February 2012
11 posts
Because of the six hour time difference between Prague and the American East Coast, it was very difficult for me to get into contact with anyone state-side. International calls were expensive, and connections were spotty. I didn’t have wifi in my flat, and even the cafes that offered it closed by 9 or 10pm each night. If I wanted to talk to anyone, it had to be past 11pm, when it was 5pm...
Occasionally, we went out at night. We sat in cafes, got together and watched popular American television Nate had downloaded onto his computer, drink wine in dimly-lit bars or dine on fine foods in new restaurants we’d discovered. Renata only had a cable modem, which was connected via USB cable to her own crappy Czech-brand laptop. In order to connect it to mine, I had to disconnect the...
In the evenings, we were usually left to our own devices. Occasionally there were class events, such as concerts, films, gallery openings, and theatrical programs, but many times, our nights were free. It got dark in Prague early, and many times people just went home. Renata made dinner while I entertained Benji, did my homework, or both. Sometimes, he would help me with my Czech homework -...
Some days, we held informal class sessions at significant places around the city. Viewing spy photographs at the archives of the Institute for Totalitarian Regimes. Admiring abstract art at the Museum Kampa. Literary discourse in the back room of a local cafe. Roma debate in the living room of a social activist. Interacting with Czech instruments at the Rock ‘n Roll Museum. Snapping...
Class started at ten o’clock, thank God. It was nice to be able to wake up late, take my time getting to class and settle in with a cup of mint tea before our lectures began. We had Czech lessons three times a week, for three hours every day. Our lecturers changed from day to day - some days, we had acclaimed art historians. Others, we had famous Czech film directors. We talked to...
Our school had three levels of rooms for us to utilize and explore. It would have made a fantastic loft apartment if purchased by the right people. The first floor had a kitchen, with a stove and oven, a table, cabinets with plates and silverware, and a full-sized American refrigerator. Across the hallway from that was a smaller school room that we didn’t really use that much. It made...
You had to pass Cafe Alchymista in order to find the school. Sarah took us there our first day, introduced it as “Prague’s only coffee museum.” She told us to order whatever we wanted. It was one of the perks of SIT - meals and amenities were taken care of. We rarely ever spent anything out of pocket. The place had rustic charm, akin to that of a scientist’s workshop...
12 tags
Sparta. The summer before I moved to Prague, the film 300 came out, with its catchphrase of “THIS. IS. SPARTA!” You couldn’t help but ruminate over the statement as the mechanical, automated female voice announced the tram’s arrival as the last stop. A huge soccer ball marked the entrance to the football stadium, where Prague’s home team played to the delight of...
11 tags
A majority of the time, I took the Red line to Vltavská, where I caught the tram onwards. Vltavská was a model of Communist working-class architecture - modern (well, as modern as 1970s architecture can get) and streamlined. A man stood at its entrance selling fruits and vegetables; I’d pick up a pale yellow Chinese apple, or a waxy persimmon, or a bag of grapes, every so often. He was...
16 tags
I lived ridiculously close to the metro station. Around the corner, down the block, past the train tracks, through the tunnel, and I was there. The Prague metro is fantastic - it is clean, efficient, and its routes are not complicated with Express and local stops, myriads of colored, lettered and numbered lines, and inconvenient transfer points. The cars were roomy and spacious - I almost...
16 tags
Mánesova itself was a sleepy block, with a pub across the street and a cafe on the corner. To get to the metro however, I had to walk around the other way. An eclectic row of shops occupied Španělská - a cello manufacturer, a travel agency specializing in Finnish tourism, a small coffeshop/sandwich type place, and a herna (casino), strongly lit with neon light. Crossing the street, I came to a...
January 2012
20 posts
10 tags
Once I was up, my mornings were quiet and fair. I’d dress, put my makeup on, gather my school bag together. Occasionally, I’d have some breakfast - a slice of bread with butter and jam, a yogurt, some cheese or a few grapes. I’ve never been good at eating right after I wake up, it makes me sick. Sometimes I’d make a mug of tea, but only if I had some time to spare. ...
9 tags
My cellphone was my set alarm clock, but Benji was like a rooster on a farm. I usually got 8 hours of sleep - we never typically stayed out past 9pm - but it always felt like less. He’d wake up at 7am, have his breakfast, get ready for school, and watch some cartoons. Always the same ones, always loud, high-pitched, Czech characters talking about the day. Benji never stopped talking. I...
She was giving a lecture on fashion of the Rennaissance. Based on the painting presented on the screen, she described the clothing and what it meant. It was a court scene, set in Venice, with men bowing down to two women sitting in high-backed chairs. She described their clothing materials, why the style was popular at the time, what the artist was trying to convey…
“But there is...
“You have an entrepreneurial spirit, I know you’ll go far,” she had said to me once over a lunch meeting we’d had at the Cooper Hewitt. She was the only one who believed in me. I remember admiring her from before I’d applied to FIT - I’d seen her name listed in relevant fashion culture and history publications, read about her accomplishments. I remember...
Some days, I didn’t eat. I couldn’t. There was too much work to be done. Cutting and constructing boxes. Setting up microscopes to look at fiber samples. Gingerly turning the pages of a copy of Vogue from 1942. Making hat mounts. The others had the advantage of living in the city, they could come and go on campus as they pleased. But me, I was at the mercy of the Long Island...
21 tags
The assignment was to make a padded hanger. Valerie demonstrated the concept with ease, wrapping and sewing and stuffing with a finesse that made conservation look like child’s play. “Sew the stockinette closed using a blind stitch.” She lackadaisically showed me an example of the sewing technique, but she did not stick around to see if I understood it. I, being a...
15 tags
We sat in a cold room, on hard, metal stools surrounding an over-sized filing cabinet filled with God only knew what. A padded surface covered the top. That’s where the garments were laid. It was like an operating room, and we were medical apprentices, watching this dress, lying dead on the operating table for us to judge and awe at. We weren’t allowed to touch them. Us, the...
18 tags
I trapped myself in the library at FIT until it closed, speed reading through dusty books, searching for paragraphs and quotations relevant to my research topics. I’d spend hours at the scanning center - they only had a handful of scanners for over 10,000 students - desperately trying to align chosen photos and save large formatted items to my flash drive. I remember the smell of the place...
10 tags
Long Island is an enigma to those who have never set foot there.
“Oh, you’re from Long Island? Damn, that’s far!” said with an air of pity and disgust almost.
“Doesn’t it take you an hour to get from your apartment to your job in Midtown?” I retort.
“Yeah, but I live in Brooklyn, it’s a lot closer.”
“That’s...
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New York City is a wonderful place for the young, but as we grow older, we seek an escape. There is the excitement of what the city has to offer, and there is the content of pulling into your driveway for a quiet night at home. I can scour the rigid grid for $1.50 cans of PBR or I can cruise through the wineries of the East End, car windows rolled down and fresh air brushing my face. ...
16 tags
It could have been a potential lifestyle, but since living and working on Long Island I have discovered the secrets of my own neighborhood. How serene the canals of Freeport become in the afternoon, when cranes come by the dock searching for lunch, and minows jump and flap in murky brown roundels. The old architecture of South Shore homes, with their wrap-around porches, and curved towers...
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I pictured myself in Inwood, a quiet neighborhood surrounded by parks and families at the northernmost tip of Manhattan. I’d have a sunny one-bedroom apartment, with original Art Deco molding, cluttered with second-hand furniture I’d scavenged off Craigslist and remodeled Shabby-Chic. My living room would be painted Peacock Blue and trimmed with Canary Yellow. It would overlook ...
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Living around the world made me appreciate New York for what it was. I’d grown up with things I’d taken for granted before; to make amends with the City that Never Slept, I thought I’d struggle with the rest of the nation to live the American dream, to live there. Not to Brooklyn, where it was cool to live because you weren’t living in Manhattan but you were still...
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In the past, I never thought I’d move to Manhattan. New York City was dirty. It smelled. People were rude and looking out for themselves. They spent too much time trying to re-create a persona they’d seen on television, in the movies or read about in books. Manhattan was a place filled with Woody Allen, Carrie Bradshaw, Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol wanna-be’s. You could...
9 tags
Billy Elliot the Musical was not located in London’s famous West End. It was closer to Victoria Station, in a theater of its own. The over-sized marquee sparkled in the winter evening’s artificial light. I bought one ticket, for myself. I wasn’t going to the theater with anyone else. I preferred it that way. My seat was in the first mezzanine, in the center, but it was...
14 tags
My hotel room in London was cozy and perfect. It overlooked the street. I love street views, I like to see people walking about, and hear traffic making songs. There was a small television, a desk and mirror, a twin bed and a bathroom. Perfection at its peak. I wanted authentic Indian Food, now that I was a fan of it. Unfortunately, there were not many Indian take-out places, and it was...
16 tags
Leicester Square, as touristy as it was, excited me. Seeing a show in London’s West End was such a treat for me. I loved seeing theater that the United States did not have on Broadway or, better yet, would never get for some reason or other (like Blood Brothers, or We Will Rock You). That day, I wanted to see Billy Elliot, acclaimed in London and unheard of in New York City. Tickets were...
15 tags
I got lost walking around Russell Square searching for the hotel. My suitcase dragged behind me as I walked back and forth, looking for the right street, searching for an answer. I was tempted to hail a cab just to make things easier. Finally, I found it; the lobby was down a flight of metal stairs. I dragged my suitcase down it. There was a window, and the person sitting at the front desk...
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I didn’t want to take the larger suitcase but my mother had insisted that I take it. Larger suitcases only cause trouble and make you bring more things. My suitcase was packed to the brim. Being on a budget, and wishing to explore more of the London Tube system I loved so much, I opted to take the metro from Heathrow airport to my hotel in Russel Square. From the car’s exit, there...
15 tags
My host mother would buy leeks. She used them in everything - soups, stews, salads…She would come home with a bag of groceries and they would be sticking out at the top, bright yellow-green and white at the bottom, not leafy at all, waxy in texture. Leeks last forever. I remember I liked them so much because I didn’t like onions, but these sort of had a flavor like onions, but they...
December 2011
25 posts
12 tags
We were first introduced to Most Legií while riding the number 22 tram from Náměstí Míru to Královský letohrádek, where we’d walk a bit and take the X1 bus down to Sparta. Most Legií was our connection between the two sides of Prague, when the crowds at Charles Bridge seemed disastrously thick. Dubbed “our bridge” by my classmates, Most Legií holds a special place in my...
12 tags
It was exciting, we searched on the map for our names, to see what district we would become a part of for the next few months. We were scattered everywhere - Prague 6, Prague 1, Prague 10, Prague 5, even some suburbs only reachable by bus or train. I was placed in Prague 2, on the border of Prague 3, minutes from the Muzeum metro station, just around the corner from Wenceslas Square. I was ...
11 tags
Jan brought us to a part of Prague, off of Wenceslas Square, where there was a quiet, sunny garden. This part of Prague used to be a monastery, he told us, and this is where the monks would come and meditate or garden. Kitschy kiosks dotted the expanse of the place, but it really was something nice to see considering the hustle and bustle Wenceslas Square gave off. There was a gelato stand...
Security measures were tight in London, even five years after September 11th. Every national monument or museum or cafe affiliated with the government had some sort of security guard or metal detector waiting for its guests. There was a lot of frisking. Supposed to be random selections, but it was never random with me. I had black hair. I had dark, tanned skin. I had almond-shaped eyes. ...
12 tags
Innsbruck was a place where it was too cold to do anything but pop in and out of shops. I had speck for the very first time in my life - delicious, smoky, tender and a deep pinkish-red. Just a few pieces, from a shop that sold blood red sausages hanging from the windows, salamis and other cured meats behind a dimly-lit counter case. We searched for strudel amongst the bakeries, desiring that...
12 tags
Everyone else went into the back room, but I stayed and talked to the cashier. I figured, he’d be less likely to rip me off if I started a rapport. I wasn’t sure how much weed cost in Amsterdam; this was the first place we went, and it didn’t exactly look legitimate. But who knows? Maybe that’s how they all are over here. The cashier told us that we had to buy a drink...
We sat around a table that the hotel had put aside for us. I am pretty sure we had the place to ourselves; who else would stay at a mountain lodge in the Northwest of the Czech Republic, during the week, during a snow storm? The table was prepared with all kinds of traditional Czech Christmas dishes: fried, bone-in carp, seasoned potato salad, pork cutlets with purple saurkraut and bread...
15 tags
“There is a pub, and it is like a lodge, and there is this man who plays piano and he is fucking awesome.”
Sylvain was a member of the surprisingly large French community of Zilina. He was living the life; imported from France, working for a bank, beautiful apartment in the center of town, could afford a car and bottles of wine every day. He told me once that he was gay, but it...
12 tags
In Rome we celebrated our bus driver’s birthday at a pub down the street. By “down the street” I really mean a good twenty-minute walk down a steep suburban hill. This wasn’t Rome, but it was, the pub could have been in my own backyard, but it wasn’t. We drank beer and ate snack food, were there nachos? I can’t remember. It was the first time all of us had...
18 tags
I loved the Czech Republic and Slovakia because people there drank wine. People in America drank wine, sure, but they were snobs about it - “This is an aromatic blend, containing hints of peaches, oak wood, almonds, rose hips, and bullshit,” “You’re drinking SAUVIGON BLANC with a STEAK DINNER?!” “I only sip organic charcoal filtered grape juice made from the...
15 tags
It was nearly five o’clock in the morning. My phone was ringing and it was a friend of Becky’s. He never called me usually, but Becky was out, maybe something happened. I drowsily picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Kat!” Phil whispered into his phone. “Kat…get Becky?”
He was clearly drunk, but this was not a drunk dial.
I lazily walked over...
23 tags
When I Met Václav Havel
Claire and I had RSVPed as guests for an award ceremony sponsored by the Gender Studies Library of Prague. Its office was located near Frank Gehry’s Dancing House; they were honoring a French-Czech woman who had written a book about gender diversity within the two countries. It was to be a large event.
“Very important people are going to be there,” Sarah had told us.
...
10 tags
I Woke Up to This Memory Today
The day of my Grandmother’s funeral it was freezing cold and sleeting. We were the only ones in the church, five small marks in a behemoth of a cathedral I had always been afraid to go into as a child. That day, we all sat in the first pew, next to each other but with enough space between us for comfort. No one else came to the funeral, not even my Aunt Mildred, now the only living...
14 tags
“What is it with you Americans, and your obsession with lip balm?”
Marc and I looked at each other. We stopped in our tracks; our chapsticks were coincidentally pressed against our dry, cracking lips.
“What about it?” I snapped back at Peter.
“You people across the pond are so obsessed with that stuff. I don’t understand it.”
Peter was Australian. ...
11 tags
The day after I came back from Slovakia, my host mother had a Christmas party. She explained to me, in very broken English, that some families would be coming over to celebrate the holidays. I offered to help her set up. Her choice of appetizers were classy and admirable; a bowl filled with assorted olives, a shallow, rectangular plate layered with dates, dried figs and apricots, spiced...
12 tags
“I have borrowed a bike for you,” Dušan passed me the small street bike; the seat had to be adjusted for me and still I could not lean the bike on one foot without teetering over.
“Time for your tour.”
We departed from Stanica and began to ride, we rode all over the town in the dark of night. Dušan was a fantastic guide, he was silent but spoke up for important parts,...
Just read through my field journal from Stanica...
It’s so funny, how I can clearly remember some parts of my experience, and then others I have completely forgotten. There is one day I have absolutely no recollection of, even though it seemed like a pretty trying day. There is also this experience I apparently had with a really nasty homeless guy which seemed to really upset/affect me and I don’t really remember that too well...
16 tags
There was a man in Charleston who had a hot dog cart on George Street. He sold hot dogs for a dollar and you got your choice of ketchup and mustard free, or $.25 for every topping after that. He was a nice guy, he had a perfect spot, he must have made a lot of money because he really was the cheapest place to get lunch in town. And his hot dogs were awesome, he made them like how you get them...
9 tags
“Take your lady to Gordon’s Wine Bar!” I remember enthusiastically writing in a facebook message to him. I gave him all sorts of tips and suggestions, none of which I knew he would never use, but I provided him with anyway. He had asked me to give his girlfriend some reassurance about Amsterdam. I did what I could; don’t walk around the Red Light District alone, and...