i will start with tuesday.
for our "buddy system," the organization that coordinates with our program here in prague, there are weekly nation2nation parties at various clubs around the city. each week a new country presents themselves and a bit of their national food, and then everything falls apart and people get drunk, sloppy, and sweaty and make their way home around 4 am. let me tell you, this is not our case. maybe it's being married (though NOT boring) or just a personality quirk, but i am anti drunk-sweaty-people-touching-me. and house music isn't my thing. as such, last tuesday night sean, jill, danielle and i instead went to bar atmosphere - OUR FAVORITE PLACE ON THE PLANET. unfortunately, this is the only picture we have from that night but it perfectly describes one's mood in said bar.
cheap beer, delicious food, and these awesome fried potato slice things with chili and garlic sauce are well worth any effort you could ever encounter in getting here. danielle is beautiful in repping the .5L hoegaarden (fine choice) while i prefer the .5L gambrinus 12 degree. sean prefers to steal their glasses and then pay $2 for one in order to sooth his guilt.
jill introduced us to the ever-intelligent coaster-flipping bar game.. i won't embarass anyone by telling how often we all now practice that when we're waiting on beer.
wednesday was a day full of boring class/.iphone playing followed by a nice dinner date at a small restaurant near the husinecka stop on tram 9 (what else). the garlic/onion/bacon gnocchi was delicious, as was sean's chicken skewer and baked potatoes filled with garlic cream - and gambrinus, duh. it wasn't until we began to look around that we realized the TWELVE FOOT STUFFED BOA CONSTRICTOR behind us.
so ends my patronage to said restaurant.
thursday brought out the big guns in us... our buddy system hosted a wild west themed boat party on the vlatva river - never a good idea to confine 120 people to a boat with cheap alcohol for four hours. i, naturally, came as an indian converted to cowboy clothing due to my cowboy husband.
we had pizza appetizers, a welcome drink of energy drink with a splash of vodka, and weird sandwiches and cat food creamy salad. the food wasn't bad, but the beer was great.
memorable events:
1. pregaming with trivial pursuit cards at the globe
2. jill's sunglasses.
3. co-stealing a blow-up cactus with sam
4. watching the buddy system director literally almost making babies with a random chick for two hours in the middle of everyone.
5. drunk people i've never met "remembering" me and thanking me for things i can't understand.
6. screaming incoherent songs and arguing for shakira to the point of losing my voice for three days.
friday we tried to go to the staropramen brewery for a tour but it was "closed" for renovations and the front desk lady must have been faking her employee-ship because she had no idea when renovations were to be completed. bummer. but we had lunch across the street and found an army shop where i got a $3 indestructible purse and a caribener for my camel back. not a total loss.
as a sidenote, i know this wasn't friday but i know that at some point during this week sean and i stumbled upon this utopia of humanity called the choco cafe. let me just tell you how fantastic your life could be if you came here every day. this place has this stuff called "spooning chocolate." yes, readers, it is in fact chocolate that you eat with a spoon - the consistency of chocolate syrup, but hot and gourmet and almost holy, with anything you want mixed in. we had the banana strawberry one - fresh fruit mixed in this, mind you. and then my life was complete. oh wait, no that was after the drinking chocolate that would send swiss miss back to her own freaking country. end sidenote.
saturday we visited kutna hora - an old old beautiful town with beautiful churches and expensive beer/food (not really expensive, but come on, when you're used to $1 beer, $2.25 gets a little steep). here we visited the bone church first... back in the golden days there was something about a lot of bones that were there that had been unearthed from a plague (?) and just sat around inside/outside the church until one day one of them thought to adorn the church with said bones to put them to use. end result?
divine intricacy with a side of creepy. well worth the creep, though. there's really not much to say - you kind of have to be there so i'll leave it at that. for more pictures visit my facebook page...
sunday was an emotionally deep day spent at terezin with our friends. a bit of terezin's recent history.
terezin was a concentration camp where thousands of jewish citizens spent their final days. though not as extreme as auschwitz and not technically an extermination camp, the conditions at terezin more than helped keep up the death toll. hundreds of people were confined to incredibly miniscule living quarters and were often forced to share their "lives" with the dead who were left in the rooms with them.
i've always been interested in the holocaust and used to read everything about it that i could get my hands on, but nothing compares to the feeling of walking the streets among memories of those who lived in such true horror.
the air felt too thick to breath and too thin to support life as we wandered the corridors of the camp. my chest was heavy with the thought of those whose footprints had been exactly where my feet walked and those who dreamed they would walk out, as i so easily could have. the simple thought of the damage potential of the power of one group's hate is absolutely unfathomable. i will never forget the musty smells of the once overcrowded wooden bunk beds, the stale air of the confinement cells, or the lifeless existence that filled every pore of anyone who crossed that striped threshold. even the greatest writer could never accurately record terezin. it's far too painful to ever be experienced by mankind again.
i'm a bit nervous to visit auschwitz after terezin. i can look at the pictures, see the bodies and the torture and walk the grounds of murderers, but it is the thoughts that stay and haunt that bother my mind the most. taking those pictures and animating them into real life is unimaginable. i heard someone in an exhibit there say that a friend and her husband went to auschwitz once and will never again consider returning. at the same time i believe it's good to feel these emotions. if they were to simply remain dead after all this time, are we then not capable of desensitizing ourselves to the point of a repeat offense? if others refuse to respect the dead and their memories at such sites, i volunteer myself to do it for them. i will feel the emotions for them. i will be the sin eater, for these are things which should never be forgotten. these people cannot be forgotten. so many of the faces of the victims of terezin looked like someone i knew, someone i was related to, or somone i love. could you imagine your family's faces among those lost? the day still weighs heavily on my mind.
when we returned we continued the days emotions with a viewing of the film "the diving bell and the butterfly," the story of jean-dominique bauby, a man completely paralyzed save for his left eyelid, through which he writes an entire book of his life via blinking with the help of a patient translator. the globe, a bookstore ten minutes from wenceslas square, has a free movie showing every sunday night, of which our friends and we are active participants. the movie tonight, however, mirrored the emotions felt throughout the day today and left me with a sense of deep love for all those around me who i have free access to at any time and on any terms. i felt especially in love with sean after pseudo-feeling the misfortune of those who were separated from their other half indefinitely with one swift motion of a pen. it made me especially miss home as well - i wished that i hadn't made the choice to leave when i could have spent that time surrounded with ones i love. all right, mushy things, but you'd have to have been the places i was to understand the outpouring of emotion. if you weren't, all you'd probably do is vomit.
that about concludes the week, i guess. tomorrow is my sister emma's birthday and i wish so badly that i could be there. it seems that i am always gone on her birthday and i always hate it. a sad face would be too dorky even for me to put in here, but it is literally my face right now. so happy early birthday to her!!!!
it seems like we have so far to go and yet everything is moving so fast. back to imogen.
hide and seek
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