Shameless Promotion, Both Self and Otherwise

Jeez, it has been a while. Apologies, apologies. I know you have all been on the edges of your seats.

During the interim, I made the decision to apply for a Fulbright ETA grant again this year. This time to Slovakia. I submitted my application to Mike Hester here at UWG yesterday, and it should be on its way to the IIE currently. Wish me luck.

Grad school applications loom. Still honing the list, but I'm closer. Way closer.

School, work, and various editing jobs are making life both exasperatingly busy and, occasionally, interesting. I'm rocking out, but am ready for a change. A big one.

I have a sinus infection. I am taking six meds daily. I'm flying high, people. Way high. Catches up to me at night, though.

I built myself a personal website. Okay, so I admit it's kind of cheesy, but check it out anyway.

Chad's new book is out. Buy it. It's kickin'. And I've been helping Chad and Greg with their creative writing textbook. Some of my writing appears in it. Preorder it. Greg's new one is coming in January, too. No link yet, but buy it if you find it.

More later, probably.

I Plan To Be an Angler Sans the Fish

Tonight, I saw a possum with six baby possums on its back. I was driving home from Chattanooga when, on the tiny wooded back road on which the family farm is situated, I saw a black, writhing form in the middle of my lane. I pulled to a stop and stared at it and at first I couldn't tell what it was. After a second I established that it was a possum. I could discern the shape of its narrow snout and bulging eyes. Its body was humpy and wiggling strangely. I thought for a moment that it was suffering from some horrific skin disease. But then I saw the miniature baby possum heads begin to turn their white faces toward me one by one. As cute as it may seem in retrospect, it was fairly terrifying at the time. The thing looked like some abomination out of Greek mythology, all heads and wriggling flesh. Then I pulled around it and went on my way.

Did anyone else notice during the Olympic parade of nations how something like 30% of the teams were decked-out in 1940's style garb? Was that planned? Was there some theme of which I was unaware? Maybe they always dress like that. I've never watched the Olympics before.

I made a 4 on the essay portion of the GRE. Yuck. Hopefully my verbal score will make up for that.

I move back to Carrollton on Wednesday. Huzzah! Now to decide which books to take with me. I recently bought and assembled two large bookshelves to house my personal library and, given the size of them, I have decided not to take them (or the entire library) to Carrollton. I'm going to wait until I have an apartment I'll be inhabiting for multiple years before transporting the whole mess again.

I've been looking for an angle to employ this year to convince UWG to fund my trip to AWP '09. Any suggestions?

I Am Aware that This Is Severely Overdue

Yes, I am alive.

The past two months have been so chock-full of both exhilarating highs and crippling boredom that I have not taken the time to blog. This ends tonight.

Some updates:

If you are reading this you will have noticed that my blog has moved. I decided that, because I will most likely be stateside for the next handful of years, Goodbye America Hello World is a rather misleading title for what this blog will become. Consequently, I transferred all of my content from that blog to an even older URL. This one. Time to say "goodbye travel blog, hello regular bloggy thing."

During the break between my last post and this one, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. This single post cannot contain my thoughts and feelings about the Seminar, but I assure you they are very good ones. I love my fellow Fellows, all of them, and I am a new and better person for having met and worked alongside them. If anyone reading this is a poet and is eligible for the fellowship, then I sincerely encourage you to apply. I promise you will not regret it.

If you are already familiar with this blog, you will notice that I have removed pretty much all of my poem drafts. Journal submission season is approaching and, given some journals' policy on previous internet publication, I thought it would be for the best. Yes, I am submitting for real this year. As if grad school applications were not already enough.

Speaking of which, grad school application season is also fast approaching. My list is still changing on a near-daily basis, and I don't see that ending soon. Except for in that hazy, desirous way in which we visualize the end of our troubles.

I took the GRE last week. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. During the test, though, I was certain I was really sucking it up. It seemed as though the questions, particularly on the verbal section, kept getting easier. If you know anything about the GRE's computer adaptive system, you know that this is not a good sign. Everything ended up quite nicely, though. 670 verbal, 550 quantitative. I'll hear about the essay portion in a couple of weeks. I had hoped for only a 600 or 610 verbal score, and hadn't thought I would be able to break 1200 overall. Here's to happy surprises! Now let's just hope I didn't make a 3 on my essays.

O Tempora! Magazine is going very well. The first issue is all but completed, and we'll release it before August. So in the next weekish. We have some excellent poems, stories, essays, and a book review ready to rock your socks. Rebecah and Phillip, my fellow editors, have been excellent colleagues and even better friends to me throughout this process, and I am very excited about working alongside them for the foreseeable future.

I am also stoked about working for Eclectic again this year, this time as Co-Editor-in-Chief. The staff includes a few good friends and probable future friends and thus far looks very promising. Bring it.

I'm ready for class. Yes, I said it. Anything to alleviate the stupor of boredom and antinostalgia brought on by extended occupancy of my hometown. I just have to keep reminding myself that I move back to Carrollton on August 13th, which really isn't so terribly far away. It's still not very much consolation.

I finally broke down and bought a MacBook. This elicits both giddiness and my gag reflex. The former, because this thing is sweet. The latter, because of the price tag. Hello debt. I didn't think we'd meet face-to-face until my student loans finally come due. I would have preferred it that way. I don't like you one bit.

That, I believe, is all for now. Maybe. Enough for tonight anyway. Sleep beckons. 

Peace.

Ending with a Video Involving Tom Waits

Okay, so I am now two days away from leaving my beloved Czech Republic and flying back to my equally beloved Georgia. My bags are already packed. That is not to suggest that I'm overly happy about leaving Brno. To the contrary. I love it here and, though I do miss home and friends and family and such, I will be sad to leave this place that I have thought of as home for the last year. The next two days should prove to be a series of sappy goodbyes and I'llmissyous that not even the Lifetime channel can estimate. And who doesn't love heartwrenching goodbyefornowbutnotforeverwritemealetterwe'llmeetagainIpromises?

Other news:

The weather is beautiful. I cannot even fathom how much grosser it's going to be in Georgia.

I'm going to be Co-Editor-in-Chief of Eclectic this coming year, along with my good pal John. Exciting stuff.

I won (at UWG) a $1,550 scholarship from the English Department and a $400 scholarship from the College of Arts & Sciences. This has been a good scholarship year.

Bucknell Seminar starts in about three weeks. I'm stoked.

As you can see, I failed miserably at NaPoWriMo. But I at least got 14 poem drafts out of it.

O Tempora! is going quite well. Hopefully we'll have an issue out in the next month or so.

Not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I got my old apartment back for next year. And my trusty chum Daniel will still be there. Ideal, really.

I finished all of my essays, and I have my last school-related responsibility today. The dreaded Level 2 Czech Language exam. I have studied little. In all likelihood, I am going to fail. But keep your fingers crossed.

Lastly, this is fun:

NaPoWriMo-ing

I've decided to do NaPoWriMo this year (National Poetry Writing Month, during which one writes a poem every day for the entire month). I guarantee that I'll get a little behind on posting, but I will, I tell you, write 30 poems before May!

Also, my old friend Matt came to visit me here in Brno a few weeks ago. It was nice to see an old friend in a new setting. I showed him around Brno for a few days and then we hopped over to Vienna for a couple of days. It was excellent. I may elaborate at a later date. Here is one picture for now:

That's me in front of a very old tree in a plexiglass case. I can't remember the century, but blacksmiths from several hundred years ago used to drive a nail into the tree every time they left Vienna. For good luck, I think.

That's all for now. Poems soon.

A, A, B, B, A.

I've been thinking in limericks lately. I think it may be something like my haiku obsession of almost a year ago. Anyway, here are some of my bad limericks:


There once was a fellow named Smitty
who got buried neck-deep in a city.
He noticed when all
the bombs started to fall
that the sky looked unusually pretty.

There once was a lad from Chernobyl
who one day was feeling quite noble.
He went to work loaded,
his reactor exploded.
The effects of his drinking were global.

In the bone-church in old Kutna Hora
there is neither fauna nor flora.
Just dusty old bones
perched on musty old stones,
all the living things in diaspora.

Down by the Vltava River,
the vultures all ate Kafka's liver.
By the time they were fed
he was already dead.
The thought of the scene makes one shiver.


That's right, I'm bringing back the form. No matter how bad I may be at it. Look out, Edward Lear.

Red Letter Day

I guess it's been a little while. Here's what's going on:

I'm a few weeks into the new semester. Most of my classes are extremely easy and, sometimes, a little interesting. I'm taking Czech Cinema, Modern Czech Theater, Modern Czech Literature, and Cinema of the Balkans since 1989. The two cinema classes are the most interesting thus far.

And then there is Czech Language. I have lamented the complexities of the Czech tongue in former posts. This was before I tested into a class of students who are either 3 semesters into their Czech studies or having the natural advantage of Slavic mother-tongues. And the teacher doesn't speak English. This is fine. I don't expect her to have to speak English. But it certainly doesn't make things easier when I don't speak enough Czech to ask pertinent questions. Oh well, I'm sure I'll appreciate it later.

Today marks the end of the 6th month of my exodus.

So I won the 1st Prize from Eclectic for my poem "Labor." I am tickled pink, as my grandmother would say.

Shampoo took some shampoo art I made. Check it out here.

I launched my online lit mag yesterday. I never got around to blogging about it, but I've been tossing around the idea of starting this magazine for about a year and a half. Within the past couple of months, however, my plan for the mag and my ideas for the website started to take form, so I commenced serious work on the project. Yesterday I decided that everything was ready and started advertising and taking submissions for the first issue. It's called O Tempora! Magazine, and will hopefully soon be home to some kickin' poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and book reviews. So submit, why dontcha?

Also, I have one or two little exciting bits of information that I can't currently share. But I will soon enough. If you play your cards right.

Oh, and this song has been stuck in my head for over a month:



I love Hedwig.

After So Long

So I submitted some of my earlier poems to Analecta, a University of Texas lit mag, about a year ago. I got an acceptance e-mail a couple of days ago. They took "The Dog Was Gone" and "Toward Chattanooga with Matt Logan." I never really thought I'd ever hear anything about those poems again. But hey, you never know. Thanks guys, whoever you are.

Also, I just made 50 Euros. The girlfriend of my friend was translating a website from German into English and was looking for a native speaker to proofread the translation. My friend suggested me and, after a few short hours of proofreading, I am now 50 Euros richer. Easy work. Good money.

I Am Now a Fellow in Two Senses

So remember my various mentions of the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets?

(It's okay if you don't. I mean, who reads this anyway.)

Well, they accepted me. I am now a future 2008 fellowship recipient. This is very exciting. So, the last 3 weeks in June I will be in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, chillin' with some rockstar poets.

(Notice how I didn't use any exclamation points in the above section. I decided to put them all here instead: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Peace, friends.

I Was Eating Chili While I Wrote This

Good afternoon, dear readers. My, what lazy days these are. Not a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks, but there have been a few instances worth mentioning:

I moved. I had been living up on the 4th floor (that's 5th floor in American terms), which is generally fine. Except for the fact that the elevator breaks. Every. Other. Freakin'. Day. But now I have moved down to the first sub-level with Thad. So far I am glad to have moved.

Remember the Agnes Scott thing I talked about a few times before? Well, I got an e-mail yesterday informing me that I am a finalist! And I heard from Chad that my friend Amy is also a poetry finalist. Unfortunately I won't be able to actually go to the writers' festival, as I am after all in the Czech Republic until May, so hopefully I'll be able to somehow find out who wins the $500 first prize (ideally, me). I've got my fingers crossed.

The new people are starting to arrive! Last night at a party on my hall I met a new American. He had just flown in earlier in the day. I'm looking forward to meeting, and being able to help out, the new guys.

I'll leave you today with an excellent video of Radiohead playing The Smiths' "The Headmaster Ritual." Sweet.

The Microwaves Did Something To Our Brains

Today's top thoughts:

So I passed my last exam of the semester. Introduction to the Cultures of North American Aboriginal Peoples. With minimal studying. My grade does indeed reflect the amount of studying I did. Barely sufficient. Hurrah nonetheless.

Wilco rocks me a little bit too hard.

And I downloaded several old punk and ska albums that I used to have and love in high school. They are beginning to rock me again. Oh, I'm feeling nostalgic.

A lot of Europeans are more interested in American politics than the majority of American 20-somethings.

I want to buy some more sweet scarves. Scarves are surpassed in power only by the beard.

My poem is up at Death Metal Poetry. Do it.

Love me, please.

A Post About Poetry (Ending With Yet Another Pulp Video)

So Death Metal Poetry just took my poem "Breath." Good folks. Should be up soon.

And here's another Pulp video for your immense (I'm sure) enjoyment:

Ending With a Pulp Video That Will Make You Dance

I can promise that I have a good reason for taking such an inordinately long time to update. That reason, dear friends, is lethargy. Crippling lethargy. However, the 17ish days since my last post have not been entirely uneventful. Here are the highlights:

The semester ended well. I turned in my final response papers and gave a presentation. I think that all of them met with my professors' approval. I do still have that exam next week, however. I suppose that I should spend at least a significant portion of the next week reading up on Native American tribal habits to prepare myself.

Christmas was nice. We had a quiet Christmas dinner party, complete with presents and a tree.

Above you can see me receiving my gift from Santa, a.k.a. Elina Tolonen.

The dinner was good, if at times a little disconcerting. I am referring, of course, to the profusion of strange European salads present. Lithuanian fish salad. Finnish beet salad. Various other mainly-fish dishes that, as often as I try to posture myself as a gourmet sensitive to European sensibilities, I just couldn't get into. But it was still fantastic. I made chili for everyone. Sure, maybe chili isn't exactly traditional Christmas fare, but hey, gimme a break. All I have in my kitchen is a mini-fridge and a 2-eye hotplate. What do you expect? My chili met with much approval. Particularly that of Yiannis, my Greek brother-from-another-mother.

You can feel the love emanating from the screen, can't you?

Also, thanks to Yiannis, I am now addicted to "Lost." During the break so far we have watched over forty episodes, and I yearn to see the remaining 30ish. And then comes the new season. I never thought I would be into "Lost," but now I understand the hype. That show is just good.

The New Year Party was pretty nice. Food, drinks, dancing, a midnight trek up to the castle to see the fireworks, more drinks, more dancing.

Good stuff. Above you can see the early stages of the party.

And here you can see me pictured with the lovely Gülfem, my Turkish princess. Notice how I'm rockin' my Guayabera.

In other news, I finally finished my Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets application. I sent it off to Laura, who is taking care of the rest stateside. As I have said before, and will again, she is an angel.

Enough for today. Go to bed. Now.

But first, take a moment to take in the music video that is currently rocking me. Do it:

Oh, the O's

You know you're in Central Europe when your Honey Nut Cheerios box is written in Czech, Hungarian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian.

Which is actually strange, even for here. I mean, Czech is the only Slavic language on the box. Hungarian and Estonian are Finno-Ugric. Latvian and Lithuanian are Baltic. Whenever a product is labeled in multiple languages here, those languages are usually Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Hungarian. Three Slavic and a Finno-Ugric. Sometimes, a product might also include German, English, or Bulgarian (two Germanic and a Slavic) as well.

But not today. Hooray, I suppose, for Slavo-Finno-Ugri-Baltic Cheerios!

[Note: Artwork by the Cheerios folks. Closed captioning by yours truly.]

I Am Apparently a Linguist

One week left in this semester. A beautiful thing. The worst is behind me. Namely, my Czech language exam. I took the cursed thing Tuesday afternoon. I went to check my results this morning, and — Lo! — I passed it! Success! Maybe after one more semester of Czech I'll be able to converse with an eighteen-month-old in his or her native tongue. Hurrah! Huzzah!

In other news, I sent my Agnes Scott stuff to Laura, who mailed it off stateside for me. Now, we wait.

Also, I just submitted a handful of poems to Death Metal Poetry, the online journal that wins my vote for the Journal With The Most Killer-Awesome Name Award, should such an award ever come into being.

The holiday season approaches, and my calendar is looking alarmingly open. What to do, what to do?

Here's an amusing picture for you:

Notice the confused look of pain, extreme pleasure, and determination on the faces of Thad and I as we attempt to wrap our jaws around some enormous burgers at Brno's own Rodeo Drive, the American-style steak house that seems so very out of place. Much like my beard. And my hair, for that matter.

Also, a quote for today:

"I think I'm going to cry." - Thad, upon laying his eyes on a real hamburger for the first time in three months.

Thanks for the pic, Liz.

It's go time.

Not as Interesting as You Had Hoped

So Stirring took my poem "Watching Demolition from a Fourth Story Balcony" for this month's issue. Good folks, those. Check it out here.

Also, I just sent some poems and art off to Shampoo.

And Laura agreed to help me out with the Agnes Scott thing. She is an angel.

Qualis artifex pereo!

Ending With Something Beautiful

My apologies, dear readers, for the delay in posting. This weekend I managed to get my internet autoblocked for streaming too many online movies. Which resulted in several internetless days. Silly me.

So here's what's been going on:

Thanksgiving was not exactly traditional, but nice. A lot of the Americans, with a few international friends, hit up our favorite brewpub Pegas for our Turkey Day dinner. Which involved absolutely no turkey. Plenty of dumplings and beer, however.

Saturday was my birthday. Yes, thank you, thank you. That's really sweet of you. Happy birthday to you too. I am now a wizened 22.

Stirring is holding onto 4 of my poems for further consideration. Sweet.

Chad is submitting my poem "Dead Hawk" to the AWP Intro Journals Project.

I need to find someone stateside to send in my Agnes Scott Writers' Festival submission. Working on it.

That's pretty much everything for now. Slow week. I'll have more pointless things to share soon, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, enjoy this beautiful tune by the love of my life:



She is my Beatrice. In imo animo stat pulchritudo.

Irresponsibility, Impropriety, and (On the Other Hand) the Virtues of Vienna

The following will help you understand. Here's the deal:

(Note: I am a bad [read: lazy] photographer. Thus, all of the photos herein were borrowed from various locations.)

My Czech friend Karolina (see here for my first post about her) and I set out for Vienna yesterday. And, to put it mildly, the day got off to a slow start. We had planned to meet in front of the train station at 7:20 AM to catch our 7:30 train, so I set my alarm for 6:00 to give me plenty of time to get ready and get there.
It seems, however, that it just wasn't in the cards. The night before, I climbed into bed before 11:00 PM in a futile attempt to get adequate sleep. My neighbors, though, had a different idea, blaring techno until 3:00 AM, their subwoofers rattling my radiator and desklamp intolerably. Being nonconfrontational by nature, I let it go and tried to sleep anyway. To no avail.

I vaguely recall, now, my alarm going off at 6:00 and my reaching to hit the snooze. Which I apparently did incorrectly. I awoke with a start some time later, noticing with unease the sunlight pouring through my window. I reached for the clock. 7:27 AM. Sighing with disappointment and self-loathing, I called Karolina to inform her of my irresponsibility and to beg her forgiveness. She was not concerned, and she called me back moments later to tell me that she had changed our tickets to the 9:30 AM train. I thanked her profusely and begged her forgiveness once again. A veritable angel, she told me to forget about it. So I got up and commenced to prepare myself for the trip.

I left the dorm at about 8:55, plenty of time to make it to the train station. Assuming, of course, that the public transportation system would run reliably, which it usually does. That day, however, fate had something else in mind for me. I reach the tram stop at 9:10 to catch the 9:12 tram. No tram. Another was scheduled for 9:20. No tram. At this point I am visibly distraught. I cannot be to late for the same trip twice in one day! my inner voice kept screaming. The tram arrived at 9:27.

At this point, I figured that I might as well not even try. But I climbed aboard nonetheless. I began texting Karolina my profuse apologies, trying to explain the tram situation without sounding like I was making lame excuses. By some miracle, she calls me just as my tram is pulling into the Main Station. Our train to Vienna had not left yet, and if I really, really hurried I might be able to actually make it on the train before it pulled away.

So that is what I did. I snapped shut my cellphone like an electric castanet and, for the first time in 5 and a half years, since my nearly fatal and mildly crippling car accident, I ran.

I'm sure I looked ridiculous, loping through the terminal and up to the platform at something between a waddle and a jog. But just as I hit the top of the stairs, I saw one of the sweetest sights I have seen in a long time. The train still sitting there. Platform completely empty. Karolina's head in her dear little beanie sticking out one of the train windows. And I ran on, pushing myself through the door of the rearmost train car just before the engine began to huff and puff, readying itself for takeoff. Karolina came to meet me in the narrow hallway, laughing as I began to gasp bits of apologies between short breaths.

Gladly, the rest of the day went much more smoothly than the beginning. We arrived in Vienna around 11:30 AM. Stepping out of the train station into the freezing air, we looked perplexedly at our map for a while, unsure of our orienteering skills but confident of our good luck and gut instincts, and set out walking for the city center. Which was a good strategy, as we found the main thoroughfare without difficulty. Walking along, Karolina suggested that we try to find a cafe that she had been to on her last trip to Vienna.

She couldn't remember the exact location of the place, so we kept walking down the bustling thoroughfare hoping for some clue. "Well, I can't remember," she said at one point, "so I guess we'd better just start going down the side streets until we find it." So we took the next left. And there, somehow, straight ahead, was the cafe.

It was called Le Bol, which is French for, you guessed it, The Bowl. At Le Bol, everything is served in a bowl. Well, most everything.

We were served delicious coffee. In bowls. We ordered quiche and salad. The salad came, expectedly, in a bowl. To my disappointment, however, the quiche was confined to a lowly plate. My romantic idea of the bowl, destroyed. But with every slurp from my bowl of creamy coffee, I must admit, my soul felt a little more whole.

Next we went searching for the Albertina, one of Vienna's (and maybe Austria's) most spectacular art museums and the prime reason for Karolina's desire to visit Vienna. After wandering for some time and making an unnecessary circle around a large part of the city center, we found the Albertina.

Which was excellent. They currently have a special exhibition of works by the European masters. Monet, Picasso, Cézanne, Klee, Rothko, Toulouse-Lautrec, and many, many others. I was especially pleased to see the Klees and Rothkos in person.

(Temple Gardens by Paul Klee)

After leaving the Albertina, we set out wandering again. Shortly thereafter, the two of us, thirsty, tired, and chilled to the bone, stopped at crowded street stand to try some of the hot Christmas punch. Karolina's German is decent, so she handled the ordering. We decided on the nonalcoholic version, being immensely thirsty and not wanted to dry ourselves out with booze. However, the message didn't seem to get across to the vendor.

We took our first sips of the punch, wincing to the unwelcomed taste of hot rum and apple juice. We managed to get down half a cup each and left the rest sitting for the busboys to take care of.

Next we decided to pop into a very beautiful church that we had seen earlier. There was a Mass in session, so we only stood in the back for a couple of minutes out of respect. The other tourists there did not seem to share that same respect. I was shocked at their impropriety as they strolled around the sanctuary, lingering in front of statues and frescoes, even walking up to the front of the church and across the platform, in front of the altar, all the while the priest and altar boy chanted the Holy Mass. We left muttering to each other harsh words for the tactless tourists.

Lastly, the sun long down and our day drawing to a close, we stopped at a specialty drink shop for a cup of mulled wine before beginning the 50 minute trek back to the train station for our 6:35 train.

Though the station was very far and we were bone-cold and bone-tired, we made our train without incident. Karolina (being, like I said earlier, an angel) had had the foresight to pack a meal of sandwiches, fruit, and radishes, and so we rolled out toward the Czech Republic, toward Brno, munching away and resting our cold, aching bodies.

When the Weather Outside

The snow is back.





With a vengeance.

This Is What You Need

Listen and notice how all the bad things in life die an upbeat, hook-infused death.

Love

I awoke this morning to the first significant snow of the year. It was intensely beautiful.

Unfortunately, it was gone by 1 PM. I wish I had thought to take a photo. No matter. There shall certainly be more.

On Language

I could not have put it better myself.

The Story of It All

Good afternoon, my lovelies. I shall now hit you with a barrage of useless information.

And that's what I look like while hitting someone with barrages. Useless information or otherwise.

Last weekend I took a trip to Prague, the capital and First City of the Republic, with Liz and Erin.

It was a chilly, drizzly, tiring, and overall excellent time. We met our bus as the Grand Hotel at around 6:30 AM on Friday. Liz and Erin boarded the bus without difficulty. For me, of course, nothing is quite so simple. I hand my ticket to the ticket-collector, who almost waves me onboard but then does a double-take. She thrusts my ticket back to me and begins rambling dismissively in Czech, waving briefly toward another bus before reaching for the next person's ticket. After a little prodding and a couple of confused verbal/sign language exchanges, I understand that she is telling me to get on another bus. So I grab my duffel bag from the luggage compartment and head for the other bus. After loading my bag and waiting in line again, the new ticket-collector, who fortunately speaks a little English, tells me that, no, this is not your bus either, it must be that one, she says, gesturing toward the bus from which I was previously turned away. I explain that I've already attempted to board that bus. No matter, she insists that that bus is my bus. I sigh, bewildered, grab my bag again, and trudge back toward the first bus. I show the first ticket-collector my ticket yet again, and then she stares at it intently, begins to giggle a little bit, and then motions me onboard. This was, after all, the right bus. Her bad.

The bus ride was uneventful. We watched an old Czech version of Cinderella, and I attempted vainly to sleep.

Once in Prague, we found our way to the Metro and attempted to discern from the public transport maps which subway line we should take to get to the Charles Bridge (as we weren't due at our accommodation for a few hours hence). We, of course, decided upon a line and a stop which ended up being quite wrong, but it wasn't really a problem. Our stop let us off beside the Vltava River, which was fortunate, as we could simply walk north along the bank until we reached the Bridge, which we ultimately did. Here's a photo of Liz and I beside the Vltava:

Charles Bridge is lovely, despite being one of the most tourist-heavy areas of the city. Luckily for us, there were not that many tourists out and about on this chilly Friday morning. The Bridge is lined with gorgeous statues of Christ and the Saints, and we took our time admiring them.

Once across the bridge, we decided to go ahead and make our way to the district where our accommodation was located, back across the river and to the southeast. After purchasing tram tickets at a tabak (tobacconist), we hopped on a tram and set out toward Bulharská Street. I was very pleased that the public transport system was very similar to that in Brno and, thus, quite easy to use.

We arrived at our accommodation a little early, so we decided to wander around the surrounding streets, which were nice but unremarkable. Our accommodation, as I have been calling it, was a little place called Ron's Rainbow Guest House. As the name implies, it markets itself as gay-friendly and, even though we are not gay, we still found it to be quite friendly. Rather, we found the owner to be quite friendly. Remarkably nice and helpful. Ron is a American from New Orleans with a very inviting personality. He owns the 4 apartments in his building which make up Ron's Rainbow Guest House. Ours was the "Economy" room, but was still quite nice.

Bathroom, shared kitchen area, shower, a raised platform with two pull-out beds for the girls and a convertible futon for me, a nice leather armchair, a toaster, a kettle, and a cozy little breakfast area. Oh, and a television which, with the exception of CNN World News, had only German language channels. I still haven't figured that one out. Ron himself was fantastic. He sat down with us for maybe 45 minutes, giving us maps and marking the public transport routes to some of the sights that he suggested we head to. Later, he brought us bread.

Later that day, we saw a rainbow.

Which I took as a good omen.

That day, we traveled over to the Castle District, the northwestern part of Prague which contains, as you might have guessed, Prague Castle. We took a stroll through some kind of park. Here is a snapshot of Erin and I in the Park:

At the other end of the park was this Baroque pavilion, the name of which I do not know, where we got a fantastic panoramic view of the mighty Vltava and all of Prague's bridges.

And here's a photo of me in front of the same panorama:

Next we went over to the Royal Gardens and walked through them down to the area of Prague Castle and St. Vitus' Cathedral. Deciding against a tour of either of these too-well-known locations, we walked on until we came to the Loreto Palace. The Loreto is a shrine to the literal house of the Virgin Mary, said to have been transported from Palestine to the town of Loreto, Italy in the 13th Century by angels. In 1620, after the defeat of Bohemian Protestants by the Roman Catholic Church, the Loreto became something of symbol for the re-Catholicization of the Czech lands. Many replicas of the Virgin's house are spread throughout the Czech Republic, the most notable of which is the one housed in the Loreto Palace.

The structure is not exactly an authentic Palestinian residence, but rather a large Roman-style cube housing a shrine to the Virgin. Next we went to see a smallish quasi-replica of the Eiffel Tower, constructed to overlook Prague during some post-Eiffel World's Fair.

As the cutting wind and icy rain became to set in, we wandered down a seemingly-endless nature trail that winds down from the Tower to Prague proper, where we caught a tram back to Ron's. Then, scrumptious Thai food, after which we retired at 9ish like old people.

On Saturday we woke and set out for Old Town and the Jewish Quarter. First we hit an unfinished Renaissance-era Jesuit cathedral with a stunning three-tiered altar. Next, Wenceslas Square where we visited a bookstore and the famed statue of Saint Wenceslas.

Thanks to Ron, we also know about a parody of the statue, housed in what could only be called a shopping mall. Notice Wenceslas, dressed for battle, astride a mighty steed, dead as Dillinger and strung up by its ankles.

Next we hit an outdoor market, where I purchased this hat:

The scarf was bought to match at a store down the street.

We continued on to the iconic Astronomical Clock, the area of which was surprisingly devoid of tourists, something which we later found was not at all a normal occurrence.

Then the Jewish Quarter, which wasn't really such a good idea as, being the Jewish Sabbath, most everything was closed.

Above, you see a photo of Erin and I standing in front of the Spanish Synagogue, just realizing that it is the Sabbath and trying to decide on our next step. The three of us went to many other places as well, but I honestly can't remember what they were. Obviously they were unremarkable. Or perhaps they were quite remarkable and I just have a terrible memory. Which is more likely. For dinner, we checked out Pivovarský Dům (which means something like "The Brewer's House"), a nice little Czech brewpub suggested to us by Ron. It was delightfully rugged and brimming with locals. Later, we sat around Ron's Rainbow Guest House watching "God's Warriors: Christianity" on World CNN. It was a delightfully interesting and occasionally frightening documentary about religious fundamentalism. Check it out.

Sunday morning we woke, settled up with Ron, and wandered around Prague for a little while until time for us to catch our 1:30 bus back to Brno. As much as I had enjoyed Prague, I had not realized how much I really do love Brno until the bus was entering the city limits. As cliché as it may sound, I felt like I was coming home. But that's how it works I suppose.

And upon arriving home, I ran into Juci (pronounced "YOOT-see"), a Hungarian friend, who gave me this:

This is an intensely spicy Hungarian sauce. It is like edible napalm. It is so delicious yet so deadly. Eat heartily, but with caution. Juci is a sweetheart. I had tried a little bit of the sauce previously, relating to Juci how much I enjoyed it. So, when she went back to Hungary to visit her home, she remembered me and brought some back for me. She is an angel. A spicy angel bearing gifts of sauce.

And that, my love, is all.

Coming Soon To A Blog Near You

Prague, rainbows, and edible napalm. Stay tuned.

I Am Currently Dressed To Kill

I am the single laziest blogger of all time.

Here are a few fun tidbits for tonight.

Some people here discovered an excellent pub called Mamut. At Mamut, every table has its own beer tap so you can pour your own. And all over the walls are these huge LCD monitors that keep track of which table has consumed the most beer. Needless to say, it becomes something of a nonstop competition. Here's a photo of the tap:

Notice me on the right, rockin' my Sigma Tau Delta t-shirt. This picture was stolen from Justin. You got jacked, brother.

A couple of weeks ago, I am walking through the courtyard at the MU Faculty of Arts, conversing with Pam and being generally American. Out of nowhere, I am approached by a friendly-looking Czech girl. She tells me that she has a friend who is wanting to practice her conversational English, and would I mind meeting up with her at some point? I comply, of course, and she takes down my mobile number. That weekend, I get a call from said friend. Her name is Karolina and she asks if maybe we could meet up and maybe go to a pub and have a chat. Sure, I say. We agree to meet at 6:30 under the clock on Česká (probably the most common meeting-place in all of Brno). Luckily, I had thought to give her a description of myself, so she has no problem finding me. We commence to go to a really nice nearby tearoom. She is a very nice, beautiful girl. And her English is actually excellent. It turns out that she had spent a year studying in Dublin in the not-so-distant past. Now, however, she is a physical therapist in Brno and never gets to use her English, so she really just wanted a native speaker with whom she could chat. And I'm glad that, as random as it may have been, it ended up being me. She promised to show me some nice places in and around Brno, and invited me to a future dinner party at she and her friend's flat. Anyway, as we are leaving the tearoom, she inquires as to how much she should pay me. Because I had enjoyed myself so thoroughly, I felt, at that moment, less like a teacher and more like a gigolo. I assure her that no payment is necessary, but that she should just be my friend instead. I believe that suited us both.

Tonight I dressed myself to the teeth and ventured out to Městské Divadlo (the City Theatre) with a few friends for what turned out to be a night of excellent musical theatre. The production was entitled "Markéta Lazarová" and was, in my uneducated opinion, nicely done. As far as I could tell from context and what little Czech I've learned, the play is a kind of strange love story set against the backdrop of warring medieval factions, and Markéta Lazarová is the name of the lovely young prima donna.

The character, that is. I'm not sure of the actress' name. Nonetheless, though I understood next to none of the words, the show, to use a bad cliché, spoke for itself. Good times with good folks.

That's all for tonight. Sweet dreams, dearest readers.

And Now, A Commentary on Poetry by One of the Masters of the Art

Castling

Good evening, dearest readers. The time of the blogging is upon us.

Last Saturday I went to Pernštejn Hrad, a lovely castle about 40km away from Brno. Myself, Jacob, Michelle, and their fellow-Montanan Alec traveled there by train with no real problems. We did almost miss the connection midway, but some very nice Czech Railways employees pointed us in the right direction to make our second train. Very fortunate were we. After getting off of our last train, wandering in the direction that we thought might lead to the castle, a nice meal at the only restaurant in sight, and more quasi-aimless roaming, we came to an extremely steep stone footpath that, luckily, led to the castle. Here is a what the castle looks like at you enter the grounds:

And here's an excellent up-close view:

The hike was worth it. Pernštejn Hrad was very lovely, as you can see, and the surrounding countryside was even more beautiful. We took a tour which, unfortunately, was completely in Czech. However, they gave us these little booklets with all of the tour information in English so that we could kind of follow along. We were quite easy to spot. While everyone else on the tour was looking at the pretty young tour guide and inspecting the items to which she pointed, we were the idiots in the back staring intently down at our pamphlets and mumbling to ourselves in English. But it was still a great deal of fun. Here I am, striking a pose for a photo to accompany my letter that's going in Footnotes (for an explanation, see here). I'm trying to look European:

And, to finish out this saga, we made it home without incident. Ahh, happy endings!

Castling, by the way, is my favorite move in Chess. It makes me feel like I know what I'm doing.

Everything else has been going quite smoothly. I finally got accepted into all of my classes, and the lectures have been a lot of fun and very informative thus far. More on that later.

That's all for now, my lovelies.

Much love from behind the Iron Curtain.

Thro' the Rude Wind's Wild Lament

That's right, today was the Feast of St. Wenceslas (or Sv. Václav in Czech). For Americans, that's the "Good King Wenceslas" of Christmas carol fame, hence the title of this blog. For Czechs, Wenceslas' Name Day is also kind of a Founder's Day.

No, it's not a wild European holiday like some of you may be thinking. For me, it was more like Labor Day without the BBQing. Everything was closed and the whole city seemed kind of vacant. I mostly just saw a few old people and little kids as I made my mighty trek to the supermarket, where I bought sandwich fixings, a delicious Czech soda called Kofola, and a ridiculously cheap bottle of Boris Vodka.

I had lunch at KFC. I know what you're thinking. But it and the big grocery chains were basically the only things open. Plus, the KFC here is much better than at home. Everything is spicy in the best way. As I sat there devouring my Spicy Strips and hranolky (french fries), "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers came over the radio, and it was comforting. Nothing like bad American-Czech comfort food and good music to ward off today's chilly, gloomy Brno weather.

I had my first Hostel moment today. Like the movie. No, I wasn't kidnapped and tortured to death like some people insist I'm going to be. It went something like this. I am walking through the underground tunnel from the Hlavní Nádraží (Main Station) to the Tesco (an international supermarket chain), rockin' my iPod so as to be as inconspicuous as possible (I think 70% of young people I see walking alone here rock the Pod), when I am approached by two attractive young Czech women who begin talking to me in Czech.

I de-Pod and commence to tell them that I don't speak Czech. This doesn't seem to bother them. "Where are you from?" one asks. I tell them and they confer with one another in Czech. "So, are you here, just tourist?" one asks. I explain to them that I'm a student at Masaryk. They confer in Czech. "And how long will you be here?" one asks. A little over eight months, I explain. They confer in Czech some more, seem to make a mutual decision, and say "Ok, goodbye." And they walk away. Maybe they were just curious. They fanciful, Hollywoodized part of me, however, wants to believe that if I were indeed a tourist and unlikely to be missed, they would lure me into some trap using their womanly wiles and then have me sold on the Black Market. Of course, the fanciful, Hollywoodized part of me is an imbecile. It is highly unlikely that I will ever be sold into slavery or for some more Hostel-like purpose. Of that, I am glad. On the whole, I feel very safe here. Even alone at night, I almost always feel safe.

This is a lovely place.

One unrelated note: Much to your dismay, I'm sure, I have decided to do away with the McRae Foundation Notable Canadian Award for now. As prestigious and coveted as it is, I have simply become bored with it and wish to use the newly-freed space on the sidebar for more interesting material. My deepest apologies to McRae Foundation devotees and award hopefuls.

Much love from behind the Iron Curtain.

The Tortoise and the Hare in Finnish

I was having a chat with one of my new Finnish friends the other day and somehow, though I can't presently remember, the old story about the Tortoise and the Hare came up. It seem that the Finns, too, have this story, yet for them it has a different message.

Every American knows that this little fable teaches the proverb "slow and steady wins the race." Tortoise and Hare decide to race. Hare is cocky. Hare takes nap. Tortoise overtakes Hare and wins race. A very simple tale.

For the Finns, however, the Tortoise and the Hare (or "the Turtle and the Rabbit" to use her words) teaches not the virtue of patience, hard work, and perseverance. Rather, it teaches the value of cunning and forethought: of using your brain. In this version of the fable has the same setup. Tortoise and Hare decide to race. Hare is cocky. The similarity stops there.

In the Finnish tale, the Tortoise goes home and tells his wife about the imminent race. Together they concoct a plan. You see, the Tortoise and his wife are very similar in appearance, so they decide to trick the Hare. When the race begins, the Hare shoots ahead of the Tortoise, as expected. But once the Hare is out of sight, the Tortoise ducks into a bush and hides. Up ahead, just short of the finish life, the Tortoise's wife has been hiding in another bush. When she hears the Hare coming down the path but still can't see him, she jumps out of the bush and dashes across the finish line. So when the Hare comes barreling full-steam around the corner, he sees, much to his surprise, what appears to be the Tortoise waiting for him across the finish line. The baffled Hare has no choice but to concede victory to his crafty opponent.

For the Finns, then, the fable doesn't promote a staunch work-ethic (what we could call a very American cultural "virtue"), but rather the value of teamwork and, above all, the value of one's mind. It would be fascinating to study the cultural implications of this difference. These two competing mindsets (American vs. European) should be fairly evident to anyone who has been abroad and had to deal with the stereotype of the "Stupid American."

I assure you that the stereotype is not a myth. One example from the mouth of my Czech language teacher Dr. Leix (who happens to be Polish): "It will be harder for you Americans, because your professors will assume that you are stupid because you are American. So you will have to work extra hard and be extra careful in order to prove them wrong."

Don't worry about me, though. Regardless of this widespread preconception about Americans, I haven't had any problems connecting with, and making friends of, my new European peers.

I thank you all for reading. Much love from behind the Iron Curtain.

Neparkovat

A handful of thoughts for today.

I finally got into one of my courses! Well, another one. If you count the Czech Language course that I kind of got into automatically. But I don't. Anyway, the course to which I was accepted is called "Contemporary Mexican-American Literature" and looks to be quite promising. I'm not certain, but I think it might technically be a Master's level course. But I'm not worried about it.

Today, while having dinner with Jacob and Michelle, I uttered a truism which I think transcends boundaries of time, space, culture, language, and nationality. At least for exchange students in foreign lands. I believe it went something like, "well, today I went somewhere, did something that made me mildly uncomfortable, and came back here." Perhaps that is an understatement. Anyone who has ever been an exchange student knows exactly what I'm talking about.

For all those who have asked, I sent off my Fulbright application right before I left the States. I should hear something by January. Cross your fingers.

My roommate went back to Poland on Friday and will not return until sometime next week. He's a really nice guy, but I am still, as much trouble as it may cause me at times, very American. I value my privacy very highly. Sometimes you just need a quite minute by yourself. Or several quiet hours.

The hot water didn't work today. I let it run for like ten minutes and still nothing. So I took a cold shower. It was intense. Not that I've never taken a cold shower before, but never this cold and this involuntarily. I know you're jealous. Don't try to hide it.

I took my camera out on Saturday to try and take some pictures. I ended up not taking many, but this has been my favorite so far:

If it were ever to be published, I would title it "No Parking" because, well, that's what neparkovat means. I like the feel of that, though. "No Parking." Has a heavy feel to me. But then again, I'm ridiculous. Nonetheless, I like it. I took the photo out behind the lower level of my dorm building.

First actual day of classes tomorrow, aside from Czech class, that is. Anyway, wish me luck.

Much love from behind the Iron Curtain.