My last farewell

Holy crap! I’m leaving. It’s one of those things that you know is inevitable but you block it out of your mind for sanity’s sake... like going to the dentist.  But alas I must leave.  Tomorrow is May 16, 2011 and that is the day Cassie, Madison, Bryce, and David arrive in Praha. That is the day a new adventure starts. And that is the day I must begin to grasp the fact that I am leaving my beloved city for good (well at least for a while).  But the scary thing is that I can’t predict the future, especially because I am in that phase where I have absolutely nooooo idea what I want to do with my life or where will be in ten years, and therefore no idea if I will ever be able to be here again.  Will I ever go to the strudel man again, or  have a beer at U Sudu? Will I ever be in a situation where I can jump on a tram after school and go to the opera for $5 as my afternoon activity?  Will I ever see my Czech friends again? will i ever do homework at Cafe Pavlac or get choclate soup at Coco Cafe? Will I ever play card games a The Big Labowski's or drink cocktails at Bacowski's? WIll I ever go to another Zizkov carnival or walk the beer gardens of Petrin hill?  Will I ever eat goulash three times a week again and wander the Czech country side on my days off?  

It's not that I dread the future; it is more that I know I will never be able to repeat this stage in life.  On one hand that is a good thing because what is to come has the potential of being just as exciting but on the other hand it will always be different. 

So because of this realization I decided to live up my last weekend in Prague to an epic proportion. I started the weekend on Friday volunteering at a Czech preschool. I woke up a 6:30am to be at the school by 7:40am, walked in, took off my shoes and played with the cutest little toe heads you have ever seen in your life for a good three hours.  By the end they were calling me "maminka" (mom in Czech) and speaking to me as if i knew what they were saying while i nodded my head and continued to repeat 'good' and 'pretty'.  Then at one point the other English teacher came over to remind me that us Americans aren't allowed to speak in Czech for fear we will ruin the learning curve of the young ones.. haha. how humiliating.  I probably learned more about Czech culture from the kids in one day then a month here in Prague talking to adults.  you learn a lot about a society from the way the kids act because they merely watch and repeat what they see, which gives you great insight into what goes on behind doors in Czech houses. For example the girls run around crazy while the boys sit silently playing with their toys and obeying all the rules :). 

Later in the day I met up with one of my friends from Slovakia and started the process of 'the last hangout before I leave" which will no doubt last until Wednesday night and which regrettably only prolongs my agony...

The next day I went to Karlstien castle with a friend (Magda) who lives nearby and my two of my friends from kazakhstan.  Let me paint a little picture for you about this little village an hour outside of Prague.  You exit the train and there is nothing in sight expect miles and miles of green rolling hills and forests.  You walk across this bridge and round the corner and suddenly you find yourself at the bottom of a long, windy road, which leads to a fairy tale white and blue castle glistening in the sunlight at the top of the mountain (not exaggerating just to make you jealous... cuz my description is actually more of an understatement). We walked up the cobble stone street where all the little 18th century cottages have been turned into tourist/ souvenir shops and 'traditional Czech food' restaurants, but have remained picturesque nonetheless.  Once you walk up the path through the forest you finally ascend to the hunting Castle of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who picked the site because it reminded him of the French country side and was the only place he found peace and solace.  Lets just say I have been to a lot of Castles all around Europe and Karlstein is in my top 3.  After touring the intricate architecture and climbing the tower to see the most spectacular view of the village, we followed a path down the mountain to Magda's favorite secret place for lunch.  We had Kofola (Czech communist coca-cola) and Svickova (beef and dumplings with cranberry and whip-cream...very interesting flavor) in a restaurant that was tucked away in the side of the mountain.  It was a spectacular day.  That night I visited my friends from bible study and had a movie night pigging out on snacks and candy, which was also great. 

The next morning I got up really early to visit my friends from Pardubice (about 1:45 min outside of Prague). I have been meeting with my friend Darina for English conversations since February and actually became really good friends with her over the months. So I finally got to visit her and her boyfriend Marek, (who has also become a good friend) in their home town. After I arrived we drove into town, saw the town square, their local Castle and learned all their local legends. After a great lunch at their favorite place we drove about 30 minutes into the country side to a small village called "happy hill". Literally Czech style disneyland...expect real. This village is unique in that no one actually lives there anymore but has been preserved into an exhibit type space where all the houses are originals from the 17th, 18th century.  The houses are wood with stone floors and are scattered throughout the forest with a stream that circles the outside. The open fields and rolling hills go on for as long as the eye can see and all the shades of green overwhelm the senses.  It is amazing that just a couple miles outside the city is the beautiful nature of Eastern Europe and the breathtaking Czech countryside.  After our little adventure we head back into the city and get dessert, walk around, get coffee, and then say our final goodbyes. But never fear they are going to come visit me in LA! :) (or at least that is what i tell myself to make my goodbyes less devastating)

Anyway, I came back home and am now getting ready to pick up my friends from the airport tomorrow! 

So my last and final thoughts are: I LOVE PRAGUE! I have loved every minute of my time here (even the lonely, homesick moments because they simply added to the overall experience).  I Love Zizkov (my district in Prague)! And lastly I love Jesus because he has blessed me beyond belief and given me siblings who loved me enough to pay for my experience, parents who supported me during my time here, and friends and family who miss me and will be there when i come home. I didnt do anything to deserve this. I was born into privilege and was born into a world that allows me to travel, be mobile, experience, learn, observe, relax, and live freely.  I cannot ignore the fact that not everyone gets this experience, but that just means that I am in more of a position of service to those around me.  I have been given the world and now it my turn to serve and bless the world the same way it has blessed me.

So thank you for reading my blog and joining me on this journey. It was comforting to know that I was not alone and that I shared much of my life changing semester with the people I love most.

this is my final goodbye and me (for the last time) 
Czech'ing out

So who are these Czechs anyway..??..

After living here for 4 months I am hardly an expert on Czech culture or the spirit behind Czech people; but I have spent my time here listening, asking questions, observing, and soaking up any information people have to offer.  From the university professor I met in a jazz club once, to my Czech friends, 

to missionaries who have been living here since communism, to random conversations with Prague natives, to my official Czech culture class, and finally from all the Czech books I have read this semester, I have accumulated knowledge about his strange and enchanting city that has fully captivated my heart. So I decided to write it all down and make one final assessment and interpretation of what is really means to be Czech.

The first thing you have to understand is that Czechs are naturally reserved people. They have been used and abused and told what to think since the Holy Roman Empire in the middle ages.  Under the Hapsburgs they were servants and peasants in their own land while the Austrians reigned as nobles. But I already gave you a history lesson earlier in this blog, so all I will say is that Czechs are justifiably cautious of ‘the other’ or ‘the foreigner’.  The newer generation is not as overtly racists (unless you are talking about Russia, then the hate streams out of just about anybody), but it is primarily the older generation who just wants to be left alone. They want to be Czech; they want to discover what that means, and in a way tourism is a new form of invasion. Tourism is a new concept for the Czech lands and many people don’t know how to deal with it. So when you think you are being ignored when you walk down the street or purposefully ostracized unless introduced by a connection or mutual friend, then you are right. Why should you be trusted unless you prove yourself to be a friend first?  BUT once you are a friend then Czech’s are sweet, thoughtful people who would love to get a beer with you and talk about America and what it was like under communism. However, when you do find yourself in this honored position, something to remember is that Czechs don’t understand American pride.

They love their country and want to be left alone to enjoy it, but they don’t gush over it like we do.  The old buildings don’t mesmerize them as they do with us. They are cautious of the old and want to simply think about the Czech Republic in the future as new, modern, and progressive, which creates an ironic paradox considering Prague is considered by foreigners as a gem of the past, and outside powers (from HRE Charles IV to Hitler to modern day tourists) have desperately tried to preserve the city for themselves as a place to step back in time and experience history starring at them in the face. The problem with this is that Czech’s don’t want history starring at them in the face. They did history, they tried it, and it failed them.  Ask any Czech person and they hate the old looking, thick brick walls with red roofs. They want glass houses with modern architecture and a feeling of light and freedom.

This love/hate relationship with tourism gets complicated however because tourism fuels their economy (as one might assume) and foreigners are a necessary element in that process. But once communism fell in 1989 and the ecstasy of freedom and seduction of the west wore off and they realized that the democracy was just as screwed up as communism…just in a different way. Don’t get me wrong, the Czechs HATED communism (probably as much as the Hungarians) but there is this paradoxical nostalgia for those times, the simplicity of life, and most importantly the fight. The velvet revolution provided the poets, the musicians, the intellectuals, and the young and passionate students with a purpose and a noble cause to fight for. Prague spring and the velvet revolution (both anti-communist movements) cultivated more pride and more artistic culture than ever before in these lands and people miss having a common goal to unite under.  Their last heroes, their last celebrities were the Plastic People of the Universe, a dissident rock band form the 80s.  Since then there has been a lull, a lack of inspiration, and nothing to fight for. The corruption of the new democratic government is disheartening and a much more complicated giant to tackle. You can’t blame corruptions like you can blame a dictator.  For this people look back on those times and say, ‘maybe they weren’t so bad’ at least passion filled the streets back then.

So current day Czechs walk around, going about their lackluster lives of work and home, work and home suffering from an inability to fill the vacuum of what once was.  Vaclav Havel (the Czechs most famous dissident turned president) once explained that “They must pay for the attempt to seize nature, to leave not a remnant of it in human hands, to ridicule its mystery; they must pay for the attempt to abolish God and to play at being God.” In this way Prague is uncanny. There is a left over sprit that was once there, and will be again, but is currently blind and searching for its way back through the darkness.  You can almost feel the remains of an artistic fervor and political oomph leftover from its glory days and every once in a while you can catch a spark in the eye of a neighbor.  But suddenly a gust of wind sweeps through and the sent is gone.  Prague is uncanny because it is not dead but it is also not alive.  It is not ostentatious but it is also not silent. The streets are not completely strange but they are not familiar either. There is a missing piece that haunts the city.  Paraphrased from Havel, Prague is missing a horizon that will place the smoke in the distance and will ground them into the now. It will reignite the excitement of mystery and spark a need for sincere collective thoughtfulness. There is a future for Prague and it is slowly making its way back home; but in the meantime Prague must remain long suffering and wait for its redemption.

In plain words there is a lack of passion and lack of caring.  Beer consumption has increased ten fold over the last couple decades and it now ranks number one over Ireland for beer consumption per capita.  This is what they live for now, beer and finding a significant other… and PDA.

And while that all may seem a little harsh truly none of the words are my own. I have simply paraphrased what I have heard over and over and over again throughout the last couple months.  The Czechs are their own biggest critics.  They see what is wrong but no one knows how to change it. In all my conversations never once has anyone offered me a solution or movements to change public opinion. They simply state problems as fact and move on. 

But don’t get me wrong. I love this place.  I love how introspective Czech people are and how they regard their artists, musicians, and intellectuals as the highest and most respected.  I love how even their puppet shows are operas or political commentaries. I love how they still pride themselves in their communists ‘kola’ and how restaurant/ pubs fill every street corner. I love their language. I love that they eat fried cheese for dinner.  I love that the cardinal sin is to eat meat without ordering a beer alongside it.  I love that everyone reads on the tram. I love the cobble stone streets. I love the miraculously obedient Czech canine species.  And while I don’t love t that you have to pay for water I do love that you can sit in a pub for hours and never be bothered unless you ask for the check on your own time.  I am going to miss this place. I am going to miss meeting new people every day and sitting back and soaking up a new environment, a new culture, a new way of life. 

I will do a farewell post next week but for now I just want to say that I love these people and I love Prague and this semester will always hold a very special place in my heart. 

When you have your 21st Birthday in Europe

When the average American girl turns 21, the day is spent getting ready for the big night and the night is spent drinking shots that seem to be different because they are technically legal this time. But I guess it is no surprise that turning 21 in Europe is a little different. Americans try desperately to recreate the experience they think they should have had if they were still in the states only to find that no body really cares, leaving the day subconsciously disappointing.  See the problem is that you simply can’t compare the two and you certainly can’t force one situation upon another, which is why I didn’t even try.  Of course I went to a pub the night of my birthday and took Becherovka shots at midnight (which is a Czech specialty). But the real celebration happened the next day on Easter, April 24^th.  I thought to myself, what do Europeans do best… FOOD!  So my roommates and I spent the entire day cooking from scratch an Easter feast with Czech dumplings, two roast chickens, Czech potato pancakes, fruit salad, vegetable salad, two lamb cakes (a Czech Easter tradition), and sangria.  Technically it was a potluck but the only people who ended up bringing anything were my Eastern European friends who brought even more cake and other desert pastries. Basically we had more food than anyone of us knew what to do with. So we ate and ate and ate… a true Czech birthday.

But the best part is still to come. Following my birthday feast was a ten-day epic trip with my sister traveling across Eastern Europe. We went to Budapest, Slovenia, and Croatia spending about three days in each place and having the time of our lives.  Note: read at your own risk. It’s long and more for my records than for yours. But if you do decide to read, take a break, get some coffee and snuggle up. 

The first day was in Prague where I made Bryn eat some Czech street sausage, fried cheese, and goulash and of course ordered the infamous Pilsner and Becherovka.  I took her to the Lennon wall, my favorite peeing fountain, toured the lesser known but far more beautiful Vysehrad Castle, and showed her around the heart and soul of my Czech experience: Zizkov.  The day regretfully ended with me packing up my life and putting into a suitcase anything I didn’t want to travel with at the end of my program, which was far more stressful than I had anticipated. So while crossing my fingers we sat on the suitcase, pushed and pulled until it miraculously zipped up, and headed out the door to begin the most unplanned and unorganized trip I have ever attempted. The only requirement was to be in Zagreb by May 4^th and to have as much fun as possible. PERFECT.

BUDAPEST:

In a true Pyke fashion the first thing we did was take a free walking tour to get a mini history lesson before exploring for ourselves. We then pack our day full, with eating lunch at the central market, bathing in the Turkish baths, and touring the Labyrinth caves under the Hungarian Palace (which was actually legitimately spooky considering we were alone with nothing but an oil lamp making our way through a maze of underground passage ways miles beneath the bustling city of Budapest). After our little adventure underground we make our way back to the hostel with aching feet and exhausted bodies. But it’s Budapest right… the city of crazy nightlife? So with a little self-convincing we head out to this alternative bar in the famous Jewish quarter making friends with these really funny Polish guys. Without even realizing it we stay out until 3:30am and make our way home once more completely bewildered to how we even managed to stay out that late. The next day we walk the park, tour the house of terror (the actual site of both the Nazi headquarters and the communist’s secret police and torture center).  Doubting that my brain could take any more history we ambitiously head over to tour the Opera house ending with a mini concert. Straight away we rush to the parliament to tour that as well, but apparently we were just a tad bit too late (which don’t tell Bryn, but I was actually completely ok with) Three tours in one day is a bit much, even for a Pyke. We then find a cheap dinner restaurant in the tour guidebook, which doesn't end up being cheap at all and head back to the hostel to get ready for our second night out.  This time we meet this Jewish Hungarian student and his friends who take us to the secret spots around the Jewish quarter and we spend the entire night talking politics and learning about the issues with the Hungarian government. Like most post-communist democracies the name of the game is corruption and the major debates revolve around EU involvement. 

SLOVENIA: The next morning we take the early morning train to Zagreb and drop off my huge bag into a locker, simply hoping it will still be there when we come back a week later to pick it up. We spend the day touring Zagreb and stumble across the most amazing coffee shop street I have seen since being here. Literally the entire street is full of coffee shops that sell nothing but coffee and set out chairs and tables that go on as far as the eye can see, full of people with nothing to do in the middle of a Wednesday day but to chat with their friends and people watch.  Reluctantly we head back to make our night train to Ljubljana and arrive just in time to check into our disgustingly dirty but wonderfully cheap hostel and head out yet again to find another pub.  As we are walking Bryn hears noise up this random ally way, so naturally we follow the sounds and stumble across the local hangout spot. 

There we meet this French girl named Melanie and her fiancé and his friends who are celebrating her birthday. We hang out with them all night and almost commit to hopping into their car to head to Venice with them the next day.  The only problem was by the end of the night we knew there was no way any one of them would actually be in the physical state to do anything but sleep off an incredibly large hangover.

So we wake up early and make our way to Lake Bled (a local treasure and virtually undiscovered hub of paradise). This beautiful lake is surrounded by green mountains, a Castle on top of a hill, and this quaint little town with nothing really but cottages and pizzerias. The first hostel we walk into happens to be the cheapest and has total of a two guests: Sarah and Sophie (two sisters from England who we end up becoming really good friends with).  We tour the Castle because of the incredible view it offers, get free wine from the cute old monk working the winery, and then make our way down to walk the perimeter of the lake.  However just as we are about to hit the half way mark of the walk it starts to pour rain (which is crazy considering the beautiful blue skies we enjoyed earlier in the day). So Bryn, Sarah, Sophie and I run into a pub to take shelter and have a blast exchanging stories and talking about Sophie’s job working with the criminally insane and the horror stories attached to such a profession. When it stops raining we finish the walk and eat some seriously amazing pizza at the one restaurant near our hostel.

The next morning we wake up at 5am to make it back to Ljubljana in time for the excursion we signed up for. Normally I am a skeptic with excursions, but this was a different story… one word. Unbelievable.

The excursion takes us first to one of the largest underground cave networks, second only to South America I believe. Here is my one sentence attempt to describe was it was like because any more than that would almost begin to devalue the experience. So here I go. It is what I imagine C.S Lewis’s ‘man in the silver chair’ would have lived in with mist, cold darkness, vast and impressive halls of limestone and rock as if you could almost taste the enchantment but still convince yourself that the sun is just a small price to pay in exchange for such a place. Seeing the light at the end of tunnel was more disappointing than joyous for it meant that the spell would be broken and reality would have to kick back in. But thankfully God is a good God because all his creation is equally as captivating; and as you walk out the cave you enter a valley of green and trees surrounded by sheer cliffs and a waterfall.  After spending three months traveling from city to city it was a much-needed change of scenery.  So we finish our hike and get back in the car just in time to miss the rain and head to the city of Piran.  With a quick stop off to visit the stud farm of the famous Venetian white horses, we continue on to the coast of Slovenia where a peninsula was cut off by stone walls in the middle ages and a city of shoulder width streets and red roofs grew upward, capping at 5,000 inhabitants in a space that could easily be the size of a PV mansion.

We have a seafood dinner on the coast in honor of Bob Pyke with Croatia on our left and Italy on our right under the bathing sun.  We then walk around some more, get gelato, and head back into the car as I complain that three hours was definitely not long enough.  Our last stop was like stepping into a fairy tale as we head past miles and miles of green luscious hills, country cottages, and rivers to finally round the corner and see a massive castle tucked away into the face of a mountain.

Apparently the castle was home to Erasmus who killed a Hapsburg prince and fled to the mountains, building his fortress in a cave where not only could no one find him, but any one who did had no way of getting in.  So Erasmus became a local Robin Hood who stole from the rich and kept to himself. Finally the Emperors army found him and decided to starve him out, not realizing that the cave had hidden passageways that lead to a valley on the opposite side of the mountain where he smuggled in food and taunted the bewildered men by throwing fresh food at them.  Today the castle remains the sight of mid evil festivals, jousting, and costume parties for local Slovenians and Italian tourists.  O what it would have been like to go to one of those festivals- to sit and watch a joust and say “hello…it’s called lance” ahh I would have died from happiness.

Well that basically concludes our Slovenian experience. It is a country of mesmerizing beauty- although Bryn accuses me of being over dramatic, which is probably accurate; I still feel that this is one of the most beautiful countries in Europe.  But I may be proven wrong since I still haven’t been to Salzburg or Switzerland, so we’ll see.  Anyway, the last little bit of the Slovenian trip is of little importance except to say that when trying to make the only train to Pula in the Istrian peninsula of Croatia the next morning, we missed it by literally 30 seconds. After absorbing the shock of seeing the train slowly roll off without us on it, we recoup and decide what to do next. After convincing ourselves that the day is going to be a day of massive travel no matter what way we look at it, we decide to cut our losses and take the 8am train to Split and complete our epic travels with the beautiful coast of Dubrovnik.

CROATIA:

Wow here we go. This was a whirlwind. We make it to Split by mid afternoon and tour around the city, visiting the Dalmatian Palace, watching the sun set over the bay, going to dinner in this cute little diner in old town, and getting free drinks from these Ukrainian men who insisted on escorting us all the way back to the buses. We make the 1:30am bus to Dubrovnik and arrive at around 5 in the morning. So the one weird thing about Croatia is there are no hostels but rather sobes (aka rooms in random people’s houses). As soon as we step off the bus random men and women swarm us asking if we want to come with them to their house. Ahhh creepy. So we get this one woman to do half the price of anyone else and get in her car and go to this run down little Croatian house about 20 minutes from old town. But when we finally make it to old town all is forgiven because the city is truly the pearl of the Adriatic. The city was actually a separate republic for most of its history, having the resources to pay off any invaders and has the idea of ‘libertas’ (liberty) built into its very existence.  It was actually one of the first countries to accept the American rebellion as valid – little fun fact. So what is so special about the city? Good question. I spent the entire time trying to figure out what it was about it that took your breath away. Basically I came to the conclusion that the fact that every building has stone walls and red roofs and looks as if it is falling apart with little renovation despite retiling the roofs damaged by the Balkan wars, was reason enough. But that wasn’t all.  The massive stonewalls surrounding the city are completely in tact making you feel small, trapped, and intimidated while walking around the inside. But then you look up and see the beautiful blue skies, the green mountains starting to incline at the foot of the far wall, and you see the blue/green waters splashing up against the edge of the city and you’re a goner… completely in love. We did all the ‘tourist’ things within the first half of the first day (well we did start at 5 am.. but still). So we spent the rest of the time just soaking up the scenery, walking around, sitting on the rocks with waves splashing beneath, and of course eating good food and gelato. We even got to go wine tasting with a special Croatian wine and olive oil (if you want the specific names your gonna have to ask Bryn.) This section isn’t going to be long because not a lot happened in terms of tourism.  But it was great to just sit and really let the incredible views sink in and enjoy relaxing on the coast of Croatia. Later that night we got in this interesting conversation with the Croatian bar tender at the Irish pub in old town who gave us his first hand account of the Balkan wars and his view of the Serbian conflict. An incredible opportunity to learn from someone who lived through it…

The last day was simply a travel day (literally…) We went from Dubrovnik to Split, barely made our connection from Split to Zagreb (at one point we thought we were gonna have to rent a car to make it to Zagreb, which would have been an experience in of itself) but made the connection and arrived in Zagreb giving Bryn at 30 min window to get my bag and get her off to the airport. I then took a train to Budapest and then back to Prague arriving at 4 in the morning Thursday May 6^th… holy crap that was a long travel time. never ever ever again will I do that. Hahha

Well that is about it. Sorry this took so long but any less and I would have regretted not writing it down. My final thoughts are basically that I am the luckiest girl in the world! To see what we saw, to travel around with my big sis (who is probably the best travel partner because of her truly superhuman patience), to meet the people we met, and to experience a culture completely separate from our own, I am without words for how thankful I am. I thank the lord we remained safe and got to do all we wanted without any huge upsets.  I also want to thank Triage for financing the trip with their flight vouchers and Bryn’s United credit card that got her over here. What a blessing!

It was truly the most epic 21^st birthday and I will challenge any person who claims they had a better one .. haha jk. (But really, mine was the best.)

LOVE YOU BRYN! Thanks for traveling with me and making this birthday one I will never forget. 

When you have your 21st Birthday in Europe

Story time: part 3

Athens

I had to put off my Athens story because it was A) daunting B) going to talk a lot of time and C) so epic I wanted to make sure I was in the right mind set to do it justice.

Those of you who know me know that I love Greek philosophy and have gone through some serious Greek Mythology phases in my life as well, so going to Athens was up there on my bucket list. Fortunately it did not disappoint.  Well, to be completely honest the city itself is nothing spectacular; in fact it is dirty, plain, and boring. (It’s actually quite shocking because the ancient Greeks were known for their glorious architecture and magnificent temples. They perfected the combination of art, beauty, and knowledge to create a civilization of superior culture.  And you look at modern Greece and you kinda have to wonder ‘what happened’? How can they settle for such plain buildings and dirty streets in light of such a history?) But, then again, beauty doesn’t always have to reside in stone or marble; in the context of modern Greece I would have to say it now resides in their beautiful traditions and family like interactions. The Greek way of life is so fun, so inviting, and so unifying that it doesn't surprise me they hold so fast to such customs.  Greeks don’t cat call like Italians or invite you in off the streets like in Sicily, but once you are indoors as a cultural insider a whole new world is opened up to you that isn’t obtainable from sight seeing or wondering the streets.  What made Athens better than the rest was ironically not the Parthenon or Temple of Zeus, although they were breath taking and life changing experiences within themselves, but what made Athens truly memorable were the people. 

But before I get into my epic story let me set the scene and give you a little background.  The first day we left our janky little hostel early in the morning, partly because we wanted to get a head start on the day and partly because it was so sketchy we didn’t want to be there anymore J … So anyway, we arrive at the acropolis around 10am and head straight for the ruins. Students of the European Union get in free to all the major attractions so we bypassed all the lines and saw Hadrian’s library, the ancient agora, the Roman agora, the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena and Poseidon, the theater of Dionysius, and the ancient road surrounding the acropolis all in one day.  While sitting on a couple thousand year old rock and staring at the birth place of democracy, I started to imagine history’s most inspirational philosophers and brilliant thinkers of all time walking the very ground I stood on.  It was a profound experience and made me proud to be a human.  But at the same time while looking at these massive columns still standing from 500 B.C I happened to notice the trees behind them; and I thought to myself that while we are so impressed by what humans accomplished we sometimes forget to be that awe struck by what God accomplished. That tree stands firmer, with more beauty and more grace than any human creation in history. No matter how hard we try we only borrow from what God has already created and any attempt to replicate will forever be doomed to second best.  

After sight seeing we wondered around the local flea markets and had one of the best Greek meals of our entire vacation for dinner that night. Pretty epic day.  But because we got so much done the first day we were kind of at a loss of what to do next. So naturally I drag both my roommates to the middle of nowhere Athens to see Plato’s academy where he taught his famous protégées and presumably wrote his legendary works of literature.  As excited as I was I have to say it was a failure because the academy, or what’s left of the academy, is a pile of rocks buried under dirt and grass in the middle of an abandoned park.  But like the bible says, God works all things together for good, because as we are walking back Mallory gets bird poop in her hair and so we run into a small, corner restaurant to try to wash it out.  In the restaurant are a couple old men sitting at the bar, the women bar tenders around 30-40 years old, and three men sitting at a table drinking beer. At one point one of the men pokes his head in to see if we needed in help – apparently we were making a lot of commotion for being in a bathroom – but once they find out it is because Mallory was pooped on they just say “MONEY” and invite us to have beers with them.   The waitresses brings out these little shot glasses and fill them with beer and we look at each other, smile, and dive right in.  Soon after they bring out these meat dishes, olives, and beats that they literally force-feed us with telling us it is traditional Greek and we must try.

Let me fast forward a couple of hours to when we find ourselves dancing on the counters with Greek music playing saying OPPA! And VIVA ASPBERBADO!  (which means drink till the end) and holding hands with everyone in the restaurant dancing in a circle the traditional Greek way, literally straight out of a movie. Let me also clarify that it is about 6pm by this point and we have already been there since 4pm.  Anyway, then some of the street vendors come in with flowers and the old men buy countless bouquets and are ripping off the petals and throwing them at us.  We are literally getting showered with flowers and handed flowers, more food, and more drinks constantly.  At one point a woman even brought out this champagne bottle and a man grabs it and throws it on the floor and shouts OOPA!  Basically it was nuts. They party harder and for longer than I have ever seen.  The man who owned the restaurant came up to me at one point told me that it was nothing and if I wanted to see a real party to come back at 10pm.  Finally the two guys we were with ask if we want to go get coffee.  So we hop on the back of their motorcycles to go to his friends coffee shop and stop along the way to his cousins Gyros stand and get gyros and then go get coffee (also let me clarify that we didn’t spend a single cent this entire night).  At one point they explained to us that they never get foreigners that far out of the main city center and were just so excited to show us their life and share their neighborhood with us. Seriously, throughout the night we had countless men and women come up to us saying that if we ever felt uncomfortable to just let them know and they would take us home and that they just wanted to make sure we were ok and not feeling pressured. It was the sweetest and most reassuring thing ever. 

Continuing on: after coffee we then hop back on the motorcycles and Vespas and go to one of the guys house to meet his dad and they offer us some authentic Greek stress beads as gifts and of course give us more alcohol. Later on in the night we go back to the restaurant and literally start it all over again. This time the entire neighborhood and extended family found out they were partying with Americans and everyone showed up to join the fun. There was more dancing and OOPAing and more flowers and more traditional Greek shots.

Long story short we spend 10 hours with these people and had the most authentic Greek experience I think I could have ever asked for.  It was a privilege to join them and be invited into their life.  They were generous, fun, crazy, accepting, and accommodating. Needless to say I am a big fan of Greek people.

(O and did I mention that they truly are all named Nick, Nickos, Nicole, etc. Nickos had like three cousins that were also named Nickos… it was great!)

So that is basically my Athens story. I decided to cut everything else short so I could explain this one night in detail but the entire time was amazing and one of the best experiences of Europe so far!

Story time: Part 2 Rome

When trying to book the cheapest flight it was obvious that the 8-hour layover in Rome on the way to Athens was the best way to go. So we thought, ‘hey lets make a day out of it’ and switched to the next flight to make it a 20-hour lay over and vowed to just sleep in the airport to save money. So we get in at 10am and make it to the Coliseum by noon because my wonderful friend Rick Steves told me some local secrets.  Ambitiously we packed in the coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Palatine hill, Michelangelo’s Moses (in St Peters in Chains), The Vatican City, St Peter’s Church, the Pantheon, and Rick Steve’s night tour throughout the famous squares, all in one day.  The only regret I have is that with so much to do we had such a strict time schedule that if one thing went wrong our whole day was behind… and that definitely happened. Let’s just say that during lunch we heard thunder  – but I looked up and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I had a tank top on, so I didn’t think much of it. But while I was staring at Michelangelo’s Moses, in total bliss, Mallory came bursting in to tell me it was pouring rain outside. And this was not Southern California pouring rain; this was Costa Rica and the Amazon pouring rain. We went back and forth and with whether wait it our or take our chances running through it, and finally decided to just book it to the metro station. So we started sprinting through the streets of Rome - in my little cotton sweater and tank top - and reached the metro station completely wet. Naturally we were a spectacle because once we reached our destination and climbed back out of the metro it was bright and sunny again meaning if we had simply waited 5 minutes like everyone else we could have spared ourselves some humiliation (but at the same time I wouldn’t have been as good of a story).  It also wouldn’t have been a big deal but our fiasco caused us to arrive at the Vatican Museum 11 minutes after the Sistine chapel was closed to tourists... I still cant talk about it I am so mad. I guess it just means I am going to need to go back.

So instead we head over to St Peter’s and spend three hours in the Church to make up for not seeing the Vatican Museum. We even attend 5:00pm mass, which was in Italian in the most famous church in the world – an experience I wont easily forget.

Finally late that night we head back to the airport by 11:00pm so as to pick up our stored luggage before the room closed.  We then find some newspapers on the ground and snuggle up next to the homeless men for the night.  Hahaha… you think im kidding. Definitely not. We had no other option but to curl up on the hard, freezing marble floors, using jackets as blankets and luggage as pillows. But I did discover something very positive about myself: apparently I can sleep any where because I slept the whole night, waking up a couple times to change positions, when Mallory and Megan literally slept a total of 10 minutes and just walked around and twiddled their thumbs for 6 hours.  Evidently sleeping in the airport wasn’t the best idea in the whole world.

But we survived and arrived in Athens around 9am the next morning.

The Athens portion of the story will come later in the weekend since I am leaving for Kutan Hora tomorrow for sight seeing and hiking! But hang tight in suspense because Athens is the best part! 

Story Time: spring break in Europe

Story time:

Spring break 2011- Sicily, Rome, and Athens  - as they say in Greece “VIVA”

It would be way too ambitious of me to try to explain all three parts of my trip in one post plus the last couple paragraphs would probably never be seen. So ill spend three separate days trying to explain the past week of my life. 

Part 1: 4 days in Sicily   

We arrive in Palermo (the biggest city in Sicily) on Saturday night, walk through some ‘groups of friends’ to get to our hostel, enter in the most run down and destroyed building I have truly ever stayed in, and get shown to our room by this incredibly outgoing 40-year-old Sicilian man with a fake tan named Josepa. We put down our stuff and decide to go exploring. (bear with me it gets really good).. So Josepa recommends this restaurant owned by his friend Franko who will give us all we can drink and a three-course meal for 10 euro each.  We walk in and ask for Franko; as soon as they learn we are friends of Josepa we are instant celebrities. After eating grilled eggplant, these strange vegetable casseroles, fried zucchini, other strange foods I have never seen, and individual large pizzas, I can rightly claim to be truly and beautifully stuffed. But throughout the meal they also bring us wine, shots, champagne, and their Sicilian specialty dinner drink. Lets just say it was a fun night.  

The next day we do our site seeing. We walk around the fish and vegetable markets with the classic tent roofs and barter on the streets. Then we head into the antique markets that consist of mainly people’s old shoes and broken pieces of jewelry, which ironically goes on forever as if everyone in the entire city has this endless supply of useless stuff. Finally we make it out alive and head for the Catacombs.  Ok so the Sicilian Catacombs are famous for their preserved dead people. Literally there are just people hanging on the walls who have been there for hundreds of years, looking exactly the same.  Most were decaying by this point but some still had skin and hair.  I had nightmares. Just saying. There was even one girl who was added in the 1900s who looks like she is simply sleeping because her body is fully in tact.  Creeepppyyyy.

But alas our time in Palermo was short because we had planned to spend most of the trip in Taormina, a small resort town on the Sicilian coast a couple hours north. Mallory had booked a hotel on the water and claimed it was cheaper than a hostel in the city (we come to find our it was cheaper because she had booked the hotel for two while comparing prices of hostels for the right amount of three) but fortunately the people in the hotel had compassion on the three, dumb, American tourists and let us sleep three in a double room.

Taormina was gorgeous. What else can I say?  Rolling green hills on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, ancient Greek theaters overlooking all of Sicily with a view of the largest most active volcano in the world in the background, and of course blue water that rivals Paradise itself; pure bliss. Also did I mention that it was supposed to rain, but being from Southern California I naturally took credit for brining with me the perfectly blue, cloudless, sunny, flawless skies that we enjoyed during our three day stay. There are only two events that I really need to write down during our stay here and the rest I will leave up to your imagination J

The first night we decide to go classy.  We buy some wine, cheese, and Italian olives; steal some bread from the hotel; take a boat ride along the coast that we flittered our way down to about 7 Euro each, and came back and sat on the rocks eating and drinking with the waves splashing at our feet. Yes we are cheesy but I enjoyed ever second of it, especially after realizing I am now an olive fanatic (but only the unrivaled Italian or Greek olives).  The second night went a little differently. We spent the whole day sight seeing and walking around the town and were therefore thoroughly pooped. We didn’t make it back out of the hotel until late and by that time everything was closed. So as we are walking along we run into a café as two men are walking out, apparently about to lock up.  One of them starts talking to us and asks if we want to have some drinks with his friend and him. We shrug and say we have nothing better to do and he says he will come back in ten minutes to pick us up. (trust me we weighed the situation and decided he was harmless). But apparently a lot was lost in translation because we thought we were going out but he literally picked us up and took us around the corner back to the café where we had met and reopened the shop just for us. He and his friend open a bottle of wine and we sit and drink and chat with these two Sicilian men all night. It was great! 

The next day we wake up early and sit on the beach and read. Then around midday we take the bus back to Palermo since our flight left the next morning for Rome.

And Rome is a whooollleee different story. Ill get there later. I’m going to give both you and I a break and will continue later.

(O PS. Im currently writing this in a park by my apartment overlooking downtown Prague with gorgeous blue skies and green trees with blossoming flowers.. HELLLOO SPRING!) 

a temporary home

My cute little Astra Apartment in Zizkov is a bittersweet experience. On one hand I have never had a place of my own, which means this apartment is getting all the tender love and care originally saved up for my first house. But on the other hand it is one of the most disastrous places I have ever lived (which in hindsight means I have lived pretty well my whole life). 

Lets start with the bed.  For a pillow we have flat rectangles that barely dent when you sit on it and a comforter from the 60’s.  My dresser almost topples over every time I open a drawer, which means getting dressed in the morning is a balancing act.  There are also random little shrines to the Beatles and tributes to an unknown photographer whose only claim to fame must be that he or she is framed on the wall of an insignificant apartment in ghetto Prague.  I am not kidding, one of the pictures is a snapshot of a side of a house, but not a trendy artsy house, and I’m talking horrible framing, weird shadows, and piles of trash.  It’s great.

Now to the bathroom…the toilet and shower are separate, which I admit is bizarre, has actually turned out quite handy in a room of six girls.  The shower is a work out since the only way to get your head underneath the water is to bend back and clutch your abs. Also, the showerhead once fell inches away from my head as I turned off the water, leaving me paralyzed with fear that the faucet has a personal vendetta out to kill me.

The Washing Machine is capitalized because it is a live person and has a mind of its own.  There are strange markings all over it that have no pattern or hold any coherent thought. When you want to use it you simply turn a couple knobs in random directions, cross your fingers, and hope you hear the familiar sound of rushing water. The dishwasher is a similar story but had such a low success rate that we gave up all together and starting doing all our dishes by hand. The only problem is that anyone who has roommates knows that the number one cause of conflict in a house inevitably ends up being the dishes. 

But I have saved the best for last in my description of the refrigerator.  Sometimes our refrigerator is a good little appliance. But other times it stops being a refrigerator and starts being a microwave.  And when it’s over being a microwave it simply turns off and sits, mocking us oblivious humans who walk by unaware of the troubles about to unfold.  We first recognize the problem when a foul stench starts to leak into every room and the name game commences.  Then finally someone opens the fridge and sees mold growing on our three day old cheese or meats. We then reset the fridge, take out the suddenly overflowing trash, and start grocery shopping again.  It’s amazing how fast the food goes bad over here.

But on the bright side my apartment is filled with neon colors since every room is painted in bright blue, red, or yellow.  How can you hate something that is neon yellow when you wake up in the morning?

So that’s my apartment for you. Hope you got a sense of where I spend my days, especially when it is really cold outside. Slash I made a deal with the refrigerator that if it kept my soup safe over spring break I would dedicate a segment of my blog to it. Just holding up my end of the deal….

Some things never change

Those of you who know me know that about once every couple of months I get violently ill because I refuse to listen to my body and relax.  Well living in a foreign country is no different I guess.  I’ve been sick for a while but nothing really too serious: a headache, a cough, and a stuffy nose.  But today turned out to be drastically different than I planned. I go to church in the morning feeling fine, well relatively speaking.  I come home for an hour or too and my friend Kristen and I decide to go back out to check this other church we have been hearing about.  But I as get ready my body suddenly turns into ice and my headache starts flaring up again.  So naturally my response is to put on more layers and pop in a couple more Advil.  I make it down to the tram and meet Kristen at the metro.  But now I’m a little worried because it feels as if a war is about to commence, both sides are recruiting forces and setting up camp.  Well Prague metro stations have these really intense vertical escalators that are intimidating to even the most clear-headed passenger.  So of course as soon as I step foot on the downward decent into the eternal abyss of the metro station some stupid artilleryman from the enemy side lets loose the first arrow and it sticks me right in the gut.  No joke, it is as if I have sudden vertigo and my muscles simply give way.  I turn dead white and look to Kristen unable to comprehend what just hit me.  By the grace of God we make it down the escalator and I legitimately lie down in the disgusting, dirty floor for I am sure I am about to pass out.  After I feel as if I can muster up enough strength to make it back up the escalator we start the journey back up. But halfway through I know I am not going to make it. Sheer will keeps it in until I get to the top where then I spill all my insides into this poor, innocent trashcan at this random metro station. My body is clearly in full-fledged war by this point.  And whatever is inside me is trying desperately to retreat as fast as it can. We then find a near by bathroom and I live there for the next half an hour.  While sitting there I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation and acknowledge the fact that this would happen to me because sick stories are my specialty.  Well Kristen, being the Godsend that she is helps me back to my apartment and I walk into my room to find my roommates appalled at the sight of me.  Apparently I look like death.  Being safe and sound in an apartment rather than the streets of Prague, I curl up in my uncomfortable bed, finding solace only in the fact that I can officially cross ‘first time sick in a foreign country’ off my list.  

Auschwitz

It’s been a long time since I was left truly speechless. For a girl who thrives off the written word and verbal expression it is a scary thought when comprehension is best left unarticulated. I went to Auschwitz this weekend in Krakow, Poland and spent the day touring the world’s most severe death camp, the most prominent visual proof of man’s capability for evil I have ever seen.  But I can’t actually explain what I saw let alone what it was like.  Words have no weight in situations like this. It took me almost two hours after the trip to even open my mouth. I was paralyzed with fear that my process of comprehension would dishonor the lives of those who suffered. I mean I could tell you that the first time I realized I was crying was when I felt water on my shoulder as if my soul knew something my mind had not yet grasped. I could tell you that I kneeled at the foot of the gas chamber, touching the same floor where millions of women and children suffocated to death, silently praying for forgiveness.  I could tell you I stopped breathing at the sight of scratches in the wall, desperate prayers of men who went crazy from isolation and fatigue. But what would that do? Can such evil even be expressed? How do you put it into words?  I actually cringed on the bus ride home at the sound of this girl behind me whispering ‘wow… that was so sad’ in this emotionless tone.  It wasn’t sad. It was wrong.   Sad does not have enough grief, enough pain, enough utter despair built into the word to even begin to grasp what went on there. So I guess that’s all I can say. I pray for the past, present and future victims of ignorance mixed with hate. I pray for similar atrocities currently taking place all around the world. I pray for the wounds that never healed. I pray over the injustice that still lingers in the air. I pray the world can remember history so as to prevent it from being relived.  I pray for forgiveness.  I pray for Jesus to come back. 

Fat Tuesday in Žižkov

Prague is split up into 10 districts. I live in Praha 3 in a town called  Žižkov. Now let me tell you about  Žižkov. It has an unusually high gipsy population and is known as being economically challenged. Therefore there are mini casinos and Las Vegas replicas on every corner with the occasional sketchy flower shop that stays open all hours of the night.  But recently Mallory and I were online looking for the famous strudel man who apparently lives around the corner from us and we stumbled across a description of  Žižkov I will never forget.  They said, ‘this is  Žižkov. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it is not. It just is.’ I love that.  Žižkov used to be an independent city and I think that got to their heads. They are offbeat and proud to be different.  But despite that it is easily forgotten, easily passed by; but those who do miss out on more than they know. 

For example, last Tuesday happened to be Fat Tuesday in Žižkov, a day within carnival that celebrates and encourages pigging out on meat – pun intended.  Each neighborhood is responsible for organizing their own carnival, but everyone comes to Žižkov cuz we da bomb.  Here is a segment from an expat newspaper called Stars and Stripes that I read "We are the most original," claims Zizkov town hall spokesman Jeronym Janicek, who notes that the neighborhood was one of the first in the city to resurrect the tradition in the early 1990s, after communism fell. A lot of people give the neighborhood credit for helping bring new life into a festival that had fallen into obscurity."

 So we headed out to explore this so called ‘carnival’.   As soon as we caught glimpse of all the commotion we realized we were the sole representatives of the age group ranging from 16 to 35.  It was clearly not the ‘cool’ thing to do in  Žižkov if you weren’t entertaining your sugar high toddler or benefiting from the senior citizen discounts. But nonetheless we were determined to partake in the festivities and so naturally we bought this gross, fat, greasy street sausage topped with a potato patty and a dry piece of bread.  I swear I don’t even remember what it tasted like because I had to swallow most of it in one bite so as to not offend my taste buds.  We’ve have a rocky relationship recently because I’ve started to cook more and more often.  My stomach wasn’t the biggest fan after that fiasco either.  But, never fear,  Žižkov came to save the day once again when we realized they were offering free beer and pastries just one tent over.  Suddenly the day got a lot better. And that’s when the party really kicked off. 

The drums started beating and the mob instinctively responded by sweeping us due east to the heart of the city center. Little make shift floats and men on stilts came out of nowhere and simply started to stroll down the middle of the street. So we followed their lead and took to the streets.   Seriously it was like the a silent dog whistle went off for all of a sudden the road was jam packed with people of all ages wearing masks, ridiculous costumes, and questionable accessories.

At each stop there was either a folk band from back in the good ole days or a truly cheesy clown juggler comedian thing, which the Czech seemed to love strangely enough – maybe it was something in the beer but I guess wouldn’t know, it was all in Czech – and ended with a speech from the  Žižkov mayor (or at least we think).  But, in conclusion, it was a successful day and it taught me a lot about the neighborhood that has been so kind in housing me for the past month.  It’s a bit wonky at times but it’s real.  They don’t hold anything back. They are proud to be  Žižkov and they will laugh at the really corny tricks from the comedian man if they want to gosh dang it! It’s  Žižkov. Don’t mess. 

My Weekend in Berlin

Gahhh, I know by definition I can no longer call myself a true blogger because I have ceased to maintain the daily routine a writer ought to have.  But I have a worthy excuse.  See I have started reading the sequel to Sharon Kay Penman’s Here Be Dragon trilogy and have just entered the reign of Prince Llewellyn's grandson, Prince Llewellyn (they conveniently all have the same name).  Anyway, any time I have a free second I either bust out my novel or go online to look at cheap hostels for all my future weekend destinations. Therefore I realized that it has been quite awhile since I have written anything of substantial value and for that I sincerely apologize.  I will try to be more disciplined in the future. But, nevertheless, the reality of the situation is that I now have done so much that it would be impossible to tell you all about it in the detail that I would naturally prefer.  So I am simply going to cut my losses and move on.  Here are the things I am skipping so you can ask me about later if you would like: my solo day trip to Czesky Krumlov, swing dancing with this old Czech man, meeting up with my USC friends in Prague, and the other many little and random adventures I go on from and day to day basis.  But I doubt this lack of information is anything that will keep you up at night.

So I shall begin with my weekend trip to Berlin to visit Caitlin! Caitlin Borzi has been friend ever since 3^rd grade when we shunned the rest of society finding each other to be far superior playmates, and 10 years later it is like nothing has changed – except the fact that we are prancing around Europe together instead of the swing sets.  I arrive Friday night to an already planned out weekend schedule starting that very hour.  We meet up with our other friends from high school who are studying in Berlin and go to this awesome club. It takes forever to find it in the freezing cold, but once inside it was this sweet European techno atmosphere with solo dancers just minding their own business, soaking up the apparently famous techno DJ we were there to see. I also might have consumed one to many of those crazy German beers because looking back it probably wasn’t as fun as I thought I was having at the time…but don’t tell my mom.

The next day we wake up pretty early for having gone out the night before and start our walking tour of the city.  Caitlin satisfies my need for the classic tourist destinations including the Berlin wall and the communist TV tower, but then she takes back control of the schedule and shows me ‘the real Berlin’.  After living there a year and fully integrating herself into the language and the hipster, modern, artsy sub culture of Berlin, I’d say she was a far more qualified tour guide then I could have hoped for.  She took me to these crazy alien bars, secret artist squatting zones, overrun graffiti/ street art/ poster parks, and showed me the best food Berlin had to offer.  Apparently Berlin is the new Paris in that all the young, poor artists are taking over creating quite an international presence. After the wall fell Berlin felt this need to reinvent itself and start from scratch and embrace the modern, the future, the new… and modern artists eat that stuff up.  So now every inch of Berlin is the artist’s playground and the walls are covered (not exaggerating… im talking all over the place) with street art and posters and there are all these famous squatters who are freeloading off of the abandoned spaces in East Berlin despite any efforts to kick them out.  Needless to say Berlin is a pretty sweet place to be living right about now.

Berliners also embrace the ‘anything goes’ policy, but they take to a whole new level that puts even LA to shame. The massive weekend second hand flee market is proof of their truly crazy fashion sense.  Berlin is the only place I’ve been where being trendy truly takes no skill and random, large clothing items meshed together. It’s great. The only other thing I have to say about my trip is that I successfully spent close to 4 hours in a museum by myself (while Caitlin was at school) learning everything there is to know about the history of the German people and getting way to excited over Napoleon’s hat after he was defeated at Waterloo.  However, at the end of the day, one of the coolest things about my trip was that I got homesick… for Prague.  I loved Berlin but I missed my city, my home.  I missed the beautiful buildings, familiar smells, and immaculately clean streets.  Prague is truly starting to become my very own. 

A History of the Czech Republic

The History of the Czech Republic: Prequel to “the spirit of Prague”

            We had an interesting discussion in class today, which I felt deserved some extra attention. It all started with an assigned reading in which famous Czech author, Ivan Klima, describes the Czech Republic as a paradox, a barren and sort of uncanny city existing within the elaborate and decorated walls of beautiful Prague. But as I started to dive into the philosophical interpretation of Czech identity I realized it would be helpful to understand the more historical but just as confusing events that make up that identity. The Czech Republic has an impressively complicated past containing everything from contested ancestry to evil tyrants to haphazard borders to constant disagreements over the formal name and definition of the state and surrounding territories. Needless to say the Czechs have seen it all and experienced it all; the question is simply has it been too much? 

So before I go any further let me begin with a disclaimer that this is Czech history as I understand it from listening to the many different opinions of my Czech friends and an even separate opinion from my even closer friends called Wikipedia and Google.  So now let us start at the beginning. Apparently the first to settle in the Czech lands were Celtic tribes called the Boii in the 3^rd century BC followed by Germanic tribes a couple centuries later.  Around the 5^th century the Germanic tribes moved out to settle in the westward lands of Central Europe and the Slavic tribes moved in and took their place. By this time the Celtic tribes also seemed to have disappeared but not without leaving one very important legacy: the Celtic name ‘Bohemia’.  The Slavs lived at peace during this age but one tribe seemed to grow more powerful and prominent then the others.  They were known as the Czechs.  The area of the land from Germany, to the Czech lands, to Austria was called Bohemia, but the boundaries of which are even to this day questioned and disputed.  A sub culture of Bohemia started to gain great prominence and was coined Great Moravia by a Greek historian who heard of this ‘distant Slovak land’.  But by the time the 9^th century rolled around the Bohemians had their shot at glory and reigned during the Middle Ages ultimately being grafted into the Holy Roman Empire.  During this time many Germans moved back into Bohemian lands and formed German colonies throughout central Europe mixing the two people groups both racially and culturally. Finally during the mid 1300s Charles IV became emperor of both the Holy Roman Empire as well as Bohemia. This is known as the Czech “Golden Age” because Charles settled in Prague and founded Charles University (one of the oldest universities in all of Europe).  [Also...little known fact… one of the first reformations started in Prague lead by Jan Hus who was burnt at the stake as a heretic. But his followers succeeded from the Catholic Church and formed the Czech Hussite Reformation movement, an event that had a profound impact on the famous Martin Luther] Anyway, during this time 90 percent of the Czech inhabitants converted to Protestantism giving the Hapsburg dynasty (currently reigning over Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire) reason to enter into a ‘religious war’ in the name of Catholicism while conveniently gaining political power and more centralized control.  The Protestants in Bohemia tried to revolt but were squashed under Ferdinand II. This tosses Bohemia into the ‘dark ages’ as now Protestant Czechs are forced to either convert to Catholicism or leave. O and the Ottomans invade Moravia (which still exists off to the side) and take with them over 12,000 slaves.   Meanwhile over in central Bohemia the Holy Roman Empire falls and Czech lands fall into Austrian rule. 

            Once the Austro-Hungarian Empire falls after World War I, an independent Czechoslovakia is created combining all Bohemian, Moravian, and Slovak lands into one.  A little later Hitler gains power of the German presence in Czechoslovakia and the Slovaks take advantage of it.  They choose to align themselves with Hitler’s coalition in order to gain the right to secede from Czechoslovakia in order to maintain their national and territorial integrity. The Czech side was occupied by Germany during Nazi reign and it was reported that 345,000 Czech citizens, including 277,000 Jews, were killed or executed and thousands more sent to concentration camps during this time.  All the while Hitler continued to call Czech lands ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’ after Hitler ‘granted’ them independence from Slovakia. Well we all know how World War II ended and American and Soviet armies liberated Czechoslovakia.  Almost the entire German minority living there at the time were expelled and forced to either go back to Germany or were put in prison or detention camps...ironic. Soviet influence quickly took over and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia increased in popularity (I’m confused too.. I thought Slovakia succeeded ... but it apparently it is still called Czechoslovakia at this time?).   Shortly after the communist revolution took control of the government and for the next 41 years Czechoslovakia became a Communist state within the Eastern Bloc. The government nationalized means of production and the small farms were forced to produce as much as the larger farms, which of course resulted in over production completely killing the land and the Czech spirits.  In 1989, the year before I was born, the Velvet Revolution liberated the Czech people, which happened to take place on the same street I walk on everyday on my way to class. The country peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the Czech people were finally free to be their own culture, celebrate their own history, and experience independence.  The only problem is no one really knows what that means.  What is Czech exactly? To whom do they owe their ancestry? How do they incorporate the years of harsh emperors, persecution, and communism into their celebrated history?  How do they react to the beautiful Baroque buildings constructed for the purpose of propaganda or the statues of Stalin and other communist leaders? Is this their history or is it the history of their oppressors?  Czechs have been searching and struggling to find answers ever since the revolution, which leads us to today; to little American Kristy walking down the streets of Prague just as confused about the spirit of this place as the Czech’s are themselves.

Coming up next: a philosophical look into the people and character of Czech society

 (I'm dorky I know)

Riding Solo

So after being thoroughly chastised for keeping you all in suspense about my o’ so exciting day trip by myself into the Czech country side, I have decided to make up for it by spending half my day trying to figure out how to add pictures to this blog while using a combination of the world’s worst internet and a computer that so conveniently has decided to take on the task of symbolizing all that is wrong and faulty with Apple.   Thus if you are currently reading this blog and there is an astounding lack of pictures popping up everywhere, it simply means that I was so mad at the computer I did not have enough energy to go back in and erase this sentence.  But then again maybe this just means I need to ask for a double helping of patience in my next life…

So I know I promised I was going castle hopping this weekend, but lets be honest my good friend Murphy and his annoying law would have never allowed it to happen knowing how much I built it up to everyone. It’s Friday night, everything is scheduled and the alarm clock is set when all of a sudden my roommates prance in feeling really… confused. Five seconds later they are out cold, snuggled up in their beds where they will be for the next day and a half. Well, I guess that means the castle ain't happening. But it worked out for the best because I woke up the next morning to the worst traveling conditions I’d seen since I planned that ski trip last week.  But with my heart set on an adventure I pack my bags anyway and head to the train station, jump on the metro, take it to the end, and get off in a random small town way on the outskirts of Prague.  After walking outside into the bitterly cold wind with snow quickly filling the streets I start to question how effective my day will be.  I look around and literally see nothing. There are unmarked buildings randomly scattered to all sides of the train station and a single road heading into the distance.  As I start to walk an incredibly profound thought enters my head; ‘this is the Czech Republic’ – But in all seriousness it was quite the revelation. The bitter cold, the dead land from all the years of over production under communism, the empty streets (mostly because even the Czech’s know you would have to be crazy to be leisurely walking down the streets in that weather), and the feeling of an uncanny loneliness are all attributes of this paradoxical city known as Prague.

However, as I am walking I do end up stumbling upon a path that leads up this hill and disappears into a sea of dead trees to which there is truly no way out; so naturally I skip toward the entrance, put on a little country mix, and groove my way throughout the haunted, black forest of the random Czech town I don’t even know the name of.  I try taking some artsy pictures along the way but, plainly put, it fails.  After about a 20-minute walk I finally find my way out the other side and continue down the highway like a true hitchhiker. And in the spirit of the wondering traveler I seek out a small, random little diner to rest my feet. Being that the restaurant is all in Czech I simply point to the markings on the menu, look up, smile and hope the waitress speaks intuitive sign language.  She does. But what she does not do is warn me that what I am ordering is a traditional Czech meal for construction workers on a budget who prefer their pork/steak extra fatty while swimming in a creamy Italian sauce.  But at least my café latte came with a little chocolate mint, because even when the world goes bad chocolate will always nurse the tongue back to health. 

After that I simply make my way back to the metro station and to my apartment to find the place exactly the same as I had left it J

There is just one last piece of juicy information I feel I must share with you all.  Within the last week I have managed to spend over $500 in airfare…but don’t freak out I got a lot of bank for my buck thanks to some expert bargain shopping and 13 hour layovers in random cities throughout Europe!

I am officially going to Berlin not this weekend but the next

Sicily, Rome, and Athens over spring break

And Edinburgh (and possibly Wales) two weekends after spring break

All flights booked!! Now I just have to figure out how to spend less than $100 a month while here in Prague.  Strategy.. don’t eat (definitely stop ordering all the Housky)