So I realized something today, realized it because of two things. First, I still follow the ISA facebook page, and someone posted "Safe travels to Prague, Fall 1 students!" and when I was here a year ago, it was in the Fall 1 program. Second, it's Sara's birthday. Happy Birthday, Sara! But this is important because Sara was midway over the Atlantic on her way here when she turned 21. She is now 22 (and old). She was (and still is) a big part of me getting comfortable here, so her birthday is kind of a big deal, as a milestone. I wanted to write a deep and profound post about all the big changes that have happened in the last twelve months, but you don't want to read that. Instead, I'm taking the first real post from my blog after I'd been here for about a week, and noting it to death with the added benefit of hindsight. I'll try to be funny, I promise.
Prague, 9/8
I’m starting to realize something about myself that people have been telling me for years – I take myself entirely too seriously. I'd like to think this has changed. Rather than thinking I'm so grown up, and I have all the answers, and all my shit is so very together, I've gotten much better at admitting I'm a giant child, I have none of the answers, and roughly half my shit is sort of together. It's all become very tongue in cheek, this "adulthood" thing. That's what happens when you move to a different country and realize that all the things you thought you wanted, you don't actually want. You want an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT set of things, and as you have laid absolutely zero ground work for getting them, you now have the wonderful gift and terrible curse of having all the fucking options in the world. Do I take myself seriously now? Perhaps, but where I had been Juliet, I am now Mercutio. And we all know how he ends.
Anyway, journal entry. It’s Saturday, which I’m counting as the last day of my first week here, which also means I have only written twice prior, and I really ought to get better at that. The end result might be that I start carrying my large journal to write by hand in, and some day when they collect my memoirs for progeny, they’ll have to get this period of my life from two places. Yeah, that never happened. But that’s the price they’ll have to pay for what I’m sure is a
So despite the fact that I have a flair for the
Christ, this is getting less and less funny. Quick, what do you call a crocodile in a sweater vest? And in-vest-a-gator.
So what is that like, really? Well, I covered last entry what living in my apartment is like. To recap, pretty but also heartbreaking. Again with the melodrama. I ended up loving that apartment. I miss speaking Russian, and while there is a girl working at the program’s office from Ukraine who seems incredibly eager to speak Russian with me, I’m also intimidated. I'm so dumb. I lost all my Russian because I was too scared to freaking talk to someone. She’s a native speaker and I think I can count how many verbs I know on one hand. Also, not a fan of the Czech language. It’s ugly, no one speaks emphatically, and I can’t differentiate a Czech accent from German. I miss Russian. I miss it a lot. Czech, for the record, isn't exactly my favorite language - ugly seems harsh now.
So a funny thing is happening to me here – I’m getting stared at all the time! Everywhere I go! Maybe this was happening to me in Denver and I just didn’t notice because in a car no one gives a flying fuck about much of anything, and other than driving and work, the only time I was out of the house was to be with friends. But I find that here, ESPECIALLY on the Metro, I catch people staring at me. It's not you, sugar, it's the Czech Stare. They stare at everyone, it means next to nothing about you. And my Mom is saying, “It’s 'cause you’re stunning!” and I’m like “mreh, you have to say that. If I’m ugly it’s a bad reflection on your genes.” So I thought it was because I’ve taken to glowering and wearing red lipstick. Nothing really says “Fuck off” like a good old fashioned glower and red lipstick. Red lipstick, while stunning on a face as pale as mine, also kind of implies I’m willing and able to make you my bitch. It’s not true, at least not in a physical sense, but they don’t have to know that. You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you. You're so vain... And yet today, I wasn’t bedecked as I usually am here – professional, severe, and BLACK EVERYWHERE I do still wear black. I'm like if Neil Gaiman's wardrobe fucked the Clerks cast and then traveled back in time to the 50s – but was wearing white shorts and a t shirt. I also was glower-free, as I had a very good day that makes me think I might have found a niche, this early on. I remember this day. I was beaming like an idiot because it was the second real day I'd spent with the Czech I was about to be romanced by. Still a fond memory, even a year and three breakups later. It's hard not to be charmed by having a sexy black leather jacket thrown over your shoulders when you shiver. If you know me, you know it takes me a long while to find a niche. Still true. Anyway, no glower, no lipstick, and I’m still getting looks. Do I really look that American? Bob Saget. I need to reintroduce this into my vocabulary.
So, it’s probably worth mentioning what this program is like, since I’ve been getting a lot of questions. No you haven't. It’s put on by an independent company, International Study Abroad, or ISA, that coordinates with Charles University. So they do all the touristy stuff with us, and then we take classes at Charles University, which I’m pretty sure they also coordinate, though don’t teach. The first two weeks we take an intensive Czech language course, boring, no one cares which I am frustrated with because it’s moving very slowly and I don’t think I know how to say anything. We take that until 2:30 in the afternoons, and while there’s usually something arranged for us after class, when I have the time I’ve been going to Old Town Square and haunting a couple art museums and churches. Despite having more or less expunged religion from my body like a bad cold, these churches are taking my breath away. And on the weekends, though not every weekend, they take us on excursions to the cool stuff we couldn’t or wouldn’t necessarily prioritize less boring. Today we went to Kutna Hora, which at one point was the second largest city in Bohemia after Prague. Now it’s mostly a tourist town, with a stunning Gothic church, a medieval silver mine, and another gothic church that isn’t as big or as pretty, but is decorated almost exclusively with human bones. Check the pictures, they do more justice to all that than I could. BORING. SO EFFING BORING. This paragraph, not Kutna Hora. I recently went back with Ian and Casey.
But let me take this opportunity to talk about the people running the program, who provide really the only semblance of structure for me right now. And if you know me, you know I love structure. Also still true, though I've gotten better at dealing without it. So there’s Daniella, the program director. Very sweet, very helpful, always smiling, calls us her ISA babies. Super sweet, I think she's intentionally oblivious to how much trouble the students really should have been in. Then there’s Lucie, who is Daniella’s assistant and the one we go to with silly problems. She’s also very sweet, and sometimes its hard to distinguish where Lucy ends and Daniella begins. I’m sure as I get to know them better they won’t be a single entity in my mind. There’s Tamara, the one from Ukraine, who is (again) very nice and has already given me loads of suggestions for things to do with my spare time. She’s painfully shy, though, and I’m not sure if that’s because Ukrainians play things close to the vest or if she’s a shy person. Also an artist and musician, and when you finally get her to talk, she's hilarious. And then there’s Martin, who is an anomaly both because he is male and because if you were to look at him on the street, you wouldn’t guess he’s 27 and has a Masters already. You would, however, guess he is a big, fat nerd just like me, but with twice the knowledge and half the pretentiousness. As I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve heard a great deal of nerdery in a Czech accent from him, which is like a little slice of home. If I knew any Czech people at home.
I think the only other thing worth mentioning at this point is how much time I spend alone here. I spend a good deal of time alone at home – you probably know that – but it’s in a place I’ve grown up in. Also, how to be comfortable with being alone was a hard learned lesson, but now I really do prefer to be alone. Alone and happy with my own thoughts is better than in a group worrying about what people think of me. And alone and doing what I want is better than in a group doing things I don’t want. Really, I think it makes the time I spend with people more special for me because I’m there because I want to be, not because I’m terrified of being alone. In Prague, that’s translating into a lot of nights at home with my book and a mug of tea because I don’t like going out, and I don’t mind so much when I see my peers hung over the next morning. But sometimes being left out – even if it’s my own doing – stings a little. But even as lonely as I might feel, lonely is not the same as miserable, and I know I would be miserable clubbing and drinking and making a general ass of myself. This is interesting to read, a year later, when I do panic over being home alone and I do have a job as a club promoter. I can't decide if I lost something or gained something in the transition, because while I know now that I'm capable of being commanding everyone's attention in the club or bar, I still don't like it except occasionally. Perhaps the difference is that then, no matter what happened, I was going home in four months, and now, I have no ticket booked for the way back. But the real difference, and I know this with every fiber of my being, is that the great weight of the hurt done to me last summer hung like a weight around my neck, preventing me from really looking at myself, looking at who I was, and how to make myself happy. Whatever else has happened this year, the anchors around my neck aren't so heavy I can't swing my head to look in the mirror or look at others. What I really need to do is find someone in Prague whose idea of a good night is nursing a whiskey on the rocks in a bar and watching Firefly. And then going to an art museum in the morning. That’s an awfully specific set of demands, though, and I’d probably just settle for one of them. I did find that person, though instead of whiskey it was tea, and art museums were his indulgences into what I wanted to do.
A couple observations:
· Prague women are stunning, especially the ones my age. Prague men… well. Let me clarify this, because it's been misinterpreted. Prague women are still stunning, they never stopped being stunning. Prague men are, with a few exceptions, ugly. They are ill dressed, smelly man-children. And even if they aren't poorly dressed or smelly, they are probably still man-children
· The temptation to get another piercing or tattoo is mounting, as I feel like my eyebrow spike is becoming a little too tame. A sensation that stems directly from how stunning the women are here. If they’re going to be pretty, I might as well be pierced. Another alternative is getting a side cut. I’ve always wanted one, and my hair is long enough on top. Or rather, tall enough, as it’s still doing the anime poof. Got them both within I think two weeks of writing this. Still have the side cut, though the second eyebrow piercing rejected. I'll get it re-pierced at Christmas. Also, in February I got the three extra ear piercings, and in June I got the tattoo. So I'm all body-modded up at this point.
· Food here is so starchy, I have to go out of my way to eat anything fresh and green. Oh god, still true. I think the Prague golem was actually a large Jewish dude who just needed a glass of water and a salad.
· I miss Tokyo joes. OH GOD, TOKYO JOE'S, I MISS YOU SO.
· The temptation to get another piercing or tattoo is mounting, as I feel like my eyebrow spike is becoming a little too tame. A sensation that stems directly from how stunning the women are here. If they’re going to be pretty, I might as well be pierced. Another alternative is getting a side cut. I’ve always wanted one, and my hair is long enough on top. Or rather, tall enough, as it’s still doing the anime poof. Got them both within I think two weeks of writing this. Still have the side cut, though the second eyebrow piercing rejected. I'll get it re-pierced at Christmas. Also, in February I got the three extra ear piercings, and in June I got the tattoo. So I'm all body-modded up at this point.
· Food here is so starchy, I have to go out of my way to eat anything fresh and green. Oh god, still true. I think the Prague golem was actually a large Jewish dude who just needed a glass of water and a salad.
· I miss Tokyo joes. OH GOD, TOKYO JOE'S, I MISS YOU SO.
So what's the lesson? Oh god, who knows. I'm also worried I've become that person, the one who can't move on from study abroad. The thing about the whole experience, though, is that it was not real life. It didn't exist inside the parameters of reality, and there's no way I could ever manufacture that again. But it was a really effective reset button, and while I can't say I'm happier now than I would have been if I hadn't gone because there's no way I can know that, I do know this: my life and the person I am today would not be as healthy, as interesting, or as terrifying if I'd stayed home. All the good (boyfriend, unwinding, introspection, meeting friends that have already made deep impacts) and bad (three break-ups, weight loss, getting super sick, tossing all my priorities in the blender and hitting puree, debt) I am grateful for. So here's to the last twelve months. May the next twelve be just as exciting, and maybe a little less frantic.
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