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.  

prayers being answered already

The fist half of my flight was pleasantly uneventful despite the complete lack of sleep and shockingly ineffective Nyquil. Other than that it was quite average.   But the fun part started when I realized our plane was scheduled to land at 11:25am Thursday morning in Germany and my connector flight boarded at 11:40am on the complete other side of the Frankfurt terminal.  It was then that I recognized a familiar American complaint coming from the row behind me.  Thus I discovered two of my classmates and we made a pact to be running partners.  By the time we all exited the plane it was 11:40am on the dot. As soon as we broke from the mob all three of us made a 20 minute straight sprint from one end of the airport to the other, only stopping for an occasional pat down and frisk (one that would have never flown in the states for fear of some serious violation codes).   During our mad sprint I realized a couple things about myself… 1) being out of shape is not a joke 2) running frantically around in an international airport definitely flags me as an American 3) movies make chevy chase family vacation makes dashing through airports look fun, when in fact … its not. 

But never fear we arrived huffing and puffing, collapsing on the floor like the true dramatic Americans we are with about 70 seconds to spare.  The plane was miraculously 20 minutes delayed.  I can honestly say I never expected to be stripping layers as I embraced the below freezing, European air for the first time through the boarding terminal.  But then again, I have a feeling this is going to a whole semester of the unexpected, frantic sprints, and figure it out as you go. Bring it on.

PS more details about my apartment coming soon with pictures. But I can say that it is WARM! (prayer request number 2), has perfect internet, plenty of space, clean, super cute, and right next to some really cute coffee shops.  I’m in love already.  Tomorrow starts the fist real day of my Prague experience.

PSS all my internet sites are in Czech.  You would be surprised how long it takes to even find the submit button