Praha, Pivo, Prosim

In the Czech Republic the first of May is a big holiday. Schools and offices are closed and everyone gets to enjoy a day off. Also, it’s a day when Czechs are quite amorous and expressive of their love and libidos. You see, the first day of May is also kind of the Czech version of our Valentine’s Day. According to tradition, you must kiss your lover under a blossoming cherry tree on May first and you will be granted love/luck/prosperity. Frankly, I’m not quite sure if all three of those are true but you get my point. So, a bunch of us headed up the Ujezd funicular to the Petrin where there is a nice park and plenty of cherry trees.

Petrin has a big observation tower that looks quite like the Eiffel Tower. As a whole though, the locale in its entirety is called Petrin Hill (as Prague is a city of hills) so there are great views of the city from there. I cannot confirm this as yesterday was my first trek to Petrin and my ass wasn’t about to hoof it up the tower. I’ll certainly do it another time but I had already walked enough this week and I just wasn’t in the mood to wait in line and get all sweaty when my priorities were elsewhere. Where else could my priorities have been? Ah well, one of the political parties here sponsored some kind of even at Petrin and thusly sold beer and klobasa (I supppose it’s like a Kielbasa–just a big damn sausage that is served with thick sliced Czech bread and spicy mustard). There were also miscellaneous treats for kids (cookies, marzipan confections, etc.) as well as a few of those stupid bouncy-type rooms where kids can toss their lunch onto a plastic vibrating surface. But, going back to the beer and klobasa thing…this was by far the cheapest beer I’ve experienced in this country. The sausage and beer were only 10Kc each. Yeah, EACH. That’s about fifty cents. They WANT you to drink it. It’s an offense to the beer Gods if you do not do so.

So, going back to the Czech day of love and romance and all things sex. I actually really like the idea of kissing your lover under a tree and somehow it guaranteeing continued love and happiness. However, the skeptic in me realizes that’s just a silly tradition but at least it gives people a way to make out as much as possible. That said, Czechs are very open with affection. Much more so than anyone would ever be in the US. Sure, there’s the occasional kiss and hand holding but nothing to the degree that I’ve seen here. There are more than enough make-out sessions on the metros and trams. But they don’t stop on public transport, these folks will be kissy and grabby in most places. Similarly, this openness to sex and love is part of the Czech culture; this behavior is not unique to May first. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, this is a rather sexually liberated country and they have little issue with sexuality, discussions of sex, prostitution, or pornography. So, knowing this, I was fully expecting a flat-out park sex incident yesterday at Petrin. Color me disappointed when all we saw was a bit of spooning and a guy engaged in some kind of yoga/stretchy thing. In fact, the afternoon was low-key which was quite the opposite of what I was expecting. I suppose I was likening it to the ‘if you can shoot up on the sidewalk and not get arrested’ scenario, then why can’t you copulate with your burly hairy backed man lover in the park?

I uploaded some random videos I’ve snapped with my cheap point & shoot over the past few months. Enjoy. Note: they are out of sequence and I didn’t bother to edit them or make them more interesting via iMovie.

On a final note, today is Derby Day and I’m missing it. Something tells me though that my friends back in Kentucky will be having great time!

It’s been 10ish days since the last blog and while I don’t have anything really exciting to report I can say that I landed a 3rd job. Although none of these jobs have started yet (yawn!), at least I’ll be working soon (Monday!!!) and will begin generating an income. While not working is great, it’s just a bit boring as I have no television and funds are limited. Boo on both fronts.

MEDIA Not having a television sucks. It does. I’m a tv girl. I miss my shows. I’d even take a CSI: Miami marathon right now and David Caruso is the biggest douchebag on American television. Damn. My time away is making me crave the Horatio. WTF? When discussing my tv woes with one of my flatmates (the one that actually speaks), she told me she found a movie website. Great, awesome, sweet! Ok, of course there are about a bajillion movie websites with free streaming feeds. The problem is that most of these feeds link to Megavideo. Megavideo is fine if you don’t mind watching something for 72 minutes or less. Apparently, the higher ups at Megavideo decided 72 minutes is the magical cut-off. At that time, you can either pony up some cash and get a ‘real’ account or you can ‘wait’ 54 minutes and continue watching. Problem with waiting is that well, it’s WAITING and the stream doesn’t keep your ‘place’ so you have to wait MORE through any buffering issues. Boring. Yawn. I don’t like that option. I’m sure there’s some techie issue that could get me around this problem but I don’t know what that is so….. anyway, since finding this ‘new’ site, I’ve been a movie whore for the last 4 days. My tally is up to 10 or so and that’s just sad. That said, here’s a few movie recommendations: Dead Snow (see below), Hamlet 2, Pineapple Express, Let the Right One In, Step Brothers, Winged Creatures, 3:10 to Yuma…..

ZOMBIES I was at Marks & Spencer yesterday at Palladium and the cashier guy looked like a real-live zombie. Yes, zombie. This dude was tall & lanky, super pale with sunken and reddened eyes and goofy ears that grew away from his head. Zombie was the first thing in my head when I saw poor Jaromir. He could be a perfectly nice man; this is something I will never know. But, perhaps since I’m fresh off the Norwegian horror flick ‘Dead Snow’ (with Nazi zombies–yes, really and it was fucking awesome), I think he looks more like a zombie than an average person who doesn’t watch such cinema.

DRUGS While I was walking away from Skrivanek (one of my employers) the other day, I saw a guy examining the crack rock he had just purchased. Apparently the drug laws (or enforcement of said laws) are quite lax here so thus the crack inspection. Good times. At least he’s monitoring his purchase before he fires up. I still haven’t seen the kids shooting up in the park behind the National Museum. Sad but true. I want to have an HBO Undercover experience.

MEAT I found some Czech-style bologna the other day. Bologna is fucking delicious. Sorry vegetarians, it is. Eat it. Now. My general Czech vocabulary hasn’t improved any so I’m still kind of shopping for things at random. When I was in the deli meat section, I decided I wanted a sandwich. My American friends know good and well that I heart my sandwiches. It’s true. I cannot deny this love. Bread + meat + cheese = Awesomeness! Anyway, this bologna is delicious. It’s flecked with fat which, in my book, makes a damn fine meal. Nobody ever really wants to admit it but fat is what makes meat taste so bloody good. It’s true. Look it up.

WHEN YA GOTTA GO, YA GOTTA GO A few weeks ago on the tram we passed along a gentleman in the street helping his son with a rather intimate activity. Clearly the kid had to take a leak and rather than go use a public facility, Daddy leaned over Junior and assisted in the peeing process. Into the street grate it went. Really. While walking to the Glossa office today, I noticed the second occurrence of said pee assistance. Different parent and different kid but yep, Momma had her hands on the cocktail weenie while the golden stream flowed down into the sewers of Prague. I really had to laugh as I was assuming the first instance was just some freak thing I’d never see again but I was proven wrong today. Now, my assumption is different. Perhaps during the hot summer months the streets will be filled with parents and peeing kids. There’s already enough dog shit on the sidewalks in this town, do I now have to dance and tippie-toe thus evading the kiddie urine?

EASTER BUNNY The annual Easter Festival is all over town for nearly a month. I don’t know exactly what this entails but there are food vendors set up in several spots around town selling miscellaneous meats and pastry items as well as the obligatory Czech beer. There also seem to be lots of painted eggs and children’s toys. Good times.

OBAMA IN THE HIZZY Obama is going to be here this weekend. I admit, this is a bit exciting and I should go. I want to go. But….. standing around in one spot all day does not appeal in any way.

Upon further inspection I’m happy to report that the security detail will not be permitting ammo or explosives. Phew. I was worried for a minute. Also, please note that ’structures’ are prohibited. I love the vagueness of structure prohibition. To clarify, exactly what qualifies as a ’structure?’ Is this something I’m affixing to the cobbled walk around the speaking platform or would say an inflatable yard pool fall under the descriptor of structure? I need additional support on this otherwise I’ll have to ditch my lesson plan for a newer and streamlined one.

BOOZE Wine. Let’s talk about this. Usually, I’m not a big wine person. Not that I don’t like it because I do and it can be great. However, I typically go the route of pivo and certainly now that I’m in a beer-consuming and producing culture. That said, I did make a few purchases at Albert last week. A good portion of the wine here is inexpensie. We’re talking less than 200Kc here (10USD) and that’s if you are springing for some ‘good stuff.’ My knowledge of European wine is for shit and the Eastern European varieties are completely lost on me. So, since I was in a wine kind of mood I bought a bottle of some stuff from Bulgaria. Yeah, Bulgaria. I didn’t know that made wine either. But hell, just about every place on earth produces or bottles their own wine so the Bulgarian factor really shouldn’t be so surprising. A big 49Kc is what I paid for that stuff. Go ahead & get your currency converter. I’ll wait. Like I said…it’s um, ‘inexpensive.’ Cut to two nights later and I was back at Albert. I’m not lying when I say I found something cheaper. Yes, cheaper than 49Kc. Behold the special selection for Albert (note the store logo on the back label!)–sold for the low, low price of 39Kc. And yes, I DID drink it as is evident by the photo. At such a ridiculous price, how could I NOT consume it?

SAPA MARKET The SAPA market is in Prague 4. In my last blog I detailed my trip to the Vietnamese market in Prague 10. I have since been to the market in Praha 4. The SAPA market is huge. Fucking gigantic. We’re talking a small city here. For realz. Yet another adventure involving a metro and then a bus. Geographically, SAPA isn’t that far away but I was really channeling Bourdain on that visit. I’ve never been to Asia but holy crap, it felt like Vietnam.

The retail halls at SAPA are huge. Several buildings with criss-crossed aisles again selling tons of clothes, purses, toys, etc. There is also quite a bit more ethnic food variety at SAPA as there are several independent markets selling odd-looking items. Of the shops I visited, there was/is a rather interesting looking item behind the glass in the meat counter. It’s a big plastic bowl of various (raw) cuts of meats and organs with raw egg yolks swimming around in the multi-colored flesh. I was curious to know what the stuff is but seeing as I how I cannot communicate in Czech or Vietnamese, I didn’t bother asking. Anyone?

One of the restaurants had a guy blow-torching some kind of meat on the sidewalk. Dude was blow torching like it was a lab experiment. The whole effect looked cool & random & gritty but he didn’t want me to take a picture of him so you’ll just have to use your imagination on that one. I’m going back later; I want blow-torched food.

MANNEQUINS The random mannequin parts are all over SAPA. Unfortunately, my website provider isn’t allowing me to upload the pic of mannequin heads in a metal bin. Damn. Boo on technology. Maybe next post. 

PHOTOSHOP Here’s a bit of before & after. Original was taken in the rain on a shitty March morning.

Since I am located next to a more traditionally ‘normal’ grocery, I thought I’d blog a bit about the food supplies in CR.

Aside from the weird meat products in this country, I’ll say that Czechs love yogurt. I mean really fucking love yogurt. The dairy section at Albert is insane. By my sub-standard measurements, I’d say the yogurt aisle is approx 20+ feet long. No shit. The prices are really reasonable (I just bought some individual containers for 5.90Kc) and come in a variety of flavors. Catering to the Czech national palate of loving all things sweet, there is also a plethora of chocolate and coconut flavored yogurts on the market, too. They are delicious. The Euro yogurts are made with glorious full-fat dairy products and it’s quite evident in the taste. I’ll say they have done well in this area.

The produce department…. This is something that is lacking in comparison to American grocery counterparts. The selection is limited and it’s strange to see many items not refrigerated. Generally speaking, the array of products here is less than in the U.S. which is to be expected but also the supplies of many products are usually around the 50% mark. In other words, the shelves are not always stocked. *An additional note on refrigeration… Ok, here the milk here comes in cartons. No, not like the American cartons. These are more like boxes. Anyway, some milk is kept chilled and some others are not. They just sit in a big pile waiting to be purchased. I can’t figure out the difference in this area. I’m thinking maybe the chilled stuff is ‘real’ whereas the room temperature stuff is some kind of powdered milk variety that never goes bad.

The meat/fish department….. Apparently turkey is non-existent here as Frank can attest that in his time here, he has never seen a turkey in any form, anywhere, ever. Pork is the big seller here and there seems to be a limitless supply of various cuts available. Chicken is also big and it’s no problem to find. Beef isn’t as plentiful but certainly present. The fish… fresh cuts of fish are expensive. I don’t recall what a fresh piece of tuna runs but it’s up there. There is an abundance of fake crab (which I love) as well as fake lobster that I suppose is commonplace as this is a landlocked country so it’s an appropriate substitution.

Random grocery stuff….. if you buy brand name laundry detergent, it’s super expensive. I can’t figure that one out. Also, here’s something that is going to freak me out soon unless I can find the proper measures…. applicator tampons. Where are they? Rosie informed me that they are difficult to procure. Boo. I guess Czech women prefer the maxi variety and to my trained Tampax brain, that is wrong wrong wrong. I just simply cannot do that. I’m not 13 and this ain’t my first rodeo.I was craving some American-style food the other day so I whipped up a nice little breakfast. Fried potatoes and onions with tomatoes, scrambled eggs, Euro bacon and some toast with cream cheese. Outside of Bohemia Bagel, I haven’t seen a bagel for purchase so I had to wing it with the bread. All in all, it was good and although the stove takes a while to heat up, it worked just fine. My kitchen appliances are thousands of miles away and I miss them. Did I mention this flat doesn’t even have a microwave? While mine in the U.S. was complete shit, at least it was an option. Gotta go old school at this new crib.

I snapped some good pics this week from one of the Charles Bridge Towers (and a few other places) this week but I need to run them through Photoshop to reduce the size and do minor tweaking. Oh, and that’s another minor glitch here in Europe…. I only have one adapter. I have far too many electrical things to work simultaneously. So, my Photoshop is on an external drive but since that requires use of the adapter, I can’t keep this machine at full juice while running PS off the external drive. It just makes things more complicated. Yes, I could buy more adapters but apparently they run around 25 USD here. Sucks. I know I’ll break down and get more eventually.

First, here are a few images of some supplies I purchased at Lidl’s last week.

And note that although I only bought a few things, the total was 60-ish Kc. The beer was on sale for 5.90Kc. Yeah, that’s basically free.Well, it sat in the fridge long enough. I cracked open the infamous HAM ROLL.

You will be shocked to read that the mystery ham product was actually NOT that bad. It did have a slightly vinegary taste which my palate is not used to. I don’t know if that was part of the aspic or just a flavor component of the white cheese/non-cheese filling. I do not know and it’s hard to determine. But, I can confirm (as can you from the photos) that the layer of clear stuff was frightening. I prefer not to scrape, peel back, or scoop anything away from my food. The ham & questionable filling were encased in the stuff and although I’m fairly certain it’s entirely edible, I did not want to ingest a fork or spoon full of gelatinous clear stuff that looked like it came from a bone marrow transplant. Just the mere act of removing the strange and slightly wiggly top layer of ‘food’ is a strange set of motions. All in all, although the overall taste wasn’t gag-inducing, I probably won’t be buying another one of these. For a small fee though, I will gladly ship some back to my American friends! Overall? The ham roll just not something you crave after a long day of work. Give me a bag of Fritos and a nice beverage instead; you can keep your aspic encased meat burrito.

I’ll let the visuals do the talking on this one. Clicky for bigger as usual.

I wasn’t lying when I said it was gross and confusing. What’s the deal with aspic, anyway?

Yes, we have our priorities in order. And here in lovely Prague, the beer pictured is .5L bottles rather than pathetic & weak 12 ounce varieties! Ahhh! Blessed pivo! I drink at your fountain!

I’m on the 4th (but U.S. version 5th floor) of an apartment building. This view is going east. Feel free to Google map Biscupcova 3, Praha 3. Anyway, I opened up the big window one morning and leaned out bit to snap this. It’s a good example of this part of town.And, in case you need some clarification on the funky meat thing, here’s a video.

Well, it’s week two and the TEFL Gods have wasted no time throwing us to the wolves! Ok, that’s being dramatic; the TGs aren’t wolves, they are perfectly normal adults who just speak very little English. Shit.

We did a brief bit of classroom instruction (to real students–no, not children either) last week and then prepared a full lesson plan for today’s class. Now we’re in the thick of things and pretty much doing new lesson plans everyday. Today’s plan was a lexis (look it up, it will be ironic), and tomorrow’s plan is a listening exercise/lesson. Although the content isn’t terribly confusing, it’s devising efficient and well-structured lessons that the students ‘get.’ Of course the easy thing would be to just write down words and definitions on the board and ask if the class understands. The problem with that is people will usually say that they DO understand even when they do not. Also, admitting you don’t understand something is a confidence crusher as well as a bit embarrassing. That said, we are required to continually CCQ (concept check question) the material without blatantly saying a definition of a word. Synonyms were my friend today. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to instruct some abstract idea. Shit. Oh well, hopefully that will be for advanced students. The level I’m at this week is pre-intermediate (just above beginner) and it’s rather difficult to ‘dumb down’ your way of speaking and also noting what kind of verbal structure you are using. Eh…. All in all though, today’s lesson went well and I was told so and that makes me feel pretty pleased. Our actual ‘observation’ period has been next to nothing so cranking out lesson plans that ‘work’ has been a challenge. I supposed unless I drop my pants and take a shit on a Czech-English dictionary, it will probably be alright.

On the food front since I know some of you are interested…..

Food update… I have seen some very interesting meat-like items in the refrigerated case of the local grocery. I’ll get to that in a minute….

Again, I picked up a couple things to eat. (Keeping with my theme of getting a few unknown and known items, by the way.) I bought a small plastic container of what I thought was tuna salad. Not even owning a Czech-English dictionary, I can only go on pictures; also, the fact that I know about 10 Czech words doesn’t help in any shopping experience. So, since this container was clear, I examined the contents and the photo on the packaging and deduced that it was probably a rather innocuous tuna salad. Harmless, right?So, I’m back at the flat after class today wanting something to eat…Ah-ha! The tuna! I peeled the top back and it still totally looked like tuna salad. Ok, that’s good. Phew. Problem averted. Hungry stomach satiated.Ok, let’s try this thing…. with fork in hand, I freely took a bite and well, it wasn’t tuna. It was never tuna. Even if I close my eyes and click my heels three times, this shit is never going to be tuna. It’s basically a mayonnaise-y fish puree that is kept chilled probably to discourage any funky Euro bacteria invasion. Damn, I really need to get a friggin’ translating dictionary.

Ok, back to the other weird stuff I saw in the refrigerated case. In the same area as the non-tuna, there are several containers of various meats in various states of um…..suspension? (In the near future–I’ll buy one just to see how ‘interesting’ it is. Yes, of course–photos!) One (I don’t know what it’s called) of these items looks to be sliced deli meat (pork or chicken? The jury is out on that). Oh no, it’s not plain and boring deli meat. This thing is sliced meat wrapped around what could possibly be cream cheese? I am guessing on this. It’s white and looks rather thick. I’m a cream cheese girl but this uh….no thanks. Maybe this was the same stuff on my random sandwich from last week? Perhaps–just making associations here. So, we have the meat wrapped around white stuff and it’s encased in a clear gelatinous matter. I refuse to call it liquid as it is not. I think this particulate is the fourth state of matter also known as plasma. So, the meat rolls are sitting at the bottom of a clear solidified goo. The presentation is questionable at best and I also don’t understand the function of the solidified clear stuff. Is it for preservation? Is it just damn delicious? I believe it is used for the purpose of the former rather than truly being the latter. No way. Impossible. When I picked up a container of this stuff and turned it over, nothing inside moved. At all. Didn’t even budge. Maybe if I experimented with various temperatures the contents would shift and I could use the gelatinous hellspawn as some kind of household glue? It certainly appears to possess the properties of a commercial adhesive or maybe even a solvent.

INFOMERIAL!!!! Got paint on your favorite blouse? Need to clean up the boat for the Missus this weekend? Fuck Sham-Wow–this is the new shizz!! Why go ahead and bust out your pork cheese rolls and keep the clear stuff for miscellaneous chemical stains removal! Buy Mom a tube today!

I’m happy to report no further bad food episodes today.

The Becherovka? Quite digestible and quite good, actually. It does have a kind of herbal taste but not medicinal like Jagermeister. It certainly has a cinnamon quality which probably makes the beverage more female-friendly. All in all, I will be having more!

The mystery can seen in the photo from the last post…. As I had hoped, it was essentially pork and beans. Cut up hot dogs and beans = good.

Our class is doing a bit of a pub crawl tonight around Old Town with former students so this should make for an interesting evening. We are meeting first at a recent graduates flat for a bit of pre-drinking so I’ll bring the Becherovka. Hooray! I’ll also be bringing along my camera to CAPTURE MEMORIES, DAMMIT!

Stay tuned!

Per Jayne’s request, I photographed everything I purchased at the store tonight….. She wanted to see some ‘Euro Shit.’ Her request was actually for me to photo incredibly gross bathrooms, etc. but since I have yet to experience one, I offered up my trip to the potraviny as an alternative.

I just ate the Sunka Classic for dinner (I don’t know how to use accent marks w/o rolling this over to a Czech keypad). The Sunka, as one can tell from the picture, is some kind of ham sandwich. It also had tomatoes and cucumbers. Pretty basic. There was an interesting spread/cheese kind of stuff on the bread. I’d say the consistency was similar to cream cheese and it was the same color but the taste was different. I have no idea what it was. I had to peel back the bread to look at it. A bit odd. Czech mayo? It might be time for the translator…

I bought a new funky soup tonight but I made SURE that the word JETRA was nowhere on the packaging. That was the horrible liver part of the dog juice from a few days ago. Ok, I retract the word soup– this doesn’t really look like soup–kind of looks like a pork and beans kind of gig, eh? Thus far though, the dog food has been the only ‘bad’ thing I’ve eaten. Again, I have to express my utter displeasure at said foodstuff. NEVER AGAIN!

The spaghetti and sauce here is pretty self-explanatory. I went for familiar on that one.

Going back to the Czech love of sweets, I also have a hazelnut flavored pastry roll thing. But this is in German so it doesn’t really count. But it does look tasty. Jesus, I’m eating too many sweets in this town. Damn. Perhaps I should be tracking the exponential growth of my ass.

Ahh, the Becherovka….the Czech national beverage–well, aside from beer. It’s some kind of herbal alcohol that from what I have heard, everyone drinks. I will keep all posted on the this….. Na Zdravi! (Cheers! or ‘to your health) 

Clicky for bigger!! 

And here’s a little video I took out of the bedroom window of what appears to be a drunk schizophrenic man. If only you could have heard him singing before I got out the camera! Again, sorry on the smallness of the video…I’m workin’ in it, man!

 drunkyczech

My apologies about the smallness of the above video–it’s something I’m going to work on for future uploads. I had one hell of a time resizing it to something that wouldn’t take 4 days to upload. I’m a newbie at posting video this way. 

 Sorry, I don’t have any interesting food items to report eating today. Well, ok I retract that statement. But nothing in the realm of the horrible pork liver/hot dog food soup….

There is a bakery practically at the front door of the building so I went this down this morning. Since I still know squat as far as communicating in Czech, all I can do is point to what I want and say please (PROSIM). The pastry I purchased looked similar to some kind of Boston Creme or domestic US donut. It was small, fried, round, and topped with chocolate. The fried and chocolate covered parts are good enough for me. Alas, this was not really a ‘donut’ as a) it didn’t have a hole nor b) did it have some kind of custard or creamy filling. The chocolate top however, was delicious but it was rather unlike a chocolate topped donut that we are used to in the states. This chocolate was more ‘real’ and less from a ‘jar’ tasting. When the pastry was made, it was clearly dipped in melted chocolate and then the chocolate set. When I ate it, the chocolate crumbled off into bits. Oh and I forgot–the lovely woman at the bakery also sprinkled coconut on top, too. Hooray! I paid 10Kc for this. About a fifty cents. Nice!

Obervation–Czechs really love their chocolates and candies. Stores seem to have rather large displays of sweets–especially considering the size of the stores. To give an idea, I’d say a regular potraviny is about the same size as a gas station mini mart.

Oh, and yesterday at a Tesco Express, I bought a Milka brand chocolate bar. It was strawberry yogurt flavored. Not necessarily being one who goes through hoops for strawberries (I like them just fine), I thought I’d try it out. The actual chocolate bar part was rather standard but it had a kind of filling (not runny) that was the strawberry yogurt. It was actually quite good.

Tonight, I did just go to a (of many) corner POTRAVINY to buy some cheap local beer. I paid 43.90Kc for two so feel free to run that through any currency converter. Good deal. Shopping tip: lots of times you need to bring your own bags to the potraviny as many shops will charge for the bags.

Today, we got a mini Czech lesson–the typical introduction type stuff–Hello-My name is…–What is your name… etc. It’s hard to wrap your mind around alternate sounds for letters that essentially look the same as what you see in your native tongue. There are some accent marks that just make funny sounds and other ‘normal’ looking letters sound completely different. It’s gonna be a doozy!

Tomorrow, we do our first official (partial) lesson to ‘real’ students. Granted, these students pretty much get free lessons but nonetheless I just have to give out a big AHHH! I’ve even gone so far as to script what I’ll do for the short period I’m up there. Shit.

WARNING: non-sequiturs and a bit of stream of consciousness writing below

10a So, I was up at 5a today. Boo.It’s 10a now and I am sitting in the Detroit Metro airport. I can’t get a wireless connection here so I’m typing this in TextEdit. I’d rather use a pretty word processing application but I don’t even think this machine came with any of that software loaded. WTF?

If any of you have been through this airport (Jayne!), it’s actually much nicer than it was 10+ years ago. I am sitting in front of the funky water fountain in the the main terminal and the Northwest overhead tram is parked and picking some peeps up. Since I’m here so GD early before my trans-Atlantic flight, the flight info is not yet displayed on the departures screens throughout the airport. Sure, I could ask what gate to go to but it’s super early and it would be stupid to be sitting there with my thumb up my ass all damn day. While I’m usually quite good at said maneuver, I’d rather not inflict such pain on small children that happen to be passing by. Besides, it’s a ritual that I have a beer in an airport. Granted, it will probably cost me $25 but whatever. I am unemployed and homeless; what else am I supposed to do?

And by the way, there are birds in here. Yes, birds. I guess they like hanging out by the water and the trees. There is some irony of getting shit on in Detroit.

Oh, and as expected I had to pay a fee for having one of my checked bags be over the weight limit set by NW. I was only 12 pounds over–does anyone want to hazard a guess at how much that cost? Ninety farking dollars. Yeah! I was assuming it would be more fifty-ish but my assumption was quickly proven wrong at the ticket counter. WAH!

According to the NW inflight mag, I’ll get treated to a Kiera Knightley movie on the flight later. Hoo-fucking-ray. She was alright in ‘Bend It Like Beckham,’ but what’s the deal with her doing all these Jane Austen-y type Brit flicks? Ok yeah, I get it; you’re English already. Next.

Some douchebag is pacing behind me talking on the phone about Costa Rica & Hong Kong. He’s going on about how CR doesn’t observe Daylight Saving. Fascinating conversation, man.

1123a Jesus, it’s only been 90 minutes. I have since relocated to another spot but nonetheless time is going by slowly. For those curious, I ate a delicious McMuffin purchased from the Golden Arches. As industrial as their products seem to be, they are tasty. One cannot deny this. I’m curious to know how different the Czech brand McD’s will be. Shitty? I hope not. The fries were made by the hands of Little Baby Jesus. This much I know to be true.

Sucks I can’t hop on freebie wireless here. I can pay $8 and get service for the day but that’s kind of ridiculous. A day without Facebook is going to be a difficult one but I think I can cope. I have other methods of self-entertainment. In fact, I just made a really stupid video on iMovie.

 The flight to Amsterdam isn’t even boarding until 3pm. God. Three and a half hours more of sitting. My ass will be sore. A full day’s worth of sitting ain’t good for my delicate keister. At least it’s almost noon so I can start drinking. Too bad I had to pack all the little bottles of liquor my sister gave me. Otherwise, I’d toss one down my gullet. That’s how i roll.More typey after Miller time.

115p Two Sam Adams Winter Lagers later….Two beers including tip? Twenty bucks.

I finally found my gate info but I’m 2 gates down because everyone else had the same idea about plugging in and charging up their products. I gotta have the juice, man

422p Up, Up and Away.. my beautiful balloon…In the air from Detroit, flight time 7 hr 15 min to Amsterdam.There is a screaming/crying baby a few rows back. Now would be a good time for those noise reducing headphones.

Ok, the woman in the seat directly in front of me just put her seat all the way back thus forcing my tray and laptop into my fat lard middle. Fun. I think she’s a stupid European, anyway.

For anyone interested the distance between DTW and AMS is 3900 miles.More later. I want food now.

645pMan, these people are really quite efficient with the beverage and meal service. It was all complete within an hour and the cabin lights were quickly dimmed. As everyone knows airplanes are not the most comfortable places certainly when one is considering the option of sleep. Although the seat next to me is vacant and this row is all mine, the constraints of comfort (or lack thereof) are something I am contending with. My attempt at sleep was nil so I’m updating the blog entry.

According to the inflight information provided on the handy little personal viewing screens, we are somewhere over NE Canada–around Newfoundland, I think. It’s certainly remote as I see no lights for any cities below. Damn. Canada must be a cold and boring place tonight. But, I’ve heard Toronto is a cool ethnically diverse city. Wouldn’t mind visiting there sometime. Of course, Vancouver would be cool too. If I hadn’t been doing this move, I was considering my next solo trip for the summer of ‘09… fly into Portland, hang out for a bit, rent a car and drive up the NW coast through to Seattle and then on to Vancouver. Instead, I’m having an awesome European adventure which frankly, will probably be better than a 5 day domestic trip.

915p Ok, again my attempts at sleeping on this thing are futile. Normally, I am neither a light sleeper nor one who has difficulty falling asleep. I’m far from an insomniac so what gives? I attribute this to the uncomfortableness of trying to sleep while sitting up. Grrr.

Someone just sprayed perfume. Ok lady, this is an enclosed metal tube that we’re all stuck in for 8+ hours. Try keeping your whore juice to a minimum when in close proximity to others for extended periods.

Geography update–checking the digitized flight map, I’m now somewhere over the Atlantic between Iceland & Ireland.

Distance traveled: 2950 milesOutside temp: -48FMPH: 585Altitude: 40,421ft

Perfume lady is at it again. Somebody reeks of vodka. Yes!I

t’s going to be difficult to get used to a 24-hour clock. And this metric thing and temperature conversions are going to constantly weigh on me.

Friday 349p (Prague time) Screaming baby returned. With a vengeance. Seriously, that kid was out of control and not really even ‘crying.’ Bad parenting.

My flight arrived in Amsterdam earlier than expected and when going through customs & security I got a thorough frisking. No seriously, we’re talking thorough. When I went through security in Knoxville, I took off my belt & shoes per US screenings. I removed the belt in Amsterdam but somehow I set the damn detector off. When I was pulled to the side I got probably a full 60 second frisking/groping. I say groping because the inspector seriously had some hands in the pants action as well as serious cuppage of boobs. It was a bit of a disconcerting experience.

Schipol International Airport has some of the best looking employees. This includes the woman who felt me up. To me, it looked like she should have been selling fragrances behind a counter rather than patting down shifty-eyed travelers. All the airport cops were young, hot and toting guns. Of course the gun thing isn’t something I’m accustomed to seeing.

I hopped in a tram that took me far away from the main terminal to my KLM flight bound for Prague. I arrived at 850a and quickly got my gigantic fucking bags and headed out to wait for my pick-up.We drove right through Prague and over the river and I could see from a distance the big castle on the hill.

Hooray!I finally arrived at Biscupcova 3, Praha 3 around 10ish this morning. Oh and the street addresses come after the street name. Google baby, Google. This particular area of town is the ‘Brooklyn’ of Prague.

Since I hadn’t exchanged my US currency at the airport, I knew that was a priority. I changed some money at the bank with a teller who I didn’t exchange courtesies because I don’t speak Czech! With today’s exchange rate, I have 4,183 Crowns. Translated 192USD.

I also went to the corner market-sorry, I don’t know the Czech word just yet. This store is literally about 30 feet from the door of the building and they have various beverages (incl. beer & soda) as well as fruits & dried goods. I wouldn’t necessarily say the contents of the store are like a typical convenient store in the US but the concept is similar. Again, I had no verbal exchange with the woman at the register. I bought a big carbonated water -orange flavored if you are curious as well as a Czech beverage which I had read about. Kofola looks like a regular Coke or Pepsi. Although I try to stay away from caffeine, I decided to get something to help me stay awake and adjust my internal clock. Although this stuff looks like a regular ‘pop,’ it tastes vaguely of Jagermeister. It is rather herbal & medicinal tasting. It’s not horrible, it’s just different.

715pSo, my roommate (a temporary one as she is going to her own flat tomorrow) is a woman who has already been through this program and is now working here in Prague. Nice! She’s given me the heads up about some things so I appreciate that. Strange though is that we have much in common in the ways of where we have both lived. Before she came here she was living in Louisville; she’s also lived in upstate NY but by far the strangest is the Ohio connection. I mentioned that I had also lived in Cleveland. As it turns out we both lived in Chagrin Falls and actually attended the same high school. Mind you, this is a high school of less than 400 enrollment. And, we both left CF after our sophomore years. Her parents still live there and actually they live in a condo between my old church and the high school!

I went back to the little mini-mart a few moments ago to get some more stuff. See photo below. Come on, you knew the beer was coming soon! I’m having some of this tea right now and it’s actually quite good. While I prefer caff-free stuff, I can’t read the packaging so oh well. If I get all amped up, I’ll know I bought the wrong stuff. The ‘Chipsletten’ are some kind of Euro Pringle that are super salty. Me likey. And yes, it’s all about the carbs tonight. Good times, good times.

The little bottles of booze my sister gifted me have also been unwrapped from the rolled-up Martha Stewart ninja style packing and I am proud to say, none of my shit broke. My work was proven effective after all!

Sorry that I have nothing more interesting to report but I’m going to Tesco tomorrow so stay tuned!

Clicky for bigger.

Sorry this entry wasn’t very interesting but once I get out on foot more, I’ll have more fun details & photos to post.

Oh and the random pic of a building is just some residential building a few blocks away. I don’t know what it’s called but I thought I’d throw it in there.