I'm getting nostalgic...and I haven't even left yet!

….so it’s kind of appropriate on the day that I was originally supposed to fly back to the U.S. that I start thinking about leaving Prague. I can’t even fathom being ready to leave this place. It’s the daily routines as well as the random stories that I think about when I think about leaving. Don’t get me wrong…I can’t wait to see all of you back in the states….but it’s going to be really REALLY hard to leave. It’s different than when I came here. I left the states knowing that I would come back. Whereas here…I have no idea when, or if, I will be back. It’s just crazy to think about and it totally blows my mind. So while I’ve tried to keep you in touch with what I’ve been doing…you haven’t been here experiencing it by my side…so I think it will be weird trying to convey things to people when I get back. The everyday occurrences and the random memories…

Walking past this random asian restaurant every day…but never seeing anyone coming out or going into it.

Giving my seat up to old people on the metro. And watching all of the young couples canoodling (yes, I just used that word!). Metro surfing and staring at people…just as much as they stare back at you.

Reading in karlovo namesti park

Maly Buddha with Jill and all of our guests

Being able to walk across a city that feels so huge

Listening to the wailing of Jakub (host brother) playing the trumpet (…which most often sounds like a dying baby)

Talking with Zuzana (host mom) over breakfast in the morning

Watching random movies in Czech with my family (…ones I haven’t even seen yet in English…like Lord of the Rings and the Matrix)

Eating dinner with the family practically every night (and Tomas and Zuzana’s amazing cooking!)

My family joking me about my sleeping habits.

Getting lost in the city and discovering new places

Akropolis and funny waiters and Jill yelling “ne” at him when he tried to take away her plate (which only had like 2 veggies left on it)

Opera for under $3…and always sitting in the top most balcony

Seeing so much of myself in Rutka (host sister) …and how similar I was to her when I was 13

Rebeka (host sister) and how she continues to amaze me with her ability to speak Czech, English, and Italian fluently

Walking by the river and realizing the beauty of this city…

Jakub returning from a weeklong school trip…without having changed his socks all week

Rut and I dying Easter eggs…the old fashioned way

Rigdon and the random people she meets…like the rabbi, and the one-handed expat American poet

Taking the night bus with tons of people asleep or passed out

“You know what I saw today…a group of midgets”

Going to hear Tony Ackerman with Zuzana and Rebeka

The first time I met my family…and how funny my mom and dad are

How willing my family is to talk to me in English and translate things for me…even though I haven’t made much of an effort to speak Czech with them

Going to the farmhouse with my family and sitting around the kitchen table with 20 people singing songs

Taking the train to Tetin to go horseback riding with Jill…and trying to hitchhike there

Good cheap coffee and beer

Going to an international church and meeting really cool and interesting people of every nationality

Walking by buildings that seem so average…but taking a 2nd look to realize how much detail there is…and how old it is…and how beautiful it is

Going to school over Pepino’s…where hopefully the food tastes better than it smells (never actually tried it)

Being in Debolin making masks in the ceramics studio…just chilling with the Slovaks and how accepting and welcoming everyone was

Taking a hike through the snow from Debolin to the town…even though there was no path to follow

Eating at Motorest and the waiter that looked like Michael Jackson

“I think it’s part dachshund”

YUM!!!!

Coming home and having a full pot of tea always made



…I could go on for forever and a year. But I still can’t comprehend coming back to the states just yet. I definitely would not have been ready to leave tomorrow. So instead…I’m flying out to Madrid on the 25; then going to Rome for a few days; then to the south of Italy to Calabria for a few days; then catching a ferry across the sea to Croatia for a few days; then coming back to Prague before I leave! :D

...the not so peaceful retreat

Valtice Chateau

So I didn’t think I could top the cell phone story…and I still think that one wins…but this one is pretty fun too!!

So for the past 3 days we were in Valtice, a small town in Moravia close to the Austrian border. We left on Tuesday and came back today (Friday).

So…as I am always infamously late to everything…it finally got the best of me and I missed the train our class was taking to Valtice…by 1 minute! I got to the train station and ran to the platform, and saw the end of the train in the distance. Sadness. However, I wasn’t too concerned because I knew there was a train going later. So I waited 2 hours until 12:30 and caught the next train. The train ride was about 3 hours long, and for those of you unfamiliar with riding trains in central Europe…for the most part, they don’t announce stops, you just kind of have to figure it out for yourself by estimating the time of arrival.

So we had only stopped at about 4 or 5 stations on the 3 hour trip, and I knew I needed to get off at Breclav. So I look at the time I’m supposed to arrive, and prepare myself for the next stop. So I’m waiting by the door to get off the train, and I see these 2 people in the next carriage waiting to get off as well. So the train pulls to a stop at Breclav, and we push the buttons for the doors to open, and as it opens, the bottom step comes down…and I peer out of the door and I’m staring into grass. The 2 people next to me kind of look over at me from the outside of the train and we kind of shrug, and the girl says “do you think this is the right stop?” I, of course, am thinking that there couldn’t be more than 1 Breclav stop because we hadn’t been stopping at 2 stations in any of the other towns. So I say that I think it has to be it…because it wouldn’t be likely that there was another one.

So we all jump off the train (literally…it’s about a 3.5 foot jump into calf-high grass) and start walking towards the station. While we’re walking over the grass and large rocks scattered evenly beside the train tracks (because there was no platform or passage over the tracks)…we start getting the feeling that we got off at the wrong stop. So we go over to the station and ask the guy if our trains are coming (I needed the one to Valtice, and they needed the one to Vienna). He kind of laughs at us and shakes his head. I think we were at a stop that was used for factory drop-offs, etc. Well, it turns out that the guy that jumped off with us is an art history professor from Dresden, Germany, so he speaks German with the people working at the train station (…even though we were still in the Czech Republic, the area is highly populated by german-speaking people). So he finagles his way into getting one of the train station employees to give us a ride in his car to the main train station in Breclav.

I forgot to mention that the girl and the guy had met earlier that morning while in Germany, and while they were both headed to Vienna, the guy had an art history lecture in Vienna that if he missed the train in Breclav, he would have missed his lecture. So…we catch a ride with some random stranger to the next station and they make it in time for the train to Vienna (…which I was ecstatic about since I had kind of persuaded them to jump off a train into some grass). But kind of cool part was the girl was an American student, from Texas, who had been studying in Prague. She went to Swarthmore in the U.S…but cool part is that she said she almost went to William and Mary. So instead of meeting on a small campus in the U.S…I guess we were meant to meet each other jumping off a train in a random small town in Moravia…crazy!!

So I get to Breclav, and realize I have to wait an hour for my next train to come to Valtice. So I’m sitting there waiting for it, listening to the announcements of all the times, etc. and I haven’t heard anything about my train. So I start talking to this guy who sits down on the bench beside me, who was a really cool Slovak, and I ask him if he was paying attention to the platforms they had just said on the loudspeaker. He, of course, wasn’t, but it’s getting within 5 mins of my train leaving…so I’m getting a little worried. There’s only 1 train that is sitting stationary by a platform, so I go over to it thinking it’s mine, but the conductor says mine is on platform 4. so I go back to the front of the station house, and am utterly confused because I don’t see a platform 4 anywhere. Well…I finally figure out that it is the small platform around the side of the building, that couldn’t be seen from where I was sitting. So just as I figure this out and am headed towards it, I see the train to Valtice chugging down the tracks….without me on it.

So it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I had to wait another hour for the next train. So…a journey that should have taken like 3. 5 hours, ended up taking 8 for me. Man…good times. I definitely got to meet some cool people though!

Sadly, I wish I could say that was the worst part of the weekend. But there’s more. So we found out that this place we were eating dinner at had horseback riding, and our academic director had signed us all up for an hour ride. So the first group had gone and come back, and my group was headed out…which was just me, Yukako, and Jill. When the first group came back, they had said that the mosquitoes were really bad. So we were kind of forewarned about them, but it didn’t sound too bad.

Well…we start riding our horses, and we’re being led by the guide. At the beginning it starts drizzling a bit, but then the rain lets up. So as we’re walking through this field, we are being attacked by mosquitoes. It wasn’t horrible to start out with, but as we start walking through swamps…it gets a little bit worse. We’re being led through swampy fields and other fields full of 3 foot high brush…there are no trails to follow, and we’re being attacked by all of these bugs. So I’m trying to keep them off of me, as well as my horse, because we’re both being eaten alive. So already, this is one of the most miserable experiences of my life.

Well finally we start walking on this wooded path. So we’re headed into the woods and I am right behind the guide when all of a sudden this deer leaps out of the trees in front of my horse, just between me and the guide. Naturally, my horse flips out and rears up on its hind legs. I don’t really remember how many times it bucked, or how exactly I got off of it…but I remember thinking…holy crap, get off the horse now. So I somehow made it to the ground safely, and was glad I had gotten off of my horse because it went galloping through the woods down the path in the other direction. Luckily, Jill and Yukako’s horses didn’t buck as well…they just kind of ran around themselves in circles…but they hadn’t seen the deer, they were just scared because of my horse’s reaction.

So I don’t know what to do about my horse, because I don’t even know its name…so I can’t call out after it. The guide starts shouting its name, and sort of chases after it, and my horse eventually comes back. Well…since the horses were not really taken proper care of, immediately when my horse comes back he starts to eat. I’m quite ok with this because he had been trying to eat the entire time when I was riding him before (because they hadn’t fed them or given them water in between the first group and ours). However, the guide motions to me to get back on the horse. So you have to understand the saddle was at about the height of my head…so for me to get on the horse, it had to be stationary, because once I got the first foot into the stirrup, I had to hike up my other leg over the horse.

So I start trying to get on the horse, but every time I get my first foot in the stirrup, my horse starts to back in a circle around me…because it wants to eat…it doesn’t want me to get back on it to ride. So I’m all for letting my horse take a food break…but the instructor keeps motioning for me to kick my leg over and get on the horse. And I’m like “no crap lady…I know how to mount a horse…but seeing as every time I try to, it starts backing up in circles around me, it’s kind of impossible to get my other leg over.” So I try again, and my horse backs up in such a way that it kicks me in the thigh. So now, I really don’t want to get back on my horse. So FINALLY, our guide comes over and holds the reins of my horse, so that I can actually get on it. We convey to her that we want to go back (she didn’t speak any English) so we head back through the swamps to the stable.

That was one horse I was definitely glad to be off of by the time we got back. However…it's not too bad that all I ended up with was a bruise on my thigh, and a slightly sprained ankle from being thrown off a horse. …and so many mosquito bites that it looks like I have chicken pox. It’s definitely a great look for the summer! ;D

So, needless to say, our retreat wasn’t really a “retreat” for me. However, we did get to see some pretty awesome chateaus and get a little taste of the wine country of the Czech Republic. I also started dreading my hair…which will be a long long process.

…my host parents say that I like to jump too much. After the train and metro experiences…they said “maybe you should not jump anymore.” Hopefully…I will have no more jumping experiences while I am here :D

...Catching Up...

...so I know it’s been forever and a year since I wrote anything…so I guess you’ll have to get the very brief outline of what my life has been like. Well…we did our trip to Vienna, Austria, Bratislava, Slovakia, and Brno, the capital of Moravia in the Czech Republic. It was a great trip…but towards the end it got really tiring traveling around with 14 girls :D However, I definitely loved Vienna and it was so much fun just wandering around the city…we didn’t spend too much time in museums because it was so nice outside.

…and speaking of nice outside, Prague finally came out of winter and it is AMAZING. It is absolutely gorgeous here!! And I love it! And, of course, with spring came the hoards of tourists…which kind of make me laugh…A LOT! It’s just funny when I hear people speaking in English saying something ridiculously stupid…and I totally don’t want to be associated with that culture at all. And I don’t have to be…I can pass myself off as a Czech :D But really…sometimes Americans are just RIDICULOUS!

Over the past couple months I also had two other visitors…Rebecca, my sister, and Kerstin (a friend from WM) and her cousin, Rachel. It was great to see all of them. And we definitely had a great time! It was a bit rainy for all of their visits…but still fun!!!

Other than that…my life for the past month has been research research research!! I have been working on my independent study project, in which I did case studies of the marketing strategies of 6 individual arts organizations in Prague. I spoke with either the directors or marketing directors of each organization, as well as a few other people in the arts community. It was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve gotten to do…in terms of my academic life. It was just way way cool to be talking with these professionals in the field of what I want to be doing in the future. I got to talk with the marketing director of Laterna Magika (the theatre where the Velvet Revolution had its headquarters under Havel); with the marketing director of the Czech Philharmonic; and probably one of the best interviews, the director of Ponec Theatre. This woman basically cultivated an awareness and audience for contemporary (modern) dance in the Czech Republic. Contemporary dance didn’t exist here before the Revolution—only ballet and folk dancing. So she basically helped get the movement off the ground and its amazing to see her passion for it and continued persistence in its development. Definitely way awesome!! And the culmination of all of this research was a 35-page paper (…which ended up being 53 pages in my case!!…apparently maybe I’m dyslexic :D ). So…it was definitely cool…but I’m glad I’m done with it.

Other fun things include taking my host mom and sister to see Tony Ackerman, a famous American jazz musician here. He was here during the 80s, and my mom absolutely loves him! He’s friends with my academic director, Sarah, so she got us tickets to see him in a private club. So it was definitely fun to take her to that…she was so excited, it was way cute! And just spending time with my family is always awesome! They’ve definitely been a huge blessing in my time here…and they continue to amaze me every day.

The program officially ends on Sunday…so it’s weird to think of some of the girls leaving. I am here until June 14…doing a bit of traveling with Ivy, a girl from the program. So that should be exciting.

me and jill in vienna...the elephant in front of the natural history museum


royal palace in vienna

me and kerstin @ petrin hill in prague

So this past weekend was really fun. Stephen came back into town and we had some good times traversing the city on Saturday. Jill, Christine, Yukako, Stephen and I went to a jazz club called Reduta on Friday night. It was really fun, and the old men in the jazz band were super cute. Bill Clinton apparently played his sax there back in the early 90s when Havel was president. Saturday night we went to the Magic Lantern theatre (where much of the Velvet Revolution was planned and implemented). The performance was pretty awesome, but the audience wasn’t so great. It was definitely a bunch of tourists and is just another example of how the arts here are becoming more and more commercialized.

Stephen actually ended up staying an extra day because his flight got cancelled because of all of the snow in Prague. So after 4 hours of sleep, and waiting in line for 8 hours with no food or sleep, he went a little crazy on the tram Sunday night.

Jill and I also took our first modern dance class…which was definitely interesting. It was really fun, but it was crazy trying to learn a combination while we were upside down and backwards, and in a different language. We also took a dance class on Monday called Nike Rockstar Hiphop…only because of it’s super cool (not really) name. It was actually really fun…so I think we’re going to go shopping for some super cool urban outfits for the next time we go (which will be this Saturday).

Not too much else is going on…just getting ready for our Vienna/Brno/Bratislava trip coming up this week.

Lidice and Terezin

Last week we took a day trip to Lidice and Terezin…both of which I hadn’t ever really heard about. However, after visiting them, it’s really crazy to see how quickly people forget things and forget or modify the past. It was also crazy to discover just how real the Holocaust was to people in Europe. As Americans, I don’t think we fully grasp the brutality and inhumanity of it all…and after seeing how desperate the Czech Republic was for a savior from Nazi control, it is really easy to see how they fell into the hands of the Soviet Union. Most camps in the Czech Republic were liberated by the Soviets, not the United States…this alone already determined the fate of the Czech Republic and its relationship to the USSR. It had to choose between the 2 superpowers, and they went with the one who had actually helped them most when they were under the power of a fascist dictator.

Lidice was a small mining village just outside of Prague. During WWII commandos had been sent from England to the Czech Republic to assassinate Heydrich (the Nazi security police chief). The attempt wounded him, and he died within a few days. Somehow a connection was made between Heydrich’s assassination and a family living in Lidice. The Nazis conducted 3 searches of the village without finding any evidence of the link between the assassination and Lidice. However, Hitler wanted revenge for the death, so orders were carried out to completely destroy the village. The 173 men of the village were collected together and shot. Workers from a concentration camp buried their bodies in a mass grave. The women went to Ravensbruck concentration camp. The children were also sent to extermination camps except the few who were appropriate for “Germanization” and were adopted by German families to be re-educated. It was never clear what the fate of the children was…but 88 of them were never heard from again. The Nazis then burned and razed the village to the ground. Of course this was not the worst of fascist tactics, but many people in the West took up the cause for Lidice and started “Lidice Lives” campaigns.

Terezin was one of the main work camps in the Czech Republic. It was basically used as a waiting place for transportations to other concentration and extermination camps. Out of the 87,000 prisoners who left on the transports, less than 4,000 survived. It was just crazy sitting there watching and listening to this video. It would talk about the transports from Terezin…1000 to Auschwitz, 2 survivors; 1000 to Dachau, no survivors; 17,000 to Auschwitz, 80 survivors, etc. While Terezin was not used as an extermination camp, many prisoners were executed or died from horrible living conditions. Over the entrance hung the words on all Nazi camps…work will make you free. Terezin was also the name of the city that housed the work camp. The city was used as a Jewish ghetto in WWII. The 7000 residents were forced to evacuate, and some 140,000 Jews were relocated to Terezin. In one building, there were 6000 people living in the attic.

It was definitely a hard day to get through…one of the few times I have truly confronted the past firsthand. Merely talking about something makes it easier to swallow…but go to a place where the rooms still small of urine and sweat…and where 60 men were forced to stand and sleep in a room with a single 3-inch diameter hole to breath through and no toilet…or where corpses were thrown into a room to await cremation…and history becomes a little more real and a little harder to choke down.

The monument dedicated to the 88 lost children of Lidice.


"Work Will Make You Free" over the Terezin work camp.

Testing a Nokia's Durability

Ok…so prepare yourself, because this is a great story.

So, I’m headed to meet Jill for a dance class, and I’m in the metro station switching metro lines. I’m standing there writing Jill a text message as the metro pulls up. I push the keypad too hard, and my phone goes flying out of my hand, bounces twice, hits the side of the metro that has just arrived, and falls down INTO the metro tunnel (i.e. under the metro). For approximately 2 seconds I am paralyzed with shock, because I can’t believe that this has just happened to me. I turn around, and this 15-year-old guy is looking at me, because he totally saw everything happen. He shrugs, and looks sympathetic, but moves on by to get onto the metro. So my first instinct is to immediately find someone who works in the metro station. So I go up 2 escalator flights to the information desk, but of course, it’s only open Monday through Friday (and this was Sunday). So I make my way back down to the line I was trying to catch to at least see where my cell phone has even fallen, because I hadn’t looked initially. As I’m running back down the escalators, I’m searching for anyone who might possibly work in transportation. I didn’t see a security guard or anyone else.

So I get back down to the bottom, and I go back to where I dropped it. I’m peering over the edge, and I see it sitting on a little cement ledge that is right by the wall of the tunnel. Now to understand where it was, picture the metro tunnel (about 5 feet deep, maybe 10 feet wide), two metal rails in the middle elevated over the bottom of the tunnel where there is a lot of standing water, and then the 6 inch protruding cement ledges on both of the outer edges. So this is a good spot for my phone to be…it’s not in the puddle of water in the middle of the tunnel, or on the tracks, or smashed into a million pieces. So I turn around to the people standing there, and start trying to find someone who speaks English. Eventually, I find these Irish people, and I’m explaining what has happened, thinking they might be able to help. So of course, everyone then proceeds to go to the edge of the tunnel and stare down at my cell phone. So I’m talking to this Irish women and ask her to hold my stuff, because I’m going to jump down into the tunnel and get my cell phone. Her husband is like “No, I don’t think that’s such a good idea because I think there might be live electrical current down there.” They suggest at least waiting for the next metro to come and go. So I appease them, and wait for the next metro to pass—of course they hopped on it all cheery-like saying “hope you get your cell phone, etc.”

So you have to understand that I am a poor college student, and the main thought in my mind at that moment was “Must get cell phone. I’m not paying another $100 for a cell phone, and I can’t survive the next 2 months without one.” So, you guessed it…I hopped into the tunnel and grabbed my cell phone (which was completely unharmed…props to Nokia for awesome durability). The top of the tunnel came up to about my eye level, and as I was getting ready to get out, I had the split second panic of “oh crap…I’m not getting out of here.” The situation was definitely complicated even more by the fact that I was not going to touch any part of the metal tracks…I wasn’t about to get electrocuted. But I pushed myself up enough to get my leg up (it’s a good thing I’m a dancer, and flexible), and literally rolled out of the tunnel. I stood up, and brushed myself off. I don’t think anyone saw me because everyone else had just gotten on the metro that left, and no one else was standing around. However, it was one of those moments that I wished I had had a friend there who could laugh at the ordeal with me (though there was plenty of laughter afterwards).

So in retrospect, it probably was not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. But I literally could find no one that was working in the station, and my adrenaline high and poor college student mentality got the best of me…and I jumped into a freakin metro tunnel!!! So that’s my crazy story for the week…and probably month…and hopefully for the rest of the time I’m here :D

P.S. And after all of this, I still made it to dance class on time :D

Unintentionally Out of Context

So there have been a couple of times this week where someone has said something completely normal, but it has been coupled with the mistake of being in a completely different context. Examples…

All 14 of us are on the bus headed to Terezin and Andrina asks if anyone has a band-aid for her finger. Sarah (our academic director) replies “No, I don’t have any band-aids.” Ivy then says “Suck it!” Of course, meaning that Andrina should suck her finger to stop the bleeding…but it was just funny right after Sarah’s comment…and from the person that would be least likely to say that phrase with it’s other connotation.
Other situation. We are sitting at the National Theatre waiting for The Bartered Bride to start (it’s an opera written by Smetana). We were in the last balcony (of which there are around 5 total), and I turn around to talk to the girls behind me, and I’m literally staring up their skirts because their seats are so high in relation to our row. So I say “Close your legs girls.” Maggie, who is sitting next to me, says “What?!?!?,” in astonishment. Of course, I was confused, but Miriam, who was sitting on the other side of Maggie, had just said something I hadn’t heard 2 seconds before I talked. She had said “What’s that smell?!” And, of course, Maggie thought that my answer of “close your legs girls” was in response to Miriam’s question. Hilarious!

Ass Burgers?!?!?

So this story must also be told…because it’s just too funny to be left unsaid. So I’m walking back from a café on Old Towne Square with Stephen and his friend Andrew, who is here for a week doing stuff for his graduate studies at UC Berkeley. I’m talking about my first day in Prague when we did the drop-off (see previous post). I was talking about having to guide everyone in my group on my own because Lauren had puked on the side of a street corner and wasn’t feeling so hot, and the other girl that was with us, Alex, has Aspergers disorder (the relevance being that she cannot understand maps and directions).

Stephen, with the greatest look of disbelief, looks back and forth between Andrew and I, and says, “What?!?!? Ass burgers?!?!” Ahahaha…it was absolutely hysterical!!! He had never heard of it before, and understandably, was dumbfounded at someone having ass burgers. So for all of you out there that have never heard of it, at least now you have been saved from the awkwardness of misconstruing the meaning of the disorder the next time you hear it pass in conversation.

Stephen Lee and KFC

So it must be said…both with major regret and shame…that I had my first experience with KFC last Saturday night. So I met up with Stephen on Friday night and we brought all of his stuff back to my host family’s house. Well we were planning on going out to dinner, but we sat around talking with my parents for a while. At like 10 o’clock, we finally made it around to leaving and headed towards a restaurant Tomas has suggested—Velryba. So we got there and the waiter came up and said something about drinks. So we thought he just wanted to get our drink orders first. So when he came back we ordered our drinks and then started to order our food and he was like “No!…I told you we only serve drinks after 10.” So we stayed to finish our drinks, and then headed out to find somewhere else to eat. By this point it was already 11:30. So we went to the part of Prague that I know best—Prague 2 where I have class. There’s this restaurant that we’ll eat at a lot called Radost. I knew it was open late, so we went there. Well…we got there, and apparently it turns into a club at night, and we didn’t want to have to pay a cover charge to eat dinner. So we started walking down the street where some other little restaurants are. We walked into a couple, but all of them were closing at midnight, and they wouldn’t seat us at 11:45. We finally tried our last resort, a little café called Meduza by the hotel we stayed at the first week. We got there and peeked in the window, but no one was eating food. So we grudgingly made our way back to the only thing we knew was still open…KFC. I know, I know…we didn’t want to do it….but we were starving! I don’t even eat at KFC in America. My stomach revolted at my spicy chicken strips…and we both hung our heads in shame when we left. And thus ends my first experience with fast food in Prague…I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing to be said about globalization. We were grateful that something was open late enough for us to eat…not so stoked that it had to be KFC. But at least it makes for a good story. And I wouldn’t have eaten KFC any other way…as a desperate and last attempt to appease a ravenous stomach.

P.S. Stephen Lee is here…way exciting! :D

...another Masopust

So I forgot to mention that we were part of another Masopust festival the following day—on Sunday. It was in the larger town of Jindrochuv Hradec. It definitely was not as intimate, but it was still fun. We just paraded down the street in costume into the main square, where they buried winter (which was for some reason symbolized as a cello), and then proclaimed it the last day to eat meat before Lent started. It was funny, because Philip asked me if I wanted any meat, and I was like, sure, I’m hungry, I’ll eat some meat. However, after I saw it, I negated my request. You had to pull the little stick at the end to rip the pig intestine, and then squirt it out like it was icing or something. Gross!

However, after the parade, we went back to the house where all the costumes were, and we sat around the wood stove and listened to a bunch of older people sing Czech folk songs. It was great! I still like the other Masopust celebration better, but this one was also pretty sweet!

We ended the week with a trip to Cesky Krumlov…which was also absolutely amazing!

...Masopust and Motorest

So I will try to summarize my week in Debolin as briefly as possible. I already talked a little bit about the village and Romana (the owner of the ceramics studio), so I will mainly talk about the 2 main things we did while we were there…Masopust and Motorest.

The closest equivalent to Masopust in America is Mardi Gras. “Masopust” literally means “meat before Lent,” and is a celebration right before the start of Lent. In the Czech Republic Masopust is an ancient Czech tradition with traditional characters. The tradition was completely obliterated twice—under the German occupation, and under Communism. It was a means towards nationalism under the Germans, and it was tied to religion under Communism…so it was banned. The festival itself has many traditional characters…I’ve shown a few below, but I will put up more pics soon. The bear is absolutely insane…he is a symbol of fertility, so he always has to be led by someone (fertility can’t run rampant), and pushes women into the snow.


The other great character was the chimney sweep. He brings good luck, and to do so he smears soot and ash all over people’s faces. The procession was lead by the 2 musicians, and we went to EVERY house in the village. Even if someone didn’t open the door, we played at least one song at each house.

The chimney sweep would also be towards the front, because he would smear the people’s faces with soot right away. There were many elderly people that were so excited to see us, and it is tradition for the owners of the houses we stopped at to provide food and drink to the paraders. The food of choice was doughnuts, and the drink of choice was shots of “spirits.” Apparently, much of the alcohol was homemade…with alcohol content up to 50-60%. So you can imagine the state of many people present. In fact, this old man kept trying to give me his cigarette and a shot at practically every house. The words “ne (no)” and “anglitsky (I only speak English)” didn’t ward him off. I was the designated walker that evening, but I will give a p.s.a. to everyone reading, to NEVER try Plum Vodka…it is absolutely disgusting!

At every house we would dance to a song and sing. They made us sing an American song…and all we could think of was “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” …so sorry about that one folks! Not quite the best depiction of American culture. They also made the Slovaks sing a folk song, and the 2 Germans kept singing a song “Babicka.” It is also a tradition to steal something from every house (mainly alcohol), and it would be put into a baby carriage. So people would run up to the baby carriage and rock it jokingly…since it was full of hard liquor. We literally were going from house-to-house for 8 hours. We started at 10 am and went until 6 pm. It was absolutely insane! People would stop cars going down the street to smear them in ash and sing them a song…we even stopped a mack truck!!!

And like all other events in the town, we ended up at Motorest for an after party. It basically entailed more dancing, singing, and alcohol.

I will definitely always remember this experience…and how welcoming everyone in the community was. I’m sure they’ve never had 5 Americans in their small town ever! And they made us a part of their lives within a few hours. It makes you think about the things that transcend language…one being shared experiences. I could have sat at a table with the exact same people, and it would have probably been the most uninteresting experience of my life—because we wouldn’t have been able to communicate. But we were all doing the same thing that day…bringing joy to people and singing and dancing. It also makes me realize how important the fine arts are in crossing the language barrier. Things like theatre and dance and music and visual art don’t have to be in a language to understand them…they communicate without words. So yea…I got all analytical towards the end of this…but it’s great stuff to know…especially those out there who don’t support the arts :D

And a final word about my time in Debolin…would be Motorest—YUM!!! We act practically every meal there (besides the time we hiked to the larger town for pizza which was 3 miles away…in like 5 feet of snow…without a trail…but it was a great bonding experience!). I definitely had my share of traditional Czech food though. Dumplings and cabbage and meat. But it was definitely YUM!

Red Hot Chili Peppers and Mask-making...first day in Debolin

So today has been absolutely insane!!! I keep having to remind myself that I am in a small town in southern Bohemia. I am in a group with Ivy, Lauren, Alex, and Miriam. We got here yesterday by the train…it took about 3.5 hours, and we had to change twice. We were really nervous about missing our train, because we weren’t totally sure about the transfers. It was really funny, because at one station we went in to ask what platform we needed to go to, and the women didn’t speak English, but she motioned to the speakers. So they played the train information in English just for us. But we got here fine!

We are staying at a ceramics studio in a small town called Debolin. The village has about 300 people in it. I’m still not quite sure how the studio was started, but it’s fairly new. It also doubles as a bed and breakfast type thing (penzion), and each room has its own special theme. They are all really beautiful. Last night after we got here, we met Romana who is the owner of the studio. She doesn’t speak a whole lot of English, so she invited 3 of her friends here that are from Slovakia. They are Philip, Barbara, and Barbara. They are all the same age as us, which is nice. So we went to dinner at the Motorest (…the only restaurant in town), and had some traditional Czech cuisine. I had gulash, which was great! :D And of course, dumplings.

Today we had a bounteous breakfast, and then went on a walk of Debolin…which didn’t take very long. Apparently it used to be part of the Sudetanland, and there’s a street down the middle that split the town in two. One part was German, and the other side was Czech. After WWII, all of the Germans were expelled, and the village had kind of a rebirth. The Masopust festival was banned under Communism, so it didn’t really make a comeback until after the Revolution in 1989. It will be interesting to see how much this studio has affected the comeback of such a traditional Czech celebration. It will also be interesting to see how the village people view the studio. The people that started it aren’t from here, so I don’t know if they’re seen as outsiders, or if they’ve been accepted since they’ve been bringing back traditional Czech values.

After talking with Barbara, Barbara, and Philip, it’s definitely cool to get a different view on Masopust, and on Czech culture. They were angered by the way that Slovakia is depicted in Eurotrip and in Hostel (neither of which I’ve seen)…as a backwards nation that still hasn’t come out from the Communist era…and that hasn’t come into the 20th century. And the misconception that it’s still a part of the Czech Republic (i.e. Czechoslovakia). I’m sure it’s extremely frustrating to have people disregard your nationhood and your culture…way to go America for doing such a great job at that. All 3 of them are extremely intelligent…majoring in Marketing and Management and Communications. They also know like 5 different languages (…which is also pretty much everyone here…and makes me feel extremely ignorant).

Today was definitely sweet though. After our walk, we came back to the studio and took a tour of the whole building. The stuff they make here is amazing! Apparently Romana, the owner, can make 200 ceramic mugs in 8 hours!!! The normal rate is like 50 per 8 hours. Crazy! But we molded clay masks for our characters for the parade tomorrow. I’m going to be a bird. We then went to lunch at the Motorest again…and had dumplings and beef with whipped cream and cranberry sauce. After that, we picked out our costumes all afternoon. It was like playing dress-up…only with the most crazy and colorful clothes I’ve ever seen. I actually sewed ribbons on my shirt to look like feathers (…both my roomies would be proud…Janelle for my sewing abilities; and Mo for my ceramics endeavors). We literally were trying on costumes all afternoon. We then started doing paper mache type stuff to do sort of casting on the clay mold. Tomorrow we will paint the masks. Again, we ate dinner at the Motorest (…I had brambory…which is “pushed” potatoes with chives…it was amazing!). We came back and finished our masks…and I kept having to remind myself that I was in a ceramics studio, with 3 Slovaks, 2 Czechs, and 4 Americans, listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers, making masks, for an ancient traditional Czech celebration….crazy, I know!

I’m excited for the parade tomorrow. We will go to every house in the village and sing Czech songs and dance, etc. And then they give us "spirits. " Apparently people will start at 8 a.m…we won’t even be up by then! :D

Social faux pas number 1...

So it was bound to happen sooner or later...the awkwardness of mispronouncing something in Czech, and it meaning something totally different than what was intended.

Tonight at dinner I asked if anyone would like more kosh (I thought I was saying "tea" which is spelled c-a-j). Well...I completely forgot that the actual spelling of tea is čaj (the c is pronounced like "ch" and the "j" is actually our "y" sound, like at the end of sky; so to say it correctly, you basically pronounce it like "chai"). Turns out I was saying "koš"...which means a waste basket or garbage can.

So you can imagine the looks on my family's faces when I asked them if they would like more trashcans with their dinner.

Hilarious! :D

...encounter of the first kind

So...last night I had my first experience with traditional Czech cuisine. I know some of you already heard something about it....but it was just so great, that I have to recap it again.

So...last night we had cabbage soup (...which was more like sauerkraut) with mashed potatoes and bacon in the middle of it. It actually wasn't too bad, besides leaving me with the impression that I would be farting for the rest of my life. It wouldn't have been too bad...except that we had to sit throught a theatre performance right afterwards...so definitely one of the most painful experiences of my life. And I now understand why I haven't eaten that much traditional Czech food at my house...because my sisters and brother don't like it either.

The play we saw last night was definitely one of the most random plays I've ever seen in my entire life. I wouldn't call it absurdist, but it definitely had no meaning...but it wasn't existential either. It was just a combination of the most random things I've ever seen. I guess it was more like performance art...because it wasn't really dance theatre either. No one spoke any text the entire time. There was some dancing, and some music, and the cast was only 3 people. The first part was an actor playing with a bunch of toys. The second part was full of music (piano/bass/accordian) and some dancing. Yea...really really random. But it was good. It wasn't weird...just random.

And this week I'll be headed to southern Bohemia with 4 other girls. We're doing a regional homestay in a village called Debolin. It's one of the villages that's still visibly recovering from Communism. We're working with an arts center that was established there recently. It's a ceramics studio, and we'll be helping with the Masopust festivals--basically, the closest comparison to the festival is mardi gras. It's a pre-Lent celebration. But we're making masks, and then we'll be in the parade as well. So I'm really excited to be a part of the festival (...which is only celebrated in village life, not in Prague), and to see how the arts center has created sustainable growth in this community. So yea...you can get excited about my week as well!!!! :D

Let me know how you all are doing! I'd love to hear from you!!! :D