I'm Popeye the sailor man, I live in a garbage can. . .

That's not commentary on my living conditions. My apartment is quite nice. But that's how the little song we sang when I was a kid goes. I can't remember all the permutations of it. The only one I can remember is

I'm Popeye the sailor man
I live in a garbage can
I eat all the worms and spit out the germs
I'm Popeye the sailor man. Woo Wooo!

So why am I reminiscing about silly playground songs from my childhood? I ate big ol' plate of spinach today, that's why! For those of you that don't know me this is a big deal. So big that I would actually waste your time in my blog with it. I'm not big on green stuff unless it's a pepper of some sort. And leafy green stuff is an even bigger challenge. Then when you take said leafy green stuff and cook it for hours, I'm even less likely to eat it. Eeeww!

Well today I had an English class at Maranatha from 9:00-11:00 in the morning. Every Thursday they have a Communion then everyone eats lunch together. It's a really cool thing they do here. So I stuck around for that stuff after my class.

When I sat down to eat though I got an unpleasant surprise. The gave me a plate that looked a lot like this. So of course the first thing I thought was, "Uh-oh, that looks a lot like spinach. Oh that's not good. " But when someone is nice enough to offer you food you eat it. You don't turn your nose up like some spoiled brat. So I made up my mind that I'd just suck it up and power through the meal and hope that the dumplings, knedliky in Czech, would make the rest of it eatable.  Then I started eating it and I was like, "Oh. . . this is good! It must be something else. Maybe it's a bunch of chopped parsley and herbs. Alright! I can eat this, I can do it!"  So after I'd eaten about half of it I asked Slavo what it was. He said, "Spinach, duh!" Actually didn't say "Duh." I don't think they know that word here. But it seemed obvious to him that it was spinach and of course it was.

By the way, Czechs eat really fast. At these Thursday lunches I'm always the last one to finish. I don't know how they do it. Even the little old ladies eat faster than I do. And lunch is the main meal of the day here so the portions are quite large. They are an amazing people. They must think I'm a sissy. 

Anyway, the English classes are going well. It's looking like most people don't want to work with text books and do drills all class long. I'm psyched because that means we will get to talk about general stuff they like to talk about and I can learn what's going on here. Assuming of course that I can trick them into telling me what they like to talk about. But it's coming along and I'm getting much more comfortable with it everyday. 

More to come