Goodbye to Fero and Hello to Indegestion

Little Fero left for Slovakia today....














But my sister Anne came to town.














I had a roasted knee of pork to cheer me up.














But pork knee does not cheer you up, it fucks you up.

All I can taste is pork.....

Graduation

No more stupid TEFL class for me. A weeks break and then off to work...

































For the record, we were each given a small bottle of this Czech sparkling wine. Southern Bohemia puts out some pretty decent stuff, actually.

I Got A Job

-a Chamberlain
But really, I seem to be gainfully employed in Europe, for the moment.

Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand

Many of you are familiar with city sponsered public art exhibitions. In Seattle, they had "Pigs on Parade", where artists painted paper mache pigs and set them around the city. Yesterday I stumbled upon Prague's version of that. Instead of pigs they have.....phone booths. For some reason.


















You can take a bath in this one! Kooky!

























This one is tiny!














I got sick of taking pictures of phonebooths so I took a picture of a swan.

























Um, is this supposed to be for Vampires?

























This one is filled with dirt. The hippies were not part of the installation. I think.


























Take that, capitalism!

Final Score:
Art-1
The Man-0

Pivni Pohotovost

"Dude, let's get more beers"
"But it's 3am, dude, everything's closed!"

In the U.S., those guys would be screwed,but thankfully the Czech Republic is a real country. And just to back that up, Staropramen, the 4th or 5th most popular beer in the Czech Republic, has the "Pivni Pohotovost". This translates literally to "beer emergency". 24 hours a day you can go to the Pivni Pohotovost and get beer.
Not only do they have beer in the bottle, but let's say for the sake of argument you throw a kegger and run out of beer.....what do you do? Once again, in the U.S. you're shit out of luck, but here in the civilized world, you can take care of your "beer emergency" and get a keg at any hour of the day.

Hallelujah!

Walking To Work

Down the hill by the castle and through Mala Strana, across the Charles Bridge and into the Old Town.



































































































Around here I realized I had no idea where the hell I was. The Old Town, like any Midevil city center, has a pretty confusing center, and I somehow found myself on the opposite side of town I expected to be. Ended up having to take a tram back to the city center and I was 15 minutes late to class.

Vowels Are Totally Overrated

I witnessed this word on the front page of a Czech newspaper yesterday:

"Ctrty"

Weird accent marks not included.

D-Fence

Prague is known for quite a few things. Kafka, castles, communism...

Maybe Mozart.

Possibly Prussians.

(I was reaching there)

For those of you familiar with the reformation, the counter-reformation, the 30 Years War, and European religious conflicts in general, Prague holds a central place in this part of history.(Hopefully, very few of you are aware of that.)

In that spirit, Prague is central to one of the most fun/morbid words in the English language.

I am referring, of course to "defenestration"

This word refers to the act of throwing somebody out of a window, usually as a sign of protest.

In 1483, in an act that precluded Luther's 95 Thesis, the Catholic Church burned Jan Hus, a Czech religious reformist at the stake for heresy. The citizens of Prague responded by throwing the town leader and priests out of the tallest window of the New Town Hall (Novomestka Radnice).

Let me pause to point out that Prague is old enough to have a "New Town" as well as a "New Town Hall" in 1483.

This act spawned the Hussite Wars, which more or less began the process of the reformation.

Below are the possible destinations of the defenestered.




























If you think this is the end of the nerdery, you are sorely mistaken.

When I Go Downtown, I Always Wear A Corduroy Suit

Note: Do not wear this coat in summer. Apologies to Gabe. Thanks to Deb.


I had an interview this morning. I left 45 minutes before the appointed hour and took the Metro to a part of town I had never been to, Praha 10.

Praha is Prague by the way. That's what the locals call in. Czech is "Chesky" though written in an entirely different manner.

I wasn't quite sure about the formality of the interview, but I figure looking sharp is never a bad idea, so I put on a decent shirt, some trousers, and as it has been raining the last few days and in the low 6os (albeit with serious humidity) I didn't think a blazer was a terrible idea either.

"Blazer" turns out to be an apt turn, because by the time I got out to the appropriate Metro stop, it was nearly 30 (for you uncouth yokels in the States, that's in the mid to high 80s...with humidity). This is a recurring problem for me, a complete an utter lack of ability to judge what attire would be appropriate to the weather. I maintain that this comes from living in Seattle for so long. Not until mid-July can you really count on summer weather. On the other hand, looking at the date....

Another problem I am continually having in this city (and which I am absolutely certain is not limited only to me) is my ability to judge distances on a map. Depending on the age of any given neighborhood, streets and blocks can be extremely short or unexpectedly long. I will look at a map (either a physical map or one online) and have difficulty determining whether the distance I have to walk from any given Metro station is long or short. The number of blocks seems to have absolutely no bearing on how fast one can travel. I know I'm not the only one that has this problem; most newcomers to the city have complained about it.

I carefully checked the neighborhood out on an online map, and as it was adjacent to a neighborhood I had visited earlier in the week, I more or less figured out how far I would have to walk. There were a couple of trams I could take, but I find it easier to orient myself in this city when I walk around, and I hate waiting 10 minutes for a tram to take me a 10 minute walk away.

As you might have guessed by now, the two block walk was not exactly 10 minutes. It was quite a few more meters than I had anticipated (really, do I have to translate everything for you people?) I arrived in Praha 10 with 20 minutes to spare, and ended up 2-3 minutes late to the interview, never a good sign. On top of that, I was soaked in sweat from wearing a long sleeved button up shirt and a courdoroy blazer in 30 degree heat. Quite a first impression.

The good news is that they actually seemed quite impressed and it sounds like I have the job, contingent on a test lesson I have to give on Tuesday night. It's going to a rough day....I have class for seven hours that day, which includes another lesson I have to teach, followed by my test lesson on the other side of town, followed by a private business lesson I have to give back downtown. The good news is that for the business lesson, all I have to do is help her translate Coldplay lyrics. At least I think that's good news....

Stop Stalin

I spent most of the afternoon relaxing in Letna park today. The park is high atop a hillside overlooking the Vlatva river. Letna has spectacular views of Prague, but is best known for the giant Stalin monument that was here. The monument was the largest Stalin statue in the world, and lasted only a year. It was blown up during Destalinization, and was left an empty pedestal until the 90s, when an artist installed a giant metronome. It now seems to be a skate park, more than anything else.

At Your Servis

Happy 4th of July

In case y'all wanted to see the folks I'm in class with 8 hours a day.....











The 2 Brits didn't make it. I think they're still holding a grudge.
The Canadians came out though. They call it "America Day" which I much prefer.

Check out the writing at the bottom of the sign

This movie is indeed a Pand-omedie

Ohhhh, I don't like garlic!

Class started yesterday and most of the folks seem pretty alright, a motley mix of people who want to try living abroad for no particular reason, recent graduates and people looking for a career change. Today a bunch of folks decided to go to lunch together and invited me along. I was initially suspicious of traipsing around the streets of Prague with 7 other loud Americans, but I figured what the hell, this is how you meet people, right?

We wandered around a bit until we found a likely looking pub and settled in for a bite to eat. I ended up sitting next to the slightly older British woman who has resided in Germany for the last few years. We ended up one menu short, so she said "Shall we share?"

No problem, right?

She then informs me that she forgot her reading glasses and asked me to read the menu to her. Great. Oh well, might as well be helpful....

She told me that she didn't want any meat, and as I read the vegetarian options on the menu she gave me a running commentary:

"Oh, that sounds too smelly"
"I don't like garlic"
"No, that sounds a bit too mushy"
"Garlic will make me smell in class!"

She finally decided on some caserolle made of spinach, potatoes and cream. Guess what the had in it?

"Oh, no garlic. I didn't want any garlic!" Fortunately I managed to persuade her not to send it back. The conversation then turned to the class. We had begun some grammar review today and our homework was to explain what a participle is. She asked me for the answer, and I began to tell her.

"Well, you take a tense like the Past Perfect and..."
"I don't know what that is". We literally had reviewed this exact thing 5 minutes before in class, which is why I picked it.

"Well, when you combine two verbs, like 'have ordered' it's...."
"See, that's it. I don't know what a verb is. It's a thing, right?"

Now, I generally don't get down on anybody for not knowing grammar...it's barely taught anymore, but she did want to be an English teacher, right? And we're talking about a verb here....

"Well, that's ok, you can always look it up online. I'll help you find a website that covers this stuff.."
"I don't have a computer!"
"Ok, well they have some we can use at the school, so..."
"Oh, I'd like to be able to take it home with me and those things are always in use."
"Ok, well, have you been to an internet cafe? They only charge a crown and there's one..."
"Oh, no I hate those places!"
"Well, I guess you're screwed then."

I made it through lunch mostly by staying quiet. When the check came she asked me to convert the price of her meal into Euros so she could figure out how much it was going to be.

I think I'll be eating alone for the most part. Or at least staying out of large groups.