Control.

So besides getting lost on my own in City Centre, I have had many,

many lessons about CONTROL.  Things that are outside my control here,

are too numerous to even list, but I want to talk about two:  communication

and food.

First of all I thought myself so smart, I brought the cheap Vodafone that I

purchased last year on study leave in Ireland.  I researched and found Vodafone

in Czech Republic and so off I go to discuss a new sym card and charger

to make phone work here.  I am feeling so competent.  I am forgetting language.

Big forgetting.

I find the store, last week without getting lost, (proud moment indeed) and I

enter the store with phone in hand.  There is one receptionist in a store

very much like our cell phone stores in the states, that is able to speak in

English.  I ask her if it is possible to buy a sym card for this phone that will

work here and ask about a charger for Czech electrical compatibility.  She

assures me, yes, it is possible and arranges with another salesperson to

do the necessary computer maneuverings to make it all work.  I pay for both

the "little computer chip" and the charger and off I go.  So proud of myself.

But as we all know pride goes before a fall, right.  Well, indeed yet another

lesson in humility.  I return to apartment and place sym card in the phone, and

charge it.  It takes hours as the phone has been off and idle for over a year.

Amazingly it holds a charge and I try to call my dear patient husband.  (Whom I have

assured that I have the problems of communication solved.)  But I try the phone and

in Czech a voice on phone asks me, (as I find out much later) what network I want to

use.  Obviously, I do not know the question being asked or how to answer it.  So,

even though I have working sym card and charged phone, because of language,

I do NOT have a usable phone.  I cannot communicate once again.  Ugh.

Turns out the phone cannot be used.  Period.  Now I am mad at myself for throwing

good money after bad as it were. 

I am sure there are many lessons here, but the main one that I am hearing is that

there are many things outside of our control.  You can get angry and sad, or

you can smile (Grin) and bear it.  How you grin and bear it, is the real question?

And perhaps the most important answer.

So, one little sentence about food.  In a foreign country it is very hard to have

control over what you eat, even when you are paying for it.  Besides the language

there is the whole social-food etiquette, eating what you are served, availability of

certain foods, etc.  In all seriousness....I encourage everyone of you to get on your

knees and give thanks for the food you have access to every day, from Walmart, to

Tops, to Wegmans, to Aldi's.  Give thanks.

More soon......

J