Merry Christmas

First of all, Merry Christmas, especially to my family who are gathered tonight under Barney the Buffalo, hopefully he's adorning his wreath. If not, he's probably sporting a few paper airplanes (funny how you remember the odd stuff). The Christmas time has been excellent, thanks to emails and friends here in Prague. I am grateful beyond words to those who've given me presents, making it feel a little more like home--a warm sweat shirt, a chess board to pass my evenings and the language barrier with one of my roommates, and a book of poetry by a Czech author, which Dennis just gave me. Tonight, in the Czech Republic, is the true Christmas; everyone celebrates Christmas Eve, as we would Christmas Day. Well, that's debatable. In my opinion, Christmas Eve is when my family truly celebrates Christmas, but we may be the minority in America. One cultural difference that is absolute is the difference in who brings the presents. Obviously, we believe Santa sweeps down the Chimney and leaves the gifts beneath the tree. The Czechs, however, leave a window open for Baby Jesus to fly in with the Children's rewards for being good. Instead of turkey as the center piece of the Christmas table, Carp--sold in water filled bins and alive, left in the bathtub, swimming, for the children to play with, until the moment comes when father serves the coup de grace and mother fries the fish for dinner--is the Christmas specialty. Even a Czech woman, who's my student, admitted to the oddity of this tradition, when viewed from the outside; but I'm sure we have a number of strange customs to baffle outsiders as well.

Downtown, Christmas trees and lights are everywhere. A Czech told me this Christmas the country spent more money than it ever has before Christmas shopping, signaling a strong economy (did that just come out of my mouth? sounds too Republican). One night, while Lenka and I walked around Old Town Square, I tried hot wine with loads of sugar, a traditional and seasonal drink. It was delicious in the freezing cold. The temperature has began to drop here, although I'm not sure if it's caught up with usual mild temp of my home state. Speaking about my home state, I gave my last class a lesson in weather vocabulary and Oregon geography and geology. I told them about the coastal range, the valley, the Cascades and how they're volcanic (also I explained the San Andreas fault and how the plate sliding under formed the Cascades), about the high desert of eastern Oregon, and Smith Rock. I thought I was describing heaven on earth--a place where you can surf, ski, kite-board, and rock climb--but all they got out of the lesson was an imminent natural disaster. Fault lines! Volcanoes! Deserts! Good, hopefully that keeps them out of Oregon, along with Americans looking to transplant. I spoke with a guy from Chicago who could name thirty friends who've moved to Portland in the last year or so. Back to my walk around Old Town, we also saw a Christmas pageant. The children sang a story about searching for winter, the time of Christmas. They went through all the seasons until finally an endearing mural--painted by them--was produced with bare trees and snow. Winter! Here at last. And then they sang a traditional Czech Christmas song.

Today I hit the streets, looking to get out of the house and see the last of Christmas before everything is taken down and put away for next year, at which time I hope to be home or, at least, in another country. I visited my old hostel and was forced to order a beer by the bartender. His accent was noticeably French, though he spoke perfect English, so I asked him what region he was from, and he said a small, little place called Paris. Oh, I think I've heard of that. Nice town (it came off less smug than I can reenact it and was actually very funny). Then I went to see the square, my roommate (that's Dennis, works at the bookstore), and finally to visit Jonny on the Bridge. Dennis had closed the shop early, so nobody was home. I stopped in at a cafe and ordered an Irish Coffee (it's bitter cold here). And also took some great photos of the square--of the Church and tree, another of the white church (a close up), and a nice (though blurry) one of a horse-drawn carriage. Next I headed toward the Bridge and walked myself in a complete circle, ending up at the alleyway coming into the square, opposite the one I left, after which I took a known and sure route, though longer in distance, shorter because I knew where the hell I was going, and finally found the Bridge. Jonny's been in Switzerland for the past week, where he rented a car for one pound a day (how he swings this stuff, I don't know). He sold a picture while I was there. I'd like to think I had a part in that, having told the three Australian girls who stopped to look how excellent a photo would make for a Christmas present. I took a pic of him by the stand and had him take one of me with the castle in the background--then went on my merry way home. Stopped in at the Catholic Church at Namesti Miru to see if a Mass was going on, but the doors were locked and the lights off. I've been trying to go to at least one mass during the holiday season, but everything is in Czech and the times aren't listed. Hopefully, the effort was noticed.

Everything has been going great; other than I was swindled by a taxi driver out of 1000 CZK, roughly 40 bucks (but his time will come; everything that goes around comes around). And I can't help but laugh at my own unawareness, if that's a word; even the bad things here I cherish, they make for great stories. One story that's a 100% good, however, is that I went to a Czech concert the other night. It rocked. Even though I couldn't understand what they were saying, I had a great time and the music was good. We were supposed to have backstage passes, because one of the girls I was with is "dating" the front man of the first opening band. He couldn't provide the tickets, surprisingly (if I was a rock star, I don't think I would be able to come up with the tickets for my gf either), so we left the concert after and went to a local "Australian" bar. Hence I was stuck with the responsibility of entertaining two Czech girls. I know, life sucks. And then this week, I had to forgo class and instead have a party, sponsored by the school: food and wine on the house. It's draining, really. For one of my night classes, I had to go to a pub. You can see the stress that I have to put up with. Thankfully, I'm on Christmas vacation till January 3rd, the benies of teaching.


That's it. The day after Christmas I'm traveling. To where? East. I'll see when I go to the train station, depends on which train leaves first or which ticket I can afford. Everything else will work itself out.

December 6th 2006

December 6th 2006.

The sun was shining when I woke up, 16 degrees, a temperature in most years saved for early fall and spring. It was Wednesday and I had the day off and the the weather was good, so I decided to make the best of it. Three years ago when my brother and I came through Prague, we saw a lot--Prague Castle, the Mucha Museum, and a lot of bars--but we didn't have time to see the Old Jewish Cemetery, a hill with scores of 600-year-old sarcophagi and tombstones, tilting and leaning in the earth, like a thick forest, dead leaves and long uncut grass covering the hill and the base of the headstones where no grounds keeper could fit a mower.

First I had to meet with an American girl I co-teach a class with. We discuss the progress of our class every week, or the lack there of.

The cemetery is located in Josefov, the center of Prague's Jewish community, along with the Jewish Museum, which includes the Maisel Synagogue, the Spanish Synagogue, the Pinkas Synagogue, the Klausen Synagogue, the Ceremonial Hall, the Old-New Synagogue, and the Robert Guttman Gallery. It was easy enough to find, only three stops from Namesti Miru, the closest one to my flat, to Staromestka, the nearest to the Museum, by the River Vltava and Rudolfinum Auditorium.

Before entering, a global, boat-like structure, on the river-side of the Museum, caught my attention. To those unfamiliar with Genesis, it probably didn't look like much, but I could tell it was the Ark. And now I forget the exact symbolism and the name of the artist who created it. It had to do with the collection of important creations, as the Ark did with animals, but here it was heritage and artifacts and memory. It was made of a translucent plastic, so that at night a projection of Jewish history is played from the inside and the bow of the Ark acts as a screen.

The first synagogue I entered was Pinkas, built in 1535. The building has two small rooms adjacent to one large room, with an altar at the far end. On each side of the altar, listed vertically, read the names of concentration camps: Terezin, Dechau, Hamburg, Oswiecim. On the walls are inscribed the names of the Jewish victims of Bohemia and Moravia, their personal data, and the names of the communites to which they belonged. Tens of thousands of names. Huskova, Gerda. Hatschek, Bedrich. Haubenova, Eleonora. No pictures were allowed. Its form is similar to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. The feeling was like in the Holocaust Museum in Berlin, designed by the famous architect Daniel Libeskind, where the floors have an unlevel grade and you always feel off-balance. But the atmosphere (visually) isn't as dark or as heavy as the Vietnam Memorial, or as disconcerting as the Holocaust Museum. The walls are white; the lettering black, and the dates red. A lot of light pours in through the long-slit windows. It is, after all, a synagogue, a Greek word meaning "assembly," for worship and study, and not exclusively a sorrowful place. Upstairs, the exhibition "Children's Drawings from Terezin 1942-1944" were drawn by some of the 10,000 children under the age of 15 who were deported to Terezin. The drawings are simple and telling.

Out the back of the Synagogue is a courtyard, which opens to the Old Jewish Cemetery. You can glimpse the cemetery through the iron gate # in the courtyard. There's not much to tell about the cemetery you won't see in the pictures. A guide would have been helpful. Along with the tombstones, I had expected to see old, grit-covered, tilted crosses; a very obtuse presupposition to make, and a very Christian one, too. The hill isn't actually a hill, I learned, but due to the shortage of space, layers of bodies, six to twelve deep. They're all dust by now, the youngest of the burials having been in the 18th century.

Once I finished winding through the cemetery, I came out a gate, at the right of which is Klausen Synagogue, a museum of sorts, displaying artifacts of Jewish custom and ceremony. The ceilings are very high, and four chandeliers run down the center. In wooden display cases, with large glass fronts, are many religious and ceremonial items: Hanukkah lamps; Scroll of Esther (Magillat Ester); Scrolls of Torah; Embroideries, "At the Western Wall" and "By the River of Babylon"; 17th Century Torah pointer, gilt silver, with a pointing index-finger at end, twisted stem, a small dragon atop, wings spread; Passover glass, coated two-thirds in ruby, so it looked as if it were partially full of wine. I read a plaque of Tishah Be-Av, among the days of sorrow, recalling the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples of Jerusalem.

It was still light when I finished and I didn't feel like going home. Old Town Square was only a short walk away, along with the book store my flatmate works at. I headed that way, and once I was in the Square I took advantage of the light and snapped a lot of photos. A Christmas tree had been put up in the center of the Square since the last time I walked through, and rows and rows of Christmas shops filled the usually void expanse of the cobblestone Square. A lot of Holiday food and candy. I was really hungry by then, so I strolled from shop to shop, evaluating my options. Roasted almonds, cashews, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and other nuts smelled especially inviting. I got an assortment of all, in an ice-cone package, and ate those as I walked. I took a picture of the Astronomical Clock, of Church of Our Lady Before Tyn (construction started in 1380, last tower erected in 1835), and of a wooden manger. Then I went down the alley way that leads to the bookstore.
I am uncertain of the name of this white church, but I think its architecture is baroque. The large statue in front of it is the center piece of Old Town Square. And you can see the little shops and a roaster, smoke rolling off. Too bad I couldn't upload the sweet smells.

I've read five 400+ page books in the past three months. With TV programs either in Czech or Russian, you soon get bored, even of sports. At the bookstore, I got a new copy of Walden, paper-back, shiny cover, excellent print, large letters. My flatmate punched out about the time I arrived, so we went to a pub around the corner. We ordered two dark beers, Bernard, my favorite. (A friend had text me earlier, asking if I'd join her and some others at U Sudu, a cavernous pub, a labyrinth really, where stairs lead down and up, passageways this way and that. You're lost as soon as you enter). We paid our bill and headed for U Sudu.

It took us awhile to find the place (last time I was there, it was dark, and I know my way around but Prague's a maze of alley ways in which a compass is pointless). Our party was in a room down stairs. Lenka, who we were meeting, had brought me a dinner the week before, cooked by her mom, and cake, too! She asked me how it was and I said delicious. The conversation jumped around and came back to the dinner. I thought it was chicken but it wasn't, as I learned from a complicated and intense bit of interrogation. I kept asking her if it wasn't chicken then what was it. She didn't know the word in English. I was intent on finding out what I had eaten two large helpings of. She tried telling me it was parakeet. I could only think of the scene in Dumb and Dumber. "Pretty bird, pretty bird." Turned out, and I still can't believe this, that it was pigeon!! My flatmate had told me of an underground film, where a few guys are throwing bread crumbs laced with poison to pigeons, and then they say, as the pigeons begin to drop and plop on the ground, "f----- flying rats." That scene was in my mind as well. Nonetheless, the bird was good.

We left awhile later, hopped a tram to our neighborhood, and went to a Mexican/Italian restaurant. I had Mexican, more Czexican than the authentic. But it was filling, whatever it may have been filled with. And then I went home around 10pm, exhausted, and slept.

Legally Robbed and Other Stories

Magazines are organized in general sections: features and editorials make up the brunt of it, with a few other oddball installments particular to each magazine, like "Advice from Joe the bartender" in Esquire. My blog has taken on its own pattern: site-seeing, updates on work, ups and downs of life abroad, and comical anecdotes about whichever language barrier I ran into that week. The last is usually the funniest, depending on what's at stake.

Lost in Translation.

After having coffee and playing gammon (our new game which an older man taught us) for a couple of hours last Saturday, we were walking to the tram when she tried teaching me a Czech phrase, though I had no idea what she was doing at the time.

"Nezim."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

"What?" I said, puzzled. "What does it mean?"

"I don't know."

Why the hell is she telling me this, I thought. We kept going at it like that another five times round: "what does it mean?; "I don't' know"; "what does it mean!"; "I don't know!". I'm sure you already see where this is going. "Who's on first?" "Second."

Ups and Downs of Life Abroad.

To ride the tram or metro you need a ticket, purchased at any of the machines in the entrance or located at a few select tram stops. I always buy a ticket, and have been meaning to get a three month pass for sometime, but it's a hassle because you need to get a passport photo and then go to the main office where you fill out a form and pay the bill. You can imagine how stressing the DMV in the States can be; now multiply that by "tree" (3). So I put it off. Sometimes, if I wasn't going far, I wouldn't buy a ticket.

Riding up the escalator of the metro--the green line, the deepest of the metros, about two or three minutes from bottom to top-- I came up the last few feet, no ticket in my pocket, to see two metro guards slowly appearing as I ascended, dressed in blue, checking ticekts. There's no place you can go. You sure as hell can't go back, try to walk down an upward moving escalator. Trapped. Two days later, I took the tram one stop, one stop I didn't feel like paying a dollar for, could've walked but was late, and got busted by undercover metro cops. Together, the fines, which you have to pay on the spot, totaled one-fourth of my rent. On the second bust, I had planned on running, but the distance to the next tram stop was too long; by the time the doors opened, I'd lost the nerve to dash. I did, however, ask him for all his information--picture, ID, receipt. And then told him I didn't have any money; well then, he says, we'll have to go to the police station. Police station, Czech Republic, an American...thinking...pull my wallet out, here's your money. Of Experience, Oscar Wilde said it "is simply the name we give our mistakes." Pam, who I was rushing to meet for coffee, wasn't any more forgiving. "What did you think would happen?" "A little more consolation, Pam, less criticism." "Well, if I tell you differently, you'll just do it again." True enough. Needless to say, I got the month pass the next day.

My tram stop for work

As for the ups, I'm meeting tons of people. Shane, Johnny, and I played pool last Thursday (Friday was a holiday) till the hall closed at 4am. I told Shane I wasn't too bad, growing up with a pool table basically in my room. He'd, after moving from Belfast, Ireland, lived in Holland and managed a bar, at which he and his friends would regularly play pool to eight in the morning. He got to break: one ball off the break, then another, then one more down, till finally he was shooting for the eight ball and I hadn't even had a turn. He missed. I fowled my one and only shot, and then he sunk the eight. Damn.

The next night I went with my roommate to a bar in a houseboat on the river Vltava.

Saturday I went to Duplex, supposedly one of the top 50 clubs in the world, with Tom and Janza, the guys I play squash with. It's a really nice place, on the top floor of a building downtown, overlooking all of Prague. Cover was expensive, but Tom had free passes. It was a nice place. Drinks were outrageous. The women were beautiful, paid to be there, but beautiful all the same. The DJ, Tom says, was the best in Prague. I haven't picked up on House/techno craze that infects all Europeans, and Australians as well I've learned. Nobody listens to hip-hop. Not like I really do either, but if you go to a club in the States, nine times out of ten they'll be playing hip-hop, so you get used to it as the norm.

Yesterday I went to an exhibition with my flatmate and Johana, a friend of a friend whom I introduced to my flatmate because he needed someone to hire to work at his bookstore. (The universe and stars aligned when I stumbled upon a flatmate who works at a bookstore; that's like a dope fiend wandering into a marijuana patch). The exhibition, held in the Municipal House, a beautiful Art Nouveau building opened in 1912 for the King's Court, was titled "Dekadence." There was a portrait of Oscar Wilde I really liked; I think he was part of the Decadent movement in literature. The collection was very dark: vampires, death, skulls, gross caricatures. All made in the early twentieth century, before 1920. I kept being drawn to certain pictures--a series which turned out to be Hamlet, one of a boat crossing the river Sticks, and the portrait of Oscar Wilde--after which I noticed the artist was the same for all three. I had my flatmate write his name down. Then we went on a goose-hunt for the Museum of Band Books, but couldn't find it.

Later that night we went to an exhibition in a warehouse. All new stuff; I'm sure the artists were actually there. It was a similar experience to when Dave and I walked into a building, squatted by artists, in Berlin: art, a projector screen, a bar, a bed in one room. Candles and old chairs were spread out on the first floor. The cartoon-looking horse, the size of a small pony, carved out of Styrofoam, was my favorite. Pam was hoping for dancing and a more mainstream scene, so her, Johana, and I left after awhile, and went to M1 where they play hip-hop and rap--to no surprise it was filled with Americans. I would've liked to stay at the exhibition, but the club was fun and the Mexican food we had after, at around 3, was good at the time, but a rock in my stomach the next morning. I actually have found one good Mexican restaurant in Prague, down the street from where I live, called "Barracudas."

Pam

Work.

The first day at my new school was difficult: eighteen year-olds are much harder to keep entertained than the thirty to forty year-old students I'm used to. But after the adjustment, and creating a game incorporating verb tenses and listening practice, they were reluctant to leave on friday, when usually they get out early. The rules of the game go like this: I draw a football (soccer) field on the board: at your own goal you have to conjugate a verb to pass to midfield; at midfield you have to spell a word of my choosing to pass it to your offensive player; at your opponents goal you have to come up to the board and write a sentence I say aloud, an exercise incorporating listening, grammar, and spelling, to score a goal. If you mess up, the other team's closest player gets the ball and then they try to make it down the field to score. If a student's team helps them while they're trying to write a sentence or spell a word, I throw a yellow card at them, and the other team gets a penalty kick. I love throwing that yellow card.

My morning class on Wednesday, seven women and one guy, got a kick out of American English terminology for hair. In a story we were reading (the text book is British), the word "plaits" appeared, the meaning of which I had no idea. After consulting the dictionary, I found out it means braids. I don't know how I got to drawing on the board and naming the different styles of hair for girls, but when I told them that we call a girl's hair pulled back a "pony tail." They couldn't contain themselves. "Like a horse tail," one said. "Pig tails" brought the house down. It never occurred to me other cultures would call them different names, and it also made me think why Americans are so obsessed with animals. The one guy was growing restless and wanted to move on. But I was having too much fun. I drew a picture of a man's face on the board with a small beard. "This is a goatee." Another animal. Barn-yard lexicon for hair. Weird.
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Site-seeing

I plan to do more tourist stuff. Right now, I just take pictures if I happen to walk past some piece of interesting architecture. These photos are of the Catholic Church down the road from me and a sinister looking church.