Although I might like it for one afternoon, I don't want to live on the moon

I miss chocolate chip cookies. In the past week or so, thinking about them has become sort of an obsession for me. You just can’t find them here. They don’t even sell chocolate chips. The worst part is that there’s not even a suitable replacement, for there are no real cookies anywhere. Gingerbread-type cookies are popular, and if I see another wafer cookie I might explode, but nothing good and doughy. Yesterday in the grocery store I saw a package of chocolate chip cookies similar to the Chips Ahoy brand (you know, really processed, hard, not even a real cookie), and they were called “American cookies.” I got teary-eyed. I think that when I return from my next trip (we leave Friday for Slovakia and Poland), I’m going to have to shove Elena out of the kitchen for a bit and see if I can produce anything to satisfy my intense cravings.

Monday I went to the doctor. It was pretty nerve-wracking for me, to be honest. I never realized how intimidating a doctor’s office could be in a foreign place. Everyone there spoke English, but it was clearly a second language for all of them, and that alone was unsettling. I keep thinking about people in America who don’t speak English, and I have a newfound compassion for them. I find that everyday here is just a little more stressful, and even simple things are a little bit harder, because of the language barrier- and I’m lucky, because probably over half of the people here speak at least some English. I can’t even imagine being somewhere that nobody recognized my language- it would be incredibly, incredibly hard.

Anyway, the doctor was pretty typical. The only semi-strange thing that happened was that he said, “Now the nurse wil take a drop of your blood to measure the inflammatory levels in your body.” I have no clue how you measure inflammatory levels, or what that even means, but the nurse did it in about two minutes and apparently mine are fine. In fact, the conclusion was that I’ll live and I just need to get over it. He is doing a “few tests” and I’ll hear back for sure today, but I’m feeling a lot better except for a cold, so no worries there. Oh, I almost forgot-- one of the most surreal parts of the whole experience was when I looked down and noticed that the doctor was wearing socks with slippers in the doctors' office, and all of the nurses were, as well. This shoe thing is a little extreme, if you ask me.

Monday night I went to my first Czech birthday party, and immediately after I began to seek out more Czech friends so that I could attend more birthdays. It was for my older host-brother and was held at his girlfriend’s parents’ house. It was only my host family, but that made 12 of us. The house itself was absolutely incredible- it might actually be my dream house. It wasn’t huge, but everything in it was really nice and cozy, it was decorated beautifully, and the fireplace extended into a whole wall of bookcases again. The soccer game was on TV when we got there, so it almost felt like being in America :). There was SO MUCH FOOD, and we managed to eat a good portion of it. There were no less than five different types of meat on the table- two just sliced and ready to be eated plain, and two in dishes. We had delicious stuffed peppers again, and the best gulash I’ve tasted yet. They asked if I wanted salad, which turned out (to my dismay) to be my choice of two heaping pasta salads with thick sauces. I cannot understand how they eat so so much. For desert there was melon, a huge cheese plate, and two different types of cake. Throughout the night, I was also forced to consume two glasses of wine, three glasses of water, and two cups of tea. I don’t think I will ever eat again in my life. It’s so nice to be around a family, but it’s also tough to see them all enjoying being together, since I’m not able to be a part of that. Also, they spoke in Czech most of the time, and it’s almost more frustrating now that I know some of the words, because I’ll understand little snippets but not nearly enough to make any sense of it, and by the time I figure one thing out they’re on to the next thing. One of my host brothers sat next to me and tried to translate/fill me in occasionally, but it wasn’t like I could contribute. But overall it was a fun night.