lots to catch up on
Saturday we had to check out of the hotel by 10 but the “host family reception” thingie didn’t start until 5, so we had essentially the whole day to ourselves. I spent a good two hours sitting on a bench in the courtyard of the church down the street (Naměsti Míru) reading the history book we’ve been assigned, Prague in Black and Gold, which is a fascinating read, although a bit thick at times. Later, Roya and I tried to find a café where we could sit and read but we ended up at Café Slavia across from the National Theater, famous meeting place of Prague intellectuals turned slick touristy feed-hole (like about half of this city, it seems) and instead of studying we ended up talking about art incessantly because we’re kinda nerdy and that’s what we do.
So finally we made our way back to the hotel, and my family picked me up. My host parents are the Purkrtovi (translates as Purkrts in English): Petra and Tomas own a “textile store” according to the info I was given; it turns out they sell children’s clothes, which is a bit more specific. They’re about the same age as my parents, a little younger, and they have a 16-year-old son, also Tomas, who “plays hockey and tennis and is interested in computers.”
We chatted in broken English on the ride out to their flat, which, ironically, is very close to the Barrandov film studios (“Czech Hollywood,” they called it, to much laughter). Surprises followed: they live much further outside the city than I had anticipated, for starters, out in the area of the infamous socialist high rises, which are now decaying rapidly. Fortunately they live in a new block of flats, which led to surprise number two: their apartment is immaculate. I guess since I’d been seeing so many old buildings in the center of town I hadn’t expected to live somewhere so modern and shiny. It’s a big change for me, after three years of student housing in Boston; the place is so neat I feel like I can’t touch anything. I have a room to myself, which is pretty nice. It seems to be a study most of the time, so there are lots of books (all in Czech, of course) but I have a desk and a bed and enough drawer space for my clothes.
What I truly wasn’t expecting was how frighteningly close to your typical Americans the Purkrtovi are. They made a nice dinner for me of chicken and soya kebabs with French fries (not your typical Czech meal, they told me--no kidding), and they’re exceptionally friendly, but mostly they watch TV and like sports. Maybe it’s the language barrier that’s keeping me from extracting anything more exciting they might be interested in, but overall the similarities to your average American family are more striking than the differences. When they asked what kind of films I liked and I told them about a few of the Czech titles which are essentially the reason I decided to do this program in the first place, I got the same blank stare I usually get in America. Gah!
That night we watched “Meet the Parents” dubbed in Czech, which they apparently really enjoyed but I’m not so fond of even when I can make sense of what’s being said (we’d only had three Czech lessons up to this point). Aside from “Please” (Prosim) and “Thank you” (Dekuju) the only phrase I recognized in the whole film was “Nerozumim,” which of course means “I don’t understand.” Lick my balls, irony--I hate you.
Sunday the parent took me to Vyšehrad, which is the second large fortification/castle thing in Prague, up on a cliff opposite the river and a bit south of Hradčany, the main castle I linked to earlier. It was interesting—the view of the river is incredible, and there are plenty of statues and a crazy beautiful church, but the parents’ English isn’t great beyond simple logistical things, so it was a mostly silent stroll.
After that, the family left for one of Tom’s hockey matches. Here’s where the fun begins. I’d left my backpack, with my laptop and all my electronic goodies at the hotel, so I had nothing (no music! fuck!) to keep me entertained beside the history book we’d been assigned. I also had no way to get around and nobody to ask where an internet café might be, or how to make a phone call (I only had a local phone card). Not a huge deal, except it was Katie’s birthday and I still hadn’t talked to her since I’d arrived in Prague, and I couldn’t even send an email to apologize for my inability to figure out the phone situation. Copious moping ensued—here I was, with a family I could hardly communicate with and who don’t seem interested in the things I like, trapped in a strange apartment with no entertainment except Czech history (which is fascinating but not really what I felt like immersing myself in at the moment), and it’s my girlfriend’s birthday and I couldn’t even send her an email, let alone call her.
Monday the phone situation only got worse. I tried to get a phone card, but of course I bought the wrong one. Or rather, I got a local calling card because international ones are hard to find and supposedly one can make international calls after 5 if you use a special code. Nope. Or at least, I couldn't, and every time I tried to call information, I would ask the operator if they spoke English and they hung up on me. Gah!
Fortunately, I had Roya, Maggie, and Ashley to commiserate with in this really cool café called Ouky Douky (these crazy Czechs and their pronounciation). It's a bar/used bookstore/internet café with a really cool vibe and some Mexican food that's actually decent; I fucking love it. Eva K. also returned the CD-RW I gave her with Bjork's new album on it--her boyfriend filled it with mp3s of good Czech music and this rock band from Mongolia called Yat-Kha, who combine louder Mogwai-ish instrumentation with traditional Mongolian throat-singing. It's nuts (more on other musical discoveries later).
Tuesday I walked all over town trying to find the right kind of phone card. An hour later I finally got one, so I rushed to a pay phone only to discover that I can't connect to Katie's phone. Gah! Apparently you can't call a cell phone or something--that's the best reason I could come up with. Not to mention I only would have had nine minutes to talk to her--and this is a 500 crown phone card, mind you (about $18 US). Nothing left to do but email her and ask for her host family's landline number. By this time we'd exchanged emails about the whole situation, so I felt a little better, but email is really no substitute for actually talking.
Tuesday night was pretty freaking cool despite all my troubles. At 5 we finished up a really interesting architecture walk, the first of seven. The teacher for these is this guy Simon, a Brit who's "stuck" in the Czech Republic. The students from the previous semester left us some advice, part of which reads: "Take Simon out for a beer (or several)." He's a cool guy, extremely knowledgeable about the city and it's history and architecture (which are inseparable, really) and with a good sense of humor besides. It was decided that after the next walk we definitely have to take the previous students up on their recommendation. Sublimely surreal moment: pausing to look at some reliefs on the side of a early 20th century building depicting a couple of foundational Czech myths (the time period in which the Czechs were just beginning to revive their national identity after some 300 years of being dominated by the Habsburg empire out of Austria) as a group of blind women sang opera-ish songs next to us, and then--a dude walks by with a pot-bellied pig on a leash! And he's shouting at the thing in Czech! Amazing.
After the walk a few of us hung out in the Marquis de Sade café, which is awesome solely because that's a fucking great name for a bar/rock club. It was divetastic--reminded me of TT's in Boston, with interesting art on the walls, dingy as hell bathrooms, good beer, and a cool (if small) video rental room. And to top it all off, they had an experimental video section with Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Bunuel, Brakhage, and more! I don't think I'll ever rent anything, what with all the work I have ahead of me, but it's nice to know such things exist.
Then, after a disappointing vegetarian meal at this place called Country Life, which I'd had recommended to me but turned out to be a cafeteria-style joint with appropriately unappetizing food, we went to the Agartha Jazz Club to see Jiři Stevin, a Czech jazz impresario of some kind. At first it seemed like it would be rather traditional, but then Jiři busted out a flute solo where he kind of sounded like Damo Suzuki, stuttering abstract poetry over the mouthpiece, creating a great effect where it sounded like someone was playing along with his crazy utterings. From that moment on, he had me (the beer helped, I admit). Overall it was pretty traditional, although one song did bring to mind a good Tortoise song minus the electronics, but that's in no way a bad thing.
And now it's time to head out again. We're catching a show tonight by this German band Tarwater, whom I've never heard of before but according the blurb in the paper are a former punk duo who have moved into electronica (like Notwist, and a couple other German bands I can think of--good for you, Germany). Tomorrow we're off to Brno to see an international graphic design exhibit and some huge nationalistic paintings by Alphons Mucha (even if you don't know him you know his style, which was really popular in France around the turn of the 20th century thanks to his poster work--look him up). Hopefully on Sunday I can catch up on the rest of the week. Ahoj!
So finally we made our way back to the hotel, and my family picked me up. My host parents are the Purkrtovi (translates as Purkrts in English): Petra and Tomas own a “textile store” according to the info I was given; it turns out they sell children’s clothes, which is a bit more specific. They’re about the same age as my parents, a little younger, and they have a 16-year-old son, also Tomas, who “plays hockey and tennis and is interested in computers.”
We chatted in broken English on the ride out to their flat, which, ironically, is very close to the Barrandov film studios (“Czech Hollywood,” they called it, to much laughter). Surprises followed: they live much further outside the city than I had anticipated, for starters, out in the area of the infamous socialist high rises, which are now decaying rapidly. Fortunately they live in a new block of flats, which led to surprise number two: their apartment is immaculate. I guess since I’d been seeing so many old buildings in the center of town I hadn’t expected to live somewhere so modern and shiny. It’s a big change for me, after three years of student housing in Boston; the place is so neat I feel like I can’t touch anything. I have a room to myself, which is pretty nice. It seems to be a study most of the time, so there are lots of books (all in Czech, of course) but I have a desk and a bed and enough drawer space for my clothes.
What I truly wasn’t expecting was how frighteningly close to your typical Americans the Purkrtovi are. They made a nice dinner for me of chicken and soya kebabs with French fries (not your typical Czech meal, they told me--no kidding), and they’re exceptionally friendly, but mostly they watch TV and like sports. Maybe it’s the language barrier that’s keeping me from extracting anything more exciting they might be interested in, but overall the similarities to your average American family are more striking than the differences. When they asked what kind of films I liked and I told them about a few of the Czech titles which are essentially the reason I decided to do this program in the first place, I got the same blank stare I usually get in America. Gah!
That night we watched “Meet the Parents” dubbed in Czech, which they apparently really enjoyed but I’m not so fond of even when I can make sense of what’s being said (we’d only had three Czech lessons up to this point). Aside from “Please” (Prosim) and “Thank you” (Dekuju) the only phrase I recognized in the whole film was “Nerozumim,” which of course means “I don’t understand.” Lick my balls, irony--I hate you.
Sunday the parent took me to Vyšehrad, which is the second large fortification/castle thing in Prague, up on a cliff opposite the river and a bit south of Hradčany, the main castle I linked to earlier. It was interesting—the view of the river is incredible, and there are plenty of statues and a crazy beautiful church, but the parents’ English isn’t great beyond simple logistical things, so it was a mostly silent stroll.
After that, the family left for one of Tom’s hockey matches. Here’s where the fun begins. I’d left my backpack, with my laptop and all my electronic goodies at the hotel, so I had nothing (no music! fuck!) to keep me entertained beside the history book we’d been assigned. I also had no way to get around and nobody to ask where an internet café might be, or how to make a phone call (I only had a local phone card). Not a huge deal, except it was Katie’s birthday and I still hadn’t talked to her since I’d arrived in Prague, and I couldn’t even send an email to apologize for my inability to figure out the phone situation. Copious moping ensued—here I was, with a family I could hardly communicate with and who don’t seem interested in the things I like, trapped in a strange apartment with no entertainment except Czech history (which is fascinating but not really what I felt like immersing myself in at the moment), and it’s my girlfriend’s birthday and I couldn’t even send her an email, let alone call her.
Monday the phone situation only got worse. I tried to get a phone card, but of course I bought the wrong one. Or rather, I got a local calling card because international ones are hard to find and supposedly one can make international calls after 5 if you use a special code. Nope. Or at least, I couldn't, and every time I tried to call information, I would ask the operator if they spoke English and they hung up on me. Gah!
Fortunately, I had Roya, Maggie, and Ashley to commiserate with in this really cool café called Ouky Douky (these crazy Czechs and their pronounciation). It's a bar/used bookstore/internet café with a really cool vibe and some Mexican food that's actually decent; I fucking love it. Eva K. also returned the CD-RW I gave her with Bjork's new album on it--her boyfriend filled it with mp3s of good Czech music and this rock band from Mongolia called Yat-Kha, who combine louder Mogwai-ish instrumentation with traditional Mongolian throat-singing. It's nuts (more on other musical discoveries later).
Tuesday I walked all over town trying to find the right kind of phone card. An hour later I finally got one, so I rushed to a pay phone only to discover that I can't connect to Katie's phone. Gah! Apparently you can't call a cell phone or something--that's the best reason I could come up with. Not to mention I only would have had nine minutes to talk to her--and this is a 500 crown phone card, mind you (about $18 US). Nothing left to do but email her and ask for her host family's landline number. By this time we'd exchanged emails about the whole situation, so I felt a little better, but email is really no substitute for actually talking.
Tuesday night was pretty freaking cool despite all my troubles. At 5 we finished up a really interesting architecture walk, the first of seven. The teacher for these is this guy Simon, a Brit who's "stuck" in the Czech Republic. The students from the previous semester left us some advice, part of which reads: "Take Simon out for a beer (or several)." He's a cool guy, extremely knowledgeable about the city and it's history and architecture (which are inseparable, really) and with a good sense of humor besides. It was decided that after the next walk we definitely have to take the previous students up on their recommendation. Sublimely surreal moment: pausing to look at some reliefs on the side of a early 20th century building depicting a couple of foundational Czech myths (the time period in which the Czechs were just beginning to revive their national identity after some 300 years of being dominated by the Habsburg empire out of Austria) as a group of blind women sang opera-ish songs next to us, and then--a dude walks by with a pot-bellied pig on a leash! And he's shouting at the thing in Czech! Amazing.
After the walk a few of us hung out in the Marquis de Sade café, which is awesome solely because that's a fucking great name for a bar/rock club. It was divetastic--reminded me of TT's in Boston, with interesting art on the walls, dingy as hell bathrooms, good beer, and a cool (if small) video rental room. And to top it all off, they had an experimental video section with Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Bunuel, Brakhage, and more! I don't think I'll ever rent anything, what with all the work I have ahead of me, but it's nice to know such things exist.
Then, after a disappointing vegetarian meal at this place called Country Life, which I'd had recommended to me but turned out to be a cafeteria-style joint with appropriately unappetizing food, we went to the Agartha Jazz Club to see Jiři Stevin, a Czech jazz impresario of some kind. At first it seemed like it would be rather traditional, but then Jiři busted out a flute solo where he kind of sounded like Damo Suzuki, stuttering abstract poetry over the mouthpiece, creating a great effect where it sounded like someone was playing along with his crazy utterings. From that moment on, he had me (the beer helped, I admit). Overall it was pretty traditional, although one song did bring to mind a good Tortoise song minus the electronics, but that's in no way a bad thing.
And now it's time to head out again. We're catching a show tonight by this German band Tarwater, whom I've never heard of before but according the blurb in the paper are a former punk duo who have moved into electronica (like Notwist, and a couple other German bands I can think of--good for you, Germany). Tomorrow we're off to Brno to see an international graphic design exhibit and some huge nationalistic paintings by Alphons Mucha (even if you don't know him you know his style, which was really popular in France around the turn of the 20th century thanks to his poster work--look him up). Hopefully on Sunday I can catch up on the rest of the week. Ahoj!
posted by anonymous listener at 10:59 AM
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