(the Ruskies are comin’, the Ruskies are comin’~)

It’s no secret I’ve been wanting to learn the Cyrillic character set for a while.

So I recently found the right occasion to do so right here in Belgrade on the twice-good Tuesday the 6th, and now I can read it. Just like that. The charset is no longer a mystery.

Thirty-three pesky little letters.

An hour to nail the entire alphabet, with about three more required for practice reading (1000 Russian words) with a diligent emphasis on improving my accent (I’ll make a video of me reading Russian so you can hear for yourselves).

Since I’m not bad in Czech for a non-local – especially compared to several dumbfuck American or British expats I know in Prague who still can’t string two proper Czech sentences together after living there for nearly a decade! – and since I’m formally trained in Czech grammar, I’ll succeed in Russian handily.

Incidentally, all Slavic languages find their roots in the tongue and alphabet bequeathed to them by the good Greek monks Cyril and Methodius. For that reason, mastering Russian grammar won’t be nearly as challenging (thank G.od!) as honing the Czech one was.

I’ve already gotten over my Slavic lumps (wink, wink), so to speak…

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(President Obama and Veep Biden – can’t you just feel the love?)

Travel around Europe often enough and you get a keen sense of what locals’ different attitudes are towards personal space.

Do they like reaching out and touching you or do they attempt to distance themselves from you as far and as often as possible?

Some cultures are inwardly-looking and insular. For example, I’m thinking of Germany and Austria, and most of the border regions in the new-fangled “Czech Republic.”

Others are more welcoming and adoring, roll-the-red-carpet-out-in-front-of-you kinds of places.

Some societies in Europe prefer to keep a safe (and wide) “reaction threshold,” so its citizens have more time to react to your (G.od-forbid) bold attempts to be social, while others don’t mind closing that gap and do so willingly and often.

Of course, you can classify the entire European caboodle according to region and the manner in which they deal with personal space. So let’s slot their willingness to get closer or further away from you as being in the Narrow, Medium, or Wide camps, shall we?

Since I’m presently in Belgrade, let’s compare the society I don’t know to the one I do. Let’s compare Serbs to Czechs (and, ew…Slovaks), using the following grid as a guide to the perplexed on how to navigate the rocky shoals of these two (or three, counting the Slovaks) long-standing neo-Slavic cultures, mixed as they are with the blood of other cultures which they have somehow appropriated as their own.

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If anyone hasn’t heard the big news, I’m back in Belgrade for Round Two of the Magical Serbian Road Show.

As is always the case here in the #exYU, one tends to hit the holy ground running. And if last night’s hurrah times are any indication, my “second coming” in Beograd ain’t gonna be any different.

(Nikola Denic in the darkness of Belgrade’s nightlife)

Yeah, I know. It’s a fucking hazy shitty picture I snagged,  but pictured above is none other than the ab-ab gentle colossus, “Knez” Nikola Denic, reclining at the sexy and hugely popular Belgrade splav (or floating nightclub), Freestyle (note to Nikola’s Slovak girlfriend: he wasn’t touching anyone, didn’t do anything other than suck back some beers, and was an overall well-behaved cat. One Slovak’s word to another, dobre?).

Duke Nikola is indeed a gentle giant and emphasis on the word gigantic (standing at a stentorian 2m high into da sky!). He’s also totally responsible for getting the other two of us into that big mess we got up into on the Danube and Sava Rivers and there’s plenty of dish to tell.

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(I Will Always Stand On Guard For Thee!)

(remember that whole “Axis of Evil” b.s.?)

 
Happy Birthday Canada!

Old gal, you don’t look half-bad for a 143-year old MILF! I send you a wet kiss and my best b-day wishes from way over here across the Kiddie Pond. Just trace your finger down and to the right along the European phallus. I’m down here somewhere along its shaft, in the Sketch.

Well now. Right on, eh! Why don’t we do something commemorative for Canada Day, eh? How about a combined post which encompasses elements of my present dual existence, both Canadian and European?

Good idea, eh? Ready? Steady? Allons-y!

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Yesterday, I wrote about the Ten Things I Absolutely Dig About Czechs. Today I thought I’d bring you the ten things I just can’t stand about Prague’s locals, as a way of rounding out the picture.

(the Czech Republic’s finest?)

1) Czechs love to blindly adhere to rules, thereby avoiding creative solutions: And creative solutions, incidentally, don’t necessarily involve illegal maneuvering or otherwise breaking the law, my dear local friends. Creative solutions are all about looking for angles where none seem to exist. About finding cracks in the wall where there are “sleeping sentries,” where you can force your way – either by sheer wit, charm, or cleverness — into the gilded fortress. In a nation where such tremendous fear permeates the whole society, as in the Czech Republic, rules serve to keep its people firmly in line and in a perpetual state of stunned unquestioning servitude. That the locals don’t actively seek out creative solutions to their otherwise very soluble problems is indicative of a societal tendency to blindly follow rules. Sorry, but that makes you Germans, dear Czechs. And following the rules never got anyone anywhere…look what happened to the Germans. ;-)

2) Your personal space will be constantly violated in Prague’s public domain: Try walking down a busy Prague street and observe how (you won’t have to, since it will be up in your face constantly) hardly anyone’s gives you any quarter. You can’t build up a good head or steam as you walk along a cobbled sidewalk because people (of all ages!) will constantly cut you off as they go about their business, flying out of building or shop exits with zero consideration for who might be already prancing along their merry way, or suddenly stopping on a dime to check their cellphone display or look at something without considering who might be following in their wake. It belies a degree of selfishness, if you ask me, and I admit that I bump into people intentionally to prove my point. I let my momentum smack right into them, and I wait for the blows to fall, but they never do. ;-)

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(courtesy of Jan Sedláček’s amazing Prague Daily Photo: okay, so these three are Slovaks, but you get the idea)

Yeah, I’m in that kind of mood today, so get it while you can.

Here are 10 things I dig most about my beloved Czechs ("Meine Prager verstehen mich"/"My Praguers understand me"):

1) Czechs are humble and cute and nice and kind and delicious: When you encounter one of them in the early morning hours on the cobbles, you just want to reach out and give ‘em a big bear hug. They can be like little kiddies who don’t want to hurt a soul. Your heart just goes out to them in situations like these. I know mine does.

2) Waiting tables and working in cafes or restaurants is a life’s calling, not merely a job: As such, I rarely – if ever – have to repeat my coffee or food preferences at all of my usual foxholes (and there are several!), such is the level of ADM’s predictability. And I’m the sort of cat who likes that kind of routine. And I’m not talking about your run-of-the-mill starving artists or Plain Jane people looking to connect the dots between school and a “more secure” future. They’re almost permanent fixtures in the places I frequent, and I appreciate and take care of them in my own special way. They take their jobs seriously, which is a helluva lot more than I can say for the average Starbucks barista.

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(The Astonishing ADM, this time with long locks, standing sentinel on Prague’s Charles Bridge on the way to Lesser Town – damn, I’m so money!)

There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see and sees it, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more. He is constantly comparing what he sees to what he wants, so he sees with his mind, and maybe even with his heart, or tries to. If his peripheral vision gets diminished – so that he quite literally sometimes can’t see what’s coming at him from the suburbs of the place he looks at – his struggle to adjust to the country he looks at to the country he has inside him at least keeps him looking. It sometimes blurs, and sometimes sharpens, his eye. My head was filled with pictures of Paris, mostly black and white, and I wanted to be in them.

– from Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik

Now that I’ve been videoblogging regularly once again over at ADMTV (hooray end to annoying group creativity!), I’ve picked up several new viewers along the way. Thank you to you all.

As my public profile has received a welcome punch-up over this past month from my irreverent ways, I’ve noticed a corresponding spike in my incoming email as people send me their questions, curious about my geographical location, my professional background, my sex life (none of your business, however!), my daily rituals, and why I’ve chosen to make Prague my European foxhole.

(ADMTV on Vimeo.com)

So I thought I’d address ten of the most common queries I’ve been fielding of late in the form of a “pro/con” list.

This way, I’ll hopefully manage to cover some of the more notable items I’ve been asked recently and perhaps in so doing, you’ll learn a thing or two about the lovely Golden Burg (aka, Prague). It might even convince you come on over to visit me one of these days?Except one isolated case for reasons unrelated to my guiding expertise, I haven’t had a guest here yet who didn’t enjoy my hospitality. So please come for a visit!

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