Finally compiled: The Best of Prague

I've been home almost a month now, and have finally compiled the best of my photos from Prague. A few pictures don't do the sites justice still, but several are breathtaking. I consider myself unbelievably lucky to have considered these streets my home for four months. I hope you enjoy them!

http://www.clsp.jhu.edu/~erin/photos/prague

Observations on U.S. life from an ex-expatriot :-)

I've been back in the U.S. for a week -- 2 days in NC, 1 day (12 hours!) driving to Baltimore, a weekend in Philly, and several days in Baltimore since. Being back is very strange -- I haven't been away long enough that much has actually changed, but yet things have. I feel like I've entered a time warp, cryogenically frozen for four months. No, too dramatic. I feel like someone switched the channel on me during a commercial break and forgot to switch it back, for just long enough that I have to stare at my original surroundings in confusion for a minute or two until I finally understand again how all of the characters and subplots are fitting together. Not a big shock, just a double take and a readjustment period til I'm all settled in again.

A few things I've noticed more than usual

• Sitting in traffic S-U-C-K-S! Why is there no decent train system here?? :-)
• Grabbing food on the run -- I've missed you much
• Weather always seems better when I'm not there! Just as Prague was getting gorgeous I had to leave; just as I arrive in NC and Baltimore, the beautiful weather hides behind cold breezes and lots of clouds. :-/ Poo.
• Just sitting in lab exhausts me as much here as it did there, but the daydream-inducing view out the window there was better.
• I love driving through the mountains and cities full of green (that would be NC, not Baltimore, for those who don't know...)
• Americans speak really loudly to each other on the streets -- especially as tourists, it seems, but even here at home
• Gone for four months, but the main headlines never see to change: Iraq, Natalee Holloway, and the sniper trials.

I miss Prague, but am glad to be home, despite its quirks. :-)

Last night in Prague

Departure time: Seven hours (leave for airport 4:15am, flight departs 7am)

Suitcases packed: ~75% done

These past few days have been full of goodbyes. My last day at my office in Malostranske Namesti. My last walk across the Charles Bridge and through the streets of Prague. My last drinks with American pals in Prague. My last dinner with co-workers. Tonight though, saying goodbye to my incredible Czech friends Pavel and Eliska, has definitely been the hardest, and for really the first time I'm feeling some of the loss soon to come.

Less than a week!

I fly far, far away from Prague in less than a week -- seriously, my time here has sped by much faster than I anticipated back in October when my advisor told me I had to come for four months. I'll be leaving Prague with mixed feelings. Not only is this an incredibly beautiful city with a rich people and history, but this really is the best time of the year to be here (and the weather through Sunday looks gorgeous!). On the other hand, returning to normal life of friends, boyfriend, and family will be really nice as well. Not to mention about 23432 weddings to attend over the course of the summer!

So, what will I do with my last week? Beyond work, I plan to spend the next few days going out with friends, finally catching a performance at the National Theater, packing and wrapping up loose ends, completing my rest of my ridiculous souvenier shopping list, and most of all, spending a lot of time walking around outdoors and loving Prague. :-)

Some cool things I've done in the past week:

• Explored Prague views on Petrin Hill
  
  
• Attended a campfire party with Czechs -- cooking sausages on a stick over a fire and singing songs with live guitar accompaniment was never so fun :-)
  
  
  
• Skipped most of a day of work to finally explore Kutna Hora, an old silver mine town an hour or so outside of Prague
  
  
• Spent an afternoon playing touch football (fun!) with a fun set of expats

• Evening barbeque with friends
  

All about London

As usual, I'm way behind -- I'm sure I'll be writing about things I did and forgot to mention months after I return from Prague. :-)

Anyway, London... (trip taken April 20-23, photos here)


I was fortunate to be able to meet up with two friends and have another fantastic weekend with beautiful weather. :-) Happily I was also able to save money on hotels in the process! And a good thing too, because... good lord, London is expensive! Seriously, NYC didn't even compare. I just kept pretending that I was paying dollars instead of pounds for my own mental health (when in reality one pound is ~ $1.78.... wow, has that changed a lot...). My bank account caught on to the trick though.

But we'll forget that for now.

List of favorite London moments (not nec in order)

1. Seeing the Producers at Covent Gardens in the London West End
2. Catching up with Jeff Goodman and reminiscing about good old high school days :-)
3. Jeff's whirlwind tour of London's sites
   
4. Getting to wander London with my boyfriend's sister Sara -- first time we've really hung out alone, and as I expected we had a great time!
   
5. Getting to ask my dumb tourist questions in English instead being limited to large arm gestures and repeated pleas of "Yes? Please? English?" in whatever language was appropriate at the time :-)

Paris was more beautiful than London, but London just felt more approachable and definitely more familiar. Plus, the London subway map didn't give me a headache.

London Underground

Paris Metro

Paris was a beautiful place to visit, but I think I could actually see myself living in London.

If I could afford it. :-)

Where the money goes

This is horrifyingly amazing. I'm looking at my finances for the last 3 1/2 months, and found a few surprises:

$56.18 in ATM fees -- charges for withdrawing money in Prague, Germany, France, UK
$12.52 in "Internation Transaction" credit card service charges - 3% fee
$38.51 in fees charged for using my check/debit card in stores
-------
$107.21 spent on nothing.

I'd considered getting a Czech bank account while I was here, but it seemed like too much of a hassle. I mainly only use my debit card on groceries and a few larger items -- the fact that stores here charge an extra fee for using credit cards really starts to add up. I use my credit card for large travel items (paying for hotels killed me here, and of course I won't get reimbursed for that part). When I withdraw money from an ATM, I'm (now) aware that it charges ~$7 in fees each withdrawal, so I try to take out as much money as the machine will let me, at least in Prague.

Thought I was doing this intelligently..... ouch. The scary thing is this could have been much worse. There must be a better way to do this!

back to Easter

I spent Easter weekend in Liberec with my friend Eliska and her family. The city was nice (often cold and rainy, but not this time), her family was great, and I enjoyed Czech Easter traditions like spending a day decorating eggs.

And yes, I let myself be pomlázka'd. :-)

When I wrote in my blog earlier about my discovery of the pomlazka tradition, I wasn't surprised to raise the ire of some of the Czechs who read my blog. So to mysterious Czech readers Jana and Mirek, and others who didn't comment on the blog, I wanted to respond and elaborate a bit. I hope you'll take it in the light, discussion-provoking manner in which it's intended!

I should be clearer; especially after having experienced the holiday and tradition, I realize that the whipping is for the most part in good fun. It was nice having neighbors stopping by the house and chatting (even if it was to spank us and get some painted eggs, candy, and alcohol!), and when not a lot of boys stopped by I could tell my host family was a bit disappointed. It's nice to hold on to traditions, and absolutely no one who stopped by was mean or disrespectful in any way.


That said, the tradition will always trouble me a bit, and here's why. I don't believe that many Czech men are aggressive and ready to pounce, but some could be, and here's a holiday where hitting women literally is condoned. Several boys who stopped by insisted that the soft end of the pomlaska was for young girls and we had to get the hard end which stung more, and a Czech guy I talked to said he knew guys who bought very hard whips special bc they thought it was more fun when it hurt.

Even more than that though, there's something a little disturbing to me about teaching this to children. Playful as it may be, there's something slightly degrading about being spanked, and I believe it must set in children's heads early on that boys (even the younger ones) dominate girls (even the older ones). So we'll leave it at that. I won't ask the Czechs to change their traditions, but were I to settle in Prague permanently, I wouldn't teach them to my children either. To each his own.

But back to Liberec and my Czech Easter -- everything was beautiful, everyone was wonderful, and I couldn't have asked for a better holiday!!! :-)

Here come the tourists... in their underwear

Charles Bridge in February

Charles Bridge in April

Okay, not really, obviously. That would make them a bit easier to bear though I think! (and maybe you need to be a regular blog reader to get that joke anyway :-))

To all of you not currently in Prague, you're missing out (and you're lucky). The weather here is beautiful, which makes walking through the beautiful streets, courtyards, and bridges amazing.

However, all of Europe and elsewhere seems to have figured out the secret, and they've flooded the streets! What's more, the various shop, craft, and restaurant owners have decided to take advantage of the recent population shift (Dear Czechs: welcome to capitalism), and they've decided that their normal shops and restaurants aren't enough -- instead they've choked Staromestske Namesti (the Old Town Square), Malostranske Namesti (where I work), Andel, and who knows where else with little house-like shop structures.

And yes, I do realize the irony in my annoyance that the Old Town Square old marketplace has actually become, god-forbid, a market. ;-) Still, it's bad enough tripping over tourists without also tripping over porta-potties and huge artificial trees with Easter eggs on them! Easter was just last week of course, but the celebration has been going on almost a month now!

And yes, I'll describe my Easter experiences soon... busy, busy, busy.

Paris pictures finally up

I went to Paris almost a month ago, but finally posted the pictures on my website. Check them out here.

Boo for being sick

As it turns out, I've spent today being sick - obviously no fun. Thankfully a teleconference planned for this afternoon with others from my grant in Prague, Saarbrucken Germany, Baltimore, and Providence has been postponed to next week (and thankfully again not til Tues rather than Monday, when I'll still be out of town for Easter Monday, hopefully without anyone swinging a pomlazka at me!)

So I'm pretty much useless today. (But yes, I can still blog :-) Not much brain power required here...) The timing is no good...

• For work: I'm already going to be missing Monday for Easter traveling, and London next Friday, and have to give an hour long talk to the Czechs here the following Monday, so getting work done today would have been best.
  
  
• Personally: yesterday out of nowhere while walking home from work, I ran into an old friend from CMU! I hadn't seen Andy Lee (or Andrew, as he's reverted to) since, well, I'm sure I was in Pittsburgh at the time. Nice to see him though -- he and some friends just ran the Paris marathon, which must have been awesome, and have been traveling through Europe since. Anyway, hoped to meet up tonight, but as I'm half dead and continue to sporadically cough out my lungs, don't think it will happen. Would have been fun, but so it goes.
  
  (read Andrew's blog)
  
  Plus, when is getting sick ever good?
  

• Travel-wise: Going to visit Eliska and her family in Liberec tomorrow; hope I feel better then!
  
  
• Because, if it happened just one month later, I could have my mom making soup for me!

Okay, enough whining from me! Hope you have a good day, and a great Easter!

Veselé Velikonoce!