of hot chocolate laced with yogurt. After a while, I started to feel rather bilious on all that high fat food. I cut off the hot chocolate first, then the cheese. This week I have begun to cook hot oatmeal in my room and carry it with me. My whole body is saying Thank you Thank you. I am so used to a totally low fat diet that my gut was trying to make me remember NOT to eat so much fat.

We are able to get good fruit here. I do not know where the fruit comes from, who exports it here this time of year, but strawberries, oranges, bananas, kiwi, apples, and grapes are readily available. This makes it easy to make a mixed fruit salad with yogurt ... our late night snack before going to bed. It is so delicious that we have decided to carry on this new tradition when we return home. We never make desserts so this would be a nutritious and sweet substitute. We found a fantastic fruit and vegetable shop downtown last weekend. It is Fruits of France. We bought some hot peppers so our food we cook in the room could taste like home. Bill forgot to cook them in our fried rice on Saturday. So I cut one up raw in tiny pieces to put in the food. Thankfully I tasted one TINY bit first. It almost destroyed the mucous membranes inside my mouth. My lips burned for several hours and my fingers even hurt. So, I froze them in those small pieces and we plan to put a mere pinch into a big pot of food. Obviously these are the real hot peppers not the imitation ones we usually find in grocery stores. Sichuan and Gui Zhou Provinces in China would LOVE them. They are really fantastic. Well, they are the hottest I have had since the last time I burned my fingers in Xi’an China cooking supper (and I didn’t burn them on the stove. I burned them slicing and deveining some peppers the person in the Free Market had assured me were sweet peppers). At least I learned something from that time. I didn’t rub my eyes this time. Burning eyes are worse than a burning mouth.

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Photos

Fruit and Vegetables
Beautiful fruit and vegetables are readily available.