Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Passing on the Legacy
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.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Photograffiti
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/
http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/ClaireMichelleHerman/Prague%202/
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Spring Forward, Fall Back
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.
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.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
No Means Yes and Other Ways Czech Keeps Me On My Toes
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.
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.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
I get around
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Central Europalooza, Part 2
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
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
Monday, October 22, 2007
Central Europalooza, Part I
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Although I might like it for one afternoon, I don't want to live on the moon
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.
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.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Claire as a Tourist: Take One
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.
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.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Wide Open Spaces
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?
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?
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
If You Want to Be a Praguer, Just Come Along With Me...
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?”
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?”
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
What's in a Name?
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.
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.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Shrooms, Zuzka, School, and So it goes
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.
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.
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