Posts Tagged ‘czech republic’

(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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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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(North Korean Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic – naw, just kidding, but almost got you there!)

On the Road in Germany, Admiring Fritz and the Mighty-Might of the World’s 4th-Largest Economy
Dreaming of the 1920s When Things Were More Normal In These Parts
13:30 CET
Grooving to Stevie Wonder on Michael Ruetten’s Soul Searching

Lions and tigers and bears and…North Koreans in Prague?! Who ‘dat?

Yeah, you read that correctly. Pyongyang maintains a robust diplomatic presence here in the Sketch Czech Republic, a legacy of its previous snuggle bunny relationship with the former Czechoslovakia. A partnership that stretches back decades, long before such cute little annoyances like 1989’s Vel Rev (aka “The Velvet Revolution”).

Ties between the DPRK and today’s Sketch, oops, Czech Republic remain, much to the patchouli-daubed showerless protesting crowd’s chagrin, alive and well thankyouverymuch, chugging headlong into the 21st-century as the glorious Korean “Paradise on Earth” seeks to resurrect the DPRK’s old comradeships with its former Central European Cold War stalwarts. All this in advance of a proposed peninsular all-or-nuttin’ takeover, as per Bam Bam’s recent statements to the media.

Are you afraid yet?

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Who the hell likes it when their plans are rudely interrupted by some lousy unscheduled volcanic eruption(s)?! No one, I guess, except the layabouts escaping from responsibility. But for the European mega-busy set this past weekend and week, there was likely a small hillock of alcohol and drugs consumed due to the anxiety attacks of not being as busy as they normally are. Shrinks are likely going to soon witness a spur in sessions booked as the chronically organized search for a deeper meaning in the morass which was the EU’s airspace lockdown.

In my case, being stuck on the road for a couple of days, as I’d related to some friends of mine recently, was a sublime opportunity to see stuff, do stuff, and travel along at a pace which I’m not accustomed to.

These were some of my random reflections that popped to mind as I was hopelessly stranded in Switzerland, and then onward into Central Europe by train…

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So March 21-27, 2010 came and went…

It marked the absolute worst week I’ve had during this first calendar quarter and I’m frankly shocked I made it through in one piece. I didn’t think I would (h/t to you-know-who). I still haven’t recovered and don’t think I shall for quite some time yet.

I just hope it doesn’t take that long, though, because I think I’ve had about enough of eating crow. What I went through I don’t even wish on my enemies. It was hell. The worst hell I’ve been through at this stage of my life. I don’t even think I’m ready to put it into words yet, though I certainly have my share of horrible imagery. I’ll get back to ya…

I’m also loathe to report that it’s been something of an even more uneventful weekend. I’m limping into my upcoming two weeks off truly battered, bruised, and licking some very deep wounds.

For those who sent support and condolences by email and Facebook, I’m eternally grateful. I’ll always remember you for it. For those who didn’t, well allow me to share some of my unfortunate sadness with you now…

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After dwelling in Eastern Europe’s bizarre post-Communist galaxy for more than eight years now, I’ve observed a ton of radical changes in this region over that span of time.

In my case, Czech Prague has disturbingly evolved from a city of mystery and intrigue — one with an ominously dark brooding aspect, albeit with an unsettling checkered past — into a ho-hum sleepy mitteleuropaische burg which doubles as a transit point for all and and sundry who seem to exist here in a sort of transitional bubble. The only people who seem to have anything to do with the Praguers are the Praguers themselves. Even other Czechs seem to resent their big city cousins terribly, perhaps quite normal for most countries. Prague is populated by locals and others who are pushing westward from Europe’s post-Soviet, post-Bloc East in search of a more permissive European environment in which to fulfill lifelong dreams or hatch their mendacious schemes for lucre. There are also those hailing from the wealthy West in search of a post-collegiate drunken, drugged-out adventure and those reviled washouts, castaways from societies where they just couldn’t make the grade. Losers by any other name.

Alas, Eastern Europe – and in my particular case, the hapless, bumbling, drunk, and extraordinarily corrupt Czech Republic – is not the People’s Republic. The Czech Republic – not in dog’s years — couldn’t ever boast of China’s expansive possibilities or come anywhere close to promising China’s seemingly endless opportunities for advancement.

So let’s draft a brief outline of the typical profiles of the ones who formerly flocked to these landlocked shores during the Golden City’s heyday, those wild post-Wall Fall 1990s:

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