Prague (or Praha if you want to get technical)

So I've been in Prague for oh, 3 weeks now. It's been quite the experience to say the least. Everything I've expected out of my trip to Europe and more.



To start, the city centre is gorgeous. The center of the city is an epicenter of history and Czech culture. Much of the city's centre's buildings and architecture come from as far back as the 15th century and probably farther (I'm a history buff, but my knowledge of the Holy Roman Empire and Czech history is rather weak) There is a particular building called the Old Town Hall which was built in the 15th century. It's famous for its giant astronomical clock, which was built to observe time, and the movement of the stars and planets. Pretty advanced considering it was built hundreds of years ago. Me and my girlfriend, Noel got a chance to go up to the top of the tower. It was pretty nice.

The farther you get outside the center of the city, however, is when you start to see the rather "not-so-nice" parts of Prague. Much of the buildings and architecture in the outer parts are pretty run down. Most of the buildings have those "Stalinist" styles to them. Bland. Absolutely no creativity. Look like they were whipped up in a week. Oh, the joys of the Communist-era!, or what I like to refer to as the "Stupid Fucker Period" of Russian-Eastern European history.

The bars here in Prague are great. There is a vibrant nightlife downtown and plenty of bars and discoteques (sigh, for using that word) to hang out in. Much of the group in my course have been going out together, so we have been hitting up a few of the spots. I'm guilty of stumbling back onto the train on a few occassions with my girlfriend and this group. Beer is literally cheaper than water here. You can get a beer for 35 crowns (about a buck in America). And when I say a beer, I don't mean some pussy-glass of beer like they do in the states. They give you half a freaking litre of beer. Great beer too. Pilsner-Urquell, I guess, could be considered the "official" Czech beer, and it's probably the one Czech beer many in the U.S. might be familiar with. It's nice, but I prefer Gambrinus and Staropramen (which is especially cheap) My liver never quite recovered from my last two years of college (I think between me and my roommates, we probably drank the equivalent of Lake Michigan), so I've been trying not to drink too much.

Czech people are....interesting to say the least. I've had a lot of different reactions to Czech people so far. Some positive. Some negative. It is definitely a culture shock to come to a country with a different culture, language, etc. Czechs in many ways enjoy some of the many things Americans do, but in many ways, go out of their way to be different. English is spoken quite a bit in the city centre due to tourism, but the farther out you get, your lucky if you can find anyone who does understand it. Czech people tend to be particularly short. Especially waitors and waitresses. I think the fact that you don't speak Czech merely pisses them off more, so your service tends to hit the back-burner if you ever go to a restaurant.

The Czechs, like any other culture, can and will appreciate you a little more if you make at least an half-assed effort to speak the language however. I've learned just a few words in Czech from the course, but they have helped and I have noticed that people tend to be a little more friendly. The people I've taught at the TEFL school have been extremely polite, so I suppose I just ran into a few bad eggs, no different than any major city in the U.S. (well, maybe not Detroit)

Some highlights-and-lowlights of my time here so far:

-Prague Castle is amazing. If you ever come to Prague, you have to come here. It was built by Charles the VXXXXIIII (God knows how many Charles were before him) and has people entombed there from as far back as 900 AD. The inside looks like St. Peters Basilica. It is breathtaking.

-Apparently, according to a man who tried to get me and a couple of my friends here into a bar, there is a tradition in the Czech Republic where people kick Midgets in the ass. I'm not making that up. He told us this when someone mentioned they were from Denver and he goes "oh, Colorado, you have midgets there, much like us". I imagine this guy was joking, and I don't know if this "kick the midget in the ass" festival is coming up soon, but I'd love to see it. Can you imagine if they tried to do this in America. The ACLU would be crying foul.

-I've become quite apparent about Americans' particulars about respecting their personal space, you know, that 3 ft of room around us that we don't want anyone near. Czech people tend to walk right up to you and turn away at the last minute when they are walking. For a city that apparently has a large pick-pocketing problem, it's a little bit of a concern.

-We saw a giant Pink bunny float near the Charles Bridge. Still not sure about that one.

-Stores, Shops, and bars send out minions to try and get you into their establishments. They are pretty militant about it. I had a guy who tried to get me into a Cabaret club (strip club) and after I repeatedly told him "no thanks " said to me "You will into cabaret right now, no questions". A little creepy.

-I've already had my "seperated from the group and didn't get home until 5am in a foreign city" experience, I might share that one with you another time.

I think that's all for now. I'll make another entry a bit later.

Nashledanou!!

The Flight

So a lot has happened in these past 3 weeks or so since I've been out of the country. I haven't had a chance until now to start writing about them, and so people are thinking "I thought this bastard was going to write about his travels". I'm going to write a section on my flight over, a section on Prague, and a section on my school.. So starting with the first and foremost


THE FLIGHT

So I've never actually been on an international flight before and I had no idea what to expect. Do they put you in those big jumbo jets you always see at the airport? I usually get stuck flying in some puddle jumper or if I'm lucky, some marginally larger plane where their idea of service is throwing a bag of half eaten peanuts and a quarter of a can of pop your way. (And it is called POP by the way, you Southern folk need to get used to this) I'll also have to sandwich my 6'4'' frame into a middle seat and be stuck in between the 290-lb. man who eats the same way Cattle graze on grass in farms, and between the woman with a baby who cries for 7 freaking hours.

Anyways, I spent the days, minutes, and hours before my flight stressing over what I had to bring. I checked things over, checked them again. Checked them again. And once, I had checked them, had my mom check things to make sure I wasn't forgetting things. As my girlfriend could tell you, I could probably lose my head if it wasn't attached to me. Hell, I once couldn't find out where my eyeglasses were, and tore up my house looking for them, only to realize I had been wearing them the entire time. I am what I would refer to as an "intellegent retard". My parents drove me to the airport and we said our goodbyes. My mom was a wreck. She had to see her youngest son (her baby) off to college, which was hard enough. Now I was leaving the country. So naturally tears were flowing. I wished my parents farewell and got onto my plane with Lufthansa.

All I can say next is that this was perhaps the greatest flight I have ever been on. Amazing service. Absolutely amazing. What the hell have I been missing all my life? I should be travelling the world just to get on this planes! The Lufthansa crew services you which seems like the entire flight. Bringing food and beverages and hot towels. I don't know what the hot towels were needed for. I didn't use them. But I'm sure they were glorious nonetheless.

Each seat has its own touch screen video display, and you can watch up to 11 pre-selected movies, listening to music, and chart the flight as it happens. I ended up watching "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull", "Leatherheads", and a highlight video from Euro Cup 2008. Not too shabby.
Unfortunately, I didn't fall asleep during the entire flight.

As we descended into Frankfurt, and as I began to see the lights and landscape of Germany below us, I can only compare the feeling I had at the time to the feeling you got when you were 5 or 6 and you woke up that morning knowing Santa had left you something under the tree. I was absolutely giddy. Germans and everyone else on the flight were all ho-hum "yeah we made it big deal". I've got my face permanently glued to the window looking at everything outside.

The excitment from landing in Frankfurt was only short-lived though, when I realized that European airports and U.S. airports share one thing in common, they have HUGE layovers. Mine was a nice little 11 hour layover. My flight got into Frankfurt at 5:30am and my next flight didn't take off until 4:30 that afternoon. So I spent the ENTIRE day inside one terminal. I didn't have my converter with me, so I couldn't check my email or use my phone, or do anything.

I was also a bit hesitant to try and talk to someone or ask a question. My German skills are meager, so would they understand me? I felt that embarassing feeling you get when you want to ask someone something but don't have the nerve to do it. Later on, though, I would realize that just about everyone aside from the ripped-beerfest- looking security guard who frisked me (he was quite gentle) spoke English.

Finally, I hopped on my flight to Prague and my adventures in Prague officially began...

What a Drag

So I know I haven't exactly been writing about my European adventures on this blog yet. Don't worry, they're coming. I honestly have been so busy with this TEFL course (and aside from the utter lack of internet I have here) that I haven't been able to sit down and hammer out some posts. I promise as soon as I get some free time this week, I will try to let you all know what I've been up to.

Cheers.

GO SEMINOLES!!!

Good show by my boys at FSU today. Beat Miami 41-39. To call this game a shootout is a gross understatement. Now I don't have to listen to all the Canes fans running their mouths for the next year.

That's Right...Ice...Man...I am dangerous.

So I realized in between studying German, listening to Paul McCartney and the Wings, and listening to the Vice Presidential debate that I am a mere 6 days away from setting off to Prague. Absolutely insane.

I'm usually not the one to have a list of errands to get accomplished. I'm not exactly a wait till the last minute guy. More like a wait until the last 30 seconds kind of guy. But I've had so much shit to do these last couple days as I get ready to go that I'd thought I'd keep track of them. Yesterday, I bought some clothes (which I haven't done in close to 2 years), as well as got some important documents notarized. Finally, I managed to register to vote and send out for an absentee ballot which is going to get sent to Prague.

The way this presidential election has been shaping up, I'm thinking I'm rather glad I'm going to be in Europe for a while. The fact that this race, in effect, has been going on since 2006 is pretty pathetic. Most of the media outlets either have a hard on for one person or the other. Case in point, I watched the debate on CNN tonight. They've got their legion of "analysts" with their little CNN labtops, declaring Joe Biden to be the winner. I flip on to see what FOX News is saying, and people on there are overwhelmingly declaring Sarah Palin the winner.

Sometimes I think 24 hour news could possibly be the worst thing to happen to this country.

btw, in case you haven't heard it the first 240,000 times it's been repeated, John McCain is a Maverick. Does that make Barack Obama Iceman? I'd go with Hollywood.