Starting the New Year in a 750 year old Synagogue

Ah, what a start to a new year! After a restless night [and not because I went out; I for some reason never sleep well on Erev Rosh HaShana], I was up at 7 getting ready for services. Although getting ready only consisted of showering and eating an apple with honey, gtting to the Jewish Quarter takes a while.
The Jewish Quarter is an unbelievable area of town that most tourists make sure to go to upon visit. It's pretty weird walking from a metro to multiple, multiple-century-old synagogues and passing some of the priciest stores in a town. Being filled with synagogues and really expensive stores only, however, I guess this area lives up to the traditional, Jewish reputation. The sad part about the Jewish Quarter is definitely not aesthetic or cultural. Much to my dismay, I learned this morning that the Prague Jewish community consists of approximately 1500 members, and there are just barely 3000 within the whole country. I never would have thought that Hitler's first stop would have been in a country with so few Jews, but I'm just hoping that it's always been like that and not just since 1939 (which I believe it unfortunately is).
Anyways, lsat night's service was quite American in nature, despite being in a mid-16th century building. Today, I went all out, both in terms of the service and the building. Today, I managed to get into Staronova Synagoga, also known as the Old New Synagogue, despite extreme security. I realized that the security only wanted to make sure that I (and everyone else) had a legitimate story to tell, and that they weren't trying to lie to get in, which is nice to know. They still are really scary and really intense, especially for 4 or 5 guys who are all under 5'11. In regards to being culturally all out, the Old New Synagogue is Orthodox in every sense of the word (although not ultra orthodox), and much more traditional than Chabad [duh]. The most shocking aspect to most, which plays a role into both ways of it being 'all out,' is the design of the building.
Completed in 1270, Staronova is one of Prague's first gothic buildings, an impressive claim in itself. I can't wait to take a tour of the Jewish Quarter and actually learn about this place, because it definitely has some history within it. Anyways, you're not allowed to take photos of the inside, and being Rosh HaShana I didn't take a picture of the outside, so here is a picture (to get a feel of it) of the synagogue from online.Despite Staronova seeming to have a really high ceiling, you actually walk down - as if into a basement - and have an even higher ceiling above you from the inside. Above you, gigantic gothic arches point towards heaven. Surrounding you are extremely plain, extemely old stones which have a pale plaster covering them. For decoration, there are about 5 or so quotes painted around the walls. Unlike traditionally US synagogues, all of the seats are not facing the same direction as the ark. The ark may be on the southern-most wall, but only seats on the north wall face it. If you're on the west wall, you're sitting towards the east wall, and if you are on the west side of the bima, youre facing west (the bima is in the middle). All that the bima is is the center of the room, elevated by two stone steps, and surrounded by iron beams. The bima almost looks like a prison, if you sort of squint your eyes and imagine the beams are 3 inches apart instead of about 6. The iron-rod door that is at the top of the 2 steps, even locks. Anyways, this is just the inside where everyone prays.
On the outside is the interesting part. Most orthodox synagogues in the US have a divider separating men's and women's sections; some even have separate rooms for women. Staronova goes all out by having 4 feet of stone separating the women. And I don't mean a separate room. I'm talking about the outside walls, which your back is up against (with an extremely uncomfortable, upright, wooden slab in between), has 4 feet of stone behind you. About 7 feet off the ground, there is a small hole (about 3 feet long on the inside of the shul, about 6 inches long on the outside) similar in shape to a castle's openings for firing at enemies. These 6 inch wide holes are on 2 walls, and on the outside, is where the women sit. O yeah, some stand in the entrance hallway with their kids too.
One thing I learned today was patience. Being in a stone fortress, which somehow even spared Nazi destruction, sound REALLY echoes. Meaning the kids running around in the halls outside of the service that you don't usually here (because of doors and carpeting and insulation and distance and such) make it hard to here the cantor chant. Luckily the kids don't usually make it to all of Shachrit, they only come with their mother's to the end (as in the Torah Portion and the blowing of the Shofar). Phew. At least it's not like anyone came to actually here those parts, instead of, say, the silent Amidah, which no one speaks for. Anyways, as I read the Torah Portion to myself with a faintly audible chanting in the background, I noticed that as frustrated as I was getting with these kids, no one else was. Saying I was the least religious person there, and probably everyone else had been looking forward to hearing it sung for at least 11 and a half months, it's pretty interesting to notice how no one minded the kids screaming or walking onto the bimah. I guess great patience is a blessing and should be a requisite for all.
Other interesting things of note:
-Whenever the Torah was lifted, everyone raises their right pinky finger. Not sure why.
-People get up quickly during the blessing prior to reading each aliyah (the part that the congregation recites back to the omeh)
-Having just said the prayer over the reading of the Torah, everyone in the entire synagogue shakes the omeh's hand after he gets off the bimah.
-I had to miss the musaf service, starting after the Torah was returned to the ark, in order to make it back for class, which I am not excused from (I skipped my Czech language class this morning)
-After returning from class, I was exhausted. I took a 30 minute power nap so that I'd be revived for Tashlich with the Americans. I really did want to throw some stale Czech bread (which I've got lots of) into the river, but instead I accidentally slept for 4 hours. At least tomorrow morning I should have no problem getting up for services.
-The shofar blowing was really nice, and unlike in the US, at Staronova, they have a tradition of making each 'tekiyah' longer than the previous one (and leading up to the Tekiyah gedola). This makes the shofar blower become pretty tired by the end, and I can't wait to find out how long he can really hold a Tekiyah gedola for on Yom Kippur (without 30 other ram's horn blows beforehand). Hopefully everyone else has had a nice service, and anyone going back tomorrow will enjoy the rest of their New Year's services.
PS: Why on the Christian New Year's to we get wasted, yet on the Jewish one, we feel an obligation to be somber in order to begin our '10 days of asking for forgiveness,' which every American Jew most definitely thinks about on New Year's night?

Shana Tova!

So I woke up and walked to and from class like 5 times. That right there is like 4 or 5 miles. It gets annoying being sweaty in class, but at least it's not sweaty and smelly. Or at least I hope not.
Anyways, after Czech class, I told my teacher that tomorrow was a Jewish holiday and because of that I wouldn't be in class. She quickly pointed out to me that tomorrow was in fact NOT a holiday, but a regular day of class. I of course tried explaining to her that Rosh HaShana is not a national holiday but a religious holiday, and therefore I was informing her that I will not be coming. No matter what. Her response [gotta love language gaps...]? She takes out the calendar and shows me that we do not have tomorrow off but have a break next month. I realized it wasn't worth my time arguing with the equivalent of a speaker at a McDonald's drive thru, so I just said bye. I later learned that someone else tried getting permission from the head of our program [who speaks perfect English], only to learn that we were more than welcome to go to services, but would still get unexcused absences [we unfortunately have mandatory attendance]. I guess the Iron Curtain hasn't fully fallen, and it still lingers in some people's minds over here.
After a full day of classes, and I mean (with the exception of walking to get meals) 830-1530 (my 1530 class was cancelled today luckily), I headed home to make my holiday feast. My meal, a 4 course spectacle, consisted of the following: apples and honey, a round challah for the holiday, a garden salald with NOLS specialty dressing (random proportions of salt, garlic, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar), grilled chicken breast in hot sauce, pepper, and oregano, honey cake, and red wine. Yummmm. How was I supposed to know that the rabbi would later be serving dinner?
After finishing, I went to meet Aunt Sheri's friend from Oolpan, a Czech guy named Jaroslav. Jaroslav is an active member [or possibly higher up than that] in a synagogue here, but he gave me the schedule for 2 different shuls next door to one another so I'm not exactly sure which. After waiting outside for 15 minutes and realizing I didn't have a passport, I realized I wouldn't be getting into Staranova Synagoga (the oldest active shul in Europe). To elaborate:
The Old-New Synagogue has intense security. I'm not talking about O'hare security, or even Ben Gurion security. I'm talking about ex-Israeli special forces guys who want to know not only why you are there, but that you deserve to be there. In addition to hearing people be quizzed about their stay and purpose in Prague, I heard the following [in response to a woman saying she has worked for the US consolate for a year], "and what is the ambassador's name?... how long has he been stationed in the Czech Republic? ... what exactly is your business relation with him, and would he be able to identify you?" Of course the last question was BS, but the guy actually new the answers to the first 2 somehow. I heard other people asked about their religiosity, their knowledge of their faith, and their last experience with it. I watched old people wait and young people get patted down, goyish looking people interrogated and super Jews become frantic. These guys were sharp.
Since I couldn't find Jaroslav and wasn't going to get in, I went next door to the High Synagogue, a shul on the 2nd floor that had been around since the mid-1500's. This service was led in English by the rabbi affiliated with all of the American exchange programs. It was a nice service, and the herring was fantastic (of course the apples and honey were decent, and the wine was tasty, but the herring really stood out). Knowing that all of the young people there were American, and many were his students, the Rabbi invited all of us to his house for a pot luck. I could only offer myself, but for some reason, my company was desired. Of the 20 or so students, about 15 were on the CET program [not mine, and it only has 15 kids on it], 3 were on my program, 2 were from the business program, and 6 of the students were from Emory. It's unbelievable how you can go 5000 miles from home, and you're still surrounded by Jews from your school.
The potluck was actually just the CET kids didn't have to have class today in exchange for them preparing something. They luckily made enough for the rest of us, and on our walk to the Rabbi's, we all stopped to pick up a gigantic jug of wine. Although it was far from tasty, it wasn't actually 'bad,' and definitely was a nice follow up to my previous dinner's drinks. Combined with a few appetizers, some matzoh ball soup, some couscous and chicken, the meal was quite satisfying and the company was nice. The desserts were surprisingly really tasty for homemade [by students] pareve desserts, and have left me glad that I found this service right next door. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get into the Old-New Synagogue (even though sermons will probably be in Czech), but will join up with the other Americans for Taslich. Shana Tova umetukah to all!

Day of the Restaurants, and thus the -itis

As many foods as I have fallen in love with, 1 stands out more than the rest, and I have severely missed it since my arrival in Europe. That godly gift, truly sent to Mankind from the Heavens, is peanut butter. Man, have I missed peanut butter. And not wanting to steal anyone else's food in my apartment, I have been dying to have it since I arrived [although reluctant to purchase such an American product when I could get myself some 'canned gulash']. So, for breakfast, along with 2 bananas, I stole a spoonful of peanut butter and a spoonful of nutella and made an unbelievable sandwich. As divine as this was, let me remind you all that I am consuming is dark bread here. Dark bread is not white, it is not whole wheat, it is not rye, it isn't even pumpernickel. It is plain old dry. And when combined with extra chunky peanut butter, all I can say is that I should have sat down and eaten it instead of taking it to go. I just wish I had had some water to wash it down, because as amazing as it was, I could barely chew yet alone open my mouth for like 20 minutes. Mmmm, delicious.
Anyways, my Art and Architecture class met at 10 am near Prague Castle, so I gave myself 30 minutes to get there [instead of 10 like yesterday]. We first explored the Czech Senate Garden, a magnificent, hidden garden that you would never guess is 15 yards away from a subway stop. One literally walks through a gate, and steps back 400 years into a Renaissance designed garden, filled with supreme statues, a perfect pond, and gorgeous grass. Did I mention there was a peacock prancing around the grass? Yes, an actual peacock, minding its own business, just walking around like all the tourists. I wonder if it felt as out of place as the Italians did.After walking through this garden [supposedly there are many more hidden behind walls in Prague], we went over to Strahovska Zahrada, or the Strahov Monastery. As much as I would have loved to share pictures with you, it costs an extra 50 krown to take pictures within the monastery, so it really wasn't worth it. Had my teacher been able to get us 'back stage passes' (which she actually could have done because an old student of hers became a monk who studies there [and is unfortunately in Italy for the month]), then I might have coughed up the few extra bucks. Oh well, the jist of it is that they had a ton of really old books and an awesome collection of 'stuff.' To elaborate:
-I saw a manuscript from the ninth century. And in case you don't believe that people have gotten smarter, they had barely any vocabulary [even though it was in Latin] and tons of drawings. The 13th century manual was much more intricately designed, with words taking up the whole page and much brighter and more beautiful colors. That summarizes the manuscripts.
-I saw tons of books. Literally, tons. The philosophy library that these monks had has over 60,000 volumes, and the theology libary had over 40,000. They also had 'forbidden books' locked in shelves that were Protestant and Jewish texts that might corrupt regular monks and may therefore only be read by the really high up bald dudes.
-They also preserved nature. As vague as this sounds, imagine a pressed rose or a dead butterfly that has been pinned inside a picture frame. Now imagine 1000 butterflies like that, along with 100+ other types of bugs. Now imagine that for shells, leaves, nests, fruits, animals, fish, and flowers. Just giant cabinets filled with 'nature,' preserved in prestine condition for the past ___ centuries [it varied from 2 to like 8].
I guess I became real exhausted, because we went for Mexican food nearby my apartment after the field trip (I got 'pigs in a blanket,' mini sausages wrapped in fried tortillas) and I got the -ITIS. Because some may not know that slang, it basically means that after eating lunch, I got real lazy and needed a nap. I slept for like 3 hours and have still been tired all night. Dillon and I then went to dinner at our corner restaurant, and I had some great bleu cheese vegetable soup.
Talk about a day of restaurants, because on our walk home, we met Yarda at the base of our apartment where a new Mediterranean restaurant has opened. Since it's been open a week, they had 50% off all drinks tonight, along with their usual belly-dancer Saturdays. Fun yet short night.
And finally, anyone still reading this is probably pretty bored. Not just because you're reading my blog, but this has been the most boring post of possibly the most boring blog you could find. So, since you have enough time to read this, I figured you have enough time to look at pictures too (and probably would like to as well). Thus, my Flikr album has been put up, and it is slowly but surely getting pictures (today's trip to the garden will be added shortly). To get there, please click the following link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bohemianbabble/. Enjoy!

Czech Suburbs

30 minutes ago, Robert and I heard a minute's worth of gunshots outside. Just prior to him jumping under the table, I informed him that the Russians were not actually invading, and that it was just fireworks. So we went to our window and watched fireworks for about 10 minutes while I stole some of his ice cream. It was pretty fun. Also, I have just paid for a flikr account because the free account allows me 30 pictures a month, and I have taken about 150 photos so far. When I finish setting that up, I will obviously post the link on this blog. And now onto the rest of the day, which was quite depressing.
The day started with me deciding between getting to the bus on time, and eating a hearty breakfast. Although I could have, and should have, been able to do both, I figured there was no point. Anyways, remembering that we weren't served lunch until about 3pm, I made myself some eggs and got to the bus as it was pulling away [literally]. We then proceeded to what could have been a really nice suburb. Being only 30 minutes and having lovely rolling hills, Lidice truly could have become a really nice place. That is, until the Germans decided otherwise.
In 1942, Hitler assigned Reinhard Heydrich to be in charge of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (the pre-WW2 and post-WW2 Czechoslovakia which lost Slovakia during the war). Being legitimately extremely pissed off and knowing his plans of travels, Czech fighters trained by the RAF planned a fantastic execution that left one of Hitler's main guys dead on the side of the road. Before the funeral was even over, Hitler decided to use Lidice as an example to all.
Nazi troops put 4 bullets in every male over 15 and put every woman on a truck to a concentration camp. They then relocated Aryan looking children, sent others to camps, and gased the rest. [The children's memorial - a statue of the 82 children ranging from 0-15 years old who died - took over 20 years to build.]

Once everyone was gone, German soldiers burned the town, uprooted the dead, and cut down the trees to make sure nothing was left. They then bombed the whole place in case they had missed anything. [The only remnants of Lidice. The spot where the church was has been planted over with grass, but this wall survived in a nearby building.]

Did I mention Lidice had absolutely nothing to do with Heydrich's assassination?[The traditional welcome to a camp, 'Work makes you free,' greets those entering Terezin too.]

After 2 hours of silent introspective walking, we left the village and headed farther north to Terezin. Being such a good fortress for the Habsburg Monarchy since 1780, the Germans realized that anything that keeps people out will surely keep them in too. Thus Terezin became the concentration camp that all know it as. Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but a thousand pictures would still do no justice in description. The worst part, however, about Terezin is that this was considered the country club camp by the Nazis. In case this doesn't make sense, I will try to further explain.[Windowed single cell (most didn't have windows or such high ceilings) for non-Jewish political prisoners. Jews were for the most part in group cells, and some political Jewish prisoners had much smaller cells]

Before all Jews were forced into all camps, Jews were 'recruited' into camps so that the Germans could say they were going of their own will. Even though the Jews had no choice, the Nazis still tried enticing them in. Thus propoganda films were produced showing the decency of the relocation camps, and the opportunities of Jewish solidarity that were not offered in the rest of society. Terezin was used as this example, and the propoganda video that survived is absolutely disgusting and 99.99% inaccurate. That .01% is the fact that it was actually shot on location using Jews [you can tell by the forced facial expressions], even if they were fed extra food for the shot and the place was more than just tidied up. Knowing that this was considered the nicest camp in German eyes makes the whole plan even more disgusting, more detestable, and more dispicable.

Dolphins are just Gay Sharks

This post has absolutely nothing to do with the title; I just remembered that when we got back to our hotel at 8pm Saturday night in Munich, 1 of the guys had that written on his arm by an Australian guy. Anyways, I again meant to do laundry and forgot, and if I hadn't decided to pack a ton of clothes, I'd be in the same clothes for the past 4 days [I luckily also bought a shirt at Oktoberfest so I had something to wear today]. O well, I did half the laundry [a full load] when I got back from class because our machine only holds 8 pieces of clothing at a time. I chose to mix it up with like 6 small things and 2 big ones so that they'll all fit on our clothes rack for drying.
I then decided that the 5 groceries I have in my apartment weren't enough, so I went shopping! For exactly 3 USD [damn our dying economy, last week it would have only cost me 2.50], I got 2 kiwis, a kilo of radishes, a roll, an apple, and beef stew in a can [gulash]. Who would have known that my favorite foods are considered the absolute drek in the Czech Republic, and thus are cheaper than dirt! Other dirt cheap Czech shopping list items include garlic, onions, potatoes, and cheese. It's like I was meant to study here for purely economic reasons.
Although I haven't tried the canned gulash [I think it's going to taste like a Czech version of spaghetti-o's, but it's actually a real, delicious food that's served in restaurants here], I'm sure it'll provide a variation from my cheese sandwiches, meat sandwiches, eggs with salami, eggs with cheese, and the occasional salad. Although my meal choices may have no variation, I have begun purchasing and consuming food this week, despite it going against the Czech culture.
On my way home from the grocery store, the skies saw fit to remind me of Alaska! Not by showing me an unbelievable landscape, however, or by getting me lost in a real remote land, but by opening up and letting all hell break lose. Again. G-d must love pouring rain down on this city as much as its citizens love drinking beer. I luckily keep a mini umbrella in my backpack at all times, which I even had to use on my way to yoga 4 hours later.
I have since noticed that my laptop is about to burn a whole in my jeans because it is running so hot. A side effect of this is the 1.5 hour battery life, which shortens if I type anything. Thus, I have been trying to underclock my computer, which is a real waste of time because I should have figured this out 4 years ago when I was actually interested in this shit. Did I mention that the new monitoring program I download claims my computer is running at about 59 degrees Celsius right now? Oh well, at least that's better than the 65 degrees it was an hour ago...

Class :(

If you could choose between having an interesting tour guide as a professor, or an interesting professor as a tour guide, which would you choose? Probably the latter, but still, I have the luxury of having both. My Art and Architecture class [simillar to my Historical Development of Architecture class] meets once a week in lecture format, and once a week for walking tours of Prague. As my teacher joked about intimidating everyone away because we would need to jog, we slowly waited for everyone to show up. A minute after leaving, I could no longer see her because she was walking so quickly to catch a tram. 5 minutes later, she was actually running for the tram, waving her arms back and forth as if she was caught in a hurricaine. After arriving in Old Town, I proceeded to receive a free tour of some of the coolest and oldest areas of Prague. We saw a crazy astronomic clock with more intricacy and complexity than probably anything I've ever seen, and more attention to detail such that my Grandma wouldn't even find something not straight. That is, other than the windows which weren't centered on the walls inside of the tower and really bothered me. After being above ground in the clock tower, we went below ground into a few of the 80 remaining houses from the 11th century. My teacher wanted to show us the 10th century homes, but the corruption within the government supposedly sold the land of where they were to insert a Hard Rock Cafe. For a city that has 1 building over 6 stories tall, I have no idea how much money had to have been given to get rid of that land.
After such an exciting class, I was so pumped to go on my other architectural walking. However, having missed class on Monday [blame Munich], I had to ask a classmate where we were meeting. As I waited in Old Town, I learned that despite my friend being in my class, he thought he was in a different one. Hence, I should have been waiting at Prague Castle close to 20 minutes away. Having missed the tour, I went to the nearest food stuff [Old Town is very expensive, so I figured I'd go to the cheapest place around] store and bought a massive roll, a large pack of meat, and an apple. Yum.
Despite the let down of a second walking tour, I figured that my Economics class would be alittle interesting, if not quite intriguing. Jesus was I wrong. As great as my walking tour was, this was that boring. I managed to stay awake, even if my eyes weren't always open. To be fair to the class, without a prereq Economics class, we were forced to review extremely basic economics for those with no background. Lucky for me, I've never taken a class and had no idea what he was talking about. Unluckily, that is total bull and the class was too small to walk out of, as I would have done at Emory. At least it can't get any worse, and should hopefully get better once we finish basic review material.

American Backpackers and Day 1/2 of class

Another slow day, today was at least nice out. The temperature has raised significantly since the Prague winter of last week, and will hopefully be more like today more often. After 45 minutes of Czech language class, I remembered that the intensive section had ended and the class would thus be done in 5 minutes, not 4 hours. What a smile that put on my face. I then went and stole free breakfast from the breakfast provided for the dorm kids, and walked to fix my schedule.
Last week, CIEE had messed up my schedule with the class I wanted most, then blamed me for their mistake. Today, after me begging them to beg the teacher to overload it, they fixed it. But of course, I had to wait close to an hour for that to happen.
When I got back to my place, all I wanted to do - and needed to do - was my laundry. Once I picked up my book, Into Thin Air, I didn't put it back down. I also realized 5 minutes before I had to leave for class that all of my clothes still smell of German beer. Damnit.
I did however go to my first class later that day! Having been in Munich for Day 1 of classes, I felt obliged to go today. At Emory, I either have three 50 minute classes or two 1:15 minute classes per week. I usually only fall asleep in about 1, sometimes 2, hour and 15 minute classes per week. Not too poor of a performance, and at least I try to attend. Here, attendance and participation are both mandatory, and classes are an hour and a half. Of course, I barely survived but managed to keep my eyes just not shut; I have no idea how I'll keep this up for the semester though.
Tonight I decided to meet up with the 3 American girls that I met on the train home from Freising [the stop 5km north of the Munich airport]. Each of them is very lucky, saying that 1 will be traveling Europe for a month while the other 2 will be continuing around the world for an additional 6 months. I decided to take them to the first bar that Jarda took me to, U Sudu. In case I didn't post about this place, even though I might have, U Sudu appears from the street to be a nice, upscale wine bar. To get to the cool part, however, you must walk through the whole bar and through a tiny door in back. Upon squeezing through here and down a flight of stairs, you must duck under a low ceiling and go down anther flight, into an area that looks an awful lot like Roman aquaducts. This other part of U Sudu reminds me an awful lot of the opium house that inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge to think of Kubla Khan in Xanadu. I guess U Sudu had jazz and rock playing instead of a harp or some drums, and it also had cigarette smoke [and surprisingly just that type this time] instead of incense burning. On our walk out, we saw Sean and Dave, the guys I went to Munich with who had a slight miscommunication regarding Burger King and train departure (Sean missed the train looking for Dave, then slept at the Czech Consolate and took a late train back like me). U Sudu was really cool and I was glad to actually see Sean back in Prague instead of just hearing he made it. It was also fun to hang out with my new American friends again (who invited me to meet up with them again while they are in Europe), as I hope they enjoyed their final night in Prague.
I have since been doing another damn scavenger hunt, this time a take home internet based one, for CIEE that could again be classified as a complete waste of time. At least there's only 1 liter of beer in me, not 6 or 7 for this assignment.

Oktoberfest!

Imagine 20 people drinking together at a table. Now imagine putting that table in a room much bigger than Soldier Field. Now imagine adding 500 more tables. Now imagine doing that in 15 other football stadiums across the US. Now put them all in the same place. That, my friends, does not due justice to Oktoberfest.
When we arrived in Munich Friday night at 11, we walked around for about an hour until we realized we were about 8km away from our hotel. Around 2, we went to bed and made sure to get lots of rest for the upcoming day. We awoke at 6 Saturday morning and rushed to the fair grounds where Oktoberfest was soon to be celebrated. We waited outside of Haufn House [the largest and oldest tent] until 9ish when they opened the doors. Having gotten there early, we stood about 10 yards from the door in a crowd that spanned 150 yards back and 200 yards wide. Everyone waited outside in the cold, all sharing the same reason: to get merry and obliterated together. Right before the doors opened, an endless line of monstrous Germans blocked the doors. No security officer was under 6 feet, with the average height being about 6'6. No guard was under 220 pounds, with the average weight being about 250. These guys were no match for the crowd that poured in. As they tried to stop the rush inwards, they ended up just getting out of the way because those of us in front [that they were blocking] were not moving of our own free will. I didn't have enough space to move my hands, yet alone put a foot in front of the other. I'm not sure if my feet were even on the ground the whole time, I just know I had no choice in my following movements.
The mayor tapped the first keg at noon in our tent. Being in the biggest tent at the biggest party in the world is undescribable. So is drinking beer by the liter (3.5ish US beers) when it is close to twice as alcoholic as American beer. Within 2 hours, I had drank 5 liters of beer, then got dragged out of the party because my friend was going to pass out. Instead, he went to play bumper cars against 6 year olds at the fair surrounding the tents. When we got back to the hotel at 6, 1 of the 5 of us had been asleep for 2 hours already. No one told us to pace ourselves, and the marathon was over for us within the first 100 meters.
Having gone to bed so early, we all awoke at 3 in the morning, and had had a full night's sleep. At 9, 2 guys stole extra food from the breakfast line and gave it to the rest of us. By 10 we were on our way to drinking heavily again, this time in a new tent. At about 3 I got separated from my friends, and at about 1800 [thinking this was 4pm, not 6pm] an Australian guy took me to the metro so that I could try to catch my train back to Prague.
At 10 euros per beer, I was in no way capable of buying food in addition. Hot dishes cost upwards of 20 euros, and the cold schnitzel sandwich I had had the day before had cost me 5. Because of this, and the amount of alcohol in me with no food, I reduced myself to accepting charity food. In the US, sauerkrat is absolute drek. In Prague, sauerkrat is good. In Munich, it is a gift from heaven, steamed and shredded by angels themselves. I stole some of this from Dillon, and then soon learned that the leftovers that some Australians gave me of what I thought was chicken was actually pork. It was also amazing. I see why Jesus changed g-d's law to allow his followers to eat it.
From here on out is an absolute haze. The visibility in my storm yesterday would be described as minimal at best. Somehow I made it to the train station, and luckily missed the train that had just departed. It's actually a good thing I did this because my train had left 2 hours earlier than the one I was running after. I have no idea where it was going, and it definitely wasn't going to Prague. Following my dad's advice after missing the train, I slowly managed to get myself to the Munchen airport. The airport is not anywhere near the train station, which I discovered this morning after redoing the trip. It is at least 25 kilometers away, and I have no idea how I found it, yet alone talked to the lady at the information table and found out when the following trains were leaving.
My mistake soon ensued. Realizing that I would need to change stations from Munchen Airport to Freising, I figured I would try to find Freising. In retrospect, I have since learned that Freising is an outdoor stop in a small town that is another 15 minutes farther from Munich. Since I did not have this information last night, yet alone a remotely sober mind, I hopped on the first metro and took it in search of Freising. Instead, I should have just slept at the airport (which I ended up doing too).
I somehow got all the way back to the central station in Munich [at least a 45 minute metro ride], walked around, and probably made an ass out of myself and of all Americans. If a German hates the US today more than he did yesterday, it is quite possibly my fault. If 1000 Germans do, it's definitely my fault. When I left the station, I remember hearing the metro conductor say that the train was splitting, and that part was going back to the airport, and part was going to "aslwrequophskj." Being scared that I had no idea where I was [it took this long for me to realize], I got off at the next stop and decided it was time to make camp.
I didn't choose a nice station to sleep at, yet alone a comfortable one or even one that I had any idea where I was. When I woke up this morning at about 4, I was lying in my backpack with the clothes that I've had on since Friday. I was also on a stainless steel bench that had armrests between every other seat. I some had found the most uncomfortable place in a station that was actually the stop after the train station (that means I'd been back 3x now). I got up and headed to the airport, making sure to get their nice and early to not miss my train.
Turns out I got there way too early. After getting some food in me and a nonalcoholic beverage [sink water from the bathroom], I went back to sleep in the airport for an hour or two. This actually happened to be on a comfortable, pleather couch which had many other backpackers sleeping on too. At this point, I made my bus to Freising, got on the train to Prague, figured out how the train splits [not the metro this time; half the train went east to Prague, half went south to I have no idea where], met some American backpackers who I think I'll meet up with tomorrow, and have gotten back to my apartment safely. Did I mention that I didn't lose a single thing this whole weekend (except my friends and probably my dignity)?

Fresh wine in the fall!

It would be a lie to say that my teacher took my test for me this morning. It would be a fairly accurate description, however, to say that she told me most of the answers. It would be an entirely factual statement to claim that I wouldn't have passed without her assistance.
In the US, my level of preparation would have earned me a C- (plus or minus a letter). Here, it will probably earn me an A- (plus or minus). Don't mistake my intentions however; I was planning on studying last night post ballet. As you know, I decided to update you on my life last night, so this blog took up a little of my study time. Then as I was trying to study (with the TV on in the background), I realized I had never seen the movie and it was quite confusing, so that distracted me a little. Then I just got tired and went to bed. But I did feel bad about my lack of preparation, so I woke up early and studied for a little. I even took an early tram to discuss possible answers with my classmates. I then would have bombed this test horrifically - despite the 45 minutes of in class review that we did - had she not told me the answers.
Some of you may ask, "what exactly does that mean, she 'told' you the answers." A perfect example would be me purposefully putting a word down (we had to organize the vocabulary by subject, such as 'restaurant words' and 'drug store words') in a random category that I didn't know, then waiting for my teacher to check my section over and say "mydlo... soap doesn't belong in a restaurant." Another example would be me leaving an answer blank because I didn't know what the question was, then waiting for her to translate the question for me. Or perhaps when it said "Jak se rekne 'book'" (how do you say book in Czech), and I had no idea, my teacher goes, "Matte [pronounced Mah-tey], you know this... Keh... keh-nee... ___ ... keh-nee-ha." O yea... I had no idea, but she literally told me the answer. I'd feel bad about it, but she gave most of my class even more help than she gave me.
During our post-exam scavenger hunt, I learned that it is wine season in the Czech Republic! Turns out that this weekend is the opening weekend of the harvest, so many wineries from the country bring stuff to Prague. At this marketplace, open square, many booths were set up, similar to the Highland Park farmer's market, and were selling the most fantastic array of goodies.
Just as Charlie felt when he walked through the gates of the chocolate factory, I experienced the same level of ecstasy at the wine and sausage tents. Every little hut sold their personal red and white wine, which had been brewed on Wednesday. For 20 korun [just under a dollar 25], you get a normal cup of wine, filled to the brim. For 120 korun [about 7 bucks], they give you a liter and a half! Similar to the girls I was with, I too would have purchased wagonloads of wine, would I not be on my way to Munich this evening. Instead, I just drank between a half and three quarters of a liter of wine.
After wining myself, I had to dine myself too. For 10 korun, they sell fantastic potato pancakes. Czech potato pancakes are similar in size and taste to Jewish ones, however they are much thicker. Being a hearty meal instead of a latke, they do not take 25 to fill you up. Instead, 2 and a sausage wrapped in a potato tortilla will fill you up just plenty (the wine helps too).
As I stood doublefisting my meal, having already downed a fair share of wine, I began to hear a pounding in the background. Knowing that I wasn't drunk enough to be imagining the delightful drumming, I looked over my shoulder, and low and behold, an oddly dressed, Bohemian marching band was making its way into the square! Let us not forget that I am standing 200 yards in front of a 17th century church, staring at 20 guys playing the drums, juggling flags 50 yards in the air, and wearing absolutely hilarious outfits. I was considering buying a sword at the farmer's market to blend in with the band, but even with the sword, the 10 foot man on stilts and I still looked a little different. I'm pretty sure that I've been eating pork sausage because I have only found non-pork advertised products a few times, and the grocery store practically only sells ham. Still, I need meat and this sausage was to die for. I try avoiding sausage whenever I can, but there are only so many foods served in these lands, and I am doing my best to absorb the culture.
Lastly, I am awaiting the opening keg tap in the morning. As weird as this may sound, in 2 hours, I will be on a train to Munich to sleep on someone's floor. Why might you ask would I take a train to Munich when I could just sleep on the floor here? Because it's Oktoberfest! "At noontime [tomorrow], the lord mayor of Munich will have the honor of tapping the first keg of Oktoberfest beer." (see oktoberfest.de.en for the rest of the info on it) Thus, I have arranged to maintain an IV of extremely alcoholic beer into my system for the next 36 hours. And to say I thought the wine and sausage tents were ecstatic... this will be like Mardi Gras on steroids. Updates to come in a few days when I return.

What's the Hardest part about becoming a Ballerina?

When we last left off, I had finished procrastinating and was beginning to drink. After about 3 litres of beer, I slowly began to remember that I hadn't had any dinner. I then quickly began to forget that, and failed to think about it again until this morning. When I woke up, I realized that there were more important things to be done today than go to Czech class. After Robert's reminder of the time, I quickly began to doze back into an alcoholic trance and remained in my coma for 3 more hours. It was much more important I maintain.
I then wrote an email to my academic advisor at home insisting that I take my Czech class pass/fail. After all, why would I want to lower my GPA for a class that I wasn't able to attend today? It makes perfect sense, and I am awaiting a response. Speaking of waiting, I waited for an hour and a half today to learn that instead of being put into my historical development of architecture course off the waitlist, CIEE decided to cross my name off the waitlist instead. For the past 4 days, whereas I thought I was in the class, I have not even been in consideration and new people have been taken in. Hopefully the teacher will consider overloading for me because of their stupidity.
In addition to missing class, I missed receiving my ticket to the ballet tonight [it was passed out at the end of class]. My excuse for missing class of being too sick [which is sort of true, I have a small cold] backfired when I was told that if I'm too sick to go to class, I'm waay to sick to go to the ballet. I convinced a lower administrative person still to get me a ticket, and after dressing up (I was one of the few without a suit, and all Czechs had suits as well), it was off to the ballet!
Because I didn't buy a program, and because they were in Czech, I had no idea what was actually happening, even though it was beautiful. Here is my description of the different acts, with an alternative possibility because I couldn't figure out which was the right one:
1. A girl was dancing in a cemetery while being haunted by her love, or she was fighting off being raped by a guy who wouldn't let her leave a room.
2. A guy fails to have a threesome with 2 girls because they choose to go after another girl then he jumps off a building, or there are 2 prison cells next door to one another: 1 with a person trying to maintain sanity the other with a person who has become a split personality already.
3. A tribute to M&Ms by having 6 guys each in a brightly colored shirt dancing on trampolines (brown was the bully and everyone loved green), or some version of West Side Story in happy colors.
4. An extremely promiscuous, transexual ballroom dancing competition or the power of the wind over kites.
As I said, I had know idea what was going on. It didn't help that CIEE gave us second and third row seats... in the fifth deck. I could only see the back and right side of the stage, and half of the front. For the prison cell dance, I couldn't even see 1 of the rooms. Talk about confusing.
1 difference between American and Czech artistic productions is the applause. In the US, if you really like a performance, you give a standing ovation. In Prague, you don't stop clapping when they bow. This horrific cycle never ends because the more you clap, the more times they come out and bow, and the more times they come out and bow, the more you have to clap. After the final section, we sat and clapped for literally 15 minutes. At this point, having not been clapping for 10 minutes, as it was dying down, Dillon decided to start it up again and see how long he could keep getting them to come out. The answer: twice. That means we had to sit for another 5 minutes and watch them bow. I felt bad for the dancers because they probably wanted to go too.
Because everyone was dressed and pressed, we decided to go get a nice dinner. We also hadn't eaten in about 3-8 hours [depending who in the group it was], and were very hungry. It's not very easy to find a restaurant that will sit 12 people at 9pm in Prague [finding 1 that will sit 2 people at 7pm is hard enough, as Dillon and I found out the first night], but we stumbled upon an Italian restaurant and pizzeria that was quite accomodating. My cheese fondue was actually supposed to be gnocchi. In my view, you can put lipstick on a pig but its still a pig, and this cheese fondue still tasted like delicious gnocchi (even though it was an interesting proportion of each).
Although I have yet to study for my final tomorrow, my teacher showed our class the test today and I have been informed of what to look out for tomorrow. I wish I had a ring to give my teacher, because I don't think anything would make Frodo happier.

Too Much Garlic? And for Beer, better late than never

I think my teacher was impressed with me today because I was outside of the class 10 minutes early. I figured that with a quiz imminent, I should at least get some last minute studying in to warm up my brain, right? Anyways, the quiz went fine. The kid sitting next to me convinced our teacher to check over his answers to part of it, and after she said it was right and he turned it in, he checked mine over. I thought it was nice. We had decided yesterday to skip our 1 hour lunch today and power through 2 sessions, then get out early today. Terrible idea. No one had any energy or food in them, and by the end we could barely function. As soon as class was over, I ran over to the nearest pub and ordered food. And a beer. For the first time, a place delivered me food before beer! Granted it was an appetizer garlic soup (a national specialty and incredible dish that makes no one want to talk to you for 2 hours [but its worth it]), but still, it was quite impressive.
Garlic soup is a beautiful bowl of boiling broth, stuffed with crunchy cruotons and plump potatoes. In addition to that, there has got to be at least 4 cloves of garlic, or at least 3 tablespoons of garlic powder [sometimes both, depending on the calibur of the restaurant]. Because it is quite light (in comparison to potato soup and mushroom soup and beef soup which are thick chowders), restaurants often serve a bread basket for dipping, and fresh bread goes fantastically with just about anything. What more could I ask for then that and a beer? Perhaps a main course, but that followed promptly. And maybe no garlic breath, but sacrafices must be made.
Despite finishing an hour early, we had to go back to the CIEE Study Center [located on the Charles University campus in Vysehrad in case I haven't mentioned that before] to meet with our professors. Although I only met 3, they seemed quite interesting and the 2 syllabi I got were awesome- even though they have really long names. The first, Historic Development of Czech Applied Art, Architecture, and Interior Design seemed great, and meets in a museum 1 of the 2 days a week. The other, Psychoanalysis of Transformation and Transition in Czech Culture and Society, is taught by a British dude who seems relaxed and like he won't mind if im not able to pay attention in class. The final professor I met hasn't decided on a syllabus yet [pros and cons], and seems slightly uptight but funny at the same time. Although his class is Economics of EU Enlargement is not quantitatively based economics, it might still be able to hold my mosquito-like attention span for hopefully half the semester. My last class, Art and Architecture of Prague: A Model of European City Development, further illustrates that the Czechs have a chip on their shoulder and want to emphasize the intellectual side of their education system by having incredibly long academic titles to potentially short and easy classes (in case the first 3 didn't already prove that).
With a filling food in my stomach and simple syllabi in my hand, I walked home with Robert, only to forget that we didn't want to take the tram (we realized this halfway to the metro stop, which takes us to the tram and is in the opposite direction of walking directly to our apartment). I realized upon entry into our building that I had nothing to do, so instead of starting to drink at 4pm, Dillon and I played close to an hour and a half of foosball. I have since done my usual minor spurts of physical activity, googled methods of transportation to Joey's apartment (a full 35 minutes away, as it is one of the farthest places from me this side of the river), and typed this. I figure that at least staying sober for these few hours made me not feel too bad about not doing too much, and I am trying to breach Crime and Punishment (slowly I may add, perhaps 3-5 pages per day?). My procrastination has made me realize however that you can put off doing something, but in the end it will catch up to you. When it comes to drinking, better late than never I guess. So on that note, Na Stravi! [cheers in czech]

Tickets!

As winter progressed on, the rain luckily disappeared this morning. So did the temperature as it crept towards 40 fahrenheit. At least the wind wasn't horrific and I've got more winter layers than a Sherpa training for K2. Speaking of sherpas, I highly recommend Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. I don't know if it's as good as Into the Wild because it hasn't been made into a movie yet (and because I haven't read the latter), but its an unbelievable read about his experience climbing Everest during the 1996 disaster. I blame the apartheid and the asians... they were both amateur groups. That and the horrific storms that I am just learning of as I near the end of the book.
After surviving another hellish 2 sessions this morning, after lunch, I returned in a state of paralysis. For the first time in any class, I actually did not understand a single thing that happened. I've exaggerated before and said that, but today, I had no idea what happened. At least if I walked into a Chinese class I would be able to understand hand gestures or something. If I was in a graduate level astrophysics lecture, I may recognize a word or phrase. Today, I had not a clue what happened, and as other people tried explaining to me what we were trying to do, and what I was failing at miserably, my teacher just sat in silence waiting for me to respond to her question. Even with others telling me the right answer, I still got it wrong. This was embarassing and pathetic; the perfect confidence booster the day before a quiz.
I then went to the train station because they supposedly have more train rides at better prices than finding them online. For 83 USD, I booked a roundtrip train ride to Munich [a 6hr ride] which can be redeemed anytime within the next month. The lady at the train told me that not only do I not have to show my passport upon arrival, but I don't even have to raise my hand in salute. Supposedly Germany is much cleaner and friendlier to Jews than many other European nations, and they have attempted to regain our love by providing a beer festival. At least in my eyes, their opinion has been raised slightly. That and because they make decent automobiles. Other than that, Germany is still filled with Kraut eating pigs. And another side note- this time on the thought of Kraut- Central European Sauerkraut is far superior to American, and even tastes good. Whereas I usually only eat it at home if a vendor accidentally puts it on a dog, here, I have chosen to eat it, and have enjoyed it. I wonder if the Germans make as good Kraut as the Czechs (they probably stole the recipe when they stole the Sudetenland).
I have since gone to yoga, eaten a hot houska (pronounced hoe-skah, translated as a kickass roll thats not in the shape of a roll) chilipepper [syr paprika chili] cheese and pepper [a paprika] sandwich, and typed this blog. This day could only get more exciting if I had to study for a few hours, which I get to do! At least in Germany I might have a place warmer than a park bench to sleep on this weekend or next, depending on who I can think of that may have planned ahead and gotten a hotel room (to be fair to my slacking, CIEE specifically told us not to make travel arrangements this weekend, so I couldn't have gotten my own room). Well, I'm off to study and relearn everything that I subconsciously blocked this afternoon. At least it's only 50 verbs, 30 vocab words, 10 phrases, and the numbers 1-1000 in 2 days of class, and there's a chance of snow tomorrow!
PS: Since having written this, I actually have been studying. Until my break, when I got a phone call 15 minutes ago from our Czech buddy Yarda. He got a text message from the girls who live either a floor or 2 below us complaining that we were playing foosball too loud. It wasn't even 2315 when we were cut off, and we weren't even playing as intensely competitive games as we usually do. What's happening to our world if someone can't even be loud at 11pm!

Relaxed-in: a 2 day process

Yesterday was quite relaxed and not deserving of its own entry (most of these aren't worthy anyways, but I get bored). It was our first day without anything planned, and I took advantage of that by just crashing. I woke up, read and ate, then watched some TV and played foosball. Sound slacking? It couldn't have been more restful, even though losing to Yarda's left hand 10-1 (despite having a teammate) was a little frustrating. Dillon and I then went across town to play ultimate frisbee with any CIEE students who were willing. One person made the excuse that he couldn't cut because he was slipping in his tennis shoes. Right... like everyone else had cleats on and they were sprinting 4 second 40s. He also said that we technically didn't win (it was 10-9) because we didn't win by 2... in a usually timed game, it doesn't matter if you win by 2 I think. At least he was the only one making excuses about it and no one else cared. I went grocery shopping on my way home and made chicken with peppers for dinner. As I said, it was an easy Sunday, and far from special.
I hope my teacher wasn't pissed though this morning that I was late to class again. I think she was just pissed because every time that I am late, she tells me how to say, "I'm sorry that I'm late," and I can always only remember "I'm sorry." It might have been the cold weather that made us late this morning, or it could have been the incorrect tram schedule in our apartment. Or the rain and my lack of desire to move quickly in it: I'm not really sure. Anyways, after being late to class, I proceeded to not understand a single thing that we did for the first session of today's intensive language work. Not one thing. I randomly answered questions with answers that I thought were correct, and she would hold my hand and advance my answer until it was close enough to right that she could move on. As bad as it was, I somehow got a perfect score on my quiz last week. That made me feel better, and I think she didn't make me answer too many questions (in comparison to others) today because I had done so well on it. Phew.
After our second language session, a few of us decided to get Chinese food again. It's close to campus and pretty tasty, what can I say? Besides, there isn't any real Czech food nearby, or at least none that's as cheap. The only problem with the Chinese is that it's not fast food like in the states. I wouldn't have minded being 10 minutes late to session 3 if I hadn't been so late this morning, but luckily I was with someone else in my class, and a third person was even later. At least it was good, and she has become real nice. She has switched her attire from a strict, Soviet styled suit (or just outfit) into relaxed jeans and a sweater. She's also nicer than the other instructors, smiles, and doesn't hate anyone (unlike other teachers). Plus I got a 40/40. That helps too.
The weather has been beautiful today. Gorgeously grey skies and more rain than the new Houston (well, not that much). Plus its about 45 degrees outside, and there's a chance of snow Wednesday. So much for every Czech person telling me it doesn't snow in Prague. They either were lying, or Central Europe's weather forecasting system is as advanced as Africa's, and thus so bad that it screws all the farmers for telling them the wrong things.
Anyways the weather has been so hideous that I've had no motivation to do anything - including go to yoga. That is, except research bus or train tickets to Oktoberfest. That was able to be accomplished from within the confines of my awesome apartment, all the while playing foosball, watching TV, cooking, and doing pullups and pushups. Although no tickets were purchased, 2 were reserved that will even get us back the night before classes officially begin. We still may opt to take the monday at midnight bus that gets us home at 5am, although starting the first day of classes 3.5 hours later might not be entirely desired. Tickets cost under 100 USD, but I also learned that Budapest is under 40 dollars roundtrip, and there are many other places that can be reached for under 50 USD. We made the rest of our chicken, and lost 10-8 against Yarda's right hand... our biggest improvement yet. Now, its just more relaxing and some checking over Czech before anything real happens in the near future.

King of the Castle, King of the Castle

My trip out of Prague began with a painful wake up this morning at 830. Upon getting out of bed, I almost tripped over my pants which were still around my knees from not being able to take them off last night. I put on a pair of shorts, and only after arriving at the bus stop did I realize that I was wearing the same shirt. Other people made sure to remind me too.
Similar to everyone else on my bus, I was asleep within 5 minutes of the ride. Unlike everyone else, my breakfast consisted of 1 banana. I also had bought a bottle of water, which was unfortunately the only food and beverage I would have for the next 6 hours. I woke up to the monotone voice of our tour guide saying she couldn't tell if I was awake or asleep because of my glasses. After she woke me, I went right back to sleep until we arrived at the first castle. When I walked into the first castle, I was still somewhat intoxicated and the cobblestone was quite tricky. Luckily we went to the less exciting castle first so that I would later enjoy the cool one more. The castle was from the 14th century, but the only two rooms I found cool were the carriage garage/dungeon/torture chamber and the library. Turns out that back then they had cages to put women in when they wouldn't shut up. Ingenious. That might have only been in this style castle though because it was a hunting lodge and they didn't want to be bothered. Or it could be just an universal item from the time.
Being told that we were going to lunch as we left, I had no expectation that there would be an hour drive first. Then a 20 minute walk. Then a 15 minute wait. Then a small bowl of salty water with 3 meatballs in it. Others at my table threatened to murder people. I only sulked in my arriving sobriety. When we found out that we were getting a meal in addition to the soup, I was ecstatic. CIEE was even nice enough to give a drink of our choice. The .33L water that I got wasn't really enough to help nurse my dehydration from the excessive whisky 12 hours earlier. I then went to the bathroom and filled up my old water bottle (which I felt like an idiot for carrying for 3 hours), happy not to taste anything similar to Mexican tap water.
CIEE scheduled another scavenger hunt for us at this next castle, an event that I've become all too familiar with given the countless useless ones (including this) that I have been involved in over the past week. Even though this castle was so much cooler, I think it cost more because CIEE wasn't willing to pay for our tour of it. Another 14th century hunting lodge, this one was owned by Charles IV. They did have some funny T shirts and some cool looking sweet dough in the tourist town. I also saw the cheapest beer that I have seen at a bar so far; 11 kc for a half litre. Wow. We walked around the castle in the town but weren't allowed into it. Damn their cheapness; at least they decided to go all out on our lunch for us to make up for it.

I slept on the ride home, and learned a new, even crazier game of foosball that Robert and Jarda challenged Dillon and I in. 4 players, 3 balls, 2 teams, 1 table. Absolute insanity followed, as following 1 ball is hard enough for me. The 1 game turned into 10, and the hunger hangover from all day hurt more. The 3 of us went to our corner restaurant where Dillon and I ate the first night. My potato pancake had tons of veggies and chicken baked in, and was absolutely delicious. It also helps that everything goes down well with a nice Budvar or two.
Below I am including some images from Prague Castle, where the statue of Tomas Masaryk stands. I apologize for not including my good shots, but I have been having trouble rotating the images for some reason, and most of those shots are vertical. I couldn't include an image of the whole cathedral because it's too tall to get in a shot, so the bottom image is the bottom quarter of it. The top can be seen in the first image, which is taken from within the castle too. Depending on popular demand, I may setup a flickr account that allows unlimited photo uploads, because I already have gone over my monthly allowance in just one upload session.

Would you like some bread with that Mayo?

I went in to class early today in order to finalize my switch into a second architecture class... I think this one focuses on form v. function a little throughout Czech architectural history which will be cool. Plus it should be similar to my other architecture class which should make both even easier. And both have only a day of class and a day of field trips each week. That should make them super easy. Did I mention that this is after learning that the classes are supposed to be easy? Yeah, even though a 96 might be a high number, it shouldn't be too hard of an A to capture. Plus I'll need those to cancel out my Czech language grade.
Our teacher went through a metamorphosis over the past 48 hours. Yesterday she started laughing and smiling, and today she changed from an Iron curtain into a beautiful butterfly. Intrinsically that is, she's still the same hobbit. I guess she realized that I don't know anything (which for some reason isn't apparent in class only on quizzes) so she decided to help me with my quiz too. This was pretty nice, and since most of it was just straight Czech [not translating from English], it was easier than the last one luckily. My grade can't go down anymore which is the good news, and it went a lot better too. Female Frodo (I feel like after a week I should know her real name for some reason though) then let us play memory. Her version is a game for Czech 3 year olds to begin learning English. Ours was the same deck, just going the other way, and filled with kids from top liberal arts colleges and universities from across the states. Shows how smart we really are.
After losing by one pair to a girl, we went 20 minutes away to a grocery store so that we'd see a different area of town. I wanted to just go across the street and get home quicker, but Bilbo Baggins disagreed. She's giving the grade so we all reluctantly followed. Having not eaten (again) in the previous 4 hours, I was starving and went to a grocery store to by a baguette. This was the last time this semester I will be doing that.
Instead of buying meat, cheese, or bread at the deli/bakery area and saving myself a little money (I'm still just below 50% sure on which meat is which), I decided to save myself a little time with a pre-made sandwich. Little did I know that the Czech people use more mayo than the Chinese use MSG. there might have only been 3 tablespoons of mayo on this small sandwich, but I'm pretty sure it was closer to 5. Given that the sandwich had 3 thin strips of chicken cutlet on it, the proportions were such that you could almost see some chicken in the soup of mayo. I picked the pieces out, wiped them off, threw out the bread, then ate a dirty apple to hold me over. After an hour in this new area of the city, the 1/2 oz [maybe] of chicken stopped holding me over, so I got a beer to fill me up a little until I could make it back to my flat. For an extra 3 koruns, I went with Staropramen, a good beer, instead of a Naty Lite equivalent. It was still the equivalent of $1.20 for a half liter. It did the trick.
I'm about to go to my first yoga class at Prague Yoga, a fairly big studio less than 20 minutes from my flat and 15 minutes from class. Afterwards, I think I'm going to check out K&K Family Gym, a steroid safe-haven for oversized central Europeans as well as a place hosting a few Americans for the next few months. Luckily they've got an olympic lifting area supposedly because that's all that I really care to work on right now. I'll probably gain back any worked off calories later tonight, but there's a chance that's a no-go; we have to be at the bus departure area at 830am for a trip to the country. Only CIEE would plan that knowing that the biggest club in Prague has their 10th anniversary party tonight.

Update: Since posting, all I've done is go to yoga and buy fruit. I don't think I'd call going to yoga the greatest thing I've done since getting here, but it's definitely up there with going to Prague Castle, going to my first bar here, and having my first beer here. I just needed a real stretch after tons of flights, a real awakening after lots of sitting in orientation and class, and a real detoxification after lots of beer. I wouldn't call my dinner scrambled eggs with salami and peppers gourmet, but it has blown away my traditional bread and cheese with a piece of fruit meal. It also didn't have any mayo- which was a huge relief; I don't think I'll ever willingly put that shit on anything again.

Beer!

My teacher learned today that I don't know any of this language. I learned that I won't be able to learn any of it. Turns out that as easy as it may be to follow, it's impossible for me to remember any words. Somehow- similar to memorizing the entire city of Prague already- Dillon has also become as close to fluent (within our lessons) as possible, and treats it the same way I treat English, French, or Hebrew. Damn these Slavic languages. We then went to lunch as a class, and unfortunately weren't paid for. I got some unbelievable latkes and garlic soup, and beer. After much debate, I've accepted that paying 50Kc for .3L water is not worth it when .5L of quality beer costs between 20 and 40Kc. Maybe that's why these people strike me as always dehydrated. Or maybe its a combination of them having horrific breath and me never seeing them drink water. I guess that's one life adjustment in order to become more fully absorbed into the local culture.
Foosball practice was rigorous, like usual. Today we decided to have a two-a-day since my frisbee training got cut short. When we were at the park playing, we saw the swingset and decided to take a detour in that direction. Unlike in the US where useless, frivolous lawsuits threaten anyone's opportunity for fun, in Prague, the city is allowed to invest in their parks. This means that they have unbelievable playgrounds which are both real exciting, and real dangerous if you lose your balance. I just held on for dear life as I spun around in some metal thingy, and prayed that I wouldn't fall off of the skateboard-style teeter-totter. The park was just really cool, and on our way back, we saw a tall black guy speaking English. This guy just started playing for Prague's basketball team, and lives 10 minutes away from Dillon in DC. He warned us to lock everything all the time because his Ipod and laptop were both stolen in the middle of the night while he was asleep in his bedroom. His door was locked, as were both entrance doors into the building. Never underestimate how cunning the gypsy can be.
I've been studying a lot tonight for my next quiz, and have given up on it because I have made no progress all evening. I guess it could be worse, but it's still counting for a grade. This might suck.

the Czech's Chinese burrito

This morning started off with a new route to campus! As non-exciting as this may sound, we got stuck in traffic [instead of walking] and ended up getting to the tram station (10 minutes from campus) at 9:28. Because we had 2 minutes to spare, Dillon and I chose to take our time. I guess that shows the difference between Boulder and Cornell; whereas Dillon was relaxed and walked calmly with me- accepting our late arrival time- Robert booked it. We turned around for 10 seconds, and within 10 more seconds, he was out of sight on a straight away. He might have beaten Usain Bolt in the Olympics, had he not had (what looked to be) an extremely heavy backpack on (despite nothing really needed inside of it because its still practically orientation). After agreeing that the rush wasn't worth it, I arrived 7 minutes late to class, pretended to apologize, then got corrected for being so off. The rest of class was horrific. Right before our first break, as we were discussing numbers, I was asked my phone number. I think I was the only student who was thinking in 3 separate languages, and was prepared to answer in all of them. Lucky for me none of them were Czech, and none of them sounded like an Eastern European language either. That made everything even easier.
During our break, I learned how hard the soon-to-be quiz would be, and actually looked over the material. After practically finishing the test, I went back and filled in my name and the date. Today was "10-09-08" in Europe... and this ticking time bomb seemed to explode just as I turned in my exam. Turns out that I lost like 15% for not knowing what the question was, and probably only another 10% for getting so much wrong. Luckily we get tons of instruction, and my next quiz will be even easier. Oh wait, tons of instruction consists of reading the page once through to make sure we don't totally butcher the way we say something, then move onto the next page (without the American educational system's patented 'discussion' or 'instruction' method that inform the students what exactly they have just read).
After our lovely quiz, I walked to get food with some guys from the program. We went for Chinese food. It was pretty decent, and very cheap- especially given its location. 100 korun (17 to the dollar) for a huge- and filling- lemon chicken with rice and a beer. Not bad for 6 bucks, but not worth it again I think. They did have magical spring rolls. These spring rolls are the size of burritos from Chipotle, and deflate a little once they cool off and some air sprouts free.
Lunch was followed with a tour of Prague castle. I finally took pictures, in part because this was the first opportunity and in part because it was the first time worthwhile, but need to have Dillon photoshop the lighting for me. Turns out that every minute that passed, the weather got worse and worse, until it was finally raining. I'm glad I packed an umbrella, even though no one else was smart enough to think of that.
As exciting as 80s music videos have been all week, we decided to get a real taste of 80s music by going to a local club (an hour of commuting to return home nonetheless). Much to our disappoint, the downstairs 80s floor was totally empty (I forgot to check back later into the night). The regular floor was packed with crazy Europeans and drunken Americans, all of whom were trying to maintain balance in a sea of tumbling bodies known as a techno club. I didn't sweat as much as I do during hot yoga, but it was definitely more than from any other activity. Having gotten lost on the trams once before (turns out last time I went straight to this club pretty much), I decided to check the schedules before returning. This gave us ample knowledge of when we wanted to leave. The one problem with this is when you don't give yourself ample time to get to the tram stop. Since trams come every half hour, we had to wait 20 minutes for the next arrival. The drunken freestyle that followed was to out of hand for the Czechs. What started as Dillon singing on the corner waiting for the tram to arrive spun into 4 of us screaming in a tram with Czechs undergoing complete chaos in their lack of quiet. Finally, an undercover tram agent checked to make sure we had passes, hoping to kick us off (and fine us 100USD). Although we didn't calm down, he didn't get any money either. The night ended with what looked like confused Israelis standing in the back of the tram. They asked us in English if we knew where they were, and it turns out they were making my exact same mistake from a few nights ago! They were in fact Israeli, and were going the complete opposite direction for only a few stops before realizing what was going on. I'm glad I could save someone from making my own mistakes, but I was more glad to get into my tiny, cushionless, uncomfortable bed.

Girls dirnk what?

Today was pretty boring. I learned that I had a 2x10 'plank' [the decorative beams that tutor houses have?] in my ceiling, so I n ow have an official pull-up bar. I also ditched the lecture component of my last seminar today (which it turns out was ditched by 50% of CIEE students), and have my first quiz on the Czech language tomorrow (based off close to no recollection of 2 days of feeling like an infant baboon trying to learn Mandarin). This may come as a shock to me and the rest of my class who found out that we were having any quizzes just hours before the end of the day, but supposedly the rest of the classes learned this yesterday. Either way, the average grade will be a 47%. Go boosting my GPA this semester!
By ditching, I gave myself the opportunity to eat before 3pm for the first time this week. Unfortunately, the only place we saw available had to be the most expensive meal since I've gotten here. Luckily it was still under $11 for a full salad and an expensive cafes panini. One kid was lucky enough to get a free lunch because he found a bug in his meal. I didn't want to ruin everyone's disgust by mentioning the scores of bugs I alone consumed this summer on my NOLS trip. At least this bug had some form of a deadly poisonous exo-skeleton... All flies do, right?
After learning that McCain was finally ahead of O'Bama in national polls thanks to his Convention, I walked back to my dorm. Being scared to be next to my teacher after ditching the large seminar, I waited back, called Ari, and ran out of vodafone minutes as my phone lost service in a grocery. Congratulations to Ari for getting the newest assemblyman elected into the Wisconsin state legislature... next stop is you in the Senate. I learned that even though the large grocery stores here have a much larger selection, they still only carry ham. Turns out the Czechs think ham can be pork, chicken, and even turkey. This is despite the fact that the only sliced meat they have is ham, and they have no sliced chicken or pre-packaged turkey. So much for that.
As the sobriety passed (I elected to spend more money today by not drinking beer), I joined my flatmates and lately arrived at the destination point to bowling night. This doesn't work well when you are walking, but luckily Dillon somehow memorized this entire city's intricate layout in under 72 hours. This is navigating both drunk and sober. Incredible. In the billiards hall (with like a mini-bowling lane), I heard a rumor that no guys in Prague drink dark beer. Upon further investigation, darker beers here have some ingredient that makes them sweeter. This has turned all dark beers into feminine beers, which have lost the respect of Czech men. Quite contrasting to the traditional bitter American dark beers which has given girls some excuse for hating all beers in the states.
We decided to go to rok-cafe (lost 95% of the people- who weren't going there) after the billiards club/bowling event. This place was sky-high and had quite the airplane theme despite being an underground rock (literally, physically and metaphorically) bar. I caught the last daytime tram home (pre midnight) and luckily took it the right direction so that I made it home in 10 minutes instead of 4 hours.
PS: today was the closest I've had to boring. In case that wasn't obvious (by the way) by the totally irrelevant title that consists of gaining a piece of knowledge and recommendation for the remainder of my stay. That is, other than 'don't get pickpocketed' (whether by whores or tiny midgets pretending to be childrent in the play place of KFC... both of which we suspect has happened to others on our trip).

The Czech National Sport

After 3 days filled with mindless wandering, directed map reading, useless seminars, and excessive drinking, orientation just finished. Today was day 1 of 2 weeks of intensive language study. As bad as I thought this would be before I got to Prague, upon arrival, I realized that in fact everyone does not know English. Few people - if any - actually do. So this morning, after a sound, restful, non-alcoholic sleep, I was somewhat excited to learn something other than 'cheers' and 'beer.' That was before class started. My group consisted of eight other students and what must have been a Soviet elementary school instructor prior to the fall of communism. My instructor is about as tall as she is wide, and seemed like she could make a funeral seem cheerful by comparison. After 15 minutes, I nearly expected her to pull out a yardstick and smack someone on the wrist for an incorrect response (which was the only type from everyone all class). After an hour and a half, I felt like I had been hit with a dump truck of information. I think the worst part about the Czech language is how similar the syntax is to western European languages. The problem with this is that it clicks perfectly, and thus is incredibly frustrating when I can't pronounce a single sound. After returning from our 15 minute recess, our hobbit instructor piled another hour and a half of confusion on us. I was so grateful to learn that today was a half day, even though we weren't given the opportunity for lunch until about 330.
When we got back to our flat, Dillon tried teaching me to play frisbee in the park aroun the block. As an avid ultimate and frolf player, he had to deal with many runs into the trees. I did understand how the Pied Piper must have felt in his day, however. Someone had told me yesterday that the Czech people replaced kids with dogs; I think it may be true.
In the park, there may have been 5 or so kids, but there were in excess of 20 dogs within 100 yards of us. If this was in the US, this would have been totally fun, however, the Czech dogs are given much more freedom. This means that no one uses leashes, and people only pick up dog crap if they see it done near them. As we threw the frisbee back and forth, we had at least one dog running between us at all times. Dogs also decide to introduce themselves to each other here by biting necks; which is totally fine and all with me, so long as they aren't doing that while trying to grab the frisbee from my hand too. Cats are just smarter animals.
I also learned yesterday that the Czechs don't play pool or anything at bars or anywhere; they play foosball. They play lots of foosball, and they are nasty. Having a table in our flat, Dillon and I challenged Yarda to a game yesterday, but after it was 5-0 and he was playing one-handed, he stopped keeping score. To be fair to us, it's our first times really playing, and he's above average as far as Czech players go he claims. To be fair to Czech players, 1 of the guys on the program played in a bar against a Czech guy and quit when all he could do was ricochet the ball; he couldn't hit the ball back because the guy was hitting it so hard. Since our slaughter, we have played a few games both days. Even though our games are close, Dillon usually ends up on top. I think I can beat most Americans by now though.
The other real thing that I learned today was how much Prague loves American 80's music. It might be all of Europe, so I'll report on that at a later date if I find out. Most bars and many cafes play tons of it, and its always on TV. I've had so much time to type this because I have been just watching 80's music videos all evening. Since I'm done laughing at that, however, I think I'm going to sign off now.

Give me your tears!

After a quick power nap last night, I got up and tried running to day 2 of orientation. Being still drunk, my roommate was unable to keep up with my sad excuse for a pace. Luckily we weren't the only ones who were a little late. At least we managed to show up, which was better than many.
The classroom sessions put me to sleep again, even though I forced myself to keep my eyes open. CIEE was nice enough to then give us a nutritious lunch of cheese sandwiches. In addition to the flimsy slice of egg on it, they treated us with a rotten piece of tomato and what I think was a cucumber. It was hard to tell the flavor of either of those however because there was more butter than cheese. Our afternoon session, another walking scavenger hunt with no prizes, left me starving and exhausted in the heat.
As useless as the orientation may have been, I did learn some things when I wasn't in it. For one, its an insult to not order a drink at a bar, as it is to bring your own water into a restaurant. Luckily, the excessive cheese on my eggplant hid the bartender's spit so I was able to forget about it entirely. Also, gypsies aren't as funny as Borat may make them appear. They are sort of a combination of homeless people and carnies, but also get the unfortunate treatment of a Alabama Black person in 1950. I won't go as far as to call them lepers, but they remain totally separate from the rest of the Czech people. That being said, one should never go anywhere near them at nighttime, especially if they are in a park.
I later learned to always check the number of the tram you go on. It turns out that it can be very hard to tell once you're on the train that you're going the wrong way... until, say, you cross the Charles River and are most definitely going the wrong way. After switching trams, I learned that the new one I got on would do a loop and take me farther in the wrong direction. An hour and a half later, I walked into my beautiful flat and crashed. So much for the early bedtime I had hoped for.

Welcome to Praha

Just because getting to a place can be a pain doesn't mean its not worth it. Through 4 flights, 1 lost bag, and 36 hours of travel, all I had done was read and nap. Only on planes was I able to sleep; I guess the combination of my fear of sleeping too long and the uncomfortable floor of the coffee shop kept me up all night. Since my final landing, however, the city has been quite pleasant.

My apartment is another perfect example of putting up with something in order to get to another. The five flights of stairs are only a nuissance, but when combined with 12 liters of beer in a crate, its quite difficult. Luckily its the nicest place that I've lived as a student. As if the 12 foot ceilings weren't good enough, the full kitchen and living room are decent, and my floor-buddy (a 6'7 Czech student) has a foosball table in our place. Did I mention that the rooms are huge too? In addition to living with Jarda the giant, I get to enjoy the company of my suitemate Robert and my roommate Dillon. Robert is from Canadian New York and thus chose to go to Cornell; Dillon is as close to a California surfer as you can get - except he's from D.C. and goes to Boulder (which to be fair to him has tons of Californians).

Even though my bag arrived late last night, I wasn't in the mood to unpack. It could have been that it was late, or that I was quite intoxicated. Since getting my bag back, the trip has only improved.

Today we walked around Prague, and to my amazement, I couldn't appreciate anything as much as I wanted. The unbelievably beautiful, extremely intricate tops of buildings kept distracting me from the spectacular scenery and intriguing atmosphere down below. I guess that being flooded with Prague's beauty clogged my ability to absorb most of it.

PS: Good Czech beer at the grocery goes for 14 krown per half liter [about 87 cents], and they give you 3 krown back per returned the bottle. Now that's a nice price.