The Prague Blog

Teaser

2008-01-11T17:45:00.000+01:00

I'm home (!) and planning to write a superentry including details from Christmas dinner, lists about my semester, and stories from all of my travels with Tim.

You've probably already guessed, correctly, that I survived, so that's not much of a cliffhanger, but nobody knows about my brother...

One last Whoo-hoo...

2007-12-22T18:59:00.000+01:00

Oh my goodness I have had an action-packed couple of days. Wednesday I went to the Joseph Lada (gosh I think that’s right but I don’t have the energy to look up his name right now) exhibit. He’s an artist who did almost cartoon-like images, including illustrating The Good Soldier Svejk, which is extremely famous. My friend’s host sister played a big part in putting the exhibit together, so we got free tickets. It was good to see. That night I also went to a concert in the Rostoky castle. It featured a violinist, pianist, and bassist who played absolutely beautiful music. I really needed that relaxation. The concert was organized as part of the push towards community multicultural education, and we were supposed to be learning about Asian cultures. At the end we got a little refreshment tray with a piece of sushi on one side and a chicken finger on the other.

Thursday brings me to the meatier part of my story. During the day things were pretty unremarkable except for the sudden appearance of the carp-selling men. On almost every corner there now is a table flanked by around three tubs about 4 feet in diameter and 3 feet deep. These tubs are FULL of live carp (I have pictures). When someone comes along and requests a carp, then men reach in, pull one out, kill it, and proceed to scale it, remove the swim bladder and other internal organs (I didn’t get close enough to find out exactly which were kept and which were left), and finally bag it up. This is all done on a visibly bloody and presumably dirty table right outside on any streetcorner, usually with bare hands. Elena and Jan just bought ours this morning. Only three days ‘til Christmas dinner!

Thursday night I was lucky to get to go to the Monkey Business concert. You might remember that my host brother-in-law is the lead singer for this (famous in the CR) band, and they were finally performing in Prague. The concert was in Lucerna in this huge room with three levels of balconies. Simon and I were on the first floor, which was all standing room, and we got there early enough to be right next to the part of the stage that came out into the crowd. The show was really fun; the band was all in weird costumes and always joking, Elaine-style dancing abounded. The music is in English, very pop, almost 70s-sounding. I can’t say it’s my favorite, but they’re very talented and the show had really high energy. It was really high-energy. It was so strange to me to see someone who was just eating dinner with us at the house three days ago onstage with thousands of adoring fans screaming at him. He saw Simon and I and gave Simon a high-five and grabbed my hand, so I felt very special. (To give you some idea of his fame- he’s appeared in movies, etc and the band is quite popular- I’m going to go ahead and call him the Justin Timberlake of the Czech Republic. Maybe that’s too far, but the point is he’s a big deal.) At one point he grabbed a violin and started playing it and Simon said, “Hey, that’s my old violin.” It was all very surreal.

After the concert we got to go to the “afterparty” with my host-sister, Karolina (the lead singer’s wife). I wasn’t aware of this option before it came up, but how do you say no to an afterparty, especially when you’ve never been to one before? We had to go through two rounds of security (more than it takes to go to Slovakia!) before we got into the backstage area. There, we were greeted with food, tables, people talking...and that’s about it. I was a bit crushed, admittedly. Where was the sex? The drugs? Fabulous people doing scandalous things? I did meet the lyricist for the band, who spoke English of course. He wasn’t that interesting, to be honest, but I felt like I was rubbing elbows with some fairly important people. it turns out this was only the preafterparty. We were then ushered up to the club section of Lucerna where the band had its own balcony reserved. Here things were quite a bit more exciting, with dancing, drinking, and a lot of people who were probably more interesting if you spoke better Czech. I wasn’t drinking, and at this point that put me at least three drinks behind the next soberist person there (this was the beginning of the night, mind you. These people could drink a lot). It ended up being quite fun, and I had a really good time. We finally were kicked out around 3:30 in the morning (gasp, I know), and stopped to get greasy food from some vendors on the street before stumbling into another, far sketchier bar. By 5 everyone was exhausted (This is not the lifestyle for me- I was sleepy by about 11 and half-sleeping since about 2). The bus to Rostoky starts running again at 5, so I tried to convince them that I just wanted to go home, explaining that I slept better when I was someplace familiar and that I’d rather not go to sleep just to have to wake up and move. This was solidly regected as a terrible plan, and I felt obliged to listen to them, since they had been paying for food/drinks all night, were famous, let me come to their party, spoke to me in English, and actually lived in the city and spoke the language. I ended up going with Simon to my host brother’s house and falling asleep at around 6.

And thus begins the most surreal morning of my life. Simon went to school at 8:30, which woke me up. I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I decided to finally go back to the house, but when I tried to leave, I couldn’t open the door. Please don’t make fun of me. There were several knobs and I tried every possible combination- literally 15 minutes of attempts- but couldn’t do it. I decided to try to sleep until someone else woke up, but by 10 no one had moved and I was very awake. I gave the door one last tug but it was stubborn. I knocked on the door of a room where I assumed I would find my older host brother and/or his girlfriend. Hearing nothing, I cracked it open and saw a girl who I didn’t know sit up in bed and a dog who was with her get up and come over to be pet by me. The girl looked about my age and was clearly even more confused that I was. “Nemuzu...open the door” I tried to explain. She finally understood and battled the door herself, but she had no more success than I. We ended up calling my host brother’s girlfriend, who after trying to give us instructions over the phone told us that she was coming home in a half hour anyway. (If you’re confused about this story, good, because that’s exactly how I felt while these events were happening.) The girl looked at me and we tried to talk but quickly discovered that she didn’t know any English and I didn’t know nearly enough Czech. She offered, “Coffee? Tea? Cigarette?” and I accepted the tea. She then asked, “I am hungry?” and I answered no, hoping that she wasn’t. We went back into the room she had been sleeping in and watched the movie “The Santa Claus” dubbed in Czech.

My host brother arrived at the house and had no trouble getting in from outside. It turns out the girl was their friend. I didn’t ask too many more questions because things were already confused enough. I got back to the house at about 12 and took a much-needed shower. I’m not a napper, even after a 2-hour sleep night, so I headed back into Prague to do some last Christmas errands. Mid-afternoon, I stopped at a heralded creperie/cafe to get some food. As I was eating, a guy entered and I recognized him as the student who had been with the famous author I met and then stood up. It was one of those very awkward “should I say something?” situations, and I (being who I am) of course decided to keep quiet. As I was leaving, however, he said, “Hey, are you American? I mean, of course you are American, but...”. Since this query was more awkward than anything I could say (and also a bit ego-deflating), I admitted that yes, I was this certain American and I remembered him from Kabinet (the café where we had met). We talked for awhile and he said that neither he nor my famous author had been able to keep our date, but that they had wondered about me often in the past month (!!!!!) and were hoping that I didn’t think they were rude. I told him that I hadn’t made it, either, and had the same concern. He insisted that I write down his number and call the next time I’m in Prague (even if it’s not for five years) so that we can reunite and I can tell the famous author what I thought of the Hrabal book.

Excited by that, I went to the train station and waited in line for over and hour to buy tickets for my family. On the metro to Tesco, I was accosted by one of the transportation patrol ticket-checker men. Now, the entire time I’ve been here I’ve had a school-purchased three-month pass, so I never had to worry about any tickets. I had a vague notion that my pass had expired on Monday, but I hadn’t let this thought fully enter the “knowing” section of my brain. This fact did not escape the ticket-checker, the heartless, scheming, terrible ticket-checker. He called over a fellow marshal and as they exchanged a cruel grin my heart sank. They asked where I was from. They asked for my passport (of course I didn’t have my passport with me!). Then one said in a threatening voice, “Well, what will we do? You have no ticket, you have no money, you have no passport...” “I HAVE MONEY” I almost screamed. I ended up paying 500 crowns, which is about $25. From the glance that passed between the men I’m fairly certain they will pocket at least half of that, but it could have been worse. The worst part is that I had just bought tickets for when my family is here, and this was literally the second to last time I was going to use the transportation without a ticket. Cruel, cruel world.

Last story: I made my way to TESCO (like a Super-Walmart or Super-Target) for tissue paper. Earlier in the week I bought gift bags, but they didn’t have tissue paper. There was still no tissue paper. I went to another TESCO and found no tissue paper. Finally the last store I tried had tissue paper, but only lavendar or seafoam green (not exactly complementary to my bright red giftbags) and only in packs of 2 sheets of tissue paper. Who in their right mind only needs 2 sheets of tissue paper?!?! This is very common, I can’t tell you how many times Elena has been looking for something only to find that the store is out. She complains, but she also expects it. I tell you this story because it proves I’m not a true Czech- a true Czech would have gone in search of tissue paper, been exasperated at the lack of tissue paper, complained about there being no tissue paper, but then come home with the knowledge that they had stocked up on tissue paper last Christmas and there was no real problem. I, on the other hand, cannot yet plan this far in advance. But I’m learning...

Okay, this is really long and probably fairly convoluted and hard to read- I’m still recovering from the lack of sleep two nights ago. My family comes tomorrow (!!!!!!!) and I can’t wait. I probably won’t update this for over two weeks, and I’m not sure what I’ll do as far as this blog when I’m back in the states. Suggestions?

525,600 Minutes

2007-12-18T21:52:00.000+01:00

I’ve been so good about writing lately that I’m making myself keep it up, but I’ll admit I don’t have the will to organize, so some scattered items:

- It is COLD in this house. So cold that I’ve been going to bed earlier and earlier because under my comforter is the only guaranteed non-shiver location. The house doesn’t have central heating, so we have to keep all of the doors closed, and in the hallway/staircase, which isn’t heated at all, I imagine that it’s colder than it is outside. Of course this isn’t true, but it’s close, and that cold creeps into all of the rooms. This is true of all of the Czech houses I’ve heard of- one of my friends confessed she spends her evenings hugging the heater- but it’s still not pleasant. In addition, the heating in the kitchen, which used to be the warmest room in the house, recently broke, so now the other rooms downstairs must try to compensate, and my haven is gone. It’s survivable, of course, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating too much when I say it is very very cold.

- Today I saw maybe the most harrowing thing I’ve seen since I’ve been in Prague; I watched a taxi cut over the tram tracks and get plowed into by the tram. Prague has quite the reputation for crazy traffic, and according to Simon accidents dominate the news every night, but this was my first sighting. The passenger popped out of the taxi right away, but I never saw the driver emerge. The accident meant that my tram’s path was blocked, and I decided to switch to the metro rather than wait to see the outcome.

- Today also brought me perhaps the most beautiful Prague sight yet: the view from Petrin Hill. I view Petrin an average of 8 times a day, but I had not yet made my way to the top. I decided to forego the draw of the famous cable car and trek up by foot- a choice I don’t regret. Petrin is crowed by a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower, in a somewhat humorous and certainly meager gesture by Praguers eager to see themselves as part of Eastern Europe. I again chose to stay on ground and watch the sunset from the paths which weave through the park. It was the first sunny day in a long time, which meant that my evening was beautiful.

- Last night Elena asked if I wanted to learn how to make Cabbage soup. Of course I did, so I watched and even got to stir. I think I can replicate it fairly easily. The key step, she explained, is boiling the cabbage separately first to “remove the bad water so it does not make you fart.” That’s a paraphrase, not an exact quote, but I think I came close. It did make some very good soup. I then hung around to see if she would let me help with anything else. She had premade dough for gingerbread cookies (only 1/3 of the amout she usually makes, she said, though we still produced well over 300 cookies), and she was rolling them out, cutting them, and then baking. I hoped to be able to flourish a cookie cutter, but was judged not yet fit for that job. I did, however, get to brush egg over the cookies as they came out of the oven to make them shiny, which was more fun anyway. Elena was not pleased with the resulting cookies, but assured me it was not my fault- she had used a different recipe than usual. I find this hard to believe, since I have not so much as heard the word recipe spoken since I came to Prague, but at least it takes me off the hook.

- I think I keep forgetting to tell two stories about Czechs which have greatly endeared them to me (have I already written about these? If so, sorry). Both were told to me during my history lessons and both involve their resistance to outside rule. The first is that during the previews to movies, when the screen played either Nazi or Communist rhetoric, everyone in the movie theater would whistle so as to not hear the message. The second is that in 1969 when the Soviets re-invaded Prague, the Praguers did not put up any physical barriers but they did take down all of the street signs. Prague is hard enough to navigate with full labeling, so it makes me chuckle to think of the tanks getting lost on their way to Staromeska namesti. Prague to this day is notoriously difficult to traverse, and while the signs for public transport are informative, they are also very small and usually hidden. I like to think of the Czechs protecting their city from tourists (and me, I guess) in the same way they guarded it against the Communists.

Weekend Update

2007-12-17T11:58:00.000+01:00

My new favorite Czech word is “drb”. It means “gossip”, but I like it better for its phonetics than for its meaning. I haven’t had much “drb” in my head lately- though our group has certainly supplied plenty, there’s something about the end that makes the silly stories that came between much less important.

On Saturday I spent the day with my fellow students, most of whom flew out this morning. We hit our favorite café/pub, Krasny Straty (It means “beautiful losses”, and I was actually there two distint times Saturday alone), but ended up at a new place, a pub called Mlyn (mill) on Kampa, the island between Malostrana and the river. It was a pleasant night and a fitting goodbye. I’m sounding sentimental now, but I really don’t feel that sad. The few good friends I’ve made here I expect to see again- it’s more the end of the experience that’s getting to me.

Sunday was a stark contrast to Saturday as it was a day of domesticity. I was “helping” Elena prepare for a party that night, which meant that I performed small jobs and then waited patiently for her to find something else that I couldn’t screw up. I did get to see her prepare poppyseed, which is a first for me. We put it through a mincer, and though I couldn’t tell the difference between pre- and post- mince poppyseed, it was apparently much smaller and better. The quantity of poppyseed in the house right now is enormous, and I’m curious to see in what form we eat it. Elena had me eat a plain spoonfull, and I guess it was good, though I can’t imagine eating it like that all of the time. We also made about a billion of these marshmallow-like things. We sqeezed the batter out of a bag (I felt like the Target cake lady) onto cookie sheets and then baked them, and they are delicious, though I don’t know what they are.
The actual party began at 5. It was partially a Christmas party but mostly a surprise celebration for Elena’s 90 year old aunt, Verunka. Verunka, or Vera, herself was a tiny woman but very strong-willed. Everyone kept telling me she was in a bad mood, but I couldn’t tell myself. Apparently she was a specialist in Oriental culture. Three of her friends were here, and they all had studied some part of “The West”—one was an expert on India, one on China, etc. I bet they were having phenomenal conversations, and I would have loved to hear the Czech perspective on the culture, but alas I heard only Czech. It was hard to focus on anything, actually, because there were about 20 people in the house, which is a lot for this house, all trying to sqeeze around the table to eat, etc. It was really overwhelming. At first I was understanding a lot but I soon grew tired and couldn’t listen as carefully anymore. We ate a ton, of course- two pasta dishes, something I would call cabbage-tomato soup, and two cakes- one with strawberry and bananas, the other with pineapple. Otherwise, the night was pretty unremarkable. I can't wait for a family gathering that includes my real family!

Closing Time

2007-12-14T21:49:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday night after everyone finished presenting, we had a big farewell party for all of our host families, advisors, etc. It was more fun than I expected, but I was exhausted and got back to the house at like 11. Simon ended up staying afterwards with some of the people from the program, which is cool. After I got back I talked to my mom on Skype and did some emailing, then went to bed.

The next day my fellow students and I left for a retreat in a northern region of the Czech Republic called Ceske Svycarsko, or Czech Switzerland. More on that in a bit. That night, I saw that I had a message on my phone from Elena. It read (and I quote exactly), “Claire are you ok? I heard desperate cry from your room on my way to bed last night. Why? Can I do something for you? Was Simon reason of sad? Big hug. E.” I of course could not figure out what she was talking about. I might have exclaimed or something while talking to my mom, but certainly I did not utter any sound worthy of the description “desperate cry”. I texted her back saying that I was fine and didn’t know what she heard but thanks for the concern, to which she replied, “Ok. Just tell me if problem will sometimes appear. Maybe homesick. Take care.” I have no idea what any of that is about, but I thought the whole situation was pretty amusing, and again, it’s nice to know that someone cares, even if they are hallucinating things to be worried about.

In any case, the day we left was pretty terrible, weather-wise, and because of the rain and the low-30s temperature, we didn’t have any of the snow I was hoping for, even in the mountains. These mountains, which I would classify more as large hills, were gorgeous nonetheless, and the drive up through huge pine trees, small rivers, and winding roads bordered by idyllic little cottages was amazing. Our pension was also adorable- everything was wood, yet it was fairly modern. There was a pub downstairs where we spent a lot of time and a lounge where we played a lot of games. I didn’t do much on Wednesday, but on Thursday I went for a long hike with a few friends. We basically climed a mountain and ended up at a pretty famous rock formation which looks like a gateway or a bridge. (Pictures are coming, I promise.) It was a great afternoon which ended with a quick jump across the German border, since we suddenly found ourselves right on it.

That night, we had a big end-of-the-program (most students leave on Monday, and this was our last organized activity) feast which featured goose, dumplings, saurkraut, pickled cabbage, and wine, all of which was delicious. Then I was the star of a mini graduation ceremony which they organized to celebrate my completion of college. It was really cute, and I appreciate their congratulations. I donned a paper hat and received a delightful Czech diploma and a fortune teller which predicts my future. Though it was sweet, I was a bit embarrassed, so to my delight it was a short event, followed by a nostalgic slideshow of pictures from our time on the program. It was a little sappy for my taste, but I have found myself feeling pretty sad lately when I realize that the semester is already over (perhaps I did let out a desperate cry...? Naw...).

Today we wandered around the tiny town we were in. I’ll have to show you pictures, but for now just know that all of the cottages were adorable, old, and looked very German. It was strange to see so much German writing, too- almost as much as Czech. It gave the German forth of my blood a pleasurable tingle. The town looked extremely deserted, probably because most of the houses were Czech families’ weekend cottages, but also just because everything is so old and half run-down.

It did start snowing as we were leaving, though by the time we got to Prague we were treated by a gorgeous sunset and there was no snow in sight. On my walk up the hill back to the house, I noticed a sudden influx of Christmas lights in the neighborhood. By this I mean that about every third house now has a single strand of lights displayed outside. Sometimes it is around a window, sometimes decorating a tree, but there is never more than one strand per house. Though the effect can’t compare to the spectacles of US Christmas lights, the modest twinkling somehow seemed much more Christmassy tonight. It’s going to be hard to leave.

The Bold and the Beautiful

2007-12-12T00:33:00.000+01:00

I’m done. My presentation went well. I am relieved to be done. People keep asking me how good it feels, and it’s sort of like on your birthday when people ask you how you feel to be older and you don’t feel any different and then you worry that you should feel different but you don’t know how you’re supposed to feel because you haven’t ever been that old yet, so you end up not really knowing what you’re feeling at all...that’s how I feel about my being done, I think. I’m also a little wrapped up with wrapping up this whole semester, so being done with school is not at all real to me yet.

Enough of that, it’s time for the long awaited answer to the question “Are Czech people attractive?” In short, the answer is “I don’t know.” Had I (prematurely) written this entry a month ago, I would have said, “No, they are generally very normal-looking. People in Bratislava (Slovakia) were definitely very attractive, however.” BUT, now that I am a month older and many experiences wiser, I’m starting to think that Czech people are inded the most beautiful people in the world. I should be cautious, because maybe the people I’m seeing are tourists (though they speak awfully good Czech for being tourists), or maybe I’m just so desperate for good-looking people that I’ve lowered my standard (though that usually doesn’t happen at Carleton, where it is much more necessary, haha), but I really think that I’m just now able to objectively say that the Czechs seem to peak in the wintertime, and they are certainly lookin’ good now.

From the beginning, all of the (3) guys in my group decided that they were crazy about Czech girls. They said that every single Czech woman they saw was gorgeous, and that even Czechs with “flaws” (their words) were more beautiful than any other people without. I think that they were responding to a certain “real-ness” that the people here have; the women don’t wear much makeup, their clothes aren’t extravagant, provocative, or even particularly flattering, and they aren’t worried about something being out-of-place—they are extremely confident and clearly comfortable with themselves. When I’m out in the US, sometimes I feel like other females are constantly judging my appearance or are perpetually thinking about their own, and here I have none of that sense at all. How attractive you are is just not as important, and that’s nice. This does lead to some strange choices, like the old women with pink or blue hair, but even that is endearing.

That said, while this “real-ness” does wonders for a woman’s beauty, it can’t accomplish as much for men, who generally aren’t as fake or as worried about appearance as women anyway and therefore can’t gain as much from losing those traits. Men are constantly grumpy-looking or uninterested in what is going on, but when they finally do engage or smile they do have a certain charm and genuity that is refreshing. Pozor (“pozor” means “beware”), however, because with men this real thing can go too far very quickly. First of all, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve noticed a cute guy on the metro only to realize that there’s a girl sitting on his lap. Even worse is when I notice that he doesn’t give up his seat. But the WORST is the hair issue. Frequently, frequently, I will see a guy on the tram or outside waiting for the bus and start to think that he’s cute, but then he turns his head to reveal a gigantic rat-tail. I am a laid-back person and I can deal with many things, maybe even a mullet (which is also quite popular among Czech lads), but a rat-tail is a solid deal-breaker, no questions asked.

In conclusion, Czech people are definitely good-looking, especially when just focusing on facial features, but also taking into account how awesomely genuine their appearances are. However, before you enter a relationship with a cute Czech boy I would make it clear that while you support him and his choices you will never, ever, under no circumstances, be seen with a rat-tail. (even though your host family has a rat.)

Beginning of the End

2007-12-09T11:58:00.000+01:00

Well, I’m sorry about my lack of posting recently. I’d give some reasons, but I’m reminded of the poster hanging in the weight room of the SP high school saying “No excuses, just results,” so I’ll just do better instead.

I did use up a lot of words this week completing my independent study project paper, which ended up at a whopping 34 pages, not counting the title page, abstract, bibliography, appendix, etc. I planned to post it on here but I didn’t have time to fine-tune it, or really even proofread it, and the thought of people reading it and then telling me about typos or something makes me feel a bit ill. Besides, I would like to get feedback and questions, so I would rather talk about it with you sometime, so next time you see me you can make my day by bringing it up. I do have to continue thinking about the subject a little, because on Monday I have to deliver a 20-minute presentantion on it, but after that I am done with college. I don’t know exactly how I feel about that yet, but I think I’m mostly happy about it.

While last week I devoted around 12 hours a day to sitting in school trying to write, this week should be much more of an adventure. Monday and Tuesday we have presentations, and I’m really looking forward to hearing about everyone’s project because I am a nerd. After that we head out to the Czech countryside for a three-day “retreat” and program wrap-up, and then the program is done. I originally planned to have an amazing adventure the week between that and when my family gets here, but for various reasons that’s not going to work out. It’s probably for the best, because I have a lot of little things to take care of in Prague, and I’m hoping I can help out with Christmas preparations so that Elena doesn’t develop a hernia, which might happen anyway. She’s been going a million miles a minute and takes every opportunity to tell me how tired she is and complain that “the men” don’t help her with anything. Last night she told me that Jan was at a meeting at the Elementary School, and when I questioned why she said sarcastically “Because you know it is very important for men to be out of the house when Christmas is coming.” It was so funny. She’s been very sweet to me lately, though, and I do feel sorry for her, but she’s so overdramatic it’s hard to be truly sympathetic.

Oh, and I should tell you about “Nikolas Day”. Czechs celebrate St. Nicholas Day the night before (so December 5). Traditionally, adults would dress up in groups of three, one as an angel, one as a devil, and one as St. Nicholas. They would visit children (arranged by the parents) and the devil would glare threateningly while they interrogated the kids about their behavior the past year. The devil carries a bag and chain for the sole purpose of “carrying the child off to hell” if they were bad. It’s quite terrifying, and I’ve heard many stories from adults about being scarred for life because of their fear of this devil. The devil makes a very specific noise, but I don’t know how to type it, so ask me to show you sometime. (Does the devil make a noise in English?) In any case, when it has been decided that the child has been good enough, the devil leaves and the angel and St. Nicholas make him/her preform a song or quote a poem, then leave candy, coal, oranges, etc. That was how it used to work. Now, kids dress up too and it’s more of a Halloweeny-Christmas extravaganza (out on the street everyone I passed was one of the three; and though there’s not much freedom as far as costume they get pretty creative). My host family didn’t do this, but late at night Elena called me downstairs where she had prepared a spread of various nuts, dates, and pineapple. As we were eating she said, “The children should look behind the curtains,” and when Simon and I did we found gift bags packed with peanuts, walnuts, oranges, and some chocolate. It was very cute, and also cool because when I was little “St. Nick” in the form of my parents always gave me oranges (which were okay) and peanuts (which I didn’t like), and I thought it was a bit rude of him, but I have renewed enthusiasm for these gifts because I now understand they are a remnant of my Czech heritage.

A (Czech) American in Paris (and Amsterdam)

2007-12-03T20:31:00.000+01:00

Today is Monday. I got back on Saturday, and Elena was gone for the weekend. Tonight when I returned to the house, I was immediately pressured into trying “slenina” (no idea how to spell that). Whatever it’s called, it is a hunk of fat literally the size of a brick (about 2.5 inches tall, 3.5 inches wide, and 8 inches long. Apparently it comes from a pig, and is the layer between the skin and the meat. Elena cut off some of it with a knife (like butter) and spread it on a piece of bread for me. All I can say is gross gross gross gross gross. It tasted okay, much like bacon, but I couldn’t stop looking at the white chunk of pure fat sitting on the table and imagining it on me or on a pig (I don’t know which is worse). They LOVE it and have polished off half of the brick already. GROSS.

So yes, I think that means I’m officially back in the Czech Republic. I’m just okay with that right now- I had a great time, and I was welcomed back by my project deadline looming over me and a slenina-like weight of homesickness in my tummy. But my trip was definitely one worth remembering. I’ll just summarize for you.

I was in the airport for too long (this is a story you should ask me to tell you sometime) Monday night, and my flight left at 6:30 in the morning. I met up with my friend Russell in Amsterdam, which is an absolutely darling city. It was smaller and cuter than I expected. I was the most delighted by the plethora of bikes and flower-stands running along the canals. We spent a lot of time wandering around the city (which is rather small), exploring a few museums, and admiring just the chill atmosphere. We did accidentally wander into the Red Light District while failing to find Anne Frank’s house (I realize this is a strange juxtaposition), and while it was an interesting sight I’m glad we didn’t spend too much time there.

We were only there for two days, and on the second night we boarded a bus to Paris. In retrospect it was sort of funny, but at the time it was quite miserable, and I don’t recommend trying to sleep on an 8-hour overnight bus ride. We got to Paris early in the morning and dropped our things off at the hostel, then Russell showed me around the main sights of the city (where he had been before). Maybe it was the early-morning light, but for me Paris was love at first sight. I have never been in such a beautiful city. The scale was so much grander than anything I had ever seen before, and maybe this is nerdy but the symmetry and alignment of the buildings was absolutely remarkable. The first thing I saw was Notre Dame, which seemed impossibly large and creepy (definitely the perfect place for a hunchback). Later, we went inside, and the interior was equally overwhelming. My favorite thing by far, however, was the Louvre. I can’t describe to you how huge it is, and the only word I can think to describe it is majestic. I really have no words to describe to you the effect it had on me, I’ve never felt the grandness of something so much before. We entered it through the courtyard, then went out front and saw the glass pyramids and fountains and looked down through the park in front to see a gigantic Ferris Wheel (which we rode, upon my insistence) and beautiful arcs. We returned later after it had cleared and I realized that you could actually see the Eiffel tower from there, too.

We saw everything both during the day and at night, which is a crucial recommendation for anyone going to Paris, since every building’s beauty changes depending on the light. I’m going to just list the other things we saw, since I literally have no words to describe to you how amazing and absolutely Parisian everything was: we toured the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay, walked down the Champs-Elysees, saw the Arc de Triomphe and the Opera House, perused the Galeries Lafayette (a huge department store), marvelled at the Eiffel Tower, and of course ate a lot. One of my favorite parts was just walking down the streets near our hostel, which were full of stands selling every type of fresh produce imaginable, and of course lots of other things, as well. Just as I had hoped, there were millions of cafes and bridges and ah, everything was perfect. I keep saying this, but Paris was one of the few things in my life that has exceeded my expectations by so much, and that’s saying a lot because I had very high expectations. It was exactly as I had imagined Paris to be, but better. I have no words.

I’d better find some words, though, because my 30-page culmination of my project is due on Friday. I think I’m going to school for the whole day tomorrow- it’s open from 10am to 10pm. We’ll see how that goes, wish me luck.

brb

2007-11-26T15:21:00.000+01:00

Not much new, just wanted to let you know that I'm heading out to Amsterdam and Paris for the next few days, so I won't be updating in a while. I should have some stories when I get back, though :). Take care and stay warm; I almost got blown away in a snowstorm today, but now it's sunny. Good thing I was trained in Wisconsin.

Fakt Jo?

2007-11-23T21:34:00.000+01:00

First of all, let me say that I realize that I have been making some mistakes in this blog. Some cringe-worthy mistakes, like making an allusion to Emerson when I mean Thoreau and spelling Hrabal’s name wrong consistently. In my defense, I noticed this on my own (suddenly and spontaneously, actually, while walking through Old Town. I feel like the aura of the intelligencia struck me and forced me to recall my faux pas (though it gave me no clue regarding how to pluralize “faux pas”)). So, I apologize for that and I think we can all take away a lesson about not believing everything you read on the internet.

I (personally- haha) took away a message about the power of my subconcious—a part of me which has been increasingly using Czech, or actually one Czech phrase: fakt jo. Yes, it’s pronounced “f***ed yo” and when uttered in the presence of at least two Americans, it’s guarenteed to elicit at least one childish giggle. It means “Really” as in “Truthfully” or “Is that right?”. It comes from the word “fact”, which makes a lot of sense, but the pronounciation is delightfully slated towards the more vulgar “auh” vowel sound. In any case, it’s certainly in my vocabulary, and I’ve been using it a lot recently, since many strange things have happened.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and on Thanksgiving I spent three hours in a Czech hospital. I am fine—thank you for the concern—I was interviewing a woman who had just had surgery near her spinal cord. I had emailed another round of contacts early this week asking if they had time to meet with me and answer a few questions. This woman, who works for the Ministry of Education, said, “Sure, I’m avaliable all week. I am in the hospital and visiting hours are yaddayadda.” Needless to say, I was intrigued, and also felt like I couldn’t say no after she offered to speak with me in the hospital. She gave me impecible (is that spelled right?) directions, and sure enough it was a real hospital and I really went to the Neurological ward. I guess I expected her to be in fairly good condition, but that wasn’t exactly the case. She had an IV in her arm, she didn’t sit up the whole time I was there, and she was clearly very physically weak. She was in a room with two other patients who were maybe in worse health than she. There was a strong hospital smell. It was the real thing.

I can report, though, that she’s supposedly going to be healthy enough to leave and fly on Monday, since she has plans to leave the country for business, so it must be better than it looks. In any case, she talked with me for over three hours. She was extremely intelligent and a really first-class lady—very well-versed in the issues and up-to-date on multiculturism and discrimination even by US standards. It was an enlightening and thought-provoking afternoon for me. I must say that she dominated the conversation (I am terrible at controlling interviews because I tend to just like to listen, and with someone like this, who was so interesting, it was impossible to interrupt), and I ended up only asking about two of the questions I had planned on, but it was really fascinating stuff. The sad part was that I think she was lonely and very much in need of visitors, which is partially why she was so excited to talk to me. I don’t think she knew it was Thanksgiving (not that it matters to anyone here), but I sort of needed someone to talk to, as well, so it was a good but exhausting afternoon.

At night, my director organized a Thanksgiving dinner for those of us still in Prague and some of her Czech friends. We had most of the traditional food, so I was satiated that way, and it was good company overall. No Packers, but I heard that they won, so that was okay. The best part of the night was that Simon came, and he had a really great time (or so he kept telling me—I think he had more wine than he should have). He asked me when I was leaving, and when I told him at the end of December, he was surprised and got sort of quiet. Later, he mentioned that it was too bad that I’d miss his birthday, and then still later he brought it up again and said that he had already bought me a ticket to this party that the school throws in January, and that it was a pity I wouldn’t be there. I don’t know what changed (we did cook “cow brains” together the night before, which was fun but not that big of an ordeal), but suddenly he likes me and maybe it’s silly but I mention it because it means a lot to me, I guess. Anyway, he also told me that today he’s getting a haircut!! (I don’t know if you recall, but he has huge curly afro-hair right now), but he wouldn’t tell me how he’s getting it cut, only that it involves a black-and-green dye job. I’m not sure whether his parents know any of this (they certainly are campaigning for him to get a haircut, but probably not whatever he’s getting), so it should be interesting when he gets back.

Today I had an interview, facilitated by (translated by) my advisor, with another really amazing woman. This time it was a Roma woman who used to organize a program for training Roma TAs and who now is a special education teacher (in a classroom with children with Autism and other learning disabilities, not with Roma students). We were in a café, and in the middle of our talk, the electricity went out. The “fakt jo” part was that nobody in the café reacted; we all went on talking, etc. just like nothing happened. Eventually, it came back on, but I was in awe of the composure of the group.

Yesterday I was near Andel, a large shopping mall, and I noticed that people were setting up many many stands, presumably for Christmas markets. I was a bit surprised about the location, but since it’s near a mall, I didn’t think twice. Today, however, I found similar set-ups had suddenly appeared in several other “empty” spaces that were not so logical, like right outside a church. This city is exploding with Christmas markets. It’s exciting, but overwhelming.

My friends have all remarked on old ladies here who have dyed their hair pink or blue—a common phenomenon in Prague, according to an inside source (a fellow student’s Czech boyfriend). I finally spotted my first pink-haired woman yesterday, and since then they’ve been everywhere. It’s hilarious, and I guess it’s intentional on their part.

I have a lot to look forward to right now, and suddenly a lot to do. I hope that you all had a Happy Thanksgiving.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

2007-11-21T09:52:00.000+01:00

The tourists are back. Already. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but I’ve noticed a marked increase in the amount of people around and the amount of English (or other non-Czech language) I’m hearing. I’m a little annoyed by this for two reasons. The first is that everything is more crowded, which means I bump into people a lot. The second is that having tourists around seems to expose my own inadequacies as a non-Praguer. When they look confused, I too start feeling confused. When they stare at the man playing the accordian (whom I’ve passed almost daily), I start staring at the man with the accordian. And when they ask me for directions, there’s inevitably a dreadful pause while I try to translate the route as I know it (turn left at the funny building, go around the café where I first ate medovnik, take the funny little alleyway thing, etc) into something that they can understand (which I’ve had limited success with). It’s also unbelievable how startled I am when people make eye contact with me, let alone when they start talking to me, because honestly Praguers just don’t do it, so it always takes a moment before I can respond.

The mass of tourists (by the way, I do realize that I’m a tourist, I just feel a bit more knowledgeable than the newbies) currently seems to be British and Irish men who (and of course I’m generalizing) seem to view Prague as a playplace where you can get cheap beer. The other day one of these Irish blokes started talking to me and by the end had claimed to be heir to the Cadbury chocolate company. I sort of believe him, and this is officially an apology to my future children, whom I have now cheated out of a very sweet life by not making the most of this meeting.

Along with this, I've ended up in a few malls lately, which have proved that as I suspected, malls are the same everywhere. In fact, the Prague malls are perhaps more impressive "Churches of Consumers" (as my advisor joked) than the ones in the US (yes, even the mall of America). This is most likely because they are NEW, very very new, and now dazzling with Chrismas decor. The Christmas season is here with a vengeance. One of the strange things I've noticed to go along with this is that there are a lot more people begging on the streets. Over the last two months, I've only ever seen one man begging, always by the Charles Bridge. This past week, I've seen maybe ten men doing the same thing in various places. I'm not sure what to think about this. I guess it's smart business practice for them to be out when the tourists are around, but I do have to wonder what they're doing the rest of the time.

I’ve been home pretty early most nights this week, but last night I had a late interview (more on that in a second) and then went to a performance and stayed out afterwards. Whenever I’m not going to be back at the house for dinner, I send Elena a message, but for some reason last night I completely forgot. I finally remembered mid-play, so immediately afterwards I let her know (she had already sent me a message checking to make sure I was okay) that I’d be home late. I got back to the house at 1am, and she was still awake. She said, “Usually I would go to bed but I had a feeling tonight that I wanted to wait until you came back I apologized for keeping her up, but she brushed it off and made me drink tea and eat a pastry. I felt bad, but it was really sweet of her, and we had a good talk.

Like I said, last night I had a late interview. My advisor set up a meeting with a Roma TA, but we were trying to catch her at an event arranged by the school (which is not a special school, but is 90% Roma). When we got there they were about to start a dance performance, so I asked if we had time to watch. We did and watched the students do some dance numbers. It was really fun- they were all in awesome colorful dresses and clearly loved what they were doing. When it was done, there were refreshments, and then we tried to meet with the Roma TA. She was already leaving, so I ended up talking to her (with my advisor translating) for about five minutes outside without a coat while she and my advisor smoked (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that yet, but everyone smokes, and the pubs/restraunts are often pretty gross, air-wise). It wasn’t the most professional interview I’ve ever conducted, but she was nice and I got some good information. I guess I told that story in the hopes to illustrate what a crazy process this project is dragging me through. I just heard back from another contact who is currently in the hospital and told me that I can meet with her during visitors hours there. Nice, I guess, but strange.

Hm. I thought I had more to say but I guess that’s all for now. Hope you’re all well.

Pohoda

2007-11-18T11:53:00.000+01:00

Flashback to Wednesday: It’s morning, about 9:15 am, and I’m getting off of a tram according to the directions printed on the note clutched desperately in my hand. I follow down the street, take a quick right and then another right a few blocks later, find the stairs where they’re supposed to be, and I am exactly where my directions tell me to be, except for the address at the bottom. I am going to a press conference that I have been looking forward to all week. The press conference is in the CEELI institute. The address for the CEELI Institute is 58, but it’s not on a street, no, it’s in a park, in a fairly large park. I’ll spare you the tale of 45 minutes spent running around this entire park (in the cold rain/snow mixture, naturally), asking several people in Czech and getting blank stairs, and deciding to give up several times, and just tell you that of course I stumbled into the CEELI Institute at precisely 9:59 after realizing that it was in fact the first building I saw, unmarked and empty, 44 minutes ago. I should know better.

In any case, the press conference was amazing, both because I had never been to a press conference before and because it was on a really exciting topic. Eight years ago 18 Roma students and their parents, with the help of the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), had sued the Czech Republic for discriminating against them by placing them in special, segregated schools. On Tuesday, the court finally ruled in their favor. It was a pretty huge case, and the first of its kind in a legal court. Czech out http://www.justiceinitiative.org/db/resource2?res_id=103938 (I have a hard copy that I got in my “press pack” if you’re interested- Impressed?) for a much more objective report of the case and result. I like to think of it as on the same plane as Brown v. Board of Education, because it’s really the exact same issue. Unfortunately, this ruling will not be as monumental because, though the court has ordered the CR to de-segregate, that doesn’t really mean much in practical terms. That’s the really frustrating thing that I’m finding in my project: Countless organizations have told the CR that they have to change, and countless times the CR has said that they’re going to or has taken steps like changing the name of the schools so they’re “no longer for special needs”, but nothing real is actually happening. Talk about banging your head against a wall; I can’t imagine working for real on this case and having the Ministry tell you all of the things they’ve “done” and seeing that nothing ever changes, and it’s all just rhetoric.

But enough on that, the press conference was cool and very official. I ended up sitting right next to some of the Roma students, who were treated like celebrities, and this resulted in a half-second of half of me being on the news that night while they were filming the woman next to me. I was hoping to talk to some of the Roma students, but they didn’t speak English, so that was the end of that.

I’m not really sure what’s happening with my project right now. I’m a little frustrated because I had a lot of plans and ideas and I’m being told that it’s not feasible to do what I want to do, which may be true, but things are going from very ambitious to very lame. I’m trying to find some sort of middle ground so that I can still produce something I feel proud of, but I don’t know that I’m going to be able to even observe in a school, which is really disappointing and will result in a pretty worthless report. To be fair, there are a lot of barriers (language being the big one and people not wanting me poking around being the second most debilitating), but I feel like it would still be possible to do a lot more than is being planned for me. The other frustrating aspect is that I had been lining up interviews, etc, on my own, and I’ve been encouraged to let my advisor take that over. My advisor is AMAZING, but he’s not the best as far as organization, and he sees the scope of the project as much smaller than I do. Also, his idea of being helpful is to do things like do interviews for me, so that he can use Czech, which is indeed very helpful but not exactly helping me, if you know what I mean.

Sorry, that was a lot of complaining. It’s really silly, actually, because this project is so short and there’s no way that I could do the things I want to do in that time. Also, I’ve had to laugh at myself a lot lately because I had two days in a row with a lot of down time and that’s been driving me crazy and making me feel useless. I need to learn how to relax a little and that it’s okay to not be going full steam every second of every day. We’ll see how this week goes I guess.

Yesterday I went to a ceramics workshop with Elena. It was held at a local school, and I made a dragon. Haha. We all got big lumps of clay and the woman showed us how to make these really cool teapot-ish things (Egyptian, I think). I was a little intimidated at first, but comforted when I saw that the majority of people there were around the age of 8 (or their parents). Needless to say, my pot was around the fifth best, if I do say so myself. Elena said it was hezky. She made a type of mountain-goat thing. The coolest part was that we were there for over three hours (everyone was), just working and decorating. I thought that would never happen in the US because everyone’s always in such a hurry to get somewhere else. There were several “stopping points” where people could have just said, “okay, done” and been done, but everyone kept adding details and getting really creative. It was great, relaxing, and good to make something.

Before that, Elena “showed” me how to make dumplings. I suppose the word show doesn’t need quotes since literally, I watched and she made them. I think I could maybe reproduce something similar. We made dumplings with marmalade in the middle, which we had for lunch, and then a big dumpling loaf to go with gulas at night. Today she had to leave and she asked me to check the meal in the oven after an hour and turn the oven off if it was done. I checked it, and turned off the oven, and just then I heard her call Jan to see if I had done it. Infuriating, but she’s really a sweetheart. It was nice to see her at this ceramics thing because she was in her element- she knows EVERYONE and really cares about the community, and she helped out everywhere she could (maybe too much, from their perspective, but it was sweet). Anyway, I’ll try to make dumplings when I get home. We’ll see...

Almost Famous

2007-11-15T20:10:00.000+01:00

Okay. This is honestly going to be hard for me to write because I am quite literally overcome with excitement. Today I realized one of my life dreams. I met a famous Czech author in a café. Ever since I have gotten to Prague and discovered that they do, in fact, sit in cafes and read and drink and talk all day, I got excited. And when I found out that famous Czech people actually hang out in very accesible cafes and that it was very likely that I was brushing elbows with at least one a day, I got very excited. Every time I enter a café (and I’m currently averaging like two a day; I’m not kidding, it’s a lifestyle here), I quickly scout around and decide who might be famous and try to sit close to them so that they’ll ask me about what I’m reading. Usually, of course, this effort is futile, useful only to entertain my overly active, melodramatic imagination. Today, though, the famous person chose me.

I was sitting in a café near my bus stop, Kabinet, which I’ve been to a few times before. Not long after I got there, an old-ish man came in with two women and sat at the table right next to me. Throughout the three hours I was there, people kept coming to his table and leaving, and pretty much everyone in the café said “dobry den” to him. This wasn’t that unusual; I figured he was a regular, and I was enjoying my research, and then my book, so I didn’t pay much attention. Fast forward until around 2, when I was thinking about leaving, and just one other young-ish guy was at the table with him. This man, who I now know is 56 but looks much older, turned around and pushed up the book that I was reading so that he could see the title. The book was “I Served the King of England” by Bohumil Hrabel. Hrabel is pretty much THE Czech author post- WWII, and this book happens to be one of his best (plus it was just made into a movie). He asked me whether I liked it, and started talking to me about some Czech literature and then asking questions about where I’m from, why I’m here, etc. The guy he was with looked slightly embarrassed, but helped the older man with some English and ended up talking to me a bit, too. Suddenly the younger one said to me, “He will hate this, but you should know that you are talking to a famous Czech author.”

Well. I almost fell out of my seat. I immediately wanted to ask him who he was and what he’d done and on and on but there’s really no tactful way to go about doing that, so I stared with my mouth open for a bit and then said, “You’re not Hrabel, are you?” He laughed and said he wasn’t (which was actually a relief to me, that would be too much), but admitted that Hrabel was his mentor (!!!!). It turns out he’s now teaching creative writing, and the guy with him, along with all of the other people who had come to his table, were his students.

He was perfect. Even before I knew he was famous, he was everything an old, cynical, slightly creepy, uber-intelligent, intense Czech author should be. Throughout our conversation, he kept trying to hint that I would make a great match with the student who was there. He said things like, “Can I buy you a drink? Something Irish?”. He asked me about all of the Czech literature I had read (thank goodness I’ve been reading Czech literature) and commented on what was worth reading and what wasn’t. He asked how long I was staying, then asked, “But what will your Czech boyfriend do when you leave?” When I told him that I didn’t have a Czech boyfriend, he said, “Ah, but that will change by Christmas...”. The best part of the whole conversation was when I asked, “So what are you doing now? Are you still writing, or just teaching, or do you have a new occupation or hobby?” He replied, “Now, I am drinking.” His student apologized and laughed and said, “He means that right now he is drinking...” (This was overwhelmingly obvious). The beauty of it was that I’m not sure that’s what the author did mean, and even if it was, his comment was witty and delivered with brilliance. It was straight out of a movie.

I had to leave fairly soon after we started talking, and at the end of our conversation, he asked me to tell him how I liked the end of the book after I finished reading it. I agreed, and he said, “When?” I sort of laughed, but we ended up making a “date” to meet back at the same café next Friday at “High noon” (his words- priceless! I’ve never met anyone at “high noon” before). I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to keep that meeting, but that might have changed...

He wouldn’t go into more details about who he was, but I ended up leaving at the same time as the student. As soon as we got outside I immediately begged him to tell me who this man was and what he had done. His name is Petr Sabach, and he is a REALLY BIG DEAL in the Czech Republic. He is among the top three bestselling authors currently, and many of his books have been made into movies, which are quite famous, as well. Unfortunately, none of the books have been translated into English, but get this- I got home and googled him and he wrote the book which was made into the movie that I watched on Monday night with Simon! It was called “Pupendo” and I really enjoyed it. It gets better.

I left the café and went to meet with my advisor for my project (who I like more and more, by the way). We were chatting and I mentioned that I had just lived a dream by meeting my first Czech author, and when I told him who it was, he said, “Oh, Petr Sabach? He was here yesterday doing a reading for us.” !!!!!! So, not only is this guy famous and an author and hilarious, but he’s also involved in the organization that I’m doing my project with. Though there’s a 90% chance that he doesn’t remember our “meeting” next week, I’m going to go for sure, because I would love to talk to him about how he got involved with Roma students.

I am pumped about this, clearly. It’s surreal for me because I imagined this type of encounter over and over but never thought it would really happen. Sigh. I’m a lucky, lucky girl. I’ve had an exciting week otherwise, too, including a VERY exciting press conference yesterday (which led to half of me being on Czech news last night !!! ), but I’ll save that for later.

State of the Republic

2007-11-13T20:29:00.000+01:00

some things about stuff you might want to know...

- Yesterday I got off the bus and suddenly someone came up behind me and said “Hey.” I was, naturally, startled, but it was just Simon. He had just been saying goodbye to his girlfriend ( !!! the plot thickens...) and was heading back to the house, too. He was in a fantastic mood, and reported that his parents said they would be home late, so we made dinner together (Elena, naturally, came home an hour later and made me another dinner, but don’t worry, I’m learning to plan ahead and not eat much either time) and watched a movie. I guess Mr. Hyde was sleeping or something, nevim how long this will last, but I no longer feel like I’m wrecking havoc on my host family.

- I realized today that I have a “regular” seat on the bus that I automatically go to. I had a moment of pause, thinking of Emerson and his damned worn path, and then I decided to forget convention and be comfortable for a bit. Besides, I’m doing all new things every day now, so one familiar route isn’t bad, is it?

- A sudden glut of broccoli has appeared in the house. Tonight, we had homemade broccoli soup and then broccoli cheese omeletes with mashed potatoes. I have been sneaking vegetables every now and then, but I have no idea how their systems are dealing with this sudden onslaught of vitamins and minerals. We had sour cream with the mashed potatoes, and they called it “funny mayonnaise.” I was giggling to myself that Simon seemed to cope with the veggies by supplementing sour cream for all of the fat content, and just then he said, “The good thing about this mayonnaise is that it covers the taste of the vegetables.” Last night we also had mashed potatoes, and I am not joking at all when I tell you that I made a mistake by letting Elena serve me, because she gave me enough sour cream to cover literally half of a regular-sized plate. The potatoes covered the other half. I, of course, ate most of the potatoes and only a little of the sour cream, and she promptly concluded that I don’t like sour cream. This is false. Tonight, then, she felt the need to explain to me that sour cream does have a lot of fat, but that’s why she mixes onions in it. To which I can only say, “Whaaat?!?”

- The weather here is GROSS. Each morning there is a new dusting of snow on the ground, but the sun is out. By the time I leave the house, it is either raining or snowing and very windy, and that lasts most of the day. Apparently last Saturday was the day of a certain Saint who, in the legends, “rides a white horse.” This has been interpreted to mean that Saturday will be the first day it snows, and miracle or science, it happened, and it hasn’t let up since. Also, it’s cold. I’ve taken to wearing nylons or thermals under my pants at all times, and even that’s not really cutting it. I’m just not used to it yet, but man. The house is also not cold, but never really warm, so that’s been hard for me. Thank goodness for my gigantic down comforter (I realize I have yet to describe my fabulous bed. Soon I will do just that.).

- I seriously considered morphing this blog into a sort of project journal for my ISP (Independent Study Project), but I decided that I want to keep my readership. Keeping that in mind, you do still have to put up with some of my yammering about cool things I’m learning/doing. I am really really pumped about my project all of a sudden. It’s been pretty hard for me to call people and set up meetings (I’m shy about that type of thing even in the US), and it feels really good to both set up and conduct interviews with people who are quite important (if I do say so myself) in the world of Czech Roma education. I still get pretty nervous every time I go to meet someone, but I think it will get easier, and as silly as it sounds I’m learning some pretty good life lessons. I have to say that doing a project like this is a pretty fabulous way to learn, and I’ll admit that all of the people who have been telling me “Well, there’s always the Watson...” now have me thinking, “Hey, I could do a Watson....” but that’s something to figure out much later. For now, I will continue down my pocket-protector, broken-glasses, too-short pants –worthy path, and take comfort in the fact that if I am a nerd because I like this project, at least I am a nerd in Prague.

- Zuzka (my friend from Olomouc) just sent me her essay to proof-read. She is applying to study in the US for a semester as part of her quest to attend Yale. It is so cute and so so funny. I feel bad posting the whole thing, but let me just show you the first sentence (mind you, this is all one sentence: “And so she was standing, alone but in a crowded place, her fingers were thrilled, her little delicate body was waving in the cold wind of the Monsieur Fall, she was so hot and so childlike, she was still standing and everything and everyone around her was running against new opportunities, and she was still standing- thinking about Rimbaud and his conviction, she was holding a big huge book , the title inscribe in the hardcover: Schindler`s list, of course it was an American edition, she was so exhausted of looking for the British one.” If you’re wondering “what in the world does any of that mean?” You’re thinking a lot like I am. I think that she got a little too ambitious and used the dictionary a little too much. Oh golly. Sometime when you need a pick-me-up I’ll let you read the whole thing, if you can manage

Postscript

2007-11-11T20:51:00.000+01:00

One last thing. My program forbade me to go into Prague on Saturday because of a Neo-Nazi march scheduled and the protests planned to stop it. Looks like it's a pretty good thing that I didn't go:

http://praguepost.com/articles/2007/11/07/police-detain-396-extremists.php

That site has details about the march and why it was so inflammatory, as well.

Family, note the street that's metioned (Pariska is I think how its spelled)-- that's the street our hotel is on. Hopefully there will be no Nazis in Prague for Christmas.

Strike.

2007-11-11T20:30:00.000+01:00

So Simon didn’t come, which was a bummer, but that was still an hour of my life worth commemorating.

Elena had told me that she called ahead and made a reservation for us, so imagine my surprise when we arrived at the alley (in the basement of a hotel) with only four lanes total, only one of which was in use. Despite the lack of quantity, the quality was surprisingly good, including the now-normal screens which played ridiculous videos and tracked the score electronically, and, more noticably, permanent black-light lighting (Elena joked that finally she felt like the clothes she washed were really getting clean, since all of the white looked so white). The most impressive feature was a speedometer that told you how fast your throw was after each bowl. The numbers, unfortunately, meant nothing to me, since they were in km/hr, but it was still a cool concept. Jan, however, seemed to take it more seriously. His method of bowling consisted of standing as far back as possible, getting a flying start, and then whipping the ball down with all his might. I had to admire his utter lack of attention to direction. He got really into it, jumping up and down when he did well, but he was still a good sport when he did poorly, which was sadly most of the time. You could tell he was getting frustrated when his delivery turned into him literally running down the lane before he threw. The more I think about it, the more he looks like a skinnier (but not skinny) Santa Claus.

Elena took the direct opposite approach; she would stand by the line, get set, take several wind-up/practice swings, and then let go. This was actually fairly effective, and you could tell she was very pleased. I really shouldn’t be making fun of them, since I’m sure they were amused by my stutter-step bowl. They both were extremely cute and very supportive of one another and of me. In fact, after almost every bowl, it was necessary to give another one of the appreciative “Hesky”s that I’m starting to know so well. After I bowled a spare I even got a “Dobrou Hesky!”

The other occupied lane housed one guy whose girlfriend sat watching him the whole time. Aftter he got a strike, she would give him a low high-five. He bowled at least three games by himself while we were there. It was so funny.

Also, there was a bar right next to the alley, and they were playing large music videos, so Justin Timberlake provided the melody for my bowling. It was awesome.

I should also point out that true to my Wisconsin gym-class training, I won both games (which were played at break-neck speed; once the person before you was done, you WENT- Megan you would have loved it), though not by much, and that’s not saying much. I was a bit thrown off by the fact that instead of the normal bowling lines/markers, the whole lane was painted like a road, complete with dotted lane markers going down the middle. These markings started where you were supposed to start your approach (I guess) which was a good ten feet back. So strange.

Housekeeping

2007-11-11T16:03:00.000+01:00

Well, it turned out to be a rather unprolific week as far as my blogging goes. When I don’t blog, do you picture me doing nothing blog-worthy or being too busy to relate my overwhelmingly exciting adventures? Last week was a mix of both. Probably the most remarkable thing I did was attend an International Conference on Community Schools, which was exactly as very important and very boring as it sounds. I also took two tests and gave a presentation in Czech for a full five minutes. I used almost every word I know and most words I had to use twice ;). That’s a stretch; taking the test proved to me that I did know a lot. Unfortunately, during the oral part of the test I got pretty nervous. I had to have a conversation in Czech with a man that I didn’t know while my teachers listened and graded me. At one point he asked me what my dad did, and instead of being smart and lying and saying that my dad was an actor, a teacher, a manager, or in economics (those are pretty much the only profession-words we know), I tried to describe with my limited Czech vocabulary what I can barely explain to people in English. Oh, well. My friends in the program and I have been communicating with each other in Czech frequently, which feels good. Last night we went to a restaurant and used nothing but Czech with the waitress, which is surprisingly difficult. Also, one guy complimented me on the Czech I used in a text message I sent to him, and I hadn’t realized that I was using Czech and not English.

I have had a remarkably low-key weekend, which relates to what I was aiming at and completely missing in the first paragraph: I’m really feeling home-y in Prague. I no longer stare open-mouthed at the castle, instead I use it for orientating myself. It’s not a big deal to walk into a café and order green tea and sit at my usual table. I have mastered the bus schedule to the point that I (almost) never get down the hill just in time to see it pull away. It’s strange to be comfortable in Prague, but good, too. This week I have some meetings scheduled for my project, but I also have a lot of free time with which I intend to do some more of the touristy things I haven’t done yet, which will be good, since time is running out.

I did intend to go into Prague this weekend, but yesterday the weather was awful and this morning I woke up to a blanket of snow (almost literally; there’s a skylight over my bed, so I could see that I was covered right when I woke up). I still wanted to trek into the city, but today my whole host family was home (they were all gone all day yesterday), so I’ve been spending some time with them most of the day. Elena is campaining fiercely for me to buy some boots (I didn’t bring any), and today I finally had to admit that she’s right. She didn’t bring it up at first, and I admired her restraint, but a little bit into lunch she couldn’t resist. Bugger. I had a great conversation with her after lunch because she started talking about her favorite topic- how “kids these days” are disrespectful and so on, and when I asked why she thought that was she got on her other favorite topic: Life Under Communism. Remind me to tell you about some of her stories sometime, because it’s really fascinating stuff. She’s very melodramatic about it, so I sometimes forget how serious it was, but it’s truly amazing that she grew up living such a different life.

Anyway, we circled back around to complaining about Simon, who is “Really very smart. I am his mother but I am not just saying that. He really is very smart but he is lazy and impatient and if you want something you have to work.” I nod sympathetically and think about how lazy and impatient I was when I was 16 and how lazy and impatient I’m sure she was when she was 16. Poor Simon. Today at lunch (which consisted of hotdogs wrapped in homemade buns and some palacinky cake that tasted a bit like bread pudding) they had a conversation in Czech that ended with him storming away from the table. I have no idea what it was about, but then Jan told me (through Elena’s translation) that he (Jan) feels bad that they are not at home very much and can’t spend much time with me, and that Simon is jealous of me because of that. So now I feel bad because first of all I’m not around that much either and they don’t have to spend that much time with me and also I really hope that Simon isn’t jealous of me, though that’s totally legitimate because I’m here taking up space in his house and taking attention away from him. Sigh. We’ll see. Also, I think we’re all going bowling tonight, which should be hilarious. Apparently Simon doesn’t want to go, and when I asked Elena whether he liked bowling she said “Yes he loves it but he does not like it with us”. I had to laugh because of all of the times Tim (sorry Tim) or even I, for that matter, didn’t want to do something with parents that we would normally like. Hopefully he’ll come, because I cannot imagine bowling with Jan and Elena. Well, I can, but it’s a very funny picture.

And that’s the current saga of my life. I’ll tell you more about my project soon. Also, please email me or leave a comment if there are things you want me to talk about that I haven’t brought up yet, because I’m getting so used to things that I don’t know what’s interesting anymore. Hope you’re all well.

Czechmate

2007-11-06T20:27:00.000+01:00

Today an old woman got on the bus and as I stood up quickly to let her sit down I saw a girl across the aisle do the same thing. I had already made eye contact with the woman, so she took my seat. I was a bit disturbed by how competetive and eventually triumphant I felt. This “altruism” might become an addiction if I’m not careful. I could write a whole novel about the things that happen on the bus. Sometime, remind me to tell you about my favorite bus driver, who, I realized today (for you Carleton people), looks exactly like Glen Perry. Weird.

I just got home from a 4-hour study session in a teahouse. It was strangely effective, and I can’t stop thinking about all of these topics. The most annoying question, which is unfortunately one of the focuses of our program (which maybe explains why it’s annoying now), is “What is Central Europe?” I suppose that before the program, I had never really thought about it- I think I could barely tell you which countries were in Central Europe- but by now it had become an extremely loaded term for me. We were out one night with a Czech guy and we asked him how he would define CE. He said, “Any place where you can get apple strudl.” It sounds stupid, but that’s one of the more accurate definitions you could probably give. As a cultural term (“Eastern Europe” is usually used as its political counterpart- it’s equally difficult to pin down), I find CE pretty arbitrary. The countries included (usually Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and others, but it really fluxuates) don’t really have that much in common, and since evidence of globalization (another tired topic) is everywhere, unique culture is hard to find anymore. In fact, I would argue that CE is losing its validity by the second, so use it now while it’s still semi-correct.

I could probably write a whole novel on globalization, but I wouldn’t want to because it’s boring and it’s been done. It has surprised me, however, how “modern” the Czech Republic is in the commercialized sense. I think I came in with some pretty romantic notions about how it would be simpler, more honest, less subject to consumerism, etc, and while that’s still the case in some ways, it’s absolutely false as far as STUFF goes. Like I said, I went to IKEA with Elena on Sunday and it was scary how familiar and huge it was. TESCO is all over the place- it’s like a combination of a Walmart and a Target and has everything you’d ever need- and it’s always packed. I’ll admit, I’ve gone there several times myself because it’s convenient and it really is cheaper. Currently, Tesco doesn’t have any of the problems that cause controversy about businesses like Walmart, but I wouldn’t be shocked if those catch up soon, too. While I’ve found a few things that are completely “Czech”, you have to look. The weirdest part for me right now is to hear my host family or other Czechs talk about these places. My host mom was proud of how big IKEA was (she thought I wouldn’t have seen anything like it before, since my hometown is so small compared to Prague), and she went on and on about how good its food court is. She gets excited about window displays and cheap little Christmas things that I feel rather cynical about. I guess that’s not completely fair; I went into a mall the other day that was full of fake evergreen branches and Christmas lights, and I’ll admit I felt a thrill.

Another big element in the CE/globalization question is the EU, which again I hadn’t thought about too much before. I think that the EU will speed up globalization, at least in Europe, pretty considerably (maybe that’s obvious), and it seems like there are some clear benefits that will come with it, as well. For example, the EU has strict rules about humanitarian laws in its countries. This is especially interesting to me, since my project is on Roma education, and the Roma should be one of the main beneficiaries of the EU aid in the CR. So far, however, any money given for the Roma from the EU has gone straight into the pockets of Czech politicians, and the CR keeps making promises to change racist laws, practices, etc, but not delivering on those. It will be really interesting to see how the EU deals with this. I have no idea what the process is, though I’ve been told that the EU has brought 4 complaints against the CR already for this. I’m not doing a very good job of explaining, and the situation is really too big to talk about in one paragraph (or even a whole post!) anyway, but this is an issue in other EU countries, as well. Italy, for example, is currently trying to expel all of its Romany Roma from the river areas. This seems silly and I don’t usually do things like this, but I’m so very involved in this right now and the link just got forwarded to me, so if you can, take some time to type your name into http://www.romanetwork.org/protest2.htm. I would also encourage you to research the situation more, but heck, I barely have time for that, so ask me sometime and I’ll ramble on about it. I’ll probably be talking more specifically (and, we can hope, coherently) about the Roma in the CR when I start my project (Monday!).

Ach jo, I don’t know if this is even worth posting, it’s so all-over. My thoughts are pretty jumpy, and I would do well to remember that the quality of my writing is inversely proportional to the number of parentheses (and commas) I use. I know it’s hard to follow, and I apologize for that. All of this is so complex that it’s better to hae a conversation about it if you’re truly interested. But I’m putting it up anyway, if only so that I can revise it (extensively) later.

My dinner tonight: homemade garlic soup with homemade croutons, then what Elena called “Spanish bird” which was some meat (pork?) wrapped around a mixture of 2 types of sausage, hardboiled eggs (because clearly we weren’t getting enough protein), and a very minimal amount of something green that I’m hoping was a vegetable but I think was a pickle (does that count?), creating a roll about four inches in diameter. This was placed on top of rice and of course served with a side of normal-sized potato dumplings.

Co Jedla Jsem Dnes (nebo Proc Nebudu Moct Jit Nekde)

2007-11-04T21:07:00.000+01:00

The title means “What I ate today (or Why I will never be able to eat again ever)”

Muzu pist a neprocovat nebo necist protoze pisu cesky.

I should have saved the food entry for after today, because today was mind-blowing as far as food goes. I went downstairs at about 9 and was immediately served a pile of small sections of palacinky (pancakes) covered in sugar with blueberries on top. Myum. Then I went to Ikea with Elena (it was towards the city limits, in a section with many other huge stores. I felt very much like I was at home). On our way, she made me eat a banana and this Czech pastry which was a sort of gingerbread cake with a thick layer of apricot jam in the middle, all covered in chocolate.

This afternoon, I was at a café studying with some friends and I decided to order a bagel with cream cheese. I should have known better. “Cream cheese” is apparently a euphenism or at least a terrible misnomer for something that was definitely both cheesy and creamy but also had the characteristics of an egg salad with unidentifiable chuncks. There was about a kilogram of the stuff on my bagel, and after one bite I decided that wouldn’t do, so most of it remained on my plate. The taste was okay, but it was thick thick stuff. I would venture to guess that it was at least 50% mayonnaise.

I got back to the house before the rest of my host family. Elena had told that they would be home late, so I should eat some soup and more palacinky and more of the chocolate pudding/custard thing she made for last night. Well, I had some of the homemade soup (delicious- potatoes and beans and meat and cheese and onions and other delicious things) and some palacinky, though I decided to hold off on the pudding. Good thing I did, because an hour later Elena was home and cooking again. She made potato dumplings, a family favorite, and insisted that I eat at least one. I haven’t had quite this variety of dumpling before, and these things bear description. Each “dumpling” is the size and shape of a large orange, and probably weighs about three times the amound of an average orange. Inside of it is a golf-ball-sized quantity of some meat/onion concoction. The outside layer is almost all potato, as far as I can tell, but somehow it is actually denser than the potato itself. I have no idea how this is accomplished, but it is certainly true (and now in my stomach). I declined saurkraut as a sidedish, but Elena persisted and told me I needed something else, so she offered pickled beets, which I also said no to, so she made me up a special plate of homemade pickles. They were good but holy makeral I’m full. And I only ate one of these dumplings- Jan had six and I’m not exaggerating. There’s no way that you are comprehending how much food that is.

For dessert (because of course there was dessert), Elena had prepared a sort of homemade wafer cookie candy bar by taking plate-sized wafer cookies and layering them after putting a hefty portion of nutella between each layer. Nutella is this beautiful hazlenut chocolate spread, and if this is the first time you’re hearing about it, get thee to a grocery store now (you can buy it in the US, but it’s a lot more expensive than here).

So I feasted and now I am too tired to study. Exams this week, which might mean no postings, but more likely means a lot of postings as I delay studying.

Dobrou Chut'

2007-11-03T13:52:00.000+01:00

A few things, then food food food:

Today (Thursday) was the first day I ever got asked for my ticket on the tram. The man seemed surprised that I actually had a ticket, but he was nice about it. It’s good to know that I actually carry that thing around for a reason. Today was also the first day when I went to a gym (the “Fitness Centrum”, to be exact), and it was hilarious. Many people (90% of which were guys, and the girls only used the stairmaster) were only wearing socks or sandals, and they all were taking themselves very seriously. It was an experience, I can say that for sure.

Yesterday (Wednesday), my bus home at night stopped for a train, and the driver, I kid you not, pulled out a magazine called “Autobusem” (which means, basically, “Bus.”). From what I could see, there were actual models of different busses inside that he was looking at. He seemed to consider the different types seriously, and was disgruntled when the train passed for good and he had to drive again. Woah.

Friday night was All Soul’s Day, and I went and walked around a cemetary at night with some friends. Many people were there putting candles on their relative’s graves, and it was beautiful to see the little red candles flickering.

Okay, food. Well, I should start by saying that you know you’re in the Czech Republic when you open the fridge and see eight different types of meat and at least ten different spreads, none of which sound appealing. These people are serious about their spreads. Butter, of course, is the staple, but they like to manipulate it by adding various flavors and changing the consistancy. Of course, cheese spreads are also popular, and sometimes I’m not quite sure where to draw the line between a butter and a cheese, since they are often mixed in some way. Cream cheese is common, but nobody calls it that, so you’re never sure what you’re getting exactly. The people are also wild about mayonnaise- order a sandwich and you’ll have enough to wash your hair in- but my family hasn’t busted that out yet (expect for maybe in potato salads? I’m never quite sure what I’m eating, actually). The creme de la spreads, however, is spreadable meat. I wish I was joking. My family has some and I haven’t even had the nerve to open it yet, but some of my fellow students swear by it. Gr-oss.

Naturally, you need something to put these spreads on (though sometimes the ratio of spread to bread calls that into question), and there is no shortage of bread in the CR. There are two main staples. The first are these so-called “rolls” that actually look more like breadsticks (or very large horns, for those of you in the know). They cost 3 crowns apiece at any grocery store, and at any given moment my host family has at least ten of them in the cupboard. This isn’t because we don’t eat them, rather, I would guess that my host mom buys a new batch of about 15 at least twice a week. They are pretty delicious, especially because they’re always fresh. When you’re at the grocery store there’s an 80% chance that the person in front of you will be buying at least one of these, and it’s much more likely to see people buying in serious bulk. I cannot imagine how many of these things the country produces daily- the number must be staggering. The other mainstay is rye bread. Even the bread that looks white tastes faintly of rye. I came in not liking it that much, but it’s growing on me, and thank goodness, because it’s unavoidable.

Besides spreads, the other items in the refrigerator at this house are almost all dairies or meats. There are billions of yogurts and creams in there right now, and my host mom was saying this morning that we are running low. On that topic, the yogurt issue is still very perplexing to me. In any grocery store there are about 50 different kinds of yogurt, yet none of them that I have tasted yet are like American yogurt. Many of them are a lot thicker consistancy, and they’re either much sweeter or much less sweet. I don’t get it. Anyway, the fridge is also packed with sausages, and I’m not sure who eats them but they disappear and are replaced quite frequently. I’m beginning to get very suspicious about the meat; the other day we had “turkey” that was definitely not poultry of any kind, and there have been a few other instances where the name Elena gives something does not match up with my experience of that thing. I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s good, right? Hmm.

I usually eat breakfast and dinner at the house, and I bring a lunch with me to school, but more often than not I end up stopping at a grocery story (the big ones are Billa, Albert, or Delvita) or a potraviny (a little mini grocery store- there’s one almost every half a block) or a cleverly named “Ovoce Zelenina” (Fruits, Vegetables—that’s literally what they’re called) to supplement. My favorite Czech discovery thus far are these beautiful things called “Dobre Ranos” (Good morning). They’re basically breakfast crackers of some sort that taste roughly like granola bars in cracker form. There are several different varieties, but I have no idea what flavors they actually are, so all I can tell you is that my favorites come in either yellow and green packaging.

When I check out at the grocery store I carefully observe who around me is getting what, and there’s not really much variety. People usually buy a big bag of rolls, some cheese and/or butter, maybe some fruit, and- without fail- some chocolate or a chocolate/wafer candy bar thing. The Czechs are just crazy about these wafers, which doesn’t explain at all how they stay so thin, but the candy aisle is usually larger than American candy sections, and it is full of chocolate and wafers. I would call it heaven except for the lack of cookies. In the past few days, I have also seen several people purchasing huge bags containing about 20 onions, and I’m not sure what that’s about.

I think I’ve already mentioned garlic soup, which is a staple in restaurants, etc, and I should also mention Palacinky. Palacinky are these pancake/crepe- like things that can be served with either sweet things like fruit or not sweet things like meat. To be honest, I have no idea what they are, but they’re everywhere, and they’re good. Also, of course, the dumplings which are natural to me by now. I really like dumplings. However, the other day Elena made dumplings with fruit in the middle and I did not like those, unfortunatly. The host family disappointed, because they’re a staple, but what can I do? I put up with the rat (oh, I should say, this morning Elena told me that they forgot to shut Vigo’s cage last night. My heart leapt up (not in a Wordsworth way), but then she told me how delighted they were to find that he slept in his cage anyway. I felt delighted as well. Yuck).

Here, they say “myum” instead of “yum”. You wouldn’t think that it would make a big difference, but the distinction is very audible and it’s actually much more satisfying to say “myum”. I recommend it. Also, before each meal we all say “Dobrou chut’” which roughly translates into “Good tastes” and is a way of saying “Bon apetit”. I find it a very nice way to start a meal; almost like a prayer but much less serious. In some families they all link pinkies and say “Dobrou chut’” in a sing-song way, but I like to just say it. We have a Czech woman, Zita, who works at school, and every time she sees anyone eating she goes out of her way to say this to them. It feels silly, but it’s nice.

Passing on the Legacy

2007-10-30T20:31:00.000+01:00

I'm in the living room of my host house right now, and Simon was watching the Czech news. They started showing sports, and they went through detailed soccer news, then interviewed a hockey player for forever, and then I looked up to see none other than our very own BRETT FARVE on the screen. Stupified with delight, I managed to stutter, "Hey, that's my team. From my state. From Wisconsin." Jan came in just in time to see the winning touchdown, and he approvingly said, "Hezky." Hezky means "Nice." and it was a fine compliment. I got a little teary. Good old Packers, doing their job to bridge cultures.

Photograffiti

2007-10-29T22:20:00.000+01:00

You're in luck: I found my camera cord and my big assignment got pushed back a day, so I put up some pictures. I also stole some from other people, and put those up, too, since I had to keep deleting some of mine in order to work on a photo essay project.

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/ClaireMichelleHerman/Prague%202/

Spring Forward, Fall Back

2007-10-28T22:42:00.000+01:00

So, today Daylight Savings Time begun. Yes, I guess they have that here, though, if you were me, you wouldn’t have known that ahead of time because nobody talks about it (or, if they do, they talk in Czech, and as you can see from the list from last time, we haven’t learned that yet. This morning I woke up extremly confused, but it all turned out just swell when I realized I had an extra hour to spend in Prague.

That ended up being a valuable hour, since today was the first day when I truly felt like I belonged in Prague, and I even (blushing), might be starting to fall in love with it.

Reasons Why I Liked Prague So Much Today:

1. I took the train into Prague from Rostoky. I should have done this before; it was awesome, easy, fast, and made me feel like a train regular.

2. I went to THE PARK. The big one. And it was totally magical. See pictures coming soon. I could live there. There were sculptures, there were families, there were people playing frisbee, there were leaves of many colors, there were frolicking dogs, there were ducks. I would not have changed a thing, and I’m not joking.

3. At the park, I spent at least a half an hour pretending not to watch this 40-year-old man in the middle of an expanse of grass trying to do handstands and cartwheels. He was extremely awful at both and looked totally ridiculous, and I commend him for trying in such a public space. I probably looked ridiculous too, since there was nothing very interesting around for me to fake looking at, and I laughed out loud several times while trying to be nonchalant, so maybe there was someone watching me, too.

4. It was Czechoslovakian National Statehood Day, and throughout the park I could hear music from a nearby concert. I never ended up finding the concert, which was a shame, but inconsequential, since I later came across a large gathering with music in Old Town Square.

5. I went to the Botanical Gardens and they, too, were magical. (Sidenote: I found the zoo, but I didn’t go in. That will be a project for another day.) I went specifically to see the exhibit for Halloween, which I was told was Jack-O-Lanterns. It ended up being a bunch of moldy, decaying carved pumpkins set throughout this beautiful garden (they had been there since the beginning of October, to be fair), and then basically small tent housing many different types of gourds. It was the most pitiful attempt at being cross-cultural that I have ever seen, and I loved it. It was actually nice just to see gourds and pumpkins (oh, the ones that were carved were so bad, I was embarrassed for the carver. I made better half-moons-for-eyes by the time I was 5). I would have been more disappointed, but the beautiful day and awesome rest of the gardens more than made up for it, plus it was really really funny.

6. I found a cafe filled with books (unfortunately all in Czech), and everyone who came in (except for me, again unfortunately) grabbed a book off the shelves and read it while they were there. That is, except for two guys who were playing chess. It looked a lot like my heaven. To be fair, it was very smoky, which is good because it kept me grounded.

7. I know a lot of the main part of the city, I really do, and I am learning more and more how to get around, but I never fully appreciate how close things are together until I také a slightly different route one day and realize that my favorite cafe is only a block from my favorite potraviny. Today, I walked a full circle connecting three of the major landmarks (Charles Square, Wenceslaus Square, Old Town Square), and it took me maybe 20 minutes, tops, but I needed to do it because now I get it. I finally have a picture in my head of where things are. Finally. It feels good.

8. Fireworks.

9. I had a full conversation with the guy from whom I bought apples. AND I bought my first Czech toothbrush, which makes me feel like I’m really living here, you know?

10. When I got back, Elena made me eat what they ate for both lunch (pasta with mushrooms and chicken) and dinner (salad with fish- shady I know but actually quite good), and a peach. I am so full I could burst, especially since I had eaten quite a bit already today.

It was a good day. Next time, more on food. Seriously. Not kidding. I promise. For real.

Oh, and last night I watched The Firemen's Ball, a movie directed by Milos Foreman (the movie that got him jobs in the US). It was quite good, and I recommend it if you want a taste of Czech humor. It's in Czech, so check (ha) for English subtitles.

No Means Yes and Other Ways Czech Keeps Me On My Toes

2007-10-27T19:53:00.000+02:00

For the past eight weeks, I have been attempting to learn the Czech language (Uchim se Cesky- I am learning Czech). Czech is hard. I’ve heard that English is very hard to learn, but everyone here scoffs at that idea and insists that English is a breeze compared to Czech. I guess that I’ve made considerable progress in my short time here, but not enough to convince anyone that I maybe possibly could ever be fluent. That said, I think I’m somewhat assimilated here, because sometime during three of the last four days I have been asked for directions in Czech. Unfortunately, I cannot give them, but I can say, “Prominte, uchim se Cesky, vim jednom maly” (I’m sorry, I’m learning Czech, and I know only a little), and I’m learning to say “But you made my day by asking me.”

First of all, you should know that I am really misrepresenting the language in this blog. Many Czech letters have accents over them (which means you make the noise for a longer time), apostrophes after them, or other markings that signal entirely different letters. For example, vis, which means “you know,” is actually written “víš,“ and nobody would understand it the first way I wrote it, because that’s a completley different word. Also, Czech is spelled phonetically; they don’t even practice spelling in school because it should be logical. You would think that this would make things easier for me, but I’m constantly trying to complicate things English-style, and I have a very hard time remembering what sounds the vowels make, since they are different than ours. So I frequently look like an idiot when I have to ask someone „Jak se to píše?“ (How do you write it?) because they think it’s obvious. I have the worst time with the letter c an other similar sounds, because „c“ is pronouced something like „ts“ (So the Czech version of the name Claire is „Klara“ and no one can say my name), which is impossible for me to remember. Also, the stress is always on the first syllable of the word, which might sound easy, but is harder than it sounds in practice, and leads to conversations like this:
Host Family: Where did you go last night?
Claire: Akropolis.
Host Family: Gde? (Where?)
Claire: Akropolis
Host family: *shakes head*
Claire: AKropolis
Host family: AH, Akropolis!

...and I feel like we’re in some terrible comedy routine.

Also, you may have noticed the immense amount of consonants in words. Again, this is theoretically no problem, because you just pronounce each letter and make the word. Not so simple. The word for “four” is “čtyři”, and that’s not easy to say three times fast. Worse, the word for “I want” is “Chci”, and I absolutely cannot say it for the life of me. Good old linguistic determinism factors in, and it’s safe to say that I have not found occasion to want anything in Czech. Seriously, whenever I consider it I decide that my desire actually isn’t that important after all. I can, however, ask someone if they want to do something (Neches jit = do you want to go), but as you may notice, the polite thing here is to ask questions using the negative, so to say “Don’t you want to go?” instead of “Do you want to go?”. This gets a little annoying when people do it to me, but I think it’s a funny way to ask other people things.

As indicated by the title “no” actually means “yes.” The full word for no is “ano,” but people always shorten it (two syllables is sort of extreme for such a simple meaning). It’s so strange to expect someone to answer yes and hear them say no. My mind can’t handle that sort of contradiction, so luckily there is a different, more casual way of saying “yes”: “jo”. “Jo” is pronounced “Yo” and is often used multiple times in quick succession: “jo jo jo jo”. I already know I’m going to sound ridiculous when I return and say “yo” all of the time, so prepare yourself for that. “No” is “ne”, which is easy if you’ve got yes straightened out.

There are three permutations of “thank you”: Děkuju, děkuji, and diky. There are also at least three forms of greeting, my favorite being “Ahoj!” (In case I haven’t told you, ahoj is pronounced ahoy and the joy of saying it never gets old). You can also say čao (ciao/chow), but watch out- the people here make fun of how I say it (and sometimes “jo”) because of my Midwestern accent. I’m not kidding. I was nodding and saying “jo” when talking to one of our professors here and he stopped me and said, “Wait, you’re from the Midwest, aren’t you?” Ridiculous.

Other things I say frequently include; “Dam si zeleny caj prosim” (I’ll have green tea, please), “Gde je ___” (Where is _____), “Jak se rekne ____” (How do you say _____), and of course I say numbers in Czech as often as possible to practice, even though it’s tough sometimes. It really often feels like I’m back in preschool, since the things we are learning are so basic. This is what I know (I don’t know if this is interesting for you, but it will be good for me in the future—I’m writing without accents and such again because it’s really a pain):

1. Basic greetings/what to say when you meet someone for the first time; “Odkud ste?” (Where are you from?), “Tesi me” (Nice to meet you), “Co delate?” (What do you do?)

2. How to order food and drink in a restaurant; “Zaplatim” (I will pay), “zvlast nebo dohmorady” (separate or together), “Jeste jednom” (One more), etc. ---and of course the names for all of the food!

3. How to ask for directions and orientation words; “nadrazi” (train station), “vpravo” (right), “uprostred” (center)

4. Numbers through 100

5. How to set up a meeting with someone, the days of the week, the times of the day; “Sejdeme se” (we will meet), “nemam cas” (I don’t have time), “Musim pracovat” (I have to work, “Muzu” (I can), “v stredu” (on Wednesday), odpoledne (afternoon)

6. How to describe a family and say what they like to do; “Mat rad(a)” (to like), “babicka” (grandmother), “tatinek” (father), “maminka” (mother), “se jmenuje” (is named)

7. Verbs that someone thought would be useful; “Cist” (to read), “tancovat” (to dance), “nakupovat” (to shop), “spat” (to sleep), etc.

8. Past tense!

9. Adjectives! -à These are new and it is so nice to be able to have an opinion about something in Czech! Thank goodness. On Thursday we all went to an art museum and we had to pick out a painting and do a presentation for the class in Czech on why we liked it. I felt ridiculous, but it’s nice that I can finally express myself; “Krasny” (beautiful), “smutny” (sad), “zajiminy” (interesting), “vesely” (cheerful/happy), “strasny” (terrible), “nudny” (boring)

And that’s about it. I do know some random words like “slon” is elephant, etc, but nothing too substantial. It’s an adventure, that’s for sure.

For the sake of posterity, I would like to record that last night I went to Lucerna for the 80s and 90s music video night. It was beautiful. The Czech people, along with not caring what other people think of them on the metro, also don’t seem to have any qualms on the dance floor. Another Seinfeld reference: Elaine would have been one of the best dancers there. I am not joking or exaggerating. It was awesome.

Also, (I know that this isn’t a food entry, but I have to say it) I finally bought a hot dog from one of the street vendors, and it was exactly like a Stangleville hot dog except for three times as big. It was so so good, you have no idea.

I get around

2007-10-25T21:24:00.000+02:00

Patience is a virtue I do not have, and the Czech Repubic is determined to expose that weakness. Whenever a tram is a few minutes late, I find myself checking my watch repeatedly, pacing back and forth to re-examine the schedule, craning my neck to look down the road. Everyone else stands there perfectly content to wait, probably happy to have a minute to do nothing. Now I am starting to try to contact people for my final project, and I’m finding that people certainly don’t operate on the same schedule that I do. I sent out emails three days ago, and I have gotten zero replies. When I email people in the US (professors, etc.) for similar things, I get responses usually within the hour, but certainly within 24. It’s killing me. I think the problem is that I often equate patience with apathy, but that’s a story for another day.

One funny thing I forgot to tell about my return to Prague after Bratislava/Krakow. When I was back at the house that night, Elena was still really upset with Simon (she tends to over-dramatize stuff, as do I, and I think that’s why I am able to be patient with her), and I was trying to tell her about hiking in Slovakia, but she clearly wasn’t listening very closely. Finally she burst out with; “Until now I thought Americans were fat and lazy and watched TV all day! Now you are hiking and someone else in my own house is always on the computer!” Imagine that said in an Elena voice, very passionately. She actually got a little teary-eyed. I gulped quickly, found an excuse to leave, ran upstairs and laughed.

I know I promised to talk about other things, but first I would like to mention a little more about public transportation that I don’t think I’ve brought up yet. I think about it a lot because it usually occupies at least an hour of my day. The system in the Czech Republic has many many unwritten rules that must be followed carefully if you don’t want to get some nasty looks:
1. Silence is golden. If you are old or meet a close friend, you are allowed to converse quietly, but if anyone hears what you are saying, especially if you are speaking English, they start making it very obvious (through nice passive-aggressive throat-clearing or subtle head-shaking) that you are out of line. The other day a girl answered her cell phone and I thought that there was going to be an uprising. This rule is more flexible during rush hours or on night trams, when some commotion is permissable.

2. 2 is my favorite: If an elderly person gets on and doesn’t have a place to sit, and you are not an elderly person, you get up and give them your seat immediately, cheerfully, and automatically, with a nice gesture that they should sit and a quiet, polite “Prosim.” The person then refuses your offer while simultaneously sitting down, then thanks you, and you stand for the rest of the trip. For people like me, it’s almost not worth sitting down in the first place, because 90% of the time I have to get up again, but the people whom I give my seat to are usually so kind about it (they actually smile at you) that I sit down just for the sheer pleasure of getting up for someone.

3. There will be a baby stroller on the tram/bus. It will take up half of the standing space and cause a big commotion. You will not be bothered by any of this, and instead you will help as much as possible (really just adding to the commotion) and smile at the baby. This rule isn’t set in stone. In fact, I developed it myself just this morning, but since then it’s been true every time. But seriously, there’s always a mom with a stroller, and it’s always a huge ordeal as everyone rushes to get out of her way/help her lift up the stroller. Sometimes I think that if I were the mom I would be annoyed to have so much help, but I guess it’s nice, too. I guess that there’s currently a “baby boom” in the Czech Republic, which isn’t saying much because the population has actually been declining for the past few years. They’ve been going to great lengths to encourage reproduction (offering money, mostly), and it’s finally working somewhat. Another interesting issue on that topic is that of maternity leave. Mothers get up to four years of maternity leave, and they can keep taking it if they keep having children, so some students’ host mothers have been on maternity leave for over ten years. Apparently it’s actually a problem, because mothers feel pressured to take the full time off even if they want to go back to work. I can talk more about it later if you’re interested.

4. Stay out of the way. This usually means sitting in the window seat at first, making sure to leave the seat next to you open for someone else. You would never ever put a bag down next to you. The problem for me occurs when I’m standing. Between my backpack and my clear noviceness when it comes to the bus/tram/metro, I’m always blocking someone’s path to or from the door. If someone is in your way, it is fair game to push them aside, so I get shoved a lot. It’s never mean, but I can’t say I like it, and I need to figure out how to avoid this.

5. Lines are sacred unless you don’t want them to be. Usually by the time my bus comes, we have a good line of about 20 or so people going. The people in the line are very protective of their spot, and very respectful of those around them. However, there are always some lurkers standing away from the curb who were too good for the line and try to sidle in somewhere. I let them, but then the people behind me in line get mad at me. It’s all very confusing.

6. DON’T FORGET TO PUSH THE BUTTON. Sometimes, the doors open automatically at each stop. Sometimes, they don’t, and you have to push this blinking button to make them open. If you are inside, and for some dreaded reason you forget to push the button (you are of course standing right by the door when your stop comes; there is no excuse for not being ready to get off, that doesn’t even count as a rule it’s so obvious), the people on the outside immediately lose all respect for you and angrily punch their outside button and come flowing on without allowing you the requisite space to get off. It’s horrible. Worse is when someone else on the inside reaches around you to push the button for you, and gives you a LOOK. Every teacher should be able to give that look. But I can’t do it, because I always forget to push the button.

I had to get those out. I promise this weekend I will talk about food. Speaking of, Elena hasn’t seen me eat yet tonight, so she’s insisting that I come and get something. Zitra.

Central Europalooza, Part 2

2007-10-23T18:55:00.001+02:00

Okay, when we last met I was telling you how much I loved Krakow. Now I will tell you what I did there. The first morning we all made a pilgrimage out to a sort of suburb to see another highly anticipated alternative art space. This one was also pretty cool. The suburb was called Nowa Huta, and it was a Soviet Communist settlement with all block-style apartment complexes built to be the model of a perfect community (where everyone worked in factories) to counteract Krakow’s intellectual mass. Now, it’s generally pretty run-down, and has high levels of unemployment and social problems. The art space was in a re-made factory/warehouse, and was used mostly as theaters/performance spaces. The people who run the theater (who we talked to for a long time, and went out with the next night) do a lot of work to get the entire community involved by doing surveys to see what the people around there would like to see and basically pulling people off the street to act in their plays. Then the people living in Nowa Huta come to see the plays because they star their friends or feature true stories about their community. Neato. In the afternoon, another girl and I managed to find our way to a salt mine just outside the city. This included several encounters with very eccentric characters, but I will save those stories for another time. It was neat for me to be in a mine in general, since I’ve never seen the inside of one, though the 380 steps down to the first (closest to the top) level were a bit intimidating. Our tour guide was hilarious and really really into salt. He kept dropping stories about times he visited mines in other countries or went into a closed part of the mine with an owner. It was hilarious. He also kept making jokes about the fact that he got a hard-hat and we didn’t, which I didn’t find as funny. Anyway, the mine has been operating for hundreds of years, and it’s HUGE. They still have to mine salt today in order to keep it safe for tours. The neatest part was that throughout the mine there are these statues carved in the salt. They are very intricate, and range from statues of saints to important people who visited the mine to little dwarf-miners. The statues were all carved by actual miners who were temporarily hired to do that instead of mining. Occasionally there would be a gigantic area where they found a bit salt deposit, and these “rooms” were made into chapels. The one we saw was amazing and so so beautiful. It had chandeliers made out of salt and “The Last Supper” carved into the wall and a huge statue of Pope John Paul II. I’ll put up pictures eventually. The other highlight of the mine was coming across a few brine lakes, which were creeeeeepy and cool. The “water” is so saturated with salt that you can practically walk on it, and people have died after falling in because they can’t get either up or down in the water. That night we hung out at an amazing café for a bit, then went to dinner and eventually bed.

The rest of my time in Poland, which was really only a day and a half I guess, consisted of some museums, another alternative art space (this one a museum built over an old bunker), and wandering around the river, the Jewish Quarter, and the main square. Of these, the last was by far the most interesting for me. Although it was really touristy, in my opinion Krakow’s main square was amazing. It was surrounded by old buildings and churches and in the center is a big long building called the main market full of little stands with cutesy souvenirs. By far my favorite part was outside, though, where you could sit on a bench or a statue and watch all of the other people or one of the many many performers. My favorites of these included accordian players, a bunch of teenagers breakdancing, a guy playing the water glasses, people using ropes to make huge bubbles, a guy doing spraypaint art, etc. The weather was gorgeous, which helped a lot, too.

The other best part of Krakow was when we joined the people from the Nowa Huta theater to see live music one night. One of the bands featured a harmonica player, if that gives you any indication of how cool it was. I ended up talking a lot to this one Polish guy who plays soccer for the Polish soccer team. It was pretty cool. He was shocked when I told him that I played. The other funny phenomenon was that throughout the night everyone kept making allusions to the fact that I was Polish (which I’m not). For example, if I said that I liked the music, they would say, „That’s because of your Polish blood.“ When I said that I didn’t have any Polish blood, they were, again, shocked (there was a lot of that going around), and insisted that I look very very Polish. This question of what I „look like“ came up frequently on the trip. I had many people tell me I look very Polish, many others assume that I’m British, a few who insisted that I was Irish, and one who suspected that I was Czech but decided I couldn’t be because I look „exactly like the lead singer from the band Portishead“ who is British. I think it’s pretty funny because I just look like me.

In Bratislava, people generally thought I looked Czech. Bratislava was our first stop on the whole trip, and we got there by train. It’s a very small city, but the capitol of Slovakia, so it was fairly nice, as well. It also had a lot of good museums (I, as you can maybe tell, am quickly becoming unenthused about museums) and very nice European buildings. It took maybe an hour tops to walk around the whole city, so we did that multiple times, of course stopping copiously to také in the sights. I had two favorite parts of Bratislava. The first was the hot chocolate. I’m not sure why Bratislava’s hot chocolate was so attractive for us, because you can get the same thing in Prague, but for some reason we just went hot chocolate crazy. Maybe it’s because on the first day someone pointed out a cafe that had 60 unique flavors, I guess you can’t blame us for being intrigued. Like in the CR, the hot chocolate in Bratislava is an appetizer, a meal, and dessert all in one. By that I mean that it is huge and thick. There were a few times when I could barely finish, which should tell you something. It’s practically just melted solid chocolate, but thicker. The other best part was a weird statue obsession. Every half block or so there was another random statue. Again, I will put up pictures, but for example, there was a metal man sticking his head out of a window holding a clock or a guy waving his hat. The best was a man peeking out of a manhole (Tim, I thought of you). Other highlights…hmm. Well, the Danube flows through Bratislava, so that was neat. I know I’m forgetting things, I have notes somewhere, but Elena is calling me for dinner, and I would like to try to eat.

Coming soon: Things I forgot to say about Slovakia and Poland, More on FOOD, A special segment on the language, and Ode to my Bed

Central Europalooza, Part I

2007-10-22T21:08:00.000+02:00

First, THANK YOU all for your emails. I’ve received a ton lately, and I can’t tell you enough how much they mean to me. I plan to reply to them all, but I figured to be fair I’d do the blog thing first.

I’m back in Prague and confused about where the last week went. You probably are more clueless than I, so I’ll tell you what I know. I think I will do it backwards, however, because that makes the most sense to me right now.

After a 5-hour train ride, I got into back Prague at 10pm last (Sunday) night. As the train pulled in, characteristically 10 minutes late, I frantically begged one of my companions to stop laughing at my height and help me get my bag down from the overhead racks while simultaneously Elena called me to find out where I was and I realized that I had told her the wrong train station (When you see Hl, do you think Holosovice or Hlavni Nadrazi? That’s what I thought) and she said, “Jesus, Claire. We will have to meet you at the bus stop” and in my frantic state I left my scarf on the blazing hot train (this is the second scarf I’ve lost in a week) and thought that Prague has a terrific sense of humor. When I got in the car, Jan, Elena, and Simon were all there, and I apologized profusely before realizing that I was only a minor annoyance that night, not the biggest problem. Apparently Simon has been skipping school and forging his parents’ signatures on excuse notes and according to Elena is “trying to get kicked out of school because he is lazy.” So they discussed that in Czech and I tried desperately to not fall asleep in the backseat. Then bed, and today back to school, and here I am.

It’s a small miracle that I stayed awake for so long, because despite a well-deserved 13 hours of sleep on Saturday night, Sunday tuckered me out with its persistant goal of reminding me of the trials and triumphs of travelling. My three companions and I woke to see the sun rising over the mountains to peek into our little room in an isolated Slovak chalet. We rolled out of bed, packed up our bags, and decided to go on one last hike. We were rewarded for this effort when we found a hidden chapel built into a rock on the side of the mountain and a path that didn’t get our shoes muddy. We then dutifully reported to the bus stop, very concious that our very expensive train tickets necessitated getting back to Zilina by 4pm. When the bus was officially twenty minutes late, we started getting suspicious. Sure enough, the bus times are different on Sunday, and the next one wasn’t coming for us for three hours (reported the receptionist who did a terrible job of hiding her amusement). There followed 30 seconds of silence, until one of us suggested walking, and the rest, elated by the excessive hours of sleep the night before and woozy from lack of food (we were boycotting the chalet restaurant because we spent way too much money there the day before), agreed enthusiastically. Armed with Snickers bars from the vending machine, we strapped on our overloaded backpacks and set out on our 6km trek. Actually, it was extremely pleasant; the scenery was beautiful, it only took a little over an hour, and most cars gave us ample room as they swerved by us.

When we got to the main town, Terchova, we beelined to a grocery store just in time to see them lock the doors (they closed at 12; it was 12:05) and ignore our knocks. All of the restaurants were closed, so we trudged to the bus stop and looked hopefully at the bus schedule, which we could not interpret for anything. We asked several people near us, but either our Czech was bad or their understanding of the public transportation was worse, because nobody seemed to know. We only had to wait 40 minutes, though, and then we had a pleasant hour-long ride back to Zilina. When we got there, we practically ran the half mile to Tesco, where we ignored every rule about not shopping when hungry and the looks we got from skinny Slovaks and stocked up on food for pretty much the whole week. Between us there were; two full loaves of bread, nine rolls, two packages of sandwich meat, three separate types of cheese, two containers of yogurt, one container of cottage cheese, almonds, soy nuts, coconut shavings, three bars of chocolate, one package of bad cookies, one package of crackers, one big bag of bacon-flavored chips, five dobre ranos (more on these in a later entry), two peppers, seven apples, six bananas, three oranges, a grapefruit, a bag of green beans, a bag of pumpkin seeds, and I’m probably forgetting a lot. I only listed this because consuming all of this was our sole occupation for about four of the five hours on the train. People kept watching in awe as we pulled more and more food out of our bags.

The day before began with a bus ride in the opposite direction from Zilina to Vratna, but that ride was much more remarkable because it included our view of the first snow of the year! In Zilina it was snowing lightly but not sticking, but as we got further into the mountains (the Mala Fatras- they are small, but gorgeous) it snowed harder and stayed around, until we arrived in Vratna and there was about two inches of snow covering all of the trees and the ground on the mountains (I am not lying, it was so so gorgeous and as soon as I find my camera cord there will be pictures to prove it). Luckily, the air felt snow-warm (if you know what I mean), so we weren’t too cold as we set off for our first hike. We went for about two hours, with a pause to build some small snowmen and a creepy encounter with some other hikers who warned us about bears, then went back to the hotel for lunch. After lunch we went out again for the rest of the day, and after finding the muddiest/snowiest path, made it pretty deep into the mountainy woods, and pretty high up some mountains, as well. It was a perfect day, and it ended with a huge dinner at the same restaurant. We were all exhausted by this time, so we all did some homework/postcard writing and we were ready for bed by 8. This quiet was briefly interrupted by someone in an abominable snowman mascot suit knocking on our door (apparently it was a hotel employee—they were bored and the boss was gone?), which provided some good laughs, and then we slept.

It’s not just the hiking that tired us out; we all only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before. That’s because in Zilina there are some very very strange hotels. First, you should know that Zilina is a small city in Slovakia with not very much going for it. It was pretty much destroyed over the course of communism, etc, and has never recovered. It’s by far the least touristy place we’ve been, and was overall, ugly. We went there for two reasons. The first was to see the reality of some non-tourist towns in Central Europe, the second to visit yet another “alternative art space”- one of Sarah’s (my director’s) favorite attractions (to be fair, they fit in well with the theme of our program, but they’re not really my thing). This one was actually pretty neat. It’s called Stanice (meaning “station”), and it still functions as a main train station. However, they’ve also made it over into a coffeeshop, art gallery, garden, park, theater, and community center. They hold many classes there, particularily for children to do art, and almost every night they have some kind of performance. Many people in the community helped to make it over, and people visit from all over to offer their help. We actually spent the afternoon working in the garden raking leaves, mulching, and planting, which might sound arduous but was much-needed work for us, and it was a pleasant time and a gorgeous afternoon. It was nice to feel useful for a change. We saw a dance performance that night which was pretty extraordinary, even by my skeptical standards.

But the hotels were another story. The first night we stayed in the place Sarah usually has her students stay, but they had recently started renting out the second floor and it currently housed the strangest heat massage/dance therapy sessions I’ve ever seen. Anytime anyone from our group walked past and spied in we heard another strange detail. It might have been a cult. Because of this and the fact that they randomly cancelled our reservation for the second night, we moved to one of the only other hotels in Zilina, which was paired with a casino and had pictures that looked very much like porn on the walls. It was decent until girls in prom dresses showed up and started going into the large “ballroom”, where they were apparently entertained by a DJ until 3am, and I’m not joking. Therefore, we were also entertained by the same DJ, only we were in our rooms. Now it’s hilarious, because they played an eclectic mix of everything from Akon to the entire Grease medley, some in Czech and some in English.

***Interlude: It’s Monday night as I’m writing this. On my way home from school today I started feeling queasy, and since I’ve gotten to the house I have thrown up. A lot. I know that’s a gross thing to know about me, but this is ridiculous. I can’t figure out why Prague and my body don’t get along better.****

In Zilina I also had a particularily frustrating restaurant experience. We would tell the waitress what we wanted, and she would repeat back something different:

Claire: Prosim, dam si maly sopsky salat.
Waitress: Velky vegetarian pizza?
Claire: No, maly sopsky salat. (pointing at menu)
Waitress: Ehh....velky gretzky salat?
Claire: No...a small sopsky salad, please.
Waitress: Pizza?
Claire: Ne. Maly sopsky salat, prosim.
Waitress: Velke gretzky salat.
Claire: Sure.

The best experience was when my friend had a similar conversation with the same waitress trying to say that she wanted her water non-carbonated. We said this several different ways in Czech, pointed to the menu, and tried in English. It ended with the waitress saying, “You want bubbles?” My friend saying, “Yes, whatever” and in the end the waitress brought water without bubbles. It was so funny. Also, after we got our food we didn’t have any silverware, so we asked the waitress for some. There were four of us there, and she brought us two forks and two knives.

This was a trend in Slovakia. I’ll get to the full Bratislava story in a bit, but the waitresses there were absolutely RUDE. At one point I got something that was nothing like what I ordered. When she brought it I said, “Umm...this isn’t what I ordered. I said I wanted a chocolate milkshake.” The waitress told me I was lying, then shrugged and walked away. It’s funny now, but it was pretty annoying at the time. I think it’s a combination of them not having as many tourists (and thus not having the patience for us) with just a general lower expectation for service like that. It’s such a change from the US, and I’m surprised how startling it is for me.

But between Zilina and Bratislava there was KRAKOW. Let me first say that I never thought I would go to Poland in my life. I imagined it grey and dirty and foggy, full of poor people who were always crying. Well, not only did I go to Poland but I LOVED it and I realized that those thoughts were very, very wrong. On the van ride (the very long van ride) to Poland, I felt more and more excited and happy as I watched the hills get bigger as the sun set over Slovakia. We spotted several old, crumbling castles randomly nestled into the sides of hills. The second we crossed the Polish border, however, there were no more castles, and though it was dark, I felt right at home. All I could see were random houses or bars by the side of the road with Christmas lights on them. It was darling. On our ride out of Poland, it was light, and I realized that I had missed even better sights; cows by the side of the road, smoke coming out of every chimney, beautiful hilly farmland. It was all very picturesque, but none of it prepared me for KRAKOW.

Now, Prague and I have had a tumultuous relationship. We like each other for the most part, but Prague has made it very clear that I am on its turf, and I have to constantly be looking for small ways to get closer to it and earn its affection. Krakow is different. The moment I arrived, it told a joke, I laughed, and we were fast friends. Within the hour, we were holding hands, sharing secrets, and we were even comfortable being quiet together. Krakow just embraced me, and I loved it right back. I can’t quite put my finger on why- it was just in the whole atmosphere of the place. Anyway, I’ll tell you what I did there.

Perhaps I set Krakow up for success when I woke up early to go for a sunrise run the first morning there. I set out from the hotel on a park path, and I didn’t know it then, but as I stayed in that block-wide park I ran around the whole main quarters of the city. So, on my way, I saw about half of Krakow’s most beautiful sights, including several magnificent churches, the gigantic castle, and some gorgeous old museums, all in their best morning light. It was a perfect fall morning with frosty air and leaves of every color and sun sun sun, and the park was ideal; wide cobblestone pathways, many benches, even more trees, pretzel vendors, pigeons, and people on their way to work. These people were one of the first signals that Krakow would be different. They actually made eye contact with me, and a few even smiled. I had no idea how much I was missing that in Prague, and it made me downright jolly.

Hmm..I’m feeling like some sleep might do me good, and I want to do Krakow/Bratislava justice, so I’ll end for today, but I’ll post this so you know I’m back. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll finish the story of my trip, because I still have so many other things to write about! Take care, and again thanks for the emails.

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

2007-10-10T10:51:00.000+02:00

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.

Claire as a Tourist: Take One

2007-10-07T23:12:00.000+02:00

Today I intended to go to the opening of David Cerny’s new gallery/exhibit (he’s a Modern sculptor who I’ll talk more about if/when I actually go to said exhibit- hopefully later this week), and in doing so catch a Plastic People of the Universe Concert (If you don’t know the story behind the Plastic People or their connection with Czech history, you should really look it up, it’s quite fascinating). I didn’t end up doing either of those things, and I’m a bit nervous that I’ll regret not seeing the PPU, but I had a really great day anyway.

I started out at Vysehrad and the surrounding park. Vysehrad was the site of the first castle in Prague, but all that remains are some pretty impressive walls that make you wonder what force could have possibly destroyed them. Now the inside of the walls is mostly a large park. It was a gorgeous autumn day, and I was really enjoying just walking around, but sure enough there was some Medieval festival going on so I was also treated to seeing people dressed as knights in full armour walking down the path next to me. Vysehrad is also the site of a pretty significant-sized and beautifully-painted church, which I peeked into (I was too cheap to pay the ten-koruna fee for students, which would be about 50 cents. I got the jist of it anyway, and maybe when my family comes I can make them pay for me J ), and bordering the church, this phenomenal graveyard. It’s so hard to describe the graveyards around here; they cram in graves so close to one another that you worry a bit about whether there’s actually room for the bodies in such narrow sections. Furthermore, the headstones aren’t like ours, they’re all HUGE monolithic masterpieces. Each headstone is for an entire family, so I guess it makes sense, but it’s still unbelievable. I’m assuming that family members are buried on top of one another, and maybe when you know that you feel so guilty about squashing great-grandpa for eternity that you spring for the expensive stone. I took some pictures, which might give you a better idea. Though there were a lot of people there, I was the only one taking pictures, so I’m not sure that it’s actually legal for me to have them, and I’ll admit I felt a little disrespectful, but nobody told me to stop and you have to see this. Anyway, this graveyard housed some pretty impressive figures, like Dvorak and Jan Neruda, so that was neat to see. I tried to look for a family name I recognized, but there were too many to see all of them (and many were hidden behind rows of others), and anyway I don’t think flashy is our family’s style, anyway. I did, however, find a Vesely, for those of you from SP.

The rest of the day maybe isn’t as exciting for you to hear about. I’m finally getting oriented and realizing how easy it is to walk everywhere (sorry Tim, but get ready to move on your vacation). I bought a new hair dryer, since after about 6 years my trusty old one decided that four weeks of working with a voltage converter was enough and officially retired. I also bought a voice recorder (I need one for interviewing for my final project) and the guy promised me that it would work, so now you’re all witnesses to that. I found a new café, and finally read in a park, which I’ve been meaning to do this whole time. I also walked by the river and saw Charles Bridge at night for the first time.

Sorry, this entry’s more for me so that I can remember what I did. I’ve been a little spacey all day because of this cold, as well. I know I keep promising this, but expect better updates soon.

Wide Open Spaces

2007-10-06T22:40:00.000+02:00

I still have a lot of more general entries, but since I’m suddenly doing things again (I’m feeling a little better but not really well enough to be doing what I’m doing, but I’m the most sick of not doing things), I need to write about actual activities.

Last night I went to the US Embassy for a Marines party. Yes, you read that right. One of the girls in my group worked at the embassy in Portugal over the summer, and she got really close to the Marines there, so she wanted to meet the Marines here and long story short we were invited to this “party.” I was pretty excited because I had no idea what to expect, yet I anticipated great things from the inside of an embassy. When we arrived, we had to go through a metal detector, hand over all cell phones, cameras, etc. for the duration of our stay, check our passports, wear two separate badges identifying us and our security level, and be escorted by a Marine at all times. The ten-minute ordeal of getting us inside, however, was probably the most exciting part of the whole affair. I was pretty disappointed by the fact that the “party” was held in this basement bar with a pool table and a karaoke machine that reminded me of thousands of Wisconsin bars, except for maybe crappier. For those of you who go to Carleton, Dad’s is way classier than the inside of this Embassy, and I’m not joking. Granted, we were probably in the least fancy area, but still. The company wasn’t great, either. We left pretty quickly. This is one of those topics that if you’re curious about more details, you should ask me when I’m not writing in my blog.

This morning I woke up feeling like I got hit by a truck, because thanks to the assault on my immune system, I now have a killer cold (cough, runny nose, the whole bit). As soon as I emerged from my room, Elena asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with them. I had planned on going into Prague, but I figured a short walk wouldn’t ruin those plans, and I’m in need of some exercise, so I said sure. We began by taking the path around the fields where I run, and about 1.5 miles in, we veered off in a direction I’d never taken. I found myself going down this rocky path about three times slower than Jan and Elena and praying with all my might that I would neither fall to my death or start an avalance. Suddenly, we were climbing up rocks, dodging under trees, leaping over creeks, etc, etc. The scenery alone was probably worth it: many leaves have fallen but there are still a lot of green trees, we were in a forest for a lot of the time, there were beautiful rivers and crazy rock formations, not to mention classic rolling hills. It sure was rigorous, though. It reminded me a lot of Devil’s Lake, except for the rocks were smaller and it wasn’t as well groomed.

Even more crazy, though, was the fact that the whole thing was like an adventure shopping trip for Elena. She was constantly yelling, “come on everyone and find nuts!” and we would all have to dash over to the tree and pick up all of the walnuts we saw. Or “Ah! Look at this beautiful mushroom!” and we’d all go searching for others like it (because if you find one, you’re likely to fine more of its ‘family’, or at least that’s what they keep telling me. At one point during the walk, we found a rustic apple tree, and Elena whipped out a knife and cut apples up for us, telling me that this was her favorite type, and we ended up bringing home a bag full of about 20 apples. So many times during the morning I thought to myself, “Where am I and what have they done with Prague?” It was insane to realize that I was actually closer to Prague than when I’m in the house, which is pretty darn close to Prague, yet I was having this ridiculous nature extravagganza.

3 hours later, I had completed one of the most strenuous hikes of my life. As we were nearing the house, Elena exclaimed wildly and started to pick a ton of these bright red football-shaped berry things, and asked me what we called them in English. I of course had no idea, and she started telling me how they were the seeds of some flower. I asked if she was picking them for us to plant or to eat, and she replied, “No no, we will dry them and use them to make tea.” All I could think was “Of course we will.” It’s just such a different life. I’m glad to know about these paths, though—we took one, but there were a ton of branches to explore—and I’ll go back for sure, but it wasn’t the best day for it.

When we got back, Elena whipped up some mushroom soup and this mushroom chicken pasta dish, and we all ate ourselves sick. I then started talking about going into Prague, but Elena said, “Don’t you want to come to this festival?” Well, I had no idea about any festival, but next thing I knew, I was there. It was in a village near Rostoky, and was basically a cute little gathering for families. It’s almost impossible to describe how rustic, quaint, and innocent things like this feel to me. They built an oven out of clay and wood (today, actually) and were baking bread in it at night. They made a sauna out of a tent they created from birch branches and skins of animals. They were selling their special town gulash. It’s just crazy. We went to two marionette puppet shows (both in Czech, both in this re-made barn, and both very interesting to watch), then stuck around in the barn (which doubles as a popular Prague club/pub) to watch the live band. The place got pretty full and the band was really entertaining. It was like a mix of polka and rock music, and of course had an accordian player, but it felt very modern, and it was fun to watch the people.
I realize how abruptly this is ending, but I’m getting really really tired. That’s what trekking across the Czech wilderness will do to you, I guess. More later. Maybe tomorrow I’ll make it to Prague?

If You Want to Be a Praguer, Just Come Along With Me...

2007-10-03T21:51:00.000+02:00

Now that I know my way to school and back without having to think about it, and I’ve seen it all enough times that I no longer need to gape quite as obviously, I’ve taken up a new occupation during my commute: pretending I’m a Praguer. Don’t laugh- this is no easy art. You can wear almost anything, but the more layers you’re wearing, the better, and it’s best if you have on several colors/fabrics that don’t exactly match, but don’t exactly look bad together, either. Nothing you wear should be bulky, yet you should have on enough things that the overall effect is definitely bulk. Colors are important, but it’s best if they’re covered by many drab layers so that only peeks of bright are visible (presumably to illustrate your light-hearted, friendly interior). Accessories are crucial; at least one bag (a backpack counts) is essential, and this should be augmented by any other random prop, as long as you’re full of stuff. The most convincing is a well-worn plastic bag with handles from one of the bigger stores (I recommend Tesco or Billa). It doesn’t matter what is in the bag, but you must guard it with your life, and it should look like you carry it with you everywhere.

None of that, however, is nearly as important as your demeanor. First and foremost, you must appear to be intensely worried about something. This worry prevents you from connecting to the other people around you, and makes you much more important than any current, trivial happenings. Thus, if there is a ruckus or someone needs help or is running for the subway, you must not only look disinterested, but be disinterested, since your worry consumes your whole being. Of course, you must never, ever smile. BUT – and here’s the tricky part for me- all of this worrying must be totally non-dramatic. There can be no crinkling of the brow, no perceptible sighing, no slouching of the shoulders nor rubbing of the temples, because, my dear Praguer, you are a rock. Even though the weight of the world is on your tiny shoulders, you must proceed with the undertone of confidence, austerity, fortitude, and resilience that calmly asserts, “My family made it through Communism, goddamnnit, and we can certainly make it through this.” For when you are a true Praguer, you proceed through life with the knowledge that your country has been through hell and back, and with the conviction that you, personally, somehow helped it survive, so if you currently look reserved, apathetic, and worried (because you are), so be it. You stand with your weight equally distributed on both feet, glance around vacantly, and continue to focus on your problem of the day.

I know what you’re asking: “Claire, how did you become such an authority? You have only been practicing this technique for a few weeks.” Well, my friends, today I acieved a sure medal of success: Just as I was truly worried about being sick and maybe having to go to the doctor, as I was ignoring everyone around me and living in my own little world, as I was defiantly promising myself that I wasn’t really sick, I saw a man on the up escalator, clearly a tourist, snap a picture of me to take home and show his family and friends what a real Czech girl looks like. Talk about an affirmation. Coming up soon: Whether it’s a good thing to be a Praguer, aka the much-awaited entry, “Are Czech People Attractive?”

What's in a Name?

2007-10-02T21:51:00.000+02:00

Did You Know...
That Czechs celebrate Name Days? They basically found a way to get two birthdays; though they don’t celebrate their Name Day quite as much as a birthday (no parties, for example, just small gifts and well-wishes), it’s almost better because it’s easier to remember, since all of your friends remember your names. On a Czech calendar, each day tells the name that should be celebrated that day. Here’s the kicker, though: each name has to have a day. That’s right- you have to get permission from the government if you want to name your child a name that isn’t on the calendar. Now it makes sense that I know so many “Petr”s and “Jan”s; when you’re limited to 365 names (and some of those are really quite vile even by Czech standards), you’re bound to repeat.

Shrooms, Zuzka, School, and So it goes

2007-10-01T19:08:00.000+02:00

Last Tuesday I went mushroom hunting, and I haven’t been the same since. I can’t believe that I’ve wasted 21 years of my life not mushroom hunting! It was a wonderous, adventurous, relaxing experience, and I fully intend to take up the habit back in the states. I will, however, need some more training first. After tiptoeing through the brush, scrutinizing the ground for any sign of fungi life, I would let out a yelp of success, only to be told by my temporary host sister, Zuzka (Suzy), that I would die if I ate my triumphant find. After a string of these failures, an exasperated Zuzka implored me to just “Look at this one! See how nice and warm and friendly it is?! Now look at yours, see?! It’s cold and mean.” While that advice did not help me, I manage to consistantly identify one “good” mushroom- a very friendly dark brown little guy with a yellow spongy underside- and I generally stuck with that one from then out. We bought back quite a bounty, and immediately schnitzeled them for dinner. Schnitzeling is a delightful and easy process with a rewarding name, so expect me to schnitzel you something when I get back. Actually, schnitzeling seems to be a sort of euphenism for “deep-frying,” so maybe it’s best if I don’t do it too often. This was all dandy until the next morning, when Zuzka woke up terribly ill, and I had a flashback to my own plate full of schnitzelled mushrooms. I didn’t get sick that day, though, so we concluded it was just a good old-fashioned Czech bug, which I promptly picked up two days later. I can’t say I’m surprised; I spent all week drinking Kofola (a strange, rootbeer-ish soda), water, and tea out of the same bottle as Zuzka. She asked me if that bothered me, and I, deciding to throw my American caution and anxiety about germs to the wind, said of course not. Foolish Claire discovered that there’s some widsom in our worries after all. So, here I am, in bed for the fourth straight day, with plenty of time to update my blog.

Our Kofola- (for Zuzka) and water- (for me) drinking binges give you only a small idea of the true picture: In Olomouc I experienced a five-day slumber party. But let me start with the reason why: Zuzka. She was a bit taller than I and very skinny, with chin-length dark hair and glasses. The first thing she said to me was, “Are you Claire?” and the second was “Do you like carrots?” When I told her that I did, indeed, like carrots, she was so delighted she ran straight into a wall. I’m not kidding. For those of you who know Hannah Moodie, Zuzka could be her identical Czech twin, personality-wise. She was an absolute dear. She lived in a flat with her 18-year-old sister, dad, and stepmom (sometimes—the parents left because I was there, much to delight of Zuzka’s older sister, who is also a sweetheart but clearly valued my presence only because it meant the absence of her parents, and she took the opportunity to spend every night with her boyfriend), and I was clearly there for Zuzka. I have never in my life met anyone who adored me so completely and unreservedly. She was SO EXCITED that I’m an English major (she likes literature, too!), she was SO EXCITED that I played broomball (she had never heard of it but had the Wikipedia site bookmarked from her desktop, she was SO EXCITED that I wasn’t mean (the first night she told me “I’m so glad you’re you!”), and she was SO EXCITED that I was there that she was sure I’d rather sleep with her in her room than in the bed her dad made her set up in the living room (she was wrong, but I slept with her anyway, because she’s exactly the type of person who I hate to disappoint). SO, like I said, it was a five-day slumber party, and I am not exaggerating. She rented movies for us to watch, we ate pizza and ice cream and candy and soda, we kept talking after turning the lights off and started talking right away in the morning. Now, let me make it clear that I have never really liked slumber parties, even when I was 15, and this was no exception, but I guess it was fun sometimes. Other times, it was extremely smothering and annoying that I had to practically babysit this 15-year-old.

But, like I said, she was a darling, and her capitol-d Dreams are to visit/live in America and go to Yale. Seemingly unrelated, she also loves Gilmore Girls (She also reminds me almost exactly of Rory), and this turned out to be a very dangerous combination. Throughout the week, she would ask me things like, “Is it normal to drive a Jeep?” and I would reply as honestly as I could with something like, “No, I do see people driving them, but it isn’t very common where I’m from,” and Zuzka would furrow her brow and say, “But Lorelai (from Gilmore Girls) drives a Jeep.” And I was forced to become a big-bad illusion crusher, though I was saved from Zuzka’s wrath because she simply chose not to believe me. Whenever I told her something that didn’t add up to what she had seen, she looked skeptical and pushed me for awhile, then clearly concluded that I didn’t know what I was talking about because I didn’t go to Yale. Ay yi yi.

The gigantic benefit of Zuzka, however, was that she helped me “Explore Olomouc.” We traipsed all around the city, which is a University town and holds about 100,000 people, admiring buildings, taking photos of fountains, strolling through parks, climbing towers to get the best view of the whole city... My favorite part was when we crept inside this HUGE church. We could hear music coming from inside, and we thought that mass might be in progress, but Zuzka assureed me that we still had to at least peek inside. When we did, we saw a full orchestra and choir simply practicing for a performance that night, so we sat down and watched for almost an hour. It reminded me of that scene in the church in Home Alone, but it was better. We also went on several short excursions, one to a nearby tiny villiage with a beautiful church on top of the hill which the Pope visitied in 1992, and one to a town about 30 minutes away with a huge fairytale castle. The castle’s inside was the best castle’s inside I’ve seen so far, all dark wood and with gorgeous furniture. The tour was hard to take seriously, however, because we all had to wear these ridiculous red shoes over our shoes which made us look like a company of jesters getting ready to be interviewed by the king.

On Monday-Wednesday in Olomouc I went to school with Zuzka. This was a mixed experience for me. First, the school is public (as almost all schools here are, and public schools are usually far better than private), and it’s one of two English-immersion schools in the country. By their third year in the school (when they’re about 12), students are taught all of their classes in English. I mostly hung out with the teachers, and they were all very interesting, energetic, and kind people. I went to some literature classes and many English language classes where the lesson was, “This is Claire. She is American. Ask her questions.” It was strange to me to be so valued for my ability to speak English. The students asked mostly predictable questions, and it was interesting to hear their assumptions about Americans, like that all Americans have met celebrities, that we are all vegetarians, we all love McDonalds (as you can see, these are sometimes contradictory assumptions), that we are all fat and usually loud, and mostly “Crazy.” (I’ll go more into the perceptions of America idea in a later blog). Every class asked me whether I like Czech beer, which seems to be yet another matter of exceptional national pride.

A few of the other differences? Well, the students all stand up when the teacher enters the room (always a few minutes late), and don’t sit until permitted to do so by the teacher. I was in a history class that was teaching Evolution and I didn’t realize how strange that would be to hear so blatantly in a school until I was there. There’s a picture of the Czech president hanging in every classroom, which is very Big Brother-esque. The students all change their shoes when they get to school, a fact I didn’t realize until late Wednesday afternoon after I had traipsed my contaminated outdoor shoes all over the school for three days.

Really, though, the school was remarkable mostly for its similarities to American schools. In fact, it almost could have served as the model school- the students were well-behaved and very smart, it was creepily utopic. The strangest thing might have been how hesitant the students were to guess about something or assert their own opinion- they were very eager to spit out only exactly what the teacher wanted to hear. The near-perfect nature of the school was what I found somewhat frustrating. First, I was coming into it with an idea for a project in mind, and my project revolved around the problem of integrating Roma (Gypsy) children into the schools, and this school in particular didn’t have that problem because they didn’t have any Roma children. In fact, when I asked one of the teachers what the biggest challenge she faced in her school was, she said that it was the lack of bilingual textbooks (written in both English and Czech). This, to me, seemed like a rather luxurious problem to have. In addition, they were very progressive and aware in that in several classes I hear them discuss everything from Global Warming to Guantanamo, and they were all outspoken about Bush and the stupidity of the war and all of the other problems he caused. Yet they never really discussed the problems with themselves or their own country, namely that of the extreme marginalization of the Roma population. I had a terrible and frightening conversation with Zuzka which greatly discouraged me, because she was extremely racist, but I won’t go into that now- ask me if you’re curious.

All of this is not to take away from the extreme intelligence and talent of the teachers and students. For example, I went to a Spanish class that completely blew my mind. The teacher was teaching in both English and Czech and the students were all speaking in Spanish and I was the only one who had any trouble with it. I, in fact, had a lot of trouble with it, and I still have been answering people in Spanish. In addition to that, Zuzka’s starting to study Latin and joining Sign-Language club. It’s simply overwhelming. It’s just that the school, with all it’s liberalism and progressive nature, is somehow so awfully behind on this topic. In any case, the whole experience helped me conclude that I probably won’t go to that school for my project, an option which I was strongly considering before.

In any case, I thouroughly enjoyed my time in Olomouc, though it wasn’t as rural as I expected, and there I received one of the best compliments of my life: Zuzka told me, “You have a really good ‘ahoj!’.” “Ahoj” means “Hi,” and she went on to say that she thought I was her sister because my ahoj was so Czech-like. I also saw many people hitchhiking, which was a strange sight for me.

Anyway, at the end of that I met up with the group of students in Cesky Krumlov. It truly was idyllic, I could see why so many people so heartily recommended it. It features this huge, colorful castle, tiny cobblestone streets, and beautiful buildings and shops, all around a river. It was so quaint that it was almost funny. I’ll put up some pictues, then you’ll get a real idea. It was rather touristy, which was a bit disappointing, but it sure was gorgeous. There was a big fair to celebrate St. Wenceslas Day, which featured stands selling sausage, donuts, Burcak (special wine made from young grapes), tons of hand-made jewlery, scarves, pottery, etc. It was almost too perfect. The most exciting part was the gathering of Wenceslases on Saturday- they were trying to set the world record for the most Wenceslai in one place at one time. However, I wasn’t able to enjoy this or really anything else because I got sick almost right away in Cesky Krumlov, so unfortunately I’m not a fair or a generous judge. I did go on a tour of the castle and the Baroque theater, and both were pretty incredible. The theater, though not usually my thing, was breathtaking because it was extremely old, all candle-lit, and the backdrop/sides of the stage made it look like it was a hundred feet deep, even though it only went about 15 feet back. It was really really neat. But I couldn’t fully appreciate it, so again, I’ll try to put up pictures. Time to go rest again, but rest assured that I’m back, and I’ll be updating frequently again.

To Infinity and Beyond

2007-09-19T18:14:00.000+02:00

Today I had one of those days when you realize at about 10am that you forgot to put deoderant on, and then spend the rest of the day worrying about it.

Things have settled down quite a bit, so I don’t have that constant barrage of things to write about. That’s good, because I can catch up on things I’ve been meaning to tell you. For example:

Things that are Czech that you didn’t know were Czech
1. contact lenses
2. Gregor Mendel
3. propellors
4. nylons
5. Madeline Albright
6. Sigmund Freud
7. The word “robot”

That last one, “robot,” is a matter of considerable pride among the Czechs, meaning that no less than every single Czech person I’ve talked to for more than 10 minutes has within that time told me that a Czech man invented the word robot. Now go forth and win Jeopardy.

This is also a note to tell you that I might be taking a brief hiatus. I don’t think I’ll get a chance to write tomorrow, and on Friday morning I leave for my “regional stay.” We’re all being scattered to the far corners of the country to make grand discoveries and learn about ourselves. It should be interesting. I’m pretty excited about mine. I’m going to a town called Olomouc which is three hours by train to the east of Prague, and I’m staying with a family with two teenage girls. The girls speak English, the parents don’t at all. Over the weekend I’m just exploring the down, but then Monday through Wednesday I’m going to school with the girls. Another girl who did my program ended up going to the school for three weeks at the end to do her project there, and I’m thinking about doing that, as well. Most of their classes are in English, and she got to teach some by the end, so it sounds like a great opportunity.

On Thursday I meet up with the group at Cesky Krumlov. I know two things about Cesky Krumlov:

1. It’s considered a country town and it’s in the south of the Czech Repubil.
2. After the Czech people tell me about robot, they tell me to go to Cesky Krumlov. Seriously. In a voice that reminds me of that lady on Seinfeld who was always telling Jerry and Elaine “You have to see the baby.” So it should be good.

We return to Prague next Saturday, at which time I will update you about everything.

Revelations

2007-09-17T19:41:00.000+02:00

AKA procrastinations; my first Czech language quiz is tomorrow.

Well, my mom is now informed, so it’s time to let the cat out of the bag. In fact, while I’m at it I’m going to air another piece of dirty laundry, though I implore you to remember that different does not mean bad.

First. I recieved details about my homestay family in the middle of the second week. I was pretty excited about the whole idea, and thrilled that they sounded relatively similar to my family at home. The night before we met them I was at dinner with everyone in the program, and Sarah, our director, came over to me and inquired, „How do you feel about rats?“ Well, my answer was that I’m not terribly excited about rats, though I’d never met one. Yes, that’s right, reader, my family has a pet rat. As I said, I wasn’t thrilled about the news, but I decided that I’m here to learn about the Czech Republic and if people in the Czech Republic have pet rats, then I signed up for that, too.

So, my pet rat’s name is Vigo and he’s grey and fairly fat. He’s actually sort of cute if you look at him head-on, but his tail is pretty disgusting. Everyone in my host family absolutely adores him; they put him up to their faces to kiss him and the whole bit. I bought him a treat for a gift when I came, and I think that’s why my family likes me so much. Most of the time he stays in his cage, though they do let him run around sometimes. When that happens, I usually squirm if he gets near me, and the family’s good about removing him from my vacinity. He and I are just going to také some time to get used to each other. I’m alone in the house in the mornings, and I usually go talk to him if I see he’s awake, and I think we’re reaching an understanding that if he doesn’t bother me, I will tolerate him. Though the other night he was out and I was the only one in the living room and he kept poking around by my feet and that was NOT okay, and I told him so but he didn’t listen, so I ended up going upstairs. He may have won that battle, but I’ll get the upper hand eventually.

Here’s the other thing, which is mostly really interesting. Before we moved in with our host families, Sarah and the other director warned us that the Czech Republic has a totally different reaction to nudity, and that it’s fairly common for people in a family to walk around the house in their underwear. They told us to say something if we’re uncomfortable, but to understand that it’s normal and not considered threatening or an invasion of privacy or anything like that. Anyway, I thought I was pretty safe considering that my host parents are pretty old and it’s not really warm enough to go around without clothes on, and I was right, I haven’t seen any of that. However, the other day I was talking to my host mom and she was getting ready to go garden, and she changed right in front of me, which just caught me off guard. After that I noticed the most hilarious thing: In the kitchen is a picture of Jan and Elena facing a lake with their backs towards the camera, completely naked, with their hands on each other’s bottoms. It’s sort of strange to me, but also pretty funny that it’s so normal.

Don’t worry, my photos do not contain any nude pictures, and I don’t think they will no matter how long I stay here.

Oh, and another thing: My house is pink. I didn't mean to not tell this, but it actually took me awhile to notice it because I was so busy noticing everything else. It's intensely pink.

Eye Candy

2007-09-16T23:29:00.000+02:00

Alright, after a frustrating too-many-hours wrestling with various photo programs (most of which I could only access in Czech and couldn't figure out how to change to English), I'm hoping this will work. In the future I'll try to just put images in the blog as I mention them, but I have too many now. I'm also regretting never taking good old Photography in SPHS, but you'll have to look past the artistic flaws and try to see the story. Cross your fingers...

Argh, this won't show up as a link, so you'll have to cut/paste. Also, I'm not sure if I like Photobucket, so sorry if you have to do some funny navigating to see the pictures/titles-- I'll hopefully figure it out.

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/ClaireMichelleHerman/Prague%201/

Taking Myself Out to the Ball Game

2007-09-16T10:22:00.001+02:00

Today is another in a string of gorgeous days. It’s sunny, there’s a light breeze, the trees are still green, and it’ll top off around 70 degrees. Luckily, this procession of ambiance (shout-out to Uriel) began at the most opportune time: on game day.

I’ve always wanted to go to a European fotbal game, so when I realized that our school was right next to the stadium (which happened on the first day; rest assured that the CR has not changed my eyesight or affinity to notice the obvious), it was like fate sent me a big fat reminder to “go for the goal” (shout-out to LA—haha). I found another girl who was interested in going, and our recruitment produced one more brave soul, and after practically selling our souls for the tickets, we were in.

The day of the game was terribly exciting, fostered by the fact that every adult near us reminded us about twice an hour to be careful. Our location by the stadium also enabled us to see the police and port-a-potties gathering by noon and the hotdog/beer stands opening by 2. When we got done with school for the day and went for dinner, there was a small crowd by the food/drinks. When we left the restaurant, the sidewalks were packed with shouting people in green and red. The walk to the stadium was one of the most fun things for me. The energy was high and I felt like I was going to a Quidditch match. Everyone was covered in paraphenelia from head to toe. I was already wearing red, but the girls with me quickly bought a hat and t-shirt so that we would fit in.

The inside of the stadium—apologies to serious fans—was adorable. There were only two levels of seating, so it felt really personal. It was refreshingly simple, as well; only two small scoreboards and one large one, which only told the score or people’s names. Clearly, there was a competition to get railing space, because every inch of it was covered with a flag. The crowd was mixed, though there were some sections of heavy red or green. The Irish were singing some fairly complicated fight songs, but the Czechs stuck to a simple clap with intermittant chantings of “Chesky,” which I appreciated because I could easily join in.

Our spots were right next to the field, which were actually pretty awful seats for a soccer game because you don’t have a very good perspective. They did, however, afford us the opportunity to keep a close watch on the Czech mascot, which was a man dressed in a soccer uniform who occasionally put on a head that might have been modelled after a bear and a tail which made him look completely ridiculous. He was so unenthused, it was great to watch. We also cheered on the subs who were warming up next to the field near us.

My hands-down favorite part of the game was when they introduced the starting lineup. For the Czech team, the announcer would only read the first name, and then the whole crowd would yell the last name. They projected the names on the scoreboard, so we got to practice our pronunciation and yell along. Speaking of names, there was one row of flags with all K-names of Czech players: Klatovy, Kostelec, Kyjoy, Konesin, and it seemed like “Kostechka” would fit in pretty well.

The crowd was energized, enthusiastic, and loud, but never really aggressive or intimidating. The massive amount of police around was intimidating. Apparently the Irish are a pleasant crowd, and I agree. It’s amazing to see how many people flew in from Ireland for the game. There was a pair of teenage Irish punks right in front of us who were going to great lengths to prove how cool they were, but it was tough for them because they both had mullets. Actually, I felt sorry for all of the Irish, because “Ireland” in Czech is “Irsko,” and that doesn’t look very intimidating on the scoreboard.

It’s also very hard to sound genuinely angry with an Irish accent, as illustrated by the delightful man behind us. He was VERY Irish, and is credited with saying the following phrases (excuse his...French?): “toothless! yer’ all toothless!” “give him a yeller than cheatin bastard!” “get yer head on the field yah wankers” and “good call ya fackin refs.” It was immensely entertaining. I accidentally let out a huge chuckle at one point when he screamed “FIGHT!” like a battle cry.

Czech Republic won, by the way, 1-0. It was great. But it was also such an interesting study of two cultures. None of the Irish people spoke Czech, and many of the people working at the game only spoke Czech. I also observed a hilarious incident wherein an Irish man had ordered a hotdog and received a huge sausage and a piece of bread, and he had no idea what to do with it (That’s common here, by the way—there arent’ really hotdog buns, only accompanying slices of bread. I saw one person with a foot-long hotdog who got three slices of bread. haha). I’d almost rather go to a fotbal game than visit a country (almost), because you get a great slice of their culture with a really entertaining presentation.

For the memory books

2007-09-16T10:18:00.000+02:00

Just wanted to quickly sum up for myself a couple of things that have happened over the past few days.

On Friday we drove 2 hours south of Prague to a tiny tiny villiage where a women from California and her Czech husband own an immense organic farm. It was absolutely utopian and ideal. The gardens were beautiful, there was a lake right across the street, the animals were plentiful and cute, etc. Just imagine a perfect farm, and you’re getting the picture. The women had a lunch prepared for us, so we feasted and then visited. She is also an artist, and uses the extra buildings on the farm (Which used to be a mill) as studio and gallery space. We explored that, then got to watch the turbine (which isn’t totally functioning and a bit scarey). She told us that the lake would be drained in a few days, and then one day at 3am hundreds of men would come out and beat the water, scaring the fish into the middle, where they could be caught with nets. Apparently this happens all over the country. We were going to try to see it, but nobody knows when it happens, since it’s determined by how fast the lake drains.

Next we drove to an equally little villiage nearby and saw a performance of The Little Prince. It was done in a sort of barn that was modernized and had a huge, nice stage. It reminded me of stories I’ve read in plays about children putting on school shows in the country. I have pictures, I’m not really doing it justice. It was done in Czech, but I had just read the book and the actors were so animated that it was fairly easy to understand. Afterwards, outside there was a sort of carnival with about a dozen stands selling various drinks, food, cookbooks, etc. The food was all delicious and really cheap. It was a neat example of a community gathering.

Yesterday (Saturday) Elena showed me more of Rostoky (which really isn’t very big), including some paths where I could run. We then went to a church/cemetary because it was the fifth anniversary of Jan’s father’s death. The cemetary was picturesque, with huge monolithic tombstones. Apparently the church used to be a sort of castle for Prague, so old kings had used it, which made it even more exciting. Again, I plan to return and take pictures. Oh, one funny thing: I was looking around at the tombstones and about every other one had “Romilda” or something like that on it. I couldn’t believe that so many Czech women had the same name, but eventually I figured out that it meant something like “rest in peace.”

Last night I was in the touristy section of Prague at night for the first time. It was crazy, but fun, though I’m glad I wasn’t there for very long.

Today I have a heap of homework to do, and this afternoon I’m going on my first adventure alone by train to visit a castle. Sorry this was more factual than entertaining, I’ll try to correct that next time.

It's My Life...

2007-09-13T22:48:00.001+02:00

The title, complete with high cheese factor (as Patrick would say), was inspired by a rousing playing of our dear Bon Jovi during the futbol game I attended last night. More on that in another entry, which may or may not be written yet tonight. First, today seems to deserve a “day in the life” description.

Actually, I’ll start with yesterday (Wednesday), because of its importance to my Czech language development: we learned the names of food. Now I can finally say the crucial things like ice cream (zmrzlina), dumplings (knedliky), Cheers! (Na drazi!), and fried cheese (smerzany syr). After our morning lesson, we all went to a restaurant to practice at lunch. This is the best kind of school, if you ask me.

But let’s skip ahead to this morning so you can get an idea of what I do every day. This morning I heard everyone else getting ready and leaving, but my alarm didn’t go off until 8:03, so that’s when I got out of bed. I showered and got ready, then went downstairs and ate a piece of bread and grapes for breakfast while I packed my lunch, then made sure to be out the door by 8:45 so I could catch my 9:01 bus. I did catch the bus but I clearly still don’t have this public transportation thing down: Until we get our permanet transportation passes on Monday, I have to pay eight korunas each way on the bus for a ticket, which I get from the bus driver. Eight crowns is about 30 cents or so. Well, this morning the smallest piece of currency I had was a 200 crown bill, so I had to pay with that, and apparently that’s not acceptable because the bus driver said some things that sounded not-so-nice, though they were in Czech so maybe he was thanking me or something. In any case, he managed to scrape up enough change, and I was on my way.

I ride the bus for about twenty minutes, then get off and switch to the metro. Now, one point on this topic: Elena kept telling me I have to take the tram, not the metro (the former is aboveground), but I’ve since discovered that the latter is a lot faster. I think she just wanted me to take the tram so I could look around, but I frankly don’t have time for that in the morning. Anyway, I usually go only one stop on the metro to Hradcanska, but today I met up with the group at Staromeska (Old Town). We then wandered for a bit until we found the café where we had an hour-and-a-half lecture on the History of Theater. During the lectures we all get coffee or tea (or in my case, usually juice), so we all stay fairly happy. After that we had an hour and a half for lunch, so I hung out at the café with some other students and ate what I had brought: a sandwich, yogurt, and more grapes. We met a British boy who was only in Prague for the day during a tour of Europe. He had already spent four hours of his day in the café. It’s so interesting to meet people from all over doing such exciting (or, in this case, boring) things.

Then we took the tram to meet everyone at the Prague castle, where we spent a few hours going through an art exhibit. It was Cubist, which I’m not too excited about, but we just had a short lecture there and then had some time before we needed to be back at school. We all walked back (it was only about twenty minutes), then stopped at the café right under school to get cake. I ate Medovnik, which is honeycake and my new favorite thing. ((If it sounds like there’s a lot of food in this story, that’s because there is. Today was definitely the worst of it, and I usually don’t get something everywhere we go, but you could...this place is dangerously decadent when it comes to food.))

We ended the day with the third of four lectures on broad Czech history. Today was entitled “How to take over a country in three years or less,” and we focused mainly on the advent of Communism in the Czech Republic. I might be a nerd, or maybe it’s just our lecturer (who used to be a teacher here, and I might try to work with him), but I find it all pretty fascinating. With all the cafes and adventures, my day might sound quite romantic, which I guess it is, but not every day is like that and we really are working, not just being frivolous.

Anyway, tonight I pretty literally dashed out of there because I’ve been late home the past few nights and it’s finally gotten warm here, so I wanted to go on a run. I go the opportunity when I got off the metro only to see my bus about to pull away. I ran and hopped on, but I’m not exactly thrilled that I did, because it was PACKED. Making the bus did improve my record, however: The first night I missed it by one minute and had to wait forty minutes, the second night I missed it by five minutes and had to wait 35 minutes, and this time I just made it. (The reason I had to wait so long is because it was later at night; buses come about ever 10 minutes during the busier hours). I made it home by 6:15, and no one else was here yet, so I was out pounding the pavement by 6:30.

Now, perhaps I haven’t done a great job describing to you where I live. Rostoky, my suburb, is just north of Prague (about 20 minutes by bus- ha). On the way there you go by a beautiful river and lush foilage by the side of the road. The road itself is extremly tiny, and I’ve gotten pretty scared a few times that the bus was going to go right off the edge (Don’t worry, mom, the bus drivers all have decorated their area up front with pictures and good luck charms, so we should be safe). Rostoky is a town build on a pretty considerable hill, and when the bus drops me off, I have to climb to the very top of my hill to get to my house. The top is fairly flat, unfortunately, so I don’t have a great view from my window, but tonight I discovered the true beauty. I started running and was just going as the wind blew me (you can’t really get lost when your house is on top of a hill—if you’re at the bottom, you just run back up), and all of a sudden I came to this open patch which was bordered by an orchard of pear and apple trees that overlooked the river on one side and the entire city of Prague on the other. It was absolutely breathtaking (I think. I already didn’t have much breath because I’m out of shape and I was going up a hill, but it took all the breath I had left). The site/sight made my night.

When I got back, everyone was just getting home. We talked for a bit, then Elena told me to get out of my sweaty clothes so we could eat. I did (because you can’t argue with that), and sat down to yet another delicious meal. The bounty has shifted suddenly from pears to mushrooms (which they’ve promise they’ll take me “hunting” for), so the first course was mushroom and potato soup. My first few bites were absolutely fabulous, but then Elena pulled out a bottle of vinegar and put some—about 2 tablespoons, I would guess—in her soup, and recommended that we all do the same. I added maybe a teaspoon, and it’s pretty safe to say it ruined my soup experience. A tip: never put vinegar in your soup. After that she pulled out two heaping plates of what she called pancakes but what I would call crepes, and either way they were wrapped taco-style around either mushrooms or assorted vegetables. These were FANTASTIC and didn’t require vinegar to enhance the flavor. I ate two and then was forced to eat another. After the third they tried to make me eat more, but I simply couldn’t do it. I don’t know how these people stay so thin. (By the way, the other day Elena was describing a couple she knows who are from America and she said, “They are both like Shrek,” meaning that they are fat, not that they are ogres. I found this hilarious.) Then after dinner Jan pulled out a huge bottle of beer and split it between himself, Elena, and I (they don’t let Simon drink because the drinking age is 18 and he’s 16, and he’s not very happy about it), and then told me that if I wanted more, he could open another bottle. By this time, I was almost exploding with food, and I really thought he was joking, but when I laughed they looked confused. Needless to say, I did not require more.

So we feasted and are now doing our own thing, which for me right now means blogging/emailing/homework. I’ve tried doing homework downstairs, but they seem to think if I’m down there on the couch they can’t be watching TV or anything, so I feel annoying and for now I’m up in my room. Okay, that’s it for now, if I have time you’ll hear about the game tonight, otherwise maybe this weekend.

Not in Kansas.

2007-09-12T15:52:00.001+02:00

Q and A is going to have to wait, because I want to get some other thoughts down first. Namely, a list of things that I've noticed that are different here than in America. I just wanted to write them down before they become normal for me and I stop noticing them.

1. Lack of peanut butter. This is okay so far, but it may become not okay by December. Apparently most people hate it, though Elena says she doesn't mind it, it's just impossible to find. I guess Nutella will have to do for me for the next four months.

2. Lack of bags/disposables in general. When I went to the grocery store with Elena, she brought her own bag with her, and everyone else did the same-- I'm not even sure that there were paper or plastic bags. It's cool how they're sort of unconciously environmentally conscious.

3. To go along with that, there are no to go cups or to go anything, really. If you order something, you're meant to sit down and eat/drink it. I haven't seen anyone with a travel coffee mug, and nobody gets Doggy bags at restaurants. This morning I ate a banana while walking to my bus stop and even that earned me funny looks.

4. Everyone closes all doors all of the time. I noticed this first in my host family's house, and other people I've talked to agree. I think it's a way of keeping the heat inside the rooms instead of the middle of the house, but it feels odd to me.

5. If you've been to Prague you probably know that the rudest thing you can do is to leave on your shoes in a house. I didn't think that was too strange, but when I went out into the back yard of my house Elena made me change into other special backyard shoes. This is a bit excessive if you ask me. We also went to a movie theater today and learned that putting your feet on the seat in front of you is NOT allowed. It made for an uncomfortable viewing, since my feet were dangling the whole time.

6. When we had our huge lunch on Sunday, we had glasses at the table but we didn't drink anything until we had finished eating. After that, Simon got up and got a bottle of water and a bottle of wine, and we drank last. Dad, this reminded me of your family. Also, everyone ate REALLY quickly. I had two bites of soup, then looked up, and everyone else was done-- no exaggeration. Maybe this is just my family.

7. Everyone has a dog, and all of the dogs are huge. HUGE.

8. Water comes with bubbles, lightswitches are squares, there are no nutrition labels on anything, the shower heads are never attached. This last fact has caused some problems for me, since my family also doesn't have a shower curtain, and it is extremely difficult to not spray water all over.

Just wanted to get those down. Hope they're not too boring. Oh, and one more thing, I've had the following conversation about a million times:

Misc. Czech person: Where are you from?
Claire: Wisconsin.
Misc. Czech person (pretending to know where that is): Ahh, where in Wisconsin?
Claire: Madison
Misc. Czech person (excited): Oh, like Bridges Over Madison County?
Claire: Uh...no.
Misc. Czech person (dejected): Oh.

I think it's pretty funny but I have to find a way to soften the blow.

Jak se mate?

2007-09-10T23:25:00.000+02:00

The title means “How are you?”, but one of the first things we learned here was to never ask that question unless you are looking for a true, complete answer. I’ve heard many anecdotes about people missing the metro because they carelessly queried a friend or neighbor. Apparently it’s also considered very rude to just answer positively; one of our lecturers said that the other day she said that she was “good” and her friend protested, “Donna, could you stop this attitude and tell me at least one bad thing that has happened!” The question and the explanation of both good and bad things going on is meant genuinely as a chance to bond through problems. I think it’s cool, and I’m warning you that I may adopt a similar attitude when I return.

This is in part an answer to the question “Are the people there friendly?” To put it simply, no, they are not. That’s not to say they’re not nice. Our first speakers have been about Czech people, assumptions, stereotypes, generalizations, and the truths and explanations behind these things. They often ask for our first impressions of the people, and the most frequently offered words are “unimpressed” “reserved” “skeptical”. It’s true, really. According to our lecturers, there is a notion that people don’t just go around being kind; you have to EARN a smile.

Again, that’s not to say that the people aren’t nice. Once you’re “in” their good graces, you’re really in. And they truly appreciate you not being a tourist and trying to actually learn their culture, especially the language. All of my teachers keep telling me that Czech people know that Czech is a hard language, so they’ll appreciate any attempt, and I’ve found this to be very true. Whenever I approach someone in Czech and first ask my question in the language before switching to English, they’re much more helpful. I think I really like this chutzpah. They are so proud of who they are and what their country is, and so resilient and strong as people.

This sort of relates to my main story of the day: my first experience getting lost. This morning, Jan and Elena took me on the bus and put me on a tram and then assumed I could get back. If you know me, you know that unless I DO something by myself, I have absolutely no clue where to begin. So, on my way back I found the right tram and got off at the right stop, but then everythign was totally blank. I couldn’t recognize anything, so I wasn’t sure whether I had gotten off at the right stop, and there are about 10 bus stops in the same area, so I was going around to all of them and crossing the street and it was raining and I simply couldn’t find my stop. I made sure I was in the right place, which I was, but I might as well have been in Warsaw. Did I mention that it was pouring and freezing? It was. I was determined to not call for help, so I kept wandering around. I tried to ask several people, but I couldn’t remember any Czech, either, so I was really floundering. Finally, I saw a guy watching me who clearly knew I was lost but wasn’t helping, so I got really angry and remembered my Czech and asked him. He was able to point me in the right direction (around a corner), so I made it home, but I was a bit nervous for awhile. It felt really good to get to the house.

Unrelated: I gave the family Jelly Bellies (the jellybeans) as part of a homestay gift, and Simon absolutely loves them. He’s read Harry Potter, but he’s never seen jellybeans, so he thinks they’re from the book. I told him that the book stole them from us, and he was very impressed. He also said that he thinks they taste just like they’re supposed to, though he didn’t know what “root beer” was.

I think next blog I’m going to try to answer questions people have asked me in emails, etc, so if you have any, comment or email me. Dobrou noc! (Goodnight!)

Room and Board and Monkey Business

2007-09-09T21:34:00.000+02:00

Man, for you loyal blog-checkers, this is a sweet day. That's because it was also a sweet day for me, your loyal blog-writer. I just wanted to continue some thoughts about the house and fill you in on the rest of my host family.

The house is...well, like the city, it's rough around the edges but comfortable inside. Elena told me that she and Jan got married pre-revolution, so when there was Communism, and you weren't allowed to buy or sell property. Elena was divorced, and Jan didn't want to move in with the ex-husband (suprised?), so they had to search for a way to get around the rule. Jan's aunt had this house, which apparently was very run-down and pretty much a disaster, but they moved in anyway. Since then, they've been repairing it, but for a long time it was very difficult because they'd start a project and then all of a sudden run out of concrete (as in, the city/country would run out of concrete), or they would lack supplies altogether. Anyway, now it's pretty nice inside. The outside is rather ugly: it's very flat and not very interesting. There are two floors inside. The first has a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen complete with a washing machine and pantry. The second floor has my room, Simon's room, Jan and Elena's room, and a bathroom. Actually, my room also has a LOFT, but I'm saving that fact for it's own post (Morgan, on a sidenote, every staircase here is winding and beautiful-- you'd be in heaven). My favorite part of the first floor is a wall that's entirely bookshelves, all filled with books I can't read yet. There are a lot of plants inside, and the kitchen is Brimming with food, especially pears because (and here's the best part) in the back yard there are pear trees, apple trees, grapes, etc.! The back yard is absolutely GORGEOUS. In addition to the fruits, it also contains two adorable run-down sheds, a clothesline, and flowers (pictures will follow once I figure that out). In any case, I'm quite comfortable, and my host family is even lending me a laptop, which makes the rootbeer incident not quite so heartbreaking.

When I stopped working on the last post, it was because it was time for lunch. Now, this was a special lunch because two of the three older children were there, but it was absolutely ridiculous and everything was delicious. We started out with cabbage soup, which sounds gross but actually tastes nothing like cabbage, which was followed by what I'm told is a Hungarian dish of peppers stuffed with rice and mincemeat and stewed in this tomato soup mix. They were afraid I wouldn't like it, but I loved it, which makes me nervous about the stuff they think I will like! The peppers were accompanied by the dumplings we made this morning (I had two but the average was four), and all that was before a desert of pear pudding topped with two heaps of various fruit topped by homemade cream. This was all while drinking carbonated water and two glasses of wine. After all of that, Elena went out with a scissors and brought back bunches of the most delicious grapes I've ever tasted. It was like the normal grape flavor intensified times one hundred and enriced with berries or something. They also reminded me of gushers, because the skin fell off right away in your mouth and the inside was squishy liquid.

Before I forget, the other traditional Czech food I've eaten is garlic soup, which was surprisingly savory, and made me feel extra vampire-proof.

The last thing for today is my "extended family". One reason for the big lunch was that my 34-year-old host brother is leaving for Africa, where he will shoot two documentaries. Read that sentence again, because it's pretty cool. He's also gorgeous and he has a beautiful girlfriend. He's being paid by National Geographic. Just as a note, that used to be my dream job, so I am in awe. Perhaps cooler was my host sister, who is a singer-songwriter, and her husband, who is the lead singer for the band Monkey Business. It's a pop/funk band and they sing in English, and apparently they're a HUGE deal in the Czech Republic. Jan showed me a video of their concert, and it's legit-- they have lighting effects and sweet costumes and huge crowds. The music actually wasn't bad, either, so if you can access it, Czech it out (ha). They just released an album in Australia (I think. I could be wrotg about the location), so he's going touring now. Anyway, I thought it was all pretty exciting, even thought I felt pretty left out when they were all doing their family thing in Czech and I had no clue what was going on. One of the things I'm discovering is that everyone here does something artsy in addition to their regular work if not as their regular work, and I think that's really neat.

On that topic, tonight I went to this little play put on in a schoolroom. It was all in Czech, but it was so interesting to watch. It was mainly done in puppets (think Sound of Music, but there was also a guy playing the electric guitar to accompany them, and at times the puppeteers would play the oboe or sing. I am in a crazy place!

Chytilovi

2007-09-09T17:50:00.000+02:00

So much to say about everything but I simply must talk about my host family, who I am now living with. I don’t even know where to start about them, so I’ll begin with names. They are known as the family Chytlovi, so the father is Chytil and the mother is Chytilova. My host father, Jan-pronounced Yan and with the nickname Hosta- barely speaks any English, but he’s super cute. I think he’s in his upper 50s and he’s very smiley. When I told them that I was Czech, he said something about how all nice girls are Czech. They’ve had students stay with them before, and apparently Jan refused to learn English from them but my host mother said he understands a lot of it and that he might learn it from me because I’m a girl.

My host mother, Elena, is a hoot. She’s Slovakian, as she keeps reminding me, not Czech, and she’s a very take-charge do-what-she-wants tell-it-like-it-is lady. She’s very opinionated and I think her favorite word in English is idiots, which she’s used to describe the people who built her grocery store, the people who put up signs in Prague, and various other unknown entities. At the same time, she’s a total sweetheart, and she’s very concerned with how I am and whether I’m hungry or cold or need anything. This morning she suddenly asked if I wanted to learn how to make dumplings, which of course I did, and so she’s had me in the kitchen all morning. I now have all of the many secrets to make good dumplings, but there are so many that I don’t think I could ever reproduce them. They start with yeast, but it isn’t dry yeast like we have, it looks almost like a grey, dry version of butter. She had me try some and it tasted like very sour bread. She snacked on it the whole time, which I thought was so funny, because who eats straight yeast, but she insisted that it has a lot of vitamin B and is thus good for the skin. Elena is very interested in telling me about their life and why things are the way they are, and that always comes back to communism. For example, she talked about how she always stocks up on food because in the past they could only find one thing at a time, so they’re accustomed to buying a ton of it.

My host brother, Simon- pronounced She-moan – is 16 and a typical teenage boy. He has his eybrow pierced, which Elena said was his way of asserting his independence. He watched TV with me last night and I managed to get him to talk to me a little. He and Jan are always joking, which is really cute and I wish I understood more of it. Simon is constantly text messaging or on the computer, and his mom is always complaining about it. Tim, he reminds me of you. This morning, for example, Elena was yelling at him to bring down his laundry and he was grumpy about it, but he finally brought it down, and I felt like I was back in SP. Last night we were watching music videos and the Rhianna video came on and he laughed at her and said She’s so plastic, --sorry, I can’t find quotation marks or parentheses on this keyboard-- which he was using to mean fake. I thought it was interesting that he was so critical of her makeup, etc.

This morning at breakfast I felt like I was having breakfast at grandma Kostechka’s house—we had bread and meat and jam, and Elena didn’t sit down the whole time.

We’re about to eat lunch, and my older host siblings are here, gotta go!

Pragueress!

2007-09-05T22:39:00.000+02:00

Prague has me speechless already; I've only been here for about 24 hours and I have no idea where to begin. My first impression is that the city is very Cool. It definitely has rough edges, but it has a good heart, and for me, it seems very comfortable. The biggest shock this morning was finding that everything here really is written in Czech-- it was a shock to go into the Metro station after being in the airport, where everything was written in both English and Czech. It's pretty exciting, though, because it seems like we're going to learn Czech really quickly just out of necessity. Sara, our academic director, said that she learned the language "through osmosis," and she's fluent now. Today we went to our school site for the first time, but first we stopped in the cafe and pub underneath it. We all started to order drinks at the cafe, and Sara told us that the people there (and at the pub) were instructed to only speak to us in Czech. Needless to say, it was a bit difficult to order, but we got through it and it's so exciting to think that soon I'll understand the entire interaction and be confident that I'm really getting orange juice.

The place where we have our school is breathtaking. It is in what used to be an apartment, but it spans three floors and totals about ten rooms. All of the rooms are white and have high ceilings and big windows. The best part is a terrace off of the top floor that overlooks the city. Expect pictures soon. The worst part is that the computers there (which will be my main access to internet) have Czech keyboards, so things are all messed up. Funny thing is, I'm used to a messed up keyboard :-/. In any case, it's a sweet place to learn, complete with a library and lounge where we can work.

Today we were pretty touristy, probably the most touristy we will be on the trip. We must have been a hilarious site getting on the metro. There are two things I like about the metro. The first is the escalator down to the trains, which is about the length of six or seven normal escalators. The second is the wall of the tunnels. I'll have to put a picture up, but trust me, it's cool. We went on a walking tour of the city, then hung out at a pizzeria with a few Praguians ($5 to the first person who tells me what you're really supposed to call people from Prague.). It was really interesting to hear them talk about the city; they love it, but they kept saying, "We've lost it," meaning that the tourists and West has really taken it over. It was depressing, but really neat to see how passionately they felt about the city. In addition, they were almost all artists, and it was so so interesting to hear how they were using their art to sort of perpetuate the Prague that they love. One of them was a theater manager, and he invited us to his show that night-- a one-man Japanese modern dance. I went with another girl on the program, and it was wicked wild (I don't ever use the word "wicked", so that should show you how much I mean this). It was in a tiny theater, and we were clearly the only Americans there. Sometime ask me about the dance, it should be shared in person.

Agh, I did not do my first day here justice at all. Can you tell I'm pretty out of it? I'm still rather jet-lagged. It's midnight and I'm very tired but also very wide awake. I promise a more interesting post soon.

Testing 1.2.3.

2007-08-31T23:05:00.000+02:00

Since I'm currently armed with only a list of my 14 favorite "Czech" puns and last night's dream that I lived in a castle in Prague, I'll limit this post to the following items of business:

1. You found my blog. Congratulations. Keep checking: the goal is 2-3 posts per week.
2. Credit for the discovery of the "Prague blog" rhyme goes to a certain Ms. M. White, with gratitude.
3. I leave on Monday. Wish me luck.