The CZach Republic

Liquid has a place.

2009-04-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

I've just come to a realization and decided to share.

In the United States of America, when dining out the question of what to order for a beverage typically meets a simple, "Just water, please." Maybe a different variation, "Water with lemon." or even sometimes (for the strange), "Water. No ice please!"

However, seeing as you have to pay for the tap water that they fill your opened glass Bonaqua water bottle, ordering drinks becomes a much more intense experience in the Czech Republic. The options are suddenly open. No longer can you cheap out by not getting a drink, now there are other options, some even cheaper.

Beer? Big or small? This kind or that? Vino? Red or white? Coffee? Tea? Coke, Fanta, or Sprite?

This brings a whole new angle to eating out. As you sit down and pick up the menu you have to not only judge your hunger, but you have to judge your thirst. Are you getting something spicy or salty? Maybe you should get a big beer then. But, two cokes added, is that cheaper than a big beer? The beer will fill you up too... good point, maybe I'll just get water.

Up until this point, I've been in Praha for 3 months, I've always thought it an annoyance that I had to order a drink. Now I see it as an opportunity to better understand the dining out culture.

Na zdraví!

These few presidents....

2009-04-01T03:43:00.001-07:00

I emailed my professor of my antisemitism class on Sunday about my book review. He responded with a weird cryptic message about Terezin and President Peres. I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought he was canceling class because he was going to a ceremony with the president. Later in the day I get a text from Jarka (the RD for the Jewish Studies program, shes cool). The text said something like, Monday instead of class we are leaving at 2:50 to go to Terezin to be a part in a ceremony with the Czech President and Israeli President.

Crazy. Oh, and we had to dress up. Good thing I brought those black suit pants...

Around 2:50, a group of maybe 13 of us gather downstairs. Jarka led us to a minibus that she rented just for this occasion. We took the hour drive to Terezin. After going through a bit of a fiasco trying to find kippas for all the guys, we walked to where the ceremony would take place. There was a podium, maybe 20 chairs, and a huge wreath, all set up behind the cremetorium (not the bad kind like Auschwitz, just the one for people who lived in the ghetto). It was in the cemetery in the ghetto part of Terezin, there was a different ceremony at the little fortress on the other side.

Finally after standing around for several minutes, a huge motorcade pulls into the cemetery. The presidents went into the cremetorium. Then come out and speak to about the 50 of us who were there. The Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, spoke in Czech (which was translated into English), and vice versa. Peres is 85, but he spoke surprisingly well. Klaus was pretty bland. He isnt very well liked anyways, he doesnt believe in global warming...

Peres said some weird stuff. Some stuff I don't agree with, but whatever. It was all bull. They then walked over to the huge menorah. Some guy prayed, some Czech chick sang, then they each put a stone on the huge menorah. It was cool. See the photos below. Youtube links soon to follow...

I think you can tell who is who. Old man with stache is Klaus, tan dude with kippa is Peres. As you can tell, we were about 15 feet away. I have a video of them walking directly in front of me. When I say directly, I mean two feet away...

Springtime in Prague?

2009-04-01T03:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday it was in the 50s!

Later this week we might hit 66!

Prague is starting to transform. The people, not so much. I almost got hit by a car two days ago... Terrible drivers even in the nice weather...

The good weather has perfect timing. Friday we have a make-up class for Art History and we are doing an extensive tour of a section of the city called Vysehrad. I think thats how its spelled... Its like a fortress/cemetery/cubist buildings. I'm pretty excited because its close to our flat, but we've never ventured in that direction before.

Sunday Obama will be speaking at the Prague Castle. The public is allowed to attend, so I think the majority of us are going to go. That would be three presidents in one week for me. I'll be posting about the other two in a different post.

Apart from the five finals, three 10 page papers, and bunch of readings left, the semester is nearly over. I am looking forward to being in the States, but while I'm here I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can.

Now that the weather is looking up there are thousands of tourists in Prague. Its disgusting. I don't really have to venture into those sections of town, unless its by choice. Despite the fact that we've spent nearly 3 months here, to the Praguers we are still just American tourists. Slightly disheartening.

The last weekend of April is a free weekend. I know people who are traveling every single weekend in April. I don't know why, Prague is great. I think I might go on a day trip or two, and maybe on the free weekend take a train trip to Krakow or somewhere not terribly far. Paris is great an all, but I'm not really looking for that experience. Although I would love to go to the Louvre. I have the rest of my life to go to Paris, but chances are I'm never going to be traveling in the Czech Republic again (although it is pretty sweet and I'd like to come back one day).

I also have tons of visitors coming Easter Weekend. April 9-12 I think. Then I think I have friends coming April 22/23ish. We'll see if that works out.

The two places I'm thinking for day trips are Oloumost (most definitely spelled wrong). Its where three of the Czech buddies go to University. Its supposed to be really nice, and its really rich in history. Another group make a weekend trip earlier in the semester.

The other place I want to go is Karlsbad. There is a castle there that Charles IV specifcally set aside for his collection of religious garbage. Most of it is still there. There is a room that is covered in jewels, gold, and these awesome paintings of saints. Its supposed to be a great place to visit in nice weather, and its only about 45 minutes away by bus or train.

Back by popular demand

2009-04-01T03:10:00.000-07:00

Alright so its been a while since I've blogged. Heres an update from our long trip.

I'm going to sum this up bigtime because there is way to much to type and I don't feel like typing that much.

Basically we saw tons in a short amount of time. Tensions ran high at points, people enjoyed themselves at points. I had a good time pretty much the whole time. It was a tiring experience, but very much worthwhile.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures. I have just about 500 from the trip, so maybe when we all get together we can sit down and go through them. Until then I'm going to pick a few of my favorites.

Just comment on ones that you want to know about, I don't want to go through that mess of trying to caption them again.

Amsterdam

2009-03-17T04:46:00.000-07:00

This past Friday morning, Meghan and I left for a weekend adventure in Amsterdam. I'm not going to give you a play-by-play of the trip; rather, I will use photography to highlight some of the more interesting bits.

Now these aren't in any specific order because Blogger is really hard to use with photos, so just bear with me.

Fries with Mayo, mmmmMMm --->

Red Light District ---->

Flower fair thing --->

Cool leaning buildings down a sidestreet --->

Oosterpark by our hostel --->

Basically Amsterdam in a nutshell, mixture between old and new -->

Sh! ---->

Bikes, bikes, bikes, bikes ---->

Bob Dylan picture in the Richard Avedon exhibit, you know him, google him for some images --->

Remember these --->

So thats Amsterdam in a nutshell. It was a lot of fun. It was a very cool city to walk around and see the different people. Lots of tourists, obviously. The only downside was that because the Netherlands is on the euro things were significantly more expensive.

P.S. I know the labels are messed up. Deal with it. Things are pretty self-explanatory.

Run Adventure II

2009-03-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

About a half hour ago, I decided to go for a run. Around 3pm it had started to rain/hail, but it seemed that the clouds had pushed aside and it would be a calm run...

I started out this time going a different route. I discover an underpass that allows pedestrians to go under one of the main roads that straddles our flat. I followed this route straight down in the direction of the river. Along the way I discovered a huge monastery/church and the meaning of steep. The road turned into a narrow pass that dipped down towards the riverside. From there I followed a variety of routes and found the river.

I headed right, instead of left like last time, and soon ran into a pretty busy section of Prague. There was a metro stop not far away so I cruised towards it and discovered that it was Karlovo Namesti. This is the tram stop that we take to transfer from the trams that go home and the trams that go to CET. Its three stops from the closest tram home. I was surprised that I had make it that far out, distances in Prague can be deceiving though so I'm not really sure how far it was in miles. From here I discovered a cool monument, did a lap around an old church, and drifted down a windy side street. I soon found my way back to where I needed to be.

After huffing up the steepest hill on the face of the planet it immediately started to pelt a wintery mix in my face. For us native Duanesburgers, wintery mix is an ominous term for a-whole-bunch-of-shit-you-don't-want-to-drive-in. Sucking wind and ice, I finished by racing a couple of children underneath the underpass.

Overall, despite the freezing tempterature and the hardly foot/ankle friendly cobblestones, running v Praze is worthwhile. I discover something new each time, and hopefully I'll be able to piece everything together and have a good sense of the area I'm in.

Evidence of Bicycle Soccer

2009-03-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

Link 1

Imagine this, but without the stick.

Visitors in Prague!

2009-03-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

This past week I had a couple of visitors. My good friends Dana and Joel came with one of their friends, from London. They had spring break so they did a trip of Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, and Berlin.

I think they had a good time. I was in class most of the day that they were here, but I tried to give them some insight into Praha. The best advice I can give someone visiting this city is to wander. There are so many hidden churches, monasteries, and beautiful old buildings.

Getting lost in Prague is easy, but necessary. There is no way that you can claim to know Prague simply from visiting the castle, Old Town Square, and the Charles Bridge. Even the New Town has different sights to offer. The other day I went for a run and discovered many old buildings right in my neighborhood that I had no idea existed.

Its a bit chilly out, true, but I have no clue when its going to warm up so you might as well just suck it up and get out there. At least thats what I told the Prague Bicycle Soccer coach when he saw me running. Heres the story:

So I'm running down by the river. Theres a small dock that runs parallel to river, which in turn runs parallel to a main street. I'm in New Town a couple of bridges away from the Charles (I find bridges are the best way to determine where you are on the river). On this particular parallel dock there is a section that is flooded. It rains here constantly. Not necessarily pouring rain, just rain. Constant. Stupid. Rain.

I see the flooded section, but to turn around I'll have to go up steps. Steps are vastly overrated. I never understood why we just can't have steep ramps... Anyways, so I decided why not leap over the flood. Mind you its about 20 feet. If I miss it theres a good chance that my feet might actually freeze (its about -1c outside).

I get a good running start. Clear it. But just as I'm in the air a man on a bicycle goes through the puddle too. He splashes me from the displaced water from his tires. I am soaked in dirty swan water (instead of ducks there are massive herds of dirty swans on the river).

He pulls up next to me and starts to speak some Czech garbage. I like Czech, its only garbage in this instance because I just got soaked and I'm about a mile from home (uphill I might add).

Finally we get to talking and hes the coach of a sport here which involves 2 teams. There are 2 members of both teams. They play on a court about the size of my elementary school's basketball court. They use a ball about the size of a mini-basketball and the point of the game is to shoot the ball into a small goal (about the size of a lacrosse goal) but ONLY by using the bicycle tire. I've seen it on T.V. once. Crazy stuff. Apparently only the Czech, Germans, and Slovakians play it. The one rule that I understand is that your feet can never touch the ground, thats a foul.

Intense stuff.

Anyways so hes the coach of the Czech team. Apparently they are training. He gave me his card and the address of their training facility. It would be good to get into an organized sport again. I might check it out if I get bored.

Dana, Joel, and Katie left Friday, but I think they had a good time in Prague. Most people who visit do. Especially because the exchange rate is so good here (esp. considering the other cities that were on their list).

Descent into the Land of Laundry...

2009-03-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure you've realized by now, our washer blows.

It suddenly decided to stop working maybe two weeks ago. I had a load in and the washer proceeded to soak the clothes and deposit the soap. Then nothing. No spinning. Nothing. I tried three times in a row. Nothing. I was forced to wash out the clothes in the sink.

Our flat decided, for some odd reason, to put off telling CET about our problem and to just not do laundry. Bad idea.

Finally, forced to seek alternative methods, I looked up laundromats on expats.cz. I found one pretty close to our flat. It had several self-service machines, so it seemed like a good place to go.

Kendra and I packed out suitcases and wheeled out to, the aptly named, Laundryland.

We got there at 7pm, self-service ended at 8pm, so the girl refused us and told us to come back the next day. Kendra went back the next day, but the place was full of Americans.

Our suitcases proceeded to sit in the hallway for a couple of days. Finally this past Tuesday, we we went to Laundryland. CET had also been notified of our problem.

The self-service machines were full, and the lady told us to come back in an hour. Well it was raining out and we were desperate. We asked her for full service instead. A.K.A. we left suitcases full of dirty clothes with an old lady and told her to do our laundry for us. The prices seemed steep but we were desperate.

She told us we could have our clothes the next day.

3pm, Wednesday. Czech class. The lady calls Kendra and tells us its done so we can pick up. Phew. We had spent that whole morning speculating on the condition of our clothes.

We picked up our clothes, paid, and that was it. It was surprisingly cheaper than I expected. Wash, dry, and fold was only $20 for nearly all my clothes. Considering that would be at least 3 loads at the dorms = $15. Not too bad. Our washer is fixed now, but you can't put a price on the softness that a dryer can provide. Its wonderful.

Terezin.

2009-03-04T03:52:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in a while, but here's an update. Last Sunday we went to a concentration camp.

I'm not going to give you a tour of the camp or talk about what we saw or what we did. That's really something that needs to be experienced firsthand.

Briefly, I would like to talk about my reactions.

Its hard to come up with adjectives that fit properly, but it was an interesting? experience. I'm just glad that I went to Dresden first because I can't imagine seeing a Neo-Nazi rally after visiting the place where 30,000 people died.

One of the people on our tour put it best. She described the experience as one that affects the 5 senses. While in the Small Fortress (for political prisoners) we went into the hospital room. You could almost smell the sickness still in that room.

Terezin was for sure an experience I won't forget.

Its hard to say whether or not it was what I expected. I would say no. The Small Fortress looked like what you would imagine a concentration camp to be, but the ghetto section was not. Terezin was the camp that the Nazis used to allay the fears of the Red Cross of mistreatment. It was a "ghetto," aka concentration camp under the guise of a ghetto.

It was an interesting? worthwhile? experience.

Masterpieces

2009-02-25T04:31:00.000-08:00

The following works of art are some masterpieces of mine. I took the pictures before I sold them at my monthly art auction. Just bought myself a Skoda with the money. Google Skoda if you don't know what it is.

Here's the first (the one the man on the street bought immediately, that inevitably led to my career as an artist - its not a great picture but I'm an artist, not a photographer [that's next week]):

Circular Architecture (2009)

This next work is an example of my pen on paper:

Couch. (2009)

This next piece was the beginning of my watercolor stage. I hope you enjoy it:

(L) Bloody Crazy Horse (2009); (R) Cat Genie (2009)

This next piece shows the evolvation of my watercolor work. Enjoy:

(L) Blue Octopus (2009); (R) Nova Explosion (2009)

These next two are my most recent creations. Here I am working on a larger canvas, which opened up many artistic avenues. As you can see, these watercolors are diverse, explosive, and one might even say it shows the maturity of the brushstroke. Fantastic:

Mother and Child (2009)

This next piece has been described as a "Mexican Cactus" by Kuba, Meghan's BFF. I like to think of it as an expression of desert heart through the multitude of colors:

Cheesecake (2009)

So those are the pieces that I've currently created, and subsequently sold. The following photograph is Meghan's baby. No, not literal baby, although... Never mind... Using mainly Meghan's polaroids we created a network of friends and acquaintances. (Sidenote: Polaroid- polar bear on steroids?)

My artwork represented on our web are reproductions. I've started selling reproductions from the Charles Bridge. Its always good to have a mass fan base as well as having the collectors. I think in maybe 10 years I'll fake my death and have my agent send me the increased profits through my swiss bank account. Who knows.

Videos

2009-02-25T02:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some videos from Dresden that I posted on Youtube. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCY_HCljUds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdWg5F1tpKM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWwzep6EQ0I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXcbD1vDwv4

Disclaimer: Most of these are really boring.

A Trip to Spinderův Mlyn

2009-02-22T03:05:00.000-08:00

We are going to have to go way back here. Tuesday night. A bunch of us had signed up with CET to go to a local hockey game. A group of us had class until 5:30, and thats when the game was starting, so we all left together to go to the arena. On the way there Jack told me about his plans with David and Hilary to go skiing this weekend. He invited me out to go with them. At this point I was very undecided. I had plans on Thursday night already, but skiing...

So Wednesday rolls around. On Wednesdays I have Czech. Jack and Hilary are in my Czech class. Our teacher (I just can't use the word professor to describe her) always wants to know what our plans are for the weekend. So Jack says that him, Hilary, and maybe me are going skiing. Zdenka (our teach) latches on to this thing. For the rest of the class shes acting like I'm the one who said I'm going skiing and Jack is the maybe. They start talking about how nice the weekend is going to be, blah blah blah, I'm convinced.

Thursday afternoon. At 4pm, I had Art, Architecture, and Memory (AAM). Our professor, Otto Urban, told us to meet in Old Town Square and then we would hit up some old building with a gallery inside, or something like that. (Heres a picture of me waiting in OTS). Jack and Hilary are also in this class. We decide that we should boogie after class and head out. Jack and David had already arranged a car rental and hotel arrangements. So the three of us go to meet David at his flat because he has the car. It was interesting driving through Prague on our way out to Spinderuv Mlyn, which was about a 2 and half hour drive.

Here's our car.

So we get there and there is a ton of snow.

Heres a pictoral of our hotel.

We settle in for the night then decide to hit up the small town area (the Centrum). After having a late dinner, we proceed to go to a strange nightclub/bar thing. I say strange because of the fact that there was a stage, a girl dancing in a cage, and a bunch of 14 year olds and and bunch of 50 year olds. Heres a picture of the young'uns.

Overall, it was a good time at the strange bar/club thing. So we head out to go back to the hotel. I'm only saying that so I can go right into my next picture. Which is this:

We wake up the next morning and go to our breakfast. We paid for a three person room, but we were four people. Up till now we didn't have a problem at all. So we go down to breakfast. Its a real crappy buffet. Nothing terribly appetizing. We run back to the room to grab our stuff, and suddenly there is a knock on the door. Some lady from the front desk comes in and starts talking firmly with us. She says something to the effect of you paid for three people, why are there four in here. Hilary is swift on her feet and says that she came by this morning and is staying with other friends. So desk girl knows we are lying but decides not to pursue this route any further. Instead she latches on to breakfast. She says that had you told us there would be four at breakfast then it wouldn't be a big deal, but now you will have to pay for breakfast. And we are like okay no problem whatever, sorry... Desk girl says that breakfast was 1050 crowns, which is roughly like 52 bucks. Then David and I are like what are you talking about lady! We ask to see a menu and shes like oh we don't have one blah blah blah... Thats our price for breakfast... Like hell it is... The best part though was when desk girl says, "You think everything is free, you think you can just have breakfast and its free!?" Oh, America...

So we leave the room after we are all packed and go to the front desk. The room for the night was something like 2400 crowns. They charged us 2600 something crowns. As we are walking out of the hotel to the car we realize that desk girl meant to say 150 crowns, not 1050 crowns... So essentially we got in a whole hullabaloo over 7 bucks... Wow.

We get skis, poles, boots, and day lift passes... comes to 750 crowns... less than 40 bucks to ski for the day. There is no way you could find that in the states. And this was a real mountain, great skiing. But I'll get there.

Hilary had never skiied before. For David it was 5 years. Jack had skiied a lot, and knew what he was doing. I hadn't skiied since 6th grade, so like 9 years.

We put the skis on and attempt to get through the parking lot. It feels somewhat similar, but pretty distantly similar. Hilary begins the day of falling by falling through the parking lot. Heres a great shot of Jack taking a picture (he catalogued most of her falls, all in good fun).

He did eventually help her up.

We go up the mountain. The lift took longer than any mountain I've ever been on. Obviously Maple Ski Ridge could fit inside of this place's lodge. No comparison. We can't find any bunny hill or super easy trail, so we wind up with a medium trail. Its pretty difficult for me and David, but Hilary was having a rough time. I mean it was her first time ever on skis and here she is on a Medium trail. It took a while to get down that first time, but learning through doing was never truer in this case.

Lunch break, then we decide to hit the slopes again. We have until 4pm and it was about 2:45pm. Normally that would be a couple of runs, but we are moving pretty slow today. We were on the wrong side of the parking lot too, so we took a different lift all all all the way to the top of the mountain. Because the other trail put us on the wrong side, we had to take a harder route to get to where our car was parked. It was absolutely gorgeous on the mountain though. The sky was gray, huge snowflakes were falling constantly, the trees were coated white, and it was near silent. I didn't bring my camera up because I didn't want it to get wet, blah blah blah. Turns out I should have. I wound up not falling all day, so it probably would have been fine.

It took us about an hour and half to get down the harder part of this trail. David wound up falling more than Hilary, he also probably went faster though. As I finished this trail though I felt a lot of the movements come back to me. It was nice to get out there again. I think skiing is the type of thing you can do maybe once a year and enjoy it just that much. Maybe I'll start going every once and a while in the states.

After skiing we grabbed a nice dinner, which none of us wound up finishing. Here's a picture of Jack's leftovers...

As you can see, he didn't even take a bite out of his burger.

After dinner we headed back to Prague. We figured the roads would be terrible because it had been snowing all day, but apparently the plows and salt machines had been out because they were fine.

Additional Info: Some people in our program are planning trip and going on trips every single weekend. I don't understand the point. One, its really expensive not just for flights but because most of Europe in on the Euro. Two, all you can really see is the main highlights and an ability to put a city/country down on a list. I would rather do things like go to a Czech punk rock concert, go to a Neo-Nazi rally, and go skiing in the Czech countryside. Thats not to say I don't want to travel because I do. I just want to make sure that its worth it.

For curious mothers, this was my skiing outfit:
I wore sweatpants under my jeans. Dress socks with another pair of socks on top. T-shirt, longsleeve t-shirt, and flannel button-up. Gloves from Old Navy. Jacket. And surprising, I was warm enough. It helped that I didn't fall and get wet. Those gloves were definitely worth five dollars. You would think going skiing would prompt me to buy a hat, but I have yet to get one. I had icsicles for hair after skiing, but it wasn't that bad.

Znouzectnost!

2009-02-21T03:10:00.000-08:00

This goes back a couple days so bear with my poor memory...

Wednesday night Petr took us to see his favorite band. It was a Czech punk rock band that has been around since the early 1980s. Our entire flat, Jelena (another girl from the program), and Petr's friend Hanka all went to the show. It was held at a Rock Cafe literally right next to the aforementioned Cafe Louvre.

It was a really cool venue. It was downstairs, a bar at one end, the stage at the other. Probably about 100 feet long. I made that number up, I have no idea how big the room was. Imagine Norther Lights or the Black Cat or I don't know. But it was cool.

The show started at 8:30. We got there pretty much right on time. There wasn't very many people to start with, so I didn't even realize that it was the band we came to see. Eventually the crowd started to get bigger though. Some people in the front started to get really into it, dancing, jumping, screaming. We managed to get right to the front where there was a sort of barrier separating us from the crazies.

There was this one kid with long hair who was just whipping his elbows in all directions. The word kid is relative I suppose, he was probably much older than me. Many people in the crowd were older folks.

Eventually the songs picked up and Meghan dragged me into the mosh pit. I had never been to a punk rock show, or in a mosh pit, but you find out quickly what to do. This was by far the least violent mosh pit on the face of the earth though. I'm not even just saying this for the parents that read this blog. People were just jumping, sometimes into each other. But there was no moron who was going around throwing bows and kicking people. Everyone was just having a really good time.

Towards the end of the show, the pit got enormous. There was one song where I remember lifting off the ground for about 1 full second. I've never had a full concert experience like what I experienced here. I've gone to plenty of shows and have had a great time, but this show was different. The music was eh, not bad, but the crowd was great. Most of the time its the opposite for the shows I go to.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'N Roll

2009-02-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

First of all, the answer to the poll was dryer. The only person who got it right was... Me. It takes about 20 hours to do laundry here. And when you clothes are finally dry... they are stiff and wrinkled. Never underestimate the power of a dryer.

Prague, Vienna, Budapest. Worst class ever. I thought it would be about the cities... apparently I didn't read the fine print. Prague, Vienna, Budapest: An Intellectual History (AKA BORING SHIT). Apparently, the most important aspects of these cities include boring philosophy and psychology garbage. Imagine you see a class titled, "Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'N Roll." Sounds cool, right? Now imagine that the subtitle goes something like this, "Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'N Roll: An study of the 5 Senses and the theory behind their elemental existence in these mediums." Boring. Who cares... Apparently for our next class we will be reading the first president of Czechoslovakia's essay on suicide. Rock bottom = excitement about suicide.

"Mourning March" or "AnExcessShowofNazisticGarbage March"

2009-02-15T08:27:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, yesterday our flat and our good friend Caitlin Hart went to Dresden. It was an experience unlike any other. The day started slowly and built quickly, so I'm going to attempt to write in that manner...

We planned to meet Caitlin at the train station at 8:15am. Our train was schedule to leave at 8:40am.

8:20am - No Caitlin.

8:30am - No Caitlin. Called her three times. No answer. Annika and Kendra go to find the train and the platform.

8:38.30 - Meghan and Caitlin come running up the stairs from the Metro. The three of us sprint to Platform 3. As we run up the ramp to the platform we see Kendra and Annika at the end of the tunnel motioning for us to come. We jump on the train just as the whistle blows and the train starts to move. Click on the link for realistic portrayal of this event.

Caitlin, Meghan, and Zach running to catch train

The train ride was relaxing. It was about a two hour trip.

We get off the train into the Dresden train station. Immediately we notice that there is an excess of heavily armored police in the train station. They seem to be standing in either lines or in large groups. Weird.

We exit the train station. We see tons of more heavily armored police. There was a small group of people waving black flags right outside of the exit. I didn't think anything of it, I mean it happens every day in D.C.

We continued to walk and soon found that it was about 15 degrees colder than Prague. I never thought I could be colder, but I was wrong. The wind was wicked.

Eventually we wound up with a map from a tourist info place, so we decided to camp out in a small cafe. Meghan texted Petr to see if he knew what the protest was about. We had seen many more policemen from the train station to the cafe. Petr texts us back, paraphrased, holy shit there is a neonazi parade today, don't yell anything anti-fascist, are you okay. Greeeeeaaaaaat.

To be honest we were all pretty intrigued by a Neo-Nazi rally. Its not every day you go to Germany and wind up in the biggest Neo-Nazi rally in the past thirty years (Click here to read more).

So we walked back to the train station to see what the hullabaloo was all about. Turns out, the exact area where we exited was now full of Neo-Nazis. We could only approach a fence that was about 100 yards away from the train station. Somebody was busying making a speech and dropping Guiliani 9/11-bombs (i.e. Holocaust, Vietnam, Iraq, Holocaust again, etc.). It was most likely the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life. There was a good amount of people on our side of the fence watching, like us, out of curiosity. There was also a couple of people on our side of the fence whistling to show their disapproval.

We eventually wandered away and decided to go see what Dresden had to offer. Turns out, not too much in the middle of winter. We snapped a couple pictures of buildings, saw some old architecture, and then decided to go somewhere warm before our ears fell off.

For 4.50euro we entered a Renaissance era art museum. I believe it was some state museum. It was pretty cool. We were there for about an hour and a half when we looked out the window, and about 100 feet away from the museum was a huge rally. There was a stage set up and a band was playing to a motley assortment of people. There was a gay peace flag, so we figured that we had finally found the right side.

Bored of boring art, we went out into the crowd. There was a huge group of people. Many younger, but also many older folks. The strange assortment of signs made me slightly uncomfortable because I know no German. I most likely rocked out with an anarchist, a communist, and maybe a couple of nudists. Better than Neo-Nazis...

We stayed at the concert for about 10 minutes. Took some photos, videos, and then moved on. We walked around the corner, maybe a quarter of a mile, when we ran smack into a huge crowd of police. The stairs that we had eariler walked up to get a view of the river, were now crowded with people dressed in black and chanting something or other. The police successfully created a barricade around the Neo-Nazis so that we could only see from a distance. Where we were standing, on the edge, was close enough though. It felt like we were in the center of it. Right next to us about 100 more heavily armored police came pouring out. (Sidenote: About a third of the German police are women). It was a pretty frightening experience.

It seemed like a good time to go, so we started to walk back to the train station. It was already about 3:30pm. The first train that we could take was at 5pm. We wound up crashing at McDonalds for about 25 minutes. Best Happy Meal of my life.

The rally next to the train station was over, but the many of the Neo-Nazis had not gone home. We walked through a couple hundred of them to get to the train station. This was quite possibly the most intense experience of it all. Knowing what they believe and being so close to it was ridiculous. Makes you just want to yell, what are you thinking? But you don't, punching one of them in the face will most likely hurt you more, 39938487 piercings all over most of their faces...

We spent much of the first half hour on the train discussing what we had seen.

Writing this entry took some time because seeing 6000 Neo-Nazis is not something I ever thought would happen. It was a useful experience. Yet disappointing and upsetting at the same time. While studying history, I've learned that this stuff is still out there, but to see it firsthand is an entirely different matter. I don't regret being in Dresden on the day of the "Mourning March," I only wish that I could say that I was inspired by the counter-resistance, but I wasn't. Basically, shit sucks in the world. You read your history books, and you don't see it. You listen to professors lecture about all kinds of garbage, but its not in your face. I suppose in some queer way this is a testament to the benefits of studying abroad.

Study abroad: See a Neo-Nazi rally!

Hopefully not, but if you do, it'll change the way you see the world. Now I'm just rambling, but to sum it all up... Germany deserves a second chance, next time I'm going in Spring.

Where Czechs go to play smart and Americans go to feel something special

2009-02-13T05:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday our Prague, Vienna, and Budapest (hereafter called PVB) took us to the Cafe Louvre. This cafe is famous as being the place where intellectuals would gather to discuss such heady subjects as Physics, Philosophy, and all that garbage. The two big names are Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein. The former as a student at Prague University, and the latter as a professor.

Well let me tell you... the place has changed. I'm sure Franz Kafka would refuse to pay 38kc for a Coke. To be honest, he probably snorted his coke and had no idea you could even drink it. Heres an example of the extent of this place's selloutatude: the placemats are in Czech, German, and English. Not only just in English, in perfect English. Thats not something you find very often.

The atmosphere was intriguing. I didn't feel as though I was in a hall of great minds. I felt as though I was in a hall of fakes imitating great minds. View picture below.
It was hard to capture a great image, but you get the point. So our PVB prof made reservations for our twentysomething group, but the hitch was that we couldn't stay unless we got lunch. The menu was interesting, but in a higher price range than any of us would have liked. Many people opted for some of the cheapest things on the menu, the soups. We'll come back to the soup in a bit. I ordered sweet dumplings. It was cheap and different. It took some time for the food to be delivered, so in meantime we discussed lofty subjects (travel, food, and 5 minutes of Franz Kafka).

At last. Food. The waiter brings Emma a bowl of vegetable balls. There was two or three on the bottom of her plate. He then proceeds to pour boiling vegetable broth from a small pitcher. Really? Is that necessary?

Later that same day... Our Art, Architecture and Memory (hereafter referred to as AAM) professor met us in Old Town Square to escort us to a monastery that holds the National Gallery.

Our prof is pretty awesome. On Tuesday he lectured about Romanesque and Gothic art, now on Thursday we were viewing the images that we had discussed in class. Very cool. Pictures weren't allowed in the Gallery and the old ladies are like hawks in there, so I have no evidence to submit. Take my word for it though, there was some awesome stuff.

Fastforward... At 7:25pm Kendra, Annika, and I head out to go to Hush (the expats bar thats 5 minutes away from us). Our friend Stefaan was hosting a quiz night and somehow I got suckered into a team. Petr was absent so Kendra joined me, Zuzana (Petr's friend), and another girl who was friends with Zuzana. They had reserved a table right next to the bar. Annika joined a team that was short people. Not literally short people, but they didn't have enough.

Stefaan read the rules and we proceeded to have 5 rounds of 9 questions. Our team was pretty confident.

Yeap. We won. View picture below for evidence.

The dude next to us is Paco Hush, the owner of the bar/lounge. The things in our hands are: Becherovka aprons, tshirts, placemats, huge empty glass bottles, metal wall hangings, and a bottle of Becherovka Lemon. The stuff tastes disgusting, but whatever, a prize is a prize. Becherovka for those who don't know is a liquor created in the Czech Republic. It has something like 13 herbs in it. It tastes disgusting. Back in the good ole days it was believed to cure stomach aches, etc. Some people still think so, I think it causes them.

The tshirt is awesome. See below picture. We went to play celebratory foosball a cool bar not too far from home.

So that was my Thursday. Today we are going to check up on train tickets to Dresden. We are going to do a day trip on Saturday. We have a free weekend this weekend so everyone pretty much peaced. People are making plans for nearly every weekend, but to tell the truth, I like Prague. I don't mind traveling a couple times, but like our program people said, I would like to get to know this city better. Even if the people are grumpy old fogies, the sky is never bright, its snowing as we speak, Prague is a pretty boss city.

Karma can be violent.

2009-02-11T08:40:00.001-08:00

Last night Annika, Kendra, and I were just hanging out. We decided to lighten the mood with a few choice beverages. Visible from the entrance to our apartment is a Portraviny (I believe its spelled right), which is like a small store that sells bare necessities and beer and wine and liquor (which I suppose is a necessity for a Czech!). Imagine a Stewarts, but without the terrific ice cream, delicious bacon cheeseburgers, and no skeezy girl that graduated two years before me.

Most of these Portravinies are run by the local Vietmenese minority. I going to pretend like I know that this is a fact when really I have no idea, but the Vietmenese in Prague are the largest minority present.

Its funny because sometimes you go into these shops and you try and speak Czenglish (a few Czech words, a few English words) and they still don't understand you. Pointing gets it done most of the time.

Back to the story, so basically we get our beverages and check out. He charges us 30kr per bottle of milk, which is absolutely outrageous. They should have been probably half that. Still unsure in the city though, we take it. You live and learn. For example, never going back there again...

Anyways, so we are walking back to our apartment. We have to cross this four lane road, super busy. So as we are crossing the street I see in my periphs, movement. Then comes a huge crashing noise. The sign next to the Portaviny comes crashing down and explodes on the ground. By explodes I mean to say that glass and plastic shatter into pieces. No pyrotechnics (unfortunately).

We had been standing there perhaps 30 seconds before.

We all took is as a sign of god telling us that we shouldn't go back to that place again. I hope the ripperoffer took is as a sign that we can move objects with our minds. One can only hope...

The Dirty K

2009-02-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

Sunday Morning

Alarm goes off at 7:30am. We get on the bus at 9:00am to go to Cesky Krumlov. A small town/village/city about 3 hours away. All the JS/CES students are on the same bus, theres only about 40 of us so no big deal.

I apologize for the following details, but they are necessary for understanding this journey.

So if you recall, I had Chinese food the night before. About 5 minutes into our bus ride, I proceeded to experience the second worst heart burn of my young adult life. It was so awful I thought I would have to stop the bus and run through the fields screaming in agony.

That didn't happen, but it was really awful.

Arrival in CK around 11:45am.

We go to our flats, I roomed with this guy Jack. We got two twin beds, some girls were not that lucky. A group of us grabbed some lunch at a random Czech restaurant. For some reason it took us a very long time to pick a restaurant. I'll be posting pictures shortly of the town so you get some sense of it. Its very historic, some might say backwater, but it was cute.

After racing through lunch with met up with the whole group (including the Film students). We went on a castle tour for about an hour and a half. The main draw of CK is the awesome castle.

We ended our tour in this sweet cafe. CET paid for one drink per person. The hot chocolate was just literally hot... chocolate. It was obviously delicious.

Following a super long lecture from our tour guide, Bryce, a group of us decided to grab a drink before dinner. We had to meet at 7pm and it was only 5pm.

Using the navigational skills of our Czech buddy Petr/Peter/Pedro, we found this weird cave bar/pub. We were put in a backroom where we each enjoyed a very expensive beer. We had some laughs though, and the time soon passed.

Around 6:45pm, we went out into the night. We took a wrong turn but ran into a group of lost film students. Together we found the brewery where CET would be feeding us. We were going to be eating in the beer hall. It was a huge spacious room with tons of tables. Very cool.

The food was great. The beer was interesting. I got the light, and it had an almost caramelly taste to it. Very sweet. But good. A gypsy band was in attendance for us to enjoy. As Jiri said, "merriment and dancing."

Once everyone finished dinner, by everyone I mean 60 some people, everyone went to get more drinks. This is just about when the nickname the Dirty K comes in...

When you see directors of your program dancing with students and drinking things tend to get a little funny. Needless to say, everyone had a great time. Some more than others, but I'm pretty sure we will all remember that night in the Dirty K.

I forgot to mention that it was snowing all day. It was the type of snow that was only snow in the air. Once it hit the ground it might as well have had been rain. So around 1am a group of us decided to walk home. Walking became much more like iceskating. No one slid off the bridge though. Thankfully.

The next morning a bunch of us met to wander the city. We had to be at the bus at 3pm, but had the rest of the day to ourselves. So around 11am we hit up the Fairytale House, which turned out to be nothing more than an attic full of creepy marinonettes.

Then our group split up. Petr and some girls went for a walk, while a bunch of us went to check out the church. The church was boring so we soon left. Some people wanted chocolate so we split up again. After the chocolate we wandering around for a short amount of time then decided to get lunch. It was about 12:30pm. Jiri gave us a coupon for 20% off any of 4 restaurants. So six of us went to one of the restaurants on the list, having no idea what we were in store for.

I ordered the Beef in cream sauce with bread dumplings and cranberry. It was a generous portion of beef with a pile of cranberry on top, then whipped cream on top of that. Along with 5 or 6 dumplings. It was, by far, the best meal I've had in my life. Or close to it. Or top 10. It was so amazing. Theres a picture somewhere that I'll dig up and post. Oh, and the cost, about $5.50...

So at 3 we left the Dirty K behind. It was a good trip. There was a lot of history there, a lot of pictures taken, and a couple of interesting memories.

Chinese Strange-Tasting Chicken

2009-02-09T12:50:00.000-08:00

Saturday Night: Saturday was a relaxing day since we had to leave for a trip to Cesky Krumlov Sunday morning. The three flatmates and I decided to try and hit up the place we went the first free night we had in Praha.

We got there. It was closed.

We wandered around for, perhaps, 15 minutes or so. I took some sweet pictures. Then Meghan decided that out of all the restaurants, she wanted Chinese. The rest of us didn't care, so in we went. The restaurant was sort of in a weird strip mall. It was completely empty (as all Chinese restaurants are in Prague).

The food was actually very delicious. I got curry chicken and it was quite good. The spring roll was also fantastic.

The downsides: It costs much more than a typical restaurant. And it took 15-20 minutes for me to finally flag down the waitress so we could get the bill. Mind you, this is a small restaurant with one other patron... Service here sucks, but at least the food was good.

Walked home, snapped a few more pictures, saw a British bachlorette party wearing bunny ears, went home, watched a movie, went to bed.

Explanation of the title: Kendra ordered the "Strange taste Chicken." It was basically sweet and sour chicken, but with a ton of other flavors.

Occupation Opportunity: I've decided to take advantage of a rare business opportunity. I plan on either opening new restaurants or buying up all the current Chinese restaurants. Trends spread like wildfire in the U.S. (look at those stupid cupcake places) and I believe I've gotten winner here. These won't just be Chinese restaurants, these will be Chinese bars. Sure you can get a beer at any Chinese restaurant, but where can you munch on some fortune cookies or wontons while watching terribly dubbed English movies?

Exactly.

More to come from the Dirty K.

Legenda

2009-02-07T04:28:00.001-08:00

Last night for dinner Annika, Kendra, and I went to this place we walk by every day. Its literally one block away. Its called Legenda Restauratce and Music Bar. It was a really sweet place. High ceilings, wooden furniture, cool bar upstairs, funky bar downstairs, cheap food, and cheap beer. The beer was the same price as a lounge we frequent, which is pretty cheap (28 crowns or like $1.45). The food was also really cheap. For 109 crowns I got these two huge chicken medallions cooked in potato dough (thats like $5.50). HUGE. FRIED. DELICIOUS. They also had Heinz ketchup, which made them even better. The pictures below represent half of my meal, which I had to take to go because it was so filling.

We will definitely be back there, and hopefully to check out the music bar downstairs.

After that we went to a club called Radost. Its where Rihanna filmed the music video for "Please Don't Stop the Music." Ironically, all the dancers in the video are black; however, in Prague there are hardly any black people. The clubs here are nothing like D.C. clubs. Well, other than the fact that there were 50 year old men at the club... It was a lot of fun though, got to mingle with lots of CET kids. And the best part was that its two blocks from my apartment. Wooo.

While I was dancing on the stage, I was talking to the DJ. She told me to go around cause it was so loud. She let me spin a few tracks, which was pretty sweet. She gave me her card (shes not just a DJ but owns a DJ'ing company) and told me that I had real talent/promise etc. So instead of an artist of drawings, I might just become an artist of techno/hip hop delights. I can see myself in a Bratislavian club, making all the tourists go wild...

Art and Architecture

2009-02-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

Today is Friday, which means no classes! Last "Art, Architecture, and Memory" class that we had our prof said to bring in a drawing of a building we like to class on Tuesday. Meghan is also in the class, so today we went out to find buildings. Its freezing out, so we wound up camping out in TGIFriday's. Gross I know, but you gotta do what you gotta do. My drawing is fantastic.

We ran into two classmates on the way back to the flat, and while I was showing them my masterpiece a Czech man noticed it and started screaming in Czech. He whipped out his wallet and laid 2000 korunas in my hands (roughly 100 bucks). Well I quickly ripped out the drawing and gave it him. 2000 crowns will last me for dayyyyyyyyyyyys. I've decided, based on this experience, to drop out of school and take up drawing. Or at least sell a couple more drawings to have a firm base, then once I return to the United States I can start on building my reputation as a master crafter...

Persons

2009-02-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

One of the more exciting things about my trip thus far has been the people that I have been able to meet. At AU, you only really meet other AU students. Here so far I have a Belgium friend, a Austrian friend, I've met people from Australia, Pakistan, Italy, Slovakia, Prague, other places in the Czech Republic, and of course, tons of states in the U.S.

Pretty sweet stuff, or in Czech, husty.

Today I got Subway. It was 150 crowns, slightly overpriced, but good a for a small taste of home. I haven't gotten my appetite back since I've been here so the sandwich lasted me two meals! I apologize for the mundane nature of this blog. I've been trying to spice it up a bit, so bear with me.

Heres an overview of my classes:

Politics: A required class. Basic info of European history. Boring.

Prague Vienna Budapest: A class on the overview of the three cities and their intellectuals and philosophies. Tons of work. Tons of reading. A couple of city walks and stuff. The professor is really young, but seems chill.

Holocaust in the Czech Lands: The prof is really young. Like 26 or so. The class seems really good. I'm excited about this one.

Czech: Language course. Pretty difficult stuff but I'm making my way through it.

Art, Architecture, and Memory: Really cool class. On Tuesdays we have lectures on slides. Every Thursday we have an excursion to look at the things we discussed in the lectures. Seems like a class that finally has a great art history professor. I'm excited to finally get a positive practical perspective in an art history class. Our first assignment is to draw a building we like in Prague. There is some reading, but the professor is mostly about trying to have us get a good experience while in Prague.

So those are my classes. We are watching a movie so I must go. But more interesting tidbits to come!

Super Bowl

2009-02-02T02:20:00.000-08:00

Last night was the Super Bowl. One flat had a bunch of us over to hang out before the game. Meghan and I headed over there around 8:30. There was a lot of people just hanging out in their small flat. A number of us who actually wanted to watch the game made plans to go to a sports bar in Old Town.

Around 10:40, everyone left and a group of us headed to the bar. Most people went home because today was our first real day of class. I have three today, my first was as 9am, but I figured it would be worth just going to see some of the game. Because it was Sunday night the streets were practically empty. The only people wandering around were Americans looking to watch the game.

The bar we went to was an Irish bar. It had about 5 or 6 TVs showing the game. Their menu consisted of typical American bar food: onion rings, nachos, and fries. Because of the ridiculous time difference, we stayed for the first half and to watch the Boss. Believe me, by the end of the half I was ready to go to bed.

I was slightly disappointed in the Cardinals' performance, but they looked to be going strong. Bruce, however, put on a great show. Its about time they got someone good to play at halftime. I feel like I was at AU with the Jersey enthusiasts, but there was only one other AU guy with us. I think its in the water in Jersey, a love for Springsteen is born into them and they can't help but get excited. I mean, don't get me wrong, Bruce is great, but I hardly think it was necessary to jump up and down and slam your hands on the table and shriek. And this was sober!

I wound getting home at about 2:45 and going straight to bed. This morning's politics class was pretty simple, so it wasn't that big of deal. I'm back at the apartment on a two hour break before my next class and I was going to nap but I don't think its worth it. My next class is Czech, now only an hour and a half instead of four hours! I can't wait... Then after Czech I have two more hours of free time and then I have a three hour block of the Holocaust in the Czech lands. Mondays are rough. Thursday are similar, but I don't start until later in the day. The rest of my week is pretty much a breeze. Two afternoon classes Tuesday, one afternoon class Wednesday, and no classes Friday. So if I can make it through today, then I think I'll be fine for the semester.

Time and time

2009-02-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

So far there has been a lot of blank space in our days here in Prague. The chilly weather isn't very comforting for exploring new sections of the city, and oftentimes our late night activities tire us out until the afternoon.

We did manage to go for a short walk last night however. There are two pictures from that walk. It started to flurry a little bit last night too. Just very small random pieces of snow, but then around 10 it started to snow pretty hard. The ground is covered now, the sidewalks and roads are clear, but the alleyways have a nice layer. It'll probably be gone soon though, snow rarely lasts in cities.

So last night we had some friends over from our program. It was nice to be able to talk to people in a relaxed environment; rather than our 15 minute break in intensive Czech. Everyone that came was real chill and it looks like it will be a good semester.

One of the girls that came had a Czech friend, so he came and brought 3 of his friends. They were about our age, and were really nice. They were all really into photography and had some pretty nice cameras. There is so much to take pictures of that I imagine much of Prague's youth enjoys photography.

Tonight is the Super Bowl! And while I'm excited for the game, we have classes tomorrow for the first time and I'm not looking forward to waking up early after a long night of watching the game. One flat is having some people over for a pregame get-together so we are going to head over there, but once everyone leaves for the pubs for the game I might leave. Or at least just watch the first half. Cards are going to win anyways...

Tour de force: Prague in 2 hours

2009-01-31T02:41:00.000-08:00

Our program hooked us up with a tour of Prague. There were four of our flats on the tour. Our tour guide was a very strange man, but he was quite knowledgeable. A lot of places that we went on our scavenger hunt are now set in my mind on a map, which is very useful if you are wandering around. The more I discover in Prague the more I realize that its a pretty small city. Of course, there are endless things to do, but the places where you would go are basically in three locations. Wenscelas Square, Old Town Square, or across the river by the castle. Its definitely an adventure though, and I'm sure I still won't have seen everything there is to see by the time I leave!

Patt

2009-01-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

Sidenote: Just so all the characters in this unending drama are recognizable... In our group there is a 53 year old woman. She looks much younger, but thats besides the point. She attends Smith College and is involved in a program for older women and people with children. She is ridiculously nice, funny, and easy to get along with. Her name is Patt (with two t's so people know that she is female). I sit next to her in intensive Czech. She is 5 years older than my mother.

TP

2009-01-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

Sidenote: The toilet paper is yellow and pink.

Supermarket je crazy.

2009-01-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

After another painful session of intensive Czech, we had "academic orientation." This was ridiculously boring. Jiri (there are accents but I can't type them) and Kim battled for cultural position in the front of the room. Kim is the director of the program and Jiri is the RD for the CES program. You often hear Czechs speaking on top of one another, but Kim refused to allow Jiri to say more than 5 words without a comment. Typical America...

After the abusively long session in a hot room with 40 people, me and three of my flatmates hopped on the tram literally outside our building to go to Tesco. Tesco is Prague's version of WalMart. Its nuts.

Let me set the scene. Its approximately 4:45pm in the Center (as downtown Prague is called). People are busy, people are in a hurry, the what light that makes it through the clouds is slowly dimming, and people are grumpy (in general, but more during rush hour).

So with this in mind we head into Tesco, the four story giant of a shopping experience. The first floor is the American equivalent of a drug store, we continue up the escalator. The second floor is purses and women's clothing, we continue up the escalator. The third floor is men's clothing and sport clothing. We continue up the escalator. The fourth floor is home supplies and toys. We get off.

I went to go grab a mat for outside our tub. We have a handheld shower and the hook that it attaches to aims the water about an inch from the edge of the tub, hence floods every morning.

I pick one out, we're good. Its time to go to the food store. Thats in floor -1. Thats right. They have floors 0 and -1.

So we ride the escalator all the way down. All the carts are taken. So we start our trip through the supermarket with the first aisle, alcohol. As I glance at the wines, liquors, and beers, it feels strange to not feel like I am 14 year old in a sex shop. I've bought alcohol here, but the feeling that I can and not get caught most likely won't leave.

This store is huge. And theres about 200 people in there. Their carts are on four wheels but they can move in any direction. And I soon found out the critical reason for this. These people are like sardines in the aisles. The lines to check out are so long that they block certain aisles. You hear many languages too: Chinese, British English, American English, and obviously Czech. Most of the patrons are tiny ladies buying copius amounts of beer and rolls. Two standards of the Czech diet. For a bottle of beer, and I'm talking a bottle, its 10 crowns for Gambrinus (which is better than any American beer). Thats about 50 cents. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I know...

We went to the meat aisle. You want to talk about confusion... They eat everything. They love pork, all areas of the pig too... It was nearly impossible to figure out what was quality and what was disgusting, so I went with some prepackaged salami.

The highlight of our trip was when I went to the deli. They have all kinds of cool pasta salads. I picked out that looked edible. It was 10 crowns for 100grams. I wasn't really sure what 100 grams looked like, but I looked at the lady and said "Sto." Which yes, is 100. Thats first word I've said that isn't thank you, hello, goodbye, or beer.

While waiting in line I said something to one of my flatmates. The guy behind up perked up, obviously an English speaker. He asked us if we were studying here (there are a ton of American students). He wound up being from the larger program in Prague called CIEE. About half of those in this program are from USC. This guy was from UMD. Our backyard. Its crazy the people you meet.

We left Tesco, hopped on the tram right outside, got off three stops later two blocks from our apartment. Then proceeded to unload our goodies. After many rude instances in Tesco I've decided to avoid it during peak hours. These people are crazy.

Tonight there is some huge HUGE international student party at a club downtown. I don't think we are going, but it is just a small example of the incredible amount of students in this place.

Until next time, ahoj.

Prague: Dirt and Gold

2009-01-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

So I've been in Prague just under a week. Here are some reflections:

I live in New Town. Its the "newer" section of Prague. There are no real modern buildings here. New means communist era. There is a real post-communist feel to the buildings and this part of the city. After all, its been less than 20 years since the Czech Republic was a communist country. This section of town is dirty, loud, and congested. You see copious amounts of dog shit, cigarette butts, graffiti, and KFCs. Its still an exciting place to be though.

Wenceslas Square is not far from our flat. This square holds a large variety of Americanized culture. Today a woman dressed in a subway sandwich was dancing down the street. Pathetic that this is the impact of America on Czech culture.

The place where we take classes is about 20 minutes walking. We are going to try and Metro it next time. The public transit system is suppppppppppper easy. You don't need to stamp any ticket or anything. You just need your prepaid ticket on your person. A man with a ring can stop you and ask for your ticket. Happened to me once, it was no big deal. CET gave us free transportation for our entire stay so its even easier to ride trams and Metro.

Old Town: We had to do a scavenger hunt for our program. We were in groups of 9. One guy in our group was a genius with a map and led us to victory. (Free t-shirt!). I got to see a lot of the city that I hadn't seen before. Like Old Town. Old Town is olllllld. Its gorgeous. Beautiful. Despite the many many tourist shops and fake crystal stores, its a great place to walk around. The cobblestone streets are unlike any other.

Overall. Prague is great! Its going to be real easy to live here for 4 months. We are taking intensive Czech so I've got some basic words down and all that. Its a real interesting language despite its ridiculous pronounciation.

Well theres some random thoughts. I think I am about to go out into the city and walk around. Theres not a whole lot to do during the day yet. Its a good city to just wander though, grab a beer, and relax. With the transit system you are never terribly far from home (depending on where you live).

So thats about it.