There are very few things that make me extremely mad.
However, when a person chooses to be hateful towards another due to culture, or a person chooses to judge that person based on their background, I have very little patience.
On my tour of the Jewish Quarter today, our tour guide decided to share this little treasure with us:
"Czechs are very tolerant of all religions. 'Cept Muslims. We don't like Muslims. I think it is cause we don't like explosions."
Problems with this previous statement::
1. You THINK that's why you don't like them? You don't actually know why you personally dislike an entire culture??
2. Judging an entire race based on a few extremists is unacceptable.
3. Explaining to the tour group that your entire country feels this way is unnecessary. And false. Your own personal views do not represent an entire country.
Being an American in Europe, I have seen and felt how horrible it is to be judged based on a stereotype. And I would never wish it upon anyone to be judged on the American stereotype. Why then, would you try to group your entire country together? Every country is made up of individual personalities and individual views. It is impossible, therefore, to say what "all of the Czech Republic" feels about a specific issue.
But it just goes to show you: intolerant people are universal. And we can't escape them.
Peace comes in all shapes and sizes. It is in all forms. And it is always present. All you need to do is search for it.
I wandered across the John Lennon Wall today. I've been planning to go visit it since day one, but it always got put off. "We'll go there tomorrow." "We'll go next week."
And then randomly, it happens to be along the path on my journey.
It's amazing how you wander across little reminders when you need them most.
Mother Universe is funny like that.
Our next photography project was to photograph eggs. Seriously. And it was a chance to be creative.
So for now, I present to you my egg shots.
Comments always loved. Although I've already turned it in, feedback still appreciated!
Oh..and as evidenced by the title, don't ever place said decorated egg in your coat pocket to prevent you from dropping said egg. Because inevitably, you will lean over the bridge to get a cool shot of Prague and inevitably, said egg will crack..all over your coat pocket..
Scratch that..just remember to take the time to hardboil said egg.
As my photography professor says, "there is nothing a photographer wouldn't do for a shot." That's great, but next time I'll just take the egg out of my pocket..
My friends and I traveled to Sedlec and Kutna Hora last Sunday to see the infamous "bone church." What a better second impression to have of the Czech Republic than a church decorated with human bones? (That was obviously our train of thought for Caroline..) But moving past the fact that it was a tad creepy at times, the church was actually really cool!
For those that don't know the story behind the church, I've attached a brief synopsis:
In 1278 the Cistercian abbot of Sedlec, Henry, traveled to Palestine and the ‘Holy Land’, bringing home a sample of earth from Golgotha which was later, upon his return, sprinkled over the grounds of his local cemetery. The grounds were immediately considered scared, and hence became a much sought after location for relatives to bury their dead. In the 14th century, the Black Death spread the bubonic plague across Europe and now 30,000 bodies all wanted a resting place within the sacred grounds. Such vast numbers of dead led to the creation of the ossuary in 1511 by a half-blind monk who gathered up the bones to be stacked up within the ossuary, making space for new corpses, which were soon taken up by more victims from 15th century Hussite Wars. The ossuary itself is situated in the basement of the All Saint’s Chapel
Express your emotions of where we are::
But all joking aside, we had an amazing day and greatly enjoyed this popular scene. And while, yes, very eerie, it was also extraordinarily interesting.
Prior to setting out on this journey, I decided to venture by myself to find a church service Sunday morning. I had found a Czech Unitarian Church online and so I figured I would explore the scene a little bit. Service was to be fully in czech and at 10 am, but when I arrived at 9:50 am, there was not a soul in sight. I figured I had just misread the information online, so I ducked into the nearby cathedral and enjoyed an up-down Czech Catholic Mass. The cathedral was absolutely stunning, and since Catholic Mass has been burned into my brain, hearing the czech version actually helped in my goal to learn the language. The church is also conveniently located across from Charles Bridge. Hopefully, I'll make it to Unitaria next week. Turns out I didn't read the information on the website wrong..I just forgot about Daylight Savings..
Additionally, on my adventures to church, I happened across a small marionette theater. Thinking it was the same one that was recommended to me by a CSA member (thanks Janet!), I mentioned it to Caroline. We decided to do some research ahead of time, mostly due to prices, and boy were we glad we did! Apparently, it is NOT the same one that Janet recommended. Instead, we ran across this review:
We just got back from Prague and had purchased tickets to a show of "Don Giovanni", but when we arrived at the National Marionette Theatre (Zatecka Street 1) they explained to us that the tickets that were sold to us were from a fraudulent Yugoslavian company (called the "Prague National Company") basically doing a very low quality version of the same show at a different location (on Karlova Street 12, the former location of the Marionette Museum). We returned to the ticket sellers and tried to get our money back and were physically threatened by the employees, with the owner going as far as telling us that they "kill people" where he is from.
I cannot tell you how glad we were we didn't just show up..Hopefully we'll make it to the real place soon though!!
And on a really really happy note: My friend's boyfriend was visiting this past weekend. He made the 4000 some mile hike here for a 3 day weekend. He seems to have enjoyed his time in Prague and the weekend went out on a bang when he proposed to Kari!!! According to Kari, our first AIFS reunion will be their wedding. :) Congrats guys!
My freshman year of college, I had the hardest time trying to mix my "old" life with my "new" life. To me, it felt wrong trying to combine the two separate worlds and to be honest..I didn't want to. I wanted to leave each the way they were and it seemed unrealistic to do anything about it. But it took time. And gradually as college progressed, so did my relationships with people outside Carthage.
When I left for Prague, I figured the same thing would happen. I knew that it would be completely a whole new life..a temporary journey away from the person I am at Carthage and VP, and for the most part, I was correct. But somewhere along the way, that temporary vacation from myself..that creation of a new self.. seems to have helped me define who the heck I am. And maybe it took the visit of a Kenosha friend to realize that.
My friend, Caroline, (who is currently studying abroad in France) is visiting for the week. And despite the fact that I seem to be a different person from here to there, I have loved every moment of having a reminder of home here. We are told to try to separate ourselves from home as much as possible..but why would I want to divorce myself from such an amazing part of my life? I'm enjoying Prague. And trust me..I'm taking advantage of it. But I can't leave behind home for 4 months completely. And having Caroline here has been wonderful. It also has proven that while 2 things may be completely different..meshing them together is not as hard as it seems. And it can be a lot of fun along the way.
Caroline and I!
Thinking all those collegiate thoughts outside the Philosophy Faculty (where my classes are.)
Realllly excited to find the French embassy!
We went to the U Fleku Brewery..home of the black beer for Caroline's visit!
First off, apologies it's been so long since I blogged. So let's get straight down to the events of the last week!
My friends and I took a 7 hour bus to Budapest last weekend. Everything about the weekend was wonderful, apart from my poor math skills and therefore my overdrawn bank account. But despite the fact that I messed up the exchange rate and had to frantically e-mail my parents to put more money in my account, the weekend went smoothly and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Friday morning (4:30 am...) my friend, Chris, and I trekked to the bus station. After a long and interesting trip, we arrived in Budapest and called the 8 other people we were supposed to meet up with. The 10 of us gathered at the hostel to work out a game plan and we quickly decided that food was a necessity at the moment. Lucky for us, the indoor farmer's market type thing was still open, so we went to the 2 story building filled with raw meat, veggies, and traditional Hungarian food.
The rest of the day (and most of the weekend actually) was filled with wandering around Budapest. After all, one of the best ways to discover a city is to get lost, and I have a natural talent for getting lost.. Friday night we also decided to head to a bath house where we met up with a group of other AIFS students that were also in Budapest for the weekend. Saturday we woke up bright and early to head to Parliament, but unfortunately they were already sold out by the time we got there. Instead, we went to a local park and had a little too much fun feeding the ducks and playing in the leaves. We even made friends with a wedding couple and their photographer..
We were wayyy to excited about the leaves! (From left to right: Kari, Me, Raila, Annie)
Then the guys got involved and chaos ensued.
Since our plan to spend the day at Parliament failed, we wandered upon a museum entitled "How we view the Finnish?" While we weren't completely sure why it was posed as a question, the museum was all about the Hungarian perspective of the Finns. Good thing we had our own native Finn with us! Raila led us through the exhibition explaining along the way what home looks like and why there was an entire exhibit devoted to scissors..
The trip was a resounding success and despite the fact that our legs were killing us the later half of the weekend, we had a blast along the way.
Definitely a must see place!! And the goulash was pretty good too ;]
On assignment for photography class, we were split into two groups and sent around areas in/near Prague Castle. I got the short end of the stick (not really..it was gorgeous) as I was sent outside for 2 hours in the freezing rain. Who cares? It meant it presented some great shots. Hopefully I captured them. So in the continuing theme of this blog (don't let amanda fail photography class...) I present my photos from the adventure. Again, all feedback welcomed and encouraged. I'd like to fix the photos before I turn them in, so everything from technical critique to personal opinion is welcomed and loved!
And this will officially be the shortest blog, because now I am going to enjoy the greatest weather ever :) PS. As evidenced by my photo, I am also over the moon about my new hat and scarf ;] Winter is here!!!!!!!
Despite the fact that this blog and the last are written a few minutes apart, I decided to separate them since they are two entirely different things.
Yesterday and today marked my second and third day volunteering at Klub Jahoda. Yesterday I worked with the younger kids on a photography outing. Our goal was to wander around and have the kids photograph the area that they live in. We figured it would be interesting since Cerny Most is not known for its outstanding scenery, but it yet again proved the fact that everything can be more interesting through the eyes of a child. It rained just about the entire time, but the kids had a lot of fun taking pictures of not only the town, but also each other. They also seemed to take special interest at one point of taking pictures of the silly American who doesn't speak any Czech.
^Entrance to Dragoda
Today marked my second day working at "Dragoda." This club is a part of Jahoda, but is the one that focuses on the older teenagers. It went less well then yesterday..and mostly involved me sitting in a chair listening to Czech. But, although it wasn't the most ideal of days, I had a really nice chat with Petr about his history in social work (he's been working for Dragoda for about 7 months but worked for a previous club for about 3 years.) We also talked about how it would take time for the kids to get used to talking to me. He mentioned that they were probably shy since they know their English isn't very good. I said it was probably the same for me, and we both agreed that it would just take time to get used to. The internship is tough..not going to lie, but I'm hopeful that with time and with a little effort outside my comfort zone, I won't just be sitting in that same chair 3 months from now listening to the conversation that I don't understand.
On a lighter note, skype has yet again proven itself amazing. Talking to Chris yesterday for close to an hour and a half was great. And we achieved the impossible: being in the same picture while being 4000 miles apart :]
Also note my knitting in the bottom. That's right! I'm learning to knit!
Sunday I took a train with Chad to Mnichovice to meet the Czech family! Pavel greeted us and ushered us in for tea, coffee, homemade strudel, and slivovice. As I listened to Pavel and Chad talk Czech politics, I truly enjoyed being in a home setting away from my dorm room and city life. Even our first steps in Mnichovice showed how peaceful the place was compared to Prague--something I have missed about home. We also met Pavel's wife, Marcela, their daughter, Eva, and Pavel's aunt, Helena (who made the strudel!!) Pavel showed Chad and me around their backyard, also given the name "the garden." It was absolutely gorgeous and even had a small surprise at the top of the hill.
The day also included an amazing home cooked lunch and a tour of Mnichovice courtesy of Pavel.
Overall, it was wonderful to meet new family and see a new part of the CR. Whether discussing old cameras with Chad on the train or playing with the family dog, Uli, I couldn't help but miss home..a little. Or a lot. But I guess what struck me was the feeling of this home away from home. Prague felt comfortable automatically. But, alas, it's not the same as Villa Park, or even Kenosha. Being in Mnichovice with the people that I am very distantly related to still felt home-like. And it fit.
I am a student at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI. Originally from western suburbs of Chicago, I have recently started studying in the Czech Republic. As a foreign student at Karlova Univerzita (Charles University), it is difficult to immerse fully in the culture. But I am trying. And this blog is meant solely to document my trip while keeping those back in the states aware of my goings on.
:)
