Long Weekend

Me Serving at the Pilsner factory.
Me Sharing a brew and a sausage with a plastic guy at the factory.

So Thursday was the last day of classes until this coming Wednesday when I'll be having the rest of my midterms. Most of the people went out of town this weekend, and although I was considering doing such, I decided to stay around here instead. I had planned on going to 2 breweries, maybe even 3, but relaxation weighed in and I only ended up going to Plzen. I'll discuss that later though. Anyways since I didn't end up doing a brewery tour, I figured I should at least try lots of new beers, and so far, I have had 14 new types of beer in the past few days (meaning I have had at least 7 liters of beer, even though the full amount is closer to 20-25 since Thursday). I got these at Tesco, which is basically a Walmart with a giant Sunset underneath it. It was my first time there and was really fun. I had so many choices, which I'm really not used to at stores here, that it took me forever to decide what I wanted. All of the new Czech beers I have had are delicious, although some not as fantastic as the rest. Honorable mentions: Bernard, Zlaty Bazant, and Svijany. Least preferential of the newbies: Zlatopromen and Samson.[this picture is actually from the Pilsner factory that shows how many varieties have been produced by SAB, the comglomerate company that owns the brewery, since 1999. It just reminds me of my choices at Tesco]
So Thursday night I went to dinner with Joey and his mom and grandmother because they were visiting for the weekend. We ate at the fantastic buffet at the Intercontinental, and were pleasantly pleased. I then just went and hung out at the dorms with Joe. Casual night but fun nonetheless.
Friday and Saturday days were both filled with working out, decent cooking, and walking around Prague. On Saturday, I even found avocadoes from Israel and felt obliged to buy them; they were really good of course. Back to Friday, however. For dinner, I tried going with some guys to 'U Medvidku,' a restaurant/hotel/bar/micro-brewery that I found online that is supposedly rated as one of the top places in Prague. They have like 20 types of Czech beer and make there own 20% beer, which we were really excited for; that is, until we saw we wouldn't be able to eat there. We ended up going next door where there was an opening if we were able to finish our dinners in under 45 minutes [lunches in the CR take usually at least an hour 15]. All this meant was that we got served really quickly, which included my delicious bread bowl beef gulash that reminded me of Panera. We met up at M1, a real expensive and nice club in Prague. It was very difficult to find and I wish I had known how expensive (so I could drink more before), but it was ana absolute rage. I even saw Lawrence and his basketball teammates there, who were celebrating after their victory earlier in the night. Saturday night was far from the same extent of celebration unfortunately. Mom, please skip the next paragraph.

[I'm serious mom]
The night started off with me leaving my wallet on my desk before going out to Kross Club. Kross Club was much better than it had been last time (see previous post about really weird Czech people with lots of metal in their bodies), and I hung out with a few Emory people. I feel that I should mention now that to get there, although a tram/metro pass is necessary, it must not be showed every time. This meant that I just assumed that my pass was in my wallet in my pocket. Google Maps claims that Kross Club is 5km north of me, but that is going on the highway, not taking trams and metroes (that don't take straight paths always). I somehow managed to buy 2 drinks at Kross Club, which further convinced me that I had my wallet with me. I am almost positive that a friend bought me one drink, and I have no idea about the other. 15 minutes later, I noticed that I did not have my wallet and absolutely freaked out. I asked the bartenders, all of my friends, random Czech people, and even searched the bathroom- despite not having used it. I was a mess, and unfortunately at that moment, began to feel sick too.
Knowing that I was beyond my limit, I figured it was a good idea to leave, which was definitely the right decision. Everyone else was going to another club in another 30 minutes, so I just parted from them. At this point I called home to cancel my cards and thus prevent any credit card fraud. I then got on a night tram, all of which come twice an hour, and headed to Lazarska, the hub of all night trams that would connect me home. As hard as the ride was, I made sure to stay awake and make it home. Unfortunately, 2 stops before Lazarska, I faded. I faded hard and I faded fast, and only when I got jabbed in the ribs by a policeman's flashlight did I resume my rememberance of the remainder of the night. Long story short from here, I made it home, despite being very far away when that happened, despite it being 35 degrees, despite not having a wallet. I then found my wallet, called my parents again and luckily still have working cards, and even saw my friends again when I re-made it to Lazarska (that's how long it took me to get there).(gate at Plzen factory] Saturday of course led to a long and hard Sunday wakeup, which was accomplished without much ease. I hurried over to the train station and met up with my friends on the train so that we could head over to Plzen! Plzen is the beer capital of the CR, and the CR has the highest per capita consumption of alcohol in the world. So basically, Plzen is Mecca. Plzen is also the founding city of the Pilsen style of beer, which includes Pilsner-Urquell (the original), Gambrinus, Kozel, and a few more less known companies. When we got there, we immediately headed over to the brewery, despite not meaning to. I think the alcohol in my blood was attracted to the alcohol in the factory, similar to a compasses magnetic polarization, and pointed us straight there. We then walked over to a restaurant that served the best Pilsner I've ever had and some ridiculously good meat (I've stopped trying to figure out what I'm eating if it doesn't say chicken in it).After a fantastic meal, we walked around the city. Highlights include St. Bartolemu's Cathedral, the tallest in the CR. At 102 meters, it took forever to reach the top. I am uploading pictures right now for you guys to see on flickr, but the steps were usually about a quarter the width of my shoe's length, and the stairs were slanted at an angle steeper than a ladder against a wall. It was also really tiring after the 10th floor, which is when the climb got most difficult. At times I was on all fours - despite climbing vertical - and other times I had to bend down so much that my backpack was hitting the ceiling. I also had to climb over beams, around columns, and under ledges, all the while barely having a handrail as we ascended into the sky. At the top, it was really pretty and you could see well past the city limits, in addition to the big square at the base of the cathedral and the nice synagogue a few blocks away. Most of the ladders were also just wide enough for 1 person by the way, so coming back down was like going through a one way tunnel and required lots of waiting. I was real impressed, and it was the perfect thing to do before going to the brewery (possibly the only thing too). The brewery tour was really cool. Some things to note: barley has a terrible texture, not much flavor, but luckily no after taste. Malt is at least edible [made from the barley], and hops are attrotious. Not only do they have a horrific taste, they have a lingering aftertaste that kept reminding me that I needed to wash the flavor out of my mouth a half hour later. Pilsner also uses the same methods that they did 150 years ago, minus no longer using massive oak barrels. They only use those for the beer on tour, which tastes better than Pilsner draft or bottled. I am really not that much of a fan of Pilsner, especially when compared economically and gastronomically to other Czech beers, but the Pilsner in Plzen is definitely better. And it definitely wasn't mental, because everyone agreed with me, and it looks different too.
So I read the whole train back - a new book, The Guide, which is my first Indian novel - and ate KFC for the first time here. I have no idea why the Czechs love it so much, but they do, and it is pretty good over here. It's not too expensive and they are great with chicken in this country. I then went back to the dorms and hung out with Joey and friends nearby. Props to dad for meeting the Israeli ambassador at AIPAC, which I was informed of at this point.
Today has been a real lazy day, and the fact that the sky matches my walls, making it difficult to see where the windows actually are, makes it even less likely that I did anything. With a long, intoxicated lifestyle all weekend, I decided to spend all day lazying and lamping. I have thus watched a ton of TV today and am going to yoga soon. Hopefully the included pictures help a little, but the rest are on flickr as previously stated. The video below is me walking around the top of the Cathedral, so you can see how small the 4th largest city in the CR, Plzen, really is.

PS: since returning from yoga, I have seen 2 absolutely out of place objects. The first was a Rolls Royce driving down the street. I think it was lost on its way to Luxembourg or Germany or something, because finding an Audi or BMW is rare enough. The second was a unicycler. Not just any unicycler, but a guy on a mountain-uni (I'm not sure if that's the proper name for a unicycle with mountain tires) at 730pm in a pitch black park. I'm not sure which I should have thought to be more out of place.

I'm in Love with a Hobbit

Whether you've been to Prague or are planning on it, you either have or will notice - subconsciously or consciously - that none of the people, whether students are workers, ever work or study. It's quite the weird phenomenon, and I've heard other students on my program comment on it as well. I do have proof of this, both for supposed students and whimsical workers. As I have previously stated, my study center is in the historic district of Vysehrad, and being a historic district, there are always tours flocking around; one day, I even helped a British coupe find their way from Old Town to Vysehrad because I was on my way to class. Anyways, in addition to tourists buzzing around Vysehrad, there are class tours there every day too. I'm not talking about once a week one high school sends their juniors to finally see a historic area or something. I'm referring to every single day of the school week, whether rain or shine, there are between 20 and 100 students, somewhere between 1st and 12th grade, cramming into the ancient walls of this rebuilt neo-Baroque fortress. I think this is ample proof that students don't go to school. As far as older people, there are ALWAYS people on the trams. I can understand people going in the morning to work, and people at midday going to lunch, and of course people coming home from work in the evening. But why would some one be dressed up at 2pm? Or what about 1030? Every day, every tram? That can't be a coincidence. And I don't just mean 1 or 2 people on the trams. When we are working on conditioning in architecture class on Wednesdays (sprinting to a tram), we can often barely fit onto a tram because they are so crowded. Perhaps people just enjoy dressing up and pretending to go to work. If not, I have no idea what they are doing, unless they are getting paid to ride the trams constantly.
Anyways, I had 2 midterms today, in Czech and Psychoanalysis. I figured my Czech teacher had told us everything that would be on the exam, and anything she hadn't, she would give us the answer in class. I also figured that my AP Psych professor had prepared me well enough sophomore year of high school to pass a test about Freud. Surprisingly, I was right on both.
I guess our teacher felt bad after only giving my class 15 minutes of review yesterday because she gave her following class the full 50 minutes to go over exam material. Luckily, roommate Robert is in that room, so he gave me everything that she failed to forward to us. Since some of our examples were the exact same, and she had read off a piece of paper for both, we figured - correctly - that she was reading off of the test. After 15 minutes of review last night, and 15 minutes of review on my walk to class, I was incredibly prepared surprisingly: especially since I suck at Czech. The answers that I was iffy about were checked over by my teacher, and she either told me what to change them to, or informed me they were correct. An example of this: each question of section 1 had a sentence which needed a past or present verb filled in the blank from 5 choices of verbs. I had narrowed 1 down to 3 choices, and wrote what I thought to be the best answer. I then asked what 1 of the other 2 possible verbs meant, and she responded, "don't worry about that, you're answers right." I also had her check over my short essay which was quite helpful, and review it before turning it in. In case you think she just glimpses over each persons test upon submitting the exam, you were wrong. The guy who turned his test in before me say for a minute while she looked at it, then she passed it back to him when she found it a mistake. I did great.
I then went to lunch and spent 17 krown on a bowl of soup [the dollar is up to 19.5 krown!!!] and 75 krown on a plate of mystery rolled meat [i think pork wrapped around cooked salami, onion, and garlic], potato dumplings, and a delicious portion of my favorite, kraut. For an additional 21 krown, I got a 1/2 liter of beer. I then walked back to the study center, and instead of studying for my next midterm, researched Czech recipes, breweries around the country, and meaningless trivia. With 15 minutes left before the exam, I opened my notes and studied. Since I only need a 60 to pass the class, I figured if I got over a 50 on this test I could pull it up. My guess: at least a 75 if not an 80, or possibly even a 90 [if he can't read my writing and figures the answers are right]. It was amazing. I then proceeded to ignore everything my teacher said as I further researched breweries and talked to my mom online. Luckily, here is my professor's quote from after his lecture: "i hope youre not too confused by all this, but it doesn't really matter because we aren't going to discuss it much or use it at all and I don't think I'm going to quiz you on it. so if you're just a little confused it's still OK." After that, he started discussing something that I actually knew and he asked me questions for 5 minutes so I got mad participation points before running off home and talking to the parents. I have since done an hour of exercise which killed me [partially the intensity and partially the lack of previous exercise] that even included 3 sets of 8 pullups on a 4x8 piece of wood - a new record. I am about to shower and go meet Joey and Aunt Julie for dinner at the Intercontinental, and I feel really bad that I can't shave before seeing them, but I just don't have enough time. Hopefully they'll forgive me.

Stir Fry Helps, Make Weekend Plans

I think I've already mentioned that Czech babies are among the cutest - if not the absolute cutest - in the world. Part of it is that it's autumn so all of their parents dress them up in bundles of mini-clothes which makes them look even cuter. I'm pretty sure that I've also mentioned that Czech babies are a dying breed; they are being replaced by dogs. Although you may expect the dogs to be some of the cutest too, they are far from it. In fact yesterday I was almost attacked by a German Shepherd. Also, in order to replace childhood obesity, the Czechs have invested in canine obesity, which is somewhat funny and grotesque simultaneously: of course without beauty. However, similar to with their children, the Czechs dress up their dogs. Now, I know we have all laughed upon seeing a dog in clothes, but how many people have seen dogs in socks? How about dogs in T-shirts when its warm out? What about dogs in sweaters when its chilly? I still think the best thing I've seen thus far has been a man walking his dog in the rain. He of course had an umbrella, and his dog of course had a rain coat. That's right; not a poncho, not a rain slicker, but an actual rain jacket. It was hilarious.
So today I was going to go to lunch at an underground cafeteria [similar to where the free breakfasts are held]. These are just random buildings with small signs on them, usually one word with a 'u' in front of them that most non-Czechs can't find. This is also known as real Czech fast food, and is pretty cheap and very good. Being 12:30, there was a line up the stairs and out the door, so I went home and made a sandwich, an acceptable yet unfortunate runner up.
My first out class of the day, Art and Architecture, consisted of walking around Vysehrad. Vysehrad is the name of the castle that the CIEE study center is located in, as well as a few other Charles University buildings. It is an old castle, and according to myth, the origins from pre-historic times of the Czech state. I also live a mere 15 minute walk from it. Despite all that, CIEE thought it essential to tour us around all of Prague except Vysehrad. It's a pretty cool castle and we walked through the pitch black hidden passages between the external wall of the fortress and the external wall of the compound [a 4 foot wide passage between the 2]. Afterwards, my other outclass [as much as class 4 days a week sucks, having most of my Wednesdays be walk around Prague is pretty nice, and I only have 1 class plus Czech on TTH] went to the Prague Museum of Art. Although not as awesome as the Prague Museum of Decorative Art [pretty much interior design], it was still interesting and had some real sweet things that would look great in our living room. Favorite item: the first lazyboy. Being smarter than the current company, this lazyboy had no need to recline; instead it was already in a reclined position. Imagine a supersoft lazyboy that never needs to become a couch... sweet. It also has massive armrests that could balance a tray if you wanted to eat while watching a game. What a life.
Similar to my mom at 3am every night, in class everyday while not doing anything I search for travel fares. It is farely cheap to get around most of Europe, and I was thus planning on going through Bratislava for a day before hitting either Vienna or Budapest. I have since learned that my mom wants to go to Budapest, and that I don't really want to spend a ton of time in Vienna yet, so I have saught other plans. I also still know people going there in case I want to meet up half way through our long upcoming weekend [Monday Tuesday off]. In place, I think I am going to be going on a beer tour of the Czech Republic!
CR has the highest consumption of beer per capita in the world. At 160 litres per person per year, most people here have at least a beer a day (the number of people used includes children, so adults, including 90 year old women, drink more than this). To meet the people's demands, the Czech Republic has literally hundreds if not thousands of breweries. Although they only have like 10 major breweries, they also have like 100 minor ones, which includes micro-breweries, independent breweries, brewery hotels, and more. Then there are individual brewers, restaurants, and in-home breweries, which basically means I'd have a real busy weekend trying to get everywhere. One special part of the weekend: the trip to the beer spa! Supposedly a great hangover cure (we will be going after attending the Pilsner factory), the Chodovar brewery and beer spa gives you beer while bathing you in it. I'm excited. These places are both in western Bohemia, so hopefully we'll get to experience northern or eastern as well, and probably not southern Bohemia or any of Moravia. Who knows how much time we'll have, but I'll give it my best shot. If the tour isn't working out as planned, I may head over to Vienna for Monday Tuesday, or maybe Budapest for Sunday-Tuesday. I should still be able to go buy a hotel for a nickel in Bratislava, especially since its a 2 day 1 night trip on a 20 USD 3hour train.
So after searching for breweries in my Econ class, I tried taking notes and reading the WSJ, the combination of which put me to sleep [in the first row of course]; luckily I have perfected my class sleeping to eliminate the head bob, keep the eyes seemingly-squinted, and even wake up soon after. I used to be able to take notes while being asleep, but it's been a while since freshman year.
I came home and made the best stir fry to date. Today's tricks: cooking everything together, using Uncle Ben's instant Jasmine rice, adding frozen vegetables, a little more chicken than usual, and a lot more soy sauce than usual. Quite tasty. In addition, I have been maintaining my quite unhealthy average of 1 small onion and 2 cloves of garlic daily. I have also read quite a bit more, and am actually going to do some studying for my 2 midterms tomorrow. Not too much of course, but probably about a half hour in total should suffice. As I type, Jarda is having 'game night' with a few of his buddies. Tonight they are playing some weird Czech version of monopoly that consists of being farmers not real estate moguls, but I guess every culture has its quirks. And now, its on to Gossip Girl!

So Long, Farewell

Yesterday was pretty rough. In addition to staying up late in bed, having been used to staying up late partying the previous few nights, I got attacked by bugs. As awkward as this may sound, I woke up with at least 1 spider bite on each arm and a swollen lip, which I believe was from another bug that I had later swatted off my face. And Jarda says that spiders don't bite in the Czech Republic. I haven't believed him once this semester, and last night just confirmed it again. So I woke up lethargic and late, not caring that I was strolling into class a few minutes after I should have. After another long day of classes, I finally got a nice break by walking to yoga. As nice as this was, I unfortunately can't say that the positives of yoga outweighed the negatives to come.
So far, the score is 2-2: yoga gets double points for requiring energy/exercise and making me feel better, while team Evil gets 2 points for attacking me with spiders then boring me with class. As I was walking up the stairs to my apartment, I noticed that our inner doors (once inside the building, one door leads to my building, and another to a different) to our building were totally wide open. Usually, at most one may find 1 door wide open, never both. I walked up the stairs slightly puzzled, then saw 2 guys walking down the stairs with a foosball table in their hands. My horrific nightmare was right; I had blocked out Jarda telling us on Sunday that we would be losing the table Monday, and reality sure shocked me. I had wanted to hide the table under Robert's bed, but that unfortunately wasn't good enough and we had to lose it. So much for my professional foosball career: training has now been temporarily suspended for an indefinite time, similar to Hilary Clinton's presidential hopes.
I'm again bored in class typing and wasting time. I was going to skype with mom mid-class but I thought that might be too obnoxious. Instead, I have been drawing pictures, wikipediaing, and crying about the loss of our table. After class, I just walked to Washcloth square and mailed my absentee ballot home: insured of course. I can't believe that cost twice as much as the fried cheese sandwich I bought right afterward. That's right, fried cheese sandwich. It's a national dish, and is pretty much a delicious, massive mozzarella stick [even though its not mozzarella] on a bun. Yum

Days Disappearing in the Darkness

Food for thought: When I walk to my tram stop from my apartment, I walk downhill. When I walk from my tram stop to my apartment, I also walk downhill. It's awesome.

Anyways we finished playing soccer Friday night and showered just in time to catch the second half of the Prague basketball game. USK Praha was playing against some small Czech team, and free entrance combined with 22 krown beers is a recipe for success and entertainment at any sports venue in my book, especially if the stadium is within a 5 minute walk of your home. The game was pretty close when we got there, and with Prague been led by their high scorer, Lawrence from our building, it was quite fun. I guess the only problem was the really obnoxious fans from the other team who played drums and blew air horns nonstop. We made the mistake of sitting next to them instead of with the Prague fans, but it didn't make much of a difference because we were still so close; the stadium is smaller than a high school gym, and everyone has court side seats. With like 5 minutes left Prague was down by 10 points, and with 3 minutes to go, Lawrence drained a 3 to bring them within 2. He then fouled out and they were down by a few more for the rest of the game.
With 12 seconds left and 3 points to tie, Prague's point guard stole a pass and got technical fouled at midcourt. This put them behind by one with 5 seconds left and an inbound pass away from defeat. The point guard drove hard, but with no where to go he jumped backwards and to the side during his lay up. He then put up a prayer of a hook shot [while diving back towards the 3 point circle] which bounced off the back rim and got tipped in as the buzzer rang to give USK the win by one. It was awesome.
I think we forget how easy it is to forget about the day. If a night gets stretched past its period of darkness, it unfortunately ends up forfeiting the following day too. Friday night ended with a cold walk home from an apartment near my tram station [like 10 minutes away, not my tram stop], and had it been a weekday, people would have been off to work, students off to school, and me drunk in Czech class; it was probably 7 or 8am. Instead, I got to walk home and sleep until noon. After waking up, I went to the park again and played more soccer. That was fun. We then showered and went to a sports bar to watch college football and eat tuna pizza. Well, I was the only one who tried that, the other guys got just like proscuitto pizza or something.
With a stomach now filled with food - and beer - we walked around Wenceslav Square [pronounced like washcloth said quickly] and stopped at gyro-dog/sausage stands on the side of the square to drink more beer. All the while, every advertiser in the square is seeing us - a group of 5 guys - and offering us entrance to their cabarets. These guys are worse than Egyptian flies; no matter what you do, they do not leave you alone. I wanted to have a bidding war between multiple of them just for entertainment, but they only have, for the most part, the same few lines of English vernacular. We discovered that the only way to get them to go away is to claim to only want a cabaret with men, no women. This worked for a while, mostly driving them away after about 10 seconds, until one guy responded, "Oh you want that? I can get you that, come with me!" Wonderful. After 15 minutes of pests, I guess we were bound to find one guy who would have an answer like that. All that meant was we needed to step up our demands to drive them away, which somehow even got trumped when a guy [out of the blue] offered us the ability to step on midgets while they did terrible things to each other. If that's not what he was saying, he might have been sufferring from epilepsy on the sidewalk.
Having been bothered by every Cabaret for over a half hour, we took the metro across town to Kross Club. Becuase the subways are so far below ground, they need to have massive escalators to get you there. These are really fun if you are not the drunkest of your friends, and one or two of them decide to slide down the sides of the escalator. These are even funnier when your friend doesn't realize there are giant metal rivets on the side banister, so he smashes his bottom on them every 6ft for 20 yards. They are also really funny when your friend tries running up the down escalator. For a regular person on a regular escalator, this isn't too hard. For an incredibly intoxicated individual on a 50 yard long escalator, this is close to impossible. When he finally was within 5 feet of the top, a security officer stopped my friend, sent him back all the way down, and made him take the right escalator up. It was pretty funny, and the second time he tried sprinting up he almost had a heart attack.
Kross Club ended up not having any friends that were supposed to be there, and ended up having quite the interesting crowd. Filled with tattoos, piercings, hair dye, lots of leather, strange hairstyles, and metal, none of the natives were really my cup of tea. The metal, both in music and in their bodies, ran thematically throughout the whole club in decoration too. It was weird, and had there been other people and other music, might have been much more fun.
On our way to another club now, we learned of an exorbitant cover charge and ditched those plans. With nowhere to go, we randered around and found a tobacco shop [similar to US newspaper stands mixed with food stuffs stores] and an upscale karaoke bar. Which did we choose? The tobacco store of course. We bought some liquor, some beer, and some soda, and then headed to what seemed like a random basement. Of course, similar to every other random basement in Prague, it was actually the entrance to a bar, and this bar was really cool. With individual rooms for each party, this karaoke bar is slightly different from the Asian filled American karaoke bars we are all used to. It also makes it easier to sneak in alcohol and have more fun with just your friends. We went back to the CIEE dorms and hung out for a while, which proceeded to another 6am walk to my apartment. This led to another late sleep, and another forgotten weekend day. Oh, how the day can disappear.

Soccer :) and Class :(

Picture a mouse on a hamster wheel running. Now picture that wheel in a microwave on high. Now picture that mouse's heart. Remove it. Put it in a person's body. Now put that person in a really cold wind, blowing right on their chest. That is how I felt playing soccer for the past hour and a half. It was really fun, granted, and even though I played terribly, everyone else did too. I played with Dillon and a few dorm guys, 2 of whom play D3 lacrosse and the third was a fellow ex-soccer player. Countless liters of beer on all of our behalfs, however, have negated all physical skill, stamina, and speed. I will emphasize though that it was really fun, and I get the added benefit of a really nice hot cup of tea now.
Before playing in the park, I was fortunate enough to be one of 7 CIEE students in class on a Friday! There should have been 15 from my class, but I was one of the idiots who showed up, and wasted their beautiful day. Unlike yesterday when it was raining all day, this morning, I could only see one wishful cloud, flying high, sailing in a sea of blue. What a fantastic day to leave for class at 11:30 and come back after 4. Instead of starting at noon, our professor had some family issues [unintentional bring your child to work day], some class interrupting phone calls, and always runs late, thus ending the hour and a half lecture 15 minutes late. We then commuted to a psychologists's office where a guest lecturer spoke to us for a while, getting us out (and not near home) at 3:45. He was actually quite interesting and I had a few questions for him, but I wanted to get out of there so badly - like everyone else - that I kept my mouth shut. Being a psychoanalyst, this guy had the most hypnotic voice ever. 1 kid slept through his entire lecture [to just us] and another was pulling the head bob the whole time. I tried listening but kept wandering off thinking about what I could be doing outside. Although I knew I wanted to go to the park, I had no idea that Dillon would have access to a soccer ball.
So that's been about it today, Dillon and I are going to watch the Prague basketball team play right now. The game is like 2 blocks away and the guy who lives below us is playing. I am then going to try the Mediterranean restuarant in our basement which I believe is giving us a 20% off food and 50% off drinks special for being neighbors. Then we'll let the night go, and I'll update anything exciting in the not too distant tomorrow.

Keys are for Idiots

Before moving back in time, I'd just like to say that I was walking around with a kilo of onions and 6 bulbs of garlic for 2 hours. In the course of that time, I went to a cafe and had a cafe mocha and a great cup of pomegranate oolong tea. Back to last night, instead of going out and partying, which probably would have been the 'right answer' to "what should you do tonight," I decided to go to bed early and wake up refreshed. Great decision, especially since the previous 3 nights I either did not fall asleep, or dreamed that I stayed awake all night, thus making me equally exhausted in the morning. Anyways, upon awakening, I vaguely recalled Robert's weather forecast update of the week, which unfortunately proved true.
The heavens decided to piss on Prague again today. It started off as a light mist this morn, and has evolved into an extreme downpour by now. On my way back to class this afternoon, as I was singing in the rain, I interrupted my song with an appalling realization. My keys, which I keep clipped to my pants so as not to lose them when drunk, were still sitting on my kitchen table (I have to unclip them to get in the door)! This wasn't too bad, since I could just hang with some girls in our apartment building if my roommates weren't there. Oops. On the way home from class, just before finding a way back into my apartment, I happened across a homeless gypsy pissing in the bushes next to his cardboard bed that was hidden in the bushes. 5 seconds later, I stared at an anorexic looking girl sitting on a bench, and noticed her hand clasped around a syringe. Had she not had such a desperate and determined look in her eyes, and had she not been hiding the syringe, and had she not been probably homeless and sitting in a park bench, I might have thought she was diabetic as Dillon suggested. Instead, she clearly wasn't. Don't you just love what compliments the beautiful landscape and color-changing trees of autumns in Prague parks?
The girls whose couch I planned on resting on happened to not be going back to our apartment, and Jarda was at work. Ok, with 2 roommates to go, I figured I'd manage to find one of them. I also knew that Dillon was rock climbing today, so he wouldn't be available. The last problem: Robert, who may be home, never entrusted Dillon nor I with his phone number. We suspect he didn't want to be drunk dialed, but it could be any number of reasons why our suitemate never gave us his number. Anyways, Jarda gave me his number, but since Robert's parents are in town, he has been touring Prague with them all day. This had all been discovered after purchasing my Alliacae (the family that both garlic and onions belong to). As I walked back to my apartment, I weighed my options: a) stand outside in the rain for anywhere between 2 and 5 hours for whomever would arrive home first, and b) go ANYWHERE. After trying option a for 30 minutes, I relented to option b (just kidding, I'm not that stupid). I decided that I would head over to The Globe, an American-esque cafe and bar that Gina's assistant had recommended I go for the debates (all Americans go there for those... or at least all Americans without CNN and cable TV). The Globe is quite the intellectual cafe, with french impressionist paintings littering the walls and jazz whispering in your ears, and was just asking for me to sit down, pretend to be intellectual, and read. As I sat and read, sipping on coffee then tea, it took me like an hour to convince myself to get up and leave. What an awful but necessary decision. After walking and tramming home, Dillon decided to throw my keys out the window to me. Saying it is a 4 story hike to get to our apartment, I didn't want to make him come down then go back up to let me in. Neither of us expected my keys to land in a gutter though.
Just kidding, his toss into the abyss of darkness was perfect and I trapped the flying keys with my foot. But that would have really sucked if the other possibility had happened.

Beets!

In an attempt to continue where we left off, I believe I left you while preparing the saltiest rice pudding known to man. Although not edible, this wasn't my dumbest cooking mistake of the night. The only difference between this one and the other is that I learned how bad this was immediately.
While making dinner last night, I was also boiling beets to have as a snack and keep in my fridge for the remainder of the week. After turning the simmer off the stove, I wanted to leave the beets in the hot water for a while to make them extra soft. Little did I know that the combination of blogging and a great episode of Entourage would prevent me from remembering about my precious beets. While leaving the stolen, free breakfast again this morning [its only free to dorm kids if I hadn't made that clear before], I remembered that my beautiful beets were still basting in what had been boiling water. I also knew that if I was lucky, I would make it home by 1pm, and if not, it would be 8pm.
As I made lunch at 1pm, I drained the water for my beets and pealed them; only then did I realize that they weren't 'normal' beets. Like special kids in a special school, my beets were far from ordinary. Why? Maybe it's because I bought what looked like packaged beets but ended up being fucking onions.
If you've ever had a sweet, soft onion though, you'll have a clue what these taste like. My onions, boiled and beautiful, are sweet enough to be a dessert. Hopefully they just won't smell up our entire fridge since I have 8 more of them being chilled.
So I went to class, trivial and thoughtless, only to wake up at 4:55. This was actually perfect because class ends at 5. It also gave me just enough time to play one more game of Winter Bells [I hate and love Dillon for introducing me to this game last night], pack up my computer, and run off to yoga. It's been a lovely day

Putting my Head on the Line

Ahh, another restless night interrupted by the curt blasts of my alarm clock, cell phone, and watch with a few aching minutes to separate the different alarms. As unfortunate as the alarm was, what was more unfortunate was me having to go to class. In general, I have gotten used to the early Czech language class, but today was different. Today I got to class at 8:30 and arrived in an empty room. No students, no teacher, no lights. After waiting for a minute, I proceeded to peep my head into every other classroom [there are like 6 total] to look for anyone: who knows, we could have switched rooms for the day, right? Wrong. After 5 minutes of waiting and walking, my teacher came down the stairs from the office and came into the room. At least now I knew that I didn't miss class getting cancelled, even though there was no class.
For the past 2 days, Prague has hosted some exposition of world people [I think second-class leaders and prominent non-leaders of states] which included forums and discussion panels on EU politics and economics. For 1 class it was mandatory, and for my economics class, it was optional. I wish I had known that there was a signup for this because although boring, it was probably interesting too. Plus there was supposedly a totally free, sick lunch buffet with free Pilsner. Damn.
Anyways, half of my Czech class was supposed to attend this, even though our Czech teacher told us yesterday that only 2 of the 8 students were going. This still leaves 3 students not accounted for, of which 1 came after another 5 minutes. Not too terrible, but sitting in an empty room for 5 minutes wondering where everyone went wasn't fun, then sitting for another 5 minutes with just the teacher was even less fun. Then she made us do worksheets despite no one else being there. Typical.
I walked to steal a free breakfast, went home to catch up on some Entourage while reading some more, then had to return for Psych class. I have begun to believe that all of my classes are actually interesting, and the teachers actually know what they are talking about, its just they have such boring voices that even if they were interesting, they'd still lose my attention. Even my Psych professor, who is from London, has just such a bland and monotonous voice that it reminds one of driving through an endless tunnel. At 3:24 - when class was supposed to be over at 3:20 - having packed up and stared at the clock to show my professor that class had ended, I couldn't bore myself anymore and just walked out. I pretended to be in a rush to another class like the other people who did that too, even though I had to walk back in front of the class when I walked the wrong direction: usually I walk home through the park; today, I would be taking the metro home.
Why would I be taking the metro, despite having figured out that it takes an extra 5 minutes to get home via making a circle around my apartment? There is a hair cuttery right next to the metro stop. That's right, I decided that it is finally necessary to trust my head with a random hair salon in Prague [they were closer to a salon than a barber]. The one good thing about this is that no matter how bad it could go, I can always just have them shave my head if I hate it. The one bad thing: they speak no English there. None; and when I say none, I mean I'm totally screwed. Luckily, I was smart enough to ask a 6'3 Czech girl in my Psych class to help me with some words. She gave me 2 phrases: 'less here' and 'more here.' Wonderful.
After seeing me read the phrases to her, my cutter grabbed the sheet, read over my sheet, handed it back to me, pointed to the sides of my heads, said 'more here' in Czech, pointed to the top of my head, said 'less here' in Czech, and picked up the buzzer. Overall assessment: communication with customer - D+
Aesthetics of atmosphere - A-
Skill with buzzer - A
Softness with scissors - B-
Overall Quality of Cut - A
Overall price - A+++
For under 9 USD [with tip already included], I got a really good haircut. Other than that Czechs spend less on their scissors that American stylists do - and thus the scalp hurts a little more afterwards - the experience was extremely pleasant, the cut was surprisingly superb, and the price was expectedly inexpenssive. I went home, to a quick powernap, and read some more before cooking dinner.
With some extra rice left over, I decided to make some 'rice pudding'-esque sweet rice. After pouring some cinnamon into the bowl, I added quite a fair share of sugar. What should have been delicious quickly became disastrous after first taste. I immediately realized that the bag of what looked like sugard should have undergone a more thorough investigation because it was actually salt. I have since been cooking beets which will make a lovely snack tomorrow along with my garlic, onions, and radishes. Wow I love the weirdest vegetables.

Lazy Sunday? Lazy Weekend...

As the river Vltava has been running quite slowly lately, so has life right off of it. Not much has happened in the past few days, and definitely nothing of significance has occurred. Lots of people on my program were out of town, and with both of my roommates' parents in town, I decided to watch TV. A lot of TV was watched, and many pages were read; Oh, and lots of alcohol was consumed. After seeing Joey once, we decided to meet up later this weekend which was fun. I met some more of his DU friends and even a few nonfriends. Anyways, for those wondering, I am all caught up in my American TV shows, and have almost finished This Side of Paradise which is an awesome book (Fitzgerald should get more acclaim for his first piece and less credit for his masterpiece, Gatsby). I am again bored in class, listening with one ear while typing this, drawing pictures, chatting online, and letting the material pass through my other ear. To be fair, when the class is reading aloud from the book, something that I can and will do at home too, there really isn't a point to listening to it now as well. Other interesting things:
-On my daily 2km walk back to class (on Mondays I make the walk 4 times), I heard a "CPAKCH!" As bad and weird as that may sound, I think that is the best description of a squirrel falling off of a roof, rolling, bouncing, and running all within 3 seconds. It was nuts.
-Although it isn't as nice as it is in Chicago, spending 2-3 hours sitting on a park bench which floats right under suicide bridge in the spectacular Sunday afternoon sun was divine. If some one had jumped right near me, however, I think that might have made the evening slightly more gloomy. The problem with this fantastic sun is that when you are walking 10km in it, you sweat way too much for sitting in class too.
-I can now make a mean stir fry - whether with rice or pasta - and consume as much garlic and eat as many onions and use as much hot sauce as a platoon of Mexican soldiers trying to keep themselves out of war and in a ward by getting stomach ulcers from too much hot food. On that note, a man died last week from eating a hot sauce too hot for himself. So it goes.
-A massive rat [also known as a dog to few] tried pissing on my foot as I walked to class this morning. Turns out they don't just use sidewalks, gutters and streets, and had the little shit tagged me, I would have kicked it off of the wall of Vysehrad castle that I was standing next to.
-Most of my clothes have been worn on average 3 uses. Although some few pieces still remain clean, the majority of day to day clothes have been picked out of my laundry suitcase at least 5 times. I have done laundry twice since getting here, and our machine holds approximately 8 articles of clothing. Despite doing so little this weekend, I hate my washing machine so much that I didn't even do a load, although I had considerable time to accomplish such a pathetic feat. Wish me the urge to fight my nemesis and regain some clean clothes, although I'm not sure if any of these clothes can now become clean without multiple washes.
-Here is what I did in class today:

Late Evening Strolls: the Newest Fad

When we last left off, I was about to go out. When I first came back, I probably shouldn't have. For one, it was after 5 in the morning. For two, I had been plagued for the previous 20 minutes with quite the small downpour. None less fun, none the less.
I woke up on the couch [again], this time at 9:30 with Robert on the couch next to me and emailing someone obviously quite important. After picking up everything that I knocked over [that's how I woke up], I ran into my empty bedroom and went back to bed. At noon, I was still asleep.
After a full day of intense relaxing and lamping, I went out to dinner at Radost. Radost, little did I know, is a vegetarian restaurant, and despite this, still had quite tasty food. I figured after trying two places' 4 cheese pasta that I would end up with fondue again, so I quickly opted for being indecisive. I was so indecisive that when the waitress even asked me what I want to drink [in English sadly enough], I floated for a while before responding 'beer' because I couldn't decide on a beverage from their massive menu. I ended up ordering some dank Tofu Stir Fry; all that it really needed was some hot sauce and chicken and it would have truly been amazing. I also ended up getting a Mint Julep.
After dinner, I came home and drank wine while reading, then went out to 'the Beer Factory.'
While waiting in the line foyer, some crazy American bastard happened to smash into my shoulder. Who would have guessed that it would be Joey. I told him I'd meet him at another club in 15 minutes, but 15 minutes later I got a text saying he was going home. Beer Factory is awesome because in addition to being a real cool club, each table has 4 taps on it. As you pour yourself a drink whenever you want, the tap sends messages to a scoreboard announcing how many drinks your table has. This announces to all the tables if you are say, a drunken Irishman sitting there for 6 hours hammering beers. At the next club, Chapeau Rouge, the people I was with wouldn't let me leave unless I drank. Of course it was unfortunate.
I should probably mention that last night I wanted to get home quick and didn't want to wait 25 minutes for a tram [they come twice an hour]. I walked south down the river [because club Lavka is situated next to Charles Bridge on the river] towards my apartment, not realizing that since I left the club at 4 and it was a 45 minute walk at least that I would be in the rain for at least 20 minutes and not asleep until way past 5. Oh woops.
Tonight I learned from my mistake. I took a tram to my stop, but I was 'escorted' off the tram by a low pitched Czech driver with a horrifyingly Russian accent [next stop: invasion]. Unfortunately, he wasn't following the tram pathway he was supposed to, because had he, I would have at least known which general direction my stop was in. Instead, he literally kicked me off, creating even worst sentiments. When I got off the tram, I was in a puddle of fog. All I could see was that I seemed pretty high up and there seemed to be a building slightly taller than I. Knowing that Prague's zoning board dictates that the height of buildings must be about 4-5 stories, this 10 story building [easily] that was only 2 stories above me clearly indicated that I was nowhere near home, but at least near suicide bridge. Suicide bridge, aka the massive highway that easily runs 10 stories above my park, actually happens to be much longer than the length of my park. Turns out that after 10 minutes of walking, I approached the Vysehrad metro stop [from my apartment, I must take a tram north to hit a southward bound metro that runs through Vysehrad to get to school]. In lamin's terms, I was easily 30 minutes from home without a shortcut. I sadly started walking, only to pick up my pace and try to get home. I managed to return home in under 20 minutes [from this point; this was after asking every random Czech person where any stop nearby was; this was after being quite wasted all evening and finding a toad; this was after threatening to murder gypsies if they wouldn't stay 5 miles away too.] Anyways, I got home, thankfully, and have since stayed up for a little to type this. I guess the only lesson is don't drink right after Yom Kippur [it might be 'dont drink at all' but that's definitely waaay too hard] or feel a wrath.

Fasting Fast

Woke up. Went to Czech class. Went home. Went to synagogue. Prayed. Came home. Wanted to eat. Watched TV and read. Wanted to eat. Went to synagogue. Prayed. Drank water. Went to 'Bohemian Bagel.' Bagels were unavailable; ordered a tuna melt and salad. Waited a half hour. Ate. Yum. Walked through Old Town Square. Got gelato. Yum. Walked to the tram. Went home.
Pretty boring, no?
Anyways, today's feeling in synagogue was totally different from both the Old New and the Spanish Synagogues. Today I went to the High Synagogue again, this time again being led by Rabbi Hoffberg, the Jewish History professor, rabbi, and pipe smoking aficionado. I think so at least, another guy from the synagogue was smoking flavored tobacco out of a pipe after break fast and I think he was too.
High Synagogue is a traditionally conservative synagogue, unlike the Spanish Synagogue which is much closer to reform than conservative. The morning services were held in a mixed, non-mehchitzad room, whereas in the evening service, women had to sit in a separate area [quite similar to a cage really. It had wooden bars - similar to the ones that are on the sides of stairwells for the banisters - going up to about chest height and was off to the side]. Although this synagogue was much more colorful and lively than the Old New Synagogue - and was also filled with much younger people and many Americans - it was much less solemn (as expected) but also didn't have anywhere near the personality either. The Old New Synagogue, being extremely traditional in its orthodoxy, has an internal aura that was quite great to be a part of. Whenever anyone had an aliyah... everyone in the synagogue shook their hand. Today, despite having my own aliyah, no one shook anyone else's hand, and I was one of maybe 2 people who offered a 'yeshar cohach' to the Torah reader or fellow alliyah-ers. I understand why the Old New Synagogue has survived for so long, both from its character and physical structure, and I liked its High Holiday service the most of the 3 completely different services.
This morning in the service there was a baby naming too, which was pretty special. With less than 1500 Jews in Prague, and most being of an older generation, not many kids get born every year. The rabbi claims that between 10 and 25 children are born each year, which is quite unfortunate, but I was quite fortunate to get to see one of so few baby namings.
Bohemian Bagel was quite frustrating. Every Jewish student and visitor - mainly being Americans and Israelis - in Prague was there tonight between 7:15 and 8:15. Every one. And thus, having predicted that they would all be there, Bohemian Bagel ran out of bagels by 7:30. We were quite disappointed. Luckily, to go along with their bagels, they have a great menu! Unluckily, they decided that it takes 10 minutes to make grilled chicken sandwiches, but 30 minutes to make a tuna melt and salad. After most of our party was done, the 3 of us with tuna melts still hadn't been served; when they got served and mine hadn't been toasted yet (another 10 minute ordeal), I just settled for an unmelted tuna melt. We screamed anti-semitism, but since everyone was Jewish and they all got their food, I guess the only way that could have been true would have been if they purposefully got rid of the bagels. It was still pretty satisfying. After dinner, we had terrific gelato, as Prague has all over the city. My carmel coffee mix had actual coffee beans and actual carmel candies in it too which was a nice surprise. Now that I have a full stomach and a washed body and mouth, its time to go have fun thouhg.
PS: I've seen many commercials for other countries here (similar to Arnold's 'Come to Caleeefornya' ad), but the Kazhakstan one that I just watched even tops Bosnia and Slovenia.

Festive Fasting!

It was pretty relaxing to walk soberly to class this morning. That and the fact that I had more than 5 minutes to get there of course. It was far from relaxing, however, when my Czech teacher gave us a quiz. Our whole class had been told that past tense and prepositions would be covered. No one was informed that giving/getting directions would be too, and everyone failed that section miserably. I stupidly decided that it wasn't worth wasting her time since I knew i had no idea what random combination of letters I would write; unfortunately, hearing later that everyone else did that, I probably could have gotten credit for 'svsdfjlks.' Oh well. After breakfast, I began my first of 2 field trips of the day. The first - the Jewish Quarter. The second - the Museum of Decorative Art. The Jewish Quarter was pretty neat, and I got to go to even more synagogues than I had last week during Rosh HaShannah. After going inside the Spanish Synagogue, I even decided to change my Kol Nidre plans and go there instead. Being of Islamic design, it has tons of intricately beautiful designs (and probably tons of TNT wired into the walls). The Spanish Synagogue is only about 140 years old, but it is fantastic and recently renovated, making all who walk in stop in awe. I apologize for the terrible photo of it, but I was getting chased by an old woman with a beating stick for taking a camera out, and she made other people delete the photos off their cameras. I was lucky to snap a photo [right before my camera died] - even if its blurry and has a finger in the way.
Our second stop might have been even cooler. Possibly the best exhibit I've seen in a museum, the Eames brothers' 'Evolution of Chairs' was crazy. The Eames revolutionary advances in chair design have influenced much of the development of chairs since World War 2, and their exhibit is crazy. After walking through their exhibit, we walked through different 'progression' exhibits. These included such things as watches and clocks from the 15th through 20th centuries, glass and ceramics from the same time period, wedding dresses over the last 200 years, and more. It was really fun, and as boring as my teacher may be when she lectures in class [luckily I have MS Paint to keep me occupied], she makes up for it on our Wednesday tours I think. I raced back to the Study Center after the museum tour, only to be so bored in Economics that within 10 minutes, I had to 'go to the bathroom' to splash freezing cold water on my face. At least that kept me up the rest of the class. I have since decided that from now on, I will always make sure to have my computer with me in Economics.
Economics always runs late, and as much as I wanted to walk out of class, I felt that that would be too impolite [after already doing that and having gone to 2 classes in 3 weeks]. I left at 5, and knowing that I had to leave my apartment for services by 6, stopped at the grocery for the last supper. I had endulged in a slice of chocolate cheesecake at lunch thinking that would have had to be my last meal, but having a little extra time and a raving appetite after just 4 hours required another meal. Being the luckiest bread buyer in the world, I again got hot rolls, fresh out of the oven with my chicken cold cuts and radishes. I also got a banana, an apple, a yogurt, and a chocolate wafer bar [can't tell that I haven't eaten in 6 hours and am already getting hungry and thirsty can you?].
So I hurried off to services, this time at the Spanish Synagogue, and met up with 3 girls from my program and 5 that I had met who are also studying here. Unlike the Old New Synagogue, women are respected here and given equal treatment (up for debate among all) here. The service was led by a rabbi who had been flown in from the States, so it was your traditional reform-conservative blend Kol Nidre, filled with many songs and your trying-hard but hardly-succeeding singer of a rabbi. It was still nice, although quite different.
As I type this, I'm doing a pretty good job of not doing my homework. As I've previously stated, Yom Kippur - being a Jewish holiday - does not get me an excused absense, so I must go to Czech in the morning [although my other class was cancelled thankfully]. Thus, I have a posterboard + presentation on my favorite place in Prague due in about 9 hours. Luckily, I saw a poster of someone who had already done the project [in a different class] up on the wall, so I took a picture of it before leaving class today. I then cut some pictures of Old Town Square out of my Czech buddy's travel books (Shhh...) and some squares out of different maps he has. Hopefully he won't notice, and will even help me make sure that the photo of someone else's project has decent grammar that can 'inspire' my own words.
I am also including some recently uploaded photos, although these and more can be seen on my Flickr account. Below is a picture of the nightline of Olomouc, me and a midget-servant statue in a Moravian castle, part of the castle, and the crazy Kafka statue outside of the Spanish Synagogue. Enjoy.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome All Grown Up

Having devolved into a blogger, I felt myself compelled to update this blog last night when I got home at X am (my guess is between 3 and 5). Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning, I was still in my jeans, still in my wet T shirt, still on the couch, and still had my homepage up because I never got past opening the browser. Not again...
Unluckily, it was different from any other time that I've done this; it was 8:20! Usually, I wake up at 7:20 to get to my 8:30 class on time. Usually, I shower, brush my teeth, change, eat, and have some free time before I walk to class. Usually, it takes 20 minutes to get to class but I give myself 25. Not today. Today, I combined showering and changing by putting shoes and a jacket on. I also combined brushing my teeth and eating by shoving a roll in my mouth. I even combined free time and a walk by running the 2km as fast as I could. It was terrible.
Whereas I usually have a pretty low heart rate and am able to run if I need to, I am quite different in Prague. I've had practically no exposure to exercise since getting here, especially cardio. I think my max heart rate this morning was a 180 [not 200] because I was still a little drunk, and I think that my heart rate was north of 175 on my terrible run. I managed to get to class 5 minutes late; given that once i reached the 100 stairs at the end of my run, I nearly died and needed to walk, I was relatively impressed that I got up and got to class in just under 15 minutes. As I walked into class, my heart was still racing faster than a techno song.
Before I go on about my substitute teacher, I feel that it is imperative to identify my mindset at this time. Having pretty much woken up after my brisk run, I decided to maintain an extremely low energy state in order to make napping after Czech class easier. Similar to a Windows computer on Standy By, I sat in the corner preparing to hibernate. Given my teacher's energy level, this was somewhat difficult.
Yesterday, my Czech teacher was sick and required a sub for the past 2 days. When I walked into class yesterday, although a little confused about where my teacher was, I understood that it was still my class. Upon sitting, the sub introduced everyone to me, then said her name in prepartion of asking my name. After successfully answered the question, my teacher screamed 'FANTASTICO!' I felt even dumber upon her obvious sarcasm, until I realized she was actually serious. I am pretty sure that my sub has worked with mentally challenged students before because she definitely had a way of making me not feel bad about being retarded. Usually, I feel bad in class about not doing any work or knowing anything, and then requiring my teacher to give me the answers. Yesterday, this totally changed when I actually learned different prepositions and had to have been being mocked by a hyperenergetic Czech Special Ed teacher. Wow, talk about demoralizing: when you get to the point that you don't feel bad about not being able to learn and your teacher has treats you the same as a kid in Kindergarden with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, you know something's wrong.
As far as food goes, since my return to Prague, I have been 'preparing' for Yom Kippur in a manner similar to the pre-Passover house sweep for bread. Basically, I'm running low on groceries and only have eggs and chicken cold cuts and rice and ice cream (in addition to my garlic, onions, and spices). I didn't combine all 4 dinner, only the first 3, and made a traditional NOLS meal of 'scrambled gook.' Again, given the proper combination of hot sauce, garlic, onions, pepper, salt, and oregano, anything can be fixed. Well, not F.A.S. in Czech class.
Since finishing my hibernation this morning, I made an egg, wrapped it in chicken cold cuts, and headed off to class where I now am. Having mandatory attendance and boring classes, I spent 4.5 hours painting pictures on MS Paint (I miss kidpix), checking maps of Europe and where I can travel, being on facebook, and utilizing wikipedia. Today in class, I am at least using my time wisely to update anyone else who is bored on the other side of this blog. I guess it's good I didn't waste money on notebooks, because then I'd just be doodling instead of typing.
I think that I'll probably be blogging more in class, in part because I have nothing else to do, and in part because I'll probably be going out more at night and thus unable to update at 4am (I gave it a shot), and probably be blogging a little less frequently (like every 2 days) because I'm really running out of stuff to add.

Ze Greatest Field Trip in All Ze World

So Saturday morning at 7:45 we had to meet at the Na Florenci Bus Stop again for a trip. Since I knew that the buses were departing at 8, I actually made the right tram and got their on time. It's great how huge improvements can be made in small amounts of time. Anyways, we then departed for Moravia.
For those who don't know [as in pretty much everyone], the Czech Republic is made up of 2 provinces, Bohemia and Moravia. Bohemia is the Northwest section whereas Moravia is the South and East sections; Prague is in Bohemia, and the second and third largest cities [which no one has ever heard of] are in Moravia. The second largest city in the Czech Republic is Brno, and the second largest city in Moravia in Olomouc. Back to the boring non-intellectual stuff now.
So pretty much this was supposed to be an academic field trip, and it probably couldn't have been any farther from that. The trip was 'supervised' by the traditional CIEE staff [only rule = no drinking on the bus] and there were even a few of our Czech buddies with us; the difference - this time - entailed the accompaniment of my Psychoanalysis professor. He is pretty chill, despite being British, and of course drank beer at lunch with us. He did lecture as we walked too. Before I continue, I feel obligated to go over again a brief history of past CIEE trips. For one, Orientation was filled with tons of useless, boring, and ineffective scavenger hunts. These were poorly planned. Our first field trip, we had to have breakfast before it [around 7am] and weren't given lunch until about 3. Our next, Lidice and Terezin, was decent despite being depressing. So although there has been an upward trend, nothing has been 'good.'
This trip was fantastic. All we did was drive, eat, drink, and walk. Literally. The highlight of Saturday, coincidentally being the only thing planned, was a trip to Sigmund Freud's house. For everyone who thought that he was from Vienna: you're right. Freud lived in Vienna from age 4 until like age 78 when he moved to England in fear of the Nazis. Note that in my timeline of his life, 0-3 have been skipped. What eventful years were enjoyed in the small town of Pribor. The trip to Pribor was probably as eventful as Freud's life there. We had a very tasty lunch [again, we had the choice of Chicken or Chicken], walked 2 blocks to his house, and went on a tour of his house.
Freud's birthplace is a tiny house on a small street with a statue of his famous couch outside of it. That's it. Not being extremely wealthy when he had little Sigmund, Freud's father lived in a 2 story house; the first floor, occupied by a blacksmith, was a few open rooms; the second floor, lived in by the Freud's, was a few smaller rooms. Oh yea, they had every book that Sigmund ever wrote in a few bookshelves upstairs (even though he didn't write them in that house). So to summarize: we had a 15 minute lecture outside near the statue, then a 10 minute video about Freud's life in Pribor, then a 5 minute walkaround of an unimpressive, small house. We then left.
We next drove to Olomouc, our destination for the evening. After getting there, we checked in, had a small amount of downtime (it was about 5:30) then - you guessed it - ate dinner. And in true CIEE fashion, we had the same choice as usual: chicken or chicken. After dinner, I showered and joined everyone in the lobby so that we could start drinking early.
Despite Olomouc being the primary destination, CIEE scheduled no planned walk around the city. We had no time to see the city during the light, and even though some people did the walk with staff after dinner, most just showered and went to a bar. Despite that, since Olomouc is tiny, I still managed to see most of the city - even if seeing it meant seeing double of it. Luckily, when we went to the main town square with some cool statues, a great city hall, and an awesome astsronomical clock [not as great as Prague's though], and the McDonald's, I hadn't started drinking yet. Anyways, 7 of us went to a small, local bar and just ordered rounds until it was 9:00. Sadly, this meant playing coaster flip until I had finished 2 liters and having 2 Red Bull Absynthes. At 45 krowns per shot of 140 proof Absynthe (about 2.75 USD), this might have been the deadliest bar in the world. Dillon and I at least had the sense to only have 2, despite feeling quite floaty afterwards. I even tried scaling a wall after he did, forgetting that he is a climber and I can't jump. After getting halfway up but only holding onto a ledge with 1 hand, I fell back about 8 feet and somehow had the nicest fall of my life. It could have ended quite differently unfortunately.
Being drunk Americans, a few (probably all) of us were singing in the streets in search of anywhere. We met up with some Czech kids who were all leaving for their first year at university on Monday, and thus were needing to party. They took us to a real fun underground pub that we enjoyed until about 10:30, then headed over to 'the best club in Olomouc.' I'm not sure if this place was the only club in Olomouc or not, but it definitely was ridiculous: in part because of a ton of alcohol thus far, and in part because it was probably the best club I've been to in the Czech Repubic thus far. After about an hour of intense dancing with anyone within 10 feet of me, the combiation of my caloric output and my genes dictated an oncoming, subtle sense of sobriety. I crushed this urge with about 8 shots of Bcherovka (a Czech liquor that when mixed with tonic water tastes a shocking amount like strong ginger ale). The night proceeded, and unlike in Munich, I made it home while Dillon did not. At 9:10 this morning, the knock on the door that I thought was CIEE was in fact Dillon, returning from possibly murdering a hobo, probably sleeping in someone else's room, definitely sleeping in a park, and without a key card (which CIEE later wondered about on the bus). On the bus after breakfast, Dillon - still being quite drunk - shouted random statements about what might have happened and provided me with a great deal of entertainment for the following 2 hours. It was definitely funny, and I wish he wouldn't have stopped dancing whenever I tried to record it.
Here is a list of events on the bus [depending on which ride it was]:
slept, read, slept, watched a Czech movie (similar to the Crucible) about the Czech witch hunts, slept, read, was pissed off by the background noise of a Psychoanalysis lecture that was playing on the TV, slept, read, slept, cried laughing at Dillon, slept, slept through a Czech witch version of the Wizard of Oz, ate the best McDonald's of my life. After laughing at Dillon and before sleeping [as in this morning] we stopped at a pretty sweet castle that - again - we weren't allowed to take pictures of. The Czech's have a policy, in many places unfortunately, about only being able to take pictures if you pay 100 krown. Unlike in the States where you can't take pictures if the light might affect something old or they don't want you to have a picture, here, you must pay to shoot pictures. It's a pretty terrible policy, and thus I can't show pictures of pretty old places from around Prague. It's almost as bad as needing to buy water always, but that can at least be gotten around by drinking sink water in bathrooms. Anyways, the Castle really pissed me off because the woodwork was so intricate and beautiful. Whereas this would be quite impressive to most people - as it was to me - the fact that none of the pictures were hung straight and that some of the floors were uneven and that the designs weren't parallel drove me nuts. I almost began fixing picture frames, but there were too many to fix in too little time [and they might have broke had I touched them because they were like 400 years old].
To further elaborate on weird Czech culture, our stop at a gas station on the bus ride home proves quite interesting. Despite priding themselves on being extremely good workers, I have noticed that the Czechs are quite slow in some work aspects, and are far from what Americans would call efficient. At the gas station, I was fourth in line to order McDonalds. For some reason, it took 10 minutes to get to the cash register. As they served my food 5 minutes later, CIEE staff hauled us out of the McDonalds, and forced the students behind us in line to not get food and thus waste the previous 15 minutes. The weird part of this story was the cost of the food. Having run out of money, Dillon was in need of financial assistance, and I thus paid for both of our meals. His meal cost 100 krown, as did mine, and my yogurt cost 30 krown. The total cost of our bill was 195 krown. It makes no sense to me still.
The basic point of this blog is that I feel really bad for anyone who is used to just regular academic field trips. No field trip that I have ever been on has been quite fun, yet alone had no academic purpose (other than the investigation of witch hunts which we didn't really do) and had tons of good food. I can only hope that Allison may get to enjoy some cool field trip at Edgewood instead of just a bus ride to a museum.
Finally, I must wish Ari a safe flight. For those that don't know, my younger brother and his friend Sam will be boarding a plane to Vietnam in approximately 45 minutes, from where they will proceed on a 3 month walk around Southeast Asia, India, and more before they come visit me in December. May you two have the best of travels and a fantastic blog to keep us all on the edge of our couches. Hopefully it will be more eventful than my blog, even if you aren't as good of a writer Ar.

Bored with a Book!

So it's been a pretty boring last two days... sorta sad unfortunately. Yesterday I met with Gina's assistant for tea in the morning. Having lived in Prague, Martha was a resident expert in all things Czech and gave me a few interesting ideas of things to do. In addition to giving me ideas, she gave me more books than the Library of Congress has (thank you Gina). They should keep me occupied until at least Halloween if not Thanksgiving. The one problem is that I started reading one of them yesterday, and it was really really good so I am now 400 pages into it. That partially explains why I haven't done anything since yesterday.
So after meeting with Martha, I went to my Psych class and laughed the whole time because I was awake. This may not seem that funny, even though I often am not awake in class, but watching everyone else bob their heads up and down or sleep on their desks or lean against a wall and sleep was pretty funny. We also discussed Anti-Semitism a ton, and sadly, the only thing I could think about [in addition to how it had affected all of my family] was a famous song of Borat's that involves a Jew and a well... Oh well.
After reading all afternoon, I made the leftover gulash and rice, but this time added a ton more spices, thus making it taste somewhat acceptable. My NOLS rule held true: more hot sauce, garlic and pepper can make anything edible. I then proceeded to drink almost 4 USD worth of beer [actually was 3 liters still though], and became bored in a club. Upon return home, I noticed that I had a lot of ice cream and the debates were almost on. I woke up 2 hours later, noticed that I had missed the debates and had a lot of melted ice cream. Perfect.
This morning I woke up and read. All day. I actually got up off the couch to eat a slice of cheese, then returned to my groove spot and read more. At 6, we all finally got up and cleaned the apartment for the first REAL time this year. Boring and no fun, but still necessary. And once I got up, I stayed up! I not only packed for our trip to Moravia tomorrow, but I also even showered and left the apartment. This ultimate gesture liberated me, and even helped motivate me to call Joey. I have now finally seen my cousin, and have an ATM card that won't charge me 15 usd per withdrawal. I also had some great cheese fondue with gnocchi hidden in it and a soup. Joey also showed me how terrible his dorm is, and thus relatively [and absolutely] how great mine is. Since returning, I have already done everything that my apartment offers that his doesnt: I have drank my sink water, sat on my couch, watched HBO, played foosball, and walked around my apartment. Man would it suck to not have those luxurious amenities.
PS: The strawberries I bought at a food stuffs store half an hour ago are unbelievable, and I'm quite excited to try the watermelon too!

Mystery Meat!!!

After another morning of services at the Old New Synagogue, I rushed back to eat lunch and get on my way to another field trip. I should mention that services were quite easy to get into this morning, and even though I showed my passport, I don't think I actually would have needed to do this. Upon returning and eating some tasty bread and cheese, I ate some tasty bread and meat. Food isn't scarce, but my knowledge of what I'm eating sure is. We'll address this topic a little later unfortunately. Still being exhausted from Oktoberfest (I have no other reason to suggest why I've napped 3 times in 5 days, saying I haven't been drinking, going out, or even staying up that late), I napped again instead of going to class. It is possible that the holiday spirit has wiped me out, and that the combination of thinking about praying with praying has actually made me quite tired [which I'm not doubting], I just don't understand why I was tired before the holidays too. Anyways, I am getting distracted and am rambling on about absolutely nothing, so let me try to get back to my day.
After waking up from my nap, I pretty much wasted away some more time. Something about rain just makes me not want to do anything. It's possible this habit started in Alaska, when we either did do nothing or wanted to do nothing, but my guess is I've hated doing stuff in the rain for a while. Anyways. I decided finally that it was time to test out the gulash for dinner.
This may sound unappetizing, and trust me, it looks even less appetizing than the name suggests. Imagine dog crap mixed into vomit and stuffed in a can. Sadly, that is how canned gulash looks. Now give it the pungent odor of old Indian food mixed with Spaghetti-O's, and you can partially describe gulash. The part that I'm not describing is the delectable taste that accompanies 'restaurant' gulash. This contrast of worlds is quite disappointing; as a foreigner who enjoys the taste of gulash [and having no knowledge of how to make it], buying some Chef Boyardee was really disheartening. Anyways, despite gulash never being served with rice here, I figured I'd give it a try.
One mistake that I made was in my measuring. Being used to rice in a bag from NOLS, my standard serving bag was 1 pound. Stupid me to think that in Europe, they would also use pound bags - especially when I know everything else is in kilos. All this really meant was that when I poured myself a quarter bag, I actually got over a half pound of rice instead of a quarter pound. Saying I only wanted to use a half can of mystery juice [with the occassional piece of mystery meat in it] - which I am NOT looking forward to finding out how the rest will be tomorrow - my interestingly flavored 'sauce' was being even more diluted. The only way that I know how to fix it? Rule Number 1 of Matt's NOLS cooking: if you don't like the taste [or have no idea how it will taste], add salt, pepper, oregano, garlic, and a ton of hot sauce. I luckily also have onions to add, a nice addition since the wilderness. It turns out that Czech Chili powder [which I added to the rice] is pretty bland, and that I was too lazy to add even more of the NOLS fix-it sauce, so I ate pretty bland rice in a pretty bland sauce with a little pretty bland meat mixed in. I guess it could have been worse, and at least the onions were decent.
After dinner, Yarda took Robert and I to a bar + bowling alley right near by. Being the worst bowling player most people will ever meet, I figured it was my duty to embarass American bowlers in a foreign land. Sadly, I was not able to accomplish my goal. Prague bowling lanes [I saw them at another place too despite not bowling there] are what Americans might view as 'typically European;' they are 'smaller.' The slight claustrophobia that overwhelms you when you step up to bowl is sort of countered by your confidence in your ability to knock over pins since you're so much closer. I adjusted. A slight side note:
I don't want to compare myself to my Grandma Joyce, because I - like everyone else - know that no one has the same 'eye' as she. I don't go around fixing people's lamp shades in their houses when they aren't straight; I simply get annoyed when I see a picture hanging slanted.
Anyways, upon walking up to the midget-lane, I thought something was pretty weird about it, in addition to the size. Knowing that I suck at bowling, the 1 thing I make sure to do is follow through straight, thus making my shot go straight (often times straight into the gutter, other times straight down the middle and somehow not knocking pins over). I was quite perplexed when my shots down the middle were slanting left, so I stepped over to the right after my third shot. Low and behold, what took me 3 shots to figure out, my Grandma would have told me before I began playing. The floor was slanted. This is hard for most Americans to picture because we are use to pretty identical bowling lanes in pretty identical bowling alleys. Not in Prague. Here, in addition to the lanes being thinner and shorter (and the pins are on strings for getting them erect after you knock 'em down), the lanes are not waxed well, they don't require bowling shoes (thankfully), and the lanes have just enough of a slant that you wouldn't really notice it at first (even though it will mess up your shot). By the time I figured all of this out, our time had expired on the lane, and we were forced to shift over to foosball.
When someone asked me to play - and I saw how there were more than just two of us - I immediately suggested we play teams. I of course suggested that my Czech buddy Yarda be my teammate, knowing that if foosball were ever to become a professional sport, Nike and Adidas would fight over his contract. For 10 krown (about 60 cents) you get 10 balls; of 10 balls, only 2 scored on us. It sure felt great to actually win in foosball for once, saying I'm used to losing 10-2 or so to Yarda and about 10-8 to Dillon. Despite this being a Spanish table (different formation of men, different material of table and men, different slant of table, and different weights of each row of men), Yarda still slaughtered our opponents - with my help. I did score 1 or 2 goals and save a fair share. O yeah.
As I type this, possibly the weirdest movie I have ever seen is on HBO. It is obviously a Czech film - despite being on HBO - and not just because it's not in English. It is sort of a combination of Silence of the Lambs, Saw 2, the movie about time-jumping, Van Helsing, Hellboy, and Minority Report. I'm actually quite thankful I don't understand what the hell is going on, because I think that would just make this a whole lot worse, scarier, and less pleasant. Instead it is just background noise, similar to my professors during the day.