Matrace a Hrad

Saturday, October 9^th, 11:47 PM

   Yesterday was full of acquisitions. In the morning, Luboš bustled in while I was in the shower and set up shop in the kitchen. I was a little curious as to who was romping around my apartment while I was in the shower, but I thought it was probably him and I was right. At any rate, he came finally bearing a mattress! A 'new' and 'quality' mattress, which here means that it's okay. I haven't quite gotten used to it – it's at kind of a strange height, and feels slightly rickety, which can be a little nerve-wracking. It is, though, a significant step up from the bizarre couch pull-out arrangement that had previously served. Hopefully I will begin to sleep better from this point on.

   After that whole to-do, JoEllen and I went on an extended shopping trip wandering around the center and buying various things. I got a movie, some bowls, an oven mitt, the first two books of the Eragon series, because they're gigantic and I'd heard good things (they only had book one in German, though, which is probably good in that it will last considerably longer and the idea was to have something to read on my commute) and Good Soldier Švejk, because it's about time I actually sat down and read the whole thing, and I finally caved and got a copy of Civilization V. I was going to look into acquiring some weights, but the store that sells them is by a stop that the tram apparently only stops at going in one direction. Oops. Still missing – shower curtain, shower mat, wallet. Then we got delicious, delicious Döners and watched a movie. Today we met up and headed over to Opava, just down the railroad tracks, to visit Alex Bednar, another one of the Fulbright teaching assistants. Opava has a lot of character – my favorites were probably the bird statues and the moving beast. There are two large bronze statues of birds, facing one another, in a park, but one of them will move its head seemingly to track you, which is somewhat unsettling even with forewarning. There's also a sculpture of some kind of semi-animal form which is migratory, e.g. at various points during the year a crew will move it somewhere else. Then we headed over to Hradec nad Moravici, the small bedroom community in which he lives, and walked up the mountain to visit the awesome castle there. Probably the best castle I've seen so far. It was a pretty sweet castle. Then we stopped for ice cream and I got the 'Castle Sundae' – less immense than expected, but actually really really good. I think I may try to enjoy more ice cream before winter really arrives and takes all the fun out of it. There remains a bowl full of lamb in my refrigerator, for as far as I can tell no particular reason, but I'm sure some use can be found for it. Anyway, it's late and I'm tired, so I'm going to go acclimate myself to my new mattress!