Door

My first night in my apartment I unpacked all my belongings and got settled. I have a washing machine, but no dryer. I went to hang my clean clothes on the clotheslines on my balcony and when I tried to close the door I couldn't. So I called a teacher. She told me to try to slam the door and manipulate it, but nothing worked. It was pouring outside and she wanted to come over. I insisted that she wait until the morning and explained that I would close the door by putting my chair in front of it. So the next morning, the teacher came over around 7:30 AM to look at my broken door. She declared that it was in fact broken and called one of our school’s many handymen to come over. He was also unsuccessful, so the teacher went and knocked on my neighbor’s door. My neighbor said that they would come over at 3PM to fix it. We closed the door as best we could and we went to school.

Now this is not an ordinary door! It is a big, glass door. If you turn the handle 90 degrees from its locked position it becomes a regular door, but if you turn in 180 degrees from its locked position it becomes a window. I have a smaller window that has the same technology. The door was broken because the handle would not move above 90 degrees or back down in its locked position. It also just wouldn’t close!

When I got home from running errands my neighbor and his wife and child came over. His wife knows a little English, but her baby was crying, so she had to leave. My neighbor, Vladimir, opened his toolbox and started working right away! I interrupted to introduce myself and ask his name. He took apart the door handle and played around with the different mechanisms on the door and then it was magically fixed! He wrote down his phone number and apartment number and called the same teacher. Then he passed the phone to me and the teacher translated for him that if I needed anything I could go and ask him and that he was going to try to call the internet company for me. I was so happy and felt so lucky to have such nice neighbors! He had been so generous to fix my door for nothing. She also explained that Vladimir’s wife was on maternity leave and would be around in case of emergency. I am hoping to run into her in the hallway and make a friend, since she speaks some English. I really want to meet someone who I could tutor in English in exchange for Czech lessons. Maybe it will be she.

Door as a door:

Door as a window: