The weather was amazing today so I took a stroll over to Vysehrad. Vysehrad is one of the more overlooked areas of Prague. Its a little out of the way but still within the limits of the city. High up on a hill overlooking the city Vyrsehrad has several walking paths to explore.
For the last twelve days I have been out of Prague. I spent ten days in Japan, one day in transit, and one day in Paris. This first entry is about my time in Paris.
On my way to Japan I decide to return to Paris for a night because of a standing invitation from a British girl to stay at her place.
When I land I take three trains into the center of Paris. It startles me to hear French and my natural reaction is to respond in Czech, which complicates things, because by then they’ve realized I’m not French and started to speak to me in English. Everyone is pre-drinking in a small, very Parisian flat that is in full view of the Eiffel Tower which is lit up and has a spotlight on top circling in the night sky.
I drink a lot of Cognac and 1664 and we go to an Erasmus party. The girl I know gets drunk and grabs me a lot on the dance floor. We leave with her friends, she lives in the suburbs of Paris, and it’s a long expensive drive that I have to pay for because she is too drunk to look for her money.
Even at night I can tell that I like the buildings in this suburb. Simple brick and white walls, parts of France look to me how I imagined Europe would look when I was little. There flat is big and located in a grade school and she has set up a bed for me in the main room but we go to her room where she tells me doesn’t want to do anything. That pisses me off. I fall asleep before I can try to change her mind.
We wake up late and I half-heartedly try again and she says the bed is too loud. After we dress we walk around her small cute town, eat some quiche and drink some coffee and then go into Paris. We meet her friend, hang out around the Arc de Triomphe, eat again and take some pictures by a pond. I take pictures of the Louis Vuitton flagship because it is ridiculous but without shame. At the top of the store they fly the Louis Vuitton flag, which is a bold and hilarious move in the Champs-Elysées.
The girl tells me that they never check tickets so the whole time in Paris I sneak into the metro with her pass. On the way to the airport I get stopped outside the train by metro checkers and have to pay twenty-five Euros, but I don’t blame the girl because I should have known better than to not buy a ticket while caring around luggage. On the train we say goodbye and kiss awkwardly. I’m two and a half hours early at Charles de Gaulle but I almost miss my flight because the monorail to my terminal breaks down. A German girl who can speak French saves me and I get to my gate as my flight is starting to board.
Since it is now past midnight I suppose that is the appropriate greeting. Good morning! What a good night I had tonight. It is amazing to me how I am finding contentment in small experiences. I guess that is what I signed up for and tonight was a quick preview of what is to come.
After our lessons today my teacher, M’barak, who I have mentioned before invited me over to his house for breakfast (6:15 p.m.). I accepted his invitation and we walked through the extremely crowded souq (open air market) looking for groceries. We got what we needed and made the long walk back to his house at a most leisurely pace.
We cooked up some hardboiled eggs, made some tea and arranged our bread, yogurt, dates, and other simple stuff. We still had some time before the call to prayer that would signal breakfast time.
The wait for dinner included an in-depth conversation of topics. We did not talk all that much philosophy but we did talk about philosophers we have each read and said, “Oh yes he is great, and his perspective on this, that and the other is fantastic.” He is an extremely well read man and can hold a conversation on any level in any of five different languages. I am very grateful that he is our Language and Culture Facilitator.
After dinner we made our way back to the Dar Chebab (youth club) for a meeting with the other four volunteers out here with me and the club we have already established. The “Friends of the Trainees Club” discussed for over an hour what curriculum the Moroccan children would want in the next two months while we are in Sefrou/Immouzer. I would love to tell you what that is, but I want you to keep reading these e-mails so that is my trailer for the next few letters.
After the meeting around 9:30 p.m. I was ready to go home and our group split up in the directions of our homes. M’Barak and I live in the same direction, and so do two of the members of the club. Ali is a 23 year old masters student as well as English teacher. Ghali is 20 and a second year English student studying in Fez.
As I was preparing to depart and make the left turn toward my house they said, “so you don’t want to go to the café?” At the risk of getting in trouble with my host father I agreed to go with them to the café. We spent over two hours talking, joking, laughing, drinking cofees and teas and just enjoying each others company.
All three men were very kind as the vast majority of conversation was held in English. They also helped me a lot when I attempted to piece the few words I know into sentences. I drank tea while the other three each got their own distinct type of coffee. It is funny how I never got into coffee shop culture in the states, but it seems to be the social place to be for men in Morocco. Sorry, ladies. No girls allowed.
I walked back with Ali and Gali and we shared bad words in our respective languages. For whatever reason this always seems to bring smiles to peoples faces. Nothing like a string of curses to bridge the culture gaps.
Anyways we made it back to my host family’s house where I am now chilling in my room listening to Warm Love by Van Morrison. I wish everybody well.
Outside the Chateau in Old Town, we are looking for a cab to my place. She stops to call one. The guys next to me are speaking English; they are from the States or Canada.
“I just finished the sixty day shoot,” one cheers, “I’m off to Romania next.”
Maybe they are actors? Neither is good-looking but the one who said it sort of looks likes he could be one, the other doesn’t. “Is that Erica’s puke?” The other asks, motioning at some watery looking vomit on the corner.
“Yeah, she is down the street right now,” I look down the street and see a tall blonde chick walking with another girl while swaying dramatically. Someone comes out of the bar in a hurry and wipes out on the puke.
“You just slipped in barf,” the non-actor says, “Not mine, one of my friends. Yeah, better things have happened.”
Douche. It is funny but something about the way he says it, his voice, his face, bothers the hell out of me. Down the street someone is fiercely beaten and I see him collapse to the ground. He is punched in the face while he is on the ground. It’s a brutal fight.
When we get a cab I see the guy who hit the ground being held against the wall. He is skinny and has curly hair and his face is completely bloody, the area around his left eye is noticeably swollen even from where I am. He is out of it, and I can’t tell if he is drunk or has been beaten to the point where he can’t think straight. I’ve never seen someone so bad. It is right outside one of the bar’s exits and I’m amazed that no bouncers have helped him.
The last couple of days in the States are a blur. Mostly packing and trying to tie up all the loose ends. The weather is finally nice for one day.
My final night in town I go out with the girl I met earlier. There is nowhere to go, so we spend time in the back seat of her car, which felt like high school. The whole night we say to each other, ‘at least we’re not in high school.’
In the airport I fell nauseous and take Dramamine which knocks me out for most of the flight to Amsterdam. When I’m boarding my second flight the buzzer goes off on the metal detector. The guard is friendly enough when he molests me by patting me down everywhere.
I take public transit home: bus, metro, and then a long walk, which is a mistake and I notice that everyone is annoyed by my big blue bag. When I get home I have surprising amount of energy and I text people, and then an hour later crash for a long time and walk up in the middle of the night.
The next day I go for a walk in Vyšehrad. The weather is beautiful, a real Spring day, and nicer than where I left Sometimes you forget how beautiful this city is. Sitting in the park, looking over the parapets, it is so perfect that even the disgusting pickled sausage I’m eating tastes great.
It’s snowing again on Easter Sunday but this time the flakes are light and without wind. I was told this is the earliest Easter can be. It won’t be this early again for another two hundred years.
I heard a Tegan and Sara song that rocked my world so hard I haven’t been able to think straight for three days.
The church parking lot is filled so I park down the street in the dying downtown. Everyone comes out of the woodwork on Christmas and Easter, the same with me. I’m out of place without dress pants and a tie but people don’t seem to mind.
Most of the friends don’t make it home for Easter anymore and they are mostly stuck in their respective cities: Minneapolis, Denver, Chicago, New York. Everyone has to be at work on Monday so I watch television with my brother and fall asleep early.
Welcome to the latest installment of Me, My Life, Morocco,
I really had to get my mind right before I wrote this one. I tried a few times before now to write this letter but it kept starting grumpy. I have been in desperate need of a turning point.
Since I arrived in Sefrou on Sunday I had not even had the whisper of a shower. I still haven’t but now I have had something even better. It may only be better because I was living with my own stinky self for so long but this better thing is called the hmmam.
The hmmam is like the public bath house. Believe me, it didn’t sound appealing to me either. The way it was described sounded a lot like the JCC locker room for those of you who know what I am talking about. Essentially it is the same minus the completely naked old Jewish guys. Thank God! Instead it is a bunch of mostly naked Muslim guys. The religion doesn’t really matter but at least these guys wear underwear.
The inside is essentially three rooms that drastically get hotter as you make your way to the back room. My friend Nate and I decided to take the plunge about an hour ago and it was great. You fill up a bucket with warm water and then scoop it out of the bucket with a cup to get yourself wet. The next step is lather/shampoo/scrub yourself down. Then the rinse and you are done. I milked this process for well over 35 minutes in the medium heat room and it was exactly the turning point that I was looking for. You cant have a better time on 75 cents anywhere in America. It could have been the wait but I think that this might just be the way to bathe all the time.
Enough wash talk. This week has been a very demanding test on almost all my faculties. I have not had the opportunity to exercise at all except for some pushups and situps in my room which hardly qualifies. I really love to play around and without it I have felt somewhat incomplete.
Besides that I am working much harder than I have in what seems like forever. I spent six years trying to learn Spanish and right now I would say that we are equivalently three years through even though it has only been three weeks of training. The classes are moving so fast and it is taking all my concentration and patience to even try to keep up. Four consecutive hours of language every day, six days a week is a struggle. The fact that the extremely imperfect Peace Corps textbook is the only resource that even attempts to organize this language only adds to the frustration.
Another trying aspect of this week has been my host family. My host mom is great. Even though I can’t form sentences she thinks I’m almost as funny as my real mom does. It is difficult to understand my host dad in everyway imaginable. Maybe it is just the cadence of the language but I always think he is yelling at me. I know for sure on the first night that he was because I think I came home later than he was expecting. Oh well.
I also have a host brother. His name is Ismail (Iss-mail) and he is 23. He works at the C-bur (cyber café), and I think he is a student, sometimes… maybe… who knows. He is a nice guy when he’s around, but that is not often. The Ramadan schedule I think puts him in an awkward situation for breaking the fast and working. We start breakfast at 6:15 p.m. sharp and he usually comes in about half way through. Tonight after breakfast we took penalty shots at one another in the Salon (living room) for about half an hour which was fun even though I lost pitifully.
As I said breakfast is at 6:15 p.m. which is a very weird thing to say but that’s the way it is. We have had good, but the same food every time so far. Atay (tea just for me) to drink, l’bid (hardboiled eggs), Herrera (red soup), shebekiya (sesame pastry), tamara (candied dates), mskuta (cake), chuubs (bread), and some other goodies to eat. Pretty tasty all in all, but not a lot of variety from night to night.
The eating experience is a lot of fun because it is all done by hand, even the soup. It makes a huge mess but that doesn’t seem to bother anybody around here and that is okay with me. Table manners are pretty arbitrary and I‘m thinking that burping and slurping are encouraged.
It is weird because I eat my second meal at around ten (an hour from now) alone. One night I fell asleep early, before my second meal. At three in the morning I was woken by Ismail who told me it was time for dinner. I told him, no… it’s time for sleepy. I was eventually coaxed out of bed in a tank top and basketball shorts (very culturally inappropriate) and ate a meal with the family. I think I would prefer things this way, so maybe I will get them to do it again tonight.
A good scrubbing, the ability to make small sentences in Derija, and Talib Kweli in the background. What more could a guy like me ask for on a night like this. I hope that everything is going well stateside. I love hearing and responding, so thank you for the many e-mails I received after letter #4.
The days are longer here because the latitude is the same as Paris, but there’s still snow on the ground. As the snow melts everything turns to mud and the garbage that was buried in the snow can be found everywhere.
In the Twin Cities there is a good public radio station but down here all I can get are Christian, Country, and radio stations that play the safest generic music blessed by Clear Channel. ‘Hey this sounds like Maroon 5. You like Maroon 5, right? Right?’ They also have DJs that listen to themselves talk but never have anything funny to say.
On St. Paddy’s day I’m still stuck at home and the town is quiet. There’s only one liquor store but when I go I’m the only one in the store. I buy good vodka for myself and shitty vodka for my brother, both of which are pretty cheap, and some beer which is not cheap.
The woman working the register asks to see my ID. I go blank and stare at her until I realize she wants to see my license.
“Sorry,” I say and hand her the license with two fingers. She smiles and doesn’t seem to mind. Not used to that either.
The next night when I’m in Minneapolis, a friend and I meet a couple who lead us to the Gay 90s for a drag show. The two turn out to be friends so I take the girl’s number. She’s at the apartment a few days later when I wake up and find half a foot of fresh snow on the ground. I have to drive through it for several hours to get my brother home for tennis practice.
Starbuck’s has finally opened up a shop in Prague and it is located right next to the Malostranske namesti tram stop (below the castle). You can expect almost the same menu but because of the dollar’s sharp decline also expect it to be more expensive. I got a caramel frappuccino which back home would cost around 4 dollars and in Prague with the current exchange rate of (crowns to dollars) 16:1 it cost around 7 dollars, I can remember when I was here in 2006 and the rate was 1:23….not that long ago the rate was 1:39 and you where living like a king :)..I hope America gets its act together…but so far It seems to be a hit among the Czechs and the tourists…..
Me and my buddie miguel take a 40 minute train ride from Prague to Karlstejn Castle. Karlstejn Castle is a large Gothic castle founded in the 14th century by Charles IV. Located about 20 km southwest of Prague in the Karlštejn village, it is one of the most famous and heavily visited castles in the Czech Republic.
