Vienna

Friday, October 29^th, 10:20 PM

  JoEllen and I are sitting on the last leg of our train ride back to Ostrava, in a surprisingly chilly though otherwise relatively comfortable R train, about halfway between Brno and Ostrava. We decided that, since Thursday was a state holiday in the Czech Republic (commemorating the declaration of independence from the Habsburg Monarchy) and neither of us have anything on Fridays, that we'd have a short vacation in Vienna, which isn't terribly far away from Ostrava (about three hours, usually). We headed out Wednesday around fiveish, since I had class (though as it happened I completely spaced that we were meeting at the library instead of the classroom, so I didn't manage to make it regardless), and got into Vienna at about 8:30 that night. Veronika and Anna met us at the station, which was awesome. JoEllen took off to go get settled at her couchsurfing place, and Veronika, Anna, and I went back to Anna's place, where I was staying, and took down half of the handle of Becherovka Lemond I had brought as a thank-you gift and watched videos of some of the performances from the summer school and then some silly you-tube videos, including Arnold Schwarzenegger's 150 best quotes and a Ukrainian Army recruiting ad. Thursday I met up with JoEllen and Ida from Denmark who was also staying at this couchsurfing Mecca and we had coffee at the Loos-Bar then went to Schönbrunn, where we spent quite a lot of time walking around the enormous grounds. Afterwards we visited the Hofburg, saw the Staatsoper, walked around the city center for a bit, then went and met up with Veronika and Anna to go visit a Czech pub near Veronika's place, at which hilarity ensued. Today we had lunch at the Wirtschaftsüniversität, where they go to school (best cafeteria ever.) then we headed over to the Albertina, where there were two big exhibitions (one on Michaelangelo and one on Picasso). Afterwards we just wandered around the city for a while, got some coffee (Kaffee mit Schlag!) and then decided to head home, since our hosts had to head out for the weekend and Vienna is no place to have to pay for housing on a Czech salary. Overall it was quite a nice trip, though we're both terribly exhausted and looking forward to spending a day or two at home doing nothing in particular. It was actually quite cool to be back in an authentically big city, none of which exist in the Czech Republic. It also felt quite homelike to me, since I could actually understand everything that was going on, instead of my usual 50-70% in Ostrava.

  Luboš brought me a clothes cabinet before I left, but disassembled. Thankfully he didn't conscript me to put the thing together, but said he'd come back and do it Thursday, so I'll have something new waiting for me when I get home. It's entirely possible that he'll also have rearranged my room, which seems to happen on a relatively regular schedule of about once every two weeks, but I don't suppose I'll care that much, since I'm not particularly attached to any particular furniture arrangement. I finally caved and bought an exercise bike, which got delivered Wednesday morning, so I'll put that together this weekend. Pseudo-home gym more or less complete! Well, we're approaching the station, so I'll wrap it up. 

Matrace a Hrad

Saturday, October 9^th, 11:47 PM

   Yesterday was full of acquisitions. In the morning, Luboš bustled in while I was in the shower and set up shop in the kitchen. I was a little curious as to who was romping around my apartment while I was in the shower, but I thought it was probably him and I was right. At any rate, he came finally bearing a mattress! A 'new' and 'quality' mattress, which here means that it's okay. I haven't quite gotten used to it – it's at kind of a strange height, and feels slightly rickety, which can be a little nerve-wracking. It is, though, a significant step up from the bizarre couch pull-out arrangement that had previously served. Hopefully I will begin to sleep better from this point on.

   After that whole to-do, JoEllen and I went on an extended shopping trip wandering around the center and buying various things. I got a movie, some bowls, an oven mitt, the first two books of the Eragon series, because they're gigantic and I'd heard good things (they only had book one in German, though, which is probably good in that it will last considerably longer and the idea was to have something to read on my commute) and Good Soldier Švejk, because it's about time I actually sat down and read the whole thing, and I finally caved and got a copy of Civilization V. I was going to look into acquiring some weights, but the store that sells them is by a stop that the tram apparently only stops at going in one direction. Oops. Still missing – shower curtain, shower mat, wallet. Then we got delicious, delicious Döners and watched a movie. Today we met up and headed over to Opava, just down the railroad tracks, to visit Alex Bednar, another one of the Fulbright teaching assistants. Opava has a lot of character – my favorites were probably the bird statues and the moving beast. There are two large bronze statues of birds, facing one another, in a park, but one of them will move its head seemingly to track you, which is somewhat unsettling even with forewarning. There's also a sculpture of some kind of semi-animal form which is migratory, e.g. at various points during the year a crew will move it somewhere else. Then we headed over to Hradec nad Moravici, the small bedroom community in which he lives, and walked up the mountain to visit the awesome castle there. Probably the best castle I've seen so far. It was a pretty sweet castle. Then we stopped for ice cream and I got the 'Castle Sundae' – less immense than expected, but actually really really good. I think I may try to enjoy more ice cream before winter really arrives and takes all the fun out of it. There remains a bowl full of lamb in my refrigerator, for as far as I can tell no particular reason, but I'm sure some use can be found for it. Anyway, it's late and I'm tired, so I'm going to go acclimate myself to my new mattress!

Až Dneska

Thursday, October 7^th, 7:02 PM

  My mind is worn out. Dr. Popelka invited me to visit a couple of courses this afternoon at the Univerity, so I spent about four hours trying to comprehend spoken academic Czech. It went better for the first course than the second – it was about the development of nationalities in the Czech lands, and the professor was a character. She was also quite apologetic about her lack of a perfect knowledge of my language, which seems to occur quite often here. In some ways, it's very strange – it never seems to occur to them that I ought be the one apologizing for being here in the Czech Republic and not knowing the language well enough. In any case, it was at the least a good language exercise, and I was actually surprised at how much I grasped. I'm definitely still at the 'passive consumption' stage of learning, but improvement is improvement.

  I'm beginning to think that my bed is mythical. It's been three weeks, and it remains floating tantalizingly just beyond tomorrow. I would be more upset about this if I didn't have something to sleep on, but I would much prefer to be sleeping on a real bed or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. I think it would help me get up in the morning to get a good night's sleep and thus not feel like I'd gotten beaten with a bag full of oranges in the night.

  The archives are going all right. The commute is a little irritating – it's about forty minutes by tram, which would be fine if I had something to occupy my time. Ironically, though, I have nothing to read. Perhaps I ought patronize a bookstore tomorrow. I'm particularly excited about my copy of Lingaea Lexikon, which lets me instantly translate most anything without an internet connection. If I hadn't lost track of Antonio, I'd write him a thank-you note for hooking me up with it. I think it'll save me an incredible amount of time over the course of the year.

  It seems like I'm settling in a little bit more, which one would perhaps expect. I still spend most of my time inside my own head, but just getting out and doing things generates its own momentum, and there are a few good people around to spend time with. Movies have taken on a much more considerable value in my life than usual – I've actually watched several movies by myself, and a number of others with company. Recent acquisitions include Rudé Horko, perhaps better known to the Anglophone world as Red Heat, starring Schwarzenegger and John Belushi. For two dollars. It was a steal. The discount movie market here is actually really compelling – I wish we had it's like in the States. JoEllen hadn't seen Eurotrip, which I immediately understood to be the travesty that it was, and we have since corrected that lack. I myself saw Robin Hood: Men in Tights for the first time courtesy of Rachel. It may be that when I conclude this I'll pop something else in for a spin. Like I said, my mind is mush at this point. But hey, since the Archive is closed on Fridays, it's the weekend now! Nothing compared to Rachel's weekend, but three days should be enough for me. Udržím balce!