em la sinh vien

I feel like my language skills are exactly one country behind where I actually am.

This past summer in Viet Nam, I felt I was trying to speak French everywhere -- and I actually did in a lot of places, including Bangkok.

But here? Instead of Czech, I've been using my very, very, very limited knowledge of Vietnamese to communicate with the local shopkeepers instead of Czech or English (...or French or Chinese). The reason? All the little shop owners down my street are Vietnamese, with stores selling bags, food, water, fruit, alcohol, etc. It's definitely not what I expected, but it's something weirdly comforting and familiar to have around.

The owner of the store down the street definitely recognized me today from the one time I popped in to look at bags and ended up just getting chocoalte (Milka strawberry joghurt). After a few conversational nothings -- including a mix-up where I thought they were asking me if I was a student, but I was actually replying "Yes, I'm an American student" to them telling me that I was very pretty -- I ended up deciding that the 300 crown bag I liked was "dat qua" ("too expensive"). Looking back, that was like $15 or so, so I'm going to go back to the store on Monday and just get it.

Then just now, on our way back from the gym (my first time at the Flora fitness one, and it felt so good to be on an elliptical again!), we popped into a little store to get a bottle of water and a Diet Coke for Amanda, only to find a friendly store owner who asked if I was Chinese, Vietnamese, or American and then tried to make conversation with me in both Vietnamese and Czech.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much I was able to communicate to him, but just I was stepping out, I hear him go, "Em oi!" (which essentially is the phrase you use to get the attention of someone younger than you). I turn around, and he comes over and gives me and Amanda each a free apple.

Vietnamese: 1, Czech: 0.