Quiz game created by a student in my electronics class.

Match each question on the left with its corresponding answer on the right!

ANIMALS

QUESTIONS                                                     ANSWERS

Can you swim with sharks?                              Yes, they are real!
Are platypus real?                                           Yes, flying fish live in the ocean!
Are praire dog real?                                        They can fly!
Are flying fish real?                                         Yes, some can.
Can some sharks eat you in one bite?              Yes praire dogs are real!
Can flying squirrel fly?                                    Yes. You can do it in Bahamas.

One way to Slavify a name which is Celtic in origin

“Meganka.”

Another Quaint Tradition

Tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day in the Czech Republic and many other European countries, which means of course that today is St. Nicholas Eve.  While in the United States we have St. Nicholas (better known to you, dear readers, as Santa Claus) come on Christmas to bring presents, over here in Central Europe, they get Baby Jesus himself delivering presents on the big day.  As such, Nick gets his own day.  The tradition goes that tonight, kids leave their shoes out for St. Nicholas, known here as “Mikuláš,” who will stuff them with candy (for the good kids) or rotten vegetables (for the bad).  However, as I learned today, Mikuláš turns out not to be the star of the show–that honor is reserved for the angels (anděly) and devils (črty) who accompany him on his errands.  The angels help Mikuláš reward the good children, while the devils lighten his load by getting the bad children out of the way–more specifically, by dragging them to Hell.

Now, I know what you’re thinking–what a terrifying tradition!  Children not only have to fear for not receiving gifts, as in the States, but now they’re threatened with being dragged away to Hell by malevolent beings?  You have not, however, heard the kicker.  The worst (best?) part of this whole tradition is that schools traditionally have their employees disguise themselves as these devils (and one as Mikuláš) and personally threaten the children with an eternity of torture.  After the kids are sufficiently terrified, Mikuláš usually offers them a deal in exchange for protection from the devils–for example, if Mike and Patrik fight too much during playtime, he’ll tell both of them that they’re not allowed to play together anymore.  If they break this deal, next year they’ll really get taken to Hell.  My boss told me about this practice a few weeks ago, the whole time laughing heartily while regaling me with stories of which kids usually cry the most when the devils come to take them away (as you might suspect, it tends to be the naughtiest and most macho ones).  “This would never be allowed in America!” she chuckled, which is undeniable.  For weeks leading up to St. Nicolas Eve, teachers use the devils as a bargaining chip–and a pretty damn effective one (“If you two don’t quiet down right now, I’m going to tell the devils to take you both!”)

Unfortunately, I was not at school this morning when the devils came, so I didn’t get to see it myself.  My coworkers took pictures and video, though (which hopefully I’ll be able to post soon), and in the afternoon when I got there, we had a big talk rehashing which ones got chocolate from Mikuláš, which ones almost got taken by the devils, and which cried the most.  Some of the kids started crying again just talking about it.  It remains to be seen whether generations of Czechs have been permanently scarred by this childhood trauma; on the upside, though, Mike and Patrik have stopped fighting.

Palmovka

is the name of the metro/tram stop closest to the place I’ve been living in.  It looks like this from the sky:

View Larger Map

except it doesn’t have an enormous address-bubble over it in real life.

So, here’s an anecdote from my first set of job interviews back in September.  I wowed my employer-to-be by recognizing his accent as Kiwi (though I didn’t tell him this was due largely, if not entirely, to Flight of the Conchords).  He himself had a story about how he ran into a Kiwi couple in Wenceslas Square a year or two ago and thought, much to his later horror, that they were Australian.  That makes the second person I’ve impressed with my phonetic finesse since I’ve been here, the first being a Mancunian guy who had never before met an American who recognized a northern English accent.

That guy works for one of my two jobs here, the English school (mostly for adults) that I teach classes at where my schedule allows it.  The other job is at an English-language preschool, where my job is mostly to talk to (and find things to occupy) fifteen or so 5-year-olds whose English abilities range from none-at-all to better-than-some-college-graduates-I-know.  Which brings me to another interesting anecdote detailing the most unbelievable instance of culture shock I’ve encountered here:

We are in the process at the preschool right now of practicing for the Christmas play, which includes a short adaptation of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in addition to some Christmas carols.  The first carol we taught the kids, since it’s the easiest to learn at a young age, was “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”  The first day we started teaching it to the kids, I was explaining the story of the song to a smallish group of students.  When I got to the part about the other reindeer making fun of Rudolph for his nose, one of the best students at our school, an adorable, sweet, and very mature girl named Kača, looked at me, distraught.  “Why did they make fun of him?” she asked with genuine concern in her voice.  I explained that sometimes people don’t like others that are different from them.  To this she looked at me very seriously and replied, “I don’t like brown people.”

I still haven’t done anything about this.  I didn’t really respond other than to move briskly along in the discussion, and I didn’t talk to her parents, since I assume given her age they are probably the source of this sort of opinion.  I know that racism is a lot more acceptable in the Czech Republic (in Europe in general, really) than in America, but I don’t know how to ask my boss without it sounding awkward (“I know you people might be more racist than I’m used to…”)  So I just haven’t said anything, and luckily that sort of thing hasn’t come up again.  Yet.

Grey Winter Skies

Having surpassed the hurdle of grocery-store-navigation, I have a new problem to deal with, and it’s one that any practically-native North Carolinian such as myself is mercifully unfamiliar with: extremely bad weather, and persistently so.  Emphasis on that last part.  Let me quickly walk you through my day: first, I wake up around 7:00 AM and it’s dark out.  The sun “rises” around 8–and I put this in scare quotes because it’s only rising in the vaguest sense of the word.  What I really mean is that suddenly all the smog and mist is vaguely illuminated for the next 3 hours.  I walk to my morning class, becoming slightly damp on top of already being cold, and by the time I get out of class the fog has dissipated to reveal a slate-gray sky, unbroken by the merest hint of a sunbeam.  The sun sets at around 4:15 PM, while I’m still at work, and then I ride the tram home, understanding suddenly why Eastern Europeans are known for their cheerless, downtrodden manner.  You can almost feel the Soviet hopelessness still hanging in the air these twenty years later.

Now if you’ve looked at my blog recently, which you have, cause you’re reading it, you’re probably thinking, “Megan, I saw your flickr, and all the pictures on there depict bright-blue skies and adorable children feeding swans on the bank of the Vltava.”  Well, that’s all part of the carefully-assembled illusion: every single one of those pictures was taken during the half-hour of sunlight we’ve had in the past 2 weeks.

I exaggerate, of course.  The weather isn’t quite as bad as all that, and the city is really breathtakingly beautiful even when it’s gross out (which is always).  I’m beginning to forget about North Carolina’s humid summers and reminisce about its short, mild winters.  And I must credit Prague with giving me the latest in a long string of new experiences: my first bout of seasonal depression.

Photo Update

So the area where I live is separated (and in part accessible) by an area of very few buildings; whether because of the original terrain or because of the train tracks they later put in, there isn’t much development other than a couple old, abandoned buildings and some tram tracks with a pedestrian walkway stretching over the nothingness.  If it sounds like an urban wasteland, it is, but in an incredibly pretty way.  There are also way more trees than I’ve seen in most American cities.  The weather has been extremely beautiful for the last couple of days–around the temperature I would expect it to be in North Carolina around now–so last Sunday I jumped on the opportunity afforded me by the weather and went out with my camera.  Up until now I’ve been pretty shy about taking pictures, not wanting to seem too much like a tourist, but with my growing confidence in my Czech (or at least in my ability to tell people how little I speak), I’ve become less hesitant to go out and record everything.

So I started this post about 5 days ago and just came back to finish it, and in the interim I realized I can add an RSS feed from my flickr account to the blog.  That’s why there’s now a column of photographs down the right side of the page.  I just uploaded some of the pictures I took last weekend, so go look!  G’won!

A Rye-filled Country

Day four, and I have yet to purchase a loaf of bread that was not rye, despite spending 10 minutes today trying to pick out a suitable loaf.  I *know* it’s possible to find it (my roommates have some), but I have so far found “žítno,” the word for rye according to my Czech-English dictionary, displayed prominently on every single package.

About to venture out on the town again–wish me luck!

Jetlagged in Central Europe

Yep, sure is 5:25 AM here, and I sure am not sleepy at all!  Of course, the nap from 8-10:30 PM probably didn’t help.

I know I haven’t written since I’ve been in Prague, and I have to go to bed very very shortly, so I’ll keep this post short, but I will update soon, I promise.

I think I best described my arrival in Prague when talking to Gene a few minutes ago:

Megan Somerday: god this city is almost ridiculously picturesque
Eugene Yacobson: yeah you have windows on your roof, which is also a wall
Megan Somerday: and from the sky all the rooves were this pretty, muted red
Megan Somerday: i’ve never been on a plane before where for the landing everyone was doggedly craning their necks to stare out the windows
Megan Somerday: even the most travel-weary businessmen seemed captivated by the sight

More tomorrow on my amazing adventure to the Anděl metro station in downtown.  By the way, the link above should take you to one of the few pictures i’ve uploaded to Flickr thus far–please check it out, though I do plan eventually to post some pictures here.

Here’s hoping I don’t sleep til 1 PM again!

(En?) Deutschland

Quick update from the Frankfurt airport: unexpectedly, spending 11PM to 8 AM on a plane doesn’t do much for one’s mental acuity.  The sense of hallucination is augmented by the fact that this airport calls to mind a club whose main aesthetic is that of a modernized warehouse–I’ll go take some pictures right now and upload them soon.  On the plus side, I’m only 6 hours from being in Prague for real!  Eeeeeee!!!

Unending terror

Though I still have 3 days left in the country, and really the full gravity of my undertaking has yet to hit me, I’m already terrified.  I’ve been trembling all weekend while trying to fit my entire life into 3 bags that will travel (not even with me, but later, sent by my mom) to a country that, though it’s in the EU, feels from here like Mars.  In this particular case, I’m actually extremely grateful that I have this blog as a distraction from the daunting task of packing.  Though I hadn’t really planned to post at all before actually arriving over there, writing my fears out is turning out to be pretty cathartic.  People keep telling me I’ll be too exhausted/busy once I get over there to be scared or depressed, but I continue to be skeptical.  We’ll see how it goes.