Monday, February 13, 2006

After a pretty mellow first week of class due to a little cold I caught and successfully eliminated, I started suffering from a serious case of homesickness. Well, it is more like "people" sickness, but I am just a little more depressed noe than I had been when I first arrived in Prague. However, my love for this city and the slightly cool things that have happened this week have not lessened one bit.

On Tuesday after classes, I met with my CIEE-coordinated Charles University friend. I was a little disappointed to have a "friend" as opposed to a "family," mainly because I wanted free, home-cooked meals. But Olga, a German and English student from a small town here in Bohemia, is probably the best person I could have met here. We agreed to meet in Stare Mesto (Old Town) at 14:30, assuming it wouldn't be raining, since it has not done much of that since I've been here. Haha, the gods guffah at my ignorance. I had to wait in the rain, umbrella-less, for twenty minutes before my tiny Czech buddy found me. We walked over to the Faculty of Arts of the university and had hot chocolate. We started talking immediately about theatre and how much we have in common. She bashfully mentioned that her German was much better than her English but we had only a few, minor miscommunications. I inadvertantly taught her the verb purse, as in to purse one's lips. She used the phrase a few times during our conversation. She, in turn, taught me a more logical way to attempt to pronounce the horrible ø. We disgressed into comparing American education with European education, and went as far to address the Roma, or Gypsy, minority and worldwide racism. It was so refreshing to just sit and talk to someone, especially a Czech person who had similar interests as me (Pavla does not know anything about arts and is always studying for her law exams. I think I might have to make an entry completely dedicated to how I live with a cartoon character). We are going to see a German film about fast food culture (comparable to Fast Food Nation and Supersize Me, apparently) that will, thank God, have English-subtitles. At the Faculty of Arts, I ran into a guy on another program I met at the Czech Consulate Office in Los Angeles when I was applying for my student VISA. We exchanged mobile numbers and it was nice to meet someone outside of the incestuous vacuum that is CIEE.

On Friday, after concluding our first week of classes and saying goodbye to the majority of the program to places like Amsterdam, Bratislava, Berlin, and Budapest, I looked through my Lonely Planet guide and found a tearoom on Wenceslas that I wanted to visit. The tearoom, although it is right on the square, is tucked away in a courtyard with, what I'm sure are, lovely outdoor tables during the summer months. I went inside and of course, was not sure how to conduct myself. Just like adjusting to the fact that all doors push in here as opposed to pull out in America, I have realized that seating in restaurants is not facilitated by any type of host. So I walked into the room at my right and sat down at a well-lit table. They had nice cushioned areas where you could take off your shoes and sit cross-legged, but they were very dark and I had gone to read about Jews in Bohemia back in the Middle Ages. A waiter brought me an English-language menu and a little bell. The menu was probably 30 pages in length, detailing the history, benefits and general practice of several hundred teas from around the world. It took me a while but I finally ordered a Chinese jasmin green tea (really adventurous, I know) and tea biscuits. I read there for two and a half hours and only left because I had finished my tea and my reading assignment. After being there for about an hour, the place got very crowded and a Czech woman asked if she could sit at my table. I obliged and tried to keep to myself but she wanted to talk. She asked if I preferred to speak Czech because I had used my basic knowledge to address her. I shrugged me shoulders and for the next ten minutes or so we tried to communicate to each other in Czenglish. It was very difficult and all I got out of the conversation was that she was studying music composition and I think I was able to communicate that I was from Michigan and that I was studying Czech and history here for four something (the word for month completely escaped me at the time...and now for that matter). Although I felt like a dumbass as I left the tearoom, I was exhilarated. I had attempted to communicate in the language of my current city and after that experience, I felt like there was a chance I could...someday. If I live here for, you know, the rest of my life.

Friday night was nuts. I went out with Jess, Rachel, Mary, Allie, Brett and Micah. We started at the bar in Allie's building that always gives us free stuff, like dessert, coffee or shots. The bar was more busy than I've ever seen it and a table of Russian men sent us four shots. They even said a poem in Russian and one of the guys tried to translate but it sounded much more nice in Russian. We then made our way to Duplex, a popular club. I enjoyed myself but our crew was not feeling it so we ended up at a bar in Stare Mesto called Chateau something or another. We met a group of kids from another program (not fun) and a group of expats (fun). A girl, Sarah, who is from Seattle, is involved in a theatre group in Prague that does shows to teach English. Jess got her phone number so we're going to try to keep in contact with her, just to see what kind of professional options an American theatre artist has in Prague. We left around 4:30 to catch the first metro at 4:40am. That was my first full night out on the town in Prague.

Saturday I went to Kava Kava Kava, talked to Robby on Skype and booked my Spring Break plane tickets...I'm going to Athens and Crete! I'm so excited!

Sunday I went to the premiere of Svandovo Divadlo's children's production. I got hooked up with that group through CIEE. The play was completely in Czech but the story was an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, so I followed pretty well. I met with a lady afterwards about the prospect of my voluteering but she did not speak English. We got an interpreter and agreed to meet on Wednesday. I have a strong feeling that volunteering won't work out but it was nice to see a show. Svandovo is one of the only theatre companies that use English subtitles for some of their shows. I'm planning on seeing a Havel play in a couple of weeks.

So, things are good regardless of my homesickness. Next weekend, VIENNA!