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.