Praha 27, or Kissing Fingers
(written 2/27/07)

Last Tuesday, I started a second bellydance course, in addition to the one I’ve been doing every Wednesday night. The two classes are very different; the Tuesday class is Arabic bellydance, with a heavy focus on shimmy and small, isolated movements. The Wednesday class has more Indian influence, and focuses on choreography and whole dances, rather than just learning steps. I like the way the two work together.


(Note: I love this picture because the dancer in it has an actual belly, as opposed to a lot of the girls I dance with, who are totally curveless and clearly ballerinas who are looking for a new form. I like my belly when I dance.)

However, my Tuesday teacher speaks almost no English. When she realized that I speak very little Czech, she promised to learn some simple dance-related words and phrases for next time. This week, when I came in, she had a sheet of paper with very specific phrases on it, such as "do not bend the knees when you twist". I realized about halfway through the class that she not only remembered that I only speak English, but what my specific dance problems were! Very cool. The receptionist at this dance place speaks excellent English - she told me she's going to study in New Orleans next semester - and has been really helpful as far as translating goes.



Anyway, the title of this entry comes from something that happened during class last night. I was practicing the graceful arm and hand motions that accompany all the shimmy-ing and twisting of the legs, hips and torso, and my teacher came over and seized my arm. After showing me how to correctly position it, she pointed to my thumb and said



"You are calling this, what?"

"Thumb," I answered. Then she pointed to my middle finger.

"Thumb. And you are calling this what?"

"Third finger," I answered, figuring that'd be easier than "middle."

"Okay, the thumb and third finger, they kiss like this," she said, showing me how to touch the tips of my fingers together for a second before letting them fall. "Kiss, and fall, kiss and fall."

I'm learning to express sexy with my kissing fingers. Go me.

Terezin 1

Warning: There are things in here that are not easy to read. They were certainly not easy to write. If any of my readers are unfamiliar with the Terezin Ghetto, I suggest you do some minimal research and familiarize yourself with Terezin’s history before reading any of my Terezin entries.

There is not much I can write yet about Terezin. I can only say a few things, in a fairly disjointed manner, taken from the notes I scribbled on the bus between the ghetto and the museum. So, forgive me.

I brought my camera, but couldn’t bring myself to take any pictures.

It is not like Dachau. Dachau has ghosts, a feeling of unrest. The buildings at Dachau were all destroyed when the camp was liberated, and all the buildings at Terezin still stand. There is a graveyard at Terezin, and perhaps that is why I didn’t see any ghosts there. They are all actually resting, in the very visible cemetery. However, I wouldn’t call it peaceful. It’s more like emptiness than peace, as if history has come in with its broom and swept the ghosts into the wind.

Our guide was a survivor. He had been in Terezin, Auschwitz and Friedland, all camps. Sara asked him how he felt coming back to Terezin to give tours, and all he could say was that it was easy compared to Auschwitz. He took us places and was able to say things like “This is where I was, and what I did, and what was done to me.”

There was a swimming pool. I almost laughed when I saw it. Our guide said they would put groups of Jews into the pool, and give them clubs to beat each other with. The rule was this: that only one man would be allowed to climb out alive. The rest must be drowned. He showed us the balcony from which the wives of the SS guards would watch and cheer.

Near the swimming pool was a tunnel, which led under a hill into the execution yard. Our guide called it the tunnel of death. As I walked through it, I whispered in Hebrew “and though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I have no fear, for You are with me” over and over again to make sure I kept breathing until I stepped into the light.

I wasn’t able to stand in any rooms without windows. I felt choked, and had to step outside to keep from hyperventilating, or vomiting.

As soon as we stepped outside the gates, my stomach growled fiercely. I went from feeling stuffy and sick to starving. How could I be hungry? How could a person be hungry in a place like this? But I saved some bread from breakfast on the bus, and it tasted wonderful. How can bread taste wonderful? But it does.

I did not cry.

This was Terezin. I visit Auschwitz next month.

Praha 26, or In Which Sara Comes to Visit and I Get to Play Tour Guide

(written 2/24/07)

Sara turned to me on the metro coming home and said, “If you want to do your homework for a few hours, I’ll use that time to go shopping – I remember how much you don’t like it,” and I nearly cracked up. I’m glad she’s here; it’s good to have someone who knows Smith, and Smithies to talk to, even if she did transfer to Colgate after only one year. Sara and I shared a room in our first year for six weeks while I was recuperating from an injury, and if she learned one thing about me, it was how much I hate clothes shopping.

I’ve changed a little bit since we were roommates – most notably, I don’t hate clothes shopping as much as I used to – but it’s delightful to hang around someone who’s actually known me for more than a month.

Sara and I have been doing the tourist route, something I haven’t done since my first couple of weeks here. Yesterday, we wandered around Old Town (Stary Mesto) took pictures on the Charles Bridge, drank svarak (hot mulled wine) on the bank of the Charles River, and split a klobasa (hot dog) on Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceclas Square).

Today, we went to the Prague Castle. I’ve been there only once before, and never on the inside. I think I’m a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of art, architecture and artifacts we saw today – the castle is very much a giant museum. However, Sara’s approach to tourism appeals to me. She visits the gift shop first, and buys a decent guidebook to whatever place she’s visiting, and uses that to navigate instead of the measly maps the museum provides for free. That way, we actually knew what we wanted to see, and what we could skip.

We were going to see the opera tonight, but the tickets were sold out by the time we reached the box office, so I think we’re going to go out to dinner (traditional Czech – her choice) with a friend she knows in Prague, and then do the “Prague at Night” photo tour – basically, going to all the same places we went to yesterday and getting shots of the lit-up buildings.
Tomorrow is Terezin. I have only the vaguest notion of what to expect.

Praha 25, or Just an Ordinary Day


This week, in the midst of all the fabulous traveling I’ve been doing, I thought I’d tell you all what my average school day is like. I usually wake up between 8 and 9 o’clock, depending on what time my classes start that day. I usually have a roll schmeared with something for breakfast (see my kitchen to the left), or buy a pastry at the little street pastry stand on my way to school.

My walk to school isn’t very long – it usually takes about three or four songs on my ipod to get from my apartment to our classroom building. Our classrooms are in a building that also houses a bunch of other things, like a bank and a lawyer’s office. It’s right in the very center of Vaclavske Namesti, or Wenceclas Square, which is in the very center of Prague. I’ve become an expert and dodging the many crowds of tourists, who like to get out early to photograph the National Museum building at the top of the square, and the commuters, who are as aggressive with their briefcases as most high school kids are with their overstuffed backpacks.

I hold my breath as I say “Dobry den”, or “Good day” politely to the doorman at school – he’s a sweet guy, but doesn’t believe in deodorant, and the whole lobby smells like feet and armpits. He remembers my red ski jacket every day, and at this point doesn’t even ask me to show ID – just buzzes me right on through. If I’m feeling lazy, I take the elevator up the four flights to the third floor classrooms, or if I’m feeling disciplined, I jog up the stairs.

Classes at CET take place in either of two classrooms. There’s also an office for the program leaders, Kim, Jiri and Ivana, a small kitchen with a coffee pot, sink, and a refrigerator full of soft drinks we can buy. On the other side of the kitchen is a computer lab, where usually three out of eight computers will work on a given day. There’s one additional classroom that’s used by a different program, but otherwise it’s pretty small.

Classes end anywhere between 12:30 and 18:00 (that’s 6pm for all you mathematically un-inclined). On days when class ends early, I’ll go out to an ovoce-zelenina, or fruit-vegetable store to do grocery shopping, as well as Alberts, the biggest supermarket chain. Yesterday, I discovered an Italian deli that is chock full of actual imports from Italy and happily bought some Parmigano Reggiano cheese (cheese is terrible here – no flavor), and balsamic vinegar (which is also weirdly hard to find).

On Tuesday and Wednesday nights I have bellydance class in different parts of town, and I try to eat out at least once a week, for a treat. I usually do my homework at night, in our big living room on the couch, or at the kitchen table, eating Disko cookies, which are the cheap Czech answer to Oreos.

Since Prague is a late-night kind of city, it’s entirely possible to leave the house at midnight to go to a bar or club. I go out occasionally, but I’m usually in bed by 12 or 1. And then I wake up the next morning to do it all again!

Praha 24, or More Pictures from Cesky Krumlov

Finally, a food picture! Here is, in essence, your typical Czech meal: slabs of roasted pork, bread dumplings (knedlicky) and sauerkraut. This is from a restaurant in Cesky Krumlov that specialized in medieval Czech food...which is not so different from contemporary Czech food. Yum.

And here is a picture of Cesky Krumlov, the view from the palace. Very qaint, nu? It reminds me of the town from Beauty and the Beast. People apparently go rafting down the river in the summer.

Praha 23, or Cesky Krumlov Pictures


The Wedding Cake Tower

This is a picture of the main tower on the Cesky Krumlov castle/fortress. It's a perfect example of how the town views its medieval roots. Krumlov is bent on preservation, as opposed to restoration. Everything in the town is exactly as it's been for about the past 10 years. No one's allowed to repaint or remodel any of the architecture from this point on - only to add layers of clear preservative paint to protect it. This tower was last repainted in 1993. At that time, the painters only repaired the faded coats of paint, rather than reconstructing the more detailed designs on the tower. Most of the townies hate it - they call it the wedding cake, and say it's too gaudy. But under the current regulations, that tower will hopefully look like that for the next 500 years.

The Masquerade Hall

This is a picture you won't see anywhere else - I took it inside the palace, where pictures are usually completely forbidden! However, we had special circumstances. As part of Krumlov's preservation-not-restoration efforts, the palace is closed during the winter months to cut down on the amount of wear and tear that come with tourists (such as increased heat and humidity levels from people breathing). However, we somehow lucked out, and got the director of the palace to not only open up for us, but to give us a private tour! This Masquerade Hall is a stunningly beautiful room, and entirely painted. See the candelabras coming off the walls? They're not real - even the shadows are painted straight on. This is all part of "illusionist" paintings, which were really popular during the Baroque era.

Discuss: Is this "preservation" approach a smart one? What are the advantages and disadvantages of trying to re-create what has already been, versus preserving what exists now?

That's all for now, apparently. Seemes the Internet is pooping out.

Praha 22, or I Didn’t Know Happiness Until She Took Me Out To Lunch
(written 2/19/07)

Snapshot 2: Trudi

Trudi met Jill and me on the train platform in Vienna, where I all but stumbled into her arms. I was glad to see her, and exhausted. Trudi is an old family friend, who acts as though God sends all her children Vienna just so Trudi can take care of them. When my mother traveled to Europe more than thirty years ago, it was Trudi who met her for a few days in Vienna and treated her to all the luxuries a backpacker never enjoys. When I came to Europe without my family for the first time four summers ago, Trudi met me for the two hours I was in Vienna and stuffed me with coffee and apple strudel.

This time, Trudi had Jill and me in the train station restaurant with eggs, toast and coffee barely after we’d said hello. While Jill and I drank our coffee as quickly as we could, trying to wake ourselves up, Trudi opened her big black handbag and took out maps, guidebooks, and pamphlets, and spread them over the table. She’d marked one of the maps for us, noting the exact location of our hostel, the train station, and the center town, and marked all the possible routes to get to Vienna’s best sights. She’d bought us each a tram/metro pass that would cover us for our entire stay. And finally, a bag each of the famous Mozartkugel – small chocolate balls filled with pistachio and marzipan. She then escorted us from the train to our hostel, and promised to meet me the next morning.

The next day, the sky was clear and the sun was shining for the first time in a week. Trudi said she’d spoken personally to God about the weather, and was happy she’d been heard. We walked around outside the Winter Palace in Vienna, and she took me back to the same café we’d met at four summers ago for tea. I thought we would be walking somewhat slowly – after all, she’s not so young anymore, she was quick to point out – but every time I looked out of the corner of my eye, I saw the top of her fuzzy purple hat at my shoulder, keeping pace with me perfectly. Vienna is clearly in her bones; she knows all the walking routes by heart, and has no trouble navigating the large public transport system.

We had lunch at the top of a mountain. I’m not kidding – it was a beautiful drive up winding roads lined with stone walls, to a small restaurant that overlooked the entire city. With all the weather luck we had, it was possible to see out to the spires of St. Stephan’s, and all the way to Trudi’s neighborhood. The Danube looked like parallel brushstrokes, sweeping through the city like bold gray streaks through a head of very distinguished hair. Trudi and I talked for hours at the top of the mountain, going through each and every relative either of us could think of, sharing stories from our childhoods. She even told me stories about relatives I didn’t know existed!

We parted after sharing an evening concert in the famous Vienna concert hall – if you don’t know which one, spend your next New Years Eve with your local public television station, and watch for the Vienna Boy’s Choir concert. Being with Trudi was like drinking hot cider on a cold day in a strange city – a piece of far-flung home, pushing chocolate into my pockets and weaving stories around me like a nest.

Praha 21, or A Question of Attitude

Hi everyone! It's good to check my blog again, although I must second one of the comments on my last entry - why do I get such trivial responses to my poetry? Was it that bad?

I had a great time in Vienna, but unfortunately forgot to bring my camera! Therefore, I'm going to regale you all with "snapshots" from my trip that you'll just have to use your imagination to see. Here's the first one:

Snapshot 1: Vienna vs. Prague

Paps argues that Vienna is a backwater, a has-been, a city that was once the most driving intellectual center in Europe and now is little more than a vehicle for tourism. On the one hand, he's right - Vienna is hardly cutting-edge in terms of anything. But it is beautiful. Vienna greets you with excitement, "Wilkommen! Look at my beautifully large buildings, my wide and clean streets, my extroadinarily fashionable and good-looking people! See the pale yellow Hapsburg buildings, scrubbed clean of two hundred years' grime. Never mind that we don't have our own language - who needs a national identity when one has such beauty!"

Now, granted, there are some issues with this sort of attitude. But compare it to Prague, which greets you more like this. "What, you want me to jump up and down in excitement because you're visiting? You wanted me to maybe wash my face? Tough, you stupid foreigner. You're lucky the McDonalds menu is bilingual." You have to get to know Prague quietly, wander the ever-winding streets, sneak yourself into her embrace. But be warned, friends, that this city is deceptive. It wasn't until the late hours of last night, when the train rumbled into Hlavni Nadrazi that I looked out at the city and realized, for the first time, that it looked almost welcoming.

Praha 20, or Dr. Hacknwheeze Strikes!

Sorry for the lapse in updates, folks. Between hideous internet issues (sporadic, weak access, and an inability to use my laptop for internet) and my turn for the awful cold that's been working its way around my apartment, I haven't had time to write.

I'm headed to Vienna this Friday at the blissful hour of 5am, and I will be sure to write some very lengthy things once I get back!

However, I will leave you all with a poem I wrote yesterday. This is just a rough draft. I just finished a book called How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed. It’s a total Eve Ensler prototype – a woman named Slavenka Drakulic interviewed women across Eastern Europe, and used their experiences, as well as her own, to write a series of essays about women’s life under Eastern European communism. This was my immediate reaction:

At 16 Vinorhadska, the bulb is out in the living room,
so I am reading by a small lamp and squinting with concentration.
And somewhere in 1991
Slavenka Drakulic
is choking on her laughter in the candlelight.
The sound tastes like dark beer
in my mind, the bitter first sips
of an education.

I live in the alien world of ‘post’ –
everything from feminism to war is in the past,
and the present is dressed in children’s clothing,
bright colors, soon to be soiled and smudged and grown out of.
My present is disposable, my politics are laughable and I, like my world,
have the blessing of a short memory.

On the streets of New York, beggars lie
slouched against piss-soaked walls and shout
at passers-by while I

stumble on the hem of a tattered jacket,
walking too fast to watch for the silent man crouched at my feet,
head bowed, hands out and fingers tight as if he were waiting for the rain to fall,
so he might get a sip.

After the revolution, people still saved the pieces of yarn that
pulled from their sweaters as if they were saving the warmth
for a day when there would be none.

And although I tossed that sweater long ago,
Slavenka reaches to me with words like balled-up fists
full of yarn and says, here. You’ll need these if
you want to live in our world. Consider this your welcome.

Praha 19, or Behind the Wall

Services last night were at the Alt-neu Shul, or the Old-New Synagogue, one of the oldest standing synagogues in the world. If you want to learn more about its architecture (early Gothic), or the history of Josevof, the Jewish Quarter, you can google or wikipedia it very easily, so I won't waste much time with it here. I want to talk about praying in this place.

To start with, the services that are held in the Altneu are Orthodox services, which means men and women sit separately from each other. In most places, this consists of some kind of barrier down a center aisle that separates men from women, or the women sit in a gallery above the men. However, everyone can usually see and hear everything that is going on in the service.

Here, the women sit beind a stone wall that goes all the way to the ceiling and is at least four feet thick. It blocks most of the sound from the inner congregation, where the men are. If you want to see or hear anything, you can crowd around one of the tiny windows in the wall. Most of the windows are maybe twice the size of your computer screen, but somewhat narrow. I was lucky to get a seat by the window, but it was also halfway under the coat rack, so all one could see were my feet sticking out from under fifty coats.

It was awful. The women in the back, most of them didn't even try to follow the service. There was an adorable baby scooting around the floor that most people were cooing over, and what looked like a weekly gossip circle. The women's section got all of the street noise, and - imagine it - church bells interrupted the Amidah, the silent prayer!

As I watched through my window, I caught sight of Michael, the only boy in the Jewish Studies program. We weren't more than six feet away from each other, but it was like being in two different worlds - his, a spiritual one, full of chanting voices, and mine, a completely un-Shabbat one, full of gossiping voices. Michael turned and caught my eye at one point, and I all but jumped - he saw me! There was some connection between us after all!

I tried to close my eyes and at least do my own silent prayer, but the effort wasn't worth it. I tried to tell myself that Shekhina (G-d) would hear me, even buried under a pile of coats, but the thought only frustrated me more. It made me more than a little angry. Actually, I was furious. As the yeshivaniks (religious schoolboys) filed out of the sanctuary, laughing and joking with one another, I wanted to slap them.

Even if it means being able to pray in one of Judaism's most historical synagogues, it is absolutely not worth it if one must pray behind a wall.

Praha 18, or L’Chaim
(written 2/6/07)

One point to whoever can figure out why I titled this entry L’Chaim. Two points if you’re not Jewish.

Becuase I have no cool pictures of architecture or statues to show you today, here's a picture of my bed just after I moved in. Nothing too exciting. My roomate's bed is invisible because it's behind me - it's a long and narrow room. But I got to be by the window, so yay.

Tonight I went Israeli dancing with Ellen at the one Jewish-only school in Prague. It was in the tiny gymnasium with lots of sweaty Hebrew-speaking dancers. I thought it wasn’t so great because I couldn’t catch on to the dances very quickly, and I didn’t know the music. But Ellen was ecstatic – she misses Israel so much that it was like a little bubble of happiness for her (she lived in Israel for a year) to hear familiar music and Hebrew-speakers. I imagine I’d feel similarly if I were at a contra dance in the middle of Prague. But I like that I’ve been dancing, and practicing my bellydance moves at night. Even though it’s still painful (I’ve yet to dance a whole hour without wanting to cry at least once), I like that I make myself do it. If I’m persistent enough, I might actually have rhythm by the end of this semester. Who knows?

Today, I learned about the Czech postal system, when I received a notice in my mailbox. I had no idea what the message said, as it was entirely in Czech, but my name and address were printed on it, as well as a different address marked “Posta.” I deciphered that I was supposed to go to the Post address and claim whatever it was my ticket said. So I looked it up on the map, hiked up the giant hill that is Vinorhadska, and found the post office.

The first step at any Czech post office is to take a number. I found a little automated machine with several buttons. I was supposed to determine what I was doing at the post office (picking up a package, mailing something, buying stamps, etc) and press the appropriate button. I guessed randomly, pushed a button, and it gave me a piece of paper with a number. I then sat down and waited for my number to flash on the giant screens all around the building.

When it was my turn, I went to the window, and asked “Anglicky? (AHN-glitz-key)” The woman shook her head. Oh well. I handed her my slip, and she said something in rapid, irritated Czech. “Nerezumim,” I said with the politest face and tone I could muster. “PASS-PORT,” she said loudly. Oh, damn. I had to have my passport to do whatever it was? I wasn’t mailing myself. I tried to hand her my drivers’ license, but she said “Driver card nedobre (neh-dobr-jheh).” Driver card no good. I signed, took my slip back, went home to get my passport, and came back to do it all over again.

I finally got what I’d come for – a small brown box wrapped firmly in duct tape. I could see a familiar name on the return address, and I grinned widely. Chris sent me a box! I resisted the temptation to open it right there, threw it in my backpack, and ran home just as it began to snow.

In Chris’s box was a bottle of curly-hair shampoo and conditioner, a picture of my whole family (from the Looneybin), several sweet notes, and a small box from Cornucopia (my favorite organic grocery store in Northampton) stuffed with my favorite ginger candies! Thank you, Chris! It made me incredibly happy. And now the refrigerator has a picture on it, and not just the week’s list of chore assignments. Yay for being homey.

In other news, I’m making travel plans! I’m headed to Vienna next week, to visit my (unofficial) aunt Trudi, and later in the semester, it looks like I’m headed to London to visit the fabulous Abby! This weekend is Cesky Krumlov, a little medieval tourist town in the south of Bohemia (Bohemia being the northwestern part of the Czech Republic, a designation much like New England). Keep your eye out for more pictures soon!

Oh, and to all of you who thought Kosnice (the bone church) was creepy – it was so cool. And you are all just scaredy-cats.

Praha 17, or Kutna Hora: The Actual Entry
(written 2/5/07)






Here is one last picture from the Bone Church. This is actually a coat of arms, again, made entirely out of bones. Behind it, if you can see, is what looks like an igloo made out of skulls. It's actually just a giant pile of bones. Nothing holds it together! It's simply been there for so long that it has shifted and settled into place. There are four of these piles, one in each corner of the main room. They are actually the only things bearing signs that say "Don't Touch" - if you did, you might dislodge something that would create an avalanche!


The town of Kutna Hora is one of former glory. For 250 years it was one of the most important
towns in all of the Czech lands, second only to Prague. Why? Money, of course. Kutna Hora was the site of the first mint in Central Europe. (A mint is where they manufacture money.) Kutna Hora, you see, had a streak of silver running though it. They were able to mine the silver and make groshens out of it for centuries! And the groshen was a very well-respected coin; it was even used all over Europe. Here is Ellen, posing in the town square. You can tell it's Sunday because everything is shut down! Luckily, the one tourist pizza place was still open when we desparately needed lunch.

The big attraction in Kutna Hora is a tour of the old silver mine, but unfortunately, it’s off tourist season, and the mine is closed. Fortunately, there’s the old European Small Town Standby: churches!

You’ve already seen the Bone Church, but the other famous church in Kutna Hora is St. Barbara’s. You’re not allowed to take pictures in St. Barbara’s, but I can tell you this: it’s far more beautiful from the outside. The outside boasts intricate flying buttresses (arches that connect pieces of the church together), and cool looking towers. Unfortunately, these awesome features are currently masked by a mass of scaffolding. Apparently, the church has been under renovations since Communism ended (in 1989). Inside, eh, it’s a cathedral. Hundreds like it – big stones, lots of pictures of the Crucifixion, stained glass windows.

A propos my last entry about a cathedral – this cathedral actually had music piped into it! At first, I was really excited, and then I realized that it was terrible organ music. It sounded like the church’s resident rats had gotten a hold of the organ and tried to play it. Not quite the atmosphere I was going for, but at least they had music.





This is a picture of the Italian Court, the site of the first mint in the Czech republic. It's quite a shift in architecture to go from Gothic cathedrals to this very renaissance-inspired open courtyard. We were planning to go take a tour of the mint, but it was yet another entrance fee, and we were tired. Instead, we just took photos by the fountain in the center of the courtyard. This photo features Ellen, who is taking a picture of another flatmate, Marjorie.

But this is one of those things about being a tourist: the reason you get so much exercise isn’t just because you walk a lot. It’s because no matter where you’re walking, you’re either going to get lost and have to retrace your steps six times, or you don’t know the shortcuts and take obscenely long routes everywhere. And that’s just my kind of exercise.

One more thing: I love European trains. After nearly getting on the wrong train back to Prague, we hopped on the correct one, just before it started moving. It was an old fashioned train, with little compartments instead of rows of seats (yunge folks, think like the train in Harry Potter). And it was packed. The four of us shuffled along the corridors, trying to find an open compartment, moved in between the cars over open tracks (that was kind of awesome, actually), and finally settled in to the medium-speed rocking of an old Czech train.

Praha 16, or More Bones Than You Can Shake a Femur At

Here's a picture of the center of the Bone Church. That chandelier in the center contains at least one of every kind of human bone! Notice the "skull chains" that adorn the arched ceilings.

Praha 15, or Dem Bones Gonna Rise Again, or Kutna Hora Part I


Huzzah, pictures! This is me and my friend George, one of the nearly 40,000 skulls that decorates Kosnice, or The Bone Church in the town of Sedlec, next to Kutna Hora. Four of us took a trip to see this famous church, which is decorated entirely out of the 40,000 skeletons that were found in the crypt of this church. I will try to update with more bone pictures soon!

Praha 14, or Shayne Maidel’s Life of Crime
(written 2/2/07)

Quick Note: I've been having serious issues with the internet, so my updates for this week might be somewhat spotty. However, I took a day trip this weekend, so keep an eye out for some amazing pictures! I know I don't get back to everyone's comments, but rest assured, I love and appreciate every one of them. Keep writing!

I went to Masorti services tonight. Masorti is the Conservative movement in Europe and Israel. It wasn’t that much fun, I have to admit. The rabbi (who is originally from New Jersey and was hired by the Conservative movement in the US to help start a Masorti chapter in Prague) was not particularly musical and seemed to use the same tune for nearly every prayer. Plus, he had two speeds: too fast, and too slow.

The Masorti don’t really have a synagogue of their own – I don’t think they’re big enough. Instead, they have services in a conference room at the JCC. (Convenient, because the kosher cafeteria that serves lunch and dinner every day is just downstairs. Their food tastes like it came out of my Mammy’s kitchen, except with more fat.) Tonight, that conference room was packed; not only were there students from two different programs, but there’s some rabbinical conference in town, and they all came, too. So it was rather full.

Since tonight is Tu B’shvat, the birthday of the trees, we held a short Tu B’shvat seder in the cafeteria downstairs. I’d never done this ritual until I was in college, but I was perfectly happy to gorge on the fresh fruit and nuts. Dinner was chicken vegetable soup, roast chicken, gravy, rice and salad. And lots and lots of terrible kosher wine. I never thought I’d find something worse than Manischewitz, but this is worse because it’s bad dry kosher wine. You can practically feel scar tissue forming on your throat as you swallow it. It’s like making a bracha over vinegar. And because it was Tu B’shvat, we each had four glasses of it.

When we got home, some people prepared to head right out to the bars, Ellen settled in for a night with her book, and I hemmed and hawed. Not wanting to be stuck in for another night with only homework as entertainment, I went up to Noel’s or Nol’s or however it’s spelled. Nol’s is an English-speaking bar/café/bookshop, supposedly with wireless internet, though I have yet to have any luck with it. Tonight, there was live music, an Australian dude with a guitar. He wasn’t half bad, and as I settled on the couch with my defective laptop, I started feeling good. It was like a night at Cool Beans, but with lots more cigarette smoke and Czech.

After the performer was done (he billed himself as “Bohemian Bluegrass”), I decided to give up on all hopes of internet, and instead browsed the one-room used bookshop at the back. It was so good to see all the familiar names and titles. It was, I discovered, an excellent way of treating homesickness, as it only made me happy. Here, I was staring at Chris Bohjalian and Anne Lamott and Sharon Creech exactly as I knew them in the US. It was wonderful.

I picked up a book I was certain I wanted to buy, and looked around for a person to pay. There weren’t any. The bookstore was curiously absent of any employees. I tried to ask one of the bar waitresses where I could buy the books, but they said I should find someone who’s name I couldn’t pronounce. So, in the end, I wound up leaving the amount for the book on the front table of the bookstore with a note with the book’s title and author. I didn’t have exactly enough money to pay for the book in cash, however, and I thought to myself that I’d just stop by tomorrow and pay down the rest. I thought I’d done okay there, but when I related the story to one of my roommates later, she seemed to think I’d committed some awful crime. Now I’m a little afraid to go back, because they might deport me for a self-imposed discount on a used book. Thoughts?

And now, before I go enjoy the profits of the night’s criminal activity…a quick story from tonight’s services.

As we were singing “Hodu L’Adonai” at the pace and tune of a funeral dirge, I noticed the girl next to me was crying. Not this-is-so-beautiful crying, but really unhappy tears. When the prayer was over, she slipped out, and I followed to make sure she was okay. She wasn’t from my program, but she was clearly an American, and when I caught up to her, I asked what was wrong. Homesickness, she said. She never gets homesick, but feels like she’s still adjusting to life here, and that everyone she lives with is already past the adjustment phase, and those prayers were just enough like home to throw her over the edge. I listened, found her some tissues, and eventually, when it seemed like she was slowing down, asked her if she’d ever seen that Sesame Street episode.

She had.

Praha 13, or In Which I Go To Dance Class and Try to Express Sexy

Before I dig into this entry, I need to send an urgent message to my immediate family. CALL ME NEXT TIME, OKAY? ESPECIALLY WHEN I TELL YOU I'LL BE AWAKE ANYWAY. That said, I'm glad everything is okay and went well. I'll call him this weekend.

Now, to our regularly scheduled programming:

Those who’ve known me a long time will tell you that I am no dancer. I can contra dance, but only because it’s more like walking and stomping than actually dancing. I can do contact improvisation, but only because anything counts as contact improv. But when it comes to a dance form that not only requires the use of my feet, but the use of my arms, hips, shoulders, neck and abdomen, I look like a short-circuited robot. I have long held that I will not dance around anyone but my sister, who has promised not to laugh at me, and the rest of my family. I do weddings, I do Bar Mitzvahs. I do not do clubs and parties.

I took ballet for one terrible summer. The teacher made us sit in straddles with our feet braced against the wall, while she used her shin to push on our backs to make our legs go wider. I have never had that much flexibility in my legs, even though I did gymnastics – and loved it – for about six years. After some time, I decided I didn’t care about dancing. I could sing, and write, and do martial arts, and that was enough.

But here, I met Ellen. Ellen loves to dance the way I love to sing. She’ll take any excuse to get up and move, take any opportunity to watch others dance; yet she’s got fairly limited formal dance training. She still looks amazing on the dance floor. She doesn’t watch anyone while she dances – she’s too into the music, too into the miracle of her own body moving – so I’m actually okay dancing around her. That makes two people I can dance around – huzzah!

The other night, Ellen and I cranked up our combined collection of Arabic and Israeli music and danced like fools for at least a full hour after dinner. We taught each other Israeli folk dances from when we were kids, and I got to do contact-improvish things like leaping up on to the furniture and suspending myself from the countertops. It was fun, and we were both panting and sweating at the end of it.

Ellen invited me to come check out this bellydance class with her up the street. It was the one button she could’ve pushed. I’ve always – always – wanted to learn to bellydance. It’s fun, it’s sexy, and best of all, it’s not a dance meant for skinny girls. Ballerinas aren’t meant to bellydance. To bellydance, you need to be willing to celebrate curves and rolls and flesh. I went with her – the first class was free, so what did I have to lose?

There were six women in the class – three who spoke Czech, and had obviously been in the class for awhile, Ellen, me, and a student from another country, who spoke English with a strong accent that I recognized as Finnish. It was her first class too. The teacher started to warm us up, and I kept up okay. Then she said a long string of words ending in something that sounded like “choreographea (KO-reh-o-GRA-feh)” and started to piece a dance together.

At that point, I stopped watching the teacher for a moment, and tried to see myself in the mirror. I shouldn’t have. I looked like a robot with few bad wires. My brain wasn’t getting the message to the rest of my body, and instead of twisting and rolling and intricately shimmy-ing, I jerked and twisted and felt completely disconnected from myself. I looked like I was in pain. After that, I kept looking at the teacher.

It felt good to get out and work hard for awhile, but it was embarrassing, let me tell you, especially when the teacher figured out that the three of us in the back only spoke English and Finnish and told us, “You need express - how do you say – sexy? Sexy express. No smiling, sexy.” Believe me, I was as far from feeling sexy as I ever have been. But I tried. Give me that.

I still really want to learn to bellydance, which is why I think I’m going to go back each week with Ellen (who loved it, by the way. She thinks I take myself too seriously.) But I wonder: I would’ve never had the guts to do that in the States.

Maybe there’s something to this being-abroad stuff. Maybe I got the courage to step out of my comfort zone because I’m already so far gone from it that I might as well go a little farther. Maybe it’s because Prague is not Northampton, and it’s unlikely that I’ll run into the dance teacher on the street, in the store, or while getting coffee. Maybe it’s because I really want to come home and say I learned to bellydance in Central Eastern Europe.

Expressing sexy, however – that’s going to take awhile.