Praha, Pivo, Prosim

I’ve had a few screencaptures on my desktop for a while now and I fully intended to integrate them into a blog. It hasn’t happened. So, to clean up my desktop, I’m giving you a random synopsis of what I have…..

A few weeks ago President Obama gave a speech at Prague Castle. It was free to the public and many, many people attended. With all my democratic will I planned to watch/listen to this event as not only have I never had this kind of experience, it would certainly make a unique and memorable milestone all the while doing it in a foreign country. Alas, I did not attend. Considering my massive beer intake (free!) the night before, my priorities shifted in the night. If I mention that I slept in my clothes and shoes, that could perhaps give an indication as to my immediate motivation–GO TO BED. When 7am rolled around and I was supposed to meet some peeps to go to the speech, my hungover and pathetic ass was in a deep slumber. Damn that free beer.

Although I have yet to read the full transcript, I understand President Obama spoke about Iran and all the requisite things an American President should talk about. Following the speech, The Prague Daily Monitor printed the transcript as well as posted some viewer comments. Here are two of them.

Pavla is pissed. Is that a fair assumption?

A most excellent idea!! Including myself, I know more than enough people who would echo such a sentiment.

I saw a human gnome on the metro this morning. Yes, a real life gnome. I shit you not. This little man was probably about 4′10″ and that certainly didin’t help his gnomish predicament. Ok, so the guy wasn’t wearing a cute little red hat or shoes that curled up but by God, this guy had the beard and long hair. I’m half convinced that this guy was probably an extra Hobbit.

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, here’s a super nerdy thing that I should mention. At one of my jobs/schools they have a secure in-house web connection for anyone to use. When you are on the network all the other connections appear. Since this is a password protected connection, all the computers are on company premises. I just want to know who the big LOTR freak is that dude names ALL the connections about imaginary places.

And lastly here’s an amusing bit from a class I taught last week. I did a lesson on the ’second conditional.’ (The second conditional is a way of speaking that is used when talking about something that is unlikely, hypothetical or IMAGINARY. Structurally, they are commonly seen as the IF…..THEN statements. Note the IMAGINARY part there.) So, in the lesson there was a series of questions relating to photos I had on the table. The photos were of famous people and the questions were actually from real interviews. One of the questions was about living in another period of time. After the questions, I then asked the student about what that the interview questions were based on. Primarily, I stated, ‘Ok, so these previous questions–were they about REAL or IMAGINARY things?’ My student then proceeds to tell me that in particular the question about going to another period of time could be real. My thinking, ‘Uhhmm, ok–where is he going with this?’ The student then goes even further to mention his past lives. Yes, past lives. He then stated that in one of his past lives he owned a small castle but that he was a very bad man. How did he know he was a bad man? Well, he was bad because he pushed his wife down a hill and killer her. So yes, to wrap things up, he was a bastard wife-killing feudal lord. That wasn’t exactly where I was expecting that line of questioning to be going. Good times.

Going back and editing in this thing is a bitch so I’m just making a new link for the Potrafena Husa in Andel.

Since I am located next to a more traditionally ‘normal’ grocery, I thought I’d blog a bit about the food supplies in CR.

Aside from the weird meat products in this country, I’ll say that Czechs love yogurt. I mean really fucking love yogurt. The dairy section at Albert is insane. By my sub-standard measurements, I’d say the yogurt aisle is approx 20+ feet long. No shit. The prices are really reasonable (I just bought some individual containers for 5.90Kc) and come in a variety of flavors. Catering to the Czech national palate of loving all things sweet, there is also a plethora of chocolate and coconut flavored yogurts on the market, too. They are delicious. The Euro yogurts are made with glorious full-fat dairy products and it’s quite evident in the taste. I’ll say they have done well in this area.

The produce department…. This is something that is lacking in comparison to American grocery counterparts. The selection is limited and it’s strange to see many items not refrigerated. Generally speaking, the array of products here is less than in the U.S. which is to be expected but also the supplies of many products are usually around the 50% mark. In other words, the shelves are not always stocked. *An additional note on refrigeration… Ok, here the milk here comes in cartons. No, not like the American cartons. These are more like boxes. Anyway, some milk is kept chilled and some others are not. They just sit in a big pile waiting to be purchased. I can’t figure out the difference in this area. I’m thinking maybe the chilled stuff is ‘real’ whereas the room temperature stuff is some kind of powdered milk variety that never goes bad.

The meat/fish department….. Apparently turkey is non-existent here as Frank can attest that in his time here, he has never seen a turkey in any form, anywhere, ever. Pork is the big seller here and there seems to be a limitless supply of various cuts available. Chicken is also big and it’s no problem to find. Beef isn’t as plentiful but certainly present. The fish… fresh cuts of fish are expensive. I don’t recall what a fresh piece of tuna runs but it’s up there. There is an abundance of fake crab (which I love) as well as fake lobster that I suppose is commonplace as this is a landlocked country so it’s an appropriate substitution.

Random grocery stuff….. if you buy brand name laundry detergent, it’s super expensive. I can’t figure that one out. Also, here’s something that is going to freak me out soon unless I can find the proper measures…. applicator tampons. Where are they? Rosie informed me that they are difficult to procure. Boo. I guess Czech women prefer the maxi variety and to my trained Tampax brain, that is wrong wrong wrong. I just simply cannot do that. I’m not 13 and this ain’t my first rodeo.I was craving some American-style food the other day so I whipped up a nice little breakfast. Fried potatoes and onions with tomatoes, scrambled eggs, Euro bacon and some toast with cream cheese. Outside of Bohemia Bagel, I haven’t seen a bagel for purchase so I had to wing it with the bread. All in all, it was good and although the stove takes a while to heat up, it worked just fine. My kitchen appliances are thousands of miles away and I miss them. Did I mention this flat doesn’t even have a microwave? While mine in the U.S. was complete shit, at least it was an option. Gotta go old school at this new crib.

I snapped some good pics this week from one of the Charles Bridge Towers (and a few other places) this week but I need to run them through Photoshop to reduce the size and do minor tweaking. Oh, and that’s another minor glitch here in Europe…. I only have one adapter. I have far too many electrical things to work simultaneously. So, my Photoshop is on an external drive but since that requires use of the adapter, I can’t keep this machine at full juice while running PS off the external drive. It just makes things more complicated. Yes, I could buy more adapters but apparently they run around 25 USD here. Sucks. I know I’ll break down and get more eventually.

Sorry–I have had no exciting news to report for a week. To that I say boo.

I promise I’ll blog with greater frequency once my TEFL course is complete. I should have a fancy certificate in my grubby little hands in 6 days so more interesting stuff to come later.

In other news, I found a flatshare that is the shit. Really. The location couldn’t be better. I’m signing a lease on Tuesday. Hooray! Go ahead and Google the Palladium. It’s a really awesome indoor mall in Old Town. It’s about 75 yards from the front door of the new building. Old Town Square is a 5 minute walk. Holy crap. I can’t wait for spring! I’ll take some pics when I move next weekend.

I need a job.

At the potraviny earlier I bought some fake crab salad. First off, I’ll say that I love the American version. And while the original fish from the sea is always better, I do enjoy the fake crab and lobster varieties available in America. Sorry, I do. Fake crab salad is no gastronomical cuisine but it’s just tasty. So anyway, the Czech/Euro fake crab salad is garbage. Booo. I know it’s perhaps ironic to criticize the flavor of an artificial and chemically enhanced ‘meat’ product, but this stuff is rather blech. And it’s far too mayonnaise-y. Note: this statement is said by someone who loves mayonnaise. A sad point in my mayo timeline. So, back into the fridge the fake crab salad went. It’s not inedible it’s just not what I wanted. There is still the option of the clear gel ham roll and mystery cheese sitting in there. Maybe I should get drunk tonight and dig through the horrid jellied mass. Then again, maybe not.

On a Prague related note, I visited an um, well, ‘interesting’ part of town today. Me and the two Brit guys went to the course director’s place for a review. His place is pretty swank. It’s huge, too. The down point of that is that the flat is located in well, kind of a wasteland. It seems to be an area of dirty things, piles of dirt, homeless guys drinking cheap 20Kc wine, and run-down and empty store fronts. The short tram trip to the Pomolvka stop was interesting. We went and had a beer and grabbed some food at a restaurant in the area. I’ll say that Richard was scared to enter first so I had to do it. Ha! I’d all the decor rather austere if you can even call that decor. The heartbeat of Communism I’m sure still beats between the yellowed asbestos walls. The ‘dining’ area was just a square room with large benches and tables. It was definitely a no frills kind of place. Going back to the Communism thing, I’m really being serious. The vibe was rather depressing and bleak. The clientele looked rough. They were mostly older and probably had discussions of the good old days of bathtub Becherovka productions and dumplings made of mud. I’m fairly sure that former heads of state got together in there to discuss who was being sent to the gulags in Siberia. If I had looked closer, I’m sure I could have found hatch marks on the walls for all the on-site stabbings. Oh, and even if I knew the name of the restaurant, I’d be surprised if they had a website because I’m fairly sure they barely even get electricity in that part of town.

Ok, well I’m off for a few drinks in Zizkov tonight. Pivo, pivo, pivo!!!

Despite cold(ish) weather and it still being cloudy I made it down to the super historic and generally awesome and amazingly gorgeous part of Prague.  I hopped on the tram (above ground transportation but it’s on a wired track) to the I.P. Pavlova station and walked from there. Want to follow me on my journey? Ah ha! No problem, I’m such a geek that I screen capped a few maps and then Photoshopped them. Enjoy!

 Oh, and if you want to know my current address you can Google map me at Biscupcova 3, Praha 3, PrahaI actually took a photo of the building I’m in (the Zizkov area of town) and submitted it to Google Earth. I have to wait a few weeks to see if it is accepted.

Slideshow to come later. I want to set it to music but since YouTube is silencing all video with sound, I can’t upload there. Gotta figure out a way to compress the file. I didn’t think it would be this difficult!!! ACK!

It seems that the last blog title is more than appropriate so thus the duplication….

I have been busy with moving and such in the past week so therefore my lack of blogging. My bad. For those unaware, I moved out of my apartment last Friday under the guise of darkness and no electricity…oh and the below freezing temperatures didn’t make anything any easier. Good times. No, my power didn’t go off because I’m an idiot and had the utilities cut it off prematurely; rather, some shitty weather came through and knocked my power out the night before I was to vacate. Also, due to the arrangement of the apartment I got very little natural light in the living and kitchen areas. As such, it was basically dark in there although it was 3:30 in the afternoon. All in all though, thanks to the help of friends we were able to load and unload a van and move everything into a storage unit in about 90 minutes. Nice work, guys! Many thanks!

I have made all the necessary purchases and had all my utilities severed. Don’t get me started about the pricks at AT&T and how they are bending me over to get my phone turned off. It’s rather ridiculous. While I’m usually quite pleasant to customer service types, I let my frustration be known to the poor CS guy this morning. The company policies are not his fault however, I made no secret of my frustration at how much extra this bullshit is costing me. Stupid. Fuck off, AT&T. Anyone else have a similar experience? Ok, end rant.

So today, I write this from my parents house in Knoxville and I depart the US in the morning. Because I had to shop around for the cheapest flight available, I’ll be sitting in the Detroit airport for a good part of my day tomorrow so perhaps I’ll be blogging again out of boredom.

I’m doing the last bit of my laundry today because come on, when you can get it done for free, why not? Of course the argument should be made (by me, no less) that I’m far too old to be doing this on the cheap. But, it’s nice to have a bag full of clothes that smell nice rather that ones that smell like dog piss and dirty feet. I’m also attempting to pack my bags in the most efficient manner so as to maximize the space. This is very Martha Stewart of me. Additional items of clothing can be shipped later but international mail usually takes a while so I figure I might as well cram as much in these babies as possible. I’m prepared for Northwest to charge me a weight overage for the bags so unlike AT&T, this added bending over tomorrow is at least expected. I’m not embracing this added experience of no lube, but at least it’s expected and I can bear down and bite on a leather belt if necessary.

Well, as I am now officially unemployed (but will collect unemployment—bwah ha ha!), I had approximately nothing to do today. Instead of organizing my crap, I downloaded crazy amounts of applications for my new iPod Touch. Wee hee!! It was a surprise going-away gift from my bosses. Very fucking cool. That generates big bonus points with me. I had wanted one and the rich guys upstair forked over the corporate credit card for the purchase.Hooray! 

And although I posted a rather sappy goodbye letter on Facebook, I’ll send out additional thanks to all my friends for participating in the Drink-a-Thon on Saturday night. It was a blast. Many inappropriate photos were taken.

Anyway, as I was saying…. I had a non-productive day in regards to ‘The Move, but I did Photoshop this composited image from the Inauguration last week.

21 Grams the movie?Nope.

21 years old today? Nope.

21 kitttens? Nope.

21 jars of pickles? Nope.

21 tricycles? Nope.

21 fingers on my right  hand? Nope.

21 rolls of toilet paper? Nope.

21 flavors at Baskin Robbins? Nope.

21 flat tires? Nope.

21 bologna sandwiches? Nope.

21 days until I move. Yep.

I started boxing up some things in the apartment today. I decided that packing away books and non-essentials would be the easiest plus, it will make the living room look a bit tidier. For those that do not know me, I like collecting random chotchkes. My preferential chotchke is that of the bobblehead. They come cheap to accrue and they’re usually fun. Said collection was interspersed between books and other random little kitschy pieces on my bookshelves.While packing up box numero uno, I inadvertently dropped a book and it landed on my favorite bobblehead. Shit. I just so happened to break the face off a little Asian kid. 

If you are faceless, you deserve some wine regardless inferior and cheap quality. Drink up Ming Lee, you are going in the trash. 

For nothing other than the subject header am I posting this image…

….and you need to read both links because they rock.

Clicky for big

This is a quick image capture from Reddit (a site I frequent multiple times daily). For those unfamiliar, Reddit posts links based on popularity or ‘upmods’ so therefore, at a particular point in time, these pieces were side-by-side on the Reddit main page. It’s not really juxtaposition as the content is relevant and relative but it struck my juvenile and partly immature mind as humorous.