Tuesday, January 29, 2008

tramspotting

some thoughts on the trams:

1. i really want to steal one of the routemaps. they put up new ones at the turn of the year and they are sweet. i have an affinity for maps. they are something i collect from places i go instead of souvenirs or postcards or what have you. however, i'm getting bored with the typical mass-produced city plans that you find most often. the new tram maps include not only the metro lines but all the tram and bus routes, and in full technicolor no less! debs and i decided the primetime to steal would be sunday afternoon. the night tram, ostensibly the best option for theft, is actually bad because it's usually crammed full of people. (crammed tram. ha.) i was inspecting the signs today and they seem as though they could be easily slid from behind their protective plastic display. i want one before i leave.

(setting goals is important.)

2. the hierarchy of tram seating is really getting on my nerves. back in america, where things make sense, the young give up their seats for the old and men usually give up their seats for women. that's not how it works in prague! countless times have i been pushed aside by a young, able-bodied gentleman in a race for the last empty seat.

here's how i think it should go. if there's one seat left, it should go in this order:
a. old woman with a cane
b. old man with a cane
c. old woman, clearly no longer at physical peak but lacking cane
d. old man, ditto
e. pregnant woman
f. person from age of young-adult to middle-age with a minor injury, ie a broken leg requiring the use of crutches
g. anyone holding more than a half-full bag of groceries
h. mother with young child
i. couple sharing a seat

aside:
i once had a cursory dicussion as part of a "couple sharing a seat" about this hierarchy.

"let's do the couple sharing a seat. that way we don't have to get up."
"who do we supercede?"
"um, i think single men."

however, i think that since the couples are exercising efficiency by taking up only one seat instead of two, they should be rewarded and be allowed to supercede any single rider.

j. able-bodied woman
k. any child
l. able-bodied man

men have much less regard for chivalry here, i've noticed. i know a lot of women are feminists nowadays and insist that chivalry is actually condescending, but i disagree. after centuries of patriarchal society, i think you can manage to open a door for us. or give up your seat. i don't think it's an unreasonable exhange.

3. they should invent a tram route that goes through the tunnel from karlin to zizkov. it would make my life 100% easier.


....and then i found $5. sorry, i'm bored and i've got nothing.

Monday, January 28, 2008

slaveryblog

i've been put in the position of defending my country and my american citizenship countless times since i've been to prague. for the most part, i hate it -- i've never had so many people say completely rude things to me only seconds of cordial introductions. i understand that we are not the most popular of the world's citizens, but give me a break. that doesn't excuse you being rude to someone you don't even know. it's not like i meet a german person and the second sentence out of my mouth is "so, how about that time hitler killed all those jews?"

i can explain myself out of the barbs thrown by most. however, today, i was totally caught off guard.

i had some time this morning and found myself browsing in the bookstore. i saw a copy of "the adventures of huckleberry finn," and since it was only 97 crowns and it's one of those books i've been meaning to read for a while, i bought it.

i had it with me in the herna today, just sitting on the table. late in the afternoon, one of the girls from the fourth class, patty, asked me about it.

"what's it about?"

"well.. it's about a boy named huck finn, who runs away from home. he meets jim, a runaway slave..."

"what's a slave?"

"um."

try explaining several centuries of racial opression to a ten year old. i think i came up with "well, in the 1700s we brought people from Africa over to work on big farms."

i didn't quite finish and she said "ohhhh." like, ohhh, yeah, i know about that egregious violation of human rights carried out by your country. i just needed a refresher.

that was maybe the most awkward i've ever felt in a conversation. mostly because she was so young and i didn't want her first impressions of america to be george bush and books about racism. and how do you make it clear to someone who barely speaks english that we're not all a bunch of cunts?

Friday, January 25, 2008

where were you...

alicia just read, and i have recently started reading, a book called "whatever love means." it was given to me by a certain english acquaintance of mine. i don't remember what i thought at first, but the other day when alicia picked it up to read, i read the back. when i saw "blah blah blah, vic started sleeping with emma the day princess diana died..." i thought, oh jeez.

turns out, the book is pretty good. it's not exactly the sun also rises or anything, but it's pretty well written and it's entertaining. but it got me wondering, is princess diana's death one of those "where were you?" moments in the lives of most british people? like a 9/11 or JFK assassination to an american?

i remember it happening, but i have no idea where i was. i know i was 13 years old. i remember feeling bad for princes harry and william, and thinking prince william was hot. reading the book has got me racking my brain to remember anything i can about my life when that happened, but i can't. i even tried to remember other details about the summer when i was 13, but i had no success with that, either. one of the lines in the book mentions that (in GB, anyway) that the hot summer weather didn't really arrive until august. i tried to remember the weather patterns of summer 1997 and got nowhere.

i guess in the long run it doesn't matter if july 1997 was extremely hot or only average in temperature, but its a little disturbing that for the most part, entire years of my life will be forgotten unless attached to some significant event. i remember where i was on 9/11 - in fact, my most vivid memory is that that evening i went to the eye doctor. i can't think of anything else noteworthy about 2001. or 1997. or many other years.

so my new gameplan is to try to get very invested in national events so that i can always "remember where i was." that way, every day i'll have a moment that will signify to my brain to remember every little detail. that way, i'll never forget. also, i'll have lots of great opening lines for parties.

where were you when they passed the 27th amendment?
where were you when anna nicole smith's baby was born?
where were you when jordin sparks won american idol?
where were you when barack obama won the iowa primary?

the fun never ends.

so, to begin, where were you when heath ledger died?*




*when exactly did it happen again?

Monday, January 21, 2008

musical (by anna/debs, alicia, me, and lori)

it was 6pm, (18:00 if you're a douche bag) and the musical sounds on the tram were at their height. most notable was the youthful young man sitting at the front who was half muttering, half chanting to himself. it could barely be heard over the idle chit chat and the sniffling, the tram stop announcements and brakes. what he was repeating to himself was:

"co vas pryteli nocht von trizedi most breheli," which in english means, "what goes up must come down."

he was referring, of course, to the recent promotion of his arch nemesis, tim calhoun. they grew up in corn country -- mid-eastern kansas -- on rival farms. there wasn't much going on in their town -- bruno, kansas -- and their only form of entertainment was a battle, no so labyrinthine that it was impossible to understand, over the miniscule differences in the quality of the russet potatoes, the size and uniformity in shape and color of the autumn pumpkins, the length of the ears of corn. tim calhoun was always winning this battle.

but not anymore.

"pristi stanice - rahska zahrada" the tram proudly announced.

continuing to mumble, the man hobbled to the doors of the tram and exited. as he made his way to the five-star hotel pramen, he stopped into one of the many vietnamese vegetable stands.

"i've got it! i know how to defeat tim calhoun. i'm going to hire me some czech-speaking, vietnamese produce sellers and bring them back to bruno, kansas. those honkies won't have shit on my potraviny!"

and off he went, mumbling about his great ideas. and with his array of fruit, liquor and cigs he made a damn good business and eventually expanded to a fish and tackles shop and car wash.

you go, brother, you go.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

i take back what i said about the patriots

i am actually rooting for the patriots to win tonight. i never thought i would do this, but it's actually very important for them to make it to the superbowl.

so they can lose.

to the packers.

which would make it one of the best superbowls in recent memory. what better story than this, really?

aging, yet beloved brett favre has taken the packers from worst to first. everyone is caught up in this "perfect season" bullshit, high on tom brady as one of the best quarterbacks ever and the patriots as an unstoppable, dynasty-caliber team. also, everyone has been calling for brett to retire for a few years now. yet he kept playing because he loves the game and he knew in his dear little mississippi soul that he had another one in him.

so he'll lead the boys out onto the field and in 60 minutes they will crush the patriots, ruining both the pats' perfect season and making tom brady look like the punk that he is.

it's kind of amazing when you think about it. favre is the last man standing from his generation of quarterbacks. all the other "elite" quarterbacks -- tom brady, peyton and eli manning, and i'll MAYBE, begrudgingly, give you carson palmer even though he is a whiny little jerk -- are younger, having played most or all of their careers in the 2000s. favre belongs to the 90s generation, which gave us, most notably, john elway, troy aikman, steve young, dan marino and favre.

brady and favre facing off in a superbowl is kinda like if the san francisco 49ers of the 80s had a chance to play the 49ers of the 90s. a steve-young-quarterbacked team versus a joe-montana-quarterbacked team. its hard to believe how awesome that would be.

it's a shame, but from superbowl winning teams, you usually remember the quarterbacks and maybe the wide receivers.

if the packers were to lose, it would be devastating. it would be like the movie "rudy" ending without rudy making that tackle. brett would probably slink off into retirement, tail between his legs, and be remembered as just another victim on tom brady's trail to the hall of fame.

but they won't! the packers will win and it will be a fitting end to favre's career. he'll prove that the old school is better than the new school, and that brady might be great but he'll never be as great as favre, which is true.

also, fun fact, if the packers beat the patriots in the superbowl, favre will have won both his last and his first superbowl against the same team.

go packers!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

jaywalk, started by marie (continued by sergio, drew, debbie, alicia and me)

independence, freedom, step by step. cobblestone under my feet, a bell rings. where am i going, does it matter? green light red light, why do i have to stop? a baby is crying, mother and stroller, help her cross. peace and quiet, fresh air. gravel under my feet, just keep going. sunrise, sunset. stop to rest and breathe, only if i want to. tear the paper, break the rules, leaves in the wind. lines look better when you have drawn over them. step, step, stepping. past the bounds that are assigned. it's a small rebellion, just walking when you're not supposed to, but an important one. it is in steps that things happen, in steps that things unhappen. it is the way the world came to be (in 7 steps) and the way it will go might be fewer still.

each step grew larger still until i wasn't jaywalking, but jay gallopping, jay leaping. each step no longer represented one step in creation or destruction. it was an illicit street dance. pound, pound, pounce. her feet felt like quickly-drying cement, calcifying in the heat of the indian summer sunshine. yet just as she felt the final twinge of the hardening process end, a weight would lift off of her shoulders and she would begin her street dance once more.

from a distance, not quite so far but close enough that she could sense its origin, her ears began to process the notes and melodies of an ancient story. swaying ever so gently, her heart taught her feet to move in time with the rhythm of this haunting reverie. slowly, she found herself drawn closer to the aural center of this strange universe.

yeah, she had just chugged two bottles of robitussin. it was her thanksgiving day tradition now since the accident which left her blind two years ago. she had a delicate and specific schedule she followed every year. she would wake up at five, because getting into town for the parade always provided a challenge -- especially for a single blind woman. in her handbag she packed two bottles of extra-strength robitussin.

she would stand in the streets -- she liked to pick a busy one, like vinohradska, or preferably one with trams, maybe jugoslavska or revolucni. she would exit the metro, walking stick in one hand, robitussin in the other. she would bring the sweet nectar to her lips, gulp it down. then she would jaywalk, cross the streets like a metal ball in a pinball game, playing that game with the vehicular traffic. it was her parting shot at fate, her last chance to prove that this was always the future and never the future, that she was untouchable by the forces that had guided her to her thanksgiving day acccident.

the writing orgy breakfast/brunch

so today, we had our first "writing brunch" of what is hopefully many. lori, alicia and i - all aspiring writers, to different degrees -- decided we needed some inspiration in the form of moral support. the rest of the prague girls (and sergio!) joined in as well.

we all cooked a breakfast food - alicia made vegan oatmeal, sergio beans on toast, marie "elvis lives" or peanut butter and bananas on toast, "drizzled with honey." the food was awesome. then we did a little writing circle and the results were hilarious. due to popular demand, i'll be publishing all the stories we created in my blog.

here's how it works: each person got a random word from the dictionary which was supposed to act both as the title of their piece and appear in the first paragraph. some chose to stick to this rule and others didn't. after 5 minutes, papers were passed to the person on the right, who would continue the first's story for another 5 minutes. i think we did this a total of 5 or 6 times.

the results were moving, hilarious, and usually borded on soft-core porn. enjoy!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

disappointed

i've never been more unhappy about only having mediocre guitar skills.

i'm at reporter's, where the population is me, sometimes alicia, and the friends of the bartender. right now they're sitting around the table across the room, rocking out on an electric guitar. there's the one who tries to talk to me, but only speaks Czech. he's playing right now. earlier they were playing "smoke on the water," but now i can't tell. he's wearing a ski cap and sunglasses. his friends are "pink mohawk guy" and the other guy who is here all the time. his shirt says "i am not a tourist."

i've spent a lot of time with these people but know nothing about them because i don't speak Czech. in a perfect world, i'd be able to go over, grab the guitar and play something for them. and then maybe we'd be friends, even though we aren't able to talk.

i find this problem a lot in my life -- wishing i had in real life the skills i have in my daydreams.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

i want to be a toys r us kid

i have no idea what i'm doing with my life, and i love it.

i spent a lot of time worrying about what i was going to "do" after college, which is how i ended up in prague. it was something to "do." fortunately it was a good decision, but when i made it, i didn't really want to do it. it just gave me something to tell people. it was plans.

then i spent a lot of time worrying about what i was going to "do" when prague was over. going back to school, getting a job, moving to DC. i was basically wishing away the days until july when i could get on with my life.

but i'm not sure i want to get on with my life anymore. i don't really care what comes next, and it feels awesome. if i go to DC, good. but i'm not worried about starting school right away. i think i spent way too much time in the last few years worrying about these type of things and it made me really unhappy.

but it makes me really happy to think that i could spend a few years here. or i could maybe be working in an entirely different city in europe or asia or wherever at this time next year. but the point is i don't know right now. i don't feel any pressure to live up to expectations or do something sensible or get a job where i'll make enough money not to have to eat rice and peas for dinner.

i think too many people worry about whats next, but what's the point? i guess this time in prague has made me realize exactly what it means to be 23 years old, and that there's really an "only" in front of that.

i don't feel like growing up yet.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

i hate christmas shopping

i hate it. okay i know it's january 12th and the stress of buying christmas gifts should have passed about two weeks ago, but i postponed buying alicia's gift because she was out of the country and i was out of money. so now i'm the only person retroactively christmas shopping.

what a nightmare. i hate buying presents for people, especially around scheduled holidays such as christmas, valentine's days and birthdays.

there's a tiny window of time in your friendship or relationship with someone when buying them a gift isn't stressful. i think it's about a month or two in. it's been long enough that you know them at least well enough to be able to pick out something they might like. all your inside jokes are fresh, and so in a pinch you can just buy them a joke gift. but it's still soon enough that you have some room for error. if you buy them something they hate, they're usually still eager enough to bolster the relationship that it won't have any devastating effect on it. it's the same when you're dating someone. they could buy you something really terrible, but you'll say "this is WONDERFUL!" and you'll really mean it, because you're so enamored. if only this would last.

people that are forever exempt from this are grandmas. they can buy anything, for anyone, and you're required to like it. if you don't, you don't dare tell them. why would you want to make your cute little old grandma cry. so you suck it up and wear an ugly sweater just to make her smile. (luckily, in this respect, i never knew any of my grandparents.)

but once you get to know someone, buying gifts for them is nothing but a test. it's a test on how well you know them or how well you listen to them, or both. my mom has an uncanny talent for this. i can mention something once and 6 months later, there it'll be, wrapped up for christmas.

i don't have that talent. this afternoon i was trapsing around the palladium, looking for alicia's gift. i had no idea what to do. i thought, oh, alicia likes this certain lipgloss. i was really proud of remembering this. but you can only get it at bath and body works, which doesn't exist here. then i thought, i should get her a piece of jewelry. but we have different taste, and i couldn't find anything that i knew she'd like. and i should be able to! i've known her for three years. the fact that i can't do this yet, and that i can't remember even one thing she's mentioned wanting, is disappointing.

so its january 12th and i still haven't gotten anywhere on her present.

i think i'm going to enact a policy of no gifts with all my friends. its just easier. either that, or joke gifts. anthony and i had this understanding that we would never try to buy each other serious gifts. once i bought him a sweater (which was really sweet, by the way) and he got mad. instead, we buy each other stupid stuff, like chinese checkers. or a 90s rap compilation album. i got him a car-a-day calendar three years running. it was wonderful.

Friday, January 11, 2008

winter vacation

i didn't get to go anywhere for christmas vacation this year, which i was disappointed about. i feel pretty terrible because i've been in europe for a little over four months and i've only made it as far as dresden and vienna.

today i had some time to waste in the bookstore and, as usual, i spent it looking at the lonely planet books. i picked up one for venice and it got me itching to go to italy.

luckily, the paycheck gods have smiled favorably upon me. i got paid more than expected for december at the bell school, so i should have some extra money. i really wanted to go to italy after christmas, but i think instead i'm going to use the "spring break" we get from the elementary school to spend a day or two in a few different cities in italy.

it'll be better than going at christmas because i'll hopefully a.) have more money to spend and b.) get to spend more time there.

i think a lot about how cool it would have been to live in italy for a year. even though i love prague and everything that's happened here since september (except for the refrigerator breaking), i sometimes wish i would have tried harder to find a job there.

so hopefully about a month from now (february 14-21ish) i'll be cruising around italy. i don't have any idea how to start planning but i can't wait.

as usual, looking for travel buddies if anyone is interested...

Monday, January 07, 2008

czech children are adorable

today, i had my passport with me in the herna (the kid's playroom). one of the kids asked me if he could look at it. after perusing all the stamps, he looked at me, searching for the english words for what he wanted to say.

"i...jumped from the belly in Poland. what city did you jump from the belly?"

i pretty much died. these kids are so cute. he was asking me what city i was born in. i didn't have the heart to correct him.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

the czech republic's funniest home videos

last night, it finally snowed in prague.

it started late. i was out watching the steelers lose to jacksonville, and when i left the golden star bar at 3:30am it was beginning to settle on the cobblestones. by morning it was a blizzard (by prague standards) and there was three or so inches on the ground. it finally seems like winter.

alicia and i embarked on our journey to meduza for brunch this afternoon around 1. we were walking to the tram stop and at the end of our street, there was a father with his two young sons playing in the snow at the edge of lyckovo namesti. by the way, kids in prague are adorable. as soon as it's october, they're all bundled up in jackets and hats. it's adorable.

so the father was standing to the side with his videocamera, filming his young children enjoying the first major snowfall of winter 2007-8. the boy was just running around, picking up the snow and throwing it, enjoying the cold weather the way kids can that seems to fade as you grow older, the dad happily recording it all.

as we walked through his mise en scene, i started to tell alicia that it would make a good embarassing video for the kid in about 10-12 years. something his parents could show when he brings a girlfriend home for the first time.

before i even finished the sentence, i felt my feet slide from under me and i was on my ass in the snow. the street wasn't plowed and it was slick with snow, and my chucks couldn't handle it. alicia enjoyed the opportunity to laugh heartily at my misfortune.

but the best part was, the kid was right behind me when it happened. so i'm pretty sure the dad had the videocamera pointed in our direction, and as an added bonus to the warm family memories he was capturing, he probably got a good shot of me slipping and falling on my ass.

i love winter.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

the fish cafe

so, i started my new job today at dino elementary. from 12-5 every afternoon i'll be dishing out red "tea" (which seems suspiciously like hot cherry kool-aid), playing hangman, coloring princesses, critiquing dances... basically, hanging out with kids. which is a lot more fun than teaching them at the bell school.

my new schedule leaves me with an awkard hour-and-a-half gap between my morning adult classes and dino. it's not worth it to go all the way home, so i had to waste some time.

i went to the cafe near I.P. Pavlova, whose name i can't remember, that i used to go to after T-mobile on Tuesdays with a certain English acquaintance. i decided that instead of trying to remember the name, i'm going to call it the "fish cafe" because in the two back corners of the cafe there are aquariums. the chairs in the corners in front of the aquariums are the most comfortable. that's where we used to sit, and thats where I sit still, even though the light is dim which makes reading tricky.

i suppose i chose this place because it's familiar. it's one of the only places i know in prague that i really like, that i'd suggest if i had to make a decision about somewhere to grab a drink. i guess i also chose it because it was somewhere i went with this person that i miss, that i think of fondly. maybe i thought there was a chance the loud footsteps coming down the wooden stairs would be his. wishful thinking, but still.

maybe i thought the dim lights and the bricks and the bubbling of the aquariums, the fish (polar bear, flat stanley and billy no mates in the one on the right), the pictures displayed for sale, the waiter with dreadlocks and hippie tie-dye who i think was a little alarmed that i ordered hot chocolate this time and not a beer, maybe i thought all of that would be comforting. i thougth i could float for an hour or so in the fresh nostalgia of december. maybe thats why i went.

but, surprisingly, it brought back other memories that had nothing to do with cafes, aquariums or even prague. i was reading "all the pretty horses," and for some reason, i can't be sure what triggered it, i thought about my trip to san francisco last year.

i remembered being in a tavern in sausalito last december. i remember sitting around a hexagonal table with ryan and his grad school friends, drinking beer and playing acey deucy. we got so into it that we had to keep running up to the bar, asking the barkeep for rolls of quarters to use for bets. when someone won the pot, they'd buy everyone a round. i think once i won almost $35, which i used to buy the table shots of jager.

which made me think about walking down the main street in sausalito, in the chilly december wind coming off the bay, looking across at san francisco all lit up. i have pictures, but i couldn't capture it. it looks like tiny dots far off in the distance. up on the hillside, the houses of sausalito were decorated in twinkle lights for christmas. couldn't get that on film either.

today i finished "the book of laughter and forgetting," by milan kundera. in it was this line: "whoever wishes to remember must not stay in one place, waiting for the memories to come of their own accord! memories are scattered all over the immense world, and it takes voyaging to find them and make them leave their refuge!"

i don't really think about that trip to san francisco too often, but when i remembered the jager and sweeping a pile of quarters off the table to buy them, i smiled. and it made me think - i had to chase that memory all the way to prague.

when my nostalgia for december is not so fresh, how far will i have to chase those memories?