Vysehrad
I'll just get right into it and leave out the apologies for my slacking.
Work and weekends fly by and soon as one has begun the other has ended. But there equally fun if you're able to enjoy them. In another country, you can feel totally anonymous at times and, at others, like you have a flashing sign over your head, blinking I'm a foreigner. But again, they can both be great. The other day on the tram a woman, sitting behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and asked a question, to which I replied "Ne vim." And that was fine by her and she had no idea I wasn't Czech. You really savor those moments.
BIRTHDAY PARTY
The reverse situation is when everyone knows you're American and are happy to teach you the language or customs. Like the other night, for instance, when Lenka and I went to the birthday party of her friend's boyfriend. We met the group, already sitting around a long wood table and well ahead of us in the festivities, in the lower level of a bar downtown. I was feeling rich and had ample CZK so I ordered a White Russian (now I will have to scrap till the first, but if I have groceries, like I do, I can live off 2 dollars a day, enough for lunch while I'm out of the house). That night, though, we lived it up pretty good. Tomas, the birthday boy, was pouring glasses of champagne for any who wanted and, likewise, for those who didn't. I spoke with the guy sitting next to me about the States and he actually new of the Siskuoys (a decent geographical landmark, but not what you think of as being taught abroad). Lenka asked me to go talk with her friend Adelta, to help her with her English, but when I walked over there, she ran to Lenks, to shy to talk. So I bs'd with the guys sitting there, one of whom spoke no English, but out of all was the most eager to speak. He ordered us a shot; I ordered us a shot. We got to talking about futbol, and they claimed Sparta, one of the two teams in Prague, as their one and only. This is a rivalry like NY and Boston. These guys are die-hard fans. Feeling mischievous, I said I was a Slavia fan, their rival. They quickly stood, one on each side of me, puffing out their chest, chins in the air, ready to brawl, feigning readiness, so I stood to--muy, muy macho. Then we had a few more shots and the talkative one tried teaching me Czech phrases, without telling me what they meant, and asked me to repeat them to all the girls across the table. I saw no harm in this, and knew I could claim innocence or ignorance, same difference in this case. Lenka blushed and told me to sussh, but I was having too much fun, and once I found out what it meant, I was really having a lot of fun. What made it even more fun was that Lenka was staring toward the sky, saying "proch, boje." Why God, why did you curse me with this Crazy American. We had great fun, and everyone was sad to see us leave, they kept trying to make us stay, but I had to leave, Lenks too, because I knew those guys would keep buying me shots.
THE TEA PARTY GRUDGE
I am thinking about how to act polite in foreign countries. Turning down a shot, in the right circumstance, is impolite. And that trigured a thought, a chip on my shoulder really, got from reading the text book I teach half my classes with. In chapter 4 of my New Headway book, published by Oxford no less, is a tip sheet, a guide to good manners abroad. Tip two says: "In France, you shouldn't sit down in a cafe until you've shaken hands with everyone you know." I don't know for sure, but that sounds like a legitimate custom. Tip eight, however--well, I'll just let you read it first: "In America, you should eat your hamburger with both hands and as quickly as possible. You shouldn't try to have a conversation until it is eaten." Read it again. This is out of an acclaimed book, published by Oxford, taught to students around the world who want to learn English. This is a British book. What students read in this book they take as truth. They can't pick up, nor should they, on any joke made with a grudge, by some piss-ant Brit who has nothing better to do but disparage America with false information, misguiding all those in the process who read the book and learn from it. You want to crack jokes, that's fine, but don't do it in a text book. I went back through all my classes to point out this purposeful mistake and explained how it was a lie, and how they should question the other tips in the book, for they may be lies, too.
THE STORM
A storm came through two weeks ago...from England...put a few cities in Germany in a state of emergency...knocked out the electricity in a million homes in the Czech Republic. The morning of the storm it was warm and pleasant and then in the evening the wind blew hard, swaying street lamps. It could literally knock you over. 100 mph winds. A few days later, snow fell. And we've had snow ever since. The city is white and beautiful.
On the 25th, the snow fell into the night, blanketing cars and sidewalks, and in the morning, after the proprietors of shops had shoveled in front of their stores, the sidewalks were clean and wet from the sun. I thought that day, with the sun shining brightly, that the snow would melt in three days. But it hasn't and the streets are slushy and I can hear the water under the tires of cars driving by outside my window. Many children are sledding on the hill across from my building, next to the church. Their parents helping and talking on cell phones and smoking cigarettes. I've never lived with the snow; we get snow in the valley once a year, if that, and it melts before the days over. The other night I turned off the light in the apartment and watched the snow falling hard outside the window. You could see it best under the light of street lamps, blowing and curling and turning in circles in the wind.
VYSEHRAD
On Saturday the 26th, after having gone shopping at Tesco to buy groceries (always a fun experience, especially when the cashier asks you questions), we decided to visit Vysehrad, an
old battlement where King Vratislav II decided he'd build a palace, the Church of Sts Peter and Paul, and St Martin's Rotunda, the oldest Romanesque structure in the city. The palace has long since been returned to the ground after the Hussite wars, but the church and the rotunda still remain. Also, Vysehrad Cemetery, resting place of the famous artist Mucha, sits behind the church.
When we got to Vysehrad, a twenty minute trip from my place, the sky to the south was blue, streaked by plane exhaust, the airport being somewhere to the northeast. To the north, though, the sky and horizon were gray with snow falling. The wind was blowing from the north, too, in our direction; if you couldn't feel it, like us, since we were behind some tree-cover, you could see it in the ripples on the river.
Below us--we were on the ramparts--was the river, stretching out south. I got some great pics. Soon the wind blew the mass of clouds to us, but we didn't mind it. More snow. Aside the Church, there is a spacious courtyard and at its four corners are larger than life statues, the original statues from Charles Bridge. A teenage couple were throwing snowballs at one. Talking about snowball fights, I had one the other day with my class, in the classroom. Snow everywhere. And another story from my class, today when we were talking about what the students wanted to be when they were younger, one of my students said she wanted to be a "liar." ??? She got the pronunciation wrong, and meant "lawyer." That joke pretty much tells itself. The entry of Sts Peter and Paul Church was open, but you couldn't get any farther than that. I've been in it before, and pictures are band anyways, but it's very beautiful and the whole interior is covered with frescoes.
Well, that's the news.
Work and weekends fly by and soon as one has begun the other has ended. But there equally fun if you're able to enjoy them. In another country, you can feel totally anonymous at times and, at others, like you have a flashing sign over your head, blinking I'm a foreigner. But again, they can both be great. The other day on the tram a woman, sitting behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and asked a question, to which I replied "Ne vim." And that was fine by her and she had no idea I wasn't Czech. You really savor those moments.
BIRTHDAY PARTY
The reverse situation is when everyone knows you're American and are happy to teach you the language or customs. Like the other night, for instance, when Lenka and I went to the birthday party of her friend's boyfriend. We met the group, already sitting around a long wood table and well ahead of us in the festivities, in the lower level of a bar downtown. I was feeling rich and had ample CZK so I ordered a White Russian (now I will have to scrap till the first, but if I have groceries, like I do, I can live off 2 dollars a day, enough for lunch while I'm out of the house). That night, though, we lived it up pretty good. Tomas, the birthday boy, was pouring glasses of champagne for any who wanted and, likewise, for those who didn't. I spoke with the guy sitting next to me about the States and he actually new of the Siskuoys (a decent geographical landmark, but not what you think of as being taught abroad). Lenka asked me to go talk with her friend Adelta, to help her with her English, but when I walked over there, she ran to Lenks, to shy to talk. So I bs'd with the guys sitting there, one of whom spoke no English, but out of all was the most eager to speak. He ordered us a shot; I ordered us a shot. We got to talking about futbol, and they claimed Sparta, one of the two teams in Prague, as their one and only. This is a rivalry like NY and Boston. These guys are die-hard fans. Feeling mischievous, I said I was a Slavia fan, their rival. They quickly stood, one on each side of me, puffing out their chest, chins in the air, ready to brawl, feigning readiness, so I stood to--muy, muy macho. Then we had a few more shots and the talkative one tried teaching me Czech phrases, without telling me what they meant, and asked me to repeat them to all the girls across the table. I saw no harm in this, and knew I could claim innocence or ignorance, same difference in this case. Lenka blushed and told me to sussh, but I was having too much fun, and once I found out what it meant, I was really having a lot of fun. What made it even more fun was that Lenka was staring toward the sky, saying "proch, boje." Why God, why did you curse me with this Crazy American. We had great fun, and everyone was sad to see us leave, they kept trying to make us stay, but I had to leave, Lenks too, because I knew those guys would keep buying me shots.
THE TEA PARTY GRUDGE
I am thinking about how to act polite in foreign countries. Turning down a shot, in the right circumstance, is impolite. And that trigured a thought, a chip on my shoulder really, got from reading the text book I teach half my classes with. In chapter 4 of my New Headway book, published by Oxford no less, is a tip sheet, a guide to good manners abroad. Tip two says: "In France, you shouldn't sit down in a cafe until you've shaken hands with everyone you know." I don't know for sure, but that sounds like a legitimate custom. Tip eight, however--well, I'll just let you read it first: "In America, you should eat your hamburger with both hands and as quickly as possible. You shouldn't try to have a conversation until it is eaten." Read it again. This is out of an acclaimed book, published by Oxford, taught to students around the world who want to learn English. This is a British book. What students read in this book they take as truth. They can't pick up, nor should they, on any joke made with a grudge, by some piss-ant Brit who has nothing better to do but disparage America with false information, misguiding all those in the process who read the book and learn from it. You want to crack jokes, that's fine, but don't do it in a text book. I went back through all my classes to point out this purposeful mistake and explained how it was a lie, and how they should question the other tips in the book, for they may be lies, too.
THE STORM
A storm came through two weeks ago...from England...put a few cities in Germany in a state of emergency...knocked out the electricity in a million homes in the Czech Republic. The morning of the storm it was warm and pleasant and then in the evening the wind blew hard, swaying street lamps. It could literally knock you over. 100 mph winds. A few days later, snow fell. And we've had snow ever since. The city is white and beautiful.
On the 25th, the snow fell into the night, blanketing cars and sidewalks, and in the morning, after the proprietors of shops had shoveled in front of their stores, the sidewalks were clean and wet from the sun. I thought that day, with the sun shining brightly, that the snow would melt in three days. But it hasn't and the streets are slushy and I can hear the water under the tires of cars driving by outside my window. Many children are sledding on the hill across from my building, next to the church. Their parents helping and talking on cell phones and smoking cigarettes. I've never lived with the snow; we get snow in the valley once a year, if that, and it melts before the days over. The other night I turned off the light in the apartment and watched the snow falling hard outside the window. You could see it best under the light of street lamps, blowing and curling and turning in circles in the wind.
VYSEHRAD
On Saturday the 26th, after having gone shopping at Tesco to buy groceries (always a fun experience, especially when the cashier asks you questions), we decided to visit Vysehrad, an
old battlement where King Vratislav II decided he'd build a palace, the Church of Sts Peter and Paul, and St Martin's Rotunda, the oldest Romanesque structure in the city. The palace has long since been returned to the ground after the Hussite wars, but the church and the rotunda still remain. Also, Vysehrad Cemetery, resting place of the famous artist Mucha, sits behind the church.When we got to Vysehrad, a twenty minute trip from my place, the sky to the south was blue, streaked by plane exhaust, the airport being somewhere to the northeast. To the north, though, the sky and horizon were gray with snow falling. The wind was blowing from the north, too, in our direction; if you couldn't feel it, like us, since we were behind some tree-cover, you could see it in the ripples on the river.
Below us--we were on the ramparts--was the river, stretching out south. I got some great pics. Soon the wind blew the mass of clouds to us, but we didn't mind it. More snow. Aside the Church, there is a spacious courtyard and at its four corners are larger than life statues, the original statues from Charles Bridge. A teenage couple were throwing snowballs at one. Talking about snowball fights, I had one the other day with my class, in the classroom. Snow everywhere. And another story from my class, today when we were talking about what the students wanted to be when they were younger, one of my students said she wanted to be a "liar." ??? She got the pronunciation wrong, and meant "lawyer." That joke pretty much tells itself. The entry of Sts Peter and Paul Church was open, but you couldn't get any farther than that. I've been in it before, and pictures are band anyways, but it's very beautiful and the whole interior is covered with frescoes.
Well, that's the news.
posted by Garrett at
6:13 AM
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