A conversation in Czech

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Yesterday, Jon and I had a real conversation in Czech with our neighbor. It's true that we didn't understand every word and that there was a lot of repetition and rewording. But we figured things out with a minimum of made-up sign language, so I think that's a triumph.

What we learned in the conversation: our neighbor is a Russian who came here 30 years ago because of her husband's work. She was very excited about and approved of our large family, especially compared to the one or two children most Czech families have. She also said something about there being a lot of history here. I think.

What she found out about us: where we're from, how many kids we have and that one is studying in the US, and possibly that the kids do school at home. I'm not sure if that last part was properly conveyed or not.

Okay, it's not much, but it was a whole conversation with nobody around who could translate! So I'm excited about that. In other news, the younger kids and I got locked inside a building today for a little while and I used some very bad Czech to ask a guy to let us out. Don't ask me why you need a key to get out of a building.

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