So glad I took this class...

Another History of Architecture adventure! We started with a tour of František Bilek’s chateau. He not only designed the building, but he was responsible for creating all of the decorations inside it as well. That means the sculptures on the first floor are his works, and so are each of the pieces of furniture, door-handles and window-hinges. Can you imagine such a project?! I think it would be wonderfully fun but hugely intimidating because it’s so…huge.
After the chateau, we walked past some other art nouveau buildings on the way to Letna park. We wondered at massive and beautiful buildings (many of them currently private residences) and wondered, gaped at the Prime Minister’s old official villa, and then admired the view of Prague at night as seen from a park look-out. It’s a funny thing: since daylight savings time, this class takes place entirely in the dark. We’ve been spending more time inside buildings as a result, but this also means that my pictures haven’t been coming out so well.
Just a thought: I wonder what the people who live in these buildings think when they look out the window to see my professor walking his bike and 12 of us students following beside him. We approach the building and stand there looking at it as he points out different details and explains its history… What a strange thing to see out one’s kitchen window on a Wednesday night.

Time keeps on slipping...

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon! December’s here before it’s June! How did it get so late so soon? –Dr. Seuss

My dorm has had a few potlucks now, and I’m consistently amazed at how many people participate. In general, the programs here seem to get a lot of student support, but I wasn’t really expecting a dorm-bonding event to have a big turnout. I love my dorm: the building has a pretty small number of students living here, and everyone is very chill. It’s not like the monstrous dorm from last year where I didn’t know 9/10 of the building and constantly had to deal with vomit in the elevators and smoke in the staircases. This is a really good group of people. They’re all radically different personalities, which keeps things interesting, but overall they’re very friendly and great to live with. And it helps that we have such approachable RAs and a helpful building manager. Unlike in New York, here I’ve had a chance to actually spend time just hanging out with these lovely people. They’re friends (though ever professional, of course) who I’m hoping to keep in touch with and maybe even see again when I’m in Berlin next semester.

After the boys over fall break reminded me that American pancakes aren’t a regular part of life here, I decided to make some for the most recent potluck. They were chocolate chip. Yum! I also made pumpkin soup and pumpkin butter with the remaining half of my orange squash. So much seasonal goodness!

Friday the 5 was the last of the NYU-sponsored trips that I managed to get on. At first, I hadn’t really been interested in touring Plzen. Back in September, the history of beer-making in a Czech city hadn’t seemed so interesting. Since then I’ve had my share of Plzen brews. That new understanding combined with Plzen's becoming one of the 2015 European Culture Capitals convinced me to sign up. Maybe Sam’s nagging helped too. Regardless, it was a great trip and I’m glad I went. My advice to NYU in Prague students of the future: take advantage of the school sponsored trips. Instead of spending each weekend jetting off to Western Europe, as you may be tempted to do, sign up for the free weekend trips. You have your Thursday night in Prague instead of on a plane; your Friday and/or Saturday touring part of this wonderful country; NYU pays for tours, hostels, and (most) food; and you get home before dinner on Saturday so you still have part of your weekend to spend exploring Prague. Which you should pretty please be sure to do! Because suddenly it’s November and you’re wondering where the semester went.

Excuse my tangent. Now then, back to Plzen. This was a day-trip so we got on the bus at 8 and were in Plzen by 10. We started out with a tour of the major sites of the city. The school where Smetana studied under his uncle’s watchful eye was one of the tour highlights, along with the park that was built when the city moat was filled in and a mural depicting famous people from the life of the city. A more curious stop on the tour was a memorial of thanks to American soldiers who liberated Plzen at the end of WWII. Apparently, Soviets forbade history teachers to mention that Americans had any hand in ending the Nazi occupation. This would have been fine except that there were photographs of US soldiers that told the real story. So they had to concoct a cover-up and, long story short, the monument that exists today was build in very recent history because it could be built only after the old myths were expelled. Interesting stuff.

Two other stops on the tour were a Franciscan monastery and the gothic church in the main square. Our group walked into the church at the monastery to admire the decorations. This would have been fine except that they then walked up the main aisle to the alter, stopped to discuss the design of the pulpit, and took a few photographs…all while some old Czech women were trying to hold Eucharistic adoration! I hung out in the back and wondered about the places where the religious lives of some overlap with the academic (touristic?) lives of others. I’m all for admiring holy buildings, but it’s disrespectful to do so without understanding the basics of their community lives. The Jewish museum in Prague handles this really well: they hand out kippahs so that even the gentile men who visit the synagogues can cover their heads. Maybe the Catholic churches should put a sign out during adoration asking visitors to remain quietly in the transept. I was really uncomfortable.

Outside the gothic church in the main square, we got another dose of Czech superstition. I feel like wherever we go, there is something that you’re supposed to rub or hug or kiss for luck. In Plzen, the legend says that the town executioner was once waiting outside the church on his wedding day. Because he was considered an unclean person, he couldn’t enter the church and a legal stand-in groom had been appointed to take his place in the ceremony. As he waited, his nerves overcame him. He clutched at a sculpture of Christ’s head that was part of a decoration on a gate by the back of the church, and he started to pray. An old lady walked by and saw him. Since it was believed that executioners had some sort of mysterious power, the old lady immediately went and told the town that she saw the executioner transfer some of his magic into the sculpture. Even since, people have touched it for luck. It’s supposed to make your wishes come true.

If all of the good-luck rituals I’ve heard of this semester work, I should be fluent in multiple languages, tending a huge garden, writing pretty decent books and able to pay my parents back for every penny of my tuition…all within a year or so. Hold your thumbs for me! (Which apparently is the Central European version of crossing your fingers.)

The tour ended at lunch time, so Brianna led Becca and I to Andel Café for some to-die-for vegetarian food. This semester has been filled with great veg food, but I’m going to try to make those baked tomatoes when I have fresh tomatoes next summer. If I’m successful, I’ll post the recipe asap. Promise.

After lunch, we took tours of the Plzen underground, the original Plzen brewery and pub, and the current Plzner Urquell brewery. We learned that the underground cellars were originally for storing food and collecting well-water, but that they were eventually connected and could be used to making/storing beer, traveling between houses, and hiding valuables during times of war. We also watched a video about barrel-making and a video about Plzner’s growth as a company. We tasted hops and barley and unfiltered yeast-y beer. Then we watched the sun set over Plzner’s heliport before heading back to Prague for a quiet night.

Saturday, Sam and I had intended to explore some of the outer neighborhoods of Prague on foot. Instead, we started by taking tram 22 to the end of the line to see Bila Hora. We stopped off at a monastery on the way and ended up at the Star Castle on the way back. Then it started to rain so we hopped from tram to tram to stay dry. We went all over the city before eventually ending up in some southern outskirts. At that point I got cold so we came home to eat soup.
After dinner we headed to A Studio Rubin to an excellent concert featuring Megaphone and Milo. We had met one of the guitarists from Megaphone at an NYU event put together by one of the RAs a few weeks ago, and it was fun to see him perform. He even recognized us (well…he recognized Sam immediately), which was unexpected but pretty sweet.
After the concert ended, we walked out into the street. A few drunks were being a bit loud on their way out—not obnoxiously loud for NYC but annoyingly loud for Prague—until suddenly we heard pigeon wings and gunshots. We looked up, startled, and saw someone leaning out of the window of his apartment. He fired a few more blanks from his handgun before leaning back inside. Perhaps a bit of an over-reaction? In a city where you can be arrested for making too much noise after 10 pm, maybe not. Although that’s what you get for living over a concert venue in the tourist center. Just saying.

Sunday was pretty lazy. I went with Sam and Skjviana to get Afghan food at Ariana (which was sooo good!) and then we crossed the Vltava and walked down the river bank until we reached the Staropramen brewery. At which point we turned home to get caught up on work before class.

So now it’s Monday. Tomorrow, I turn old. To celebrate, friends are coming over for food. These are a few of my favorite things!

Let's hear it for Soul!

After a pretty fantastic fall break, I was thoroughly exhausted for Halloween. I stayed in and studied; the Czechs don’t do Halloween anyway. Which, as I attempted to explain to a classmate earlier today, makes sense because our ‘Hallow’s Eve’ is not their ‘Hallow’s Eve’. They celebrate All Souls Day on November 2 rather than the first.

Once I was caught up on my work, I walked to the grocery store and spent a whopping 250kc on groceries because we have no food in the apartment. This is called post-vacation empty-fridge syndrome. (As a side note, if you do the conversion and decide that I’m being sarcastic, know that that’s a cheap bill in NYC but a moderate one in Prague and a seemingly steep one after I spent so little on break.) I bought a pumpkin, and last night mashed up half of it with a potato to feed myself and some friends. Yum.

I fell back into my classes very easily. I even remembered where we were supposed to meet for History of Architecture! We went to the Rudolfinum to start talking about historicism. The Rudolfinum is a neo-renaissance building that houses a concert hall—which I was in at the beginning of the semester when I saw the Philharmonic—as well as a gallery space. The current exhibition has actually generated quite a buzz around NYU because one of our professors is the curator. Otto Urban put together Decadence Now! based on the idea that decadence has been a strong influence in modern art. My professor explained that Decadence is the name of movement in writing and art historically associated with the 19^th century. I’m obviously not an art historian (or else I should have known this), but seeing as styles seem to build off and react to each other, it made sense to me that Urban would see the influence of Decadence attitudes carrying over. I was interested to see how he would use the exhibit to point out its role in current art.

The concept of the exhibit was interesting. The pieces were grouped around 5 excesses and their manifestations. Excess of the self, for example, is depicted as pain. Excess of beauty becomes pop, of mind becomes madness, of body becomes sex, and of life becomes death. I don’t know anywhere near enough about art theory to agree or disagree…although I wonder if the same kinds of motifs can be found in pre-Decadence art as clearly. If so, the argument that Decadence influenced contemporary art by establishing these relationships might have to be reworked to consider where Decadence got those ideas from originally. Regardless, I thought the exhibit was organized really well. Aside from the unusual and interesting concept for arranging the pieces, the whole exhibition just flowed very well.

With my family coming to visit soon, I keep thinking about where to take them. I’ll probably leave this exhibit off the itinerary. Here’s my reasoning: The original artists of the Decadence movement were all about breaking taboos. Sure, Félicien Rops had some racy works…but his paintings were original. One might even call “Pornocrates” amusing. The original Decadents were artists who were making fun of the Victorians for 1) taking themselves too seriously and 2) pretending to be squeaky-clean and proper all the time. Maybe I would consider taking my parents to an exhibit with such pieces as those Rops made…the violence and eroticism had a target (of sorts) and was creatively presented. It’s interesting. As far as the pieces from Decadence Now! go, there were very few that would merit a pause. Personally, a sculpture with taxidermied animals having an orgy on a teeter-totter just does nothing for me. This isn’t the same as saying ‘I didn’t like the painting of the fairies having oral sex.’ I didn’t like it, but there are plenty of pieces of art that I don’t like, yet can appreciate. These really weren’t even pieces I could appreciate. Most of these works didn’t even strike me as effective pieces of ‘shock art,’ though you could tell with some that they were trying. Really they were.

Lest I sound too terribly negative, I did really enjoy one of the large portraits in the first gallery. I didn’t write down the artist’s name, but the portrait was a really dynamic one of the head of a person wearing a black S&M mask screaming against a stark white background. Maybe not the most aesthetically appealing content, but the photo itself was striking. Farther on in the exhibit were photographs by Ivan Pinkava, a painting by Josef Bolf and a fantastic skeleton-wheel sculpture by Steven Gregory, all of which were appropriately morbid (they were in the death room). I found these to be the most remarkable of the gallery’s works…aside from the architectural details of the gallery itself.

Since November 2^nd fell on a Tuesday, I was able to take the time after IR and go to Olšanské Cemetary. I wanted to see how All Souls day is marked in the Czech Republic, and the city’s largest cemetery seemed the place to do it. There are over a million people buried there, and I entered through a back gate into one of the older corners. There were a few people milling around. Some placed candles and flowers; some were just walking. Overall it was pretty quiet. With the autumn colors of the trees and the hanging birdfeeders by some graves, I felt like I could have been in a city park. The Flora Palac mall is built set into one corner of the cemetery, so I strolled between graves while the IMAX sign glowed overhead. That was a little surreal feeling. Then I stumbled into one of the newer sections and suddenly there were people everywhere. They were sweeping away leaves and dust, placing flowers, lighting candles, re-painting guilding on headstones…There were old women matter-of-factly straightening out the sites of their family graves (most were family graves). There were sad looking old men holding their hats, children running and playing games, and heaps of wreaths piled on a few of the freshest graves. One of the candle-dispensing machines had a sign on it saying, I think, that it was out of candles. Jan Palach’s grave was, of course, glowing from its blanket of candles. As I walked out the main entrance, I wound through booths and tables selling everything one could think of to leave at a loved one’s grave.

Personally, I prefer graveyards this way. It makes me sad to think how color-less and cold the few I’ve been in back home are without the bunches of Chrysanthemums and red-glassed votive candles. One of my friends joined me after her class and commented that she avoids even the funerals of family members because ‘it’s just too much.’ This makes me terribly sad. So maybe the dead don’t care how many flowers they receive or how many people come to their funeral. That’s not what such things are about. Visiting the cemetery is a way of paying respect to the lives lived by those who are buried there and celebrating the lives they touched. Attending a funeral is about both of these things, and further it is about standing with the others who have been left behind as well. You pass on the stories of the dead and you keep living to craft your own stories. That sounds rather like a certain conversation between Sam and Frodo…Guess I read too much Tolkien growing up.

Fall Break

"Never travel alone." It's solid advice, and advice I've heard repeated constantly since I was first introduced to the concept of the buddy system. But a rather wise young man whom I've had the privilege to meet a few times shared his version earlier this semester: "Always travel with a friend. That friend can be God, but always go with a friend." So, parents, before you berate me for going solo, consider that I was not alone in my fall break travels. Really.

Despite the fact that I could only commit one week (and during the off-season), I applied to WWOOF in Slovenia. I got a response from a family living just outside Litija, and so I bought train tickets and headed off.

Getting there was a bit of a fiasco. When buying my tickets, I had printed off the information about the two trains (or two series of train connections) that I wanted to take. The gentleman behind the counter instead printed out (and charged me for) an international rail-pass...though I didn't realize this until later. Having the rail-pass meant two things: I paid more than I had been planning on and my ticket listed different transfer stations than the print-outs I was following. The consequence? I got kicked off the train somewhere between Bratislava and Budapest because my ticket wasn't valid for Slovakia. After buying a ticket to get out of Slovakia, I bounced from info desk to info desk and train to train until I finally made it to Ljubljana.

Had I been traveling with other people--and consequently responsible for them--this would have been a much more stressful experience than it was. In fact, it would have been so stressful that I might not have been able to appreciate the views of the Austrian and Slovenian countryside beyond the train windows. And that would have been a tragedy, because the views were breath-taking. I would almost consider buying another rail-pass just to take that train ride again. Almost. As a side note, having the rail-pass was useful once I was train-hopping to get back on track. Of course, I wouldn't have been in that position in the first place if my ticket had been for the connections I wanted...but what can you do. It was an experience.

Strangely enough, I ran into NYU students on the last leg of my journey. They were going to Zagreb and we sat in a compartment with a Croatian boy who just thought that the other students (two girls who were very NYC glamorous) were fantastic. It was cute watching him try to impress them. In the process, he taught us some Croatian phrases (which we pronounced in a Czech way, prompting him to rebuke us and warn us that doing so made the words sound more Serbian...which would get us in trouble) and told us about his favorite food and drink: Ćevapi and Rakia.

I got off the train in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and spent three hours walking around the city center. I stopped at a lounge called Makalonca Cenik for tea and then met up with the parents of family I would be staying with. For the sake of their privacy, I'm not going to put their last names up here...but if you are seriously looking to WWOOF in Slovenia, feel free to email me and I'll forward you their info.

Their small farm is about an hour outside of the city and 15 minutes from Litija. By the time I got there the first night it was too late to look around so we just went to bed, but I knew from talking with Mateja (the mom) and Sandy (the dad) just on the car ride that I had made the right choice staying with them instead of touring Europe over break.

I'm not sure what was more refreshing: being outside a city or inside a family. There were roosters crowing, leaves changing colors, and vegetables growing. The comfortable smell of the wood stove and the voices of the kids (ages 4, 14, and 15)...listening to loud (Baltic and Serbian) music and spending time in a kitchen...There were moments when I felt like I was home at the start of the fall and winter holidays.

While I was prepared for anything, I'm so glad to have ended up with a family. After two years of hosting WWOOFers, they all spoke really good English. Because of this, I had a chance that I rarely have in Prague: the chance to have genuine open conversation with non-expats. And I'm so so glad to have been welcomed by this particular family because they were all such kind and interesting people.

I watched multiple "American Pie" movies with the Tim (the 15 year old) and Žan (the 14 year old), nodding when they pointed out "American style" film camera tricks and blushing when asked about various sex-toys. Actually, by the time I left I had spent large blocks of time in conversation with each of the boys. We talked about education systems and politics. We talked about movies and music. They asked what I thought about gay rights, whether all Americans are really bad at geography, and how we celebrate holidays. Sometimes we listened to Pink Floyd; sometimes we listened to Lepa Brena. We discussed the definition of 'rock and roll' and the rules of texas hold'em.

Interestingly, when I asked them about school we usually ended up talking about food. Though their parents had moved the family out of the city, both boys take the train to a city school--a Waldorf school at that--where they are in the minority when they identify as farmers, bring sandwiches made on 'black' whole-grain bread, or eat vegetarian. Apparently, people really give them a hard time about being vegetarian...a discrimination problem that I can't comprehend after living at NYU.

Food was actually a frequent discussion topic. We talked, as expected, about Thanksgiving turkeys, fast food chains, and ready-made frozen meals. The boys introduced me to Blejska Rezina and begged me to make "American style" pancakes (though not for breakfast due to the sugar content). Spending time with Mateja meant also talking about hydroponic farming, bread making, cereal-based coffee drinks, jam making, squash, and herbal teas. Mealtime involved gathering everyone who was home around the table, joining hands to say grace in Slovene, and spending time all together...which was enjoyable even when I couldn't follow the conversation due to my linguistic ineptitude. Mealtime was when I learned that salad is eaten from a common bowl, everyone uses his or her own knife for putting spreads on bread, soup is common as a starter for lunch, and cream cheese should never (outside Philadelphia) be mixed with jam on the same piece of bread.

Much of the work I did was also centered around food. I cut apples for drying, juicing, and jam-making. Lots and lots of apples. I also picked beans, gathered raspberries, raked leaves into the compost pile, and even cooked a few times. After weeks of writing papers and reading academic articles, working with my hands was such a relief!

Midweek, I spent a morning wandering along the Chestnut Touristic Trail that started near Saint Anthony of Padua pilgrimage church, wound through the mountain woods, dipped into the valley, and circled back toward the farm where I was staying. Taking time to be alone with my thoughts in the woods was such a luxury! There were a few touristic farms on the trail (complete with carvings and paintings that reminded me of the Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs that I'm used to), but I didn't get too close to any of them. I do wish I had known that there would be shops selling local honey where the trail intersected beekeeping paths. I'd have brought a few Euros along.

As wonderful of a time as I had, the most memorable two stories are both from my last few hours with the family. Throughout my stay, Žan had been working on a project for school which involved writing/illustrating 30 pages about the chicken house he and Sandy were building. When he showed me his work-in-progress, he also explained to me the benefits and needs of a certain breed of chicken that he wanted to buy: the silky. This is important background information for the first story. So...

Saturday, my last day, was also Žan's 14th birthday. This was a week after Tim's birthday and a week before mine. For his birthday, Žan got to pick what foods we had for lunch. He picked grilled cheese and tomato soup (which is what I like on my birthday if I'm home!) and french fries. I have wonderful pictures of him feeding Sandy french fries!

We were finishing eating and Žan had a bottle of non-alcoholic 'champagne' that he was very excited to open. As he was getting ready to pop the top, Sandy brought a big box with a bow into the room and set it on the floor. Everyone got up and hugged Žan and wished him a happy birthday, and he thanked them but then said he would wait to open the gift because he wanted to open the champagne first. And that's almost what happened...but then a small thumping sound came from inside the box. Well! You can probably guess where this is going. Žan temporarily forgot about the champagne and rushed to open the box. He was surprised and delighted to get three silky chickens as a birthday present. He rushed to bring them outside to the chicken house, leaving Mateja and Sandy victoriously beaming across the kitchen table. I'm so glad to have been part of that moment.

After lunch, I only had a little bit of time left. I went outside to make mudpies with Zala, admire the new chickens, and attempt (with Žan's support) to ride a unicycle. Then the boys suggested we ride motorbikes. This led to the second story, which I'm going to copy/paste from an email I sent to one of my friends back in NYC:

"After a fantastic fall break (which I'll write more of later), the time arrived for me to part from my Slovenian host family. I made mud-pies with the daughter, cheered for one son as he opened his birthday present (chickens!), packed, ate grilled cheese and tomato soup...and found myself with an hour to spare. The birthday boy suggested I try his unicycle, which I did without much success. Then his brother brought out their motorbikes and they insisted that I try just once before leaving. For about 10 minutes, it was lovely. Then I crashed in the fantastically graceful way only I can. Bleeding from both knees, both palms and my shoulder, I limped back to the house with the boys. Their mom tied a bandage around the worse knee so that it wouldn't bleed through my jeans any more than it already had. We laughed because I'm a clutz. We laughed because I hadn't shaved for a week so Mateja bandaging my knee also meant everyone admiring my hippie leg-forests. We laughed because we didn't want to say goodbye.

"I hugged everyone and, looking like I'd just gotten mugged, hopped onto a train. Transferred once. Transferred twice. While waiting for my train in Vienna, I was approached by three NYU in Prague students who needed help getting home. We all sat in the same train car and traded travel stories.

"13 hours later, I was back in Prague.

"14 hours later--because they re-routed the trams for construction so I walked-- I was back in my dorm.

"I didn't have my key so the security guard let me in to my room.
I promptly took the longest shower of my life, cleaned my room, curled up, and went to bed."

And let me say, I was looking out the skylight before falling asleep around 7.30 am on Sunday, and I was so confused. It was still dark out! I'd woken up at 7.30 the day before to bright sunlight! I was too travel-tired to realize that it was daylight savings time playing tricks on me.
When I woke up, I spent Halloween grocery shopping and catching up on homework.

I could only take a few pictures because my new camera has a small memory card, but they're all online if you want to check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/101917038422029660027/FallBreak?feat=directlink