Absorbing the Language

I don't know if I'm more observant than many other expats because I've being doing the whole abroad thing for so long or what. Maybe it just goes back to when I was a kid and the guys in my apartment complex teased me saying I must be a spy because I knew everything that was going on around the complex. 


I'm just observant. Honestly, I'm far less observant these days because I'm self-absorbed really busy and sometimes forget to stop and look around.



But when I do stop to look around, I realize that I've picked up a lot of Czech even without trying. I know that glass is sklo because the recycling bins on the side of the street have convenient pictures to help you not screw it up figure it out. I also learned that bílá is white and zelená is green from the same signs. 


It's amazing what you can learn from waste management bins.


Then there's the káva — coffee, duh — which costs an arm and a leg here and it can be difficult to find a good one. But, of course, I can't just drink a simple coffee. I like my espresso with mléko and cukr, or milk and sugar.


It's the little things in life, really, like learning the word 'tourist' from a movie poster:

Note the lack of anything that resembles "the." They don't use articles in Czech. Funny, they don't use them in Chinese either. Who needs articles anyway?