I'm back at the hostel early today, partly because my Achilles tendon is protesting from the extraordinary amount of walking I've been doing this week and partly because I'm tired. And believe it or not, the sun actually decided to show its face today for the first time since I've been here. I'm feeling kind of bitter about that given that it's my last day in Prague, but hopefully the weather will be even better in Vienna (I've pre-ordered 80 degrees and sunshine).
My hostel stay has been pretty nice, mostly due to the free internet access and well-equipped kitchen, but there seem to be a lot of college students staying here during their party vacations. Being the old lady and walk-happy tourist that I am, I like to sleep for solid periods of time during the nighttime hours. Last night was particularly bad. I went to bed a little after midnight, and all throughout the night, drunk guys were coming in to collapse on their beds. This morning at 7:30 am, a new Portuguese guest came in and decided to take a shower, which led the chatty group of Colombian guys to get up, too, even though they had gotten in last night at 3:30 am and loudly talked and laughed for anywhere between 45 minutes and an eternity. After about half of this eternity, I was ready to punch the boy sleeping in the bunk below me; whatever drunken story his friend was telling him incited him to laugh continuously and shrinkingly like a gaspy little girl on helium, making me feel meaner and madder than I ever have (blame it on lack of sleep...?). The good news is that the boy's life was spared when he finally passed out, most likely from lack of oxygen caused by poor laughing habits.
I woke myself up last night as well -- probably soon after I went to sleep the first time -- because I was laughing and talking loudly in French (yes! language inebriation-1 point). The only other girl staying in the dorm room was [luckily] the only witness to this spectacle, and I opened up my eyes a crack to see her come to the doorway of the adjacent room where she sleeps. I remember thinking to myself, "Ah, she wouldn't understand," not in relation to the French or the reason why I was laughing and speaking to no one in the dark, but rather I knew that she wouldn't understand whatever inside joke it was that I found to be sooo funny. Hoo boy. A slight sense of shame hit me only this morning, but it is what it is, I guess.
Random fact #1: I saw a well-dressed man with a handsome face vigorously kick a pigeon today, The poor pigeon had been just minding his own dopey business on the sidewalk with his pigeon buddy when along came the big human foot. I'm sure the bird died after being catapulted toward a bridge, and I've been thinking all day about the bizarre look of mean satisfaction on the man's face. Jerk.
Random fact #2: I'm incompetent at finding the Jewish Cemetery in Prague. I've searched for it multiple times with my map in hand, and each time, I find myself more confused than the last. Does it even exist?? I gave myself one last chance to find it this morning and ended up on the completely wrong side of town, so I bought myself a sandwich instead and called it even.
Random fact #3: This morning, I saw a little girl of about 4 years old chatting away animatedly with her mother on a side-road in a historic neighborhood of Prague. This would, of course, be perfectly normal except that the little girl's pants and underwear were around her ankles, bare behind fully exposed and a telltale puddle at her feet on the sidewalk. Her mother was handing her a wetwipe, like this behavior was perfectly normal and expected. Also notable about this sight is that the temperature here is no warmer than freezing. Huh.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Czeching My Reflection
Today is my last day in Prague before heading off tomorrow morning for Vienna. It's been an adventure! I must admit that I spent my first day or two here feeling rather weird and lonely, but I've definitely gotten over that and have enjoyed my time here immensely. There's no better way to fully appreciate your independence than spending time alone in a foreign country where you don't understand the language. The high I get from this part of the trip is comparable to what I experienced in moving to France last fall; when you know that you can only trust yourself, you realize how much you are independently capable of accomplishing.
My understanding of the Czech language remains limited to a vague comprehension of "hello" and "thank you," both sounds of which I would be unable to reproduce with a gun pointed at my head (and luckily, this hasn't happened yet so I may be home-free). After several long hours of eavesdropping at Starbucks, I have a theory about the origins of Czech (and yes, I said Starbucks. Give me a break; I'm used to little old Pertuis). It's rather complicated, but I suspect that after a lifetime of practice, it might not be so difficult. Pay attention, kids: Czech is a trifold language. First, every third word is, in fact, an English word spoken backwards; it has the same accent but is just pronounced in order from the traditional last letter to the traditional first. For example, "transportation" becomes "no-ita-tropsin-art." Second, every third word is borrowed from the Russian language. Since I don't understand Russian, I am unable to provide examples and am thus we come to the crux of my Czech-speaking problem. Third, every third word is the name of a cheese from somewhere in the world. At the church I visited the other day, the priest repeated "cheddar" six or seven times, so I theorize that American cheeses hold some importance for the Catholic sector of the population. I haven't yet discovered if cheese names translate into more profound meanings or if they just especially appreciate cheese here. This may always remain a mystery.
***NB: I believe that I'm so fixated on my inability to understand/speak Czech because I've been working so hard to ameliorate my French language skills these past few months. I don't actually expect myself to speak Czech after 5 days in Prague...
While walking in the streets yesterday afternoon after returning from Kutna Hora (photos to be posted later), I composed a short masterpiece about my time here. And yes, it rhymes.
Heavy, grey skies stole my Provençal joy and left me with muddy shoes
Until I remembered my umbrella
And didn't feel so yella'
In my solo fight against the Praha blues.
Fast walkers -- but no stalkers! -- march down the street in rank.
Although I try to keep the beat,
I don't have their Czech fire under my feet,
And end up eating their stank.
But along came an old-glory castle and a bone church in the hills...
While drinking too much coffee in the afternoon,
I felt an appreciation bloom
For this place whose unique charm now gives me the chills.
The "golden city" doesn't acquiesce in its insistence on lovin'.
Somewhere between enchanting me à la golden fleuri
And teaching me its ancient and colorful history,
I wish I weren't leavin' but were comin'.
...trust me, it sounds better in my head and while on a good-exchange-rate/caffeine high. :)
My understanding of the Czech language remains limited to a vague comprehension of "hello" and "thank you," both sounds of which I would be unable to reproduce with a gun pointed at my head (and luckily, this hasn't happened yet so I may be home-free). After several long hours of eavesdropping at Starbucks, I have a theory about the origins of Czech (and yes, I said Starbucks. Give me a break; I'm used to little old Pertuis). It's rather complicated, but I suspect that after a lifetime of practice, it might not be so difficult. Pay attention, kids: Czech is a trifold language. First, every third word is, in fact, an English word spoken backwards; it has the same accent but is just pronounced in order from the traditional last letter to the traditional first. For example, "transportation" becomes "no-ita-tropsin-art." Second, every third word is borrowed from the Russian language. Since I don't understand Russian, I am unable to provide examples and am thus we come to the crux of my Czech-speaking problem. Third, every third word is the name of a cheese from somewhere in the world. At the church I visited the other day, the priest repeated "cheddar" six or seven times, so I theorize that American cheeses hold some importance for the Catholic sector of the population. I haven't yet discovered if cheese names translate into more profound meanings or if they just especially appreciate cheese here. This may always remain a mystery.
***NB: I believe that I'm so fixated on my inability to understand/speak Czech because I've been working so hard to ameliorate my French language skills these past few months. I don't actually expect myself to speak Czech after 5 days in Prague...
While walking in the streets yesterday afternoon after returning from Kutna Hora (photos to be posted later), I composed a short masterpiece about my time here. And yes, it rhymes.
Czech Me Out Now
>>> an original poem by me <<<
>>> an original poem by me <<<
Heavy, grey skies stole my Provençal joy and left me with muddy shoes
Until I remembered my umbrella
And didn't feel so yella'
In my solo fight against the Praha blues.
Fast walkers -- but no stalkers! -- march down the street in rank.
Although I try to keep the beat,
I don't have their Czech fire under my feet,
And end up eating their stank.
But along came an old-glory castle and a bone church in the hills...
While drinking too much coffee in the afternoon,
I felt an appreciation bloom
For this place whose unique charm now gives me the chills.
The "golden city" doesn't acquiesce in its insistence on lovin'.
Somewhere between enchanting me à la golden fleuri
And teaching me its ancient and colorful history,
I wish I weren't leavin' but were comin'.
...trust me, it sounds better in my head and while on a good-exchange-rate/caffeine high. :)
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Praha
Yesterday afternoon, I boarded a Eurolines bus in Aix to start my 2-week adventure that begins in Prague and then will continue to Vienna, Bratislava, and Salzburg. I knew I had signed up for a long bus ride, but the 22.5 hours passed rather quickly and without any extraordinary occurrences. We first drove up through France to Lyon, where I transferred from a German Eurolines bus to a Czech bus. I had decided to go to Prague alone with the full realization that I know NOTHING about the Czech language: no greetings, no numbers, no pronunciation guidelines, rien. It hadn't really occurred to me, however, to feel worried about this lack of knowledge until I boarded the Czech bus and heard nothing but an indistinguishable foreign language from every corner. Czech is sadly unpronouncible for my English tongue, which has just recently started to get the hang of French. Even thank you in Czech seems to change every time I hear it. Luckily, I had bought a european phrase book in an English bookstore in Aix a week ago, so I at least have a basic outline of what is necessary to say for the next five days.
Anyway, the bus ride went okay, mostly because I had two seats to myself and could spread out to sleep. We stopped every five hours for a bathroom/snack break, which was sufficient. It took until about 5:00 am for us to arrive in Germany this morning, where we were stopped by the Polizei at the border so we could all show our passports. By the time the sky started getting lighter, I noticed in between dozes that we weren't in Provence anymore: snow covered everything and gray clouds hung heavy over the hills, almost making me wish I had chosen to use these two weeks to see Greece or Corsica instead. We passed through Mannheim, Frankfurt, Nurnburg before hitting a traffic jam in Eastern Germany, which eventually caused us to arrive over an hour late in Prague. We weren't stopped by border control when we crossed into the Czech Republic, but we stopped for gas at a truck stop just over the border; it was funny to see how truckers in Eastern Europe are so much similar to those in the US or France...kinda scruffy and bandy-legged. They all had decorated the insides of their windshields with their country's flags and colorful trophies plastered with the names of the countries they had visited (I imagine).
We travelled another two hours until we reached Prague in the center of the country. There is nothing much between Germany and Prague besides snowy fields, forested hills, and little villages full of colorful, boxy houses all clumped together. The foggy, snowy gloom felt depressing and my pending arrival to the land of the Czech language scared me, so I started reading and trying to memorize simple phrases in Czech. I picked up the book and put it away in my bag about 7 times before I felt that I had mastered how to ask if someone speaks English (you tell me how you pronounce 'Mluvite anglicky'...turns out it's nothing like mlooveet anglicky, what it looks like to me!). I forgot it all by the time the bus finally arrived in the crappy Florenc bus station during a snow flurry, and I was back to square one. After getting Czech koruna from an ATM and wandering around looking like a stupid pigeon for about 15 minutes, I decided to forego the confusing metro and get a cab. I usually end up having to do this when I arrive in a new city, mostly because long hours of travel makes me slow-witted and numb, and today was no exception. The ride was short and inexpensive, and I arrived at my hostel, where the world became brighter because they all speak English. Yes, what a treat!
I walked around for a couple hours tonight, first to a grocery store and then to see the old part of the city. I saw several old cathedrals, watched the Astronomical Clock chime 7:00 pm, and ate a fried potato pancake that I bought from a vendor. I hadn't heard any English-speakers until I got to the clock tower (not including hostel), and it's clear that this is not the high tourist season.
The Prague around my hostel is not very pretty and more working-class average than anything. The old part of the city, though, is truly beautiful and very charming. From the little I saw tonight, it's modern with a ton of chain clothing stores (and crystal stores...apparently crystal is a big deal here?) and international restaurants all sprinkled in among ancient building facades and towers. I'll upload my photos when I get back to France. There are also loads of Thai massage salons, and one salon even had a front window through which you could see a line of clients getting their feet massaged by little Thai women. Anyway, it was cold and I'm tired, so I decided to return back to the hostel after a couple hours. I'm going to get dinner here, take a shower, and then call it a night very soon!
Nashledanou!
Anyway, the bus ride went okay, mostly because I had two seats to myself and could spread out to sleep. We stopped every five hours for a bathroom/snack break, which was sufficient. It took until about 5:00 am for us to arrive in Germany this morning, where we were stopped by the Polizei at the border so we could all show our passports. By the time the sky started getting lighter, I noticed in between dozes that we weren't in Provence anymore: snow covered everything and gray clouds hung heavy over the hills, almost making me wish I had chosen to use these two weeks to see Greece or Corsica instead. We passed through Mannheim, Frankfurt, Nurnburg before hitting a traffic jam in Eastern Germany, which eventually caused us to arrive over an hour late in Prague. We weren't stopped by border control when we crossed into the Czech Republic, but we stopped for gas at a truck stop just over the border; it was funny to see how truckers in Eastern Europe are so much similar to those in the US or France...kinda scruffy and bandy-legged. They all had decorated the insides of their windshields with their country's flags and colorful trophies plastered with the names of the countries they had visited (I imagine).
We travelled another two hours until we reached Prague in the center of the country. There is nothing much between Germany and Prague besides snowy fields, forested hills, and little villages full of colorful, boxy houses all clumped together. The foggy, snowy gloom felt depressing and my pending arrival to the land of the Czech language scared me, so I started reading and trying to memorize simple phrases in Czech. I picked up the book and put it away in my bag about 7 times before I felt that I had mastered how to ask if someone speaks English (you tell me how you pronounce 'Mluvite anglicky'...turns out it's nothing like mlooveet anglicky, what it looks like to me!). I forgot it all by the time the bus finally arrived in the crappy Florenc bus station during a snow flurry, and I was back to square one. After getting Czech koruna from an ATM and wandering around looking like a stupid pigeon for about 15 minutes, I decided to forego the confusing metro and get a cab. I usually end up having to do this when I arrive in a new city, mostly because long hours of travel makes me slow-witted and numb, and today was no exception. The ride was short and inexpensive, and I arrived at my hostel, where the world became brighter because they all speak English. Yes, what a treat!
I walked around for a couple hours tonight, first to a grocery store and then to see the old part of the city. I saw several old cathedrals, watched the Astronomical Clock chime 7:00 pm, and ate a fried potato pancake that I bought from a vendor. I hadn't heard any English-speakers until I got to the clock tower (not including hostel), and it's clear that this is not the high tourist season.
The Prague around my hostel is not very pretty and more working-class average than anything. The old part of the city, though, is truly beautiful and very charming. From the little I saw tonight, it's modern with a ton of chain clothing stores (and crystal stores...apparently crystal is a big deal here?) and international restaurants all sprinkled in among ancient building facades and towers. I'll upload my photos when I get back to France. There are also loads of Thai massage salons, and one salon even had a front window through which you could see a line of clients getting their feet massaged by little Thai women. Anyway, it was cold and I'm tired, so I decided to return back to the hostel after a couple hours. I'm going to get dinner here, take a shower, and then call it a night very soon!
Nashledanou!
Monday, February 9, 2009
A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That
The last few weeks have been so packed with a short trip to Avignon, visitors in Pertuis, dance soirées in Aix, adventures in the kitchen (really! I'm almost cooking like a big girl now...), making plans for the future, lots of cinematic outings, rainy, rainy days, and oh yes, teaching! that there's no chance that I'll be able to cover it all in one shot. I've become astonishingly bad at this blog as of late, and it's mostly due to a new love interest in my life (which will not be covered here). :) Anyway, this all means that this will be a grab bag of news:A couple weeks ago, Whitney and I hopped a bus to Avignon and l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue to visit some assistant friends we had met way back in October. We very much enjoyed a girls' night out complete with thorough wine drinking, pizza eating (ratatouille pizza is my new favorite), and dancing to the point of collapse. The most interesting/surprising part of the trip was that we discovered that most of the assistants are enjoying many of the same random and unusual experiences that Whitney and I are having in Pertuis. The list of similarities runs the whole gamut from frustrating mishaps at the bank to the spicier encounters with European men. Apparently, the assistants who are teaching in and around Avignon spend a lot of time together and have thus had fewer opportunities to make friends with Real French People; although our time in Pertuis has been at times rather difficult and lonely due to the lack of an English-speaking safety net, Whitney and I have decisively concluded that we are very happy to be living more authentically in a small town. It was forced upon us, of course, but at the end of the day, it is so much more rewarding than globbing comfortably about with packs of other English speakers.
P.S. l’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is beautiful (photo above is in l'Isle as well...it's hard to tell, but the basket on the bike held a few bottles of wine, and it was just so French).
Me in l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue...it rained, of course
l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, "the Venice of Provence" Next up to bat: summer 2009 plans. I've been asked by my landlord to work for her in exchange for free rent and health insurance for three months this summer. I'm going to be a gardener in Provence! For the sake of a good, old-fashioned recap, here's the story: my landlord is a 60-year-old American translator from Detroit who is married to her second Frenchman and has been living in France for over 30 years. I've mentioned Vivian before as the couple has often invited me upstairs to enjoy a meal or an aperitif with them. A few weeks ago, she and I went out for dinner at Pertuis's couscous restaurant where we finally had the chance for her to share her "Coming to France" story and also to talk business. It was then that she offered me a job. Every summer, she returns to Detroit to visit family and friends as well as to check up on her childhood home that she now rents out all year. Every year, she hires someone to take care of her Pertuisian garden when she is gone so that the whole thing isn't scorched to a crispy desert upon her return in the fall. I told her that I was interested in her offer but would need to know more details. We met again last week to visit the garden, which is located a bikable distance outside of Pertuis and is fed by the long, snaking canal that runs through the region. Vivian has three large plots that she rents on a farm, and she grows everything imaginable, including sunflowers, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, artichokes, fig trees, nectarine trees, plum trees, and squash. Also on her land are several resplendent magnolia trees clustered together to shade a circular picnic table and a minute cabin that is well-equipped with a tiny kitchenette and all the garden tools one could dream of having. As aforementioned, the gardens are watered by an irrigation system, so it'll be necessary to make sure that the mini canals are regularly cleaned and functional (I know nothing about irrigation systems...or really about gardening on a grand scale, soooo...!). In exchange for sorting her mail and visiting the garden several times a week to fight the dry, hot summer weather, I can stay in my studio rent-free, I can eat all of what I grow in the garden, and I will be have health insurance. More importantly, I get to stay a little longer in this situation that continues to feel more and more like a new beginning every day.
With our friend Pascale's help, Whitney and I have completed and sent in our papers to renew our teaching contracts for next year. We've been told we won't hear the decision till June, and unfortunately, it's tricky to know if we even have a fighting chance of being renewed thanks to the complete randomness and utter disorganization of the academy. Nowadays, I walk around the streets of Pertuis with my fingers, toes, eyeballs, and hair strands all crossed for good luck, and I plan to do so until I hear the official decision this summer.
I took this picture while walking around (all crossed-up for luck)in Pertuis on Saturday
On a completely unrelated note, we have another school vacation coming up in two weeks. I've decided to travel solo to Prague, Vienna, and Salzburg for the two-week long trip, and since the extent of my knowledge in either language stops at the words "kindergarten" and "sauerkraut," I'll have many opportunities to whip out my mad charade survival skills. I'm looking forward to everything about the trip except for the inexpensive, 21-hour bus ride I've signed up for aboard Eurolines. I've never tried this bus company before, but thanks to a couple horrifying Greyhound trips in the USA (*twitch*shudder*gag*), I can only expect the worst. However, I'm sure Prague and Austria---and maybe Bratislava, too---will be well worth the travel accommodations on the first leg of the trip. I haven't yet made plans for the trip other than to arrive in Prague, so I have a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks!
In other important news, the sun finally decided to show its face yesterday after what feels like 4 years of rain and cold. I swear, the Pertuisiens have been telling me every day for the past month that they've not seen weather this cold and wet for 14, 25, 30 years; such luck I have, eh? Happily, though, spring is already starting to arrive here with the brave forsythia blooming and fields turning green. I'll take that over the Minnesota "heat wave" of 30 degrees any day!
Woooo, that's all for now.
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