Copenhagen

I go home in 8 days. That is so surreal.



Last weekend we went to Copenhagen, Denmark. That city is very, very awesome. And very, very expensive.

We went to this crazy outdoor amusement park called Tivoli and rode all the rides and ate churros and froze our butts off and drank this stuff called "Glog" (but the "o" has a slash through it...) and it's like mulled wine, very delicious.

A few of us checked out the Danish Design Center, which I found really cool. They had some crazy stuff, like a pair of shoes for a father and daughter to wear at the same time. They were like two pairs of slippers sewn together. One was large and faced one way (for Dad) and the other pair was tiny and sewn on top of the toe facing the opposite way (for Daughter). It reminded me of when fathers and daughters would dance together at weddings and bar-mitzvahs and the daughter would stand on his toes. Cute.

There was also a sitar that was made to be played like a guitar, strap and all. I want one.


One of the highlights was the Absolut Icebar. There are apparently only four or five in the world. But basically, they give you a big space parka and gloves and the whole place is made of ice. The bar, the chairs, the tables, the glasses. You stay there for about 45 minutes before it becomes way too uncomfortable. But it was a weird, fun experience. We expected it to be ultra hip, but there was a lot of families there. And no one (except us) danced. They sort of sat around shivering, sipping their delicious beverages. We knew how to get the party started, though. Including an amazing conga line which the bartender attached himself to, before getting us free drinks. (I think he gets lonely easily. He didn't want us to leave.)


But perhaps hands down the best part about Copenhagen was the bike trip we took. A few of us rented bicycles (it's a really bike-friendly city) and rode around for about 6 hours. It was freezing, but it was an awesome way to see the city. And so much fun. I was very sore the next day. And also I caught the flu. But it was worth it.


All in all, one of the better weekend excursions I've had, I think. Really. An awesome city.

What I Do When I'm Bored

This is what I do when I'm bored. I make theoretical posters for a production that I may theoretically be doing next semester. An original piece about space. Called "Hello From The Children Of Planet Earth."


Enjoy.



This one's my favorite, I think:





This one ain't bad either:



This one is my least favorite. The little spacemen are weird and too large, but you can't see them if they're any smaller. And without them it looks too ominous and imposing and isn't really what I'm going for anyway. But, I like the composition.

I am a horrible blogger

I'm really slacking on this thing, aren't I?

Well, you're in luck. I just so happen to be writing a paper, and the paper is so incredibly boring to write that I felt the need to procrastinate in any way possible. Top of my list? Prague blog.

So, first of all, I don't think I'll be posting Budapest pictures. There are too many and it's a really big pain to upload them. Especially since the internet here has been so spotty. So, I'll go through a few and just describe them to you. You can find me when I'm back in the states, and I'd be happy to give you a very long, very boring slideshow of my travels.


One thing we did in Budapest was go to a basilica. It was a very beautiful domed building. Inside there was really pretty stained glass everywhere and pews. Also, there was a relic of some guys HAND! Yeah, you put a coin in a slot, and a case lights up and there's this dude's hand in it! So imagine a picture of that thing. It's kind of gross and cool.

Also, as I've mentioned in other posts, we went caving. Caving was awesome. Imagine a Hungarian Spider-Man. With long hair and not a scientist. That was our tour guide. And we got coveralls and helmets with lights on them and literally crawled through dirt and holes in rocks 25 meters below the Earth's surface. It took like 3 hours. At one point we turned off our helmet lights and just sat on the ground and listened and it was the darkest, quietest place I've ever experienced. So, imagine a hole in a cave that's so narrow I not only need to slide under it on my belly, but I need to turn my head to the side to get it through. And imagine a picture of me doing just that. And I'm covered in dust and dirt. Cool.

The other notable thing we did in Budapest was the thermal baths. Basically, there's a lot of thermal gas under Budapest. So they dug a bunch of pools out of the ground, and they're all heated naturally by these gases. And people pay to go. And there's three outdoor pools, one's really warm, one's pretty warm, and one's about 80 degrees Farenheit. And then you can go inside, where there are saunas and other pools with medicinal water. And one is like 40 degrees celsius which is really hot, and one's like 13 degrees celcius, which is really cold, and there are others in between. So we just went from bath to bath, getting a kick out of going from really hot to really cold. Seeing who could stay in a really hot/cold bath for longer. All good fun. I only have photos of the exterior of the baths, and some of the outdoor baths. Cameras in a place where people are wearing only bathing suits seems really creepy. But it was awesome.

Also I took pictures of food. I had really good food in Budapest. Fried bread and garlic soup and goulash and duck with honey sauce. Also, because of all the turkish food there, we had lots of doner kebabs and baklava almost every night. Mmmm.

Also our hostel was called Aventura, and if you ever go to Budapest, stay there. It was great, the people at the desk were super nice and super helpful, and the rooms are themed. That's right. Themed. Ours was "The Space Room." It was painted midnight blue and there were posters of planets and a little projector projected stars on the ceiling when the lights were out. It was great. I love space!

So that's Budapest.


Since then, we've had Fall break. We traveled to Milan (for a day), Madrid and Amsterdam. Although we heard that Milan had nothing much to offer, we had a great time there. There's a beautiful duoma and there was an outdoor science exhibit all about space! I'm telling you, I love space! Space is the coolest!

Also, Milan is the resting place of Da Vinci's Last Supper. Although, when we went to see it, the dossent laughed in our face. Apparently, you need reservations about a month in advance. They let 25 people in to see it for 15 minutes at a time. Lame.

Madrid was gorgeous and we were up to our ears in tapas every night and the hostel we stayed at was like a commune, with lovely people from Sweden and Australia and Alaska and England. It was the only hostel I've been to so far where we didn't mind actually hanging out in the hostel. In fact, they had a movie library, and on a rainy day we watched Back to the Future. It was great.

Also, this is the place where I witnessed the Phillies win the World Series. I never felt more homesick. (That's not true, but it sounds like it should be).

Amsterdam was kinda gross. But still fun. I'll have to write more about that later, cause it definitely deserves its own post.




Ok. That's enough of an update, no?



I feel ridiculous writing this paper. It's an interesting assignment, but you'll see how I made it riduculous in a second.

It's for Media and Society. We've been looking at how representations of things in the media are actually interpreted by the viewer, and therefore a message has more to do with the audience's perceptions, personal histories, culture, and biases than the media's goals. It's a good, interesting class.

So the assignment is to take some event or something and find photographic representation of it in a US newspaper and also in a Czech newspaper, and compare the photos from cultural perspectives. You know, analyze what they mean in each culture and what they say about both the subject and the culture itself.

So while most people in the class are comparing photos of big, serious, important things like 9/11, the Iraq War, or the U.S. 2008 Presidential Election, I'm writing about the respective photographic representations of Britney Spears' abysmal performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.

So, I'm looking at pictures of an out of shape, barely clothed, struggling pop star and trying to put an academic spin on the media's love of tearing her apart.

Also, I don't speak Czech. So navigating the MF DNES website (the Czech Republic's most prominent daily) is really difficult.


But whatever, man. I'm getting it done.


I miss New York and Philly. I'll be home soon.

I promise to update this blog for real soon. It has been a very, very busy couple weeks.

We had "Fall Break" and I traveled to Berlin with my family, and to Milan, Madrid, and Amsterdam with friends. Very eye-opening, and I'm happy I'm studying here in Prague.

The election was very exciting here, but hearing all my friends in New York talk about how they were all dancing in the streets made me miss home more than ever. It's amazing to think I'll be coming home to President Barack Obama and a completely different self-image as an American citizen.

Also, the trams here have seat-warmers! At 8:30 AM on a cold, winter morning, getting up for old people just got another strike against it... (It's still my favorite Czech custom, though. Don't worry. I'm sure I'll bring it back to New York with me.)

Also, last night I saw the band Why? play at this weird indie club that was at a university campus across the river. Anathallo opened for them. The place was filled with Czech hipsters, and I wondered, "Where have these people been for the past three months??" The show was great. I miss going to shows. Both bands were great. I find that they both have a really good sense of the arc of a song; the actual composition of the music (the combination between the instruments and the vocals) has emotionality and texture, and it's really fun to watch them play.

I want to start a band.

A Video!

The quality of this video is no good. In the future, if I post a video, it will be better quality. I promise.

Still, I think you'll enjoy this:

On "How are you?"

In the Czech Republic, much like the United States, people often greet each other with a friendly "How are you." In the United States, we do this by saying "How are you?" In the Czech Republic, we do this by saying "Jak se máš?" "Jak se máš" is pronounced like so: "Yahk seh mahsh."

In the United States, it is customary to answer such a question with things like "I'm well" or "Great" or "Just fine" or "A-Okay" even if the responder is sad, tired, ill, in constant pain, or consumed with grief. In other words, despite how one feels, in the United States, one will tell everyone they are fine.

In the Czech Republic, it is customary to answer such a question with things like "Still surviving" or "So-so" or "Ehhhh" or "Ugh, who knows" even if the responder is feeling perfectly okay. In other words, despite how one feels, in the Czech Republic, one will tell everyone that life is pretty crap.

There is no judgment in this blog post. I think it's a very interesting difference in the two cultures. I also think it says a lot about two cultures. I think it probably has to do with history. In America, always showing your best side, standing up in the face of adversity, and being an optimistic underdog is basically part of the culture. It is something that is considered "good."

In the Czech Republic, however, there is a history of self-effacement. Of rolling over and taking orders in order to literally survive. This had to happen multiple times in the past 100 years here. When the Nazis rolled into power it happened. When the Communists rolled into power, it happened again.

Imagine this: You are the Czech Republic. Your allies are France and Great Britain. It is before World War II. Hitler is crazy and power hungry and everyone in Europe wants to avoid a world war somehow. France and Great Britain meet Hitler in Munich. They say, "Okay Hitler, we'll give you this part of Czechoslovakia and de facto control over the rest if you promise not to invade anywhere else." Hitler agrees (even though he'll later break his promise.)

So now, you've been sold out by your former allies. You can either face Hitler's massive army alone, or you can agree to the annexations.

Does that suck or what?

A lot of Czechs joined the Communist Party because they were the only ones who were fighting the Nazis. They weren't better than the Nazis, as proved later.

Jan Urban, the aforementioned Modern Dissent teacher, talks about how in times of crises, when nations are pushed to the brink, they shift toward totalitarian solutions. These totalitarian - basically extremist - government parties offer a shortcut. A solution. One leader to destroy a common enemy. And people will believe it.

And then, obviously, it fails and people suffer and the whole nation gets egg on its face.



Get this: It is basically considered indecent to ask Czechs what they did before 1989. There is a whole generation here who basically pretends they were born at the age of 35.



This entry really got out of hand. It started somewhere sort of basic and interesting, and ended with what looks to me like a sort of pat, simple answer to a very complex cultural, political, and ideological occurence that we're (and by "we're" I don't mean "Czechs." I mean "everyone in the world") are still feeling today.


So. Sorry for the civics lesson. I don't pretend to understand the complex history of Europe or the (in some cases) more complex history of the Czech Republic (even though I now realize that I actually am pretending to do just that...)


I hope it was a little bit interesting though.



I'll end with a fun fact from from my notes:

Ok, so the German Empire kicked France's ass in the Franco-Prussian war. Bizmarck used an economist to basically calculate how much reparations the defeated France could possibly pay and not be totally and utterly destroyed. Then he made France pay that. It was a way of winning, but not humiliating the enemy. Bizmarck would always have to contend with France's desire to avenge their loss in the war, but this was a smart way to not completely humiliate the defeated enemy. Right?

Ok, so fast forward. WWI has been going on for a while, and we reach a deal: The Treaty of Versaille which effectively ends the war. Now it's Germany who's on the losing end. They've finally been defeated, and in this treaty they lose some territory. Also, they are forced to pay something like 132 BILLION golden marks. That's like 500 billion U.S. dollars circa 2005. This is the opposite of what Bizmarck did.

So anyway, in 1923, the German economy is in the tank. This is one of the most prominent examples of hyperinflation. The money was actually worth less than the paper it would be printed on. I mean, people would instead pay for things with coal money. If you went to a coffee shop, you'd pay in advance. Know why? Because the cost of the coffee could triple right there while you were sipping it! I mean, in December of 1923 the exchange rate was 4,200,000,000,000 Marks to 1 US dollar! The rate of inflation was so high that prices were doubling every two days!

That's craziness.


So here's the best part:

It is now October of 2008. World War I ended in 1919. About 90 years ago. The last part of the German reparations ordered in the Treaty of Versaille will be paid from Germany to the United States in - wait for it - year 2010! Yeah, in many ways it's just silly symbolics and a sense of pride. But still. It's kind of funny. The first world war is not yet over.


The world is funny. Enjoy your day.

Northern Bohemia

Bohemia is a place. A lot of people know this. But not everyone, I don't think. Maybe that's because of the hit Broadway musical Rent (which just closed, RIP). In the hit Broadway musical Rent, they often refer to Bohemia as an ideology. A haven for artists and lovers and other people with abnormal lifestyles. Those young artists and lovers and other people with abnormal lifestyles are Bohemians. Bohemians are chic.

According to the dictionary widget on my trusty MacBook Pro, the definition of a "bohemian" (the one that means "one who has informal and unconventional social habits") comes from the French word for "gypsy," since gypsies were thought to come from Bohemia. Or something. I didn't research this too thoroughly. I don't know these things for a fact.

Either way, Bohemia is a region of the Czech Republic. I know this for a fact. I know this because I was there over the weekend. We took a day trip. It is a really boring, really pretty place. Maybe those two things are incongruous. I wasn't bored there. But if I was there for longer than how long I was there for, it would have been boring. A day is the perfect amount of time to spend in Northern Bohemia.

There are caves there. The Bozkovské Dolomite Caves. I am not going to post a lot of pictures of the caves in this post, because we went caving in Budapest, and I think it's important for you to see the comparison. So instead, I will devote a post to comparing the two caving experiences. It will make you smile, I promise. Cave pictures are always funny.

The Bozkovské Dolomite Caves were really pretty, but super touristy. Lots of stairs and railings and lights and lighting effects. The best part, though, was the tour guide. He was a little, old man who didn't speak English, so he carried a tape player from which an Australian woman's voice told us everything we needed to know. He had certain parts memorized though. I know this because he'd point with his flashlight on places that the Australian woman was describing RIGHT when she was describing them. Sometimes, he would punctuate something she would say. She would say "This cave is called 'The Surprise Cave.'" Then the little, old man would say "Surprise." He made everyone smile.


This is what he looked like:



Doesn't he look little and old and great? This picture may be better:





Those are all the cave pictures you get.

What's that?

Oh, okay. Here you go. Here's just a few:







Phew, enough of that. We're done with caves for now.



After caves, we went on a four-hour hike through the woods and mountains of the area. It was pretty spectacular. Words don't really justice. Hell, these pictures don't even do it justice. But here are a bunch, anyway. Enjoy.

That's Amanda and Becky. They are good people who are in the Microcosm.

Are the leaves changing in the states, yet? Cause they are here. The weather is weird.






This is Lenka, my R.A. She is awesome. She taught us how to say a dirty phrase in Czech ( "Dito prdele!"), which is sort of the equivalent of "Kiss my ass." Then she got embarrassed cause we were saying it a bit too loudly on the ride home.






What is Dave looking at?






Oh. Awesome mountains!

There was a bunch of original art carved into the rocks in this area. Poetry, too.






They looked like this.






This looks like the entrance to Pan's Labyrinth. I wouldn't be surprised.






Lenka took this photo. It describes our relationship pretty well, I think.





Lenka took this one, as well. Some guys from the Microcosm. As you can see, my beard is growing in quite well. I recently trimmed it, so now it looks a little bit more like I grew it on purpose, rather than grew it because I lacked any means with which to shave.

That's all for now. Be well!

Prague Agog

I went to Budapest this past weekend. It was very amazing and I will tell you all about it. But I thought it'd be weird to tell you all about Budapest, which was very amazing, without telling you more about Prague, which is also very amazing.

You may be thinking, "But you told us about Prague already. About the food and the people and the public transportation." But what good is all that if there aren't any photos? So, without further ado.... Prague, which is very amazing (note - click all pictures to see larger versions):

Ah, Prague. The City of a Hundred Spires. (You can see at least six in the photo above.) Do you want to know how to offend a Czech person? Tell them that they're Eastern European. The Czech Republic is located about as close to the center of the continent as possible. In fact, think about Vienna. Would you call that city "Eastern European?" Because it's east of Prague. OH SNAP I JUST BLEW YOUR MIND, YO!

Truthfully, I'm finding that the differences between Western, Central, and Eastern Europe are more idealogical than geographical. In any case, just watch it if you're here. They're Central European. Pssh.



This is the Astronomical Clock:

Every day, we walk past it on our way to class. It was built a long time ago. 1410, I think. But it was damaged by Nazis at one point. So some of it is rebuilt. Every hour, a little skeleton rings a bell which is creepy, and then those two little windows above the main clock portion open up. Little wooden apostles scroll by. It is really lame. They don't even come out. Apparently, the original clock didn't have these irrelevant little figures to entertain the commonfolk. Originally, the clock only featured "the pure art of astronomy" as Jan Táboský -- the clock's curator in the years 1551-1572 -- said. I think that's nice.

Every hour, starting about twenty minutes before the Apostles do their dance, a huge crowd gathers. To those of us who take the clock for granted, it's one of the few drawbacks of going to class every day in the prime tourist area of Prague. It's crowded and things are expensive. Still, you can't argue with the sheer history and beauty of that place. People don't flock there for nothing. Here's a picture of it:

(Click the picture to see a larger version. Seriously, this tiny pic doesn't do it justice!)

Now, does that look like fun or WHAT??


Moving on...



For my friends in New York. You know how the Halal food from the carts can be super cheap and super delicious, but there's something gross about hot dogs from the street? Or, I don't know, maybe that's just me. Maybe you love New York hot dogs. You can have 'em. Even Gray's Papaya skeeves me out unless I'm on my way home at 2AM and I'm...tired. (A euphemism? I'll leave it up to you. My grandparents read this blog...)

Anyway, in Prague, the street meat is vaguely similar. They usually offer a wider variety of things. You can get fried cheese with tartar sauce, fried chicken with tartar sauce either as a sandwich or plain (Czechs love tartar sauce), some bastardized form of a hamburger, a potato pancake, or my personal favorite, a potato pancake with bits of roasted chicken inside. All these are usually really cheap. One thing they don't have, though, is regular hot dogs. I think this is because they don't have hot dog buns. Instead, they sell what they call "Eurodogs" or "Euro Hot Dogs." It's a regular weiner, sure. But they use a sub roll (hoagie for my Philadelphia brothers and sisters) which has been impaled on a metal rod. This metal rod is hot, which serves to heat the hole it makes in the bread. They squirt mustard and/or ketchup (if you want) into the hole, and then drop the dog in. Then they add more mustard and ketchup for good measure. It's interesting to say the least, and only costs 15 Kc, which is less than a dollar. Still, I wouldn't call it filling. Me and some friends have been taken to getting the sausages in Old Town for 50Kc instead. It's still cheap, and feels more gourmet. It's not a hot dog. It's a sausage.
Mmmmm.


Or, if you want a real meal, you can go for something more traditional. Roast pork, cabbage, and dumplings. Don't let "dumpling" fool you. Dumplings here aren't like the dumplings you'd get in a Chinese restaurant. They look kind of like slices of bread and are very doughy. Commonly, they're just potato or bread dumplings. But you can also get them with meat in them, too. They also have "sweet dumplings" which have little bread cubes in them. It's a Czech specialty.
The dumplings above are bread dumplings. They had something like croutons in them. But softer. The pork was delicious. I'm not a huge cabbage fan, but I couldn't complain.



Speaking of food, last week we found an amazing little cafe that is rarely occupied and has free wifi. It's our favorite place. It's called Kavárna U Prstenu. Hard to pronounce. "Kavárna" just means "cafe" and "u" means "by" or "in" or "at," so you'll see a lot of restaraunts and cafes called Kavárna U blahblahblah or Restaurace U blahblahblah. Often, it's just the street name. Sometime's it's the owner's name. Here's a picture of our favorite Kavárna:



What else? Oh. Charles Bridge. Charles Bridge is also one of the biggest tourist areas in the city, and it really is wonderful. It's one of a bunch of bridges that gets you from one side of the Vlatava River to the other. But this one is like the Times Square of bridges. Also, it's pickpocket central. So be careful. You can see the bridge behind us here:

And here's a view from below, after we crossed to the other side.



I go to school at Disney World or Universal Studios or something. It's like out of a fairy tale. Come visit.

Internet

Apologies. I have things to post on this thing. I have photos of Prague and stories to accompany them. I have photos of the wonderful city of Budapest in Hungary to which I paid a visit this past weekend. I have stories to accompany those, as well.

But the internet here is being worked on. They say that by Wednesday it should be fast and reliable. I am pessimistic at best, since this is the story of the semester. However, I can't complain too much. I'm in Prague.


I'll have to talk about something else, I guess.


I have a teacher named Jan Urban who teaches "Modern Dissent: The Art of Defeat." He is a political journalist and was a dissident during the Communist regime here in the Czech Republic. He's been tortured as a young man. He was a player in the Velvet Revolution. He's helped uncover mass graves in Kosovo. He's seen his country go through some earth-shattering changes ideologically, culturally, and politically. The class is a discussion. How do these things happen? Can they happen again? And how can we dissent against corrupt powers without getting into trouble?

This is a guy who grew up IN LOVE with Communism. His father joined the party back in the early 30's. The Communists were the only ones threatening the Nazis. His first political thought was "There is something wrong with Czechoslovacks! Why aren't we part of the Soviet Union yet?" He grew up hating America. They told him when he was a young schoolboy that America sent over insects -- beetles -- to eat all the crops in the rural areas. They'd have competitions where the schoolkids would go out and collect as many bugs as they could from the fields. Whoever had the most "imperialist beetles" won.

It's amazing, the things this man says. "I've seen it before in refugee camps. The distance between civility and barbarism is 24 hours without water and two meals. After 24 hours without water, it doesn't matter if you have a university degree. People kill each other for water."

He'll start talking about Communism or Socialism or the like, and end up going off on the most amazing tangents. Inevitably, they'll start with something like "I almost got killed once, arguing with a bunch of drunken Serbian soldiers..."

It's easily the best class I have this semester. It's easily the best academic class I've taken ever.



In other semi-related news, the Jaurisova Microcosm has been watching the recent economic drama unfold on International CNN. No one really understands yet the implications of today's failure of the House. So we're all sort of treating it with unfocused nervousness and some mixture of reserved optimism and unabashed skepticism.

Jan Urban says that the best way to survive a crisis is through humor. It's the best chance you'll have at staying sane. So, to all my friends in America who may be afraid of an impending financial disaster, here is a joke I recently heard:

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “That driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You should go right up there and tell him off! Go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.”

In other news, we get North American Sports Network here. I can watch NFL games at absurd times of the day like 2am. It makes me miss home.

We have a ping-pong table in the basement. We play about twice a day, on average. We are all becoming experts. It is the best game on the planet.

I have started pre-production on my next theater piece. I almost said "final theater piece" but that'd be wrong. It is hopefully one of many future theater pieces. It is merely my final COW piece as a student of PHTS. At any rate, it involves space. I am very excited.

I wonder how things are over at 440. Probably crowded. I do miss it. I do sometimes miss home. When I had to go to the doctor twice in one week, I missed home. On the other hand, when I walk through the cobble-stoned streets of this city and come upon some beautiful, hiddden site - one of undoubtably many secret treasures of Prague that you only find when you are not looking for it - it makes it hard to miss home too terribly. This is a good thing, this semester.

I am growing a beard. Because I am abroad. And I can.

On Public Transportation

Czech people, for the most part, keep to themselves. They are quiet, reserved, and polite. This can best be seen while using the public transportation, which often feels a little bit like a library.

So imagine our surprise when one of us would find ourselves being publicly berated by an angry, elderly Czech woman. This is not a subtle reprimand. They yell. They hiss. They give unabashedly evil stares until either they or you leave the tram. It didn't take us long to realize that there is a custom here that wasn't explained to us until too late. And it has since become my favorite of the Czech culture.

When an elderly person (or someone otherwise visibly infirmed, i.e. one with a cane or crutches) boards the car, human beings of younger and fitter natures are obliged to let them have their seat. This is not out of mere politeness. This is something ingrained in their culture. It's in the blood.

And so now, I find myself hesitant to sit down when riding public transportation. Inevitably, an old lady will board at the next stop, and I'll have to get up. But that's not the hard part. No, it's easy to get up when someone really old boards the tram. The hard part is knowing what to do when someone kind of old boards the tram.

Cause what if they don't consider themselves old? What if they just look old? Will they be offended at my presumptuousness? The last thing I want to do in a foreign country is offend.

It reminds me of the Man Show episode when the Man Show Boy tries to earn a Merit Badge from the Boy Scouts by helping "old ladies" cross the street. Meanwhile, he's pissing off every middle-aged woman who crosses his path.

Thankfully, I've found it's better to err on the side of caution. Most people take it as a kind courtesy, and if they don't need to sit down, they'll thank me and tell me that they're fine with standing. (In Czech. And with body language, of course.)

I like this custom. Often, we'll see an old person waiting at the station before the tram even stops, and we'll get up pre-emptively. When you get up without being asked, they are overwhelmingly effusive, showering on "dékuju" after "dékuju" and often chattering away even after, as you smile back uncomprehendingly. It's even better when they are standing and you get up and tap them on the shoulder and point to your recently-vacated seat. I've never seen someone be more appreciative for such a such a simple, easy gesture.

We're all adapting to the new culture here. Things are different. It's not bad or good. It just is. But one thing is certain, if you make an effort, whole worlds open up. They can know you're American and that you don't speak Czech, and even so, a simple "Dobry den" or "dékuju" can bring a smile. Always.

And so, as I look forward many weeks to when I return to New York, I am excited to bring this custom with me. I will be riding the 6 train to Astor Place. At Spring Street, an old man or woman with many shopping bags and perhaps arm-crutches and also a seeing-eye-dog and a prosthetic knee will board the train. I will get up so this person can sit down. And maybe in the future, others will do the same.

A Guided Photo Tour

The following are pictures taken from a rest room stall at Charles University, the leading university in Prague. While peeing, I couldn't help but notice how their "shit-talking" often took the form of a history lesson. I was also struck by how American ignorance seems to have found it's way even to here, a Czech university. Also, I found some of the broken English kind of funny. Anyway, enjoy.

These are some of the nastier ones:

"Hey Czechs, Your country is lost. You were better off with the Russians. America owns you. Thank capitalism."

"Idiot, you think we are ill informed why don't you go to the states and meet some of us b4 you pass judgment"




"NukePrague.org <-- & nobody would notice"

"We need to realize that everyone is niave [sic] and ignorant on the grand worldly scheme of things, and once everyone accepts thy know nothing, we can all start to get along. We are elevating petty assumptions and prejudices [illegible] what they effect how you talk and [illegible] fellow humans."




"Hey Czechs, Have you ever heard of manners, gratitude, dentistry? If it wasn't for America you'd still be taking orders from the Kremlin. Oh wait, now you take your orders from the Russian mafia. Your country is a joke! It's funny to hear about how much you hate us when you keep eating up our culture. Grow up! Your [sic] jealous. It's plain as day. I will admit we have no business in Iraq but America and Americans deserve some respect. If it wasn't for our WWII effort there would be no Czechs. Only Germans. Now I'll enjoy watching Putin destroy what's left of your independance. Nice exchange rate. YOU'RE WEAK!"



My least favorite:

"Hey Czechs, thanks for Kafka. Now get out of my way. I'm an American."



The best point of all:

"AND YOU WROTE THIS ALL ON YOUR KNEES IN A CZECH TOILET!!!"




My favorite:




Broken English:





Romantic:

And finally, Harry Potter:

Hope that was as enlightening for you as it was for me.


Till next time,
Max

First Email

For those of you who for some reason aren't in my address book, below you'll find my original email update. It's a week's worth of Prague, as seen through my eyes:


"Hello, hello!

So, I've been here for a little over a week, and have about 20 more to go (I actually have no idea, I just pulled that number out of my butt), but so much has happened that I feel the need to write this, lest the task of updating my friends and family become to daunting to attempt. So here I am, writing. And there you are, on the other side of cyberspace, reading. It's almost like a conversation.

When I finish writing this, I'm going to press the "send" button. It will travel through aforementioned cyberspace to arrive at your computers -- for those of you on the east coast -- 6 hours BEFORE I send it! What exciting times we live in.

Before I go on, I know I know I know that some of you (maybe even more than some) are wondering why you're receiving this email. The answer is, I don't know. I inserted addresses from my address book based on impulse. It's a compliment. Please update me on your life, too. Don't think that just because you're not in Europe or Africa or Outer Space means that I am not interested in what YOU are doing. After all, it's the people not the place that matters. (Also, I know that many of you actually are in interesting, exotic places like Europe, Africa, or Outer Space. Please disregard that sentence about not being in one of those places. All other sections of this paragraph still apply.)

Ok ok ok. So, I'm in Prague. In Czech, it's "Praha." I took a week of introductory Czech classes. I can say "Hello." I can say "My name is Max." I can say "I study theater." I can say "How are you" and "I am fine" or "I am okay" or "I am so-so" or "I am tired." I can say "please" and "thank you" and "excuse me." I can order food and understand most menus (or the important bits, anyway.) I can ask who that man or woman is and where something is but usually can't understand the answers I receive. I can say directions like "left" or "right" or "up" or "down" or "straight." And I can theoretically count to 1,999. But it requires much concentration. But it's been fun to try and speak Czech and see how people respond. Our RAs were quick to point out that the Czech we learned was very formal and apparently quite stilted. So they taught us the slang. You can use it with the hip, young generation and get mad props. The Czech people for the most part are very nice, if a little reserved. Except if they're waiting on you. It's not a very service-oriented city, even in the touristy sections. I've found myself pleased if I get the food I ordered. The other day we were out to dinner, and our waitress tried to give me fettucini with spinach, gorgonzola cheese, and mushrooms instead of the fettucini with pesto and asiago cheese that I ordered. (If restaurants are not pubs with traditional Czech food, they're mostly Italian/Pizzerias...) When I told her that the dish was not mine she responded "No, it is." I must have looked sad because she said "It's very good. I eat it twice a week here. You'll like it." She then plopped it down in front of me and watched until I took a bite or two and smiled at her through clenched teeth. (I didn't really want to admit that it was pretty delicious. My heart really was set on that pesto dish...)

The food is good. Rich in flavor, low in price. The U.S. dollar is getting stronger every day (when we first got here it was worth about 16.5 Koruna, and just today it was exchanging in Old Town Square for 18.8 Koruna!) and it's not hard to find a full meal for the equivalent of about $7. Beer is cheaper than water, so it's usually the beverage of choice. I haven't had a beer I didn't like yet. Pilsner Urquell is everywhere (Pilsners all come from the same town in the Czech Republic. Unsurprisingly, it's called Plzeň (or Pilsen or Pilzen in English.) I enjoy the fried cheese and fried cauliflower (perhaps the only vegetarian dishes you can get in many places.) Roast pork with cabbage is also a crowd-pleaser. And you can't go wrong with the potato or bread dumplings, a Czech specialty.

The NYU center is composed of two buildings right in Old Town Square, which means I can look out the window from my classes and see the Astronomical Clock. The Clock chimes every hour and you can watch little wooden apostles come around to two windows and say hello. It's very underwhelming. I was told it would be underwhelming, and it was still underwhelming. That's how underwhelming it is. But the clock itself is a masterpiece. I don't understand exactly how to read all of the cool things that it apparently tells you, but it's gorgeous. Just one of the many historical treasures in the area. It's funny, though, how quickly we became immune to the apparent significance of Old Town. We pass through it every day, and mostly it's very crowded and more expensive than the rest of the city. It is beautiful, though.

The striking thing about Prague is that there doesn't seem to really be a proper "historical" section of town. Sure there's "Old Town." But really the entire city is like that. Cobblestones and old buildings with stones blackened from age and weather. It feels kind of like a section of Disney World, except not fake and not lame at all. It's a great city to get lost in. You can wander in any direction and find some random place that you'll feel just belongs to you. Like it's a treasure that YOU discovered and THIS is the REAL Prague. But I'm beginning to realize that a lot of Prague is like that. I don't know if this makes sense to you. But I think what I'm trying to say is, it doesn't feel "preserved." It just happens to be "preserved." Prague wears its heart on its sleeve, man.

The dogs are the most well-behaved I've ever seen. Most aren't leashed. It's not uncommon to see a dog waiting on the front steps of a store for its owner to return, at which point it gets up and follows him. It's kind of amazing.

The public transportation is amazing, too. I take trams almost everywhere. The metro is nice, but who needs to go underground when you can get to more places by staying above ground? One thing that's interesting is that you are expected to get up when old people board. If you don't, you get a lot of dirty looks and sometimes even hissing. I take back what I said earlier about Czech people being reserved. If you piss someone off on the tram, you'll know. One of my friends got poked in the back with an arm crutch by an old lady who saying something horrible to him, no doubt about his blatant lack of respect and over all unkemptness. Never had I wanted to understand Czech so badly! Besides those infrequent outbursts, however, the trams are silent. You can always tell the Americans because they're always the loudest ones there. (Also, they tend to speak English.)

What else? Oh NYU is a lying bunch of stingy bastards. They told us that our apartment, called Jaurisova for the street that it's on, is about a 30 minute tram ride to class or an hours walk. The truth is we're about a 45-minute tram ride or an hour and a half's walk. But we don't mind. Ours is the smallest residence that NYU provides and the furthest away. But because there are about 30 of us and we basically live in Prague's version of Bushwick, we've formed a pretty tight-knit community. Our RA made a facebook group for us called "Microcosmos of Jaurisova good kids companionship." Sure, it's a little bit broken, English-wise. But it's apt and so it's caught on. And I can't complain, really. It's an area I would never travel to unless I lived there. So I'm grateful. I feel like we're getting a taste of real Prague.

Last weekend, all the NYU kids in the program were taken to a sports complex to meet each other and participate in some friendly competition. The Microcosmos went undefeated in their activities, beating the others in Beach Volleyball and Soccer. We're getting shirts made.

The club scene is interesting. Some are really bad. Some are good. Our favorite so far is called "Cross" and looks and feels like Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails designed it. It's in the middle of nowhere, but has füzball and a funny dance floor that plays industrial-techno while young Czech people with "mullet dreads" (where their hair is regular all around except for the long part in the back, which is also dreadlocked. It's very stylish. I'm thinking of changing my 'do to fit in) dance without moving their legs. They sort of sway from the torso and swing their arms. It's not hard to feel like a good dancer here.

I feel like this update is lacking in real updateness.

We saw a tightrope/dance/theater performance by a French group called Les Colporteurs which was fantastic. We saw the last show. They looked like they were having so much fun. They got 4 or 5 ovations. I've never seen an audience react like that. Right now there's a theater festival going on that I'm going to CZECH out. (Haha.) Also playing at the National Theater is a production of Richard III (Shakespeare in Czech! Neat) and there's a modern dance performance that's the result of a collaboration between Tanec Praha and New York's own Dance Theatre Workshop. So as of now, those are the cultural goings-on in my life here. We were also told to go see the film Citizen Havel which is a documentary about Vaclav Havel, and is supposed to be fantastic. We found a cinema that shows movies with English subtitles (or, in the case of American movies, Czech subtitles) so we may go see that soon. That doesn't mean we're not all excited for the new James Bond movie that's coming out.

Oh! Last night, NYU shelled out some big bucks and treated us to a gourmet dinner. Carpaccio, prosciutto, mozzarella and cherry tomatoes, cheeses, ham, chicken! Free wine and beer! And who did we happen to run into but PHTS' own Dave McGee! (For those of you who don't know him, don't worry. You may one day. But in any case, just know it was a funny coincidence that actually wasn't so coincidental...) Anyway, he sends his regards. (Well, not explicitly, but I'm sure he does.)

So that's basically what it's like so far. This city is magical. That sounds cliche, but it really is. I'm loving every minute of it. You should all come and visit.



Love
Max"

Thanks to Ryann for reminding me of the wonders and simplicity of online blogging. Check (Czech) back now and then to find out what I've been up to while in the lovely city of Prague. I'll update as often as I can.