Things that make me go "Hmmm..."

First impressions of a foreign land...

Cool things:

1. The weather - literally and figuratively...
   
   This is one of the warmest winters that have been experienced here according to some locals. While for us its a bit of an adjustment, its really not difficult to endure and there's not a lot to complain about. On the good side, there is snow, which, even at my advancing age is fun to play in and I do it eagerly, having 2 babies helps obviously. Throwing snow balls at the wife and kids is not beyond me and when I get the chance I take it ;).
   
   Melting snow is not so great, jolly great pools of black mush form especially on the roadsides and lie in heaps for days and days after everything else has melted.
   
   I've known about the existence of snow ploughs for a while, but never seen one in action. I had this idea of a long tail-back of traffic behind a caterpillar-like earthmoving monster clearing roadways, and maybe some of them are like this. The ones I've seen here are on rubber, not tracks and do about 60Km/h down the road easily keeping up with traffic and skimming the edge of the road. The problem is, that as they pass, the snow that they're ploughing scoops up into the air and lands with some force, meters away. This is great if you're in a car, but if you're a pedestrian it could be horrid.
   
   Its not that you can't go outdoors here, its just that you do different things. Hayley's tips: i) when it is just starting to snow, take a walk outside in the dark and look up into the sky. Watching the snow falling gently onto your face is stunning (or standing behind the double glazing in your undies and T-shirt and watching it fall in the streetlight). ii) Never leave home without your beanie and gloves.
   
   
2. The other weathery thing is the way you live here. The outside walls of the houses have got to be 2 feet thick, every window and door is insulated, windows double glazed and doors have some kind of laminar insulation and seals all the way around so that nothing gets passed them, not draughts, windy noises, nuthin. The windows can open a crack ingeniously at the top, almost like they were coming off the top hinge and so you get fresh air.
   
   Double glazing also keeps out the traffic noise and so on. Every South African home should be built with these things, when its just below 10 outside you can switch off all the heating and just with the way the place is built you can walk around in shorts and a T-Shirt.
   
   
3. The plugs...
   
   I may be easy to please, but this is SO nice - everything here is a 2 pin plug, like the ones in ZA, but here the sockets are made for 2 pins. One doesn't have to fanny about trying to get your 2 pin to stay in the hole or connect, or change the plug to a 3 pin. Very nice.
   
   
4. Public transport...
   
   The public transportation system here works! You can set your watch by the various busses, trolleys and trams about town.
   
   If you want to get to Prague, there's a bus every half hour and it costs a total of KČ 174 for a return trip (R58). Just to give you an idea, a litre of fuel here costs a Euro (close to ten bucks mate! put that in your complaints pipe...). To do the distance in an average car would cost about R170 just in petrol, so still cheaper to bus a family of 4 to Prague than drive there and you get coffee / hot chocolate etc on the bus. Hmmm. When you get to Prague, you walk 20M to the underground and off you go again...
   
   Conveniently there's a train that runs directly to the ski resort every day etc etc
   
   
5. Getting to the office...
   
   The trip to the office is about 1km and can be done by bus if the weather is a trifle disagreeable or if you are late. Otherwise, there is a very refreshing walk to work with the cool fresh air on your face and in your lungs, which is a very invigorating way to start the day.
   
   
6. Beer for lunch in the canteen...
   
   Don't even consider walking to the table with a water or tea with your midday lunch - you are heavily frowned upon. Topping up a very large glass with the local non-alcoholic beer from the tap is the only done thing - or order a PU if you are having lunch with the project team (learned that one the hard way)

Off things, if you can call them that

1. Shops...
   
   Boring Pick 'n Pay type shops being referred to here. The layers out of shops have no flipping clue. There is almost no sense to the way the Spar is laid out, for example, one type of product is next to another of its kind in one instance and then there are other little bits of it dotted around haphazardly. The mayonnaise is in the fridge with the butter; the honey is on the shelf with the muesli; the jams are with the chocolates; the peanut butter is with the pickles; and we are still trying to find the crushed garlic and marmite (or any savoury sandwich spread for that matter)!
   
   Also you have to pack your own shopping bags here. At PnP you can ponder your list of things to do while the teller rings up the trolley and all you have to do is flip out the credit card at the end and you are done. Here, not only do you have to do the usual unpacking of the trolley and pack you own bags, but the tellers are on speed. These Czech girls make them tills beep faster than a horny cricket in the mating season, and there you are packing up a storm in very undignified manner. The busiest part of the shop is the checkout, its like a 100m sprint.
   
   Hayley hates carrying the shopping home and our purchases are limited not by any other factor than what we can easily carry home herding or towing 2 babies who we have also got carrying backpacks filled with groceries ;). Fortunately, it is only a 400m walk!
   
   
2. The bureaucracy...
   
   Everything is complicated. To travel on an efficient bus you must first do the inefficient red tape of buying the ticket in a particular place instead of on the bus. If you want to work here there are about a dozen processes that need to be done monthly if this and quarterly if that and within 30 days of the other thing if something else is true - its like you need a full time accountant just to hold down a job.

Just things:

1. The language...
   
   The language barrier is difficult sometimes, a lot of the people here studied English at school so there is some very elementary understanding in some people, but most can't say a word.
   
   Large shops, banks etc will have a few people who can speak English, but you can see that every time you call on one of them its quite unusual. You'll walk into a bank, go to the Customer Service lady and ask her if she speaks English (Mluvite Anglicke - pronounced mlooveete anglietski and then there's a moment before she says "Moment" and hurriedly makes a call, jabbers away for a bit and in a few minutes someone comes down to deal with the foreigners.
   
   Prague is much easier to navigate, but like London, there are about a hundred different languages floating around at the average coffee bar, so I think they're more geared for it.
   
   
2. We discovered a washing machine that also dries clothes.
   
   
3. People appear to not be hung up on having flashy cars and big houses.
   
   
4. Most Czech people are born in, grow up in, live in, and die in the town that their parents were born in, grew up in, lived in and died in that their parents were born in....
   
   
5. We never seem to get to bed before 1am!

Dobrou Nots!