Praha, Pivo, Prosim

First off I suppose the above is grammatically incorrect. ‘hospoda’ is Czech for pub but since the Czech language doesn’t use articles, my insertion of THE might make it just that much more retarded.

But anyway….

I’m not usually a ‘club’ kind of person. I’m all for a good drink and socializing but clubs are usually super crowded which invariably means that one ends up standing in an uncomfortable position for a long stretch of time. Additionally, I like to actually be able to speak to whomever I am with at the time and speak at a normal volume. Screaming in the ear of your friend that you have to go to the WC is just stupid. And then of course there’s the waiting in line for a drink part. This part sucks. If the club is a good one (e.g. busy), the bar will probably be 4 or 5 people deep so therein begins the seemingly endless cycle of bar, drink, bathroom, yell, dance, bar, drink, bathroom, yell, etc. For variety I suppose you could throw in an occasional drink spill or insult shouted from a stranger but the aforementioned is the general form.

Last night I went to The Cross Club. The Cross Club is in a bit of a more ‘industrial’ part of town. I don’t think it’s super desirable to live there but alas, it’s a popular place so I finally broke my cherry and and went with a posse of English teachers. (The place gets bonus points for being one tram away from my flat. Public transportation is great here but sometimes you just don’t want to wait for a transfer. Direct routes = happy)

Here’s how I’ll describe The Cross Club….. I assume that the proprietors of the club bought an old run down warehouse or building and decided to make it into a club. Then, they went to the nearest junkyard and bought all the parts to car engines they could find. On their way out of the junkyard they realized they could use a couple hundred old motherboards so they bought those too. Adding to the pile of crap, mix in a lot of pipes, rebar, moving parts and miscellaneous lights. And that’s just the decor of the downstairs bar. The music played was a random Euro metal mix. It could have been in Czech, Latvian or even Bulgarian–I have no idea. But strangely enough (or perhaps not), it actually ‘goes’ with the look of the bar. There is also a dance area and outdoor seating as well as an upstairs which has a completely different vibe. The upstairs is more chill and decorated in a completely different way. It’s much lighter in two ways–aesthetically and in tone/feeling. The music is different and it’s not densely packed like the junkyard/torture museum/art installation below.

I can happily report that a ,5L dark Kozel or Gambrinus is 28Kc. With the exchange rate presently around 18Kc/1USD, that’s a good price for a drink in a club.

The club’s webpage can’t be rolled over to English but if you check the ‘galerie’ in the toolbar on the left, you can see what the place looks like. Tell me if you think my description is accurate. I would have taken pictures myself but the display on my Nikon is busted. Boo. (The camera still works but I can’t change any of the settings nor can I have the joy of instant gratification. Boo. And this came about 2 weeks on the heels of me washing my mobile while it was still in my pants.)

New Schedule

I have a new work schedule starting this week and it’s going to be interesting. I need to put on my best teacher shoes and really manage my time this semester. God, I need more supplies too. The number of photocopies scattered around my room is embarrassing. I’m so NOT good for the environment. However, I’ll still and try to blog with regularity and I’ll post random stupid pictures of my Euro adventures.

Holla!

12:34 56s 7/8/9A bottle of Becherovka, shots & a one second party under the horse’s ass of the King Wenceslas statue at Vaclavske Namesti. Check. Done.

More Becherovka. This time add Wii, shake & stir. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. James Lipton & Lou Gossett Jr. play baseball.

Workshops, Visas, & Zivnostensky lists OH MY! *Note: it was ’suggested’ that I present some kind of timeline for getting a work permit/zivno/visa. I tried to explain that’s nearly impossible due to the government bureaucracy but alas, they think I’m an idiot and just making this more complicated. They’ll realize soon enough that it’s a nebulous process and there is no speedy and painless route. You’re welcome in advance before you even realize it. Just be thankful you didn’t have to deal with R.J. on this one. It’s neither easy nor cheap. Remember I told you this.

Rain rain go away, why won’t you bring summer weather with you to this fine city?

1) Awake at 7:30am on a Sunday morning. 2) Laundry done by 9. 3) Hang laundry out window to dry. 4) Grocery shopping by 9:30. 5) Wait, WTF to #3?

I like public holidays although I don’t get paid. Good or bad. I can’t decide. Both?

Chili cookoff round 2. I’m the only competitor. I win & so does my stomach. Close race. Ahh. All mine!

I broke my quasi-good headphones last week. I stepped on them. The cheap replacement is such an inferior piece of shit. I miss the old ones.

FOOD and FOOD

I enjoy cooking. No mistake about this; I blog about it often. Anyway, I’m a ‘cook what you have’ kind of person. What do I mean by that? Well firstly, I do follow recipes. However, I don’t follow recipes all the time. I think the idea of a recipe is to have a base. If you know how to make some basic things, you can riff off the tenets of what to do and ingredients and various quantities. If you cook for yourself, you know what you like. So, if you think something will ‘go’ together in a dish, fuck it, throw it in. In other words, if it’s in the kitchen, for God’s sake use it! You aren’t a restaurant critic, you can always toss it and start anew.

1) Budget shopping. As much as it sucks, it must be done. I’m on a shoestring budget here and I’ve learned what to buy and what is cheap. Certain staples are key. Potatoes and onions are always on the cheap. Loaves of bread are usually a good deal. Eggs are fairly inexpensive too.

2) Unless you are boring and just love bland and flavorless food, you need to buy some herbs/seasonings. Fresh herbs are a bit harder to find here but there’s a fair amount of individually portioned/bagged dried herbs & seasonings readily available. They’re a good deal, too. Well-flavored food can make an otherwise lifeless meal a bit more interesting.

3) Fresh fruits & vegetables… the selection isn’t what it is in the U.S. but generally speaking, carrots, cabbage and occasionally tomatoes are on the less expensive side.

I love breakfast food. Always have. This will not change. Lately, I’ve been making larger ‘American style’ breakfasts on the weekends.

Why did I just mention all this stuff? So I can share with you my most recent morning treats! Keeping in mind the points I just covered, here’s what I made last week:roasted potatoes & onions with misc. herbs, omelette with ham, cheese & tomatoes, and some nice hearty thick-sliced Czech bread.Vitamins!

Today’s meal: toast, roasted potatoes & red pepper with thyme, oregano, basil, paprika, salt/pepper, olive oil, three cheese omelette (Hermelin, bleu cheese cream cheese & Moravian cheese–similar to Parm), a nice sliced fresh tomato…. sprinkle more fresh cheese atop and voila! I wouldn’t normally use those kinds of cheese in an omelette but it follows my ‘use what you have’ mentality. Cheese, eggs, potatoes, bread & butter are some of my favorite things!

Some random images from iPhoto!

a) Fine wine of the week. A well-spent 49Kc at Albert. b) I spilled Ranch on the floor. In a land where it’s unavailable, this pretty much went down as the following–Oh shit! Man down! c)Let’s call this the slicer of death. I was at a party at a colleague’s flat in Zizkov a few nights ago and this rusty old Eastern Bloc instrument of torture is about 3 feet from the front door and in plain view of anyone in the kitchen. I inquired about said death tool. It looks like an antiquated meat slicer; you know the kind that the guys in the deli would use. No, this is a bread slicer. Or so I was told. According to my colleague (flatmate of the proprietor of said device), this was affixed to the counter in this spot so when slicing bread, the crumbs will just fall into the sink. Our query, ‘Who the fuck slices bread like this?’ Buy a knife, dude.

And the workshops are under way…

Add bullet point #3 to my curriculum vitae. In addition to doing ‘regular’ classes for Glossa & Skrivanek, I also do some workshops with TEFL classes at The Language House. I’m fairly new at this and so far my lessons have not been structured as proper TEFL lessons. But, in my defense, I’m not teaching a foreign language to these people. I’m talking to native speakers. The goal isn’t to teach 8-10 new words and incorporate them into an activity. There is though a set list of information that I’m required to dissect and if I planned out the material as a traditional TEFL lesson, the lesson would be far longer than it needs to be. If I attempted to elicit all the necessary points, we’d be in a classroom for hours. And when there’s beer to be had, this process impedes on the consumption of said potent potable.

I gave nearly a 3 hour ‘tour’ to the new class on Monday. It really shouldn’t be called a ‘tour’ because that’s not really what it is. Yes, they follow me around and I remark about appropriate things such as banking, post offices, markets, and perhaps a bit of history. But as I’m not an official tour guide nor do I have a brain full of historical data regarding this city, the ‘tours’ aren’t really that informative. I suppose the tour is just a quick way to let new students see a bit more of the famous landmarks here in Prague and I’m happy to be the one to do that. However, being the nerd I am I still scripted out some points to cover during said tour and even carried notes. Yes, really.

The new TEFL class seems like a cool bunch. Is that a premature statement? I hate to say it but they’re probably cooler than my class. Of course, I still have my peeps from my class but the age range in our unit was more varied and, well, we also had Ian.

Let me tell you about Ian. Ian is a guy originally from Rhodesia (and he made frequent reference to himself being Rhodesian) but had been living in the UK for years. Ian also claimed to be 43 years old. I use word claimed as well, if you saw him you’d doubt said figure, too. To be kind he appeared to have lived a rough life and I know he enjoyed the bottle quite a bit. In addition to his questionable age, Ian also had 7 children. Yes, that’s certainly higher than the average bloke but if you saw this chap, you’d perhaps be surprised at the amount of sex that is required to manufacture said quantity of offspring. Oy vey. It was rumored also that Ian, in large part, came to Prague so that his ex-wives could not locate him and thus force him to pay for child support. Oh yes, what an upstanding fellow. Additionally, Ian also claimed (again, claimed) that he had a Russian doctor as a fiance. Upon hearing this I was convinced that she was a mail-order bride as no self-respecting female of the medical community would shack up with (and desire sex from) an old and hardened drunken child abandoner. Supposedly this woman also supported him financially and sent him money with frequency.

I feel I should also mention that about half-way through our course one of his baby Momma supposedly attempted suicide. (I’m not trying to make light of a failed suicide attempt but this guy frankly is/was full of shit so I say all of this with speculation as what the real truth might be….) Although this woman was his ex, he was all torn up over the news and just stopped coming to our classes. By the way, attendance is mandatory; you are required not only to be present but also create and teach real lessons to real people every day. If you can’t do those things, you ain’t gonna get yo paper. So, in the middle of his depressed state he then basically locked himself in his shitty room above a local brothel (yes, true) and apparently just festered in his own Rhodesian filth while chain smoking and accumulating empty vodka bottles that became strewn about the room. I know, I’m providing quite a romantic image of this lovely man.

In the end, Ian officially dropped out of our class and continued to fester away in his rather expensive room for a few more weeks. But Ian wasn’t going to bow out completely just yet…..Ian re-enrolled in the next TEFL class (and again, paying more money). I saw him once in the building and I can report he appeared sobert. But, I was later informed that the mysterious Russian doctor was again financing him. At some point it was rumored that during his second course he & Dr. Svetlana Boginskaya (I hope someone will get that reference) got hitched and for a second time he dropped out of the course.I suppose now Ian is just a legend; the kind of person that TEFL classes will hear about in the hallways of The Language House. Perhaps he’ll gain the status of being ‘that guy’ and providing a beacon of disappointment and failure by which all future TEFLers shall avoid whilst passing in the night.

All this said though, Ian isn’t a jerk or an asshole. I feel obligated to say I liked the guy and he was always very nice to me. However, it was quite apparent to me and everyone else that due has/had some issues and is probably also guilty of stretching the truth a bit if not being a full-blown pathological liar.But anyway, back to the new TEFL class… in Language House ‘tradition’ it’s known that the most recent TEFL class takes out the new class. But, there were only 3 people in the June class and well, the proportion of new to old would be horrible skewed. Instead, Dita & I put out a bowling & pivo invite via Facebook. It was an evening of cheap beer which in my book is always a good thing. We were at some ‘nonstop’ (an English word that Czechs like to use) place in Vrsovice. The bowling was a mere 2 lanes. Yes, a big and fancy place! Aside from not having the requisite stinky bowling shoe rental, the lanes in this place are also much shorter than the standard. The pins are also on strings. Yes, strings. They are like marionette pins just bouncing about.

At this point I’ll also mention that all the marionette dolls here kind of creep me out. I don’t get it. Their creepy little painted faces and dancing limbs are just plain wrong. I don’t want a replica Pinocchio with tiny wooden feet clopping away on the floor of my flat. Ick. No thanks. Next.

 Random pic of the week…

My parents were here last week and since my Mom loves me, she fulfilled my requests of bringing over some Frank’s Red Hot and Kraft Mac & Cheese. I’ve expounded on my love of FRH before but since it’s 100% unavailable here and I love it so, I had to have it. Thanks to airline restrictions, Mom had to split up a bottle into the ‘appropriate-sized travel containers’ therefore I received 4 small squeeze bottles of Frank’s. I don’t need the bottle to know there’s crack inside. The mac & cheese… ok yes, this stuff is delicious. I can live without it but simply because it’s also 100% unavailable here, I had to have it. Lastly, Mom brought some powder packets of Hidden Valley Ranch. Ranch is the shit. No arguing. My sister would probably even argue that there is some unknown lifeforce contained within the Ranch. All that said, here’s my dinner of chicken with FRH, Ranch and a big GD pile of Kraft Mac & Cheese. I certainly didn’t make this meal for the purposes of photography or aesthetics. I just wanted some tasty vittles.

While M&D were here, we did a day trip to Karlovy Vary. KV is a spa town in W. Bohemia. It’s quite a picturesque little town with lots of cute shops and the like. KV is also the home of Becherovka. Becherovka is pretty much the Czech national spirit. It’s described as an herbal liquor made of 30+ herbs. When I first heard this I equated Becherovka with Jagermeister which is fucking nasty. Jag is herbal so I was making a natural assumption. I was wrong. While Jag tastes like the medicine you Mom made you choke down as a kid, Becherovka tastes like Christmas. At the Becherovka museum shop, they sell the regular stuff along with Lemond (readily available here) as well as a cordial variety and something called KV 14. I had never seen the latter two nor has a friend of mine who is from KV. The KV 14 isn’t as sweet or syrupy as the regular variety and the KV 14 is also made with 10% red wine. It’s certainly more ‘alcoholic’ tasting than the standard but I will confirm it’s pretty good. Recommended serving: very chilled either straight or with orange juice.

It’s been raining like a mother bitch lately. Gorgeous day today, though. What’s a girl to do on a sunny summer day in Prague?

Me and some new TEFL peeps. p.s. Happy Birthday America now go drink a PBR!