misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye

I’d intended to be more diligent about updates during my last few weeks in Prague. I made a list of things that I wasn’t allowed to do until after I had finished all of my schoolwork, and at that point I wanted to put together an update so badly that “writing a blog entry” very nearly topped the list of forbidden activities. However, (risking the possibility of a truism here) life is unpredictable. When I finished my last essay (a nasty 10 pager on rent regulation in the Czech Republic) with a little less than two weeks left in Prague, it became startlingly clear to me that not only would there be insufficient time to write a blog entry, but also that there would be no way to completely satisfy my appetite for Prague life before leaving, regardless of how efficiently I used my time. So, at this point I decided that I would just start enjoying my time left and keep enjoying it until the last possible second. Though there’s not a thorough written record of my last few weeks, I can say without any reservation that they were some of my favorite weeks abroad, and some of the best weeks of my life (though I suppose all of my time abroad in Prague falls under that particular category).

Right now, I’m torn between attempting a shoddy summary of the events of the past few weeks and just letting them be. Hm, I don’t usually do this, but I think in this case I’d rather just move forward with the blog.

SO. Moving forward: I have now been back in the United States for approximately two days, and back home for about a day and a half. The transition has been, in some respects, exactly how I imagined it would be, and in other respects, entirely different. Certainly I underestimated how hard it would be to leave the city. It’s a bit of a dual adjustment: Prague is a city that will grab hold of your heart, so it was difficult to leave for that reason alone. In addition, though, I moved in the span of 24 hours (almost exactly 24 hours) from a European city to a college campus in Hampden-Sydney, VA, currently characterized by mostly empty dorms, my silver ’99 Nissan Altima, lots and lots of green, and lots of English. It’s not a negative transition, of course. With the exception of my summer in Richmond last year, I’ve spent every summer of my life on this campus. If it makes sense, the fact that I came back from four months abroad and felt such instant familiarity, picking up on old routines like I hadn’t been anywhere different at all, was in a way more of a shock to me than anything else. I think that part of me was hoping that I would be hyper-sensitized to my life at home and notice details about it that I’d not noticed before. However, it was that case that I was halfway through dinner with the family before I realized that I hadn’t had a meal with a family in a dining room for months. And even when I realized it, the situation didn’t seem any less normal. In fact, yesterday was an absurdly normal day in Farmville. I had breakfast at the computer, had lunch with mom and Nitra at the Hitchin’ Post, went to Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries, and lounged around until dinner. Actually, normally there would have been a trail run between noon and dinner, but jet lag won out in that particular fight yesterday.

Ah, so before the digression into daily home life, I was going to follow up the comment about it being harder than I expected to leave Prague with another about how terribly hard it’s going to be to have left friends in Prague. I was talking to a friend yesterday who insisted that it couldn’t be that bad leaving friends in Prague, because surely they weren’t “better” than my friends back home. And I have to agree with that particular claim. I have stellar friends here (including two who picked me up at the airport with some pretty sweet signs for some back-in-the-US Richmond adventuring). But I missed them when I was abroad, and I’m going to miss my friends from Prague just as acutely, if not more so, simply because there’s no set “June 7” date when I get to hop on a plane to go back and see them all. Anyway, that said, I’ll take missing great friends over the alternative of not really missing anyone that much any day.  Meeting so many awesome people in Prague was a defining element of the whole experience.

Some final thoughts: I will be in Farmville for the better part of the summer, and then I’ll be back off to Richmond for my senior year. Keeping this blog in Prague (Prague Blog! Haha) was a highlight for me, and I’m not entirely ready to let this blogging deal go. While my worst nightmare is turning into THAT person who feels the need to blog regularly about their most recent trip to the grocery store, I think I may try my hand at some occasional life updates, perhaps tying things in to my semester in Prague where relevant. Sort of an experimental “life after Prague” endeavor. Could be interesting. We’ll see.

Hmm. I feel like I need to end this one on a cheesy note (since Prague is the love of my life after all- still going strong!). I guess I probably couldn’t help it if I tried. Prague was best thing that could have happened to me. Came at the perfect time, and I wouldn’t trade a second of the experience for anything (except maybe that time or two that the washing machine broke and gushed water all over the kitchen. Might be willing to bargain for those seconds). It goes without saying that I would like to get back there at some point, maybe for a longer period of time (like a year) if I can find something useful to do there. Transitioning back to life “on the other side of the pond” will be an interesting, sometimes challenging, experience, but (to get really, unapologetically, vomit-inducing-ly cheesy here) I think I’m ready for whatever’s up next. [Taking suggestions for an appropriate “end of trip” line to insert here.] Na Shledanou Praha! Ich liebe dich. J

and every day is a start of something beautiful

I have two papers to write by the end of the week (14 total pages, maximum), which would be a joke by Richmond standards for any given week but here in Prague is quite a bit of work. I haven’t had to write anything all semester, unless you include the blog. But I’m pretty sure that this thing is neither mandatory nor graded, so, naturally, I got a massive case of writer’s block when I started trying to do real work. Last night I even pulled up a 20-page research paper from sophomore year ((mostly about) Klaus and Havel’s differing opinions on the Czech postcommunist economic/social transition) and spent the next hour trying to figure out how I could rework it into an 8-10 pager about an aspect of the Czech economy for my Czech economics class. Not my most successful endeavor. Anyway, I also haven’t updated in forever, and I feel like any writing at all might be better than none. SO even though the blog doesn’t count as academic writing, maybe it’ll put a crack in the wall that stands between me and two finished papers.

I just realized that I haven’t even written about Ireland yet. Phew. How’s this: I’ll do as much justice to everything that has happened over the past few weeks as I can without making this into a short novel (and consequently something that even the parents-and I know you two actually read this thing-wouldn’t make it through).

SO, let’s go back to where we left off..  May 3. Ok, so this is fairly easy. The highlight from that week (which was the week after the unrivaled trip to Austria, for a reference point), was WTCD! Surprise, surprise. We went to Prague Castle, which was totally overrun with tourists, and since I’d already been there, I sort of zoned out and took about 200 pictures instead. That’s actually not an exaggeration. We spent some time in gardens that are only open during the summer, and it was just too tempting. Also, Pavel was gone again, and Ondrej is great, but WTC was made for Pavel.

Thursday I ran off to Ireland on Ryanair.

Side note: I hadn’t actually flown anywhere since coming to Prague, because I’ve been able to do all my traveling by bus or train, so it was a bit of an experience. I’ve never done an entire airport trip by myself. I mean, I’ve come very close, and I’ve done some ridiculous transfers (like Frankfurt on the way over to Prague) but I’ve never gotten myself TO the airport. Haha. In Prague, the best way to do this is by going to the end of the A Metro line and then catching a bus. I sort of enjoyed the drive there. I’ve decided that during the next few weeks, one of my goals is to travel more to the outskirts of Prague. Prague proper is great, but things get a lot more interesting and more Czech, if that makes sense, the further you get from the center. And I came to Prague to experience Czech culture, not just the Prague lifestyle.

Anyway, the Prague airport was painless, and Ryanair plays kickass Mozart music before takeoff, so both Ryanair flights (I transferred in Dublin) were enjoyable. I got to Cork right after dinner and met Katie on St. Patrick’s Street, which is sort of a main street in Cork. A few things:

1)     I told dad about this, and he said he always had the same thing happen to him when traveling from the East to the West in Europe: I had total sensory overload when I first got to Cork. Being able to understand everything that was being said around me was really weird. I haven’t been in an English-speaking country since getting to Prague, and I think I eavesdropped by accident on about 15 different conversations within the first couple hours of landing in Cork.

2)     People driving on the left side of the road truly is as scary as everyone who travels to the UK/Ireland says it is.

3)     There aren’t really that many redheads in Ireland, or at least not in Cork. Katie and I were definitely in the minority like we are everywhere else (well, except at home)

4)     Grocery shopping is a lot easier in English, but not quite as exciting

5)     There are a lot of palm trees in Cork. ?

Katie and I spent lots of hours catching up (not like we hadn’t seen each other the week previously in Prague or anything…) and in the morning we went shopping then met up with Hannah at lunchtime! We went shopping some more, then.. hm. I think we got dinner at Wagamama’s (shoutout: 10^th grade honors English trip to Paris/London) and went to a party with a bunch of Katie’s awesome Cork friends.

Saturday, we got fish and chips with Katie’s friends and then came back and slept a lot. We went grocery shopping again, and I made mom’s pasta and some vegetables for dinner. Yum. That night, we hung out with a bunch of Katie’s friends again. Before going out, we played a Twilight movie drinking game, which was actually more fun than it might sound... Some examples, just because this is too good to pass up.. Drink if:

1)     Bella stutters

2)     Edward looks creepy

3)     A line totally clunks

4)     There’s unnecessary slow motion

5)     Edward tells Bella that he's dangerous

6)     Bella bites her lip

7)     Edward says something rude to Bella

You get the idea. Also, you can pick and choose. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t make it halfway through the movie.

After Twilight, we went to a gay club a few blocks from Katie’s dorm. SO MUCH FUN. Lots of dancing.

Sunday, Hannah and I went on a quest for nature at the Blarney Castle park. Our original plan was to meet Gerard Butlers while walking through a national park, but as it turned out:

1)     There weren’t any huge national parks close by

2)     Turns out Gerard Butler is actually Scottish. Fail.

The fact that Gerard Butler is Scottish did not diminish our desire to see Irish nature, though, and in that respect, Blarney was very much a success. We climbed trees, saw cows (yeahhhhh Farmville), green fields, a lake, Hannah’s first wild swans, some magic steps, a waterfall, some really big plants, another epic playground that we totally took advantage of, a fern forest… uhh. We went to the castle and all that stuff, too, of course. Kissed the Blarney stone, because apparently you have to do that. It was fun. We came back and Katie had made TACOS for dinner, and it was just about the most amazing thing ever ever ever. Then we went to a goodbye party for Katie’s friend Kat, which was super fun. Monday morning, Hannah left and I left in the early afternoon to come back to Prague. Wonderful trip. A mini-Hampden-Sydney reunion was exactly what we all needed, and catching up was just the best.

I was up fairly late Monday night after getting back because I had a final in my Regionalism in geopolitics class on Tuesday, and I had to study. Luckily, lots of studying and little sleep paid off and I think the final went pretty well (knock on wood). Tuesday night we hosted a bunch of people at our apartment for TNP (Tuesday Night Pong), and we didn’t really play that much beer pong, but it was a

great night, regardless.

Wednesday, I had my internship at the Fulbright office, and that went just fine. Then, we had our test for WTC (SO SAD). It was the most ridiculously easy/absurd thing ever. Class ended with an invitation for all of us to go discuss “universal truths” with Pavel  at the beer garden by our apartment. Naturally, Rhee-Soo, Kyra, Pranadhi, and I took him up on the offer. Roman and Annabl came, too. We had some pivos, Pavel drew a map of Europe, and we played some foosball. I think we discussed universal truths and the meaning of life, too.

Thursday was consumed by Czech class, errands, and Politics of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Czechoslovakia. Yesterday, was the last Politics of etc., etc., class, and we talked about Slovakian politics. The Slovakian government is weird. Two interesting facts:

1)     Well, first, the Czech president is directly elected in a two-round voting system. That’s not the weird part. In a Slovakian presidential election, in order to win in the first round of voting, the President has to get 3/5 of the votes from all ELIGIBLE voters. Not 3/5 of the votes. So, if less than 51% of citizens vote, for example, then automatically, there would have to be a second round of elections. I don’t really understand how this system works without mandatory voting.

2)     In the case of impeachment: Parliament must first make a motion to impeach the president. If 3/5 of the members of parliament agree, then the people vote on whether or not the President should be impeached. Again, the vote is taken from the ELIGIBLE voters, not the people who turn up to vote. If 3/5 of the eligible voters in the country vote to impeach him, then he’s out, and early elections are held. HOWEVER, if less than 3/5 vote then:

a.     It is interpreted as a vote of no-confidence for the sitting parliament, and parliament is dissolved.

b.     The president gets to start a new term

This hasn’t ever actually happened, but I feel like these are the rules to some kind of board game, as opposed to part of a country’s constitution. I’m a little jealous. It sounds potentially very exciting. Thursday night, Rhee-Soo came over to hang out for a while, and we actually used our porch, for once, and made use of the Gambrinus left over from pong night.

Friday, I went to Plzen with Michael, Nathalie, and Tess. The main attraction in Plzen is the Pilsner-Urquell beer factory, so that was the focal point of the day. We took a factory tour, which was really cool, and got to try some unfiltered beer. We also had lunch at the oldest restaurant in Plzen, and I had some really good goulash. Sad that you can’t get goulash everywhere in Virginia. Friday night, Mark invited a bunch of people over to the Hvezda dorms for a party, so I ventured out to the Charles dorms for the first time. They weren’t quite as hard to find as I’d expected. Finding exactly where to go was a little trickier, but not too bad. There's a pub and a bar at Hvezda, so it was a fun time. Lovely night. 

Saturday afternoon, well, as stated at the beginning of the entry, I tried to do some work, but I ended up falling asleep at 8pm and sleeping for 13 hours. Today, I will do work. It is a promise. The sooner I finish, the better. Except that as I’m writing this entry, Kyra just said everyone is going to Petrin Hill… Decisions decisions. If only papers really would write themselves..

when the day breaks, after nightfall

Gosh. Well where to begin.. the problem with not having time to update the blog regularly is that by the time I DO have time to write, there’s so much to say that it’s really a fairly daunting endeavor. And the past week merits more than just a bulleted highlights list, so it looks like I’m in for the long haul. 23:32. We can do this.

Monday I had my Fulbright internship, and it was great, as always. I made a handout with instructions for how to write a Fulbright/university recommendation. Not how to ask for one, but a sheet for professors with basic information about writing recommendation letters. It’s not common practice in the Czech Republic to write recommendations, so an outline was needed at the Fulbright center. Not sure that I was entirely qualified to tell professors how to write recs, but with the assistance of Dr. Joe Schall from Penn State University (who has written an entire book on the subject…?) and other sources, which I of course cited, I think I gave some pretty solid advice. The next thing I did, and continued doing this week, was start to create a database of past Fulbright students, teaching assistants, and administrators who have come to the Czech Republic. They all have files, but the files aren’t computerized. Enter: me. It's not really as dry as it sounds, and as I've mentioned before, it's always nice to feel useful in Prague. 

Monday, Katie was in Prague for a few days, so I had dinner with her and her friends at Ferdinanda then wandered around Prague with them. Tuesday, Renee and I took a quality mid-afternoon coffee break when our regionalism class was unexpectedly cancelled. Well. Unexpected for us. Lisa said he told us last week (when Renee was gone), but I was apparently too absorbed in drawing beach scenes on my notes to hear him.. hah. On Tuesday night, a bunch of us went to Lemon Leaf for dinner.  Always a major win. Tuesday night, Kyra and I headed over to our Budapest trip reunion at Popo’s bar, but, get this, it WASN’T the one beside our apartment. Who knew? Popo’s is a chain, so we went to one over in Old Town, and Jude wasn’t our bartender, and they knew how to make mixed drinks.. weird. But we had a great time, and a lot of people showed. After Popo’s we headed over to Radost to catch the some of the Germany vs. Austria presentation battle. Fun times.

Wednesday was.. wait for it.. wait for it.. WTCD! Made even more awesome than usual because we took a one car train to some nature, went hiking up a very steep hill and through some fields, and ended the class with beers (courtesy of Ondrej) in the grass outside a pub that was “under construction” (picture justifies the quotations). Made slightly less awesome because Pavel and his endless supply of knowledge were gone at a conference. The guys on the trip wasted no time in converting the ping pong table on the grass into a pong table. Really pretty impressive. I don’t even know where they found the plastic cups..

Thursday, I was in class pretty much the whole day, but that was all good because Lisa and I got to catch each other up on all the international club gossip at our 17:00-20:00 class. Also, I actually like that class a lot, so it's never a drag to attend. Czech politics are interesting, man. I came home and packed for Austria, since we were taking the night bus (which meant meeting up at 23:30). Kyra and I were super tired and dragging our feet so much that we were very nearly very late. Luckily, we got ourselves out the door in time to catch a couple key late night metros, and the bus was late, too, so it didn’t really matter that much. The bus ride up was fine, although I don’t think either of us slept much, and at 6:30, bright and early, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and started the day. I think I can safely say that I did more before lunch in Salzburg than I have the entire time I’ve been in Prague. This is mostly owing to the fact that, with the exception of 8:15 Czech on Tuesdays, My day never starts until around 10. Terrible habit, but I can’t say I’ve minded too much.  Anyway, in the morning, we stopped by the grocery store and coffee shop for breakfast, went to some gardens, saw gnome statues and a sweet playground, ran around a human chess board, toured Festung Hohensalzburg, took a high-speed train thing back down the mountain from the fortress, and then got some lunch. By lunchtime, I was extremely ready to lay in the grass by the river, and that’s exactly what we did. After lunch, we went back to the hostel, and I showered and totally meant to nap but didn’t. Story of my life. In the afternoon, a few of us went back to the same park from that morning, and I wandered off on my own for a while, mostly following the river a little farther downstream from where we’d been in the morning. At around 18:00, we went to get groceries because Saturday was a national holiday (so NOTHING would be open), and Sunday was Sunday, and shops close on Sunday, at least in this part of Austria. Slightly inconvenient, but it was fun trying to pick out like 4 meals worth of food. We came back to the hostel and got some dinner there, then hung out with people and hit up an Irish bar downtown. I think someone stole my umbrella at the pub, which means that the first time I was stolen from this whole trip was during a rainstorm at a pub in Austria. Can’t say I blame whoever took my umbrella, though, because it was pouring outside. On the one hand, it was really refreshing, and on the other hand, I didn’t exactly have access to a dryer or an endless supply of clothes. Turns out, though, that you CAN dry a jacket with a hair dryer if you have enough patience.

Saturday, we left Salzburg for Hallstatt. I’m sort of hesitant to start talking about how beautiful, etc. etc. it was, because it’s just going to sound trite. I’ll post some pictures, instead. In the morning, we walked to the town and had lunch by the lake, then took another high-speed rail car up a mountain to visit a salt mine. I didn’t even know that salt mines were places you could visit until coming to Europe, but this was my second one. We had to put on these ridiculous pants and shirts to go into the mine. I’m still not sure exactly why, but I think it’s because there are two slides you have to take down to get from one level to another. The salt mine tour was pretty cool. And this mine is actually still active, so that set it apart from the salt mine in Krakow. We spent the afternoon wandering around Hallstatt, where we found another human sized chessboard and saw some painted skulls.

We walked most of the way back from Hallstatt to our hostel in some light rain, but then our awesome bus driver came and picked us up so we wouldn’t have to walk the last bit. We went to dinner at an Italian place where the smallest wine size one could order was ¼ of a liter.  After dinner, there was some debate about jumping in the lake. After about 10 seconds of debate, I jumped in with Michael and Mark. If figured that it’s not every day that one gets the opportunity to jump in an Alpine lake. I’d do it again.

Sunday, we went to Bad Aussee, another breathtaking town, in which we spent the entire day doing awesome outdoorsy things that have rendered me almost unable to move today (if it weren’t for my internship or the package waiting for me at CERGE, I guarantee you I wouldn’t have moved all day). In the morning, we hiked in the Alps for a while, then made the steepest descent down that I’ve made while hiking. Like. We weren’t kidding around. The Blue Ridge Mountains are beautiful, but in terms of scaling them, they’re no Alps. After risking our lives to get down the mountain, we rented bikes for a couple hours. We got some ice cream, and then, after lots of uphill biking, found another beautiful lake and some beautiful Fanta. At about 16:30, we were completely done in, so we napped in the grass by the park. Well, I split my time between napping and getting an Angels and Airwaves fix (since we have already established that I am the world’s worst napper. The only reason I slept at all was that by this point in the weekend I was legitimately sleep deprived). After napping/AVA, Michael and I walked around what little of the town we hadn’t seen already, and everyone got back on the bus and we came back to Prague.

Today, I caught up on sleep a little on sleep then headed into the Fulbright office for my internship, over to CERGE to pick up a package, then back to the apartment to chill. I did some laundry because the majority of my clothes were wet from either the rain or the lake, and Rhee-Soo came over to chill at like 21:30.  Ok. 1:10. Not too shabby. Tomorrow, there’s no 8:15 Czech class because we’re getting breakfast at 10:30 instead. Ah, Prague.

Litomerice, etc.

As I mentioned in the previous post, it has not been the easiest of weeks, but thanks to friends in Prague, Facebook chat, and Skype, it’s at least been manageable. There's just no good answer for why these things happen, and there's no perfect way to deal with them. And, I think it might actually help things to jump back into this blogging business full force, so here we go..

Wednesday was everyone’s favorite day, WTCD! We went to Vysehrad and learned everything there is to know about Vysehrad from Pavel. I’d already been to the site twice because it’s such a beautiful area- once with Rhee-Soo and Kyra on a daytrip and once with Hannah when she visited. However, this time, we actually learned about what we were seeing, so it was totally fine that it was my third time there. Plus, the views from Vysehrad never get old. Some fun facts: Vysehrad is a castle that was originally founded in the 10^th century, although I think the oldest remaining structures/visible building foundations are from the 12^th Century. There’s no formal “castle” buildings to visit there, but there’s ramparts, and Romanesque-style rotunda of St. Martin (built in like the 11^th century or something. Crazy), and the Basilica of St Peter and St Paul. I like this particular church because there’s a lot of color inside, all over the place. Although the church as it currently stands is not as old as come of the others I’ve seen since coming abroad (due to the many times it’s been rebuilt), I thought that the gold-flecked patterns of flowers that climbed up the columns and onto the ceiling were nice touches. The artwork in the interior sets this church apart from others I’ve seen.

Another thing that Vysehrad has going for it is an epic playground made almost entirely out of wood in the style of a fortress. There are even walls with mini ladders at a shallow incline that you can use to “scale” the castle walls. All around the playground are wooden sculpture references to the Prague foundation myths. I totally thought they were Vikings the first two times I visited, so I was slightly disappointed when I found out this particular detail. Oh well. Makes a more sense.

We also sat in the grass and listened to some music from a composition inspired by the founding of Vysehrad. It was lovely, and would have been more fun if it hadn’t been about 50 degrees and absurdly windy on WTCD. It was actually so cold by around 4:45 that Pavel let us go early. Wednesday evening was Lisa’s birthday!!! (21 on the 21^st!)  so we celebrated at a fun pub across the river.

Thursday after Czech class, Renee and I picked up our favorite pasta take-out from Grosseto’s (http://www.grosseto.cz/vinohrady/listek/menu.htm number 72), and it did not disappoint. Then Renee ran off to Egypt for the weekend, and I went back to the apartment and took what was a not-quite-long-enough nap before hanging out with friends.

Yesterday was great. We took a CERGE trip to a town called Litomerice (I never put the Czech symbols on this blog because it requires copying and pasting, but fyi, it’s not really pronounced how it looks). Some highlights:

1)     There’s an extensive underground tunnel system that was put in place, and it stretches for three kilometers and three stories under the town.

2)      Karel Macha, a famous Czech poet, died there, and Litomerice had his body for a while. However, the body was moved to the Vysehrad Cemetery (which I saw on WTCD) when the Germans occupied this area of the Czech Republic in WWII (Litomerice is part of the Sudetenland, so it was given to Germany by France and the UK).

3)     We had lunch at a restaurant that is made up entirely of old cellar rooms from the extensive network mentioned above. The restaurant owner gave us a short tour of about 300 meters of tunnel. Pretty cool

4)     We had an American tour guide from California, and he was great. He used the word “like” more than just about anyone I’ve ever met. Example: “The Hussites laid, like, siege to the town.”

5)     Anna, one of the ladies who helps run the CERGE program (she did awesome things like get our Visas okayed by the foreign police, etc. etc.) grew up in a castle near Litomerice, because her parents took care of it. SO, she has a key. We went to the castle, which was beautiful, and she showed us around. I’ve never met anyone who grew up in a castle before. Sort of jealous.

6)     The last thing we did was go to a wine tasting. I’m a big fan of wine tastings.

When we got back to Prague, we went to Lemon Leaf, then came home and chilled. Annnnd yesterday was ALSO a very special day because it was Nitra’s BIRTHDAY!!!!! Big 18, so now she can buy cigarettes to feed that smoking habit (kidding kidding :-P). We got to Skype and catch up for a while, which was simply lovely, and we will celebrate her birthday properly in.. six weeks?! Yikes. Time flies. But at least I’ll have a giant Macado’s sunday with Nitra to look forward to upon my return :-) Yay for sisters.