Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Well, I'll be home tomorrow, meaning this post is sort of useless and redundant. But Sara said I should do one last post, so here we go.

It's been like the last day of high school here. We had a graduation ceremony/lunch, at which this film I made with some friends for an "Immersion project" was shown, and it went over really well. But there have been A LOT of those awkward hey-we-should-have-hung-out-more-and-we'll-probably-never-see-each-other-again-but-hey-if-you're-ever-in-Alabama-look-me-up sorts of conversations.

I'm just hoping I've made enough "friends" that if I'm ever in San Francisco or something I'll have a couch to crash on.

But I'll miss the ol' Praha with her cheap beer and old buildings and ugly hair. Or maybe not. I mean, after all,
USA is NUMBER ONE!!!!!
BEST COUNTRY EVER!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I'll see you all for Christmas, so I can just tell you stuff in person. Thus, this blog is closed for business.

You Smoke Joint? Marijuana? Hashish?

Two blogs in one day? Are you not entertained?

The title of this one refers to the constant refrain someone of my nationality, age, gender, and hairiness level is bound to hear when walking around Old Town or Wenceslas Square--esp. at night.

It always a strange encounter because it's always a Roma--Gypsies (an ethnic minority here)--walking toward you, and they kind of mutter, "You smoke joint? Marijuana? Hashish?" Always that exact phrase. And they never stop, never wait for a response. It's more like a greeting than an offer.

It's become sort of a punchline around here, this awkward phrase that is somehow unconnected to reality in any way. I've never seen anyone say yes to them--or no, for that matter because the seller is long gone before you even realize what they just asked you.

Down and Out in Paris and London

So you've all been clamoring for a new blog, but I'm just too busy to write 'em. That's a lie. Mam hodne volno. But I'm lazee, so nuts to you.

But here's a little wrap-up of my weeklong trip to Paris and London.

First, we--me, Ben Wesselschmidt, Arthur, and Abby--had to wake up at 4:30 am to go to the airport. At the airport Ocko was on TV, showing--what else!--London Bridge! I knew it was going to be a good trip. So we arrive in Paris at like 8 in the morning. We go the hotel, and we're in this tiny room--two queen sized beds and a huge armoir that completely blocks you from walking around the room and a minute table and chair. With four people and four suitcases, it is pretty much impossible to move around. The bathroom is just a curtained-off shower and sink--no toilet!! The room is too small for the bathroom to have a door! Anyway, we decide to go to this brasserie right around the corner, and we receive a chilling prelude to our wide-eyed trip to Paris. This bizarre, rum-drenched Cameroonian starts talking to us, saying Paris is finished. There's nothing for me here. And he tells us how he always wanted to be in London--Abbey Road, like the Beatles--but he ended up in Paris which killed his music career. He continually broke into snatches of popular songs, especially Beatles' songs. The best was when the waiter seemed to deny him more coffee and he broke into Mr. Big Stuff--"Who do you think yoooouuu arrree??" Wonderful. Paris is finished.

But we went to the Eiffel Tower--a long line one stands in for a couple hours--the Louvre--at which you can take a "Da Vinci Code" tour--Musee d'Orsay, Pompidou--cool inside-out architecture with exhibitions on R. Rauschenberg and Yves Klein--Notre Dame--they actually have a souvenir coin-press in the church!--and all that stuff. Oh yeah--I LOST MY CAMERA!!! and I HAD TO PAY 230 EUROS FOR A TRAIN TICKET!!!!!!!! Not a good day--needless to say I bought some cheap, cheap champagne and met a bunch of Belgians, one of whom pretended to be Borat.

Also, I saw a bunch of famous graves--incl. Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Stendhal, Truffaut, and Jim Morrison!

London:

I wasn't in a tourist mood in London, so I did go to the British Museum--cultural artifacts looted from other countries--and I saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, etc. but I didn't really do much there. I did see a cool play by Tom Stoppard called "Rock'n'Roll" about the Czech Republic. London is ungodly expensive by the way.

Well, that's what I did on my little vacation. It was crazy!!!!

And there you go--a new blog.

Dalai Lama

So they say Buddhism is a religion of peace and His Holiness the Dalai Lama must be a peaceful man. But he nearly shoved me over today.

I was at Forum 2000 today, an annual gathering of intellectuals around the world to "reach out" to each other and "create dialogues" or something. All I know is that I was just standing there during the coffee break, and His Holiness and his posse of bald-heads just about knocks me on my ass.

I missed the forum yesterday which would have been awesome because Vaclav Havel, Jacques Chirac, Elie Weisel, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and special surprise guest Joan Baez(?!) were all present. Today was an "interfaith" discussion which was pretty good. The Dalai Lama got really touchy on this Rabbi and kept joking about he was a non-believer, since Buddhism doesn't have a divine creator. Nutso.

GERMANY

I'm pretty bad at keep up this blog. But here's a summary of the past two weeks, done very quickly. Last weekend: Munich for Oktoberfest [see "Fear and Loathing at Oktoberfest 2006" for more] Spent about a day there / saw Dachau / intense / Back to Prague / this weekend: ciee trip to cesky krumlov / small idyllic town in southern bohemia / tabor: home of hussite museum and legendary hussite military genius jan zizka--blind in one eye yet never lost a battle......then to berlin / brandenburg gate / film museum (Ray harryhausen figures) / pergamon (ancient art) / unification day festival / ben lachmann?!?!?! / hot banditoz:



dresden / back to prague / home cheap home

Fear and Loathing at Oktoberfest 2006

Munich during Oktoberfest is a wasted city. Vomit covers the ground and beer practically rains from the sky. You're constantly sandwiched between a loud drunk American pissing himself and some 12-year-old lothario with a dirt-stache and a girl on each arm. Where do they come from and where do they go?

Oktoberfest puts on the facade of good clean fun--all buxom beer wenches and enormous pretzels and lederhosen and giant cookie necklaces and roller coasters--but to see it at night is to see the naked soul of humanity, writhing in pain, beating the ground, and, in dejected despair forsaking God for giving man alcohol.

One has to go a few miles out to Dachau just to remind himself there's still a world outside of this bizarre carnival fantasia of Bavarian sausage.

An illustrative anecdote. Two men are standing beside each other taking photos of a giant spinning beer mug or something. I point one out to my companion because he is wearing a Praha Drinking Team t-shirt. As I am doing so, a third party enters the scene wearing an "OOOOOOooooohhhhh yeeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh" expression on his face, he grabs the respective crotches of the aforementioned photographers.

But it was fun though!

All the bitches stand in line

And now, for all you faithful blog-junkies (all four of you), I give you the two greatest videos ever made. These were discovered on Ocko TV (sort of the Czech MTV, or, more accurately, the Czech MTV of 1982, back when they still just played videos ). Anyway, both of these songs are pretty much inexplicable, so I'll let them speak for themselves.

Lordi - "Who's Your Daddy?"



Robbie Williams - "Rudebox" (#1 in Germany and labelled by The Sun the worst record ever)

Dining Out

Europe in general, and the Sketch Republic in particular, are not what you would call service-oriented cultures. Seat yourself. Wait ten minutes for the waitress. Wait another 10 for drinks. Wait 30 minutes for food. Track down someone to finally give you the check.

Under communism there was essentially no service industry (unless you count the guy who hands out rye in the bread line). But even more to the point, there was no quality drinking water. People simply aren't used to putting a cup under a faucet.

Thus, there is no free water. In fact, there is rarely plain water at all. You instead have to order a bottle of sparkling mineral water that usually costs more than a beer. However, the beer is very cheap, often less than a dollar. And it is very good, and there many varieties. There is a long tradition of beer in the Czech Lands, the drink having been more or less invented here.

It is also traditionally the drink for all people. In fact it was at one point mandated by law that beer be affordable to all citizens. Still, one can only drink beer so much, and it's hard not wish that you can go into a restaurant and get some damn free refills on Coke, for if there is one axiom of Czech dining, it is this:

THERE ARE NO FREE REFILLS.

It's Been A While

Sorry to disappoint my loyal readers by waiting so long between posts, but I just wasn't spending much time on the internet the past week. Anyway, in this blog I will touch on three--perhaps four--significant topics.

1. Schedule

Here's a list of the classes in which I'm enrolled (in order of length of course title):

Beginning Czech
Modern Czech Literature
Topics in Avant-Garde Cinema
Collective Identity in a Totalitarian Regime
Europe and the United States: Transatlantic Relations Past and Present

2. Opera

Last Friday all the CIEE students went to the opera at the National Theatre, which is a really amazing place, so amazing that it's where they filmed the premiere of "Don Giovanni" in the film "Amadeus"--despite the fact that "Don Giovanni" actually premiered at the Theatre of the Estates (also in Prague). We saw Antonin Dvorak's "Rusalka," which is basically the same as "The Little Mermaid" only the songs aren't as good.

3. Football (Soccer)

Last Saturday I went to a soccer game. It was Sparta Praha vs. someone else. And Sparta killed 'em 2-0. I was surprised thatthe seats were only about half-filled, considering it was such a nice day and tickets were so cheap (around 5 dollars for our seats). But some of the fans who were there made up for it, screaming at bad calls and constantly chanting Sparta :: PRAHA. I also had a cheap sausage, which are ubiquitous here.

4. 9/11

One of the four channels we get in the dorm is Deutsche Welle, a German 24 hr. news station that alternates between German and English broadcasts. Monday night they showed a brief documentary on America, 5 years after 9/11. Particularly interesting were the fact that they keep in the original audio of the video of the attacks, people screaming "Holy Shit!," Jesus Fucking Christ!," etc. Also, the assumptions made are somewhat different, although perhaps more accurate. For example, when talking about the War in Iraq, it simply stated as a fact that the Bush administration was planning the attacks prior to 9/11/2001. It was an intriguing example of culture clash, rivaled only by the new Rammstein video "Amerika"--which includes the chorus
"We're all living in America,
America is wunderbar.
We're all living in America,
Amerika, Amerika.
We're all living in America,
Coca-Cola, Wonderbra,
We're all living in America,
Amerika, Amerika.

This is not a love song,
this is not a love song.
I don't sing my mother tongue,
No, this is not a love song."

Truly a chilling exposition of America's global cultural domination.