Walk with Whitman

How to describe today?        Halcyon.
It was golden; it was unspoiled; it was picturesque.

It made me go all Transcendentalist; the more we walked through Prague's verdant Riegerovy Sady, the more I had Walt Whitman running through my head. Thus, this post is a string of park photos matched with some favorite poetic bits from Whitman's Leaves of Grass, in no particular order.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
  Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
      even the best,
  Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
  How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

  I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
      stuff woven.

Spontaneous me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with

The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
  Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
  Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, 

  embracing, arm-curving and tightening

Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are,
  Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
  If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring
      form, color, perfume, to you,
  If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers,
      fruits, tall branches and trees.

I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough...
  To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, 

  laughing flesh is enough

Good in all,
  In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
  In the annual return of the seasons,
  In the hilarity of youth,

We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
  We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak

I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the
      whole of the rest of the earth,
  I dream'd that was the new city of Friends,
  Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love,

      it led the rest

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That. Green. Couch.

All we wanted was a small accent table for the entryway. You know, for framed photos and a key dish and stuff.

Ikea would have been a quick fix, but BW and I have journeyed to those big blue boxes on the fringes of Prague a few times now, and we just didn't have the heart to do it again. Plus I had the romantic notion that we could find a piece with history and joie de vivre. Unlike laminated pressboard. 

Thus, after our last visa appointment at the Foreign Police in a crumby part of Prague 3, we headed to a nearby antique furniture warehouse I'd found online. It was behind U Nákladového nádraží, along with a couple of other dealers.

Yuk! Where is this place? 

So THIS is where gorgeous Czech furniture goes to die in the hopes that someone will come along and reanimate it...

That. Green. Couch.

I couldn't believe my eyes... row after row after row of pieces decades and centuries of years old. Sure, some of it was pricey, but there were deals to be found. A wobbly-but-stunning Art Deco wardrobe was 800kc ($40), for example. 

I once met a state senator from Minnesota who traveled to Chicago frequently just to scour shops and flea markets for Art Deco items. And he paid a LOT for them. I feel like if this place was in the US, not a stick of wood would be left in it.

I wanted this cobweb-covered old typewriter! No reason. I just wanted it!

More couches of my dreams

Can we take it all home?

Imagine the stories behind all of these curio cabinets and writing desks and horsehair chairs...

We didn't find what we were looking for on this trip, but if we strike it rich, I may insist on purchasing a Czech home just so I can fill it with treasures like this:

Winner

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Benefits of blogging

This blog exists for the sole purpose of keeping our rellies abreast of what we're doing way over here in the Czechosphere. Ex: We bought leeks from a Colin Firth look-alike at the farmer's market today! Lame for some, but the parents are plugged in. 

Yet, in a roundabout way, blogging has also opened a few interesting doors. We've electronically "met" other bloggers; we've acquired an arsenal of photos we otherwise mightn't have taken; and we've been offered writing gigs here and there. 

Anything that asks us to advertise a service we haven't used gets turned down, but I did accept an offer to do some freelancing for a web site, www.independenttraveler.com, which is aimed at traveling retirees. One of the assignments was to write the text for a slideshow about experiences in the Czech Republic that transcend the typical "tourist" stuff. Click on the picture below to link to see the finished product, which BW helped with, too. FYI - The photos that the publisher sourced are uh-maaaaay-zing!

Hard to believe our irreverent musings about Czech life and culture would interest anyone that much, but I also got interviewed as a local blogger (BW declined since I do most of the writing) by Internations.org, which connects expats around the world. You have to join the site in order to see the interview, though.

Considering this is the most famous we'll ever be, hey - I may as well post about it.

:)

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Night-tramming

The thing about Prague nights is that they gallop past much too quickly, leaving you wondering where on Earth those past couple of hours went while you were tucking into a meal and forking out conversation. You look up from your schnitzel/curry/beer/Shirley Temple and - YEEHAW - it's past midnight and the metro's stopped running.

Taxis are readily available and you'll have much less of a chance of getting ripped off if you order by phone through companies like AAA. (We've completely given up getting one off the street after being gutted by nefarious parties.)

Still, when we do have a late outing, we usually prefer Prague's infamous night trams, which provide some of the best people-watching in the city. They tend to be a touch crammed, and usually merry. And as the Czech Republic's blood-alcohol level tolerance for driving is 0, with much stiffer penalties than in the U.S., the night trams are a necessity.

BW waiting for a night tram to pick him up

Here comes one! That's a huge pub crawl to the left. Meh.

More night owls

There was that one time someone deposited a pile of bile on the floor - the tram driver stopped, entered the compartment, dumped sawdust on it, and kept going - but we won't dwell on that. Or the fact that numerous people getting on and off stepped in it.

No, we sort of enjoy a good night tram jaunt now and then.

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Bone appetit

A POST BY JAYDA. WOOF.

I get lots of outings but mom and dad actually remembered to bring the nice camera on this one, so my cute mug is back on the interwebs. We went to a magical place that has American-style bacon and books in English; it was almost like being back in Minnesota! Except I wouldn't be allowed in a cafe/book shop in Minnesota.

Here's my 'hood, where we were waiting for the tram. It's practically like America, too, because you can see Starbucks, McDonald's and KFC. Those three places account for 90% of the litter on my street. It's no fun having to hop over a french fry box the size of my head!

And here we are having lunch at the Globe with - you guessed it - another American family. Mom about flipped when she saw they had real pancakes (not crepes) on the menu. "MMMMM, THR GRD," she said, with her mouth stuffed full of syrupy-carb happiness. Dad had an omelet. And beer. Together. Blech. I wonder if there were woofles on the menu...

After lunch, dad went to watch a football match with some Scottish men whose accents I can't understand. So mom and I had girl time. We wandered around the bookstore...

 ...and outside, I struck my best "head-cocked-with-vacant-ambivalence" model pose for the camera.

Mom let me stop and sniff at a sausage stand on Wenceslas Square for a bit.

And we took a final picture in front of the Art Nouveau Grand Hotel Europa, where some guy named Kafka apparently had one of his first public readings. Kafka, schmafka. Take more pictures of me!

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Erected in Letna

Spring has sprung, not in a Robert Frost sense of "darting birds... and happy bees/...dilating 'round the perfect trees". No, for us Spring is slinking out of hibernation and beginning to erect itself through the opening of the beer garden at Letna Park.

Letna Park is a lovely green space (well, brown space right now) that sits atop a hill overlooking the Vltava River and central Prague. It's laced with walking paths, sculptures and bits of playground equipment, and years ago, I saw former President Vaclav Havel strolling there! Today it's most famous for an outdoor beer garden and super views of the city...

...but years ago, it was home to the largest monument to Stalin in the world. See the ticking metronome in the pavilion-turned-skatepark below? That's where Stalin, leading a band of loyal workers, stood for 7 years, overlooking the city of Prague.

Here's a photo taken from the side of the since-demolished statue.

Courtesy of radio.cz

Apparently it was scornfully called "fronta na maso", or, in English, "the line for meat", alluding to food shortages at the time. It was blown up in 1962.

But the metronome wasn't the only thing to stand in the same spot; a 35-foot water-filled rubber "statue" of Michael Jackson was also planted there briefly for the kickoff of his 1996 HIStory world tour. Who's bad?

Courtesy of eurweb.com

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It's a big world after all

How surreal to teach an excerpt from Plato's Republic a few weeks ago in Theory of Knowledge class and then stand in Ancient Agora, where Socrates mentored the budding philosopher. Or to be reading about the crisis in the Ukraine while your students are debating with other kids from around the globe about whether or not Crimea should be an independent state. Or to call your husband, who is many countries away, on FaceTime to say, "Good morning, sunshine!"

The world feels small.

Speaking of which, there was a school group at the Model UN conference from the United States! And, regretfully, they made no bones about how shocked they were by the subordinate knowledge and actions of their international peers.

True, the Greek kids were definitely louder (and more casually dressed) than the Americans and even my Prague group. But this is a cultural experience and a chance to chew thoughtfully on customs and mores.

"But they didn't even know what a LEVY was!" complained an American gal emphatically on the last day of the conference. "I had to EXPLAIN it to them!"

Her adviser told her to "...be patient with them and maybe they'll learn something."

Never mind that the other students at this conference spoke English as a second (or third or fourth) language. Or that most Americans don't even know what a levy is. The ill-considered comments made my cheeks heat up.

So perhaps I shouldn't think of the world as a "small" place, lest I impose my perspective on others without considering theirs.

I digress. A few views of Athens for the road:

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens

Candles for sale in the Cathedral...

11th century Church of Panaghia Kapnikarea right smack in the middle of a commercial district. For a long time, ancient structures were either replaced by modern infrastructure or completely enveloped by it.

Chaperones extraordinaire in front of the Agora, the center of the Athenian government, dating back to 6 BC.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus. (FYI - my Year 11s are reading "To Kill a Mockingbird". You know, Atticus!)

Up up and up the Acropolis, 

A top-down view of the Olympic Temple of Zeus

The Old Temple of Athena

Trees in Athens were positively pregnant with these orange orbs. They're
called bigarades, and they are the sourest thing I've ever tasted.

D'oh! Someone knocked it over. (The Olympic Temple of Zeus)

At the Panathenaic Stadium, where the first modern Olympic games was staged, in 1896

Something modern: Athenian grafitti

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Need some togas

BW was an enthusiastic Model United Nations pro in high school, and here I am in Athens being an MUN chaperone because the school needed a female teacher to come along. Sorry, BW!

We didn't even have MUN in my rural North Dakota high school - but we did have clubs like Future Farmers of America and competitions like State Music, so we traveled to exotic locals like Jamestown (home of the albino buffalo) and Bismarck (state Capitol with a fort). In all seriousness, though, those trips felt like momentous journeys to us.

The conference launched today, so we spent yesterday emanating awe in the birthplace of democracy and Western civilization. Here are some photos taken by my gung-ho co-chaperon DH, with student permission to post:

On the Aeropagus, where Eres was said to have been tried for killing Poseidon's son. Just picture them in togas.

The Acropolis's Parthenon, the most important surviving structure of Classical Greece, completed in 438 BC

Mmmmmm... Greek salad

Lots of sun at the Olympic Temple of Zeus, which Aristotle criticized as being a symbol of tyranny. 

The changing of the guard at the Presidential Palace

On the site of Hadrian's Library, circa AD 132, where papyrus rolls ("books") were stored

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Full-circle to Greece

Back when I was doing my teacher training program eons (okay, 9 years) ago, I opted to take part in Global Student Teaching (GST), which meant half of my practicum months were in Minnesota and half were abroad.

Initially, GST placed me in Athens. Opa! I imagined conjuring up the ancient philosophers in columned ruins and stretching out on white sand beaches. Guidebooks were procured and my energetic little Midwestern mother started saving for a trip to visit.

And then the e-mail came. Greek airline workers were on strike. My placement was being moved to Prague.

"Prague?!" mom's incredulous voice cracked on the phone. "It's just that... well... wasn't it part of the Eastern Bloc?"

Apparently she'd been envisioning white sand beaches, too. 

But my experience in Prague was better than anything I could have ever imagined, ma came to visit with her best friend and were bananas about the place, and the parents weren't too fussed when BW and I moved here in August. Happy ending.

However... I still sort of really wanted to go to Greece.

And now, years later, I'm taking 16 students to a Model United Nations conference in (drumroll) GREECE! The MUN adviser - an English/History teacher and former state senator from Michigan (!) - was nice enough to ask me to be a chaperone. And BW is nice enough to hold down the fort with J-dog.

Sometimes it pays to be a teacher! (Besides the loving kids and learning part, you know.)

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