A woman - and her child - wait - for a bus...

*For new people to the list, my blog site is having some technical
difficulties.. or rather, I am... so bare with me and just enjoy this
past week... I'll have the old posts up again soon!*

MISS YOU ALL AND SEND ME NEWS FROM HOME!

And now...

Sunday was my Rest and Relaxation Day, Rachel and I woke up and went
for a run around the Old City. And I guess people don?t run outside in
below freezing weather because we were getting stares everywhere we
went. We crossed the Charles Bridge, BIG MISTAKE, it was like the
Cooper River Bridge Run for anybody who?s ever done that. More like a
video game trying to find the right path and avoid the hazards (also
known as tourists). After about an hour, the cold air was burning my
lungs and my knee felt a tad bit arthritic, so we headed back to the
house. Michelle and I cleaned ? sounds kind of lackluster, but
definitely a much needed respite! I did some Skyping with family and
friends, downloaded MSN to talk to my amigos en España, and after
dinner went to bed. I needed my beauty sleep before the first day of
class!

Marta, our Czech teacher, walked into the room began spewing out a
whole mess of Czech: ?Dobrý den, Jak se máte? Jak se jmenujete? Odkud
jste? Co d?láte? Líbí se ti v Praze?? And then told us that Czech
isn?t that hard to learn. Yeah, right. But actually, there are only
three tenses in Czech ? as she said, yesterday, today and tomorrow ? so
that?s great, and once you learn the changes to the words (you decline
and conjugate every noun, verb and adjective in the sentence) and learn
the vocabulary it should be fine. I can say that I?m a vegetarian and
I don?t eat meat ? Jsem vegetariánska. Nejím maso ? and that it is
unfortunate that I do not speak Czech ? Bohu?el nemluvím ?esky. It?s
so much fun to learn and just to see if you can sound somewhat
proficient. After class, we headed to lunch at a sit down restaurant,
which I will never do again. Antoniya and I sat down, deciding to only
talk in Czech, even if we butcher it. ?Dobrý den. Jak se jmenujete?
Dám si pasta mediterranea. Prosím. T??í mé.? His name was Honza. I
ordered Mediterranean pasta. I got Mediterranean pasta ? without the
pasta. But he was too adorable to say anything, and I had already
decided to only use Czech. Maybe when it?s a little better I?ll get
pasta with my Mediterranean!

That night we headed to the Czech Inn to hang out with the Euromasters
for Trivia Night. I was on Philip, Jack and Yann?s team. The first
two sections went pretty well ? Name the famous monster from a movie,
Identify the international codes on the back of European cars ? and
then we got to Current Events (you?d think that Political Science
Masters students would get that, but how was I supposed to know how
long Boy George?s prison sentence was for handcuffing his callboy to
the bed?) and finally, Name that Tune. We got ZERO! A little after
that, Jess, Kevin and I made our way home. I can?t get too crazy ALL
THE TIME!

The next morning, I woke up around 9:05 with class beginning at 9:30.
We ran to Just?s class, just a little late, and suffered through a
class centered on the question, ?What do YOU know about Czech
politics?? Now, this question would have been easier if we could have
talked about the new Czech Presidency for the EU? but NO!!! We had to
only talk about Czech politics and not how it fits in with the EU. So,
the class was like trying to pull teeth. Before the next class, the
some of us went to Hard Rock Café Praha to try and get a job there. We
met McGee, who works there a couple days a week to stay legal, and
found out that we needed a work permit to work in the Czech Republic.
I guess that makes sense. But we tried to talk the manager out of it,
especially since Czech signed a deal with US saying we no longer need
visas between our two countries. No dice. But McGee said he had some
under the table work for us. Check this out! Ghost tour-pub crawl
tour guides!!! We get to dress up in that scary ghost makeup stuff,
tell ghost stories about Prague (and oh yes! I already bought a Prague
Ghost Story book to read before bed) and then take the group out to the
bars. It?s only a couple days a week and we meet with him tomorrow to
see if that?ll work out. Then Jess and I went to Amnesty International
to see about an internship. The girl we met, Leona, said there were no
opportunities and when we turned to walk out in disappointment, after
thanking her of course, she told us to wait. She needed help with
correcting translations into English that her Czech translators had
done. We were to start on Wednesday!

The next class with Ivo was actually really interesting, my favorite!
People were actually participating even though we were learning new
things. He was really good at directing us in the right direction. On
an aside, I?ve never been a fan of French accents? they just don?t do
it for me. But we have a French guy in our class, Yann, who really
isn?t my type, and for some reason, when he talked, I just melted!
Please say ANYTHING to me? please! Hahaha, we hang out with Yann and
his roommates all the time, so I guess I?ll get my chance to hear him
talk again? if I?m lucky ? Speaking of hanging with the Euromasters,
we headed back to Czech Inn to watch the Presidential Inauguration of
Barack Obama. Don?t judge him, he couldn?t hear the guy as he was
being sworn in! There were several tables of Americans and everybody
was cheering and applauding! Even the foreigners at the bar were
excited! The only bad part of the whole thing was the American poet at
the end. Really America? Come on! ?A woman *pause* and her son
*pause* wait *pause* for a bus?? - ?They picked cotton *pause* and
*pause* lettuce in *pause* the fields?. You get the drift. The great
sentiment of pride in our nation was replaced by snickering. The
foreigners once again had that smug look ? stupid Americans! And we
turned out heads away from the TV and back to our beer. We hung out
for a couple more hours with some of the Euromasters and then headed
home.

Wednesday was pretty relaxing too. We woke up late ? again! ?but
Michelle and I made it to class with seconds to spare. It was our only
class all day, from 9:30 to 11:00, but afterwards Jess and I headed to
Amnesty to start our work. Leona handed us a stack of 30 translations
to correct. I was planning on doing a little revision here, a
grammatical correction there, checking it off and reading the next.
But we had to give them an actual grade, 1-5, and mark our revisions as
G (grammatical error), S (stylistic problem), M (unclear meaning). The
first article alone took 35 minutes for 3 paragraphs! We worked for
about 2,5 hours and by that time my brain was fried! We took the
corrections to her and told her we?d be back the next day. Leona said
we had done a great job and asked us to go over the grades we had given
to the translators. It turns out she has 150 translators on staff and
once we are done, based on our grades, 75 of them will be FIRED! Talk
about a lot of pressure!

On Thursday, Jess and I had to go back to Amnesty. I was planning on
having a productive morning ? you know, gym, shower, catching up on
emails ? but I finally got through to Tyler. Talk about a small world?
a guy I met for a couple of days two years ago who lives in Hawaii and
one of my friends from high school who has never even met him ran into
him one day on vacation, they actually talked, made the connection? and
it was too random to not give him a call. It was very exciting on my
part? and so I blew working out off ? again.

I headed to Amnesty to do a little work before class and after class we
decided to walk towards Prague Castle and find some food. The open air
market was a bust and so we ended up settling on a little café and
finished with just enough time to make it to our meeting with Ty McGee.

To put this in perspective, earlier in the day Jess had been a little
paranoid and said that she hadn?t gotten a great vibe from McGee when
we met him and that she expected him to take us to one of those hole in
the wall bars where you have to go below ground (actually not that
atypical in Prague) where the only other people in there besides us
would be the employees and the smell of stale beer, cigarette and
marijuana smoke would dominate. But we had Kevin with us ? all 6 ft. 5
in. of him ? so with no fear we went to meet McGee. And he took us to
this off the main square bar. And we descended a couple of floors
down. Nobody but a few of the guys who worked there. And the smell of
horticulture filled the space. But rather than robbing us like Jess
had predicted, McGee bought us a beer and asked us about ourselves.
But to be honest, he still didn?t convince me that he was someone I
could trust.

We ended up going on a ghost tour with him and his stories came
straight out of a book. How do I know? I bought that book at the
Museum of Communism when I was there last week. So good! I read three
or four legends every night before I go to bed. It was freezing by the
time he finished and all I wanted to do was go home and curl up in my
bed, but the girls had other plans and we ended up heading over to
Ricarda, Toby and Laura?s flat on Londynská St for some pregaming. As
I was still recovering from my December and early January excesses, I
didn?t participate and so deprived of my liquid courage, we all headed
to a Hip Hop Club around the corner. For all of you guys who know my
awesome dance moves? the crowd was not disappointed. I jumped and
hopped around, I bet people even thought I choreographed my dancing!
Ha, just kidding? Philip came up to me and was like, ?Sarah, you know
you actually need to touch people when you dance with them? and jumping
is not a dance move, right?? To which I kindly replied, ?I don?t like
dancing with people much? I rather prefer my own company. It?s too
painful to make other people participate.? But we tried to dance?
together? me being 5ft 2in and him being 6ft 7in definitely presented a
challenge, but it kinda worked. After about 3 hours my knee was
killing me, so I went to sit down on the couches. Andy was there, so
we shot the breeze for a while and then he came at me with, ?So, Sarah,
how do you plan on changing the world?? I laughed nervously and said,
?I dunno, I guess I?ll try and live a good life and hope that my life
has a positive impact on somebody else?? Pretty deep, I thought?
until he told me that he was serious? what plans did I have to make the
world a better place? I knew he was just waiting for me to ask him to
tell me HIS plans, but to be honest? I didn?t care. So I just told him
that 4:00 in the morning at a dance club where he was high and drunk
was definitely NOT the place for this conversation and I would much
rather just sit back and watch people stumble around while I waited for
my knee to feel better. So he got up and moved to the other side of
our table.

I leaned back and closed my eyes, taking in a deep breath while I
relaxed for probably the first time in 5 hours. Then I heard Philip.
?What fascinates you, Sarah?? Umm? it doesn?t take much? traveling?
Romantic comedies? Books? Robert Pattinson?

?No, Sarah? I know you are much deeper than that? what fascinates you?
What is something that interests you?? Ok, fine?. I like to watch how
people act with their parents? you can almost always tell what kind of
person they are by how they interact with their parents.

Our deep and meaningful conversation was interrupted by Andy, ?Ok
Sarah, you can have a serious conversation with Philip, but not with
me? That is so typical. It always happens like that. *Explicative*!?
I looked at him and told him to grow up and stop being pathetic? if
that?s what he really thinks, don?t whine about it, because now I
DEFINITELY don?t want to talk? and I hobbled off to the dance floor to
impress the masses with my one legged Karate Kid Crane dance moves ? my
knee hadn?t had time to feel better.

Around 5:30 we decided to head back home. We crashed at Ricarda?s and
it was wonderful. A room with windows that actually have shutters,
rather than the windows I have that basically welcome the sun as soon
as it breaks the horizon.

We got home in time to clean up, eat, shower, and invite over the
Euromasters for my first legit Absinth night. Sugar cubes and
everything. Way over rated. It was disgusting? each sip had my face
contorted in horrible ways that I don?t want anybody to ever see again
? oh wait? pictures were taken? but I WILL find a way to delete them
before they make their way to facebook!

Then we headed to this other bar, not quite sure what it?s called? that
was playing ?Dub? music ? according to my French friend ? or
?Industrial? music ? as described by my American friend. Either way,
it was pretty amazing. Apparently Dub music began in London in the
Rastafarian community when they tried to make reggae more club
appropriate ? and so they added the electronica bits. It was actually
very awesome, just way too many people crammed into such a small space.
The room was really dark and there were metal doodads hanging from
the ceiling and from the walls. It looked like in the Matrix when
those metal pod things were trying to break into the ship. Like
metallic insects the size of microwaves crawling along the wall.
Pretty freaky?. So I went upstairs to talk to everybody who was still
at the table. I had a great time, I talked to people I hadn?t really
talked with much before from the program and even people that I talk to
pretty regularly, we had our own conversations. I completely lost
track of time and for the first time since I got here, I wasn?t the one
saying we should go? or at least agreeing that home was a better
alternative than staying at the club. But since I had NO clue where I
was in Prague (I think there are 10 Prague neighborhoods ? I live in
Prague 1 and I have friends in Prague 8, 2, 10 and 6 although I have no
concept of where those actually are yet) ? I headed home with the
roommates. Tomorrow I think will be a low key night.