Cesky den!

This evening, I found myself amid the waves of several realizations. The first realization was that I hadn’t written anything on the blog for few days longer than I usually wait to update. The second realization was that I had a great many things to cover, and that there wasn’t a good time in the foreseeable future to do it all justice, or even to bullet-point it all. The third realization was that I’m going to Budapest in two days, and if I don’t write an update before then, it may very well be that case that the thought of summarizing this past week and a four-day trip to Hungary will be enough to make me throw in the towel on this whole blogging business. The fourth realization was that I am in a love affair with Prague. For date-keeping purposes (anniversaries and such), let’s just say it started today, even though I have a feeling it’s been going on for quite some time now.

So as I just mentioned, one of my realizations was that I don’t really have any time to blog right now. That’s why 12:50 in the morning seems like the best time to start, and if I type fast (ha. ha.) then I can be in bed at a relatively decent hour.

Let’s start with last Friday, which was, in many respects, a “Cesky den” (ches-kee den), as our Czech teacher put it. “Cesky den” is an expression used in the Czech Republic when something just doesn’t go exactly as planned, or things just don’t quite run on schedule. Like…  if your sink stops up for no apparent reason, causing your dishwasher to fill with water and your dual washer/dryer to do the same, you make a face, shrug your shoulders, and say “Cesky den..” Anyway, Friday’s Cesky den all started as a group activity for my Czech class. The original plan was to take a train to the north of Prague, take a small ferry across the river, walk 7 kilometers back towards Prague on a walking trail, and stop at the zoo for an hour or two (practicing out Czech there, of course). This Friday excursion, by the way, served as a substitute for Tuesday’s class this week. We got as far as taking a train to the north of Prague when Friday began turning into a Cesky den. Also, just to be clear, even though Friday was a Cesky den, it was not at all a failure, and as you will see in just a second, enough “Cesky den” moments have the ability to create an EPIC win of a day. We got to the river at about 11:15, and saw the ferry/dingy on the other side, so we sat down to wait 20 minutes for the next ferry to come across. After about 30 minutes, Christina, our Czech teacher, checked the timetable again just to be sure we had the time right, and it turned out that the ferry took a break at midday. The next ferry wasn’t coming until 1. Cesky den. Therefore, we decided to walk along the river to see if there was an alternate way across. We didn’t find an alternate way, but we did come across a lovely quarry that we assumed was probably for diamondgold (or gravel. It was a toss-up). Since there was no other apparent way across the river, we made the most of our remaining hour by walking to the Albert’s at the nearest village and buying pivos and bread for lunch. We got back with our purchases just in time for the ferry to come across. After all that waiting, the ferry took, I kid not, maximum two minutes to get across the river to our dock. We got to the other side (somewhat miraculously, since it felt like we were on the verge of sinking the whole way across) and had pivos, bread, and some traditional Czech pickled sausage that wasn’t half bad. Then the real fun began.

Christina had brought a bottle of wine with her to share with her friend (who had also come along) and whoever else wanted some. What she hadn’t brought was a wine corker. She tried a key. Sebastian tried using a key. She tried using a small twig. Sebastian tried using a highlighter, then a stick. At this point, things were getting desperate, so the focus changed from getting the cork out to just pushing it into the bottle. Christina and her friend got a very large stick and tried to accomplish this feat by balancing the bottle in some gravel near our picnic bench. Unfortunately for them, physics did not cooperate, and the bottle shattered. Cesky den.

Cesky Den

Cesky Den

We had walked about 4 kilometers toward the zoo when we came upon a trailer and picnic benches where pivo was being sold. Since Christina’s wine opening endeavor had epically failed, we stopped for pivo! Actually. Who am I kidding. We stopped for pivo because we were in the Czech Republic going for a walk, and someone was selling pivo. While we had pivo, Sebastian told a very entertaining story about a May 1 custom in his area of Germany, where men go dig up the biggest trees they can find and put them, decorated, in the yards of girls they like. Then, they, like, steal belongings or something, and if people in the town want them back they have to come to the spot in the town where all the stolen belongings have been placed and give the guys pivo if they want their stuff back. Tempted to move to Germany.

We then walked the final 3k to the zoo, but when we got there it was 4:15, and since the zoo closed at 5, tickets were no longer being sold. Cesky den. There was a general consensus in the group, though that this was probably all right, since we’d been walking off and on for the past 6 hours.

As if afternoon pivos and extensive walking were not already sufficient for fulfilling my habit of making poor life decisions pre-half-marathon-running (the Prague Half-Marathon was the next day), I ensured that this was the case by having Rosie (who had just gotten to Prague!), her friend Rachel, her aunt and uncle, and Renee over for drinks at our apartment that evening. We had a wonderful time, and everyone (sans myself, as I did care about my health for the marathon at least that much), went to the restaurant next door to my apartment for karaoke night! It sounded like a blast, so I’ll have to go next time. It was fantastic to see Rosie, and we had the first of many chats about how lovely it is to be abroad, and how much we’re sort of dreading going back to Richmond. Richmond is a great place, but Prague is, well.. it’s something else.

SO Saturday I ran the Half-Marathon, and it was awesome. For a lot of reasons. List time!

1. I ran it without any difficulties, even though it’s hard to train here, and there were poor life decisions made on Friday. Also, running on cobblestone is no joke, man. It’s some serious business.
2. I’ve never navigated a race this large by myself from sign-up to starting line, much less in a foreign language (although there was plenty of English being spoken, so that last point isn’t really valid).
3. The race route went along the river, and Prague Castle was in sight for at least half of the race. It’s not every day that you get to run around castles
4. I saw a man running in his turban
5. I saw parts of Prague that I’d never seen, may never see again, and would definitely never run in without, say. 8000 other runners running with me
6. Jeannie, her friend Caleb, and Renee all came to watch!!!
7. Emotional, inspiring, movie soundtrack classical music played as we crossed the start line. Tik tok by Ke$ha played as I crossed the finish line. Just the way I like it.
8. In the Czech Republic, the race was big enough news that Vaclav Klaus, the current Czech president (and recent President of the EU), attended the race and was interviewed over the loudspeakers prior to the start-gun going off.

 My awesome suitemates and friends in Prague would also probably add to this list that running the race made me significantly less of a nervous wreck and a little easier to be around. Since I couldn’t train as much as I had hoped for this race, I was a little nervous about how it would go. Renee found me at the end and we celebrated by going to Paneria (sort of like a Panera, actually, even though it’s no relation), where I devoured a bagel sandwich and Fanta, and then getting stratticella gelato! I came back to the apartment and crashed for like the rest of the day before going out with Renee to our new fave Italian restaurant, Grossetto’s, for wine and pasta. Delicious.

At the race!

The next day, I was rather sore, but determined not to let that interfere with hanging out with Rosie and Rachel. Therefore, I made myself get up, I ran a couple errands, and then I met them at the Easter market in Old Town Square. We toured the Jewish Quarter, something that I had already done but didn’t really mind doing again since the Jewish Cemetery is pretty much the coolest thing ever. I took more pictures. Then, we came back and straight chilled for a couple hours before heading to Lemon Leaf Thai with Rhee-Soo and Jeannie. That trip was mostly uneventful (though fantastic as always) except for a 20-minute period when all the lights went out. It was a little weird, but you know.. Cesky den!

Monday, Rosie and I got sort of a late start because we made the mistake of trying to register for classes. Turned out our registration slot was not Monday, but Wednesday, so we didn’t really need to wait around the apartment until 1pm (7am Richmond time). No matter. We remedied this bump in the road with lunch at Radost, which is never a bump in the road. I got something called the “Avocado Dream Triangle” and it was deliciously dreamy. After lunch, we went to the Kafka museum, which was great- I thought it really effectively captured Kafka’s spirit, although I’m sure there are those who would disagree. We then searched and searched and searched and searched for the Lennon wall before giving up....then tried one more time and found it!!!! Rosie was a trooper for putting up with my impaired wall-finding skills and my still-not-quite-gone post race exhaustion. We followed our sightseeing up with Smazeny syr (fried cheese). This was a necessary dinner, because the day before when Rosie, Rachel, and I had tried to get smazeny syr in the afternoon, the lady working in the booth MICROWAVED an already cooked sandwich. Grosssss. It was like having microwaved French fries or something. There’s a reason you don’t do it… Anyway, this tragic situation was remedied by Monday night’s lunch. Rosie had to leave at 3:30 am for her flight.. sad sad sad, so we hung out for a while and talked Richmond, Rome, and Prague for a while before calling it a night.

Photo idea credit to Rhee-Soo

Just can't get enough of that Jewish Cemetery

Rachel and Rosie!

To be honest, not too much happened on Tuesday. I was mostly sleepy. I went to class, took care of some errands, and went to bed early. It was nice.

Today was probably one of the best days I’ve had in Prague to date, and I can’t even quite put my finger on why. Perhaps a summary will make it clearer. I went to my internship at the Fulbright office today at 9am. I had rescheduled from my normal Monday time, since Rosie was visiting. You know, it may have been the internship that made today such a great day. I feel like getting off to the right start is half the battle won, and being in that office today just really put me in a good mood. When I got there, Jakub was very excited about how well the conference had gone, and all the communications I’d had with the fair exhibitors had served their purposes and helped things run smoothly (a small role, but still a useful one). Lots of qualified students had shown up to the fair, impressing the representatives from the U.S. colleges, and the colleges had made inquiries about the possibility of attending future events in Prague. I saw a bunch of pictures from the fair and other events that the school representatives got to take part in, and it looked like a great time. The happiness at the Fulbright office today was infectious.

After my internship, I headed to the CERGE palace to register for my classes and Rosie’s classes (she couldn’t register herself because she’s currently traveling in Milan). Not much else to say about that except that being a rising senior is a wonderful thing come registration time. We both got all of our top choice classes without any obstacles. I halfway expected Twilight Zone music to start playing when I finished registering both of us in less than ten minutes.

In case you haven’t guessed yet, today was also…. WTCD!!!!!!! So after registering and eating lunch, I went downstairs to the lobby of CERGE palace to meet up with everyone for the walking tour. Of course (Cesky den) I forgot my camera, so I am relying on the fine photography skills of Rhee-Soo to document this week's WTCD. Today’s topic was socialist architecture, and we spent the class visiting communist-style buildings. We even snuck into the meeting areas of the Congress Centre in Prague, which was built by communists, and apparently houses a theatre with wonderful acoustics. It is obnoxiously large. It also feels pretty stark inside, even though there's lots of open space. We congregated in one of these open spaces, and Pavel talked about the building until security found us and cut the party short. Sad times.

Then we went to some mass housing developments from the 30s, 50s, and 70s/80s. Housing on a mass production scale is “ugly”, inarguably, but I also found it a little eerie to visit the sites, maybe because mass housing on this scale feels a little weird to me. The housing units were, quite literally, built by laying down tracks of concrete with machines, and then just piling prefabricated concrete slab upon concrete slab. And these housing units were built not just for lower income workers, but also for middle class families. While it’s hard for me to imagine growing up in a huge, uniform apartment complex- or, more accurately, hard for me to imagine a scenario in which that’s the norm- it’s the case in many areas of the Czech Republic. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but 40% of Czechs live in these socialist-style buildings. While they solved the problem of a housing shortage in the 70s and 80s, they certainly contributed some problems, as well.  It is the norm in Prague to have shops and pubs on the first floor, the street level, of apartment buildings. In these socialist buildings, nothing of the sort was built into the floor plan. Therefore, people either made makeshift stores out of the first floor apartments, or, more commonly, shopping centers were set up in the vicinity of the housing units to house the shops and pubs that would formerly have been found in the apartments themselves. We went to a (sketchy casino) pub at one such center today after WTC, to get a feel for the area, and I’d say that not only did we definitely get a feel for the area, but also pivos after three hours of walking definitely contributed to this being one of the best days ever.

In fact, it was so much fun that I almost missed my concert date with Doris at Andel! That would have been really sad, since going to Andel was the closer on the “one of the best days ever” deal. I looked at my phone at 7:15, and realized I was supposed to be 40 minutes away in 15 minutes, so I texted Doris, and she was way more understanding than she needed to be. When I showed up at the venue (which was the same venue, be the way, as that for the huge film festival going on in Prague right now), I went downstairs to the Garages, which are actually parking garages that have been temporarily converted into concert festival venues. I found Doris, who was way nicer to me than she should have been, and we got henna tattoos and Ethiopian food, then watched a singer whose drummer was one of Doris’s friends. Pretty sweet. And the singer was really talented. I’m going to try to find her music online somewhere. Her name escapes me, but it’s written somewhere, so when I find it, I’ll just add it here. Also, I ran into Kate, who I haven’t seen in forever! So that was fun, and we’ve decided to make sure we see each other before my henna tattoo fades, which I think is a totally legitimate goal.

Phew. I’m done in, and it’s way, way, past my bedtime. Even on Prague-time. Sleep is in order. Love affairs like the one I’m in with Prague can wear a person out.