"Language barriers are just that," some guy was telling me when I said it was hard to find a job without speaking Czech. "A barrier."

When I worked at Casa de Luz, and one of the cooks who didnt speak English needed me to do something, they would say something in Spanish that was meaningless to me, while they pointed at something, which, coupled with my experience of generally what happened in the kitchen, told me exactly what I needed to do. Thats why I never bothered to learn Spanish. Maybe I should have learned anyway, so I could have understood what the Guatamalan cooks were laughing about all the time, but I liked having the responsibility of conversation off of me, so I could just daydream.

Yesterday, Nicole and five of our friends got back from a weekend trip in Berlin. At the train station, there was a recorded voice that was ceaselessly speaking to everyone in German. This must have been very important information, since the voice over the loudspeaker never let out so much as a giggle, but whatever it was saying, we didnt appear to need. We got where we needed to go anyway. In line for a crazy German dance club that I opted out of last minute, some German guys tugged on the flaps from my hat that cover my ears and, while laughing, said some things in German to me. "I only speak Czech and English" I told them. Of course they missed my joke and heard "I only speak English," which is the truth anyway. "Surprise, surprise" they mocked back. Then they started making fun of me in German. I couldnt understand what they were saying, so I just shrugged. Im happy and back in Prague (home again after a strange weekend in that alien world!), so what they were saying cant have been all that vital.

Today the train on the way back from the American Express office (attention travelers, do not get travelers checks!) was fairly packed. I sat on the end of the bench, next to a woman in a puffy white coat with light brown hair, lots of makeup, and a face that some would consider fairly attractive. Someone sat down next to her, shoving her against me. She turned her face, putting it pretty much in my face, and said something in Czech. Of course I had no clue what it was, but I did the only possible thing she could want from me in that situation. I slid down the last half inch that remained between me and the end of the bench. This satisfied her. By the time the train stopped next, Id lost track of whether that was my stop or the next stop was. After the doors had been opened for a while, the voice from the speaker on the ceiling intoned, "Stara Mestka," I bolted upright and walked out the door. The woman in the puffy coat must have thought it was weird that it took me so long to realize that I was at my stop, but it didnt matter. She was out of my life forever.

Today, while checking my coat and bag with the lunch lady like coat lady, she handed my bag back to me in refusal. I looked at my bag, saw the only thing that could be wrong, and brushed the snow off of it. She then happily hung it along with my coat.

Im fairly certain Ill never learn Czech.

What I like about being in foreign countries is that I can daydream all the time. Reading Kundera (just finished the joke which was in some ways even better than the unbearable lightness of being) is making me think all novelistlike. Today there was a large old man in front of me on the escalator, and I noticed that his coat was too big for him. That seems like a detail that a novelist would attach a lot of significance to. Pretty pointless, though. Ugh. Tomorrow, I need to put my daydreaming on pause and write up a "CV."