Home Again

Over the weekend I got the opportunity to experience what the East Coast Experts I traveled with deemed to be the New Jersey of Europe. Take that to mean what you may. Having never been to Jersey, I can only assume from the way they said it that this is not a good nickname to have. Despite their apparent disgust with Poland, I was still able to find some good things in it because I'm just a positive person like that.
In no particular order, my favorite things about Krakow:

- Pierogi: Dumplings that can be filled with meat, potatoes or cheese. Obviously at the top of my list. Not only do they taste amazing, they are also dirt cheap (and coated in butter).

- Food in general: If there is one thing that could make me love Poland, it is the food. They eat like the Czechs, but do not have sauerkraut, from what I can see. It is also amazingly cheap.

- Cute markets: They have this cute market in their Old Town Square (though really it is not all that old because they had to rebuild it after a war, I think). I was able to find some [really cheap] hand-knit wool sock/slippers. Amazing.

- Salt Mines: I do not think I have ever come across a country where the people say to themselves, "Well, I work in a salt mine. I think I will carve five chapels out of salt," or "Hmmm...I seem to find myself with some extra time in the salt mine, after spending all day in this salt mine. I think that, instead of coming above the surface and going home, I will carve a statue of Pope John Paul II out of salt." It's very endearing how attached they are to their salt.

- Auschwitz: I can't say that I "like" it, but I can say that it is an incredibly interesting [and draining] place. Auschwitz-I is not at all like what I pictured it--it looks more like a New England college campus than what I picture a concentration camp to be, but this makes it all the more creepy. It's the facade of normalcy that makes it so unsettling. Auschwitz-II was more how I expected it to look. It was just as unsettling, though this time it is not the normalcy, but instead the great expanse of emptiness, marked by traces of what was once there, combined with the incredible amount of work the Nazis did to create this place. They built Auschwitz-II for this specific purpose, and when you look at it all, it feels as though the broken down chimneys, all that's left of the buildings they burned to try to cover their tracks, could continue on for miles. It was an interesting place, though one that I think a person could only handle once in their life.

- Swing: It's a jazz club Eric, Maddy and I found the first night in our attempts to get into the nightlife despite being deathly tired. We enjoyed it and the live music it provided us. The second night we went back and discovered we it was a hotspot for old people with no dance skills. We went back the third night. It was closed. This did not ruin our love of the club.

- Fat Boys: I am not being insensitive, I am merely calling them by name. Fat Boys are giant bean bag mattresses meant for, at most, two people. Eric, Maddy, and I, in our first ever couchsurfing experience, had to share one because a British guy was sleeping on our host's couch the first two nights we were there. The last night we shared the Fat Boy because we didn't know anything different.

- Bathroom Sign: The last night we spent in Krakow, we pooled our leftover Zloty to buy ourselves one last round of drinks. The bar we went to had the most inviting bathroom sign, and I almost felt the need to take it up on its offer. Because I didn't have any good reading material with me, however, I decided against this, and instead spent my night in the company of my friends rather than a toilet stall.


- Exchange rate: Everything was cheap cheap cheap!

Housekeeping

Just a few housekeeping things before the weekend starts, just to get you all up to date on where I'm at (mentally--physically I'm at home in Prague).

1. Patrick Swayze died. I just learned this. Apparently news travels slower across the Atlantic than mail (Grandma sent me a letter on Monday and I got it today, and by my calculations, it took me 10 days to hear of Patrick Swayze's death).

2. Bob Barker is 85. After I heard the unfortunate news about Patrick Swayze, I checked on Bob Barker to see where he's at. He's still fighting for animal rights, it would appear.

3. Everyone hates Poland. Whenever I tell [Czech] people that I am going to Poland this weekend (by the way, I am going to Poland this weekend), they all ask, "Why?" I never know how to answer this because, honestly, I don't know. I am hoping that when I get there I find something to do, but looking ahead to this trip, I have to ask myself, "How am I going to keep myself occupied for the next three days?"

4. My blog has had 43 views. When I discovered how to check how many views it has, it had 40 views. Since then I have checked it three other times to see how many views it has. It figures.

5. I hate sauerkraut. This is not an overstatement. This is probably the truest statement I have said thus far in my blog. Sauerkraut is quite possibly the bane of my existence (in the food world at least) apart from animal organs and mushrooms. It is therefore most upsetting to me that I have stumbled upon a country where sauerkraut seems to be its own food group. Everything else about Czech food makes my mouth water--goulash, dumplings (both bread and potato), potatoes, meat, and beer (only when washing down dumplings)--but sauerkraut makes me sick. The first time I had it, I was fooled until I sat down at the table. They had told me we were eating cabbage. They served me sauerkraut. I didn't even realize that sauerkraut comes from cabbage--it smells like some vile substance that could not have come from a plant, or at least if it it come from some formerly living thing, it would be from onions which already smell weird (though taste delicious).
It kills me that they keep feeding it to me. When eating it, I have to make sure the meat and dumpling to sauerkraut ratio is in my favor, though this gets difficult. Daka has taken it into her head that she will send me back to the States with curves. I am fine with this--as long as the curves come from food that tastes good. Meat? Fine. Dumplings? Sure. Chocolate? Sign me up for gaining 5 kilos. Potatoes? Definitely. Sauerkraut? Please shoot me in the foot and never allow me to eat again.
Honestly. Sauerkraut sucks all the fun out of eating.
Tonight we had sauerkraut. It was red for some reason, I'm assuming it's from the sauce. And dumplings, and veprove (pork). They gave me four dumplings, two and a half pieces of meat, and a veritable mountain of sauerkraut. I would have just eaten the dumplings and meat, but Daka was watching, and already the rest of my food had been contaminated by the "cabbage," so I decided to make everyone (except myself, my stomach, and my tastebuds) happy and ate it.

To review:
Patrick Swayze: dead
Bob Barker: alive
Poland: universally loathed (by the CR)
Blog views: 43 (about 75% are from me admiring how nice it looks)
Sauerkraut: bane of my existence

Vltava Boating

No snarky comments, just pictures of a beautiful day in a beautiful city on a beautiful river.

Sleep

Well I didn't realize that it was possible to be this tired and still be alive. It's not that I didn't sleep a whole lot (I got nine hours last night) and it's not that my schedule was all that hectic today (only two classes, and a seminar that I am sitting around waiting for right now). I don't know what it is...maybe just the fact that I have two classes on complete opposite ends of the day. Or maybe it's that I had the additional stress of trying to meet the Czech university student who I am helping teach English at the right time.

I actually ended up being late for our meeting today. I thought that half an hour would be enough time for me to get to the stop on the metro we were supposed to meeting from the stop on the metro where my school is located. Apparently I was wrong. I forgot to factor in that I had to walk up a hill, make a pit stop for the bathroom, and that I was wearing shoes that have been known to draw blood when worn for 10+ minutes. It was because of all these things that I showed up late to the metro station.

Luckily, though, the meeting went well. Somehow he had found a book of English grammar, one that is pretty obviously directed towards towards already English-speaking people. So we went through the first 10 lessons of the book, passing up the things that I felt I was unable to accurately describe because for me, there are no descriptions. They just are. But after every verb tense we went over (he knew them all already, so I felt that the grammar book was unnecessary), he would look up at me and say, "Do you actually use this?" I'd look back at him and say, "Yes, but I honestly can't tell you when."

Honestly, it is impossible to describe the difference between the tense where you say, "I have done something" and the action is completed, and the tense where you say, "I have done something" and the action is still ongoing. After staring blankly at the book for a while, I told him to just listen to the question and use the words that they use in the question to formulate his response.

We finally gave up with the grammar, and I moved on to something I knew I could teach him: slang. I taught him all about "chillin'":
"What are you doing tonight?"
"Chillin' with some friends. You?"
"Yeah. I plan to chill out too. What did you do last night?"
"I chilled."
"Sweet as."

In addition to "chillin,'" I taught him about "hanging out" and what "That's a bummer" means. The hanging out was particularly confusing for him. I had used it earlier in an email to him. He asked me what it means...the only way he had ever heard of it was used in regards to laundry. It was this "hanging out" conversation that led us onto "chilling."

I have to say I was a little bit offended by the direction the conversation turned. After a while he asked me what I did every day. I told him, with the times, until I ended it by saying, "And then I go to bed." "And what time is that?" he asked. "Eleven, maybe 12," I told him. He looked at me aghast. "But you're young! You should be out with your friends! At the disco, at the pub!" I felt as though I had to justify it to him--"But I like sleeping. Plus I have to get up at like 6.30 a couple days a week for class." "Okay, okay," he said, "What time do you go to bed on Saturday?" To avoid his ridicule a second time over my sleeping patterns, I gave him a meaningful look and said, "Late." I figured this was the best answer, and allowed him to interpret it as he would, choosing not to give him another opportunity to be shocked with my sleeping habits.

Later, though, when we were making plans for when to meet the next week, he said he would be available on Wednesday. "Great!" I said. "Me too!" "Well, I have swimming thing, and I will be getting back at seven." "That's fine," I said. "We can meet when you get back." "But you go to bed so early...!" "It's fine." And I decided to never discuss my sleeping habits with him again.

What I Miss Most

What I Miss Most About Home. A Short Essay by Emily Rose Oachs

I feel as though I have shorted myself on some of the abroad experience by choosing a country that does not speak English. Obviously, my experience is that much more intense for the sole reason that I do not speak the language and have no way to communicate with about 75% of the population (that's my statistic, not an official one) except through hand gestures and praying for some kind of divine intervention so that the other person will understand. This is all good, and helps me learn how to deal with people who are different from me and everything, but there are some things I really miss. And by some things, I mean one major thing.

People consider us to be "loud Americans," though I really think this is a bit of an unfair generalization. At least coming from them. They are the pot, we are the kettle, and look at that!

We're both black.

It's the combination of their loudness and my inability to understand the language that makes me miss being able to eavesdrop. They sit in restaurants, on the tram, in the metro, on park benches and hoot and holler and chit and chatter about this and that. It kills me that I have no idea what they're talking about when I know full well that if I were in English speaking country (or else understood the language), I would know their first and last names, birthdates, and addresses by the end of my eavesdropping session.

Instead I sit, glowering out the window, at my plate, or at a tree, imagining what they are saying. I naturally imagine that they are talking about me, and laughing uproariously over the fact that they are obviously talking about me, but I am oblivious. It's a vicious circle, and it kills me that I can't turn to them and say, "I know you are talking about me." If I were to attempt to do this now, I would have to point to myself, point to my head, point to them, point to their mouths, point to me. This is a very long and difficult process and is something that I think would only prompt more ridicule and jokes at my expense.

After having had two weeks of Czech class, though, my desire to eavesdrop and understand has only been heightened by the few, select words I have learned. When listening in on conversations, I am now able to pick out some words, mostly numbers, and these only heighten my curiosity about what these people are talking about.

I will be sitting, minding my own business on the metro, with a couple sitting next to me, talking about something obviously important. I naturally tune them out, until I hear them say, "jedenact."
-- Oh jedenact, you say? I think to myself. Eleven what? Eleven hours, eleven days, eleven years, eleven o'clock? The possibilities are endless. Please explain yourself further.--
I then listen closer, trying to figure out why they decided to talk about the number eleven. And then I hear, "Dvanact."
--So you're counting? Very nice. Well I can do that too. And I bet I can predict what you're going to say next. Trinact. Oh wow. Aren't I impressive?--
Though eventually it becomes apparent that they were not counting at all. Instead they say devet or pet or maybe even ctyricet sest, but the trinact never comes and I am left with even less of an understanding of the purpose of their conversation than before I began listening.

At times I get so disgusted that I can't listen in on their conversations, that I listen in extra hard, trying to discern any word they might say. This isn't me trying to put to use my Czech skills, this is instead an attempt to listen so hard that somehow, magically, their Czech morphs into heavily accented, though understandable English. I think if I were a superhero, this would be my superpower. Unfortunately, languages don't morph like that, and as hard as I try, Czech will never sound like English or be remotely related to English.

This is my dilemma: I am forced to live four months in a country where I do not have the skills to eavesdrop. When I get home, I am going to ride the 16 back and forth from Minneapolis to St Paul for a day, and I will eavesdrop on conversations, and I will add in my input to them, JUST BECAUSE I CAN.



In other news:
Laundry day. You know what that means. Embarrassment today, chafing tomorrow.

Today

I suppose I'll do the tally system again to give you a brief idea of my weekend thus far.

Yesterday (Friday):
-Met with the Czech person I am helping learn English (+1 culture point, +1 social point). He laughs every time I try to say Petrin (-1 culture point), and when he tries to say things the way I do, I notice how pronounced my Minnesooootan accent really is (-1 culture point, +1 cool point).
-Went to a "stereotype party" where everyone was supposed to dress as a stereotype (+1 social point). Not having dressed up, I tried to convince everyone I came as your stereotypical modest Midwestern girl with wholesome values (-1 cool point). Nobody believed me (-1 cool point). I did, however, spend time mingling (+1 social point) and drinking a gin and tonic (+1 social point, +1 cool point).

Today (Saturday):
-Went to a wine festival (+1 cool point, +1 culture point) with some friends (+1 social point) and drank "young wine" (+1 cool point, +1 culture point).
-Almost went paddle boating on the Vltava (+1 culture point, +1 cool point), but didn't have time (-1 cool point) because...
-Went to Mozart's "Requiem" (+1 cool point, +1 culture point) at St. Nicholas's Church in the Mala Strana (+3 cool points, +1 culture point).
-Possibly walked 5+ miles today (+27 exhaustion points).

So that comes to...
Cool: 7 points
Culture: 4 points
Social: 5 points
Exhaustion: 27 points

Obviously, a good couple of days.

Broken Family

Having just finished my second week of Intensive Czech class, I have newfound respect for myself. Seeing how difficult Czech is to learn, I wonder How the hell did I ever learn Spanish? Until this point in my life, I have never truly appreciated my Spanish abilities.

When people hear that I speak Spanish, they all ask the same question.
Most people: "Are you fluent?"
Me: "Hardly. I only know a little."

I realize now that that's bullshit--and that I need to stop being modest. Compared to my Czech abilities, I am fluent, and only because I can say, "I do my homework" (Yo hago mi tarea) and "My father's name is Brad" (Mi padre se llama Brad).

This is the sad thing about Czech. I have been learning the language for two weeks, and I have yet to learn how to say, "dad," "father," or even "husband to my mother who is the reason I am born." None of this. Mother, yes, sister, yes, even boyfriend I have learned, but somehow my Czech education has glossed over the word father.

I am fairly certain that I am the only student in the class who seems to have missed the father memo, though I can never be certain because, to tell the truth, if they were saying the word "father" I wouldn't understand. For all I know they could be saying "I play basketball with the my drug dealer" or "I live at home with my mom, my brother, my sister, and the milkman."

Because of this, I am convinced Jana, my Czech teacher, thinks I come from some broken home, where any mention of a man, or father figure even, is something that's just not done. In class we had to answer the question, "Koho mám ráda?" (Who do you like?). Because of my ignorance, I had to respond to the question, "Mám ráda moje maminku, moje sestru, moje kluk, a Obamu" (I like my mother, my sister, my boyfriend, and Obama). And when I am posed the question, "Who do you telephone?" I can only simply answer, "Telefonuju moje maminku" (I telephone my mother) or else, "Telefonuju domu" (I telephone home).

Saying that I telephone home would be the easiest bet at this point to ensure that all my bases are covered when it comes to including my father, but I worry that the damage has been done. Already my teacher has it in her mind that I have been raised by a lone woman and that father figures don't factor into my life. Therefore (tak), when I say maminku or maminka, I say it to mean "parents" rather than just mother.

I hope you're not offended.


PS--Dad, maminku, congrats on the new job :)