man, all the menus and buttons are in czech....

I'm arrived safe and sound in Brno. I have most of a house to myself in a sleepy little part of Kralovo Pole in the central northwest part of the city. It's got a full kitchen and is well furnished, much better than I'd hoped for. Everything is just slightly different, if it's not entirely strange. The gas-powered water heater is wedged against the ceiling in the bathroom and the shower is one of those hold-by-hand-on-a-long-flexy-hose sort. The decor is mostly European grandmother with some very nice second hand furniture and a few touches of Fremont artiste. My room is all baby blue with white desk, cabinets, and bed clothes. There are fake flowers in a vase and early 1990's curtains in blue-purple-mauve squares with odd glyph-like designs on 'em. The main room is very old style posh, very dim and dark and lots of wood. Well-kept classy dining table and very detailed carving on the console in one corner. Piano, small couch, soft carpets, and a six foot tall very boxy/efficient wood stove. Then there are copies (in English, last guest maybe?) of the Economist and, hanging above the classical guitar, a painting of a gray mustached man with big glasses who is naked except for a very strategically placed tie with bright colors and polka dots. Lots of little art touches like that throughout the house. The reason that I've got the place to myself is that the other two students this session (out of a possible eight) have arranged for other accomodations.
The city (what I've seen of it in the two miles between the train station and here) is very quiet and built quite low. Most things like they've been here for a while, were modestly built to begin with, but have been lovingly taken care of. It's quite clean, there's no trash or litter laying around, and the only things open at nine on Saturday night, including the corner stores and pizzerias, are a couple bars and pubs. It's almost entirely apartments and town-houses, with businesses underneath in some spots, but the middle of most blocks is still back yards or gardens, I think. However, there are entire blocks that have a couple buildings and fenced off gravel parking lots and entire buildings look vacant. There are lots of trees and buses and there's a trolley system. The corner store was a very pleasant little affair, there were some fuits and vegetables and soft drinks I could grab up front, but everything else in the store (toiletries, meat, cheese, bread, staples, alcohol) was a point and ask affair. Made me VERY glad that I wrote a shopping list in Czech before I left the house. Everything, some basic bathroom stuff and a couple days of food, instant coffee (mmm-yum!), cost 340 crowns, which is about 12 bucks. I'm told that the Mexican restaurant can give you a super-nice pricey meal for 250 crowns. Yeah, they have a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood. Magda, one of my three teachers and the 'TEFL nanny,' told me when she picked me up from the train that all the Americans seem a little happier or relax a little when they hear that those guys are there. I stick out here. It's either the army green satchel or my shaggy hair, but lots of locals start to stare as soon as they see me.
The trip from Paris was probably the easiest, most pain free travel I've ever had. I had to wait in line at the metro station because I don't have a card with a French chip in it, but I got a regional train ticket for 8 euros, hopped it, made one transfer, and was at the airport in a half hour. Charles de Gaulle is a sprawling affair with tons of wasted space, plus they only have these short little spots for people to form lines in, no back and forths with guide ropes, so you wind-up with traffic squeezing between the wall and the end of a line that's only twenty people deep. However, they are pretty efficient. Air France has kick ass plane food by the way. It's cold and meant to be served that way. Fancy little bread, some sort of semi-sweet cooked vegetable medly with a soft-boiled egg, and a slice of chocolate ganache filled pie crust. Easily the best plane food I've encountered. Landed in Vienna, went to the 10 euro train that takes you straight into the metro, which had a video of buying tickets from their machines with English subtitles. Caught a train to the next station, bought a train ticket to Brno for 23 euros, and called Magda from a payphone there with a simple phone card (they just print it on your receipt when you buy it!). Hopped the train with the help of a Slovak? man who was surprised and a little amazed that a young American was headed to Brno. It took an hour and a half through the rolling countryside of wheat fields, scrub forest, with the occasional giant modern windmill, in the compartment I had to myself, whose very efficient/not very cold air conditioning was entirely voided by the door that wouldn't stay shut, and I arrived in Brno where I was met and whisked through town to my accomodation. The parts of the city I've seen put me strongly in mind of some small towns that I've driven through in southeast Pennsylvania.
These guys are in the same time zone as Paris (nine hours plus to PST) which means that it get full dark before 10 and dawn at 5 am here. My sleep schedule was a little bit every six or eight hours in Paris, so it's still totally off kilter. I got up to write this when I couldn't go back to sleep with the light coming in my window. I spent most of yesterday sleeping in and looking over Czech and class stuff plus getting a little bit unpacked. I have a few extra pieces of ephemera, but my giant backpack and 65 pound suitcase were definitely not too much stuff. If anything I will soon need to make a few purchases. First class is at nine and I have to go to the cash machine next to the school and withdraw the 9300 crowns I owe for rent before that (because euros are not used, regardless of the full entry into the EU in 2 years). There's not phone here and absolutely no wireless networks when I fire up my machine (though that might be due to the stone/cement construction styles around here), so when you get this I'll have hooked up to the net at school or found a netcafe somewhere. Things are intimidating here, but they look a lot better now that it's full light and I've my first cup of kavaa Jihlavanka. More news of Paris and my first leg in the next missive. Gotta go.