Epilogue: Heading West

Four months ago, I began writing to you, a voice full of energy, excitement and, as much as I didn't want to admit it, anxiety for what was to come. I tried to keep an open mind, leaving my entire self open to any adventures and misadventures that might await me in that great European abyss.

What a difference a semester makes, huh?

Who am I today? I learned more about myself in the past four months than I did in the previous twenty one years. I traveled to seven different countries, learned a completely new and, let's face it, unpractical language (ale to mám rad, a ty?), and raised my alcohol tolerance about sevenfold (finally!). I learned patience, because when someone doesn't speak English very well, it takes a while for them to tell fantastic jokes ("you may, when you can"). I discovered what Hannibal Lecter always talked about as the maze of the mind, and I spent a lot of time exploring mine and becoming comfortable doing that. I passed all my classes, even when the mornings were tough sometimes (...a lot of times...). In other words, I finally started to understand what my dad always told me: life is too short to take too seriously.

And another thing - I learned what friendship is all about (again). These past months, without someone in my life like Dan, I honestly don't know what I would have done (which is probably why I panicked so much when I thought I had killed him). Our last Tuesday night together, Dan yelled over the din of Nebe 80s night to ask me for some cash to buy a drink. Without hesitating, I immediately pulled out my wallet and gave it to him, and when I looked up, he was looking at me with loving eyes and said "you know Evan, you're such a good friend." I said, "we're not doing this right now" and went back to the girls I had been talking to. So, thanks Dan. You're the best friend a guy could ever have, and you have been for as long as I've known you. My life is better with you in it.

My plane ride home was long (and eventful - my day began with finding out my flight from Prague to London had been canceled), but the hours sitting next to my new Welsh friend Pete served as a fantastic transition back into life at home. I don't feel sad leaving Prague. I've been looking forward to this summer and this last year of college for ages, and I'm still excited to make it happen. What's more, in a way, I never left. And Prague never left me, and never will (and I'm not just talking about the jet lag).

Now, I'm flying high over a landscape I haven't seen in a while: the infinite, beautifully desolate desert of the American West. You know, I live in a vast, great country, and I'm proud to say I do. I love being able to talk about my country, my language, my culture to people who've never seen or experienced it. But if there's one thing traveling teaches you it's that right now, all over the world, things are happening. In a Croatian communist housing project, my friend Tonči is waking up, turning on his Queen music videos for the thousandth time, and wondering how to tell his girlfriend he quit his job. Tomaš is sitting in his armchair, marking the timecodes where there's narration in the latest documentary he's producing, while Zuzana whips up another babovka and Jonaš edits his website. My Austrian friend Andrea is finishing her internship in Prague and getting ready to move back to Austria. And someone, somewhere, is almost definitely putting his or her pants on, one leg at a time. Think about that - really think about it!

The whole time, this blog was a safe haven for me, a place where I could always go at the end of the day and know I could say something and people would listen (all four of you). In times of need, times when I really needed to just gush about something to people who knew me (or just knew how to speak English), it kept me sane. And if you've been reading this whole time (or if you spent five hours over the past two days reading every post, like Mike Kane), you've probably learned more about me than you ever wanted to know. So, I owe you a big thanks for participating in this massive interactive media project of mine, and I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, tell me with a comment or an email. If you didn't, you might like this better.

The song is over, the moment is passed and forgotten about, and I am the better for it. Now I have to figure out how to reassemble my bed in LA. Na shledanou, my friends.

Overwhelming Adventures!

There are just no words to sum up my trip to Croatia, so I won't try (there are, however, over 250 pictures that might do the trick at least partly). I was alone for so long, I met so many people, I saw my second bar brawl in the past week, and I had countless adventures involving random Croatians, Queen music videos, and bottles of whiskey. And I kept track of it all in my little brown book.

I'm not really sure how to go about this...do you want to hear details of every day? Send me your feedback, friends.

Generally though, I can say a few things. Firstly, reading On the Road was a good, but dangerous choice. It gave me inspiration to break some boundaries and just talk to people, which is good, but it also made me crave those epic adventures worthy of writing in an entire novel, which can be illegal if the atmosphere is right. Everyone I met became a character in my modern version of that book. And that's what it could have been, too. I wish I had had the time to be able to just kind of float around - there were two instances when people offered for me to just go along with them on their travels, and I would have loved to have done it, but knew I couldn't. Instead, I just made the most of what I had.

A lot of fantastic things happened. I felt freedom, real freedom, for the first time. I learned why backpackers and travelers become smarter, better people. I suddenly realized I understood my sister, a world traveler for years, a lot better. I chased the experiences that might make me feel worthy of getting older.

Now I'm just trying to grapple with the headache I'm getting thinking about this being my last night in this little nook of a library, writing to all of you on this blog. My trip back from the airport took me past the best sights in the city, and all that nostalgia I was hinting at last week became less of a hint and more of a smack in the face from a guy with a ring on. I am overwhelmed with the amount of familiarity I have with a place I had never dreamed of seeing only a year or so ago.

Tonight, I've also had to systematically say goodbye to everyone in the Jančařík family, which has brought tears to my eyes (and will likely bring many more once I get home tomorrow). It was hugs for Vaclav (after we set off the fireworks he bought to honor the occasion) and for Jonas (who skipped a day of a class field trip to be here and see me again. Then a final "dobrou noc" to Zuzana, who reminded me to take some cake if I got hungry. And then another handshake from Tomas. Hugging is an American thing I think. But everyone deserved them.

I have never, ever, met any people so giving, so friendly, so welcoming, so selfless, and so wonderful as the four members of this family. For the past four months, I've done nothing but eat their food, use their electricity and water, and not clean my room well enough. In return, I've been given fantastic conversation, wonderful trips all around this beautiful country, and my own true family across the ocean from the one I grew up with. I owe most everything I've done, learned, and experienced to them.

For a while now, I've been planning some final posts that might serve as a good way to sum up the whole trip, but I think I'll do those from Northbrook tomorrow night, when I'm sure I'll be in a terribly Czech-sick mood and will want to write about such things and drink copious Czech beer.

Sunrise

What better way to end our time here than to go to 80s and 90s night at Lucerna? There was a different feeling in the air this time. In a way, it's the first night we've hung out together by choice and not because we're studying here together. After our graduation, all of us are just some people who know each other in Prague.

I was getting cabin fever staying at the house so long, so I decided to head towards our first bar a bit early and just wander around the city at night a bit. I walked back up to Vyšehrad for the last time and looked out over the city, lit up in all different shades of orange and yellow. I really can't get enough of it.

About thirty of us packed into this neighborhood bar near the dorms, claustrophobically clutching drinks and attempting to have conversations with our friends while standing less than six inches from their faces. With the night trams already functioning, we knew we had to get to our final destination soon enough.

We made a fantastic choice. Lucerna was as sketchy as it's ever been, and we did nothing but bask in it. Which do you like better: the fat guy on the stage drenched in sweat lip-syncing to every song while rubbing himself suggestively, or the old guy with white hair trying to dance with all the girls in our program? I like the fat guy myself. Oh, and don't worry, the tears that I said didn't happen earlier in the day? Yeah, they started, in full force. You just can't stop girls from turning on the waterworks.

The place closes down at 3:30, and as the music turned off and the lights came on, someone had a brilliant idea: let's sing the national anthem! Picture this: a hundred Americans singing the Star-Spangled Banner as people from what seemed like nearly every other country on Earth yelled obscenities at them and gave them the finger. It rained beer, we were all drenched in it.

I'm not really sure when the brawl started.

Behind me, one particularly vocal guy started tussling physically with a girl. And just as I heard "and the hoooooome ooooooff theeeeee braaaaaaavvvveee!" I see the blur of Dave Turner's body leap off the stage and deck some guy. By the time he had made contact, the pile had already formed, punches were being thrown, and in general, America was defending her pride. (Don't worry mom, I kept my distance. America doesn't need me to defend her.)

In typical fashion, the US prevailed. Outside, cooling off in the night air, our sole casualty, a huge guy from Madison named Jason who had a bloody lip ("you should've seen the other guy"), broke out the victory cigars. We loitered there for a few minutes, in the middle of Wenceslas Square, when somebody noticed it was getting light out toward the East. There was only one place we all wanted to be.

The walk began. North, through Wenceslas Sqaure, past the street where we found club Meloun, and into Old Town square, where the dawn gave an incredible backdrop to the Tyn church. There, we hung a left and trekked West, down the coronation path where new kings walked centuries ago, until we finally reached the Charles Bridge.

I couldn't help but say it. For seven hundred years, people have been standing on that bridge and watching sunrises. And you can see why (well, no you can't since I didn't have my damn camera).

Woke up this afternoon and joined some folks at Radost F/X for brunch, then followed them back to Wenceslas for some shopping. I didn't need anything, I just needed to be out in this city again. When my exhaustion overtook me, I retired back to the house and finished preparations for my trip.

Tomorrow morning I'm gone for my last five days of RnR. But it's not over yet, so I won't even pretend this is the last post. If I find internet anywhere, I can assure you you'll hear from me next week. If not, I'll be writing in the journal Sally gave me four months ago, and I'll post some thoughts in retrospect. I'll miss you all.

It hit me

That sinking feeling in your stomach when suddenly you realize the general feeling you have about the things that happen around you is about to change. I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but for some reason, no matter how hard I try not to feel it, this always happens to me. And I don't think it's the change that bothers me so much, but rather the lack of routine that comes in the transition periods (I am a massive creature of habit). So when I woke up from my nap with my heart pounding (as I've been doing the past few days for some reason) and thought about the fact that I don't have to go to class any more...it just hit me. I'm gone.

It was that feeling combined with this sudden longing for people around me to keep me sane, not thinking about ridiculous things like that. Dan leaves today for Budapest, so I feel like I've sort of finally lost that safety net I've taken advantage of this entire semester. Which is why it was nice to leave my room and start talking to Zuzana and Tomaš again. In an unfortunate twist of fate, Jonaš left this afternoon for a trip with his school, and might not be back here next week when I spend my last night in Prague. So I may never see him again.

But let's face it, I probably will. More on that in a bit.

Today goes down in history as one of the more interesting days of my life. I slept very little last night (it was as big a night as expected), but managed to get up, shower, and dress well (if I may say so) for our graduation ceremony. The debate was relatively interesting, and I got to give a speech at the end announcing the winner, which was pretty well-received. Of course the amazing part of this was looking out at all my new friends and realizing that all of them were having ridiculously foggy mornings themselves...

We progressed to another hall for the distribution of diplomas (a painful process. They called everyone's names. It took an hour. We were starving). Then it was time for the highlight of the day, a lunch cruise down the Vltava for two hours. It really was a perfect way to end this whole thing, forcing all of us to just be in one place for two hours, and to make it a place that lends itself to reflection and all that mushy stuff.

No one cried. We were all smiles. The boat took us under the Charles bridge, past the castle, through a lock, past Vyšehrad, and back again, and the whole time we all just munched on free food, talked, and took pictures. The one up there might prove to be one of my favorites of all time - Jon managed to wrangle up our entire Czech class (minus a few) and get us to pose with Dana and Bara, our teacher from the intensive course. We all just look so happy.

Afterwards, against my better judgment because I was exhausted, I went with a small group up to Letna Park, a place I haven't visited yet, to find a beer garden. It was a nice walk, and we whiled away an hour, just chatting in the soft breeze with the entire city we've all come to call home gazing back at us from over the river. It's so fun to get onto a hill here, because the entire city center is so flat that you can see it like it's a map. There's Florenc, where I missed the bus. And Old Town square. Beyond that, Charles Square, where Dan lives. Of course you can't miss the TV Tower, and its companion, the Žižka monument. And off in the distance, the center of it all for us, the two towers of Vyšehrad looking back with, believe it or not, seemingly proud eyes.

When I came here, I never thought it would be this way. I didn't expect this kind of a connection to this place. But this old crone has claws.

Tomorrow I'm packing up everything and enjoying the city one last time. Stephanie's still here, so I'll be hanging out with her too probably. For the first time I'm starting to see how much I'll miss this place.

Cookin' Česky style #4: Bramborák

At every fast-food stand in the city of Prague, you can almost definitely get three things: a big sausage, smaženy syr (fried cheese), and bramborák (Czech potato pancakes). What's great about cooking these at home is that it's a ridiculously easy recipe (all the ingredients are to taste) that's good for parties, because A) it goes great with any alcohol, especially Czech beer, and B) everyone can help tweak the recipe to make it suit their tastes. Here's the basic way we've made it this semester.

2kg potatoes (grated)
1 head garlic, pressed
1 egg
1 Tbsp Salt
Pepper to taste
A bunch of marjoram
1 cup middle grade flour
Sunflower oil (enough to cover the pancakes you’re making)
OPTIONAL: breadcrumbs, or anything else you want

Put everything in a bowl and mix it up. If resulting mixture is too watery, add more flour (potatoes start to sweat when you add salt).

Take big scoops of the mixture and put it in the oil, spreading it out into a pancake. Let it fry until the sides turn brown, then flip. Remember: your first piece is a test, so try it and adjust the ingredients. Serve it hot, and eat it with your hands.

DABDA

In the phases of coping with loss, everyone in my program is entrenched in the first: denial. Stories of the previous night's exploits have turned into simple accounts of the number of times people have had to say "we're not talking about that right now." Any reflection between people is done in a jovial spirit, laughing about how tough a day tomorrow should be for some people.

I'm not one to normally cry at these things, and if there's one thing you know from reading this blog, it's that I never really developed those true inseparable friendships we all love so much (with a few exceptions of course, but I'll see those select few again soon enough). Tomorrow's graduation ceremony, which includes a debate that I was chosen to judge, should be fun.

Alas, I'm getting ahead of myself. Today was my last day of classes, and I of course went to the final meeting of my Contemporary Culture class because it's great and I love the professor. After class, she and I were talking about the subject of my paper and she (a Fulbright scholar) encouraged me to apply for a Fulbright to study here in Prague. It sounded strangely enticing. Get paid to come back here and go to school?

Afterwards, Steph and I had what could be the last of our infamous lunches together. I'll miss the conversations. For dessert, we shared sweet knedliky (they wrap the dough around fruit). Mmmmm.

Tonight should be fun; it's our last night at one of our favorite clubs, Radost FX, and everyone from my program and Dan's will be there. With no class for anyone to think about tomorrow, I can only assume it will be a night to remember.

Cookin' Česky style #3: Tomaš's College-boy pasta sauce

Our recipe today comes from the cabinets of apparently every Czech college student. Before, I think I talked about how a lot of Czech cuisine is food from other countries, just "Czech-ified," and here's your perfect example. I wanted to know how to make this because unlike the pasta I make (using sauce from a jar), this stuff tastes great reheated (we made enough for an army last night, or as Tomaš said, enough for his lunch for the next five days).

For about 700g of pasta:
1 big yellow Onion (diced)
Sunflower oil (or olive oil)
5 cloves garlic (diced, but chunky)
Sweet paprika
Sharp paprika
Salt/pepper
280g tomato paste
Lots and lots of eidam cheese (or parm) (grated)
OPTIONAL: rosemary, oregano, basil, or any other spices you want

Dice up the onions and garlic and sauté them in the oil until the onion is transparent (or “pink” as they say here). Add about 5 knife-fuls of sweet paprika, a pinch of sharp paprika, and a little pepper. Sauté it a bit longer, but not too hot (so you don’t burn the paprika). Add the tomato paste and an equal serving of water and leave the whole thing to boil, covered, stirring every so often.

Pour it over hot pasta, and serve it with a lot of cheese on top.

A senior in college?

That's what I am now. Scary, huh? Seems like only yesterday I was just moving into school and thinking about studying abroad somewhere, who knows where. Well here I am.

Yesterday was a day for studying. Went to class in the morning and presented my paper, then had lunch and came home and had lunch again (mmm lunch) and sat down with Zuzana to gather up those recipes.
I spent the rest of the day studying for the Art and Architecture test today, which I really didn't need to do, but oh well. I also downloaded the pilot for Heroes which, as expected, is a good show but is certainly no Lost.

Last night Dan and I had an experience that I think does justice to the kind of attitude I've developed here. He was playing in another poker tourney (he didn't win, I didn't play), and on our way back from the casino we couldn't help but hear a group of girls speking English to each other, trying to navigate their way through Prague. With a smile, we turned and nearly in unison said "where are you trying to go?" "You speak English!!"

After we got over that initial shock, it turned out it didn't matter where they were going because they decided to go with us. And that's how Dan and I found ourselves in the hotel room of a girl we had just met waiting as she grabbed her coat so we and the rest of them could head over to a bar down the street. As it turns out, this was a great group of girls of all ages (all in college, don't worry), and we had a great time dancing the night away with them.

Didn't do much today except take those two tests. When I was finished I sent an SMS to my mom saying "yay! I'm done!" and immediately wasn't sure if I meant it. I just can't get over how interesting this feeling is. I was talking to my dad just a few minutes ago (it's his birthday!) and explained what's going on: I'm so excited to get back to the US (and I am) because I have an amazing year ahead of me. And here, in Prague, I've developed a lifestyle that's so different from any I've had before, one where I ::GASP:: don't have to be doing something every second of every day (I've become a master at just disappearing into my own mind in a crowd of people speaking Czech). In a way, I'm leading two lives right now.

And on top of that there's the whole "it's possibly my last year of schooling" issue. You know, there are so many things in our lives that we're so excited to end, so many points in the future that we're so excited to get to, and when we get there we truly are elated. It makes you (or maybe just me) think differently about endings, about changes, and about the context where we create and live our identities.

I haven't mentioned yet, I'm almost finished with Brave New World Revisited and I started to think about what I should read in my last week in Europe, while I hike around Croatia (I booked all my hostels and hotels the other night, by the way). I was going to open it up to all of you to suggest it to me, but then I realized there was really only one book that was appropriate for the time.

So next week I'll be alone for five days reading On the Road. My mind will be clear, my eyes will be filled with beautiful sites, and my skin will be warm in the sun.

But first I've got two more days in the best city in Europe.

Cookin' Česky style #2: Zuzana's Knedliky

What on earth would svíčková be without knedliky? These are just about as typical Czech cuisine as you can get, often considered the defining aspect of all the food here. They come in lots of varieties (salty: bread and potato, sweet: any fruit in the middle and a lot of sugar), so you never really get bored. With the svíčková I posted before, you use these delicious bundles of joy to sop up the extra sauce once you've finished the meat. Dobrou chuť!

1/3 L rough flour (look for Vondra flour in the US)
10-15g yeast
1 egg yolk
pinch of salt
200mL warm or hot water
1 old rohlik (really white bread)

Put flour in a big bowl, creating a reservoir in the center. Sprinkle yeast on the edges of the hole. Add egg yolk and salt to the middle of the hole, making sure not to touch the salt to the yeast. Pour in water and stir with a wooden spoon until it becomes a dough (it’s finished when the surface is smooth and it doesn’t stick to the edges of the bowl, and you see small holes when you stir (ie, yeast is working)…you can add flour while you’re mixing if you’re worried). Leave bowl in a warm place covered with a clean blanket for 45-60min (it’s done when you can push it and it makes a dent that immediately disappears).

Cut rohlik into cubes and mix it into the now risen dough. Leave in a warm place for another 45-60min.

Cut it into two long loaves. Start water boiling with a little salt, leaving the dough covered by a blanket until the water boils. Once water boils, carefully sink the loaves into it, making sure they don’t touch the sides and burn. When water returns to a boil, cover the pot. Boil them for a total of 20 minutes, turning halfway. Then, remove from water and cut one in the middle to check if it’s done (if not, boil it some more). Poke the now-cut loaf to deflate it a little, cut into pieces and serve immediately.

Cookin' Česky style #1: Zuzana's Svíčková na smetaně

With my days dwindling here, I thought it might be the right time to finally reveal some of my favorite Czech recipes. Yesterday, Zuzana and I sat down and worked out my favorite (and JC's), known here just as svíčková (sirloin). So if you're in the mood for some česky kuchyne, here's all you need. Just a warning, these are the kinds of recipes that get passed down through the generations in families, and everyone's is different. So feel free to experiment.

For 5 people…
1kg-1.5kg sirloin beef (or other cut)
2 cans – Special canned pickled vegetables (with carrots, parsley, and celery, green paprika, onion, leeks…NOT tomato or red paprika)
whipping cream – can be 13% (use 250mL) or 30% (use 200mL)
2 Tblsp middle grade flour
Spices – Juniper, allspice, laurel, salt/pepper
OPTIONAL: bacon

PREPARE THE MEAT
OPTIONAL: Broil bacon in baking pan, then put the meat on top and bake it until the surface is gray.

Put meat into big baking pan, pour two bottles of canned veggies (spiced with juniper, allspice/pimento, laurel, salt/pepper) and some water so meat is half submerged. Bake with a lid on at highest temperature for 4 hours or until beef is soft, covering with the sauce around it every so often. Don’t burn the vegetables or they’ll be bitter.

SAUCE
When meat is finished, remove from sauce. Mix remaining veggie/water in the pot with an electric mixer until veggies are a paste. In a separate bowl, mix cream with flour. Over a flame, add cream/flour mixture to the vegetables and stir with electric mixer until boiling, being careful not to burn the cream. If mixture gets too thick, add milk. Increase thickness until you think it’s done.

OPTIONAL: pour the sauce all over your body and rub it on yourself while quietly chanting "I'm a knedlik...."

SERVE
Like in the picture up there, make two small cuts of the beef and cover it with sauce. Serve it with wild berry jam on the side, and maybe some whipped cream. Garnish with lemon if you want.

Finals, tables, final tables

Pictures are finally up from Berlin!!

Saturday night ended up being a quiet one, which was fine with me - I watched Super Size Me.

Sunday we visited the ruins of the castle Landštejn, a HUGE Romanesque castle that used to look over the border into Austria (the border isn't there any more). We finished our trip with a breeze through another town with another awesome, huge castle, the name of which escapes me now because it was really long. Jonaš and I had a smaženy syr for lunch, and we were on our way back to Praha.

Last night was fun too. Dan had gotten wind of a poker tournament happening at a casino in the middle of town, so to celebrate my almost-doneness I decided to accompany him to what could very well be a fantastic tourney. I'm trying to spend as much time with Dan as I can in my last week here, making every moment of our long-wished-for time to live in the same city after high school.

Three tables filled with Americans, Czechs, Swedes, and others competed for a prize pool that ended up being 50,000CZK! That means third place out of this pool of about 28 people got 10,000CZK ($500). Dan and I were in this for the long haul.

And we both played the best games we think we ever have. My personal favorite moments were when we got to go head-to-head with our self-declared arch nemesis, a huge Czech guy sitting across the table from us who we could tell was the type who liked to bully people around with his huge chip stack. Dan and he had a big hand, which Dan cleaned him out on. The first time he and I met, I flopped a flush and called his huge bet for the win and he threw his cards down in disgust!

That win gave me a really nice chip stack going into the final table, which Dan and I were elated to find we had qualified for. Third place suddenly didn't seem so far off, and that's all we were aiming for in this crowd of gambling addicts (many of them were playing online with their laptops while they played the real-life game at the same time...). I won another huge hand against Fatty McCzech (pocket queens against his ace worked out for me even after he paired the ace on the flop. I yelled at the queen on the river, and he laughed it off, mocking me to his friends and saying to me "you're very happy!"). With the group down to seven, things got more dramatic as the blinds increased. Dan was eliminated in seventh place. I held on, dodging a few bullets...and picked up fifth.

So my 1000CZK entrance fee didn't win me anything, but I did play poker for four hours and came away with some great stories. My head hurt.

Today I had my final Czech language oral exam, where I talked to my teacher for twenty minutes in Czech. Yes, twenty minutes. I rule. Which leaves me with only the end of one paper and two tests before I'm completely done for the semester.

I'm excited to be done with the work, but what a bittersweet feeling it is to know that as soon as the work is done, I have only two more full days in Prague. I was eating lunch today with Stephanie at the American expat coffeehouse The Globe, when I looked out the window and suddenly actually iterated what I've been thinking for so long. "I have to come back here," I said. And there's no way I can't. Leaving now is like leaving right in the middle of developing something. Going home will honestly feel, at first, like a vacation before I just come back here. Is that how it's supposed to be?

Reverse culture shock

It's a real thing. You get so used to living abroad that coming home ends up being a shock to you, sometimes even more so than going abroad in the first place. And it starts earlier - before you even get home.

There are two ways to view my going home, but I've had this image in my mind that seems pessimistic, which doesn't really reflect how I feel about the whole transition. I have this image in my head that everything I do now could be the last time I do it, like I'm pushing a big line of events off the end of a cliff (I get that way a lot during the last show of a play I'm in, like the lines I say are leaving my brain or something. Weird, I know). So I actually made myself kind of anxious about spending this weekend with the family. My mind is already focused, at least somewhat, on home. I'm getting ready to reenter. I'm thinking more and more about waking up in my bed in Chicago and LA, and I'm starting to feel some of those same feelings I get when I'm at home. This seemed like an unwelcome interruption into all that.

Yeah, so that was a fairly ridiculous state of mind to be in. The weekend thus far (it's Saturday evening) has been nothing short of fantastic.

We spent Friday making the relatively short drive down south, passing through the small town of Tabor (where I stopped on my epic journey to Česky Krumlov long enough to get off a train and get on a bus). We walked around a bit there, admiring the oldest manmade lake in Europe. Then we were off again, speeding along winding forested two-lane highways at about 100 km/h with the occasional slam on the brakes for a passing animal, oncoming car, or interesting/creepy abandoned chateau on the side of the road.

Our arrival in the small town of Slavonice was marked by my getting to meet an old friend of the family's, a man who showed up at the house about a month ago. I had no clue who he was then, nor did I have any idea that we were going to stay with him here (you may remember I keep my information about these trips to a minimum, and only partly by choice). This affable, forty-something year old divorcee with a thick beard, easy smile, and incessant bandanna around his head, is named Ivan.

Ivan's house is awesome. A large hundred-year-old farm house in the middle of the countryside about 500m from Austria, he's filled it with artwork from his two kids, hundreds of books, maps, and colorful paintings. He works as a translator - that's how he and Tomas met a bunch of years ago and became good friends (and also how he speaks really good English). After settling in and having some hot dinner, we were off into town for a night of drinking and debauchery.

It was as epic as you'd imagine. Highlights:

-I've decided that in my remaining time here I should teach Jonas some American slang, so last night I taught him the perennial favorite, "I'm not gonna lie to you," making sure to tell him the exact situations in which it's useful to help you emphasize a point. Well, several hours and drinks later, he turns to me and says, "Evan, I'm not going to tell you lies, but..." I just about died laughing.

-We all started trading stories and games we play while drunk. I learned the incredibly fun game of flipping coasters (whoever can flip and catch the most at one time wins). Then I taught Jonas about drunk dialing, and almost got him to make his first drunk dial to my friend Liz.

- Of course, it wouldn't be a night of drinking if it didn't involve being accosted by a Czech homeless man who hates President Bush. I found out as we were leaving though, the guy wasn't homeless. Jonas knows his nephews. He owns a building downtown here.

-At the end of the evening (beginning of the morning), after I had eaten an entire 98Kc quattro formaggi pizza that might be comparable to the finest night of endless lovemaking (I'll have another tonight...), we were walking back to the car when Ivan suddenly stopped. "Do you smell that?" I'm still getting over my cold, so no. We followed him up a small set of stairs to a wooden door and a doorbell. He rang it, but the door was open, so we just walked in. The smell was suddenly overwhelming. We had just walked into the town bakery, buzzing with the work of baking the following day's bread and pastries. Heaven? No, that would be later, when I had a bite of the still-warm doughnut we had just bought. So much lepši [better] when it's warm.

What a night. Today has been fun too - lots of sightseeing around this place, including a trip to the neighboring town of Telč (a UNESCO site, though not as cool as Slavonice in my opinion) and a tour of the castle there. Then lunch of some fried meat (probably pork, let's face it) and a walk around Slavonice in the (sober) daylight. It's a beautiful town - really reminds me of Disneyland with its pastel colors and strangely new-seeming facades constructed in old styles.

Tonight, who knows. More debauchery? A quiet movie night? Finishing my book? We'll find out soon enough.

A quick goodbye

It's late and I'm going to bed, but the next time I'll be able to post will be Sunday, and I just can't leave you waiting that long. I've found myself with much less free time lately, what with my finishing up my final papers, tests, presentations, and the like. Which would also explain why I still haven't posted those damn pictures from Berlin. I'm sorry.

Last night was fun for a lot of reasons. Dan and I discovered a Herna bar near his apartment that's already becoming a new watering hole for us and his apartment-mates. It's a small dive bar with a Roma bartender and two prostitutes sitting at the middle table. The bartender loves us, probably because me and Dan love singing to her and she knows all the words to the American songs that come on the radio. A place with some real character to it.

Today started with our last real Contemporary Culture class, and I must say I'll miss that one - we've had some fun conversations. Then I had to present my project to my producing teacher, who seemed like he liked what I was talking about (he asked me for suggestions on which WebTV sites he should be interested in, like ManiaTV). I spent the rest of the day studying for tomorrow's Czech test, seeing Spider-Man 3 (it's a really fun movie, a good follow up to the first two), and downloading Lost.

So this weekend should be pretty awesome. I'm bringing my computer so I can finish up these essays in the car. And I'm going to try to speak Czech as much as I can, this being the last chance I'll get (um...ever) to really be fully immersed in the language (plus it'll be good review for my oral final on Monday).

Next time I talk to you, it'll be two weeks before I go home.

Did I just cheat on a test?

After two days of relaxation, I suppose I had a hectic day coming to me. My cold is wearing off, thankfully, so my usual busy Wednesday was a bit easier to bear than it might have been. Unfortunately, I realized at about midnight last night that I had a final today in that cinematography class that's kinda a joke. It might be a joke, but I do have to at least get a C on this test, since it will determine my entire grade.

So this morning I went to the usual Art & Architecture tour (our last one...Homerova, I already miss you), but left about 15 minutes early and went back to the study center to look over my notes. It was a bit difficult to decipher, considering I was reading notes I had written while paying half-attention to a half-drunk man who makes sense less than half the time.

Good thing, then, that my boring class, the one that I'm actually learning things in, covers a lot of the same material. So when I had some questions, I brought them up to my other professor, and he explained them to me like I was actually a smart person (imagine that).

But an hour later when the test was handed out, it dawned on me that I hadn't really studied as much as I probably could have. I knew some of it well, but some of it not at all, and I had no clue how this guy was going to grade us.

Then, something incredible happened. This professor, who had babbled for a minute at the beginning of the class, just left the room, leaving all of us Americans in the back row to conference with each other and look at each others papers. I would've felt guilty, were it not for the British girl in front of us who started by inconspicuously looking into her bag and then just gave in and took her notes out, copying the answers. And just about everyone in the room was doing the same thing.

He came back in the room, and we didn't really stop. And he just didn't care. So as it turns out, while FAMU classes might seem like big wastes of time, the teachers at least don't take themselves particularly seriously. They only want to make sure we know the material; they don't want us to just vomit up information onto a piece of paper. I think I did well on the test. And I suddenly liked the class at least a little more (though I didn't learn much).

Had some dinner with Evan W (who I haven't seen in a while, it was nice to catch up). As president of the USC Comic Book Club, he's taken it upon himself to organize a group trip to see Spider-Man 3 tomorrow night. We're all pretty damn excited.

After my last class of the day, I had one of those 'small world' moments. I walked up to the tram and was waiting for a moment looking up the river at the Castle when the guy next to me asked "did you go to high school in Illinois?" I turned around and said, "Did you do competitive speech?" He was an extemper from Buffalo Grove! He and his friends are here till Friday, and I'm going to try to see them some more.

Tomorrow should be fun. No early class anymore (WOOHOO!), but I'm making a presentation later in the day as my final for my producing class. I had to create a movie/TV show/something to produce, and I really like what I did - alas, here on the Internet where anyone could take my ideas, I'd rather not talk about it (though, if you hadn't noticed, this site is protected by a Creative Commons license. Email me if you're interested.

I'm also looking forward to the weekend. I had agreed last week to go with the family to a small town in the southern part of the country, but did not realize what I was getting myself into. We're leaving on Friday afternoon and won't be back till Sunday. My last full weekend in Prague will be a true weekend of adventures with the Jančařík family - could I ask for anything better?

TROJAN MEN, TONIGHT AT 10PM AT VKC

you know you want to go.

The reason I'm here, part 9723012938

Surprise surprise, I woke up sick yesterday. Just a standard cold again, but I'm really impressed with how much I've managed to be sick this semester!

I decided that since I had yet to take any sick days, I might as well take one yesterday, since almost no one would be in class (May 1st is a national holiday, so most people took long trips this weekend and came back today). I called in and told them I wouldn't be there, then went back to sleep for the rest of the morning.

Once I woke up, I spent my day actually being productive. I started and finished my final project for my producing class, and wrote the one-page trip report I had to do to get out of going on two trips with school. But before I could do more, it was time for me to accompany the family to a Czech traditional witch burning.


On the last day of April every year, Czechs burn the symbols of winter and welcome spring. I'm not sure how, but I was told that it was a witch burning, which leads me to believe that there was at least one point in history when they really did burn witches. Don't worry, they don't anymore. Now it's turned into more of a block-party type of thing, with villages raising money from their residents and breaking out the grills and the bonfires.

We began the evening with a walk through the "Czech Grand Canyon," a 5km valley on the opposite side of the river from our house that was carved out by a small river. It's a really nice place to walk (or, as Tomas pointed out, a nice place to go with a girl when you're 14. Yes, he said 14). Then we walked through the village over there and ended up at a big soccer field, where the bonfire was already burning.

About a hundred villagers (or village people, as Jonas called them with a smile) were milling about at picnic tables, playing soccer (we had apparently just missed the big match against their rival town), or warming themselves by the fire (it's been chilly here the past few days), all to the tune of a real, live, authentic, cowboy hat and boot wearing, beard sporting, guitar playing, Czech singing country western band. Bad Moon Rising never sounded so good (and the whole "there's a bathroom on the right" thing apparently doesn't work in Czech).

Tomaš and Zuzana have friends in this village, and they were there with their daughter. We all treated ourselves to a sausage and a beer and settled down on a bench near the fire (two fast-food style culinary delights I will miss: sausages and gyros/doner kebabs. How will I live without them?). Jonaš and I got to have some really nice conversations about movies and other stuff, and he was doing a prodigious job switching between speaking to me in English and to the other couple's daughter, who only spoke Czech.

The man of the couple spoke English very well (he's a businessman for an American company's branch in Prague), and he was a really great guy, so we got to talking quickly. He was really interested in what I thought of Prague, if I liked the food, what I thought of living with the Jančářiks, and about me in general.

And of course, with a little alcohol, the conversation quickly got very interesting. Things I learned last night:

-When asked what my favorite part of living in the house was, I quickly answered that it was my morning breakfasts with Tomaš, where we try to talk to each other about important things like politics, but have so much trouble understanding each other that we end up just resorting to "I think it's stupid!" "I agree!" Tomas, however, then told everyone that he always thinks we understand each other perfectly, until he finds out later in the day that he hasn't understood a word.

-On just about a nightly basis, I tell Tomas and Zuzana as I'm leaving the house, "I'm going to Dan's." Well, for the past three months they've apparently thought I was saying "I'm going to dance."

Which got me wondering...what on Earth did they think of me all these months...

The night wore on, the fire began to turn into embers, and I of coursed felt it the appropriate time to ask Jonaš where the marshmallows were. "Oh, we don't really do that here." WHAAAAAA???? Yes, that is correct folks, they don't roast marshmallows by the fire outside of the US and Canada. With the fire at the perfect temperature, I was dying for a s'more, and I said so to Jonas. "What's a s'more?"

It feels like I've been waiting a lifetime for the proper time to actually use this quote in context. "YOU'RE KILLING ME, SMALLS!"

The evening ended with a delightfully enjoyable, though slightly awkward for both of us, dance with Zuzana. Apparently I'm a good dancer. They certainly think so, with all the practice I've apparently had.

As midnight approached, we headed back to the tram...but there's still time for another drink right? (Jesu Maria! Zuzana cried) Two bars later, we resorted to a Herna bar (the ones open nonstop with casino games in them) down the block. When even that was closed, it was time to head home. We had a family snack, and all went to bed.

May 1st is a holiday in a lot of places, and here it was started as Labor Day during communism. Since 89, it's not called Labor Day, but they still get the day off. Everything closes, and people just kinda chill all day. I took the cue, woke up late, and then had yet another productive day. With only two papers between me and the end of my semester, I decided today was the day to just crank out one of them. So I did. Unfortunately that also meant I didn't post any pictures...

By the way, the Prague Post tells me

The Czech Republic and other East European countries serve the world’s unhealthiest fast food, according to a Danish study. Nutritionist Steen Stender said that fast food here contains some of the highest levels of trans fat, which he called a “silent killer.” (Don't believe me?)