"Spring" Cleaning

While it is not officially Spring (and won't be until March 21), the weather has been fairly kind to us as of late. It was a bit messier today, but I wasn't outside all that much. This I blame on cleaning out my dang school email account. I have had the bad habit of letting things accumulate over the semesters, and I'm pretty sure I still have stuff from my freshman year (not a good sign). Much of today was spent on deleting what was worthless, saving what was amusing in word documents, and sending articulate, important emails to prospective employers for this summer (at least, that's what I've been telling myself). The sad thing is, it's not done yet.

Being the next to last day of February, I say, Holy Cow. I've been here over a month, and it seems to have gone by really quickly. Next week is Spring Break (off to Germany!), and then I'm sure I'll turn around and the next thing I know it will be April 23rd and I'll be flying home to NC. As my friends Gnarls Barkley might say, that's crazy.

I'm Glad I'm Not in Bulgaria: Reflections Upon the Nod

While I am taking the Czech language course and am learning a lot, there are still plenty of times when I get confused or thrown off track by the native Czech speakers (it is after all, their language, not mine). This is where the importance of body language kicks in to the conversation. I have found two expressions that help out a lot.

1) The Blank Stare

I know the phrase for "I don't understand," which is "Nerozumim." However, in such cases when I get confused, my brain goes into a state of shock and I can't always remember it straight away. The blank stare conveys to the native Czech speaker that I have no earthly idea what they just said. Let's look at an example from yesterday's lunch:

Waiter (in Czech): Hello. What would you like to order?
Me (in Czech): The chicken with pineapple, please.
Waiter (in Czech): Something something something blah blah blah monkeys.
Me: *blank stare*

2) The Emphatic Nod

Now the nod is also very important. It allows for me to say yes to something if I'm only partially sure I understood what is going on. Let's look at the conversation from lunch again:

(after blank stare)
Waiter (in English): Do you speak English?
Me: *emphatic nod* Yes!
Waiter (in English): Rice or french fries?
Me: Rice.

Nodding helps out a lot. However, apparently the nod is not universal. According to my professor, in Bulgaria, what I think of as nodding (a vertical pivot of the head) means no, and what I think of as shaking my head (horizontal pivot) means yes.

I'm glad I'm not studying in Bulgaria.

Nothing to do with Prague, but...

...this is my new dream gift.

Kykyryky

"Kykyryky" is the Czech version of "Cock-a-doodle-do." Technically there should be an accent mark above the last y, but I haven't quite figured out how to insert it.

Last Sunday I was able to attend the International Church of Prague. I heard about it because I've kept in contact with people from my county who are also living in Prague. The service was a lot like churches I've attended in Raleigh, and we even sang some of the same songs.
I was even able to talk to the family from my county, and their daughter told me it was "nice to hear (my) southern voice." I'm looking forward to going back next week. It seemed like there were several nations represented in that one room, which was really cool.

While it has been unseasonably warm here, it looks as if a cool front is moving in this week and the highs of the day will be in the negative degrees Celsius soon (which isn't too bad for Fahrenheit, the low 30s upper 20s, but that is still pretty cold). Luckily I came more prepared for that type of weather instead of the warm weather, so I don't think I'll freeze.

The picture above is part of the old fortification of the city that was supposed to keep invaders out and the citizens in. At least, I think it was. I can tell you for sure that there was some crazy grade change on that slope and you would not want to trip and fall.

The Plague

Happy Belated Valentines Day!

In the spirit of winter, I seem to have come down with the plague. Both studios have been sick, so I think that it was inevitable that I would catch whatever it is going around. At least it's not the "walking death" sickness that one of our classmates got. He didn't leave the hostel for two days.

This weekend we will actually be in Prague, and the tentative plan is to get lots of rest and possibly see some parts of the city that we haven't seen before. There's a lot of it out there to explore.

Cesky Krumlov

I needn't have worried about anything in Cesky Krumlov. Yes, the streets are dark and spooky at night, but you can see from above, it's spectacular during the day. That would be the castle in the background, which is awesome because it has a moat with bears in it. Apparently back in the day they were used as protection for the castle instead of water encircling it. Nowadays, the bears are just an attraction but they are really well fed, so they are quite fat and fuzzy.

"It's Thursday but Dwight thinks it’s Friday so…keep that going." - "The Office"

Since Thursdays are the last days we meet for classes during the week, they might as well be Fridays. However, this Friday the landscape studio is heading out to Cesky Krumlov, a town in the southern Czech Republic. It is a town of some notoriety, as the film Hostel was made there. And guess what we'll be staying in - a hostel! I have fortunately never seen the movie, since I am a wimp when it comes to horror films. I will try to fill my thoughts with bunnies and flowers as opposed to sick psychopaths that torture backpackers throughout Europe.

And then I found $5... in the middle of Poland

I find it only fitting that my first real entry of my time in Prague is in fact about my weekend trip to Poland. I and my fellow landscape students went to Krakow, and we had a great time. We went to a bar called "Middle Earth," if for nothing else but to say, "I went to middle earth last weekend." It was decorated like a hobbit hole, and the only downside was that I walked out of there smelling like a cigarette factory on fire. Not pleasant.
Julie and I took a tour of the salt mines of Krakow, which were pretty amazing. They were huge man-made caverns constructed just from removing huge blocks of rock salt from the earth.
Julie and I also decided that any sentence got better just from adding "in the middle of Poland." For example, I'm riding a bus... in the middle of Poland. I'm lost... in the middle of Poland. "In the middle of the Czech Republic" just doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.

While staying at Mama's Hostel (which I highly recommend, if you ever decide to visit Krakow) we met a couple of European students while eating breakfast who provided us with good conversation. Allow me to share some quotes from the weekend:

(after drinking questionable water from the Polish sink)
Will: I can't die. The guy at border patrol is expecting to see me tomorrow and I don't want to disappoint him.

(on transportation)
Stajn: You should take a plane. They're better.
Me: So says the aerospace engineer.
Stajn: Well, I have to look out for myself.

(on a.m. vs. p.m.)
Feich: I can remember the difference between a.m. and p.m. because p.m. is the one that I am awake for.

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