Early January I experienced one of those moments that could be categorized as an unfortunate event. One of those, "if only I hadn't done that" moments. Those times when you first stop and stare at what you have just done in disbelief. Then the full ramifications of the event begin to slowly seep in and you GASP and you struggle to hold back those words which express utter dissatisfaction and horror with the event that has just occurred.
My unfortunate event began with this:
A small, seemingly harmless spice container. Our spices live in a cupboard above our stove top. After a day of baking I went to return our baking soda to its home but it did not want to stay in the cupboard. Rather it attempted to swan dive onto our stove top. When I heard the resulting CRASH of two objects colliding I assumed the bottle had sustained the most damage from the impact. Surprisingly it was not harmed, not a scratch. After successfully returning it to its home I discover that our stove top was not so lucky to be unscathed by the swan dive attack.
Normally an incident like this one is not something that would be difficult to remedy. However living in a foreign country complicates simple tasks and nothing really sits in the category of "normal". It can be frustrating at times when you can't do easy things like call a repair company on your own. It is humbling to ask for help, especially of busy people who seem to always be bailing us non-Czech speakers out of jams. I am blessed beyond measure by my gracious and helpful Czech speaking friends. Though my patience in waiting to receive help resulted in a 2.5 month wait to go from damaged to replaced stove top.
Two and a half months without a stove resulted in some creative cooking arrangements. We learned a lot of different ways to cook with an electric skillet and a crock-pot. So thankful to generous friends who went without these kitchen accessories for 2 months in order to help us out!
After it was confirmed that the whole unit needed to be replaced there came the fun of finding a replacement. We did have fun in measuring the old stove to ensure the new one would fit. We needed to lift it up to determine its depth. This was fun. We were told you could just pop the thing out. They failed to mention that it may be screwed in. We used a hammer and screwdrivers to prop it out enough to determine the depth.
I have become even more of a do it yourself fixer over the years and have put our IKEA tool kit to good use.
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| Ever wonder what they look like on the inside? |
When ordering the new one we were assisted by a very smiley online consultant. She really liked to use :) at the end of her sentences. This made us laugh because it was uncommon to chat with a business as though you were having a conversation with a happy friend. Smiles from Czech strangers are rare so this was a refreshing change.
My desire to learn Czech has been fuelled by experiences like this one. I was proud of myself when the non-English speaking repairman called and in my broken Czech I was able to ask what time he was coming and decipher his answer. Learning a new language is frustrating, exhausting and time consuming. Though my desire and pure stubbornness to communicate and do things for myself is slowly overriding my fears.
So now we say goodbye to the cracked and broken
and celebrate the arrival of our new stove.
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