There is no place we are / but maybe here.

Attn: People who read this blog

2009-08-07T20:09:00.002-07:00

Hello, friends!

I'm moving over to Wordpress -- the times, they are a-changin' -- mostly because I think it looks cleaner, nicer, and offers more opportunity to make it look even more clean and more nice. Things are still looking pretty bland there right now; I hope to have some fun with CSS soon to make it look a bit more like I want it to. I'm also thinking I might begin to blog about more than my innermost thoughts and feelings. . .though I do love telling the Internets about those things, indeed.

At any rate, please update your bookmarks/feed readers/mental notes to megsandbacon.wordpress.com. (The usual usernames/domains were taken, so we're trying something new!!)

There's a post about my recent 24-hour whirlwind tour of Pittsburgh and a recipe for one of my favorite things to eat waiting for you! Fun!!!

Timelines

2009-07-27T17:21:00.002-07:00

Some of my favorite Mountain Goats lyrics are from the song "Tallahassee," on the album of the same name. The part I like best in the song goes like this:

"There is no deadline; there is no schedule.
There is no plan we can fall back on.
The road this far can't be retraced.
There is no punch line anybody can tack on."

When I graduated from college and moved to San Francisco, one of the hardest transitions for me was learning how to function in a lifestyle that didn't have any set end-dates, no specific schedules or timeframes. In college, and even in high school and middle school and elementary school before that, your time is divided up into neat little chunks. You go to different classes each day of the week; the semester ends after a certain number of weeks, and you switch to new classes; the year ends on a particular date and you move out of your current apartment into a new one, and you get ready for the next year. Everything has a deadline; if it sucks, you know you only have to do it for so long; if it's awesome, you know you better enjoy it, because it won't last.

When you enter the real world, you get a job. You go to that job, usually to an office (the same office) every day, Monday through Friday, from something like 9am to 5pm, give or take. Unless you're on contract, there's no end-date to that job; you're just. . .there, for as long as you want to be there or until you get fired. You find an apartment, and you live in it; you might sign a lease for a year, but if you want to stay there indefinitely, it's probably a possibility. For some people, this lack of confines is great; they feel free to pursue their interests and make their lives awesome, and they grow up, and they thrive.

For me, it was incredibly difficult. I didn't know what to do with my time, how to think about the present or the future. Unintuitive as it is, I felt trapped by the lack of structure, paralyzed by all the options of what I could do, so much that I found myself not wanting to do anything. It was a big adjustment. It took me a lot of time to get used to this "new life," and the process entailed a lot of moping.

These lyrics ran through my head a lot during my first few years in San Francisco, as I lamented the lack of deadline, schedule, and plan, the inability to retrace the steps that got me to where I was, the reality of there being no punch line to wait for.

So, after almost three-and-a-half years of working the daily grind (okay, so my job was pretty cushy, but still, you know), of bouncing around to different apartments when the time felt right, I finally adjusted to the timeframe of real life. But in the last few months, lots of things in lots of aspects of my life have taken turns very much back toward the kind of regimented schedule I tried so hard to let go of.

Right now, there very much is a deadline: A lot of people I'm close to will be relocating in the coming weeks, and the pressure to spend time with them, do the things we've talked about doing but never got around to, and make the most of the time we have left is palpable. And there very much is a schedule and a plan: I've committed to a two-year masters program at Berkeley, which means that for the first time since I moved here, I'm actually committed to staying here for a defined period of time. I'll be going back to that academic structure of weeks and semesters and years that I used to thrive in. Beyond those two years, I won't have to stay here, but it'll probably be in my best interest, since the connections I'll make through the program that will definitely be Bay Area-centric. What's the point of making connections if you're just going to abandon them? I'm realizing that my decisions at this juncture have larger implications than the obvious ones.

I should be careful what I wish for. I'm not finding these deadlines, schedules, and plans to be as comforting now as I remember them being before.

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"There are loose ends by the score. What did I come down here for? You; you." -The Mountain Goats

Independence

2009-06-09T00:08:00.003-07:00

Here's what is getting me through this breakup: (1) doing things that I really enjoy doing but that I have not done very much during the time that I have been in a relationship and (2) doing things with friends that I previously thought I could only enjoy doing with a boyfriend.

Let me clarify:

(1) I am not in any way resentful of the time I have spent in relationships. I do not feel in any way that I have been pushed or tricked into "giving up" things I enjoyed doing for the sake of the relationship(s). But it is just a fact that when you (okay, maybe this needs clarification, too, so for now I will say I instead of you) -- when I am in a relationship, there are always certain things that I would somewhat like to do, but if the other person doesn't like to do them, it isn't a dealbreaker for me. I'm flexible, and at the end of the day, what's most important to me is companionship, no matter the form.

But still, when I am alone and making decisions for myself and myself only, there are things I like to do. Recently, as I have been remembering what it is to be single and independent, I have found a lot of enjoyment in those things. Biking instead of taking the bus or train. Biking around just for fun. Really, just biking. Heading out to a show at 10pm instead of going home and going to bed. Doing random things with friends, even if it's a gamble as to whether or not the activity is going to be hugely fun. Not caring what time it is or what the plan is or what else I need to do and just going with the flow. Um, hello, blogging.

Again, I'm not saying that relationships have forced me to not do things I like to do. However, I know that I have often made the choice to fret over how another person is feeling and allow that to influence my own decisions. When I am committed to someone, I put him first -- even when he doesn't ask me to and maybe would even prefer that I didn't.

(2) There are many things that, in my head, I see myself ideally doing with a significant other. "Date" things: brunches, walks, neighborhood wanderings, other outings. But really, the majority of the things I have, in the past, enjoyed doing with a significant other, I can also enjoy doing with friends. A revelation that many people have already realized, I know, but it really hit me this weekend. I don't have to mope around and feel sorry for myself that I don't get to do X and Y things because I don't have a boyfriend to do them with. Of course, there are certain exceptions here. . .but on the whole, this is true.

Tonight, I ate sausages and drank delicious Czech beer and had three hours of great conversation with a friend I don't see often enough. We talked about how to find the balance between allowing yourself to be influenced and molded and changed by a relationship, while also retaining your independence and your identity. Both have value, and I think both are essential, but this is something I have yet to do successfully. I'm getting better -- I have done this increasingly well in each of the relationships I've been in. But I'm not there yet.

I think part of the difficulty for me is that I am committed and loyal and serious. But I'm also very trusting of my intuition. In all honesty, I won't spend more than an hour with you, one-on-one, if you aren't someone I see myself having a real, meaningful friendship and connection with. And even moreso for relationships -- as much as I want to dismiss the whole "you know when you know" thing, I do know. I haven't gone on more than one date with anyone I couldn't see myself with long term. It's crazy, arguably -- but I feel like if I'm not invested as much as I can be invested in something or someone, it isn't worth being a part of in the first place. I don't know how to not be committed, how to not give of myself fully. I was spoiled by a long relationship where I was loved that way in return, but in the past year and a half, I have (painfully) learned that this is not how everyone operates.

But really, I don't think this is something I should change. I don't advocate anyone living a guarded life. The fact that this is how I operate, emotionally, means that I may get hurt more often and more deeply than the average person; I have learned this. But I'd take that any day over half-assing any relationship or friendship.

So, I'm not sure where that leaves me. I keep trying, I guess, to find the healthy balance. I remember whose house I live in. And until then, I lean on my friends, and I trust myself to learn more about who I am and what I need.

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"Every day is a struggle, from the trough to the crest. Waves keep crashing forever, and only death brings us rest. Sometimes we drift on a current; sometimes we wrestle the rip. If I'm not waving but drowning, promise to not lose your grip. And we will fight against the tide, going under side by side. And if our lungs give out, we will breathe without, and heaven's gates will open wide. . ." - Or, the Whale

Growth

2008-12-13T00:14:00.002-08:00

I have been freaking out lately.

There's a lot going on, and though I generally appear to be taking care of business, I've been going fairly crazy on the inside. It's starting to catch up with me -- I'm perpetually cranky; I'm snappy and short with the people I least want to be snappy or short with. And most recently, I've just felt plain sad -- that old-fashioned melancholy that is only egged on by sunset at 4:45pm and the songs my iPod chooses on shuffle.

The are plenty of immediate and small-scale things on my mind. But, more detrimentally, I've been allowing myself to freak out about the big picture. In the past week, I have convinced myself that one way or another, I'm messing up everything I'm involved in -- every relationship, every community, every goal I'm pursing. Tonight I had to force myself to stop, to breathe, to grasp any shred of perspective I could find and recognize, internalize, and accept reality.

And reality is that things are good. I have so much to be thankful for. I have a job I feel pretty confident about, despite impending economic doom. My church is growing up and doing awesome and interesting things, and I get to be a part of it. I'm in a relationship I feel good about, with a man who's caring and funny and talented, who challenges me to grow and learn. I'm far away from my family, but they love me anyway. My friends are bold and amazing, and they allow me to participate in or at least live vicariously through their adventures. I'm thinking about and pursuing what's next, and even though I hate not knowing 100% what it's going to be right now, right now, right now, it's okay, and I'll get to where I'm supposed to be.

A year ago, I had no clue where I was going, what I was doing, what was going to happen. I was hunkering down with my cat until the emotional storm blew over and I figured out what to do next. I've been playing this game lately where I think about exactly what I was doing at this time last year, what I was thinking, feeling, worrying about. Things haven't necessarily gone as I would have expected them to go in the last year, but they have gone well. I'm in a better place now than I was then -- I'm more confident about what I want and don't want, I'm more stable and healthy, I'm more self-aware, I'm more comfortable inside my own head.

I'd like to think I'm in a better place today than I was even yesterday, and that I'll be in better one still tomorrow. And if I can ever get used to the fact that that's the timeframe life operates on, one day at a time, I'll be all set.

-----
"a brain that never stops ticking / sometimes an on-off switch would sure come in handy / a mind that's constantly cutting up and dissecting / looking for answers / committing murders along the way / is it the red wire or the blue wire? / just pick one and cut / it just doesn't matter anymore / or did it ever? / cause I could never control when the bomb would explode / oh god I love you / I mean forever / I left my body behind to break the news / looks like it's over / please remember all of the things I never got a chance to say" -rocky votolato

Domesticity

2008-10-13T21:59:00.002-07:00

How cliché is it that I bake when I am emotionally insecure and feeling lonely? I've been doing it now for about the last year. Is it just plain nesting? Reassuring myself that I will, indeed, endure this life because I can concoct sweet sustenance from an amalgamation of common ingredients? Taking comfort in the fact that I will be able to draw people to me with my baked goods, thus assuaging my loneliness? Proving to myself that I am valid as a woman and potential wife because of my domestic prowess and ability to incarnate a venerable gender stereotype? Cue gagging noises, perhaps -- but these thoughts cross my mind as I spoon and level off.

Casseroles, pies, cakes, cookies, bread. Whatever the psychological reasoning, I make these things. And I feel better.

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"But then the light, the lamp I held in my blistered hands -- you the fuel, and me the fool for not noticing." -Laura Veirs

Agency

2008-09-04T00:10:00.001-07:00

The line between being forgiving and being too forgiving is such a hard one for me to define.

I feel like I have fairly high expectations of people. I do my part, and I expect others to do theirs. I take care of people, and I expect them to take care of me.

Yet, I see myself accepting treatment that is not as good as what I deserve, not as good as the treatment I give others. And I often see myself brushing this off, not demanding better, cutting slack where I should be calling out, settling for less than I should, allowing myself to be walked on and taken for granted. Of course, this clarity generally only comes in hindsight; in the moment, I don't realize I'm being treated badly, and I let it slide, convince myself it's okay, acceptable. I rarely demand better.

There are instances in which I do get frustrated, do feel angry that I'm not being appreciated or cared for -- but those times don't last long. I end up feeling guilty for not being forgiving enough, for holding people to high standards, for expecting too much. And it continues.

And then, there's the problem of focusing on the people with whom I'm frustrated, while not acknowledging or appreciating the people who do care for me, love me, look after me -- despite the fact that the latter far outnumber the former.

It comes from a lack of agency on my part, to demand to be treated well and to recognize and appreciate when it happens. Perhaps it's because on some level, I feel that I don't really deserve it. I feel awkward when someone's attention is focused on me. I don't want to inconvenience someone by telling them I need them, their help, their love. Or I'm afraid that if I do receive that attention, it will only be fleeting and I'll be left feeling hurt.

I want to see better the line between forgiveness and agency. I want to have more confidence in knowing the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships. I want to stand up for myself when I need to stand up, and be able to be cared for when I need to be cared for. I want to appreciate more the incredible people I am blessed to have in my life and dwell less on the ones who don't meet my expectations. I want to freely offer and freely accept the love, patience, and grace that comes from God.

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"Oh, I do believe in all the things you say; what comes is better than what came before." -Lou Reed

Patience

2008-08-20T23:59:00.002-07:00

One thing that keeps popping into my head lately is, "Oh, so this is how it's supposed to be." In a lot of aspects of my life right now, I feel like things are as they should be. Of course, not everything is perfect; there are still moments of frustration, areas for growth, things that could be better. But on the whole, I feel like my life is balanced and good -- in terms of my job, my living situation, my social landscape, my connections with people, my connection with God. I feel happy and whole, and it feels real, not like something I have to convince myself of or talk myself into out of desperation, not a happiness that I'm settling for or that I'm compromising something else for.

I have always struggled with being patient, with enjoying the moment I'm in instead of rushing on to the next thing that's lined up. I couldn't wait to be done with my small-town life and go off to college in the city; I graduated from college early because I wanted to start my "real life" as soon as possible; it only took two weeks in San Francisco before I had moved into an apartment and started a job; I ended one relationship only to emotionally plunge into a new one. I don't necessarily regret any of these things, but looking back, I can see that not all of these decisions were to my advantage.

But over the past few months, I feel like I have settled into a place that's good, and I'm realizing that being settled, to some degree, isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've always been afraid of becoming too comfortable, worried that it would make me lose my drive to be more and do more. But a reasonable degree of security doesn't have to be detrimental. Because now, I feel like I'm in a place, literally and figuratively, where I think I'd like to stay for a while, a place where I can be still, and patient, and listen, and see what really is next -- instead of forcing what I want to be next.

A few months ago, I was ready to drop everything and embark on something new -- anything new. I hadn't thought it through, I didn't have any vision; I just wanted to do something that felt like it mattered. I was unhappy with many aspects of my life, and I felt like I needed to pour myself into something larger than me.

But then, one by one, things started shifting. I started to feel more capable and in control at work. I moved out of my apartment into a place with two fun, friendly, and caring roommates. I started dating a guy who encourages and inspires and energizes me. And suddenly I had these new things to pour myself into, these relationships to be a part of. And I felt good. Not complacent good, or things-should-stay-like-this-forever good, but good in the sense that I didn't feel empty or lonely or sad. Good in the sense that I felt like my life was headed in a positive direction, I direction in which I wanted to keep going. Good in the sense that I realized that I didn't have to be doing something seemingly insane in order to be doing what God wants me to do right now. Good in the sense that when it is time for something big to happen, to change, I will know.

Of course, I still have moments where I get desperate for what's next, for things to be planned and purposeful and perfect. But I am trying to enjoy where I am now and be open to the possibilities of what will come next, without imposing my plans or selfish desires upon those possibilities. I am trying to see, to seek, to be patient. Sometimes it feels like a cop out, but I really believe that for this moment, I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing, with the people I'm supposed to be with. And I'm thankful.

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"I am healthy, I am whole; but I have poor impulse control. And I want to go home, but I am home. We are strong, we are faithful; we are guardians of a rare thing. We pay close, careful attention to the news the morning air brings. We show great loyalty to the hard times we've been through." -Mountain Goats

Graciousness

2008-06-18T01:25:00.003-07:00

I have a hard time accepting compliments. This always becomes more apparent when I go home, where I invariably end up feeling a bit like a celebrity -- even if it's to no one but my grandparents, always ones to offer praise and adulation. People I know from Canfield have a certain conception of me -- overachieving, level-headed, practical, goal-oriented, studious, successful. And despite a few (fairly public) bumps along the way, I largely lived up to that during the years I lived there. Even when I come home now, six years after moving away, my spiel about what and where and how I'm doing lives up to that, too. I have lots to be thankful for and proud of.

So why do I have such a hard time being gracious when someone pays me a compliment? Whether it's superficial or more thoughtful, whether it's about my appearance or personality or actions or achievements, I feel uncomfortable and usually end up brushing it off, likely seeming rude and stuck up and incredibly ungrateful -- which is the exact opposite of how I feel. It's like the situations in which I can't give praise or am too afraid to embrace friendships because I feel awkward, so I end up putting people off and pushing them away.

Like so much else for me, it probably comes down to confidence. I don't have the confidence to tell myself positive things and believe them, so hearing them from other people -- especially friends, members of the communities I'm part of, people whom I value -- just makes me feel uncomfortable. Perhaps I'm worried that it's too good to be true, that I have to be guarded and cautious in accepting compliments because if I allow people's opinions of me to matter and take to heart what they say, I'm opening myself up to being hurt by those people, should they choose to do so. Which is true, sure; but it's pretty stupid.

Perhaps I'm also paranoid about becoming too wrapped up in praise -- so much that I react too extremely in the other direction. I feel, though, that there's a place for sincere praise as a way for God to build us up, through each other. And if that praise is given and received in earnest, it can be reflectant of him, not a something that makes us prideful or separates us from God.

I fear that if I don't learn to be better at being gracious about receiving these words, I'll run the risk of closing doors, of driving off people I care about because I can't accept their affection and offer it in return, of missing out on ways that God wants to speak to me.

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"And I'm halfway to you, but I'm taking a break where I walk with a limp and I sleep with the stakes, and I blow up my lungs with the air that I need, and my dreams I'm on my knees, and I'm washing your feet with my hair." -Page France

Balance

2008-06-12T00:24:00.001-07:00

I moved this past weekend, into an apartment with two really great girls. They're nice and normal, they're my age, they do yoga and have friends and we ask how each other's days have been and we laugh and we drink wine. I carried all of my worldly possessions (and my cat) into this new place with with the help, love, patience, and support of some of my best friends. I'm exhausted, but I feel really great -- better than I've felt in a long time.

Until this week, when I gave the old apartment a thorough cleaning and carried the remainder of my stuff out of it, I felt like my life was fairly balanced, all things considered, that the decisions I was making were fairly healthy. Sure, it was kind of strange that I was still living in the apartment that I had moved into with a boyfriend of quite-a-few years, kind of strange that I stayed in the place after we split (even if I did rearrange the furniture). But I didn't think much of it -- perhaps didn't let myself think much of it, because I couldn't, because I had to stick it out through the end of the lease, because I had always dreamed of living "on my own" in the big City, in my own apartment, doing my own thing, being a grown-up.

But as I walked around the empty place today, checked the closets and cupboards and corners for anything left behind, found nothing of mine in any of those places, and closed the door behind me for the last time, I felt an unexpected sense of relief, a weight being lifted that I didn't even know was there. About eight months ago I felt like I was starting over, but in a sort of scary, sad, uncertain way. This week, I feel like I'm starting over yet again, but in a confident, exciting, bring-it-on way.

I've had so many moments in the past three-quarters of a year where I am just floored, totally awed by the fact that I get so many chances to fix my life, to start over, to try, yet again, to do things right. I can't get over it and I can't understand it, no matter how many times it happens -- this undeserved grace, these umpteenth chances. I'm facing another chance to start over right now, another chance to make the right decisions, to follow the right leads. It's incredible and exciting and awe-inspiring, and I get goosebumps thinking about it.

I think this move is a really healthy thing. In many senses, I feel like this is one of the few decisions I have made for myself, not for any other person, in the past. . .five years? I'm making this season of my life truly mine. I know that I needed these past few months to be on my own, to struggle and fight with myself, to live somewhat extravagantly and selfishly, to have the wind knocked out of my sails a bit. But now I feel that I am ready to seek balance, to make healthier decisions, to let into my life the people who are important to me, to recognize what is and is not good, helpful, beneficial.

A recurring feeling for me is that of being stuck between two binaries, jumping erratically from situation to situation, decision to decision, lifestyle to lifestyle. But I truly want to find the balance between those binaries, to embrace the gray area between the oppositional situations and decisions and lifestyles, to live act for the right reasons and have confidence in that. And I think I'm on my way.

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"If life's just a living room, I'm in the hall and I'm glad." - David Gray

Generosity

2008-05-29T23:09:00.001-07:00

I've realized lately that I have a particularly hard time giving praise -- telling the people I care about that I care about them, offering compliments, letting people know I appreciate them, or even just that I like spending time with them. I've also realized that I have a hard time hearing and receiving those things from others, but I think that's for unpacking another time. . .

Why is this? Perhaps it's a vulnerability thing -- by telling someone that I value her, I feel like it devalues me in some weird way and opens me up to harm. Maybe it's because I feel insecure, like people wouldn't really care what I think of them, so I shouldn't voice it. Or it could be shyness -- telling someone my opinion of him, even if it's a positive opinion, takes a fair amount of extroversion and confidence. All of those reasons are cop outs, though. Realistically, I think it's mostly fear -- fear of putting myself out there, of being vulnerable, fear of feeling insecure, of putting someone else before myself.

This is a particularly bad thing to have a hard time with, because it ends up being really detrimental to friendships and hurtful to people. It makes me come across as standoffish, closed, hard to read -- things I'm not and don't want to be. It's like when Andi told me, some six months after we met and once we had become friends, that when she first met me, she thought I was a real bitch and that I had written her off from day one. I made no such judgement in my head; in fact, I thought she was great and really wanted to be her friend, but my actions made her think the opposite. I wonder how many people I've unintentionally shut out or hurt by acting this way.

I've been working on being more generous and forthcoming with my positive thoughts lately, and it's almost comical how difficult it is for me. I think nice things about people all day, but actually getting the words out of my mouth is so daunting. I'll sit and repeat over and over in my head some thing that I want to say, and that I truly believe, until I work up the courage to get it out. Whether it's "Those jeans looks great on you" or "You did a great job handling that uncomfortable situation" or "I thought about you all day today" or "You're one of the most important people in my life, and I really value your friendship" (that one is actually still kicking around, waiting to get out to a couple of people whom I want to hear it) -- the thought of saying the words makes my heart pound.

I know this is something really important to get better at, and that all of my friendships and relationships will benefit from me being more open and generous in this way. Everyone needs affirmation, compliments, kindness. I know I need it, and I want to be able to give it, as well.

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"The longer you think, the less you know what to do." -Death Cab

Remembrance

2008-05-19T23:30:00.005-07:00

Every morning for the past few weeks, I've been reading and meditating on the PC(USA)'s Sunday lectionary for the upcoming week. I find it centering to focus on the same set of verses every day for the whole week; tying things together further is that we are following the series at MBCC, so one of the week's passages is also the basis for the sermon on Sunday.

One of this week's passages is Isaiah 49:15-16:

I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

It seems simple; but really, can you imagine that? Every time God looks at his hands, he sees us there -- that is how often he thinks of us. We are engraved there, in his hands -- that is how close we are to him. I can't quite get my head around it.

What is engraved on the palms of my hands? What do I think of as often as I look at them? What is so close to me, so important to me, that it exists there? What should be engraved on the palms of my hands?

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"You were born to glow majestically and love until your hands bleed." - Page France

Confidence

2008-05-18T01:50:00.002-07:00

This has always been a struggle for me. For a long time it was physical, feeling awkward and gangly and clumsy. As I've grown comfortable in my own skin, I've grown out of that, for the most part. But confidence in general, in who I am, in terms of self-worth and all the ways that plays out in relationships and decisions and life, is always volatile.

It's so temperamental, so easily influenced. When people treat me well, I feel good about myself. When I'm in relationships that are positive and I feel like people care about me, I feel positive and care about myself. But when someone is upset with me or dissatisfied with me or not valuing me, I have a hard time fighting feeling that way myself; I take it too much to heart; I let it have too much influence. And the cycle continues -- I put up with being treated worse than I should because I believe, even if it's subconsciously, that I don't deserve to be treated better.

But then when I am treated better, it's like a whole different world; I remember that I am worth listening to, worth investing in, worth opening doors for, worth walking five miles with out to the beach and back. When someone whom I value is valuing in me in return, it changes the way I see things -- really, everything.

And that's good, of course; but I do wish I were more able to pull myself out of it, or to rely on God to pull me out of it, instead of having it be tied up in other people. I suppose, in a sense, God is pulling me out of it by providing people to help build me up. But I wish I could take more confidence, God's confidence, in who I am, what I believe in, what I'm working toward, why I am valuable. I wish it didn't feel so changeable, so often.

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"I'm bound by these choices so hard to make; I'm bound by the feeling so easy to fake. None of this is real enough to take me from you." - Wilco

Connection

2008-05-15T23:04:00.002-07:00

This week has been crazy. Despite my best attempts, I've managed to be busy every night, with barely five minutes to do dishes or put away clothes or clean the cat box. Tonight I stayed home and caught up on chores and Snaut and The Office. . .it's basically too hot to move, anyway.

But despite all the running around, I feel like the time I've spent with people this week has been really great. I've had some good, meaningful connections -- reconnecting with some older friends I'd fallen out of touch with and beginning to forge stronger relationships with newer friends.

I need to feel connected, but I need to remember that is a multi-faceted thing. I need to take time to connect with my friends and family, with myself, and with God. There has to be a balance among all of those; if one outweighs the others, I lose perspective, insecurities and doubts creep in, and a cycle of disconnection begins.

I can feel the pendulum swinging back toward the center, though. Slowly but surely, I'm finding that balance between investing in the people who are important to me, spending enough time alone to think and reflect and be intentional about what I'm doing, and seeking God in the midst of it all.

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"So throw me a rope to hold me in place; show me a clock for counting my days down. Cause everything's easier when you're beside me, come back and find me. . ." - KT Tunstall

Unwavering

2008-05-11T23:37:00.001-07:00

How do you make everyone happy? How do you tell everyone what they want to hear?

You don't. You can't. You can't stand for anything if you do. You never will.

But I do. But I somehow can. But yeah, I'm not standing for anything.

I need guns, and I need to stick to them. There is so much more than hedging your bets; life is not worth living if that's how you live it. We all need certain things, and we need to be firm about needing them. We need to demand them -- of others, and more importantly, of ourselves.

In all honesty, I don't know where I stand. But if I would listen to my own advice, I'd realize that I just need to pick a place and be there -- wherever it is. Be there, unwaveringly.

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"I want to walk worthy, my calling to fulfill. Please order my steps, Lord, and I'll do your blessed will. The world is ever changing, but you are still the same. If you order my steps, I'll praise your name."

Community

2008-05-10T20:24:00.002-07:00

For some reason, I have always thought of myself as a loner, self-identified as an introvert. I'm not quite sure where I came up with that, but I'm realizing lately that it's not at all true.

Perhaps it was because I'm an only child, and I spent a fair amount of time playing by myself as a kid. I wasn't the most social teenager, and I did need my at-home time, away from my friends -- but even then, I wasn't by myself. I spent the majority of my time from birth to age 18 with my parents; we always have been and still are extremely close, a team of three. They're my best friends.

In college, I had my first taste of living in a larger community. The freshman UHC floor put all of my pals within bedroom-door-knocking distance, and I spent every minute with them -- there was always someone who wanted to hang out. My summer in San Francisco was hyper-community -- I was never alone, even sleeping each night in a room with 3 to 4 other girls, and spending every waking hour talking, working, praying, and otherwise connecting intensely with the people around me. I continued to live with roommates after that, and even had another very community-intensive summer working in LA; but I think more monumentally, I entered into a relationship and developed a very strong emotional connection with another person. That was a new kind of community, but it's one that I've realized is basically the most important one to me -- the community formed with a partner.

I have this urge to share my life, all the details, mundane as they may be. Perhaps I've just been conditioned to be like this, and now I expect it; I still talk with my parents almost every day to give and receive updates. But I don't like keeping things to myself; I want perspective, opinions, advice, thoughts. I want to include people in my life, and I want to be included in other people's lives. I want to feel connected, needed, involved.

And now I find myself living alone, not as any part of community. And I also find myself "single," not part of any one strong emotional partnership. And thus, I'm finding it challenging to navigate the landscape of my various friendships, disperse my need to connect, and still find that sense of community that I crave. I worry that I get too clingy or invest too much in friendships that aren't ready for it. I don't like feeling this way, being in this place. I know I need this time to be on my own, to introspect and figure certain things out, but I miss feeling connected.

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"She says wake up, it's no use pretending; I'll keep stealing, breathing her. Birds are leaving over autumn's ending; one of us will die inside these arms." - Iron and Wine

Lap Cat

2008-05-08T22:31:00.002-07:00

I really love my cat. He brings me a lot of joy. He waits at the door for me to come home, unless I come home at a time when he's not expecting me, in which case he staggers into the living room all bleary eyed a few seconds after I open the door trying to figure out why the schedule has changed. As soon as I sit down he's on my lap, rolling around and purring and all up in my face. And I take care of him -- I buy him expensive food made specially for indoor cats so he doesn't get super fat: I trim his claws so he doesn't get stuck on things (or me); I clean up his puke when he eats too fast and throws up on the living room rug. Lately I've been letting him sit on my lap while I'm at the kitchen table, eating breakfast or Internetting or writing -- encouraging bad behavior, I know. He wiggles around and tries to get comfortable, and even though he can't, he still stays, because he just wants to be close to me.

But invariably, after he's been calmly lounging as a lap cat for five or ten minutes, he starts to freak out. One second he's purring and purely content, the next he inexplicably wraps his front feet around my arm and starts biting my wrist, ears back, wild look in his eyes. I usually don't know what I've done to provoke him -- he just goes into attack mode.

As he went from cuddling to attacking me tonight, I thought about how we do that to God. Seriously, though. God takes care of us -- he provides us with the best spiritual food we could ask for; he keeps us humble and gracious so we don't harm the people around us; he cleans up the aftermath from our overindulgences, maybe not necessarily puke, but sadness or fear or loneliness. And most of the time we're so content; we lounge around, happy and purring, thankful to be loved and taken care of. But then sometimes, inexplicably, we turn around and -- WHAM -- we sink our teeth into his hand and start frantically kicking at his arm, totally ungrateful, taken over by some kind of wild anger. And he's probably like, "Whoa, what the. . .what did I do to deserve that??"

Though I wish I didn't have those moments of unwarranted freakout, I don't know how to. But once I've gone over to the other side of the room for a bit and sulked around, I always realize how much happier I am when I'm purring on God's lap. So I go back, of course. And he always lets me back up.

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"Because I'm so scared of being alone, that I forgot what house I live in." - Caedmon's Call

Perspective

2008-05-07T23:27:00.001-07:00

Tonight, I feel trite and melancholy and self-pitying and lonely and uninspired.

There are terrible things going on in the world. Tens of thousands of people are dead in Myanmar; and hundreds of thousands of people's lives are forever changed, devastated. There are terrible things happening in this City; homes of families and kids are being raided by ICE agents. And I'm sitting here, being mopey. I have no real reason, at least no reason from any perspective other than my own. And yet.

There you have it. Tomorrow is a new day, hopefully one with a bit more perspective.

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"I don't mind restrictions, or if you're blacking out the friction. It's just an escape; it's overrated, anyway." - Death Cab

Calm

2008-05-06T23:07:00.002-07:00

This past Saturday, I had a meeting to attend at 8am. I set my alarm for 6:45 in order to be there on time, which is probably the earliest I've gotten up in months. I don't get to work these days until around 9:30, 9 at the earliest.

I biked over to the coffee shop in the Dogpatch, and instead of taking the circuitous, more mellow route with less traffic and more bike lanes, I braved the Cesar Chavez way. It's more direct, but depending on the time of day, it's pretty terrifying because you're sharing the lane with lots of highway-bound, fast-moving cars, with no space of your own.

I had forgotten how amazing the City is early on weekend mornings. Biking on this road normally makes me feel like I'm taking my life in my hands, but at that hour on a Saturday, I had the whole thing to myself. There were no cars out -- everyone was still sleeping or enjoying breakfast or doing things other than driving like maniacs. It was great.

Biking used to be a pretty big source of stress for me. I allowed myself to get really, really angry when cars cut me off or didn't respect me on the road - I would yell, bike frantically after them, make a waving-arms-scene in their rear-view mirrors. I biked in constant fear of getting hit. It was no way to spend close to an hour of each day, and the effects of that stress and anxiety rippled out into other aspects of my life.

Somewhere along the way, in the last few months, I stopped getting mad, and I stopped being afraid on the road. I bike defensively, for sure, but I've taken on a very calm mindset about my daily commute. Not only has this allowed me to enjoy biking much more, but I feel like that calm has rippled out into the rest of my life, too, replacing the anxiety and anger that had been there before.

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". . .honey, you cannot wrestle a dove." - The Shins

Vision

2008-05-05T22:57:00.001-07:00

I met with Bruce tonight to discuss some MBCC business-ey stuff. Not surprisingly, the conversation waxed global -- where is our church is going, how does our community grow from where we are now, how do we challenge our members, how do we deal with practical things like money and facilities and locations and space?

I don't have any answers for those questions, but they're exciting for me, and I want to be a part of figuring them out. I feel like I'm ready to pour myself into something. I have no practical ties right now; nothing is keeping me in my current job or housing situation; nothing is holding me back from doing. . .anything I want to do. I do feel like I need to stay in San Francisco, and I do feel like I need to stay at MBCC, but beyond that, I'm ready to do whatever -- I just don't know what that whatever is. I don't know where to direct my very broad but very real passion.

In a lot of senses I feel like I'm where I was when I was 19 -- obviously I've grown and learned a lot since then, but I remember how it felt going into my first summer in San Francisco, when everything was an unknown, when I felt like anything could happen, when I had no clue what life would look like at the end of those three months. I was forever changed that summer. Life was totally different after it; a whole different world opened up. And now, I'm in that world, I live here -- so what am I going to do about it?

I want to be interacting, I want to be living. I've always felt, to a degree, like I'm in some space between binaries, that there are mutually exclusive "ways of life," and I need to choose between them -- there's the normal, comfortable, responsible, reasonable life, and there's the life that is lived with passion, spent making a difference, taken over by something really meaningful. And the more I live, the more I'm convinced that there isn't much of a middle ground -- either you're in or you're out. As I've been saying so much lately, it just comes down to making a decision.

But right now, I feel like the possibilities are just so vast that it's paralyzing. When you feel like you can do anything, what do you do?

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"I wanna give you whatever you need. What is it you need? Is it within me?" - DC

Assurance

2008-05-04T22:03:00.002-07:00

Moments of desperation. The first time I ever remember having them, and characterizing them as such, was in Prague. I felt very isolated while I was there, far from my support network and the people I loved. I also had a lot of free time. Despite being in a beautiful, culturally rich city, there was only so much I could do -- I was there long enough to "outgrow" the touristy stuff but not long enough to establish a real, authentic life. Classes were interesting and even challenging, but neither they nor their related work required a large time commitment. Thus, I had to find ways to pass the time, and I would often find myself looking at the clock, taking stock of my activity options, and having these mini-panic-attack moments of desperation about how I was going to survive. I think the reason, at the bottom of it, was that I was afraid of being alone, of having to pass the time by myself.

It's silly, really, and I know it. I always managed to fill the time, and I usually ended up doing something fun and worthwhile, whether it was hanging out with a friend or reading a book or taking a walk through the cobblestoned streets. I surely didn't spend my time in Prague sitting around moping. But no matter how often I successfully filled the moments, no matter how many times I didn't die of loneliness, I still had that clenching in my chest, that tightness in my throat, that stinging in the corners of my eyes the next time I was faced with an empty block of time and no obvious plan for it.

I started having them again about six months ago. It's easy to see why -- I felt alone, emotionally, for the first time in four years, and I was alone, physically, for the first time in almost a year. Avoiding the moments of desperation is largely what has driven me during these past months. It's the reason I started micromanaging my social life, plotting activities for weeknights and weekends on a calendar, booking out my time in chunks, planning various activities to pass the hours -- so I wouldn't have to feel or be alone, an attempt to lessen the frequency of those desperate, stifling moments. And again, every time I do have free time, I use it well; I don't freak out; I don't perish; I usually even enjoy it. Nonetheless, I still can't trust that will actually be the case going into it.

I wish I had more assurance about this, about believing that I won't be alone, even when I am alone, about -- as cheesy as it is -- the fact that God is always with me. I wish I felt like that was enough. I know it is, in my head, but I have trouble convincing my heart of it in those desperate times.

The truth is, no matter how full I make my schedule, no matter how many dinners and drinks and activities I plan, I'm only running away, fooling myself, prolonging the inevitable. I'm still going to have my moments of desperation until I find and accept that assurance in my heart.

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"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood." - Fanny J. Crosby, 1873

For Friends

2008-05-04T00:19:00.002-07:00

I'm struck tonight by the amazing people that are in my life, so I'm straying from The List to reflect on and give thanks for them.

I've been able to spend some really good, quality time with a lot of different friends lately -- starting in Greeley, and then radiating out in the past week since I've been back. It's so incredible to see how God moves through all the various people that are part of my life, both in ways they see and in ways they possibly don't, and it's inspiring to see how God is working in each and every one of them, despite their struggles and through their triumphs.

It's truly staggering to see how God is present in each of these widely varied relationships, in the conversations and time shared together, despite the varying levels of comfort and intimacy, through the contexts and complex histories.

I'm feeling very thankful tonight for the relationships I am blessed to be a part of and the people I am blessed to count as friends.

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"Some moments last forever, and some flare out with love, love, love." - Mountain Goats

Self-discipline

2008-05-03T01:12:00.003-07:00

About six months ago, when I found myself living alone for the first time in my life, I went around my apartment posting notecards with scripture on them in conspicuous places -- above the kitchen sink, next to the bathroom mirror, on the inside of the closet door. The idea was that when I saw a card in one of these highly traveled locations, I'd have to stop and at least read it (and hopefully reflect on it) before moving on with the next thing I was going to do. It was an attempt to get myself to slow down, to reflect more, to seek God in the mundane things I did every day.

The verse I put above the bathroom mirror is from 2 Timothy: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline." When I first put this up, I was totally on board with the not being timid, the having power, and the having love; these things all seemed worth seeking out in my own spirit. But I felt a little weird about the self-discipline part. It struck me as somehow "too Christian" -- language that connotes long dresses and turtlenecks and bad haircuts and no fun. I guess subconsciously I was thinking, "Oh, self-discipline, that's not something I need to work on, I have that, it's no big deal."

But actually, it's a huge deal. It's what underlies all of these "things" I'm writing about; the lack of it is what prevents me from succeeding in having any of them accurately describe me. Sure, I exert a fair degree of self-discipline in my daily life -- I have to; we all do. I get up every day, I feed and bathe myself, I go to work, I take care of my cat. Recently, I've been taking devotional time in the mornings, and I've been writing every evening. My self-discipline in terms of actions is fairly on track, and at worst, it's wrangleable -- I can force myself to do these things, physically, even when I really don't want to.

It's self-discipline of the mind that I struggle with. The key to getting anywhere with the list of things I'm striving for is exerting self-discipline over my thoughts, my intentions, my inner monologue, which is far harder to quantify or prove -- and yet, it can make so much of a difference in everything if it's truly happening.

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"I make all of the right noises, but they never make it to you." - Page France

Resilience

2008-05-01T22:49:00.001-07:00

This is one I think I've got a pretty good handle on, one trait I can confidently say I posses. Now, I've never had any really terrible things happen to me, and I'm thankful for that. But I feel that I am good at bouncing back when setbacks do occur; I can make the most of potentially harrowing situations, grow and shine through adversity, and keep up hope for the future.

I've always been a firm believer that things will be better in the morning. I remember when I would be upset as a kid, my dad would tell me that I should go to sleep, and if I was still feeling the same way in the morning, I could decide what to do about it then. This is still largely my MO today. I know that as the day drags on and I get tired, I lose perspective and the ability to think clearly, making those moments before bed often some of the hardest. It would be easy to wallow in that place, but in my experience, things have never failed to be better in the morning -- even if it's only a little bit, they are still always better.

Largely, resilience comes from having hope, and hope is one of the most important things to me. I believe that God has amazing things in store for my life, that he has plans I don't yet know -- and that's what I'm living for. I have to believe this -- it's what keeps me going. Even though things happen that I don't understand and life twists and turns in unexpected ways, I know that it is all happening on God's timeline, and so I must move on, forge ahead, and look forward to what is coming next.

And when I look back at where I've been and where I am, even over the last few months, let alone the last few years, it's proof to me that I can and must continue to be resilient, no matter what challenges there are. Because there is something worth getting to on the other side of the loneliness, something worth waiting for through the moments of desperation and despair.

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"It's sixteen miles to the promised land, and I promise you, I'm doing the best I can." - Rilo Kiley

The Jesus Factor

2008-04-30T23:10:00.002-07:00

I don't feel like writing about any of the things on The List tonight; I feel like writing about the thing that informs them, the thing that really informs everything for me right now.

I'll admit that it's somewhat cheesy, but it is true, as Dale puts it -- everything would be much simpler if it weren't for The Jesus Factor. It's kind of like the "on paper" perspective: On paper, my life is perfect. I have everything I should want. And I do appreciate the good fortune I've had; it's not a matter of being ungrateful. It's the fact that it isn't enough. Having these things I'm "supposed" to have isn't enough for me. I want more. I want to do more, be more, feel more, make more of a difference. I want my actions, my life, to be meaningful.

And it's all because of Jesus -- that sense of being called to something higher, having some greater force to answer to, wanting to live like he did. If it weren't for The Jesus Factor, I think I would be about 98% satisfied with my life right now. But because of it, I know I'll never be satisfied; I'll always be striving to do more, to keep struggling and growing into who I am called to be, who I was made to be. And no, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially in the end; I know that. But in the moment, it sure is annoying, especially during these times when I am so desperately seeking direction, vision, purpose, and clarity -- and having such trouble finding it.

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"All we've got to show what we really are is the same kind of scars. And looking at you, all I see is you're waiting for something, single file. . ." - Elliott Smith

Presence

2008-04-29T22:59:00.001-07:00

When I told KJ I wanted to unlpug for the weekend I was going to be in Greeley, he was pumped. He said it would be great because it would allow me to be "fully" there.

It's so true. How many times am I doing one thing but thinking about another? How often am I with one person but checking my phone to see if another has contacted me? So much that I feel I'm rarely fully there, actually present doing any one thing. At work, I'm always doing 400 things at once, in the middle of lots of different projects, carrying on IM conversations with five people, drafting three or four emails at any given moment. Even when I'm at home, I'm simultaneously checking my email, watching TV, playing with Snaut, cooking dinner, or whatever else. How can I really be doing any of these things well if I'm trying to do them all at once?

Multitasking is a good skill to have, but I feel that I've gotten too good at it. I can juggle so many things at once that I don't know how to just focus on one anymore. Sitting and making myself just read or just write has become difficult; I get antsy when I try to do one thing, start to finish. Just like savoring the moment, I need to slow down, to re-learn how to focus.

I feel that being present is most important with people, though, that I need to cultivate this most in my relationships. When I am spending time with someone, I want to be fully there, intentional about spending that time with that person, focusing on that person and our relationship. I hope to receive that kind of presence from the people in my life, and there's absolutely no excuse for me to not give it to them.

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"And I just want to stand outside and know that this is right, and this is true, and I will not fade into, fade into the night." - The Eels

Savoring the Moment

2008-04-28T22:55:00.003-07:00

In college I had a good friend named Arun who would suck down Frappuccinos like they were water. Not the milkshake-type things you actually get at Starbucks, but the chocolatey/coffeey/milky drink in the little glass bottles that you get at the convenience store. Many a night during freshman year, he would buy one at the 7-11 on the first floor of our dorm, pop it open, and down it in like three long gulps, 30 seconds total. I didn't understand it. Whenever I got one, I would gingerly sip it and try to make it last as long as possible -- it was a treat, and I wanted to enjoy it. I used to yell at him whenever he'd drink one, chiding him for not "savoring" it. How can you even taste something, let alone enjoy it, when you consume it that fast?

The way I've been living my life over the past few months has been like the way Arun drank Frappuccinos. I've just been running down to the 7-11 to get one, sucking it down, and moving on to the next thing so quickly that I don't even realize what I've just done, I don't even know what it tasted like. Get up, get ready for work, go to work, multitask all day and eat lunch at my desk, come home, make dinner, rush to some social activity, rush home, go to bed. It's not that I don't enjoy the social activities, and it's not that I don't at least occasionally enjoy work -- it's just the fact that my mind is going so many miles an hour while I'm doing all of these things that I'm not really, truly appreciating the fact that I am doing any of them.

At the risk of dragging the metaphor on too far, I want to savor my Frappuccinos; I want to be able to tell the difference between Mocha and Vanilla. I want to enjoy the things I'm doing and the company of the people I'm doing them with, to decide intentionally how to spend my time and then intentionally savor that time. I want to focus on what I'm doing, when I'm doing it, and give it the attention it deserves. The hardest part is just letting myself slow down enough to enjoy any given moment -- to put aside thoughts and worries about what else is going on, what I have to do next, what I have to do in a week, so that I can focus on whatever I'm doing right then.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Matthew 6:34

Blogging As An Exercise In Self-Discipline

2008-04-27T19:40:00.007-07:00

I just spent a weekend unplugged: no computer, no internet, no cell phone. I don't know when the last time was I did this. . .perhaps never. But I've been feeling too available lately, too tethered, allowing various (oft superficial) interactions to take up too much of my time and energy. I've been lacking direction, feeling stagnant. I've been moving too fast, doing too much multitasking and not enough enjoying the moment I'm in, in both mind and body. I'm doing so much that I'm not actually doing any of it. I'm never sitting still. I'm never listening.

The weekend was fantastic. In my down time, instead of texting or checking my email or browsing Facebook or Yelp, I actually sat and read or wrote or thought or listened. It's incredible what that slowing down the pace of your life will do for perspective. (Being in the company of an old friend who has always inspired and challenged me is immensely helpful, as well. And traveling 1,200 miles from the distractions of normal life doesn't hurt, I guess, but I believe it's mostly a mental thing.) I have a new clarity, a new sense of purpose and vision, a very new sense of calm. I asked and received, sought and found, knocked and had the door opened unto me. I highly recommend it.

There are many things I want to do as a result of this weekend of introspection. One facet of them is to be still more often, to spend more time in thought and prayer and reflection, to get writing again, and to actually practice self-discipline about it. So I'm resurrecting the blog.

Earlier this year I started a list of "Things I'm Striving For" -- qualities I want to posses, words I want to use to be able to describe myself -- and I've been adding to it over the past few months. Right now there are 25 items on the list, and every day, I'm going to write about one of them -- what it means, why it's important, how it looks as part of my life, and what the challenges are for getting there. A bit self-indulgent, perhaps; but I need some discipline to get me writing again, and I feel like this is a good place to start.

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"I need to watch to watch the wind blowing on the sea; let me hear it slowly, rustling the trees. City people move, too fast for me. . .funny how time flies away, funny how it flies." - Peter and the Wolf

family portrait

2008-03-20T22:40:00.000-07:00

family portrait
Originally uploaded by levi mpls

Friends with whom I share my heart.

Intentional Friendship

2007-12-30T22:30:00.000-08:00

Intentional
Originally uploaded by meganface

OG GESG.

Snaut

2007-08-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna ride in there?
Originally uploaded by meganface

My beautiful feline.

Whitby Abbey Graveyard

2007-07-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Whitby Abbey Graveyard
Originally uploaded by meganface

Whitby, Yorkshire

Windy Family

2006-05-29T22:02:00.000-07:00

Windy Family
Originally uploaded by meganface

Twin Peak + SF Summer Wind + Dunchaks

It's that time again. . .

2005-12-09T05:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, friends, it is that time again. For what, you ask? Well, it is time for me to be moving on from one location to the next. And you know what that means? It means I need to make some lists.

Things I Will Miss About the Czech Republic:

Three bottles of wine with Megan and Bekka

Listening to The Books with Tina

Living within steps of the majority of my friends in this country

All of my fantastic, 40-something Czech professors

Walking through Pražský hrad every day on the way to school

Hearing 50 different languages as I walk down the street

Cute old Czech people who carry on conversations with me even when I don't speak Czech and say nothing more than "ano" and "jo"

The economic feasibility of eating one mean per day at a restaurant -therefore:
- Lunch specials at the Golden Bamboo
- Tuesday early dinners at Bea's
- COUNTRY LIFE. . .like, every day
- Cafe Shabu
- U Zavešenýho Kafe
- Radost F/X
- Ujezd

Dobrá polévka at every restaurant

Espresso s mlékem

Carob-covered macadamia nuts. . .from Country Life, of course

Amazingly delicious and cheap produce

Breakfast included at the Kolej, especially on apple strudel days

Moravské bilé vino - sweet, cheap and delicious

H&M, Zara and The New Yorker

The rampant availability of good Czech film

Things I Won't Miss About the Czech Republic

Weight gain

Toilet splashback

Living within steps of the majority of my friends in this country

Nebe

Aquafresh infultration

Czech people between the ages of 20 and 50 and their anger, irritability and looks of distain

Hot, smelly campus computer labs, and my fellow Hybernská rats

The Kolej lobby and the incessant proliferation of cabbies

Communication breakdowns

Smažený syr

#57, The Night Tram

8:30 am classes

Cooking all my meals on a hotplate in an oft-disgusting kitchen

My dorm room

Being across the sea from so many people I love

ET, Phone Home.

2005-11-04T07:28:00.000-08:00

So, I just found the "main" computer lab (počitačový sál) of Karlova, and it is glorious. It is big (something like 80 computers, the advertisements say), clean, air conditioned, non-smelly, spacious, and is in the 3rd floor of this old building off of Staroměstské Náměstí that has really cool exposed wooden ceiling beams and looks/feels like the attic of a rustic old cabin. I am coming here from now on. It was, however, a bit of a struggle to find. I walked up and down Hybernská¡ a few times before finding the KU building, then I went up to the 3rd floor looking for the computers but couldn't find them. So I went back down and asked the ladies at the information desk, in Ceský, where it was, and they told me, in Ceský, that I had to follow some secret stairway from the 2nd floor to get there. But it feels incredibly good to be writing, and in peace, and at a normal body temperature, and not right on top of some other smelly student.

So, a blog update. I really don't feel like rehashing all that has happened in the past 2 weeks, especially Paris.

Long story short, Paris was an adventure. It started out horribly, due mainly to events like mice getting into my bag and my food at the hostel, people in the bed next to me at the hostel having sex, my computer breaking, the fact that traveling alone wasn't as romantic as I thought it would be, and uncontrollable crying for roughly a 36-hour period. But I really enjoyed the museums, and it was fun to be a full-on tourist, which I have tried not to be in Praha -- walking down the Champs de Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre, taking pictures, seeing the Eiffel Tower sparkle, eating Nutella crepes, etc. I'm glad I went. It was an experience in endurance and self-discovery. And a mental breakdown is good for you every now and then.

A day after my 15-hour bus ride home, I got on another bus to go to Krakow, which I absolutely loved. (I think I'm more of an Eastern Europe girl. Western Europe just seems like America, but in another language, which isn't cool, but annoying.) Krakow is a lot like Praha, but is less touristy and smaller, making it seem more authentically Eastern European and less like Eastern European Disneyland. We went out to cool Polish cellar pubs where I drank Polish beer, and to dance clubs, where I danced on a Polish conga line to American disco hits from the 70s. I also ate amazing sauerkraut pierogies, and everything was cheaper even than in Praha. I went into the amazing St. Mary's Church (Kosciol Mariacki) in Krakow's Old Town Square, a gothic/baroque structure that, instead of having an interior made of stone, had an interior somehow made of shiny blue marble-looking stuff. It was the most beautiful church I have ever seen, and, struck with the feeling of being in my homeland, I paid a zloty and lit a candle on the altar for Johnny and Marian.

On the way back to Praha, we went to Auschwitz and Birkenau, which was quite an intense experience. Main thoughts on it were: (1) amazement at the sheer size of these institutions, particularly Birkenau. It stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, endless rows of crumbling chimneys left from buildings that once housed families, horse barns that served as torture barracks, poles holding electrified barbed-wire fencing. I couldn't imagine the logistics of running a place like that at its full capacity; although the Nazis' powers were obviously used for evil, the organizational skill behind the whole thing is really quite remarkable. (2) the realization that the Holocaust isn't really a historical event, but rather something quite contemporary, an event of the present. Both of my grandfathers fought in the war that put a stop to the operation of places like Auschwitz and Birkenau. My grandfathers, only one generation removed from me. This did not happen very long ago.

Things have been good since I have been back in Praha. 2 November was All Soul's Day here, and the Czechs celebrate it by lighting candles on all the graces in the cemetaries. So we girls went out to Vinohrady to a cemetary, only to find it closed and locked. We looked through the gate though, and it was great to go to a different neighborhood and get away from the town center. It was a kind of run-down, sketchy part of town (at least at night) and it was foggy and creepy, but it made me feel for the first time since I've been here that I think I could stay here. Not necessarily that I would want to stay here, at all; but rather just that I could, that I could bear it, that it wouldn't be the end of the world to spend my life in Eastern Europe. This is a big step, and a healthy one. I had the same feeling last night at Club Cross, where we went to a cool punk show. The people there were extremely friendly and welcoming, young, happy, having fun, smiling -- which can be, unfortunately, rare behavior around these parts. I am learning to see and appreciate this city, this experience, for what it is, and sifting through the best aspects of it that I am going to take with me when I leave.

I feel refreshed after the time away during break, both from the city and from my fellow AIFS comrades; I'm out of the rut I was in before the break. I feel a renewed energy to push through these final 6 weeks and am making a conscious effort to go out more, engage in more cultural activities, read more books, and really try to make the most of my time here. I think because the end is in sight, I am gaining some perspective and am beginning to realize that there are aspects of life here that I will miss when I go home. For the past few weeks, I have been blind to this because of my desire to have this be over, to go back to cushy, comfortable America, to be with my family and friends and Jut, and to get on with my life. But I think Prague will endear itself to me in these final few weeks, because I know my days here are numbered. I used about 75 cliches in this paragraph, I think because all of these "abroad reflections" are, indeed, very cliche, and predictable, and ordinary ones. I am not the only American to have ever lived abroad and to go through the process of sorting through these feelings.

I went to a fantastic cafe this afternoon in Nové Město that is a combination cafe/bookstore. It was a storefront cafe with a dark wooden interior, and it reminded a little of my beloved Maxfield's. It felt good to sit there and think and write. It has felt good to sit here and write, too. Writing is something essential to my being, I have recently discovered. Now, the question is, what do I do about it?

I suppose I should leave this cabin-den of an amazing computer lab and head back to the Kolej. I might go see Manderlay, the new Lars von Trier film, this evening at Světozor. I am going on a day trip tomorrow to Kutná Hora to see an old church decorated with the bones of 40,000 people. Hot. Ahoj.

Paris, Krakow, back to Praha

2005-10-31T03:10:00.000-08:00

A real update will come, eventually.

My computer died in Paris -- the motherboard -- so telecommunications are much more difficult.

However, I can use the school computers to upload pictures pretty easily, so I've done that. The new photo page is a Yahoo Photos page, because they give me unlimited space. (And I realized I totally stole Tina's username, although I was going for the whole "An American In Paris" thing with the "A Dunchak in Praha." But, yeah.)

There are some pictures from Paris on my Flickr, but I will probably put them on the Yahoo and stop using the Flickr until I have my own comptuer again.

So, details of my European traversing will come soon. Paris was okay, nothing fantastic. Enjoyed the museums -- Louvre, d'Orsay, Pompidou. Didn't enjoy the American-feeling culture, the expensive food, the rats in my hostel, or the breaking of my computer. Krakow was amazing. I loved Poland; it is my favorite place I have been in Europe so far.

Time for class. Only 1.5 months left in my European adventure.

Paris in Falltime. . .

2005-10-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Haven't updated in forever.

Praha has been insane. School is actually busy; I spend all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday there, like 8:00 am to 9:00 pm. But it is good.

Mom and Dad came last weekend. Amazing. So much fun to hang out with them, show them the sights, drink good beer, eat good food, be in good company. I'm really, really glad they came.

I am leaving in 2 hours to go to Paris for my Fall Break. I'm taking a bus; leaving at 7:00 tonight and getting there at about 9:00 tomorrow morning. Should be interesting. Tina will be there, too; but she's flying in tomorrow and staying with a friend, but hopefully we will get to hang out a bunch. So, I will update from Paris. I'm hoping for a lot of time to think, relax, write, etc. It will be good.

Bon voyage!

Minutes Become Hours. . .

2005-10-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Just made pretty much the best dinner in the history of Prague. . .might have been the best dinner in the history of Megan-cooks. Eggplant, tofu, green peppers, carrots, garlic, olive oil, rice. . .I realize that I talk a lot about food in this blog. I really, really like eating, and cooking.

Tina, Laura, Megan and Bekka just left for a weekend in Berlin. Mom and Dad get here tomorrow at 8:00. It is the weekend.

Good classes on Tuesday; discussion of Kafka from Petr Bílek that made me appreciate "The Burrow" and "The Great Wall of China" more than I did upon reading them myself. Pavla took us to this shrine to the Virgin Mary at the top of Petrin Hill, near the Kolej, and we had class there, overlooking the city. She liked my paper on kitsch and a yellow submarine tattoo, but disagreed with my premise that the yellow submarine was hovno. Eh. Win some and lose some. I took myself to dinner at Country Life and ate 150kč of vegetarian, organic deliciosity, which is a lot of food at Country Life. The hot dishes are so good there, though, because they are heavy and Czech-tastic, but they have wheat pate or tofu instead of beef or ham. Can't beat it.

We watched a really interesting documentary in Post-1989 Film Tuesday night. It was made by two FAMU students in 2004, and was one of the biggest films to come out of the CZ last year. It was called "Český sen" ("Czech Dream"). The premise was that these two guys invented a fake supermarket, did extensive advertising for it, staged this big "opening" for it, and filmed the entire process, as well as the reaction of people when they found out at the "opening" that it was fake. There was much more to it than that, but hard to describe out of context of the film. It was really, really interesting, though, and provided a good look into the culture here, the way people operate, as well as a critique of the post-communist, capitalist/consumer society, some issues surrounding joining the EU, and Czech national/self identity.

I had a really good day Wednesday. History class early, learned about Jan Hus and decided I might be a bit Hussite -- all they wanted was to get back to the roots of Christianity, to avoid the ways the Church had twisted it and decontextualized it and made it modern. Quite noble, really.

Then I walked around Staré Město for a long time, eventually ending up at Ebel Cafe to read some Kafka. I walk in, a waiter with a mohawk/rattail/mullet haircut says "Dobrý den," I respond in turn. I'm getting good at the sing-song-ey way they say it here, but I guess not good enough, because he brings me the menu in English. No big deal, I'm not offended; a girl comes to take my order and get a "long black coffee," kind of a cross between an espresso and a brewed coffee. I'm drinking it, reading The Trial, and the waiter comes over, takes the sugar bowl to put more sugar in it, and starts babbling at me in Czech. It literally sounds like babbling to me. I don't recognize a word, even a sound; he might as well have not been speaking the language I've been studying for the past 6 weeks. But I have also gotten good at the cute laugh, the "ano" and the "díky" in passing-by Czech conversations. So I did that and avoided the embarrassment of having to say, "Nemluvím Český," or worse, speak in English. But why this contradiction of brining the English menu and then the Czech babbling? I don't know. But I sat there for about an hour and a half, on one 50kč kava, and no one made me leave, which was nice. I forget here how much fun I have just walking around by myself, going to cafes by myself, sitting, reading, looking at things. I guess I don't do that much here because none of my friends really like to do that much, whereas at school, that was what we did as friends. So, I need to remember how happy it makes me, how it gives me time to think and re-center and re-focus, and really enjoy this semester here.

Went to Martin Machovec's class in the afternoon, which was enlightening as always. He read us this Egon Bondy poem from 1955 that was crazy similar to "Howl." I stayed after class and asked him if Bondy and Ginsberg would have known each other or been familiar with each other's work, and he went on about how they met in the 1990s in New York City, but there were no Czech translations of Beat poetry until the 1970s, and there still aren't English translations of the Samizdat stuff. It is pretty incredible to think about the fact that these two guys were literally writing the same poetry at the same time, completely unaware that the other was doing so, unaware even of the other's existence. If that isn't an argument for some sort of meta-narrative of humanity, I don't know what is.

I found out that I can take a bus from Prague to Paris and back for about $50. I can take a bus from Brussels to Prague for $20. I think I will look into these options for my break next week.

Went to Jiři's class today, then walked through Nové Město and stopped at a cool outdoors store near Tesco. Once again, the girl working there started babbling at me in Czech, and I had no idea what she was saying, but I did the cute laugh and said "díky" and didn't look like a fool. Then I had a great Tesco adventure -- this time above the basement supermarket. I've been wanting to dye my hair, so I milled around the cosmetics department and found a nice mahogany color for like 80kč. Then I spent about 20 minutes in front of the shampoo/conditioner/pomade/wax/gel aisle, trying to find some kind of leave-in conditioner/styling cream. I couldn't read much of anything on any of the labels, so I just decided on one that had hip packaging and said "krem" on the front. Then I went upstairs to get some liquid laundry detergent (instead of powder) and look for fabric softener or dryer sheets, because the dryer fried my clothes last time. I spend probably another 15 minutes there, looking at all the different detergents, finally asking a Tesco employee who pointed at one and said, "For color and white" in English. Then this mug caught my eye -- it reminded me of something Grandma Marian would have had in her kitchen. It has this smiling mushroom clad in a chef's hat, and the recipe for "houbová polévka" (mushroom soup) on the side in Czech. There is also a smiling mushroom on the inside of the cup, and little smiling mushrooms on the handle. Pretty much awesome. So I went to the AIFS office after Tesco, and asked Jana what kind of hair product I had purchased. She said the directions said to "apply a portion the size of a hazelnut" to your hair after you wash it, and not to wash it out, but to "wash your hands after using" it. Perfect.

Came home, dyed my hair (I really like it! A bit redder than I would have liked, but a nice change), and went to Laundry Kings. No hassle clothes-washing, used my new detergent and fabric softener, have a new lease on life with clean clothes.

In other news, a Czech baby smiled and laughed at me today when I waved to him at the Tram stop. Early on in life, the Czechs smile at foreigners. But it wasn't long before his mother turned his carriage the other direction so he couldn't see me. Something happens along the way, apparently.

After I ate my delicious stir fry tonight, I tried to go to a Bollywood movie at the Bollywood Film Festival at Kino Světozor with Brian, but by the time we got down there, it was 20 minutes in, and we didn't want to make a scene. So we walked around a bit and ended up at Cafe Indigo in Staré Město, a place where Pavla had mentioned that Karlova students hang out. We were the only Americans there, I'd say, and we sat at a table for 20 minutes before a waiter came to us. But I had a good, cheap espresso and bábovka (vanilla cake), and the atmosphere was cool and Bohemian-ish. I'd definitely go back.

I should go to bed, so I can catch a Tram, the the Metro, then a bus at 7:00 tomorrow to go get Mom and Dad at the airport! I'm pretty much psyched out of my mind for this weekend. . .

Čočková Polévka

2005-10-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

That is what is boiling on my hotplate. I eat a lot of lentil soup here. But it is good, it is easy, I can throw in whatever vegetables I have on hand, and I'm pretty sure the lentils provide protein.

I had a good, busy weekend. Posted a lot of pictures, which tell the stories in a more exciting manner than this entry will, I'm afraid. My flickr has a bunch, as does Mike's (it is fun being friends with a photographer because he documents everything for us and doesn't even make us pay!), as does Brian's, as does Tina's yahoo page.

The Zoo was amazing. I couldn't ever remember going, although Mom and Dad informed me that they took me to not one, not two, but three zoos when I was a child; all of them have escaped my memory. But there were only a few of us Friday, with Zdeněk, Jana and Jana's photographer friend, and it was fun to see the elephants and giraffes and lemurs and everybody. Went to Malý Buddha after we got back and I gorged myself on crab meat spring rolls and fried noodles with vegetables. . .all for like 90kč. We went back to Klub Újezd Friday night, had a few drinks, and left to go to a dance club. But we were intercepted at the night tram stop by a Slovakian guy named Robert, who told us he knew a really good, cheap beer hall where lots of locals hang out. We figured we were okay, since there were 5 of us and 1 of him, so we followed him on a long walk around Nové Město (he was totally lost) and eventually ended up at -- lo and behold -- a big, cheap beer hall with lots of locals. It was pretty fun; we talked with Robert and a few of his friends he was meeting there, I drank some good house bilé vino, and we were boisterous among the Czechs.

Got up early Saturday for a day hike in Hřensko, a little town near the German border. It was fantastic to be out in the woods, get my legs moving without the hindrance of traffic signals or cars or dog poop or frowning Czech people. We hiked about 6 miles on a nice, though heavily-traveled trail, and stopped in a little town to get an authentic Czech lunch at a beer house. I had really good mushroom and potato soup and bread, and the best dark beer I have ever had in my life. It was a Czech microbrew called Březňak, and it was so creamy it almost tasted like a milkshake -- but it was beer. It must have been some kind of milk stout. Delicious. Then we hiked a bit more and got on a little rowboat that a Czech guy paddled down this river while pointing out camels and dragons and snakes and lions in the rock formations lining the canyon and playing Amazing Grace for us on his harmonica. We didn't get home until about 9:30, because our bus driver got lost in Prague for like an hour, so a few of us went to the Hanging Coffee and I had a warm Irská kavá before they kicked out the Americans, as usual, at midnight. We came home and watched Lost in Translation.

Slept in a bit Sunday morning, and then went to Petrin Park for a picnic with TIna, Laura, Brian, Zac and MIke. It was pretty much the best idea Tina has had so far in Prague. I took a baguette, a hunk of Eidam, an apple, and a bottle of Müller Thurgau, and I was set. I also brought along my iPod and speakers and we rocked out to some old school emo while we lounged in the sun. It was a really fun afternoon and felt good to just be outside, relaxing with friends. I had to do homework, however, when I returned. Read a bunch of Kafka (I'm pretty sure he's going to make me insane) and wrote a paper for Pavla about kitsch, my yellow submarine tattoo, and the films Wedding Crashers (which my roommate gave me a spur of the moment synopsis of, since I haven't seen it) and Štěstí. Yeah, that's why I want to go to graduate school for cultural studies.

Had a good day today; got through my boring classes, and walked around Malá Strana and Smíchov a bit to find Mom and Dad's hotel. The neighborhood where it is seems cool; it is practically in Malá Strana, and close to everything else, so I don't think they will even need tram passes. (I think since we got tram passes issued to us, we just always take the tram and the Metro, but really, it isn't necessary at all, because this city is tiny.) The hotel is on the main street, but if you go off a few blocks it is a bit more secluded, and there are some cool bars and a kavárna with "Cat" in the name that I really want to check out. I rewarded myself with a trip to Bohemia Bagel where I ate a cheese bagel with garlic and herb cream cheese. If that doesn't taste like home, I don't know what does. It was delicious, and I did my Czech homework while I ate.

I might go to a welcome party tonight for the international students studying at Karlova. It will be cool to meet more of the Germans and Fins and Poles and Danes and French and Swedes that are in some of my classes. And I think there might be free drinks.

Heský víkend!

2005-10-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

It is Friday morning, and I've got more than 24 hours of weekend under my belt.

Had a really fun night Wednesday; Laura and I met Tina and Mike at a restaurant in Malá Strana, and I had a delicious espresso while they finished eating. The espresso here is so good, sweet and creamy, not bitter or too strong. Then we went to this bar called Klub Újezd, a cool 3-story, storefront artsy-bar. We hung out mostly in the basement, the cavern-like part that all the bars here have, and drank Budvar pints and took shots of Fernet and smoked Lucky Strikes. But the best part was the Czech couple sitting near us that we talked to -- they were students, architecture and philosophy. The guy didn't seem all that excited about talking to us, but his girlfriend was really friendly. It was the first random interaction I have had with Czech people, and they imparted all kinds of wisdom, like "Your pronunciation is very bad," and "You need to be careful of how much noise you make," and "Watch what you say in English because everyone can understand you." Valuable things to know.

Had language class yesterday, then ran a bunch of errands around town, like figuring out the copy machines on campus and copying my Kafka and Kundera coursepack, book-shopping for the remaining books I need for classes, paying my deposit to AIFS so I can go to Krakow in a few weeks, buying some more postcards to send out, etc. Came home and layed in bed for a while and tried to take a nap, but my Serbian suite-mate was listening to Serbian rock really loud, and I am passive-aggressive so I just tried to drown it out with Iron and Wine, and didn't sleep.

Met up with Tina in the afternoon and we went to Smíchov to shop at the big, new mall there. It was pretty intense. I had forgotten how shopping in that kind of suburban-ish environment can really take it out of you. We went in pretty much every store there, mostly in search of a bright green belt for Tina, but I got some good buys at H&M and Zara -- two nice sweaters, a standard, good-fitting long sleeved shirt, and an awesome big beaded necklace. But by the time we left, we were both a little delirious. You really have to be at your best, like well-rested and well-fed and in a good state of mind, to deal with certain parts of this city, especially the pickpocket-ridden, super-ghetto yellow Metro line (that goes to the mall) or being in a place like Smíchov, which is kind of outside the tourist center and a bit more sketchy and frenetic and requires you to keep a close eye on your belongings and yourself. But we made it back, and I made some pasta and veggies for dinner because I was starving.

Just hung out at the Kolej last night; had a dance party in John and Tyler's room, sang along to some early high school oldies but goodies like Dashboard Confessional and John Mayer's "Comfortable." I was going to go out, but decided against it, and ended up just chilling out, listening to music, watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in the lobby on some Czech TV channel with no sound.

I'm going to the Prague Zoo this afternoon, and going on an AIFS day-trip to Hrensko, near the German border, tomorrow for a hike. I really hope it is actually a hike this time; I need the woods! I have a decent amount of work to do this weekend, and I'm going to try to get ahead so that I can hang out with Mom and Dad as much as possible. So I'm going to crawl into bed with Franz Kafka for a bit. . .

Here's to Amazing Czech Scholars.

2005-10-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

Almost done with an unprecedentedly busy week.

Had lots of great classes this week. My Mondays are long, and a bit boring, with Czech History, Czech Language, and the lecture-part of my Cultural Studies class. Tuesdays are stacked, though, with Kafka and Kundera, Cultural Studies seminar, and Post-1989 Film, which I had for the first time yesterday. Wednesdays are busy now, too, with Czech History in the morning, then Kafka and Kundera, and a course on Czech Samizdat Literature that I've decided to audit.

Kafka and Kundera was good this week; the first time we have met for both sessions all term. Professor Bílek is awesome, very into making references to weird pop culture stuff like the Rolling Stones and James Bond. He had studied a ton of Kafka and Kundera, so he always has obscure points to pick out and elaborate on. I got to talk a bit in each class, and the comments from the class discussions are quite insightful and good.

Pavla just gets cooler and cooler. She lectured about the Frankfurt School and theories of mass culture on Monday, and we watched snippets from two films about 1950s Czechoslovakia that were quite interesting. We had our seminar on Tuesday, where I presented the John Fiske article, which went really well. It was fun to pour myself into something academic, do a good job, and have my professor be receptive to my work. She talked a lot about post-modern theory and Marxist theory in realtion to the Fiske and an article by Stuart Hall that we were working with. It is so nice to understand her references and be able to keep up with her lectures; even though I haven't taken any "cultural studies" courses at Pitt, the English Department has really done a good job of infusing good theoretical stuff, especially in my Junior and Senior Seminars, so I feel prepared for someone as awesome as Pavla. It is definitely encouraging, especially since her class makes me want to go to grad school.

My Post-1989 Film class is going to be cool. My professor is a doctoral student, young, gorgeous, smart, a very cool chick. She talked to us a bit about the class, and then took us on a walk to the various libraries, film collections and independent cinemas around downtown Praha. One of the best things about this class, however, is the composition of students -- it is about 30% American and 70% international students, from Germany, Finland, Denmark, Turkey, Bulgaria, France, Poland. . .just to name a few. It was great to talk with people during our walk and hear about their home institutions, interests, languages, etc.

For Pavla's class this week, I read an article on the Czech Samizdat by a man named Martin Machovec, who she informed us is a professor at Charles, and is teaching a course on the Samizdat this semester for ECES students. Knowing that Pitt won't let me take any more English courses, I emailed Dr. Machovec, told him I really liked his article, and asked if I could audit his course. He agreed, and I spend a few of the more enlightening hours of my time in Praha listening to him lecture this afternoon. He is an expert on the Czech Samizdat, and he was also a part of it, so that makes his lectures all the more engaging. He passed around a few "first editions" from his collection, a few given to him by Egon Bondy, one hand-typed and signed by Olga Havelová, Václav Havel's first wife, one written by his father. Crazy. There is also a large number of international, non-American students in this course, so it will be enlightening to hear their input on the subject. One Polish kid was already talking a bunch about Polish and Czech history and the ways the two were intertwined during this period.

I am so impressed with people like Pavla and Dr. Machovec and Professor Bílek -- they are just such intelligent, passionate professors who really love teaching and care about the subjects they are telling us about. I guess it makes sense; Charles is the best university in the CZ, and one of the best in Central Europe, if not the best. So, if you are a good scholar, you will be teaching there. And if you are a really good professor, by Charles standards, you will be teaching the international students, just to put on the school's best face for the rest of the world. I feel very fortunate to be studying with these amazing scholars. It is also really cool because they were all part of these movements they are talking about, I guess mostly because these "historical movements" we are learning about took place really very recently. This city, this part of the world, has such rich history-history, because its civilizations go back to the 200s or whatever, but it also has such rich recent-history, because so much has happened in the past few years since the fall of Communism. I mean, Machovec's father was a Samizdat writer, Machovec was friends with Bondy, he was involved, first-hand, in the movement. Pavla was in a 70s-80s underground punk band, again, involved in the resistance first-hand. Jan Weiner, who lives in the dorm and teaches history, was here through Fascism and Communism, and he had coffee last night with Václav Havel. It's just really, really cool to have the opportunity to learn from these people.

I've been getting my Czech-culture on this week outside of school, too. Went to see Bedrich Smetana's "Prodaná Nevěsta" ("The Bartered Bride") at the National Theatre on Monday night, on AIFS, of course. It was a very upbeat and funny opera -- I liked it a lot better than "Don Giovanni" (sorry, Mozart). It was in Czech, which made it novel, and it had all kinds of great snippets of Czech culture, like a number dedicated to Beer, "A gift from God," a number where a bunch of women danced and crawled around like a variety of farm animals, and a very Bohemian, Moulin-Rogue-ish number with a can-can girl, a man dressed like an American Indian, some American Civil War soldiers, and a strange American flag. (I have heard that the Czechs really like the American Civil war, and they do re-enactments all the time for fun.) Again, the orchestra was fantastic. Only 6 of us from AIFS went, so we went for dessert in Malá Strana afterward -- some got Cream and Dream, some of us got McFlurries from McDonald's with Kit-Kats in them. (Shut up. I'm uber-cultural, so I get to consume some Americana sometimes. And anyway, we don't have Kit-Kat McFlurries in the states.)

Had a good trip to Tesco on Tuesday, after they finally gave us our October stipend. I spent more than usual, but splurged on a few items like like some spices (basil and curry powder, I think, but one can never be sure), a bottle of Moravské bilé vino, and some Trader Joe's-ish trail mix with peanuts and almonds and raisins and hazelnuts. I couldn't bring myself to play the lunchmeat game this week. I think I'm just going to go vegetarian for the rest of my time here. The packaged meat at the store is sketchy, you're never sure what you are getting when it comes to lunchmeat, and in restaurants, meat is more expensive than the delicious vegetarian options; I can't remember the last time I ate meat. So I'm going to stick to beans and lentils and nuts and eggs and cheese, and see how that goes. I also realized that I probably won't have to go to the store again before Mom and Dad get here, and the fall break. So that is pretty awesome. Time really is going fast.

I walked home briskly this morning after class, because I felt the need to exercise. I listened to Modest Mouse as I walked through Prague Castle; an interesting soundscape to accompany that neo-Gothic landscape. I stopped at this little Trafíka near the Kolej on the way back and picked up some Praha postcards to send to people. The entire exchange was in Czech, and I even understood the guy when he asked if I needed známky (stamps). I replied, "Ne, díky."

I've been missing Canfield lately. It is strange; until recently I had been missing Pittsburgh pretty hardcore, just the different places I knew so well there, my hangouts, the relationship I had cultivated with the place over the last three years, my Pittsburgh. But this week, I miss Canfield -- weird stuff, like White House Fruit Farm and Giant Eagle and Dairy Queen. I guess it makes sense that I would miss it. . .after all, it is home; it is the place I am more familiar with than anywhere else, it is the place that will always be there, will always be relatively the same. I am glad I am here, but I am already envisioning a triumphant return to the Mahoning Valley in mid-December.

Jut is doing a lot better in Stanford this week. It was really difficult being so far away from him when he had just moved and was having a bit of a hard time; I just felt completely helpless, and almost guilty for having been here longer and, consequently, more settled-in. But his classes are going well, and he's immersing himself in work, which I have found to be good therapy, as well. It's really fun to hear about him riding CalTrain to the City and sitting at Maxfield's or in Dolores Park or biking around my old "stomping grounds," a place so infused with memories and so fetishized. But it is exciting to think about moving out there, adding another dimension to the memories, another level to my relationship with that place, and really being an adult, and being with Jut.

My suite is empty, I'm listening to a great mix by Elise on Indie Pop Rocks, I have some lentil soup boiling, and I stopped at Paneria on my way home and picked up a houska (roll) to eat with it. I think I'm going to check out a new bar/cafe tonight with Tina and Laura, maybe try to meet some Czech people, maybe Bed, Bath & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time. . .

Jedna Dobrá Kavárna.

2005-10-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

I feel like I am in America. I am at a coffeeshop in Smíchov called "Káva Káva Káva," drinking a big mug of straight-up, brewed coffee (překapávaná). There is wireless internet, and they are playing a mix tape of Bryan Adams and Journey from the early 90s. The only difference is that it would have been cheaper for me to get a latté or a mocha or a cappuccino than a cup of filter coffee.

There is a big discrepancy here between a café and a coffeeshop, or "kavárna." What we would call a "café" in the States -- a place you can get a cup of coffee and sit for a few hours -- would qualify as a kavárna here, although most of them serve food (soups and sandwiches), beer, and wine, as well. A Czech "café," on the other hand, is more like a restaurant in the States, offering a full menu of food. You are expected to buy more than just a drink, and it is frowned upon if you sit and don't order much. This is an important distinction to make, and has been a crucial realization for me in finding comfortable, chill places to hang out.

Anyway, it is raining and dreary outside. I almost slept through breakfast, but fortunately, woke up with 20 minutes to enjoy my morning vejce, syr a chléb (egg, cheese and bread), and a special Sunday treat - čokoládový dort (chocolate cake). Yes, chocolate cake for breakfast. Things like that make me love Praha.

Went to a photography exhibit with Tina at the Summer Palace of Prague Castle this morning, called "romské obrození" (Roma Rising). Roma, also known as "gypsies," have been living in the Czech Lands for something like six centuries, but are still heavily discriminated against in the Slavic countries, especially here in the CZ. This American photographer named Chad Evans Wyatt has taken an interest in them and put together this series of portraits, along with little biographies about the Roma photographed -- hometown, birthday, occupation, level of schooling completed, whether or not they feel satisfied with their current lives, what their future plans are, and what their "credo" or "motto" is. It was quite interesting to see and read about the people from extremely diverse backgrounds that were photographed, and helped me to understand their culture and identity a little bit more. There was also a short film about the plight of Roma during the Holocaust -- they were persecuted in Central and Eastern Europe almost as harshly as the Jews were. The interesting thing, to me, is that they are still persecuted today, prejudices against them remain; a Roma-looking person who walks into Tesco will get poorer service than I would, or than a Czech person would. At least in my experiences in American, anti-semitism is a very touchy subject, and I have always attributed a large part of the sensitivity toward it to the fact that the Holocaust was such a horrible travesty against Jews; it made people realize that prejudice against them was real, and should stop. But these Roma people suffered in the same camps, were called out in the same way, and they are still experiencing racism today. The crimes committed during the Holocaust seem to have done nothing to make people realize that racism and racial persecution is wrong. It is very strange.

Tina and I had an adventurous night out in Praha last night. Looking back on the evening's events, we realized it was something worthy of a first date -- that was the level of awkwardness and strangeness we experienced. Tina found this ad for an Africa Benefit Show and Reggae Night at a place in Praha 7 called Cross Club -- the name of the festival was "Hakuna Matata." So, Tina was going to go to Delvita, and she put me in charge of finding out how to get to the club. However, AIFS hasn't filled up our Fleetcard accounts yet for October, so no one has any money, and Tina couldn't go to Delvita. So, looking at the map, I decided we could either take Tram 22 or 23 to the Metro A, transfer to the Metro C and be at the club, or take Tram 15 all the way there. We opted for the Tram, and caught it. However, the one we got on was going the wrong direction, so it dropped us off at the end of the line, and we had to wait for another one. (The funny thing about this is that I made the same mistake, with the same Tram line a few weeks ago when I tried to get to the laundromat.) There, an old Czech guy helped us look at the map and the tram schedules, and pointed us in the right direction; he didn't speak any English, so our entire exchange consisted of Czech and charades, but we understood each other, so that was cool. Soon, another 15 came by, and we got on it. However, it had a sign on the window on which was printed the undecipherable Czech message that I have come to know means something to the effect of, "This tram isn't going where you think it's going." But we got on anyway, because we were out in the middle of nowhere in Praha 6. We asked a Czech guy on the tram what the sign meant, and he said he didn't know, either, but he looked at a map and figured out that it meant that the tram was going to go to a certain point on its normal line, then turn around and head back the other direction again. So, at this point, we got off the tram.

By this time, we just decided to take a trap to the nearest Metro stop and take the Metro to the club. But before this happened, a guy who had been on and off the trams with us asked us if we needed any help; I laughed and replied no, but I think I made him mad because he rolled his eyes and grunted and made this strange hand motion toward us and stalked to the other end of the platform. When the next tram came to take us to the Metro station, Tina ran to get on it and totally fell over these duffel bags that some guy had sitting on the platform. But she got up and we got on the tram, laughing quite heartily. So we got to the Metro station, and just as we were descending the escalator, a train was there! So we ran to catch it, only to have the doors shut just as we got to them. We waited for the next one, changed trains at Muzeum, and finally got to the stop we needed. We got out of the station and started walking in what we soon realized was the wrong direction. We finally arrived at the Cross Club about 2 hours after our first attempt to leave the Kolej.

The club was awesome, one of the more "authentic" Czech social experiences I've had. We paid an 80kč cover charge, and listened to an awesome Czech reggae/regatón band that sang in a mix of Czech and English. Then we went to another room that had a DJ spinning some good reggae/regatón music, and occasionally a regatón rapper would come in and sing. Apparently there is a pretty big hippie scene in Prague; this club is definitely where the dreadlocked, pierced, hippie Czech kids hang out. I felt like if we went there more often, or stayed longer, we could probably make some Czech friends. There weren't many, if any, Americans; it was mostly hippied-out Czechs, and we had some friendly interactions with people, girls dancing near us and people putting their coats and bags with ours. Small steps. (We discussed how we would construct the phrase, "Will you be my friend?" in Czech, and decided on "Budete moje kamarad?")

It was also really fun to dance there because everyone was just doing their own thing, looking nerdy and awkward. I would never dream of dancing at a club in the States, because I feel like my gangly moves would get me laughed out; but here, it doesn't matter what you look like or dance like, as long as you're having fun. It is quite liberating, really. I definitely need to find the hipster scene in San Francisco, because it has been awesome to hang out with my hipster friends from Austin and New York, and to be a pseudo-hipster here in Prague. Unfortunately, there was no hipster scene in Pittsburgh beyond the grad students that would sit at the Cage or 61C -- there was definitely no dancing. By the time I leave here, I am going to have perfected my hipster slide, and I will need somewhere to show it off.

So, it was quite a fun evening, even if it started out rather adventurously. At least we got home with no problem.

Now, I am back to drinking my coffee, working on the article I'm presenting in Pavla's class tomorrow, and studying some Czech so as not to disappoint Jiři.

Praha From Hradčany

2005-10-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

Praha From Hradčany
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A view of the Castle and beyond from the park near my dorm in Hradčany.

Praha From Mánesův most

2005-10-01T14:39:00.001-07:00

Praha From Mánesův most
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A view of Staré Město and Karlův most from the bridge I walk across to school every day.

Lennon Wall

2005-10-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

Lennon Wall
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

The Lennon Wall in Malá Strana. I know Yoko designed it and all, but the Imagine memorial in NYC has nothing on this gem. (There are some more pictures on the Flickr.)

Sitting in my Broken Chair. . .

2005-10-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

Every time I move my desk chair falls apart.

I have spent a nice morning sitting in my room. The past few days have been busy, as I have been walking all over Praha with Sarah, so it has been good to spend some time by myself and just lounge around.

I almost went to Budapest this weekend -- Mike and Zac planned a last-minute trip -- but decided against it. I was looking at a calendar today, and next weekend I'm going on a day-trip to Hrensko (it is supposed to entail a hike!!), the next weekend Mom and Dad will be here, the weekend after that is Fall Break (Paris? Berlin? We'll see where the spirit leads. . .), and the weekend after that is the AIFS trip to Krakow. And that's all she wrote for October. It is going to fly. So I think 'll try to do Budapest sometime in November.

It was fun having Sarah here these past few days. She has been travelling by herself for a month, and has a month before she goes back to the States, so she seemed glad to have someone to talk to and hang out with. I don't think I could do the whole backpack-across-Europe thing. I'm way too anal and uptight to just go wherever, sleep wherever, eat wherever. I've realized I am a very one-place type person; I like to get settled in. (This from someone who has lived in 4 distinctly different places in the past year. . .) But hey, for those who can do it, it seems like a good time.

We did a lot of walking, because she didn't get a tram pass. So we made the trek up to the Kolej about twice a day, but tried to stay out of the room as much as possible, since Kathryn was sick. I took her to all the attractions, and we went to some cool parts of the city I hadn't been to yet, like Karlovo Náměsti Wednesday evening after we got falafel, and some side streets off Václavské Náměsti that had some promising cafes, for future reference. Thursday we checked out the Mucha exhibit near Charles Bridge -- lots of lithographs of beautiful women, so you can't go wrong with that, and I got some cool postcards. We grabbed lunch at Country Life; I had goulash with cabbage and some kind of wheat-protein stuff, and it was absolutely delicious. I love that place.

I went to see Swan Lake Thursday night, and really enjoyed it, especially when all the ballet dancers are pretty swans. I didn't follow too much of the "story," but the dancing was fun to watch, it was awesome to be in the Národní divaldo (the theatres here are so cool and old and ornate and classy), and the orchestra was great. I think I have enjoyed the awesome orchestras at Don Giovanni and Swan Lake more than the actual opera or ballet elements of the shows. That thing about Czech musicians is true. Sarah and I went to the Hanging Coffee Thursday night with Tina for a beer, but we got kicked out at midnight because we were Americans. Oh well.

Yesterday we slept in a bit, then walked around Malá Strana, sought out the John Lennon wall, picked up a ton of chestnuts falling from trees near it, and found a little cafe called sukr.kavá.limonadá (sugar.coffee.lemonade) and drank good coffee and ate delicious, cheap chocolate cheesecake. I think Malá Strana is my favorite part of Praha so far. We went to Malý Buddha for dinner; they put us in the little back room at a table on the floor with cushions, and it was quite a nice dining experience. We met up with Tina to try to go to an "analog electrojazz" concert by a Polish group at Roxy, but the cover was 150kč, and we are cheap. So we stopped in at Cafe Ritual and got delicious coffee drinks instead -- I had a Mexican coffee, which reminded me of LA. Went back to the Hanging Coffee after that to meet Megan and Bekka for some Moravské bilé vino, and ended up talking to these two 80-year-old guys, one British and the other Czech. They were quite funny, and quite happy to be drinking with five 20-something American girls. They told us about the best places to go in Prague, explained some cultural idiosyncrasies, and talked about what it was like to go to school at Cambridge and when Hitler rolled into Prague. It was quite interesting and fun.

Sarah left around 11:00 this morning to catch her train to Berlin, and I have no plans for the day besides chilling out and doing some reading. I kind of want to shop, so I was thinking about going to the mall at Anděl, but I might save that for later this week. Nothing wrong with just relaxing a bit today. A few Jim Jaramusch movies are playing tonite at the Světozor, so I might check out one of those later.

Doktory, Scholars, Václavské

2005-09-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

It is Wednesday, but it feels like Sunday, because we have no school in honor of St. Wenceslas Day. On this day in 929, Duke Wenceslas was killed by his brother, and then he became the patron saint of Bohemia. In 2000, the government decided today should be St. Wenceslas Feast Day, also known as Czech Statehood Day, but the year 2000 was not very long ago, and no one really seems to care about the holiday yet. So we have no school and the post offices are closed, but that's about all.

Had a good, short week. (I say "had" because it is essentially over now.) Classes Monday were good; history, language, alternative culture. Then yesterday I had a great Kafka/Kundera course, and a fantastic second half of my alternative culture course. Pavla decided to split the class into two groups so we can go to exhibits and shows and pubs and cafes more easily, so we went for a short walk, then ended up at Ebel Cafe in Old Town. We sat around and talked, and Pavla told us about her life, highlights of which include her Fullbright at UC Santa Cruz, meeting her American husband in San Francisco, buying John Lennon's "Imagine" on the Czechoslovakian black market in 1971, studying Robinson Jeffers in Czech, and applying postmodern theory to every day life (hence, cultural studies). She is amazing, and she made me want to be a cultural studies scholar. This might be a bad turn for me. After the cafe, we went to an art exhibit called "The Pope Smokes Dope," which was in the basement of this really cool old building. The exhibit consisted of record albums and concert posters from the 1960s -- not "rare" ones or anything, just standard Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Hendrix, Mitchell, Donovan, etc. Basically, stuff any American could find in a parent's or uncle's record collection. But it was put under glass, guarded by little museum-docent Czech ladies, and set up in a museum. Quite interesting. They missed all of that movement here, and now have to view its "artifacts" in a museum.

Went to the doctor on Monday, and it was quite a good experience. They took me right away, checked my vitals, did some blood test to see if I had a virus or an infection, gave me medicine, swiped my credit card, and I was out the door. The doctor was a really nice, young Czech woman, and she gave me 4 different medicines for my sinus infection -- an antibiotic, 2 decongestants and a nose spray. And it all cost $175, up front. Crazy. So, I am feeling better, but still have opted not to go out yet this week.

I've cooked 3 nights in a row now! Made a good lentil soup on Tuesday, and some pasta last night. It is nice to buy fresh veggies and then just make some combination of them to eat each night. Protein is the difficult part, though, because meat isn't exactly easy or cost-efficient to come by. But lentils and black beans are okay.

Sarah from Pitt is coming in to town today, and I am meeting her at the train station at 1:20. It will be fun to show her around for a few days and hear about her adventures over the past few months. I had thought about going to Budapest this weekend, but I don't think it is going to happen. Maybe another weekend.

Not much else is new. I've been feeling kind of blah this week; I think a lot of people are. A lot of people are sick, and this has been an interesting period of adjustment, since school has really started, and we are all realizing that the vacation is over and now we have to live in Prague for the next 3 months. Stress about various things, travel plans for the fall break being a primary one, and just the trying-to-settle-in thing. I feel like I go in such waves, from being so excited and busy and engaged and pumped up about being here, to just feeling like, okay, let's go to school, do what we're supposed to do, and keep things rolling. But time is going so fast. We have been actually in Prague almost a month now.

So, I'm looking forward to a nice weekend, maybe checking out some photo exhibits or theatre productions, perhaps continuing my quest for the cafe, and doing some reading.

You're so good to me, and I know it ain't easy. . .

2005-09-25T08:46:00.000-07:00

Went to a really funny bar last night called Bar and Books. I thought it was going to be like a used bookstore-combination-bar, but instead, it just had a few books on the walls. It specialized in an amazingly swanky atmosphere, 140kc cocktails, and beautiful waitresses that didn't speak Czech (a first for my time here). A large appeal to expats and otherwise rich tourists, but the atmosphere was great. I had no money, and I am sick, so I opted for a pot of delicious fruit tea, and really enjoyed myself.

Came home relatively early and wanted to read, so I put on my headlamp, so as not to wake Kathryn, and finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being in bed.

Slept in, felt like crap today. Wrote a paper for my alternative cultures class. Made myself get up, shower, and walk down the hill to Tesco. Spent a long, leisurely time wandering around there, buying lots of fresh veggies, Čocotrakny bars, BLACK BEANS (I finally found them here), and some good looking turkey/ham at the deli. The guy behind the counter smiled at my Czech. I spent kind of a lot of money, but I will cook for myself more this week and eat at restaurants less.

Came home and started reading "The Metamorphosis." I'm halfway through, and pretty much what I've gotten is: "Uh oh, I'm a bug. Damn. My boss is here. I should go to work. I'm a bug. My sister brings me food. I don't like milk anymore. I will crawl on the ceiling. I'm a bug."

Just made a delicious dinner. I cooked rice and then fried up garlic, onions, mushrooms and green peppers. I put in this Uncle Ben's "Sweet Thai Chili" sauce that I had bought. It was quite good. It feels good to cook for myself again. Even on a hotplate. I've been listening to a playlist I made at some point in the past called "Jut Made a Delicious Dinner."

I am going to watch a movie, I think, and get to bed for my 8:30 tomorrow. I have class pretty much all day, but I'm hoping to get to the doctor in the afternoon and get some antibiotics for this sinus infection that won't quit.

Nebe, Štěstí, and Terezín

2005-09-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

My first real weekend in Praha has been a good one.

Went to Nebe for indie rock dance night on Thursday, and actually had a great time. Danced with Tina and Laura, listened to good music, only drank one beer. (I am re-learning moderation.) I stayed out until 3:00. . .by far my latest night. So I must have been having a good time.

Slept in until 1:00 yesterday, missing breakfast at the Kolej for the first time since I've been here. Was pretty much lazy all afternoon; went down to Wenceslas Square to see Štěstí, finally, with Laura, Tina, Megan, Zac and Bryan. It was quite a good film. I am 3 for 3 on my Czech film adventures thus far. The film was deep, had a lot going on, at many levels. A lot darker than American films; perhaps due to American cinema's embracing of the aesthetic of kitch. (I have recently been influenced by Kundera. He says, "Kitch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figurative senses of the word; kitch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence." American cinema denies the existence of shit by making all of its films be void of problems, of shitty life situations of its characters, or else it ties up any problems by the end with a bow and sends audience members home feeling good about themselves. Czech cinema, on the other hand, embraces the shit that is inherent in life for many of its citizens, and makes you leave the theatre with something to hash through.) The film also reminded me a bit of Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, because of its dark, downtrodden aesthetic, and also, I think, because of the role that industrialization, the factory, played in the film. So, these all added to a good film experience.

Interesting cultural observation: the lights don't come on and people don't get up after a movie until all the credits are over -- this, as opposed to in the States, where we jump out of our seats before the last scene even fades out.

Ate Thai food with Zac and Megan after the film, then walked across the Charles Bridge and got Tiramisu gelati at Cream and Dream. It was delicious, all of it.

Got up this morning and went on an ECES trip to Terezín, about 1.5 hours north of Prague. I thought the trip was going to entail mostly hiking, but it entailed mostly hanging out in Terezín, which is a small Czech town turned Jewish ghetto/Nazi concentration camp turned Communist Party Headquarters turned back into a small Czech town. It was quite interesting; we went to a few museums, saw a propaganda film about the city. Essentially, it was an American Indian Reservation situation -- the Nazis appointed this town for the Jews to live in, have as their own, self-govern, etc. But in reality, it was a holding pen for them before they were sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. One museum was dedicated to the thriving intellectual/cultural community that developed in the ghetto, with artifacts and stories from composers, musicians, painters, writers, and thespians that lived there. Pretty eerie, though, to be standing in the middle of a place that was once populated by tens of thousands of deported Jews, most of whom were killed in the Holocaust. Laura and I ventured into this antiques store that had authentic Nazi belts, jackets, and a whole hidden shelf of Nazi medals and pins and whatnot. Pretty creepy. After the Nazis left the CZ, the Party turned the old fortress into a Headquarters for them, and after they left, it turned back into a little town. But it is quite rundown, the buildings are in bad condition, and the whole place kind of stunk, literally. The CZ is apparently worried because they have been having trouble repopulating the place since the end of Communism. I wonder why.

There also happened to be some festival going on in the center of town, something like celebrating Czech heritage. There were kolbasa and candy and wine and beer stands, jewelry, trinkets, and men dancing and women twirling batons. Also, someone had put out their private collection of old army tanks and other miscellaneous vehicles, and at noon, people in army regalia toting guns got in these tanks and trucks and drove them round and round the town square. There were also Czech boy scouts milling about and riding in the trucks. I guess it isn't that different than our 4th Of July celebrations. . .it just felt a little more para-military. (There are some pictures here, more on the Flickr blog. I took a lot of pictures today -- something about this town was quite photogenic.)

At the end of the day, we finally went for our "hike," which was a 1/4 mile slog up a hill to a tower where we could climb up and see a nice view of the surrounding valley. I was really craving a good hike, so I found a side trail and hiked on that for a bit, smelled the wilderness, enjoyed the singletrack, but I didn't want to get left behind, so it didn't last long.

I was going to stay in tonight and read, but I think my friends have convinced me to check out a wine bar/book shop with them. That shouldn't be too taxing for me, and will probably be fun and cool and something new. And I can sleep in if I want to tomorrow. .

Terezín Kluk

2005-09-24T10:47:00.002-07:00

Terezín Kluk
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A little boy standing outside the door to some apartments in Terezín. The whole town had this kind of run-down, paint's-peeling look to it.

Terezín Tanks

2005-09-24T10:47:00.001-07:00

Terezín Tanks
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A few tanks from some Czech's private collection in Terezín. These are infinitely more creepy because Terezín was a concentration camp during the early 1940s; kind of an American Indian Reservation, if you will -- the Nazis told the Jews they could have this town, govern it themselves, etc. In reality, it was a holding chamber for tens of thousands of people who were eventually sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Another Terezín Tank

2005-09-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

Another Terezín Tank
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Some Roma kids are playing on this tank. The day we visited, there was some kind of celebration going on where people broke out their old army regalia and drove these tanks around the town square.

v Praze. . .

2005-09-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

In Prague:

There was a group of men near the Charles Bridge this afternoon, on the Old Town Side. They all had on black t-shirts that had pictures of broken chains on them and the words "Truly Free" printed very large. In smaller print, underneath the picture, the shirts said "Mission: Prague, Czech Republic." These men were missionaries, no dobubt. I would wager that they were American missionaries, for the following reasons: (1) their shirts were in English, and I think Great Britain is pretty much exclusively agnostic at this point, (2) they were overweight and (3) they had gelled, spiked hair. I wanted to ask them if they knew any Czech. Because I'm sure Czechs will be incredibly receptive to the Gospel in English, since they are so receptive to English-speakers in general in this city. I really hope at least they were there for the Roma, and not the 70% of the Czech population that considers itself secular.

There is a computer lab at my school, where I went for the first time today. I had to create a new account, and there was a nerdy, pimply tech-assistant guy with a goofy smile there to help me. (Some things are global.) We had a communication breakdown, however, when I tried to type a password for my account. He said it had to be 8 characters, and a combination of letters and numbers. But every time I leaned over him awkwardly to type my password on his computer, it didn't work. Finally, he looked up what he was trying to tell me in a CZ-->EN dictionary online. The password also had to contain capital letters, the troublesome phrase in our cross-cultural dialogue.

It is not culturally acceptable to sit at a cafe and do homework. I found a cafe in Megan's Prague travel book, and set out to locate it this afternoon. I did find it, eventually, and ordered a delicious 35kč cappuccino. But the waiter gave me a dirty look when I pulled out my "Basic Czech I" workbook and started copying verbs and conjugating them.

There is a park in Mala Strana where kids lay on the grass and smoke weed. I stumbled upon said park this afternoon, after leaving the cafe with the dirty-look-waiter. I hoped to stumble upon the famed John Lennon Wall, too, but no such luck. Another day, I will have to seek it out. I did find a corner store where I bought a 10kč bar of Orion Na Vaření, a dark chocolate candy bar that is the closest I get here to having a bag of chocolate chips on hand for a tiny mid-evening chocolatey pick-me-up. (Chocolate chips don't exist here, I don't think.) I also went to the Victims of Communism Monument in Mala Strana, which is an interesting piece of public art. I also found a bakery where I got a chocolatey/berry pastry and ate it while standing on most Legií and looking down at the Vltava. Then I walked back across to school. It was a very Praha afternoon.

There is a vegetarian restaurant in Old Town called Country Life. However, I don't know where it is, which I demonstrated when Mike and Bryan weren't at our designated meeting place at 6:30 to meet Tyler and me, and we tried to find said restaurant anyway. We ended up at the State Theatre and got falafel from a stand on the street for 59kč. It was delicious. We proceeded to walk up the hill to Hradčany and the Kolej. It was a beautiful night and a nice walk.

I take classes, for which I have to do homework. Now, I will write 6 sentences using 6 different verbs and 6 different conjugations, in Czech, for my class at 8:30 tomorrow.

Škola Bydlí!

2005-09-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

It is cold in Praha! I just took an irresponsibly long shower, because reading in bed under my one blanket didn't warm me up enough.

I am now almost in the full swing of classes -- my Post-1989 Film class doesn't start until 4 October, so I only have 4 to worry about until then.

Monday was the best day I have had here. I absolutely needed to start classes. I needed the intellectual stimulation, the sense of purpose, the feeling of being here instead of visiting, instead of being here in transit-only. I also needed the time to myself; I had time to kill between classes and no friends in sight, so I found a Starbucks-ey cafe (see the attempt at nonfiction I wrote about it, below) and chilled out by myself; I was done with classes, again, with no friends around, so I had to walk home through the Castle by myself, which was glorious. So, I have felt refreshed, a new lease of my existence here, and a positive feeling for the rest of the term.

My classes are good. I have Modern Czech and Central European History with a professor named Jan (surprise, surprise), who is quirky and nerdy and cool. The class will be boring, one of those where you show up twice a week at 8:30, listen to the lecture, take 2 exams, and you've earned 3 credits. I also have Czech Language for Everyday Use, with a guy named Jíři, which is pretty self-explanatory. I am also taking a course on Alternative Lifestyles/Music/Literature/Art/Film/Culture, which is going to be amazing. The teacher is this hippie-dippy, post-punk, resistance Czech lady who is married to an American. She was in a punk band in the 80s, and when we arrived for class on Monday, she said, "Well, the weather is nice and I feel that we should use it. So we will get on Tram 17, ride 3 stops, get off, climb the stairs to Vyšhrad, go to a pub, get a few drinks and get to know each other." So we did all of those things, and after our beers at this Rastafarian/Czech bar (they had paintings of Bob Marley on the walls) on the outskirts of town, we sat in a garden and she read us Czech fairy tales. She wants to take us on trips to at least one concert, art exhibit, film, pub, and literary cafe.

On Tuesdays, I have a Literature class on the work of Franz Kafka and MIlan Kundera; if some of the people who were there this week drop it, we will be good to go, because there are far too many at this point. It will be challenging, but a welcome challenge, for me. The professor is the head of the Czech and Comparative Literature Department at Karlov; he taught at Brown in the States for 4 years. He has a very interesting halting, inhaling, rigid, heavily-accented manner of speaking English; when he speaks in Czech, like asides to his secretary, his entire voice changes into a beautiful, singsong-ey, fluid one. Very interesting. Our class is in his office, and he told us we can bring food or drinks for class; beer is okay, but probably not vodka. And then I also have my film class on Tuesdays, but there was a sign on the door this week telling us not to come back until the 4th.

So I found a few cool little English-language bookstores in Old Town after Kafka/Kundera class. Anagram had nice clerks and a good, independent bookstore feel (with prices to match). Big Ben had a more sterile atmosphere, but lower prices, and it packs such treasures as The New York Times and Rolling Stone, so that was a nice stop, too. I got The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Kafka's Complete Short Stories, containing "The Metamorphosis," which make up my reading assignment for next week. I'm about 100 pages into the Unbearable Lightness and I absolutely love it. It is quite fantastic.

I ended up drinking a bottle of wine with Tyler and Mike last night, and then finding a cool little restaurant near the castle to have dinner. We went to the Hanging Coffee after that, and I had a really great time just hanging out, got to chat with Teddy and bit and some of his AU friends. Starting classes has given me an entirely new outlook on being here; it has been refreshing beyond belief.

I ventured out to do laundry yesterday at Laundry Kings. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, due to other people's horrifying laundry experiences here, but I did get on the #15 tram going the wrong direction, so I had to get off at the end of the line and wait for one coming the other way. I did it myself, American-style, instead of sending it out, and paid 250kc for 2 washers and 1 dryer. I washed pretty much all the clothes I brought here. So, that isn't too bad.

Went to Delvita, the Whole Foods Market of Prague (overpriced, crowded, obnoxious, yuck -- I'm sticking to Tesco) on Monday and picked up a few things, including a 55kc bottle of bilé vino, which I drank with Mike while we watched Being John Malkovich. A good film, nice to drink some surprisingly good cheap wine and just spend a night in.

I am going to dry my hair, eat a sandwich, bundle up in a scarf, and venture out to find a cafe for the afternoon. I have a Kundera novel to read and Czech verbs to study. I think I will check out Kava Kava Kava, a little place in Simchov. I am still searching for my cafe. Then I am meeting some friends for dinner at Country Life, the vegetarian, healthy, organic buffet restaurant in Old Town. Delicious.

Sometimes, I write.

2005-09-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

This is a nonfiction sketch/essay I wrote while at a cafe in Old Town on Monday afternoon. Just some more coherent, stylized thoughts on my time here thus far.

“Coffee Heaven,” off of Old Town Square in Praha 1.

It is Starbucks-ey, down to the “Frostitos,” a Czech version of the Frappuccino. Everything is in English.

I order my 53kč brewed coffee with milk, “Americano s mlekum,” in Czech, and the barista doesn’t reply to me in English. This is not the norm in Czech establishments, I have learned while offering my botched Český to numerous clerks and cashiers in the past few weeks. She asks if I would like a pečivo or sendvič, and I recognize enough to comprehend and stutter a ne. I do know a fair amount of Czech, but when put on the spot, all of it vanishes besides prosím, díky, ano, ne, and whatever is printed on the menu in front of me. Hloupá Američanka. My receipt is in English.

I add a dollop of honey to my Americano and pick a wooden chair at a small table with four in the mostly-empty back room. Its interior is all chestnut and cherry and plush white pleather chairs. The coffee may have been expensive, but it pleases me – tastes like good old watered-down, American coffee. Tastes like home. But unfortunately, despite their best efforts, nothing else in the place reminds me of anything I miss from home. Music is playing that sounds like Paul Simon, but I don’t think it is. There are cliché English quotes on one wall from Wordsworth, Bernard Shaw, Gandhi, “Ralph Waldo.” I am the only American here right now, and am surrounded by snippets of German and French and Czech conversation.

This isn’t a place I’d like to frequent. (Now, Frank Sinatra echoes throughout the calm, carpeted room.) But it will do for my first day of school, a caffeine pick-me-up, and a place to start reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. I am still waiting for my café, the seedy, hole-in-the-wall place, the type of place I frequented in Pittsburgh, somewhere I can sit reading for hours on one cup of coffee with endless refills and I don’t get the hairy eyeball from the baristas. A place that doesn’t feel distinctly American, overly American.

It is interesting how many places in Praha try to be American, over-using English, over-doing the American style and image, over-playing “American” music. I’ve noticed it most at cafes, like here and Bohemia Bagel. They have English names, American-ized interiors that attempt to make us expats (even temporary ones) feel at home. Even the prices are inflated, by Czech standards, to remind us of the culture we left.

On one hand, many Czechs despise us for coming here, being rich and privileged, able to drop 53kč on a cup of coffee. But on the other hand, our tourism, our still-strong dollar, our 53kč coffees keep their economy ticking. And on another hand still, all the young people here speak English, buy into the American culture, work at places like this, outfit themselves at stores like H&M and The New Yorker.

It often feels as if this country doesn’t really have an identity of its own right now; it doesn’t even have a proper name, really – “The Czech Republic” is quite a mouthful, even in the native language. But this country, this region, hasn’t had its own identity since the 1500s, really, when the Habsburgs came to the throne. Since then, it has been a series of occupations, Habsburgs, Nazis, Communists, with a nationalistic lull here or there; a Velvet democracy and hope for a positive Czechoslovak future in 1989, then the Slovak break-off in 1993, throwing Czech-specific identity back into the air again. They drink a lot of beer, and they have some pretty old buildings.

During the communist occupation, Czechoslovakia was all but sealed off from Western culture; American music wasn’t allowed, nor books, and TV broadcasts were produced by the government. This has led to a pervading sense of “we've got a lot of catching up to do.” It feels like people want to make sure they didn't miss out on anything that happened during 1969-1989, so they are currently reliving and rehashing the 20 years of oft-terrible music and pop culture they missed while Red Russia was driving through Wenceslas Square in tanks. Evidence of this haste-to-catch-up is particularly everywhere the young people are – clubs, bars, cafes, shops, malls.

A multiple edged sword, Western culture is, for this post-communist Eastern European metropolis.

The Davy Crockett theme song now plays in the back room at Coffee Heaven. Somehow, that “king of the wild frontier” line just doesn’t echo here like it does at home.

Laziness and Zmrlzina -- I better be careful.

2005-09-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

This is definitely the laziest day I have had thus far in Praha. I got up and ate breakfast downstairs, but then came back and layed in bed and read. Fell asleep now and then, read some more, woke up at 1:00 when Mike and Zac came to see if I wanted to eat lunch. I didn't. I read some more. The only good thing is Kathryn was doing the same thing, so I didn't feel that bad. It was quite funny how we kept talking/reading/sleeping away the morning. But sometimes you have to, and I don't feel like I did it out of depression, so that is good. I've been wanting to just relax and read, and now I have. Almost done with the Julian Barnes novel I've been reading since I left the States.

Had a fun night in Old Town Friday; ended up going out in search of a restaurant with Kathryn, Megan, Bekka, Laura and Zac. We wanted to go to a Thai place that had been recommended, but when we got there, it was a restaurant-combination-fancy-glass-art-gallery, and we decided it would be too pricey. So we ended up at a Mexican restaurant across the street, and had a great time. I had the strangest burrito I've ever eaten, with carrots and broccoli inside, and what tasted like pizza sauce instead of salsa. But it was good, and a ton of food for the price, so I can't complain. We walked around Old Town after that, half-heartedly trying to find a pub, mostly just wandering. Walked through Old Town Square at night, which hadn't done yet, and that was pretty cool. Had one of those, "Holy shit, I'm in Prague," moments, which I also haven't had in a while. Ended up going to KFC and getting 17kc cones of zmrzlina (ice cream!) and catching a tram home. (There is no such thing as normal ice cream here, only gelati -- even at American fast food chains.)

Went to Český Krumlov yesterday and had a really good time. I was worried it would be crazy running around like the trip to Moravia, but it was really calm and relaxing and just a nice day in a little Czech town. We walked around a bit with tour-guide-Zdenik, saw some old buildings and the castle there. Then we had free time for lunch, and Kat, Brian, Zac and I stumbled upon this awesome hole-in-the-wall Bohemian place. I don't even remember the name, but we climbed this little stone spiral staircase to a room with 4 tables, and ate the best meal I've had in the CZ so far. Kat and I got the "Old Bohemian Feast," vegetarian style, and it had all kinds of different authentic mullet casseroles and puffed barley and potato cakes and buckwheat and sauerkraut and fresh cabbage and I can't even remember what else. It was amazing. I also had a local beer, Bohemian Regent, that was pretty good. It was nice to hang out with Kat and Brian because they are so calm and chilled out. I really enjoyed it.

When we got back, I tried to round up people to go see this film at Kino Oko, in Praha 7. Zac, Kat and another kid, Justin, ended up coming, and we took a tram and 2 metro lines to get there. The film was awesome -- I had been craving a good film, a good few hours of escape. It was called Příběhy Obyčejného Šílenství, roughly translated to Wrong Side Up, and was originally a play by the same guy who adapted it into a screenplay; he cites artistic inspirations as Almodovar, Bukowski, Luis Bunuel, P.T. Anderson, and the social phenomenon of urban legends. It was set and filmed in Praha, which is still quite novel to me, and was full of seemingly random incidents, quirky characters, and strange situations, but it was so self-referential that it became not random anymore. I really enjoyed it. And the actress who played the main female character, Jana, was absolutely gorgeous, as many Českas seem to be. So, I was quite happy that I finally got to see a good Czech film, and explore a new part of town.

It has been a fun weekend, and I have managed to avoid any uncomfortable clubbing outings. I think maybe next weekend I might be up for that again, maybe trying to find some new, cooler places, but it has been nice to have a break and doing some things that are more unique and cultural and off-the-beaten-path. (If eating Mexican food can be considered as such. . .but I mean, Mexican food in the Czech Republic? That's gotta count for some kind of adventurousness. . .)

Don Giovanni is tonight. I am excited. Laura is playing Ted Leo in her room, and it sounds like home. We are all getting ready for the opera. School starts tomorrow. I am so psyched.

Český Krumlov

2005-09-18T06:23:00.000-07:00

Český Krumlov
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A view of the red roofs of Český Krumlov in Bohemia, the Southern Czech Republic.

Český Krumlov 2

2005-09-18T06:22:00.001-07:00

Český Krumlov 2
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A view from the castle in Český Krumlov, looking down on the Vltava.

Český Krumlov - Kat & Meg Feast

2005-09-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

Český Krumlov - Kat & Meg Feast
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Kat and I with our vegetarian version of the "Old Bohemian Feast." This was the best meal I have eaten so far in the CZ, and probably one of the best of my entire life. Leave it to Bohemia. . .

Rainy Afternoon in Praha. . .

2005-09-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

I am done with my Intensive Czech course! Had an exam today; I think I did pretty well. I will miss Zdena, though.

Got up today and had a good Praha morning -- the best times I've had so far here are the mornings I have just gone walking by myself, getting lost and finding my way. When I'm in a group of people, I usually take on the role of navigator, unless Zac is there, and then he does. So it is quite nice to just walk by myself and not have the pressure of guiding people, or wondering if people are tired of walking, or if everyone is having a good time. If I get lost, whatever, I'll find my way back again, and I like just walking for hours. So I walked down from the Kolej and went to the H&M at the top of Wenceslas Square. I wanted to find a dressy top to wear to Don Giovanni on Sunday, but didn't like anything. So I walked down the Square to another H&M, tried on some more things. Ended up buying a cool necklace with little wooden birds and green glass beads, a big wide white hipster belt, a bag to take my books in so I don't always have to take my huge daypack, and a white sweater/shirt that is cute.

I wanted to find a cafe to study some Czech for my exam today, so I walked around until I found Bohemia Bagel off of Old Town Square. It was quite interesting; a bottomless cup of kava cost 45kc, which is a bit pricey for Praha, but I guess reasonable when compared to the States. But you pay for the "American atmosphere" -- it was kind of cafeteria-style, they had Thievery-ish techno music playing, fare included hamburgers and egg and cheese bagel sandwiches, bottles on Heinz ketchup sat on each table, most of the patrons were equipped with bulging backpacks, and even though I ordered in Czech, the barista answered me in English. So anyway, I sat and drank the first real cup of coffee I've had since I've been here and studied.

Went to class, took my test. Walked to the tram in the rain. It was steamy and smelly on there, the windows were foggy, just like the PAT busses in the Burgh. Home, sweet home. The weather here has cooled off in the last week; it is nice and autumnal.

The past few days have been good; I've been somewhat lazy, mostly just sleeping in and going to class. Went shopping yesterday with John, Zac and Mike; hit up some thrift stores, bought some bright green and yellow Eurotrash shoes. It was the most fun I have ever had shopping with a group of men. . .actually, probably the only time I have shopped with a group of men. Went to dinner at Maly Buddha last night; paid 115kc for a big bowl of delicious vegetarian/tofu soup and a huge place of fried rice with veggies. Have spent time the past few nights at the Hanging Coffee, too, drinking some Gambrinus and hanging out.

We are going on a day trip to Česky Krumlov tomorrow, a little town in Bohemia. I think a hike is involved, a visit to an old cathedral, probably. There is also another film showing tomorrow night a little further away from downtown that I want to see. I've been trying really hard to do some different stuff here, check out places other than clubs and bars, get into some of the culture. I know this will take some time, and I have some time to be here, but I need to feel a little less American and a bit more cultured.

Not sure what my plans are for the night. I want to see Šteští (Something Like Happiness), but it is dreary, and I am home now, and I still need to eat dinner. So we'll see. A jazz club has also been rumoured as an activity for this evening, which would be quite fun, too.

Off to a Good Day in Praha.

2005-09-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

I think yesterday might have been the first day since I got here that I didn't write a blog entry. Perhaps this is a step in the right direction. . .although I was a bit depressed yesterday, and didn't leave my room until class time. But class was good, and I had a nice dinner at a restaurant across from the Kolej (U Dragoon) with Megan, Bekka and Laura.

I got up at 8:00 this morning, emailed some registration questions to Marketa and Fiore, got dressed, ate breakfast, and was on a tram by 9:10. However, the tram I got on, #23, which normally takes me to downtown, happened to have a sign in the window that I couldn't read because it was in Czech. Apparently, that sign said something to the effect of "This tram is not running on its normal route," because after about 10 minutes, I didn't recognize any of my surroundings. I took out my headphones and heard the tram-announcer-lady-voice say that at this stop, you could "vystup az k Metro" (exit to the Metro), so I figured I should get off, because I could acclimate myself at a Metro station and get downtown via that. It was a good thing I did get off, because once I got to the Metro platform, I saw that the stop was the furthest one out on the Green Metro line. If I had gone further, I would have been extremely lost and would have just had to wait for a tram going back the other direction or something, which would have been fine, but taking the Metro was easier and I didn't have to get lost. Crisis averted.

So I got on the green line and rode to Mustek, transferred to the yellow line there and rode to Narodni Trida, where Tesco is. I bought a pot and a knife and some Tide on the 3rd floor, then ventured down to the grocery store in the basement. I had memorized how to ask for 200 and 300 grams, so I could get that much meat and cheese. It worked pretty well. I got 200 grams of some kind of "Burlander light," which looks like swiss cheese, and 300 grams of this meat called "kureci rolka," that looked like ham. (To my dismay, when I looked up the word kureci after I got home, I learned that it meant chicken. So I actually bought some kind of weird chicken-roll-mystery-meat, I think. But I've probably eaten worse. . .) I got some of these little chocolate-covered wafer candy bars I've been eating at school called Cokotatranky, a few "Nestle Fit" bars that were the closest I could find to granola (I miss Nature Valley and Clif bars!), and then a bunch of veggies. Fresh fruits and veggies are the way to go in Praha -- they are incredibly cheap and good. I got some olive oil, garlic and green peppers to cook with some pasta for tonight, and I got 4 nice big Braeburn apples for like 50 cents. That blows my mind. The bunch of bananas I got were more expensive than apples.

I took all of my groceries and decided to walk to the AIFS office; I know how to get there by Metro, but I wanted to navigate by foot, so I did. I'm getting used to recognizing landmarks and knowing where I am, knowing which way to go, even though I don't know any street names or actual directions. (I also found a Kino I had been reading about last night that shows at least one film with English subtitles per day, so I definitely want to check that out soon. It is right by the office, and it is showing a new Czech film called "Happiness" that looks good.) Went to the AIFS office and put down a deposit so I can go see Don Giovanni and Swan Lake later this month. Then took the Metro and a tram back up to the Kolej.

I'm going to do my homework, go to class, and then come home and cook a delicious dinner. This has been a great day so far; it was a good move to get up and get going this morning instead of laying around feeling out of place. I'm getting better at this.

Home, Sweet Kolej. . .

2005-09-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

It is nice to be in my dorm room again. (How often do I say that?)

Had a fun day today, more walking and less bus riding. Went on a walking tour of downtown Brno this morning, led by a local Češky. It used to be the "capital" of Central/Eastern Europe because of all its amazing buildings and on-the-up-and-up culture -- supposedly, it was even more beautiful than Vienna. But a lot of the buildings and cathedrals and castles were bombed and ruined during WWII, making it now quite an interesting mix of amazing, old things and tacky, cheap-looking new buildings. We went to 3 different Catholic cathedrals, all of which were in the middle of mass; it was cool to see the buildings being used for their original purposes and appreciated by people. There was a brass quintet playing from the top of this spire on the Old Town Halll; the music echoed through the main square, and we couldn't tell where it was coming from at first. How Medieval.

Walked around Brno a bit after the tour, trying to find something good to eat. Tried to get this veggie and pork kabob, but it wouldn't be ready fast enough. So I went to McDonald's and had a cheeseburger and fries. I'm serious. You do weird things when you're out of the States, sometimes.

Got back on the bus and drove to some Czech National Forest to the Moravian Karst -- this famous system of underground caves formed millions of years ago by water flows. They have all kinds of stalagmites and stalactites and it gets really cold once you get to the bottom. We had a nice "hike" on a paved road back to where the tours began; it was mostly along a fog-shrouded stream, and it felt extremely good to be walking outside in the woods. It didn't feel all that different from places I've hiked in Western Pennsylvania, and the trailheads were marked with these cool Czech coat of arms symbols. We ventured into the caves and walked around, took a boat ride for part of it, emerged in the middle in this amazing garden-type thing that was open to the sky. Quite cool, and Czechs are quite proud of it, so that's cool too. Then back on the bus, a stop at a gas station for dinner, and back to the Kolej.

I'm feeling better today, I think thanks to the 1L of Moravian bilé vino I drank last night. I didn't plan on drinking, only having a glass or two to help me fall asleep, but one thing led to another, and soon almost the whole bottle was gone and I was hugging the toilet. I haven't been that drunk in years. But anyway, I woke up this morning and felt pretty good, after a short bout of the dry heaves before breakfast. My snot isn't yellow anymore, anyway. So we'll hope that continues to clear up.

Mike just came to see if I wanted to go to the Hanging Coffee, but I think I should get some rest. So that I will do.

Moravian Karst - National Forest

2005-09-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

Moravian Karst - National Forest
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

On the way to the underground caves in Moravia, this is how the Czechs label their National Forest trailheads. That is really the only thing that differentiates it from, say, Quebec Run Wild Area.

Moravian Karst - Emo

2005-09-11T14:11:00.001-07:00

Moravian Karst - Emo
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Tina and I being emo in this amazing cave garden in the middle of the cave system in Moravia. Also, it was like 30 degrees in there.

Zelena Hora - Graveyard

2005-09-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

Zelena Hora - Graveyard
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

The Church of the Virgin Mary at Zelena Hora (Green Mountain) in Moravia. This was one of the 5 entrances on the 'gate' surrounding the cemetery and chapel.

Brno - Old & New

2005-09-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

Brno - Old & New
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A shot of downtown Brno, CZ. Most of the buildings are cool and old, but many were destroyed by bombing during WWII, so that one to the far left is an ugly replacement, not quite fitting in with the rest. There happened to be a brass quintet playing from that spire on the left when I took this.

Keepin in Real in the Southern CZ.

2005-09-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

I'm sick. Sinus-ey, post-nasal drip, stuffy head, my-nose-just-dripped-on-my-computer sick. Dammit. I guess those few nights out did me in. I don't remember the last time I was sick.

Another long day of mostly sitting on the bus today. Had breakfast at our hotel, and then went to Austerlitz, a Napoleon-era battlefield with a cool crypt and whatnot. Then we drove back to Brno to go to the garden where Gregor Mendel grew his marigolds and peas, and then went to Lednice to see a castle that was owned by the Lichtenstein family. It was quite cool; huge, with 3 floors, lots of ornate woodwork and paintings and whatnot. It had a huge garden area outside where we walked around and saw about 17 Czech couples getting their wedding pictures taken. They like weddings in this country -- we've seen a ton this weekend.

Ate lunch at a little restaurant before going to the castle; I had a Pilsner Urquell, a bowl of chicken soup, and a salat of cucumbers and onions and tomatoes and peppers. Quite good, and I ordered all in Czech. I'm getting better.

After the castle we headed to a wine cellar in Boretice -- a little house that had a wine cellar attached. It wasn't a restaurant, but they had dinner for us, chicken and cabbage salad and cucumbers, and then we got to try 4 different homemade wines straight from their casks. Three whites and a red -- they were all quite good. It was pretty obnoxious though, because we were all in this little cellar room and everyone was being incredibly loud and disrespectful to the guy who owned the wine cellar and people wouldn't stop talking whenever he was trying to talk to us. I felt extremely embarrassed. So far, this trip has made me really appreciate America and really hate Americans, or at least my peers who are the future of America, if you will. It wasn't just disrespectful behavior in the wine cellar, it was a symbol for the bigger, all-around asshole-ish nature of Americans, especially Americans who go abroad. Ugh.

But anyway, we got to buy some wine before we left -- it came in 1.5L plastic bottles that cost 50kc each. I got one of red and one of white -- when you convert the money and break it down to how big bottles in the States usually are, I basically got 4 bottles of good, homemade wine for $4. Can't beat it.

Tried to listen to Iron and Wine on the way back to the hotel tonight. I'm definitely not ready for that yet. I didn't get through one song before I changed it to avoid a hysterical crying breakdown in front of 43 of my closest new friends.

I might go down to the hotel bar and see what people are up to, and make it an early night, because I feel like crap. It is raining here today, and is nice.

Brno, Rhymes with. . .

2005-09-09T23:34:00.000-07:00

This is my first tipsy email from Europe. I'm not drunk, but I am feeling good after the best glass of white wine (bilé vino, for the layperson) I have ever had in my life -- oh, do they know how to do wine here in Moravia! -- and my first Budvar since being in the CZ. (Apparently, it's the original Busweiser, but the American company bought out the Cesky one and made them change the name.) I just figured out how to open the windows in our really nice hotel room, so I've got some air flow, the sound of crickets, and a dark sky with stars outside -- some things I haven't had enough of in Praha. This trip to the country is really redeeming Europe for me.

It has been a long day of traveling and sight-seeing and touristing. We left at 9:00 this morning from the Kolej, and I fell asleep soon after. (I wasn't out too late last night at Indie Rock Dance Night -- it wasn't all that I had hoped it would be, but it was fun -- but it was late enough to feel tired this morning.) When we got on the bus, this AIFS guy named Zdenik (an awesome, at-least-tri-lingual, 65-year-old native Cech who served time in the communist army here) told us the history of Moravia, and why he thinks it is important for us to visit here. We drove for a few hours through forest that reminded me of Allegheny, lines of tall Hemlocks like at Heart's Content, passing wilderness and trailheads along the highway. Every 10 or 15 miles, we went through a little village with red-roofed houses and laundry hanging out to dry and people on bikes on the streets. I couldn't help thinking that my ancestors probably lived in a village just like this, not far from here, which is pretty cool. We stopped at a Cesky gas station (the selection of foods and drinks are so weird -- some things are just like in the States, like Twix and Snickers and Gatorade and Cherry Coke, and some other things that are completely different, like sugar wafers filled with Nutella and digestive cookies and some kind of weird Frappuccino-like drink that comes in 0.5L cartons with straws). When we got out, it smelled like pine trees, and it made me want to hike.

Our first main stop of the day was at an old church in Green Mountain, built in the early 1700s by an Italian architect named Santini. It was gothic baroque, and dedicated to St. John Somebody, this priest who is the patron saint of Praha and Bohemia and the CZ. There is some story about how he didn't tell on King Wenceslas' wife when she confessed to him about cheating on the King, and the King found out and had his tongue cut out and threw him off the Charles Bridge into the Vltava. But apparently he became this really renowned guy and got sainted and whatnot, and there are statues of him and shrines to him all over Eastern Europe, and even the States, as one of the AIFS staff guys, an awesome, at-least-tri-lingual, 65-year-old native Cech named Zdenik, told us. So, the church was quite pretty; It was based on the number 5, for the 5 wounds of Christ on the cross, so the whole outer wall-type thing had 5 entrances, the church had 5 altars, there were all kinds of stars and whatnot around. It used to be a place where people would make pilgrimages to and gather, but in the late 1800s they put a graveyard in the space between the outer wall and the church, so no one does that anymore.

We drove a bit more and arrived at Tisnov and visited another church, this one with an ancient cloister that has had nuns off and on since the 13th century, and has them today. This was built in the Romanesque-baroque style, with elaborate statues and altars and stonework, the whole thing in the shape of a cross with a neat courtyard where the nuns have reflection time in the center. There are something like 8 nuns living there now, and they aren't messing around -- they don't talk to anyone but each other, I don't think they are even seen by anyone else, and they are in this remote town in the CZ for life, or until the next Nazi or Communist occupation or World War breaks out and the use the cloister as a factory or a warehouse or something else. We had a Cesky tour guide, whom Zdenik translated for, walk us around the complex. Quite beautiful architecture and statues and paintings. It is just cool to be at these places that have such rich history, that have been around so long, that have been through so much.

We came to our hotel outside of Brno, CZ next -- the Hotel Myslivna. It feels like a hunting lodge, situated up on a hill above the city, pretty secluded from everything else. But our room is nice and big, the bed is comfy, and the bathroom has pink soap that smells like Banana Boat suntan lotion. After we checked in and dropped off our stuff, the busses took us back into Brno so we could get dinner. A bunch of us found this Italian restaurant near the town square and I had a delicious pizza for 70kc. Got some really cheap gelati on the way back, bought a couple of bottles of Budvar at Tesco, and came back to the hotel. Everyone says Praha is cheap -- country-CZ is even cheaper.

Went down to the hotel bar when we got back. I wasn't feeling very up to socializing or drinking, but I had a glass of this amazing wine and ended up having a blast. We talked a bunch with Jana, an AIFS staff person who knows everything and everyone cool in Praha; Mike and I talked about love and falling in it, I drank my Budvar. A bunch of us went outside to see what stars we could see out here in the country, and ended up crashing in on this wedding reception that was going on in the hotel restaurant. Mike and I just hopped this fence and started dancing to "Like A Prayer" (I was hoping to get a feel for Czech music here, but they pretty much only listen to bad American music from the early 90s) amidst all these celebrating Czechs. I pulled my first Classic-Megan since I've been here -- I just turn around, saw the door, left, ran upstairs, and came to my room. There have been multiple times when I have wanted to pull that move, but didn't until tonight.

So now I think it is time to retire, so I can get up at 9:00 and get ready for a busy day of more sightseeing tomorrow.

Clubbin in Praha. . .

2005-09-08T21:14:00.000-07:00

Someone fixed our shower!!! So now there is a hook for the nozzle on a hose to hang on, and it is more like a real shower. They also fixes the drain so you don't have to turn the water off every few minutes and let it go down. A maid came in my room this morning and mopped the floor with a Swifer-mop type thing. That was nice. My sheets haven't been changed yet, but I think we are coming up on 10 days. . .it's been a while since I had someone clean my room for me and change my sheets.

Had a good night last nite dancing at Club Nebe, a club in New Town. Yes, that's right, I went out dancing at a club. I wasn't excited about going, but Megan and Bekka and Laura dragged me out, told me what to wear and what to take with me. So I went, and I really enjoyed it. It wasn't like "clubs" in the US -- it was basically just a bar with a bunch of big couches, cool atmosphere, a DJ spinning 70s funk music, and a little place for us to dance -- no gross and/or creepy gyrating men in sight. We just danced, doin our own things, I got incredibly sweaty, and it was really great. The club was in the basement of an old building; it had this curved, stone ceiling, pretty much your standard cellar tavern that I've always heard about but never experiences. I'm going back tonight for "Indie Rock Dance Night," so that should be a blast. I've been missing getting my indie rock on here in Praha.

Slept in a bit today, since we were out late last nite, and just chilled in the dorm this morning, took my time getting ready. It is nice to be able to do that! I walked to school and went to class. It was okay; dragged a bit, but I guess that is expected with a 4.5 hour per day language class. Zdena taught us an awesome Czech drinking song, though.

Met up with some people after class and we went to this vegetarian restaurant in Old Town called Country Life. It was kind of like the Whole Foods buffet, where you fill up a plate and pay for your food by weight. So I had all kinds of good fresh veggies and this tofu goulash and about 13 different kinds of cabbage. It was incredibly healthy and I felt great after eating. It is difficult to eat enough vegetables here. Rode the tram home, and now we're going back to Nebe in a bit.

Leaving in the morning for a weekend trip to Moravia. AIFS has a lot planned, all kinds of different sites to visit, dinner at a wine cellar, exploring some cave. It should be fun, and it will be good to have a busy first real weekend here. Still hanging on to the busy.

Another Day, Some More Czech.

2005-09-07T21:35:00.000-07:00

Had a good day today -- and it might not be over. I made the mistake of telling my friends I felt like going out tonight (after I had a few drinks with dinner) and although I'm not exactly feelin it anymore, they might hold me to it! Considering I haven't been out to a club yet since I've been here. . .it probably won't kill me. For right now, busier is better. I keep saying that.

I woke up semi-early and Laura and I got all dressed up, dried our hair, and went downtown to the Communist Museum. It wasn't as amazingly cool as I expected, but there was some interesting old propaganda there, lots of information and cool pictures. Really neat old statues and busts of Lenin and Marx and Stalin, old posters, uniforms, a replica of a "grocery store." It paints a realistic picture of life here under communism; definitely not all rose-colored, lots of oppression and strife. They also showed this short video depicting Czech history from 1969-1989 (Soviet invasion-Velvet Revolution) and it was pretty nuts to see footage from the Revolution, Wenceslas Square, where I walk every day, full of mobs of protesters, people being beaten by cops and plain-clothes cops, people beating them back. That happened like 15 years ago. The people in that footage are probably still around here, doing new jobs now, living in this quickly-turned-capitalist society. It's just crazy to think about "history" happening such a short time ago. So, I was definitely glad I went there and learned a bit about that. I hope to learn more about it this semester.

We ventured to the Vietnamese Market next, on the directions some girl on the tram gave Laura when Laura asked her where she bought her clothes. We rode the Red Line a bit further from downtown, and took a bus to this crazy market full of kiosks selling cheap Eurotrash clothes and shoes, cheap produce (kind of the Strip District of Praha, I think), little trinkets, etc. We also found a thrift store, where I got a great little boys' terry polo shirt that is so soft, and a paisley/floral-print mini-dress from the 70s that will look awesome with jeans or my purple pants -- all for 90kc. It was strange shopping there though, being so obviously Amercian; people really think Americans have a ton of money here. Even our Czech teacher -- the other day when she was taking us on a walk around some off-the-beaten-path parts of Old Town, we asked her how expensive a restaurant was and she said, "Well, it is expensive for the Czechs, but not expensive for you." That is a very common conception here: Westerner = rich, and I guess it isn't that far off. But there were women in there trying on dress suits and nice clothes, looking at them in the mirrors, trying to figure out which ones to get. And we were just browsing the racks, picking out some cool-looking-vintage finds, and handing over the korunas. I mean, I always feel weird thrifting in America -- feeling kind of guilty for taking the cheap clothes away from other people who might not be able to afford anything more expensive, when I can afford it. Another level to the interplay of capitalism in our globalised society, I suppose. But the market wasn't very touristy, and felt like the first authentic Czech experience I've had.

Then it was time for class, which went really well today. I feel like I'm getting it, picking things up, and learning. We got out early today so we could go on this boar cruise that the University had arranged for us. I was kind of skeptical at first -- it had the connotation of 3 hours of awkward forced socialization -- but it turned out to be really fun. A bunch of us dressed up to make it more fun, and we all walked down together and got on the same boat. We got a shot of some cinnamon schnapps when we got on the boat, a nice buffet dinner of everything from Czech food to chicken fingers, and 2 drinks on the house. We all went up to the roof after we ate and continued drinking; Bekka bought me a glass of wine so I'd keep drinking with her and she wouldn't be the only tipsy one. It was quite nice to ride up and down the Vltava and see more of Prague, hang out with some new friends, drink some Staropramen and some wine.

We caught a tram up to the Kolej now and I'm chillin in the suite. So, we'll see where the spirit leads for this evening. . .

Boat Cruise - Tomas

2005-09-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

Boat Cruise - Tomas
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Bekka and I enjoying some wine on the Vltava. In the background is a Čech named Tomas who sits in on our language couse. He tells people he's a student/teacher/professor at the University, but chances are he's homeless and little on the loopy side.

He followed all of us down to the river and got on the boat without being questioned. I say, good for him -- he enjoyed a few free beers, a good meal, and even snuck into a few pictures.

Boat Cruise - Group on Deck

2005-09-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

Boat Cruise - Group on Deck
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Some of my kamarades on our boat cruise. (Clockwise from me: Dan from Scranton, Mike from Austin, Laura from New York, Megan from Erie, Tina from Austin, and Bekka from Minnesota.)

Pivo ja dobre.

2005-09-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

Two days of classes down, a lot more Czech to learn.

It has been great to have class. It gives me structure and purpose and an excuse for not hanging out every second. My class is from 2:00-6:30 every day for the next two weeks (well, not Friday, Saturday and Sunday), and it is definitely difficult. But I feel like I'm keeping up with the professor, and it isn't as difficult for me as some of the other people in the class are complaining it is for them. I am amazed at how much I've picked up already -- I can read some of the signs around town, recognize words and sounds and whatnot. I guess it helps that this is the only responsibility I have right now, so I can focus on it and really try to retain.

My professor is a 50-ish Cechka named Zdena, petite with crazy blonde hair. She's pretty reserved, but she's got a good sense of humor, which is nice when you have to teach adults a language like they are toddlers. She took us on a walk today, showed us some off-the-beaten-path places around Stare Mesto, and dropped us off in Wenceslas Square, telling us to find our way home on our own.

Had a good day yesterday. Walked down to campus with Megan and Bekka, got lost because we left the Castle too soon, so it ended up taking a bit longer, but we got there on time. It's a nice long walk. We went to an orientation at 10:00 and heard from the Director of the ECES Program at Charles University, as well as the head of the Literature department, who is going to be teaching my Kafka and Kundera class. He talked about the course offerings, how the department works, etc. He seems awesome, and I am excited to perhaps go to the pub with him after class and further discuss Czech literature. They are big into their literature here; it turns out that I'm going to take 3 lit classes this semester, because they added a bunch since I first registered. I got into the Kafka and Kundera one for sure, and then I'm taking a course on Czech film since 1989 (when communism ended) that focuses on issues of "identity and containment," and also a course on Czech Samizdat, or underground Czech literature.

I had a bit of a break before my language class yesterday, so I walked around Wenceslas a bit, got a sandwich near the University, sat on the steps of the building where our classes are and ate lunch. There is a great view of Prasky Hrad there, with trams going by this way and that; it was a good, quintessential Praha time.

Went to my new favorite bar after class -- the Engish translation of the name is "The Hanging Coffee," with the idea being, when you go in, you buy two coffees, and when someone comes in who doesn't have any money, they can have a free coffee. Megan, John, Mike and I walked up from campus, but got lost, of course. We ended up taking a scenic tour of Praha 6, some more posh areas of the Hradcany neighborhood, and walked through an awesome little park that had fallen leaves crunching all over the ground. We frolicked and sang and felt happy in the fall. I forgot how much I love the fall; I always do, until it is here. It will be nice to spend the fall here. My last few falls have been pretty great ones; this one will be different, but good, too, I think.

So I had a few Gambrinuses at the Kafe, hung out with Megan and Zac and John and Mike and Tyler, and got some delicious potato dumplings for dinner; they had smoked meat inside them, and were surrounded by cabbage sauteed with onions, kind of like sauerkraut but stronger. Delicious.

We left the bar after a few hours and decided to go up to the Castle again, because it is so flippin cool in the dark. We just stood outside the gates and talked, and happened to be there for the changing of the guard. That was pretty creepy. I haven't really though much about the political history of this country and this city, but seeing those guards dressed in their real army outfits, with hats and guns with bayonets made me think about the days under Nazi rule, even the oppression under communism. There was nothing novel or chintzy about them, nothing to make it seem merely ceremonial, compared with the stereotypical red suits and funny bearskin hats that the British guards wear for the tourists to stand around and photograph. It was erie to be watching this in front of this ancient Castle, in which who-knows which world leaders have lived and conducted their most important business. (Zdena told us today that the President of the CZ has his office there now.) But the night, the eerie, the quiet, the Praha made it feel like another time, a time I've never gotten an inkling of in America.

I ate breakfast at the dorm again today, and took my time showering and drying my hair for the first time since i've been here. I walked downtown again, this time on real streets, not through the Castle. Went to the AIFS Office in Wenceslas Square to check my email and pay my 200kc deposit for the trip to Moravia this weekend, and the 50kc deposit for the day trip to Chesky Kremlov, in Bohemia, next Saturday. I didn't get lost once the whole way there, and it was a great walk through Old Town Square and down a commercial street I'd never been on. I felt quite good about being able to get around with no trouble; I think I'm finally getting somewhat of a mental map. So then I walked back to school, found a cool courtyard on the way that had lots of interesting sculpture in it, very contemporary stuff, and sat on a bench there for a bit with some Czech students and studied. Then it was class, and a tram back home, because I have walked a ton today.

My suitemate is talking to her parents on the phone in Serbian. She lived there until 1998, when she moved to the States. I have my windows open, and there is a bit of a breeze coming in. The weather here has been hot. It's been sunny and warm every day. I think I'm staying in tonight, maybe will watch a movie with some people, call Mom and Dad, because I haven't talked to them in a while. Eat some more of the really good dark Czech chocolate, and continue drinking 1.5 litre bottles of bubbly water (or perliva voda, not to be confused with neperliva voda, which was the still water I meant to buy). But I'm kind of beginning to like it. . .

Our WC

2005-09-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

Our WC
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

This is the little closet where our toilet is. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic, because taking a dump would not be an enjoyable experience. Toilet paper is weird here, too -- either it's a mini-roll of those natural, unbleached paper towels (like in this picture), or it's little individual sheets of tissue paper.

219B

2005-09-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

219B
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

This is the room I share with Kathryn at the Kolej. Nice natural light! My side is the right one.

View From KU

2005-09-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

View From KU
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

This is the view from the front steps of the building where I go to school. Yeah. Only in Prague. In the distance is Prasky Hrad (Prague Castle) and the gothic cathedral within it.

I Have Arrived.

2005-09-04T23:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sure when classes start I won't have enough time to write blog entries after every thing I do. Also, there probably won't be as many new, exciting things happening every day to write about. But there are, now, and I like writing about them, so I'm doing it.

Got up this morning and went for a run. It was nice, although I felt a bit out of place, and people were looking at me funny. Silly Americansky, all health-consciousky. I ran away from downtown on a main street near the Kolej; I haven't ventured away from downtown yet, only toward it. So that was cool; there are a lot of little shops and groceries and cafes and pubs -- and old Czech men drinking beer on the pub patios at 9:15 in the morning.

I ate breakfast at the dorm again, and went to the internet cafe across the street to activate my AIFS debit card. Gmail wasn't working, so I couldn't check my email. Then I took a shower, and Kathryn and I decided to venture down to Wenceslas Square and Tesco for groceries and little things for the apartment. We hopped a tram down there, and I thought we would have to get off at a certain stop to catch the Metro, but we got off there and there was Tesco!! So we ventured all over the 5-story consumerist hellhole, buying can openers and cleaning supplies and blankets and towels and groceries. I got a good week's worth of food -- apples, bananas, rice, whole wheat pasta (once I found the health food section), tomato sauce, baked beans (I couldn't find black beans!), bread, turkey, cheese, bottled water -- for 350kc (less than $20). What a deal. And it was only a mildly harrowing experience. (See Appendix A.)

We went down to campus today for an orientation meeting. It basically consisted of Marketa reading us everything that was in the literature they gave us when we were accepted to the program. But we saw the building where our classes will be, and it gave us an excuse to be downtown. After the meeting, my friends wanted to look at cell phones, so we went to the Oskar store and got the scoop. I'm still not convinced I'll need one, so we'll see how this week plays out once everyone else gets theirs. We walked around a bit and tried to find a place to sit down and eat; we ended up at a weird fast-food wrap place. I don't remember the name, but they served a bunch of different types of wraps, like Greek and Thai and Japanese and Italian and Norwegian and Dutch and French. So I had a Thai wrap with chicken and good Thai dressing and lettuce and tomato. Not very Czech, but cheap and good. Then we decided we wanted a bar and some beer (because I hadn't had any yet and it was like 7:00!!!), so we walked to Mala Strana, where none of us had hung out, and found this awesome place called U Stkaklksdf Cafe. They had 27kc (about $1.10) pints of Pilsner Urquell, so we hung out there, and it turned out it had free WiFi, and I also happened to have my computer in my backpack because I was afraid of thieves taking it while we were gone, so I passed it around and we all checked on class schedules, etc.

There were a couple of other American-looking girls in there, so we talked to them and it turned out they were from American University, doing the FAMU program, living in the dorm next door to the cafe -- the dorm that Teddy is living in! So I asked if they knew him; they did, and he was a good friend of one of them. So the one girl said she would tell him she saw me, but he was out or whatever. But about a half hour later, who walked in but TEDDY!!! It was crazy -- I haven't seen him since we were like 11! So we caught up, talked about what we had been doing in the past 10 years, talked about his program and its director, who was a Czech ex-pat in the US for a while, and came back after communism and now lives at the Kolej and runs this program. So it was incredibly good to see him, just cool to see a formerly-friendly face in a crazy place halfway across the globe from where you last saw each other.

So, we got a bit rowdy at the bar after our 3rd round, and were getting kind of obnoxious, so we left a big tip for the American-friendly Czech bartender, walked back up the hill to our dorm and hung out in the lobby a bit. A lot of people were around tonight, probably feeling like they should be social because school is starting or something. We have an orientation for our intensive language course at 10:00 tomorrow morning, and then class after that. I'm excited to get started, have school, learn, have some structure and some more things to occupy my time. It's been nice to hang out, but it will be ever better to get back to classes, learning, intellectual stimulation. And beers between classes, of course. Most of my classes are in the morning and the late afternoon, so I will have lots of time to kill at cafes and pubs and doing work during the day. I can't wait.

So, I had plugged my computer in with my Czech adaptor for the first time when I started writing, and there were weird little blips on my screen. I felt the adaptor and it was really hot, so I unplugged it and now it kind of smells like burning. This is not a good sign. My Pod is also dying, so I was hoping to charge that, too. I should probably figure out what is going on, if I need some kind of transformer or something. I wonder how I do that. . .call 1-800-APPLE? Oh, wait. I'm in Eastern Europe. That won't be possible. Guess I should conserve battery, then, for now.

Therefore, time for bed. Gonna get up and shower and eat breakfast so I hopefully have enough time to walk down the hill and across the bridge to class. That will be nice.

Appendix A:
Things that are similar between Tesco in Praha and Giant Eagle in Squirrel Hill:
1. Elderly Eastern European people speaking Eastern European languages with anger.
2. More people than the aisles can comfortably accommodate.
3. Not enough cashiers.
4. Lines at the deli.
5. Braeburn apples (my favorite).
6. A very rushed and frenetic atmosphere.

Things that are different at Tesco in Praha than at Giant Eagle in Squirrel Hill:
1. Prices listed in Crowns instead of US Dollars (this is a bridgeable gap, because I am a mental math star).
2. Clerks at the deli counter who speak English; in Praha, one must point to the type of cheese one wants and then nod when the clerk has put enough of said cheese on the scale, or one must try to pronounce the type of meat one wants and be corrected by the clerk, but with a smile.)
3. The price of Braeburn apples (my favorite) -- 16kc per kilo, compared with $1.69 per pound.
4. The presence of delicious dark chocolate candy bars for 9kc.
5. A little counter by the produce that you have to take your produce to, where a man weighs it and puts a sticker on it for checkout ease.

Czech, Czech. . .

2005-09-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

I am in Prague.

Finally, after a somewhat harrowing day yesterday in transit. My hotel-roommate had to get on a bus to the airport at 4:15, and even though my shuttle didn't leave until 6:15, I didn't go back to sleep after she left. I got on the bus at 6:15, but we didn't get all the luggage loaded until about 7:00, so more sitting. We got to Heathrow quickly, though, and drove past the brewery that makes London's Pride.

I was quite amazed at how easy it is to fly when you are not in America. As we were walking up to security, I untied my boots so I could take them off quickly -- the security lady looked at me like I was crazy and told me to keep them on. They set the alarms off in Pittsburgh a few days ago, so I looked at her skeptically, but I walked through with no problem. I didn't have to take my laptop out of my backpack, and they didn't look at my passport, ever, until right before I boarded the plane. They also don't assign gates to flights there until right before they leave, so everyone sits in this big waiting area with tons of shops and restaurants and kiosks and watches these little TVs to check gate assignments. Much different than flying in the States, for sure.

We sat in the plane for a good hour before we actually took off, but the flight to Munich was fast, I dozed off, and the landing was one of the smoothest I've ever experienced. (I have been impressed as all get-out by British Airways, all around.) The Munich airport is really cool -- lots of neat, clean lines, tons of open space and glass, very German. I think I'd like to go back to Germany at some point in the semester; Berlin is close by train and would be cool to see. There was a big yellow Mercedes bus there to pick us up, so we piled in and hit the Autobon -- the first highway; it still has no speed limit. We sat at the border of Germany and the CZ for about an hour while the officials checked all our papers. That was a pain.

But the first stop we made once we got into the CZ was in Pilsen, at the Pilsner Urquell brewery, of course!! They served us tall mugs of fantastic Pilsner with about 3 inches of head, and we had our choice of authentic Czech dinners -- I had beef sirloin in a vegetable cream sauce with Bohemian dumplings (which are actually like slices of rich, heavy white bread.) It was delicious. We got back into the bus and were finally headed to Praha.

We got to our dorm, the Kolej Komenskeho, around 9:30. Waited in a big line to check in, and got to my room on the second floor of this old dorm building. My roommate is a girl named Kathryn, from Long Island, who is studying elementary/special education at the University of Rhode Island. I was a bit overwhelmed when I got here, after a long day of traveling, and coming into a barren dorm/apartment that definitely made me feel like I was in post-communist Eastern Europe. I called Mom and Dad with one minute left on my phone card after connection fees and pretty much just spent it crying. But Kathryn and I put up pictures on the walls, moved our stuff in, and it felt a bit more homey.

A door to our suite opens from the hallway, there is a toilet to the left in a little cubby (it flushes by pulling a string above your head), and there is a hallway that leads to our room. We have a room with two beds (they look like beds, but they just have these long church-pew-like cushions on them). We have two cabinets stacked on top of each other that we use as dressers, two desks with drawers, two chairs, and three big windows. Outside our door is a little kitchen-type area with lots of cabinets, a mini-fridge, a hot-plate, and a sink. Also in that hallway are four floor-to-ceiling (the ceiling is probably 12 feet high) wardrobes, for us and our 2 suitemates. To the left is their bedroom, and to the right is a tiled room with the shower and sink. The shower is interesting -- it is just a free-swinging hose with a nozzle at the end, so you have to hold it the whole time you're in there so it doesn't fly all over and spray everything, and you have to turn it off every few minutes so the drain can drain. But the water is hot. So, it is an interesting setup, to say the least. I'm calling it home for the next 3 months.

I was feeling pretty disheveled when I got here, kind of didn't know what to do with myself. I used a phone card they gave us to call out, but Mom and Dad and Jut weren't there. So Zac and I decided to go for a walk; he wanted to go to an ATM to get some crowns and by cigarettes, so we found the nearest one, and I walked off some of my nervous energy. We ran into some other people from the program, and a kid named Dylan, from Illinois, joined us to find cigarettes. We finally stumbled upon a little cafe that sold Marlboros -- Zac got a pack of Lights and a lighter for 77kc, less than $3. After that we just kept walking, and stumbled upon Prague Castle, which turns out to be about 10 minutes from our dorm. It is really amazing -- it makes me think of communist Russia; a mass of people gathered on the flat stone floor, their cheers echoing off the tall walls (come on, it's almost poetic -- I'm trying for that irony. . .). Within its walls is an incredible gothic cathedral with endless turrets and creepy gargoyles of screaming ghost-women. It was so cool that everything was still open at 10:30 at night, and it was really great to walk around at that time not only because it was really eerie, but because there weren't many tourists around. We sat there for quite a while, just enjoying the solitude, the amazing cathedral, the night sky, the lights of the city across the river. I needed that, just to feel a bit more calm here, like this will be a bit more manageable; I needed to see pretty-Prague, not crazy or ghetto-Prague. It was a nice welcome.

We walked aimlessly for a while, down cobblestone streets with high walls and houses on them, winding around and up hills, until we got our bearings again and found our way back to the dorm. I finished unpacking and felt better about being here. It's culture shock, for sure. It will be better when I learn some of the language -- people say a lot of English is spoken in Prague, but all the street signs/names, signs at stores, billboards, signs on Trams, etc are in Czech. I haven't seen or heard much English, so far; I will be much more comfortable when I can understand some of the Czech.

And there's a strange kind of loneliness -- a twinge of that loneliness that persists even when you're surrounded by people, because you feel like you don't know/trust/like any of them; but there's something more, something related to being an outsider, probably, something having to do with gaining perspective on the country you come from, knowing how other people think about you because that's where you're from. Probably also something about not understanding the words the letters you see make, sometimes not being able to identify the letters themselves. It will take some getting used to. But it is beautiful here; I'm sure there will be moments like seeing the Castle last night, which will be what keeps me going.

Slept well last night, on my church-pew-bed. Got up and took a shower, as described earlier. Went down to breakfast, which is served every morning for us, in a cute little room in the dorm basement. Little Czech ladies put the food out for us and bustled about. There were doughnuts, bread, rolls, jam, lots of different lunch meats and cheeses, cut up tomatoes, cucumbers and red peppers, yogurt (that tasted more like cream cheese), fruit, watered-down Tang, water, coffee and tea. Not bad.

So, we are meeting in the hotel lobby soon and are going to a brewery for lunch. Then we are getting a tour of downtown Prague, places we need to know about like the post office and AIFS office and the nearest Tesco's, which is supposed to be the "best" place to get groceries in Prague -- oh, British Empire. I'm hoping to change some of my American dollars into crowns, and hopefully go out tonight, get some beer or wine, get more acclimated. It will be nice to see the city in the daylight, since it was difficult last night to get my bearings. Viva, Praha.

Prage. . .Czech it Out!

2005-09-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

Two entries in one day? I must need more to occupy my time. I guess technically this entry will be tomorrow's, since it is after midnight. But, still.

Today was a good day. I am still feeling culture shocked, pretty hardcore. So, in order to combat that, I tried to keep going today -- even when I wanted to crawl in bed and take a nap, I forced myself on a Tram, walked across the Vlatva, and explored Praha 1.

Our "tour" was nice -- it started with yet another traditional Czech meal at a brewery! We rode the 23 Tram downtown to it; we had their good microbrew pilsner, a delicious vegetable and potato soup, an entree of chicken with mushroom cream sauce, cabbage with dressing, and little round swirly tater-tots that had mashed potatoes inside, and dessert of an apple/rasin/walnut big kolachi thing. Also paid for by AIFS. . .or, I guess, by our program fees. But it feels like a free meal.

We walked to the AIFS office after that, on Wencesclas Square (as in, Good King looked out, on the feast of Stephen" -- he's the Patron Saint of the CZ, apparently), then went to Tesco, where we will do our grocery shopping, then back to the Post Office on the Square. We hopped the Metro to check out "Prague's Only Unique Czech-American Laundromat," Laundry Kings, where it is suggested we wash our clothes. Then back on the tram, back to the Kolej.

I kind of wanted to take a nap at this point in the day; I was feeling quite overwhelmed, wondering whether or not I'd ever be able to get back to the places I'd just been, wondering how I'd ever get everything done I'd need to do for school, life, etc in this crazy city that I don't understand yet. When I got back to my room, however, I learned that my suitemates' room had been broken into, and the one girl's brand new, $2,000 Apple laptop had been stolen. I kind of freaked out, because they had told me earlier at the brewery that they couldn't get our front door, the one that opens into the main hallway, locked, but both our room doors were locked, so they weren't worried. I asked them if they had used their key to lock the door, just like when they unlock it; they hadn't thought of that, so they hadn't tried it. So someone had walked through that open main door, apparently, and ducked around the corner to their room, which you can't see from the hall if you were walking by, and broke down their door. Pretty creepy. We figured someone had to have known she had the computer in there; she had it sitting on top of the wardrobe, in view, I suppose, of someone who looked into the window. But it still doesn't make sense that someone would break into only that room, only take that laptop, not touch anything in the unlocked wardrobes in the hallway. I don't know. I know that we will lock the doors from now on.

After hearing this news, I knew if I stopped doing things I would most likely break down, so I joined a large group that was going back down to Wenceslas Square (Vaclavske namesti, for the lay person, or the Czech-speaking person). I knocked on Zac's door to see if he wanted to come, and by the time he came out, everyone else was gone. So we decided to venture downtown anyway, and just fend for ourselves. We got on a Tram and rode to the bottom of the hill, right before the river, and then walked across on most Legii (Legii Bridge, for the layperson) to Wenceslas Square. We found a cool internet cafe on the second floor of a wine bar, and wrote emails and checked our course registration. I am enrolled in 3 classes and am on the waiting list for 3 more, so we'll see how it works out.

Then we decided to go to Old Town (Stare Mesto) to check out the square and some of the old castle-like buildings. It was pretty awesome to walk through there, especially after only seeing it on TV and in pictures. Pretty incredible. So we walked around a bit, looked at Russian dolls of Bill Clinton and Dubya, and went to find a cafe Zac had seen in his tour book. We found it, and ducked into the dimly lit, quiet, totally chill little bar for 30kc tall glasses of Pilsner Urquell. The environment was pretty much perfect, the waitress/bartender was really cute and laughed at us trying to speak Czech, and it was almost empty. So after that, we walked toward home through New Town (Nove Mesto) and found another bar -- one that is supposedly frequented by American ex-patriates. So we went there; I had a pint of Staropramen, and a big plate of nachos (yes, that's right, nachos in Prague. Lay off -- the last 2 meals I've eaten have been huge tradition Czech fare!). Then we caught a tram and came home. It was just a really good, relaxed evening that made me feel like I have a handle on this city, or am at least starting to get one. I navigated, rode public transport, found good beer, and got home safely. And really, what more do you need?

Talked to Mom and Dad for a bit -- I emailed them my number here and they called my room. It was good to talk to them; I haven't talked to them since I've gotten to Praha.

I just ate some of the cheese I bought in London. Gross, because it rode through a 7-hour bus ride in my suitcase at the bottom of the bus. But it tasted all right.

Lots more people around tonight at the Kolej. I think a few more programs moved in today. I'm beat. I have to keep justifying to myself that it's okay if I don't go out to clubs or bars with people all the time. I mean, I wouldn't have fun doing that at home, so why should I do it here? I mean, I'm in Prague, but that doesn't mean I have to party all the time; if I'd be happier just chilling out and reading or writing, that's okay, right? I have to keep telling myself it is. I mean, I spent like 12 hours today with people, being social! I'm allowed to have some alone time, I think. I don't know. I'm realizing that I don't really remember how to be me, in a normal situation -- I don't remember how I am socially, what I like to do when I am able to choose how to occupy my time, that kind of thing, since I lived on YouthWorks' schedule for the past 3 months. So now, I have to remember how to be me again, what I really do like to do, and also try to balance that with the other-universe that is a study abroad semester, the strange social milieus that exist there, etc. But it's cool. I'll figure it out. And I'm having fun. I'm enjoying myself! So how can that be bad? It can't be. So there. crazy, overanalyzing brain.

Going to sleep.

Meg - Abbey Road

2005-09-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

Meg - Abbey Road
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Me at the sign for Abbey Road, right across from where all the magic happened, on my first Beatles pilgrimage this side of the Atlantic.

Tower ridge

2005-09-01T23:34:00.000-07:00

Tower ridge
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A nice view of Tower Bridge from the Tower of London, Bloody Tower.

Parliament Protest

2005-09-01T23:33:00.000-07:00

Parliament Protest
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A political protest that was going on across from the Houses of Parliament.

Parliament, Eye, Big Ben

2005-09-01T23:32:00.000-07:00

Parliament, Eye, Big Ben
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A nice view of the Parliament Houses, the "Eye" and good old Big Ben.

Zac, Guard, & Meg

2005-09-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

Zac, Guard, & Meg
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

At St. James Palace, standing with one of the famous British guards. (Check out my tourist-ey Tevas! I'm stylin. . .)

All of London, 30 Hours, It Can Be Done.

2005-09-01T23:30:00.000-07:00

I pretty much saw everything in London today.

I got up and had a nice continental breakfast at the hotel while I read the London paper. Lots of lunchmeat and cheese and pastries and fruit for breakfast, and good bran flakes with yogurt. It has been strange to read the news and watch TV coverage of what's going on in New Orleans, while being here. It feels surreal to hear other people commenting on what's going on in your own country when you aren't there. All the editorials here are lambasting us for being such racists, since the majority of people who got out of New Orleans were white, and the majority who are stuck there are Black and Latino. An accurate and critique worth thinking about, I'd say.

We had a big guided bus tour that started at 8:45, and our cheeky, middle-aged British lady tour guide took us around to all the sites -- Prince Albert Hall, St James Palace (where we got to stand next to a stone-faced guard in a red jacket with a bearskin hat), Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Picadilly Circus, Soho, Trafalgar Square. . .you name it, we drove past it in a bus, and if we were lucky, we got out and took pictures. We ended the tour at the Tower of London, where our admittance was prepaid. So we ventured in a for a bit, saw some torture chambers, the Crown Jewels, etc.

Then a group of us decided to venture across the Tower Bridge and we walked along the Thames to see Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (the third one, because of that damn fire-attracting thatched roof) and ended up at the Tate Modern. What an incredible museum. I guess I'm used to the Carnegie International being the most art I get, so this blew me away. They have an amazing Mark Rothkoe room, and the galleries are arranged by subject, rather than time period or artistic movement -- I particularly enjoyed the "Landscape/Matter/Environment" and the "Nude/Action/Body" sections. We picked up a few more people in our little sightseeing group, and after I defended the value of modern art against Victorian pictures of little boys and boats and puppies, we walked back across the Thames on a cool pedestrian bridge and found the nearest Tube station.

We bought all-day Tube passes for £4.70, hopped on the Circle Line, and ended up at Covent Garden. It is a cool, hip place to eat and drink and shop and walk on little cobblestone streets, so we wandered there for a while before finding a pub to crawl into. I had an amazing amber ale -- London's Pride -- that was the best beer I've had thus far in Europe, and we hung out for a good while. It was the first time I felt like I was at a pub drinking with friends, rather than random people I met for study abroad, so that was a great feeling. It was me; Zac from Pittsburgh; Tina; a girl named Megan who goes to Gannon in Erie; Becka, from Minnesota; John, from Lubbock, TX; and Mike, from Austin, who has great music and film taste (he brought up Matthew Barney and Cremaster at the pub!!) A nice little clique with a good dynamic.

After the pub, we got back on the Tube and decided to ride to a random stop and explore there, so we ended up a few stops up at Goodge Street, a kind of technological center, it seemed. I convinced the group to hop on the Jubilee line and go to St Johns Wood with me for my Beatles pilgrimage of London -- Abbey Road. They obliged and we walked across the zebra-striped street, posed next to the scrawled-on street sign, and I marveled at the EMI Studios, "where it all happened."

We went back to the station to head down to Chinatown for dinner, but there was a power outage and the Jubilee line wasn't working. So we got on a big red double-decker bus instead, and rode to another station to connect with another (functional) Tube line. We ended up in Chinatown and ate at a dingy restaurant and had big plates of beef and vegetables and rice for about £7. Not bad. We stopped at a convenience store on the way back to the Tube and I got a £1.49 can of Stella Artois for the ride; went to the internet cafe across from the hotel and wrote some emails, and now it is time for bed.

It was a good, busy day. I like London, and would enjoy spending some more time here, getting to know the place, driving around on the country routes, if you will. Perhaps someday. . .

A Day in London. . .

2005-08-31T15:48:00.000-07:00

I am in London. "The Borough of Kensington and Chelsea," specifically, in my 14th floor room at the Holiday Inn-Kensington Forum. I'm watching some HGTV-type show with British people (surprise) buying antiques.

Everything about my journey thus far has been incredibly novel. All of Britain is novel to me. Charles Darwin is on the back of the £20 note. Right now I have these coins: 1 penny, 2 pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 50 pence, and 1 pound (which, incidentally, is much smaller than most of the other coins, but weighs considerably more). You have to put your room key in a slot by the door and leave it there in order for the lights to function. You have to hold the toilet flusher in for as long as you want it to flush; not push it once and have it flush everything down like in the US. These types of things.

I got on my British Airways flight at 9:20 last night, Chicago time, and arrived at Heathrow about 11:30 this morning, London time. (I think we are 5 hours ahead of home here.) The flight was surprisingly enjoyable; it went quickly; it was the most comfortable and posh flight I have ever been on. I rode in economy class, of course, so to get to my cabin I had to walk past First Class, where each passenger gets his/her own private compartment, and some kind of "Club Europe" class, where each passenger gets a special reclining seat and footrest. But in my cabin, my seat was equipped with a little TV screen in the seat in front, and a package laid on the seat that contained a pillow, a British Airways blanket, a pair of headphones, and a little pouch with socks, a toothbrush, toothpaste and eyeshade. (I have never felt like more of an easily amused American than when oogling over my plane care-package.) I watched the BBC World News, a terrible Ashton Kutcher movie that was filmed in Silverlake (it was pretty cool to recognize scenery in a movie), and listened to the new Bruce Springsteen and Aimee Mann albums on the in-flight radio while I dozed off a bit. We got dinner sometime during the night -- beef lasagna, a salad, a roll, a little bottle of white zinfandel, and a little piece of chocolate chip cake. In the morning, we got a little breakfast pouch with orange juice, blueberry yogurt and a blueberry muffin.

So, we got to London, got our luggage, got our passports stamped, and got in a funny 9-passenger VW van and drove, on the wrong side of the street, to our hotel. I rode all the way from Pittsburgh with a kid named Zac, who is from Pittsburgh and goes to Mercyhurst in Erie; my roommate here in London is a girl named Tina who goes to school in Austin, Texas; they're pretty much the only people I've connected with so far. We got checked into our rooms, Tina got in the shower and I went downstairs to touch base with Mom and Dad and Jut. (We were told not to use the phones in our rooms because they charge £1 a minute or something.) But by the time they connected me with Mom and Dad, my phone card had gone from 180 minutes to 37 minutes -- absurd! So I talked to them for a bit, called Jut and unknowingly got him out of bed, forgetting it would be 6:30 am in New Mexico. By the time I got back up to my room, Tina had gone, and Zac wasn't answering his door. So I got in the shower, washed off the airport dirt, and decided to venture out on my own.

I suppose I should be able to manage on my own in London for a few hours; I am an adult. But I was particularly proud of myself, just meandering around the neighborhood, getting used to Europe. My goal was to get to the bank a few blocks down to change my dollars into pounds, but I took the long way and got to see lots of cool old apartment buildings, cafes, pubs, shops, and Brits. Everything is very light here; even the smaller side-streets are wide and bright because of the nice, white-painted houses lining them. It definitely feels more open and vibrant than other cities/neighborhoods. I didn't get hit crossing the streets because at each sidewalk crossing, the words "LOOK LEFT" or "LOOK RIGHT" are painted on the ground. I guess the British get confused, too? I did have a bit of trouble navigating because the street signs are posted low to the ground on fences in front of houses, and are sometimes obscured by shrubbery. So, I peeked in a few coffee shops, found an internet cafe that charges £1 for 20 minutes, perused a used bookstore, and ended up at the bank. I got $60 changed into £31.25 by a nice Asian lady who didn't charge me commission because I am a student. She also offered to get me some Czech crowns before I leave for "a good deal;" I think I'll just wait until Praha.

I decided to find a grocery store next, so I wandered into a small mall-type conglomeration called the Gloucester Arcade, and found a Waitrose supermarket. I think I walked around for 20 minutes just looking at prices, figuring out what I wanted to get, how to get it cheapest, working up the nerve to go to the cash register. It definitely felt like a foreign country, although I'm not sure why. I finally decided on a small loaf of Irish stone-ground wheat bread, a package of English cheddar cheese, and some bananas -- all for £3.37!

I was hungry and wanted to find a nice park or bench to sit and eat my bread and cheese, but this is a pretty densely concreted area, with the exception of Hyde Park, which is quite a few blocks North. So I started walking back toward the hotel on a side street and came across an awesome old stone church -- The Parish of Saint Stephen or something. It had a little courtyard and a bench in it, so I sat there and enjoyed my own private pocket London and a snack. I was kind of glad I lost track of all my "new friends," because I needed that time to just get my bearings here, go out on my own, fend for myself, and get a personal taste of London.

I'm still at the point where I want to remember every single thing that happens here, write it down, tell it to everyone back home. I'm sure this will wear off.

We have a meet-and-greet-and-have-a-few-drinks with the rest of our group at 6:00, and I've been relaxing in my room, watching BBC, and writing for the last half hour or so. Zac came back and wanted to go get something to eat in a bit, so I will probably walk around some more then. He walked up to Hyde Park this afternoon; something I definitely want to do tomorrow. We are doing a 3-hour sightseeing tour in the morning, which ends at the Tower of London. I think I want to walk down the Thames after that, see the Globe Theater and go to the Tate Museum of Modern Art (which is free, I think!). Then perhaps hop on the Tube and go up to Hyde park, Bloomsbury. I want to just walk around and explore and be a tourist, but my own tourist. This is a cool city, not obnoxious (at least not in this part), and I'm excited to see more of it.

I might take a nap now, to get over my jet-lag a bit and not be anti-social at the gathering.

Weary Memory.

2005-08-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

Listening to Illinoise. I can't stop listening to it. At first I resented all the mainstream recognition, but they're all right. It's incredible.

I leave for Prague tomorrow. Well, London, then Prague. At this time tomorrow night I will be on the plane there.

I've been having some insane memory-moments these past few days. For some reason, being here makes me think about being at my apartment in Squirrel Hill. Weird things have been triggering these insanely vivid memories, like visceral, tangible ones. They other day I put on this deodorant that I used last year, but hadn't used in LA, and I was instantly transported to taking a shower and putting on a tank top to get ready for a spring/summer Pittsburgh outing with Jut. And I used this conditioner in my hair that I hadn't used all summer and it was the same -- that feeling of getting ready for a night out, or in. . .just a good night, where I knew exactly what to expect and knew I would be completely happy and fulfilled. I could feel that.

I've been saying that I like being on-the-road for these months, to not have a place to lay my head. But it has been so nice being with Jut, and now being at home, living a normal life, not going 20 hours a day, having a bedroom and a bathroom and a kitchen that are mine to use. I know Prague is going to be different from this summer, which will be good, but I'm ready to be a real person again, with a normal existence. And I miss Jut. Like, more than I have, ever. I just keep thinking about things and thinking about life and I'm like, I want to do this -- to sruggle together and be poor flippin idiots in San Francisco, to have fun and be young and in love and not know what the next step is but not care. I want that like crazy. Which is crazy.

So, here I go. My next post will be from Europe.

T Minus 3 Days till Europe. . .

2005-08-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

Back at home for a few days. Beaches is on the Women's Entertainment Network. I think the girl playing the little Bette Midler is BLOSSOM!

My two weeks in the Southwest were amazing. I spent two great days with Brenna after my train rolled into Albuquerque -- we drank good micro-brews, made healthy dinners, ate at quirky restaurants, and smoked menthols on her front porch. I got to meet her boyfriend, Kevin, who was quite nice and welcoming, and see all the cafes Nob Hill has to offer. It was great to catch up with her, talk about our respective futures, jobs, men, and just be real. I definitely felt that I wasn't able to be real this summer, so it was a welcomed return to normalcy, to my comfort zone, to a great friend.

On Saturday morning, I had Enterprise pick me up at Brenna's and take me to get a car so I could drive to Glenwood and see Jut. The salesman was a top-notch asshole and flustered me into signing up for some insurance thing, promising he'd take off two days' worth of charges. I just wanted to get the heck out of there and on the road, so I signed the papers and hit I-25.

The drive to Glenwood was fantastic. Those first few days after YW I felt like everything I did was exactly what I needed at that very point. Spending time with KJ and the conversations we had were what I needed, hanging with Brenna was what I needed, and I definitely needed those 4 hours in the car by myself on the New Mexico backroads. I was only on the interstate for about 60 miles; the rest of the trip was all state routes. When I first saw the mountains on Rt. 180, I started crying -- it was a culminating moment of everything that had happened in the past 3 months, and everything that is going to happen in the next 3. It may be cliche, but it was a moment of "God made these amazing mountains, He takes care of this whole wilderness, how can I be so worried about my life, how can I not know that He's going to take care of things for me." And I hadn't really felt that all summer, so it helped me realize how much I needed just to enjoy those days in New Mexico and the coming months.

I rolled into the Ranger Station and Jut was walking to the dumpster outside his apartment -- I didn't even recognize him. I was like, who's that skinny, hairy kid over there? Oh, it's Jut!! It didn't take us long to get reacquainted, but I think we were both a little nervous about seeing each other -- 3 months is a long time to be away, and neither of us really knew what to expect of the other after the strange summer experiences we've had. But Jut made me dinner that night, we drank a bottle of wine and were quite back to normal.

I got to meet all the people Jut has been working with this summer, who seemed really cool. We went down to Silver City to go grocery shopping -- after I planned out what meals we wanted to make and made a detailed grocery list of their ingredients. The next day we went for a day hike on one of Jut's favorite trails, overlooking the Mogollons and getting my lungs accustomed to hiking at the altitude. We decided to go on a road trip Tuesday, originally destined for the Grand Canyon. We got as far as St Johns, Arizona, when a tire on the rental car blew. I just about flipped, having had enough of the rental car shite already. So we called Enterprise, who connected us with AAA, who were going to send someone out (in an hour) to check out the tire, because I thought rim was bent, and didn't know how to put on the doughnut. They happened to be doing road work on that portion of 180, and soon enough a few Arizona DOT workers came by and pulled over. They turned out to be really nice guys who changed the tire and pointed us toward an auto shop in St Johns to get a new one and continue our trip. So we went to some hickish car place and bought a used tire for $20; a 14-year-old kid put it on for us and even straighted out the hubcap, which was bent out of shape. We got back on the road and ended up in Flagstaff, where we drank beer, ate hamburgers, and walked around the cool old downtown there. We camped about 1,500 feet above the city at a secluded campground in the mountains, and went for a nice morning hike before heading back east.

Sometime during our driving we decided to abandon the idea of the Grand Canyon (mostly because my dad told us it cost $20 to get in, because of all the tourists at the South Rim and the extra 5 hours of driving to the North). So we opted for Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation; it took a day of driving on the Res to get there, which is worth it in and of itself. What a flipping depressed place. You forget that places so poor exist within this country. Seriously, by the time we got to the campground at the canyon we were both just drained from the intensity of it. But the Canyon is pretty cool -- like a mini Grand Canyon, but you can hike to the bottom, which has lots of green grass and trees and houses and sheep farms still used by Navajo people. The whole thing is run (supposedly) jointly by the National Park Service and the Navajo people, so it's a bit more cultural than the Grand Canyon.

We started driving back south after the Canyon to go to these natural hot springs Jut had been to in the Jemez Mountains. We got there and shared the hot pool with a bunch of middle-aged Albuquerque hippies, some of whom were nude, and all of whom were obnoxious. But we had a great view of the mountains and it was definitely something I'd never experienced before. The day was still young, so we headed down to Albuquerque and crashed in on Brenna; fortunately we had a 6-pack of Fat Tire to offer. We spent the next two nights there, right in the middle of the killing spree of a schizophrenic man who murdered 5 people, including 2 cops. It was good to be back in the city again, doing city stuff, cafe-hopping, sitting at bars. Albuquerque is a nice place to visit, and I really did like it, but I'm not sure I'd ever want to live there.

We left for Glenwood again on Saturday, just so we had plenty of time to relax and enjoy our last few days together. We cooked a lot and drank a lot of beer, went for a nice hike in the Whitewater Canyon where we hiked during spring break, saw a big old rattling rattlesnake on the trail. Jut took me to this awesome natural pool on the creek, where we stopped for lunch and sunned on these huge rocks. I was glad I got to go to Glenwood and see what his summer was really like. He didn't let on to me how difficult it was; I knew he was lonely, but didn't know how lonely. So we had lots of time to talk, to try to explain our summers to each other, even though we didn't really know what they were like ourselves. We talked about the future too, how it is possible that I might be in San Francisco in a few months, that I can stay with him until I get my feet on the ground, get a job, my own place. It is exciting to think about that -- about being in San Francisco, being with Jut, the fact that I won't be a college student after these next few months, that I will be an adult. Exciting and scary as hell, too.

I got back in the car and drove to Albuquerque, took the car back to Enterprise. Of course, they tried to charge me $500 for it. I tried to be very firm and bitchy, especially about the blown tire pain-in-the-butt, but I just started crying. I told them that this salesman flustered me into paying for the insurance, and told them the deal he pitched to me. They actually honored it and took off the two days, so that is to their credit, at least. I had them drop me off at a cafe on Central, where I sat and felt lost for a few hours. Brenna got off work and I went to her house; she cried with me a bit when I told her about saying goodbye to Jut. We ordered pizza and watched movies with Kevin, and I only had one bout of hysterical crying. Brenna and I had coffee the next morning and she took me to the airport. After a day of flying, I was back in Mom and Dad's car.

I'm still getting used to the thought that I won't see Jut until Christmas. Especially after spending such an amazing week with him, really being right back to where we were, having things go even better than I even expected. . .it's like, Oh, okay, see ya then. It was harder than I thought it would be to leave Glenwood -- quite emotional. But I feel incredibly good about us. Compared to the sort of in-between place we were at the beginning of this summer, not really know what was going to happen, I feel confident that our relationship will endure these next few months, and that we will be together. Although our lives are probably going to change more in the next few months than they did in the previous ones, at least we will still be in our normal roles of students -- despite new social situations and locales -- so there is that to count on. I feel like the bigger obstacle was getting through this summer, and we've done that. This fall will be hard, but I feel good about it. I'm excited to go to Prague and tell people my boyfriend is going to graduate school at Stanford. Hot.

Road Trip Map

2005-08-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

Road Trip Map
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

A map with our route plotted on it. The far-west destination is Flagstaff, the far-east is Albuquerque, far-north is Mexican Water, AZ, and southern-most is Silver City, NM. Gallup is the center around which we circumnavigated.

Jut deChelly

2005-08-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

Jut deChelly
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Justin at one stop on our Southwestern Road Trip, overlooking Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation in Northeastern Arizona.

Meg deChelly

2005-08-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

Meg deChelly
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Me on the trail down to the bottom of the canyon. It's like the Grand Canyon, but more indie. Mostly because you say "Chelly" like "Shay." And because you don't have to pay $20 to get in. And because it's on the Res and you can't have alcohol and a dirty hippie from New York has to inform you of that after you've already finished a 6-pack and started on a jug of wine.

Humping Hoppers

2005-08-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

Humping Hoppers
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

This is the strangest of the wildlife I saw in New Mexico -- a pair of psychedelic grasshoppers that happened to be mating along the Gold Rush Trail in Glenwood. (Other natural hilights of the week included a rattling rattlesnake right on the Whitewater Canyon Trail, a wild horse in the middle of NM-12, cockroaches in Brenna's kitchen, and a small-ish tarantula in Justin's apartment.)

Jut Whitewater

2005-08-24T20:09:00.000-07:00

Jut Whitewater
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Justin hiking on the Whitewater Canyon Trail in Glenwood.

Train Comin' Round the Bend. . .

2005-08-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

If I stayed on this train, I could go back to LA. No, thanks.

I slept most of the bus ride to Raton. It was a Greyhound that Amtrak uses as a shuttle to a train station, so now Jut can't make fun of me for never having ridden one. It wasn't very crowded and I had a whole two seats to myself, so I tried to figure out the 3 Mennonite couples that got on in Colorado Springs, listened to Sam Beam, enjoyed the scenery near the Colorado/New Mexico border, and slept. We took 25 the whole way to Raton, stopping at Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Raton was interesting -- a tiny peach-colored adobe building that was the train station. Apparently we lucked out and it was open, because it is closed 8 months of the year and you have to handle your own bags and just chill on the side of the tracks instead of on the 40-year-old chairs inside the lobby.

So now I'm on the upper level on the last passenger car, watching the brown grass and little shrubs go by. We were following the highway for a while, but now we're in the middle of nowhere. Either the telephone poles here are really short, or they just look so because I'm on the second story. There were some mountain-goat-ish looking animals a while back. (I don't have any idea what they really were; the mountain goat thing is wishful thinking.) I think we're stopping in Las Vegas, NM and Santa Fe before we arrive in Albuquerque.

Riding a train is so different than a plane. People actually want to engage in conversation -- the whole time we were waiting in Raton, I talked with an 85-year-old black lady from Denver who was going to Long Beach to visit her daughter; a 50-something lady from Denver who was going to San Bernardino to visit her daughter; and a 60-something retired nanny who was going home to Flagstaff. Now I'm sitting next to a lady who has her two daughters and they're going home to Riverside after spending time in Denver. The car is a lot different, too -- there is so much more leg room, body room, reclining room. It is quite nice. And the lounge car is awesome -- it has full length windows that go up over the top of the car, too, and there are little chairs and it's all light. It looks like a train from the movies. I think I would like to try to train more often.

I think I might go check out the dining car and see how overpriced it is. I've already eaten like 80 granola bars and it would be nice to get some real food.

Riding That Train, HIgh on Cocaine. . .

2005-08-11T04:36:00.000-07:00

I am at Union Station in Denver. It is 5:30 am, and I have been here for 45 minutes. My bus for Raton, NM, providing connecting service to Albuquerque via the Southwest Chief, leaves at 6:00. There is free wireless here, of course.

I had an interesting night at the Hostel. After I wrote, I went out to look for a light rail/bus schedule, and ran into Christian and Mark, two guys who had just gotten in. They were probably in their 40s, friendly, a little bit uncomfortably so. I got a new roommate, too, a Korean girl who turned on all the lights and banged around and pissed off Eileen. When she got there, she locked me out of the room by mistake, so I talked to Christian for awhile and he told me his life story -- everything from his fiancee dying in a car accident to being homeless in Guatemala and Phoenix to coming back to Denver after being attacked by a dog. He offered to walk with me this morning to the train station, but I told him he didn't need to, and I left before I told him I was going to so as to prevent the awkward early-morning company.

The lady at the Hostel said I could catch the light rail to 16th Street for $1.25, and then catch a free bus to Union Station from there, so I got up super early (not that I slept last night anyway) and started walking to the light rail station. But I wussed out after about 2 blocks -- I have a ton of crap with me and it's heavy!! -- and called a cab. So I got here for $6, almost an hour early.

Right now it is me and a bunch of old ladies. This must be the old lady train to New Mexico. I guess I didn't get the memo. So, it's an adventure. I hope I can sleep a bit on the bus so I'm not a huge pill when I get to Brenna's. The ticket window just opened, so I better go get hooked up.

Rocky Mountain High. . .

2005-08-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

I am at the Melbourne International Youth Hostel, reclining in my glorious bunk bed, sharing the lamplight with my 70-year-old roommate, Eileen. There is supposedly a kid from Boston signed in the book downstairs, but I haven't seen him. In fact, all I've seen is Eileen, and another old lady watching TV in the lounge. Eileen are the only people in this 6-bunk room, and I just took a nice shower and there is a cool, rainy breeze coming through the window by my bed. I haven't seen rain in two-and-a-half months, and it is fantastic. All for $14.75. Can't beat it. I was hoping there would be a convenience shop or a bar where I could get a beer, but it's sort of secluded. It's probably better if I just go to sleep.

I got up this morning and had coffee with KJ and Yendra, and then went to the office with KJ. We were planning to go to Estes Park to hang out and talk about his book, but we didn't have time because he had to go to a staff lunch meeting that he forgot about. So I tagged along and ate Sechuan Chicken on the Christ Community budget, and saw the inner-workings of a mega-church first hand. I don't think I could ever work at a church. It felt like I was in A Mighty Wind but with a church -- I couldn't take them seriously, talking about the "Tiny Tots" program and the "Kid's Connection" program and the "Mommy and Me" program. But hey, it takes all kinds, and if that's working for them, then great.

We ended up just going to a cafe in Greeley right by the UNC campus called Margie's, which reminded me a lot of the Beehive but less indie-fabulous. So we talked about the book, tentatively titled The Diner Effect and Dale even came by, because he's an accountant and he can work whenever he wants (or doesn't want). So while they talked through ideas, I typed them up as an outline, which I'm going to email to them so they can start writing. Yendra came for a bit too and we all just talked through ideas, dialogued about the three main ideas of the book: (1) grace as cheap vs. costly; (2) the concept of acquaintance vs. relationship; and (3) the church as the bride vs. the whore. It has just been so encouraging to talk with KJ and Yendra and Dale, to engage with them, intellectually, spiritually. I really didn't want to leave this evening. KJ and I had an awesome conversation in the car on the way here, too; he's been studying a lot of Judaism lately, really taking the New Testament in the context of the Old Testament, which is where the authors of the NT were coming from. He shed light on a lot of things for me -- from evolution to Revelation to communion to baptism -- all of which make so much sense when looked at through an Old Testament lens. If I do my b.Phil about Biblical decontextualization, I am totally moving to Greeley for the semester and using KJ as my outside advisor.

So, it has been an awesome few days in the greater Denver area. Spending so much time with cool, relevant, thinking Christians has been wonderful -- it has made me realize that I need people like that in my life, and I'm excited to find them when I finally decide a place to settle down in, at least for a few years. It was somewhat surreal to be hanging out with KJ, at his house, with his wife; but it's really cool how we can just pick up where we left off two years ago and be completely comfortable, have great conversation, smoke menthols. The relationships you form with strangers when you live with them 24/7 for 3 months doing one of the strangest jobs ever are good ones.

All The Gold in California. . .

2005-08-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

I am done. I made this official today by drinking a Red Hook draft at an airport bar, and smoking Marlboro menthols with KJ this evening.

Our closing retreat was surprisingly amazing. I didn't realize how much I had bonded with my Area, the San Diego and San Francisco staffs, how much fun we had together and how well we had gotten to know each other, despite the short amount of time we got to spend together. We had a blast hanging out the past few nights, going to dinner together Sunday night, staying up late playing Mao at the hotel, having an emotional processing time Monday afternoon, a great time of just us worshipping Monday night, staying up together and finally falling asleep at the church.

It was also surprisingly difficult to say goodbye today. I didn't feel all that invested in this whole thing this summer as it was happening, but as I realized that I might never see any of these amazing people again, all that has happened in the last two-and-a-half months hit me. Tyler and I saw Ricardo off at 4:00 this morning, praying together one last time, crying. I saw Tyler and Stephen off at 6:00, and then rode to the airport with Becky, Ross, Ben, Brandon, and Jessica. We went to the bar and celebrated, said our goodbyes, and Becky's mom and brother came to get us. They dropped me off at the Applebee's in Brighton, Colorado, where KJ was going to pick me up. I said goodbye to Becky and sat on a bench in front of the restaurant with all of my crap, watching them drive away and just crying, feeling more lonely than I've felt in a long time.

It's crazy to go from living in this type of community -- the support, accountability, love, encouragement, presence that is so constant. And even for all the times I may have wanted to get away from it, have time to myself, for people to just leave me alone -- it really is powerful to live like that, and when it is suddenly gone, it really hurts. I truly grew to love all those fools this summer, especially Becky, Tyler and Ricardo. Despite how we must have felt when we met each other, having nothing at all in common, wondering how in the world this summer was ever going to work out, God drew us together, and I'm walking away from this summer with a bunch of life-long, dependable friends.

I kind of hate the closing retreat because it makes me forget about all the crap we deal with during the summer and makes me love YouthWorks again. Honestly, last night I was listening to someone talk about a site in Wyoming and I was like, "Yeah, I could totally do this next summer and go to a rural or reservation site!" It's sort of absurd. I hope I have a real job by next summer so I don't have to fight about whether or not to come back.

So, I'm at KJ's now in Greeley -- he picked me up from Applebee's and we went to lunch with his friend, Dale, who has been working with him on the book he wants me to edit. We had good, stimulating conversation about the relevant church, youth missions, and mega-churches over pizza with artichokes and avocados and cream cheese and tomatoes. We went to KJ's church and he showed me some of the stuff he's been working on with his youth group. He's really doing an amazing job out here -- it was just refreshing and encouraging to see a youth pastor who cares about his kids, who wants to challenge them and engage them, who is helping them grow, after all the jerks we've seen this summer who don't seem to care. He also made me edit a letter his secretary wrote for him. With a red pen.

We hung out with his youth tonight at a Tuesday night "Cafe" hang-out thing they do. At first I was like, "If I have to engage with kids one more night I'm going to knife myself in the eye," but it was good. His kids are cool, and it was awesome to see a bit of their post-mission-trip processing, just to reinforce that they get something out of it. I also got to hang out with an adult leader from San Francisco two years ago and just catch up with her, which was great. The bonds I've made through YouthWorks never cease to amaze me.

It's been awesome to chill with KJ and Yendra at their house -- all of which are awesome. Yendra is really cool; I like her a lot. I had really no idea what to expect of her, but she's a really sweet girl and it was great to talk with her this evening. Their house is really cute -- they've done a ton of work on it and have made it into a home. Instead of a TV in their living room, they have a lilly pond/waterfall thing with fish in it. KJ said that not having a TV forces them to talk to each other and hang out together, even when they might not want to. They're working on their basement now, and I have it all to myself for my stay -- a room with a big double bed, a bathroom with my own shower. It's cool to see KJ and Yendra together -- I can hear them talking upstairs in bed, and it's really cute. I'm sure they have their share of troubles, as any young couple does, but they are cute together and it's just nice to be around them.

I'm going to turn in early, being as I slept about 3 hours last night. KJ is taking the day off tomorrow and we're going to Estes Park to hang out at cafes and talk about his book, and then I'm finding some way back to the city to my hostel. Train-ing out bright and early Thursday morning to Albuquerque!

"California's Been Good to Me; Hope it Don't Fall into the Sea. . ."

2005-08-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm writing from the road -- I-70 West in Utah. I made a sweet On-the-Go playlist for Tracy, Becky, Stephen and I to listen to -- one thing I hadn't realized I'd missed so much this summer is music. It has been amazing to just listen to good music while driving. There's pretty much nothing like it. Utah is still gorgeous -- amazing rock formations, puffy white clouds, open road. I hope my drive from Albuquerque to Glenwood is as nice.

So, this summer is almost over. We had a great last week. 38 kids -- 6 from Denver, 13 from outside Minneapolis, and the rest from Medford, Oregon. All the Oregon groups we've had this summer have been really awesome -- just good people, unique personalities, kind of hippies. Two of the adult leaders brewed fresh French press coffee every morning, and always saved a cup for me, so that was nice. I'm looking forward to drinking coffee other than the Costco blend, too. The group from Minnesota was probably my favorite church group of the whole summer -- they totally redeemed the real jerkfaced Minnesotans we had earlier in the summer. They were just a really great group of kids; their youth pastor was hilarious and always doing crazy stuff with them.

I really connected with a girl named Samira, and we stayed up late talking pretty much every night. It was really the only meaningful interaction I had with a student, one-on-one, the whole summer. She was sixteen, struggling with many of the things 16-year-olds struggle with, but she thought about them more than most 16-year-olds do. She wasn't a Christian (her dad was Muslim and her mom didn't really believe anything) and she was just full of questions -- from "Do you believe in evolution?" to "How do you know there is a God?" to "How do you know when God is telling you something?" to "Do you think gay people go to hell?" to "Do you believe there is a hell?" I could go on. The highlight was when I used GORP to explain the trinity to her when she asked about that. She told me on Wednesday night how she just wanted to feel God, she just wanted to cry, to be overcome with emotion and know that God was there. On Thursday, I prayed that God would just move, that He would just make Himself so evident to her that she couldn't possibly miss it. So after footwashing, she says she wants to talk, and fires the questions away again -- "How do you know when is the right time to accept Christ?" -- and I realized that God was going to use me to move for her, that I was going to answer my own prayer. So, it was cool to be a part of that, and I enjoyed talking with her a lot.

Friday and Saturday were a bit stressful, trying to pack up, say goodbye to everyone, get my travel plans in order for the next few weeks. But we got on the road about noon yesterday, and drove to Richfield, Utah, to spend the night at the Luxury Inn. We will get to Denver today -- our goal is to average 75 mph. We'll stay with our Region at a nice hotel downtown tonight, and then wrap everything up at the retreat tomorrow.

Yesterday, I booked my plane ticket home from Albuquerque and reserved a rental car for Jut and I to drive around the Southwest. I'm pretty much psyched out of my mind to get down there. This summer has been really good for Jut and I; although there have been frustrations with being so out of communication, so out of context with our relationship, I feel 100% positive about it. Being away from him, meeting so many new people, has really made me realize how much I love him, how good our relationship is, how much better he is than anyone else I know or have ever known. So it will be amazing to see him, hang out for a bunch of days, listen to good music, cook good food together, hike around, drive around -- do all the things we both like to do so much, and be with each other.

The question of this road trip has been, "So, will you do this again?" My first instinct is a resounding NO. Although this summer has been really great -- I've grown a lot, have made a lot of great life-long friends, and gotten an amazing working knowledge of the strangest city I've ever encountered -- there have been a lot of things about YouthWorks (short-term, urban youth missions in general) that I have really disagreed with. I guess it comes down to one of those situations where you have to see if the good things outweigh the bad, and I'm not sure that they do. This summer was frustrating, mostly dealing with YouthWorks chain-of-command issues, having people come to our site and try to tell us how to do things when we'd been doing them well for weeks. I also felt like YouthWorks has grown a lot in the past 2 years, and they have become more about following a schedule, doing things the way they "should" be done, instead of being flexible, caring about people, meeting their needs. It was the little details, the picky-ness, the specifics that I didn't agree with this summer.

I was also conflicted about the kids coming out for a week and leaving feeling like they had made "such a difference" -- this was a summer-long struggle for me, but really sunk in this week. In reality, they didn't make a difference at all -- if they didn't do the work they did, someone else would have done it, and for many of our ministry sites, I felt like they had to scramble and scrounge up work for our volunteers to do, and we were more of a pain than a blessing. When a youth groups goes to a "mission trip" to a place like LA, it is more for their own benefit than the community's, and I felt like no one was honest about that. The real reason kids go to the places they went in LA was so their eyes might be opened to another way of life that they had never seen, to be shocked and awed, to be disgusted that people like this way, while they enjoy such abundance, to inspire them so that once they have the means, they might be able to do something to make a difference. But instead, they come away feeling good about themselves, like they've helped so many people. That is not the point.

This is the 7th consecutive summer that YouthWorks has been an integral part of for me -- that's a long time. I complain about youth groups that have been on too many YouthWorks trips, because they have expectations of how things should or shouldn't be. But I'm beginning to wonder if I am falling into that category -- if I have taken too many YouthWorks trips and it's time for me to go. Nadine has talked to me about being a Site Director next summer, and if I happened to be living in San Francisco by next year that could be really cool -- but I think I'd probably only consider working with them again if I didn't have a job by next summer. I think with another year of real-world experience, a YouthWorks summer might be pretty close to unbearable.

It will be nice to get this over and start thinking about Prague. I am getting excited for it -- for the complete difference between that and YouthWorks, for the new city to explore, for the people to meet, and for the amazing Czech beer to drink.

I think I'm going to read to try to nap or just enjoy looking out the window. 300 miles from Denver. . .

Bicky & Meg - Toothbrushing

2005-08-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

Bicky & Meg - Toothbrushing
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

My dream every day is for Bicky to brush her teeth with me before bed, and this is the first time she actually did. Oh, Bicky.

Live from Hollywood. . .

2005-07-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

Haven't been here in a while. I hate it. I always forget that until I'm here, and then I'm like, "Why the heck am I in Hollywood?" It's pretty much the loneliest place ever, I think.

We just finished Week 7 -- a really good one, following in the vein of other odd weeks, 3 and 5. We had a big group of like 30 from boone-town Wisconsin; a group of 9 from Logan, Utah; and 5 guys from inner-city Minneapolis who work for YE, the organization that screen-prints all our Youthworks t-shirts. They were a cool bunch, very into serving, very into processing what they saw, trying to put into context. It felt like the majority of them got it, were changed somehow by their experiences, which is fantastic. The Utah group was very interesting -- they were a conglomeration of all the churches in their little town, very much a population in the minority with all the LDS churches there. I learned a lot about the LDS church, as one of their youth was about ready to sign up; we talked a lot, my eyes were really opened to that. It isn't all that different from conservative Christianity, but is growing faster -- which is the most scary part. The kids were all children of university professors -- little pseudo-hippie intellectuals, into recycling and being vegetarians and long hair and reading the NYT. They got mad when I quoted Napoleon because they said their lives were actually like that and they found the movie offensive. I loved them.

Mom and Dad were here last weekend, and that was pretty much glorious. We spent a lot of time just driving around, "seeing" LA, because that's pretty much all there is to do here. There aren't really attractions, just places to go so you can say you went there. We drove through Hollywood, Beverly HIlls, Bel Air, Burbank, etc. It was just so nice to spend time with them, and be happy doing dumb things -- it was fun to relax and do things that we enjoy doing, because we enjoy doing the same things. That is very much something I've realized I have been taking advantage of for the past few years.

We went to dinner in Chinatown tonight with Randy, the pastor of our church, and his 6-year-old son, Lucas. It was a blast. We spend an inordinate amount of YW! hospitality budget on "slippery shrimp," green beans and asparagus, chicken with snow peas, mixed vegetables and pork dumplings. Lucas was incredibly entertaining -- a smart little guy -- and it was nice to spend some time with Randy and hear about all the cool stuff he's done. We went on a little driving tour of Echo Park and SIlverlake after dinner -- Randy took us up (and down) the two steepest streets in LA and showed us their cute 3-story condo that has an amazing view of Downtown. It was the first time in a while that I actually felt affection for this city -- I was like, "Yeah, I could live here someday, get a cute little condo with my husband and awesome kid." It made me homesick to be in a neighborhood with someone who knew all its little quirks, to drive down residential streets and see people on porches and sidewalks, to think of a home. I think I'm ready for my next thing -- LA is winding down, I'm getting excited for Prague, and then for my adult life to begin.

I'm getting my post-YW plans in order. I talked to KJ today, and I'm going to hang out with him after my retreat is over next Tuesday. Then I'm going to go to a hostel near the train station in Denver Wednesday night, most likely the lovely Melbourne Hotel & Hostel , so I can catch a $52 train to Albuquerque at 6:00 Thursday morning. Then I'll spend a few days with Brenna, get a rental car, and drive to Glenwood probably Saturday to greet Jut when he gets out of the woods! I think I'll fly out sometime the next week, I haven't decided exactly when. So, I'm excited about that.

We're going to hang out with our Silverlake friends tomorrow to say goodbye, then probably start packing up what we can, doing paperwork, etc. on Sunday -- so it will be a busy but good weekend. We're trying to arrange a stop at the Grand Canyon on the way back to Denver, so the sooner we can leave next week, the better. So now, this God-forsaken cafe is about to close, I'm getting up at 6:00 tomorrow to run to the top of Mt. Hollywood in an attempt to burn off some of the YW! pudge, and it's time to go.

Area Retreat - Area 19

2005-07-22T17:24:00.000-07:00

AreaRetreat-Area19
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Our area after a day at Huntington Beach. (Including Tammy, the Week 5 replacement Site Director in San Francisco!! Oh dear.)