holy crap

has it been a long time since I posted.

Okay, so I apologize for my hiatus. There is work to be done at the moment, so there won't be much to post other than to copy my description of my return to Europe from the e-mail I just sent out.

Let me just say, to anyone who may read this that I may be a bit more sporadic in my posting than I was last term. The computer I had here, ailing since October, has finally lost it's protracted battle with being a lump of pure crap. May it rest in peace.

So here's my copy and paste job. Enjoy.

So I landed in Frankfurt about 11 am local time last saturday. I had seventy Euro to my name. I went to the trainstation to see about getting to Brno. The train ticket cost 130 Euro. I despaired.

I walked outside and spotted a bus line office across the street and I hauled my heavy ass bags over to see if it were open. Had it been closed, despair would really have set in. It closed in twenty minutes. I asked about going to Brno. They said no. How about Prague, said I. Well, yes, there is a bus leaving for Prague at ten tonight. It costs 41 Euro. Awesome.

I bought the ticket and proceeded to sit on my luggage in the incredibly cold Frankfurt trainstation for several, several hours. I read two books, paid too much for a liter of coke, and eventually broke down and paid too much for a cheeseburger. I ate my candycanes. I did not fall asleep despite my having been awake since four pm frankfurt time the day before. The twenty-four hour mark came and went. I blinked a lot.

I caught my bus and had to have my german skills put to the test to allow both my bags to accompany me without paying anything extra. Eight sleepless hours later I arrive at the prague bus station. it is cold. There is a bus leaving for Brno in one hour. The exchange office doesn't open for three hours. I have no crowns. The ticket cannot be paid for in euros (price, approximately three euros). I am boned. In desperation I try to withdraw two hundred crowns from the ATM. It works. I take the two and a half hour train ride in delirium, watching the czech movie like I know what's going on. Free hot chocolate.

By the time I reach Brno, The exchance offices are open. I get six hundred crowns for my last twenty Euro and catch a cab to my dorm. I throw my stuff down. Stare at walls. Eventually my friends still in town rouse themselves and we walk over to the Yellow bar. I eat a steak and have an extremely disappointing, flat czech beer. I struggle to stay awake until the sun goes down (approximately 4:30). Finally, at six pm I lay down to sleep. I sleep for twenty hours.

The next day I make my way to the International student's office and it is closed. I return days later to learn that I will be receiving no stipend for January. I await finding money in my bank account. I try to withdraw money daily. I read voraciously. I borrow money from friends. I watch the entirety of a british sitcom on someone else's computer. It will not play any of the plethora of DVDs I brought along. There are two dozen people in the building. Things are dull and a mite depressing. It snows nightly but never accumulates.

MUSIC: (in my head) Shout: whowever the hell did that song.

Chicken or fish?

So this is going to be really brief because I've got laundry on and have coffee and whatnot to make with the eating of.

I have survived my travels and am safely home for christmas. I'll do a serious post about my voyage to the center of Bratislava as well as thrillify everyone with my trip narrative. Once I arrived in Charlotte, I told my stepmom that I felt like I had been on the shittiest roller coaster ever for the past forty hours.

Ciao for now, darlings.

-Last Indian

MUSIC: step brother trying to teach himself piano.

it's almost 5 pm...

do you know where your children are?

If you're one of my parent's, the answer is no. At least not for all their children. Some of us are hiding in the already-dark evening of a foreign place, typing on borrowed time on a computer far better than their own.

So my money's dried up for the moment, and therefore it was a quiet little weekend. Big up to Jess for cooking for everyone this weekend. And I better say thanks to Andrew, too, since he cooked a little himself and I wouldn't want him to read this and cry. Anyway, hopefully if I get some money from home or my stipend works out well, I might be heading away this weekend before my final, serious, studious crunch.

Then it's home for a month before my wild and furious europe year continues.

MUSIC: (in my head) duran duran: ordinary world

student riots!!!

Today was the anniversary of the student riots in 1939 and 1989. Screw the nazis and commies, freedom rules!!

So that's all you're going to get about that for now. Maybe there'll be a history lesson later, but for the moment you just need to know that I had today off. Coupled with having everything tuesday off, that makes for weekend #2. And I took advantage.

Last night I had chicken stuffed with everything you can imagine for dinner. It was delicious. Then I went and met up with a posse of two americans, an englishmen, and a lovely scottish lass to drink and kill time until the show started. What show, you may ask. Why, Kid Koala, of course. By the way, keep your eyes open for his live in Brno recording. It was dope, phat, and totally raw off the heesy (sic).

He scratched in Close to me, and a Bjork song, and weird science, and ballroom blitz and a fair shake of his 'good friends' radiohead. I hope he actually does put out the show as a cd. It would make my day, that day, far in the future as it may be. Unless I get married or win the lottery that day.

So today, for the sake of continuity, I'll tell you what I ate. It was the mountaineer's chicken cut, totally wrapped up in a potato pancake. This is the second time I've ordered mashed potatoes at this place and been given something radically different, by the way. The first time was mushroom rice, and tonight, I enjoyed some fine french fries because I lack the requisite vocabulary to complain.

After that I came and downloaded Jump Little Children songs and sang along like a total sap. Anyone who hasn't heard JLC's close your eyes is a bastard. or ignorant. do yourself a favor, though, and go listen to it, since you're no longer ignorant and that makes you....

anyway, after that I went with Kelsey, a lovely girl from Arizona and her roommate (whose name I will now butcher) Kasha for a jazz show. The guys on stage weren't what I'd call jazz musicians, but they were really good. The drums and bass were sadly relegated to their rhythm section rock status quo position, so it was a guitar and sax show. The guys playing the aforementioned lead instruments were, as previously stated, awesome. But the guitar work, especially, seemed far more rock-y than not. Impressive and enjoyable, no doubt, but not jazz, I think.

So after that I spent some time hunting for the other international kids before finding them at Die Fleder Maus Haus. Drank some beer there. And I was wearing a suit, so a couple of Polish girls, Goshka and Ola (spelling aside) exhausted there store of synonyms for 'wonderful' to describe how I looked. Very flattering. I spent the rest of the night drinking and talking with some fellow amerikaners, Tom, my roommate, Cass from AZ as well, and my fellow north carolinian Katie. We went to a different club where, despite my best efforts, I was bested in Foosball, then the power was lost. Everyone seemed to be rushing out to catch the night bus, so I thought I'd better hurry, chugged my beer, and split.

If anyone's worried that I may have drunk too much tonight, be aware that I've only been home for about half an hour, and I seem to be having very little problem forming coherent thoughts. Don't worry about me.

MUSIC: jump little children: close your eyes

this one's for...

This one's for Kim. Granted, I don't know who kim is, and neither do you. Unless you are Kim, in which case it's a fair bet that you know who you are, though not certain. Life being an ever-changing and unpredicatable mess, as it were.

But the whole reason for this post, for those of you who follow my blog and it's comments, is to give Kim a way to actually contact me so that I can respond and let Kim know what she's in for in Brno. So my address is middieamerica@hotmail.com.

Beyond that, it's been an interesting weekend. Though more for me than for you, I think. Got a fair amount of sleep, hung around, watched some futurama, ate out, drank. lived like a king, more or less. Today was my only day of class until Thursday since I always have tuesdays off and wednesday is the anniversary of the student riots in 1989. As a result, I'm a little tipsy. Note to Kim, I'm not really as lame as this post makes me out to be. Get in touch, and I'll respond when I'm at my sober and wittiest.

MUSIC: the postal service: the district sleeps alone tonight.

Which homestar runner character am I?

Which Homestar Runner character are you?

this quiz was made by jurjyfrort

triumph over evil

or at least a triumph over my computer. Now I can put new pictures up and type to my heart's content at any hour of the day in the relative comfort of my grungy room.

The weather's finally turned cold, I'm fighting a nasty cough, and george bush has a second term. That is, at least, the most recent news in Brno. I was on a tram at one point (well several points, but one in particular) during my websilence, and it was full of czech kids about my age or maybe a little younger. They had spread bubble wrap down the aisle and were taking turns doing somersaults down the tram as it barrelled around the streets of Brno.

A Czech man showed up at the sports bar where I was watching the last game of the NLCS with some other americans. This is nothing unusual. What is unusual is that it was the same czech man I had met after the scorpions concert, and he insisted on buying us Johnny Walker because we were Americans. After he left, some australians found out I had been avoiding the local liquors and were roundly disappointed. I tried to disuade them, as I had had a few beers already and the Johnny Walker, but it didn't quite work out. They still managed to get some Slivobite forced on me. So be careful if you come visit. The hospitality can be dangerous.

I ate in a restaurant in Ostrava called at the helm. it had portholes and the bar was shaped like a boat.

Everyone is really excited about my computer (more specifically the DVD player in it) being back from the land of the dead.

Last night I watched American football. You have to say American here when you're talking about football, as I'm sure you can understand. Anyway, I was going to see the Pittsburg/Philly game because my family is aligned with the steelers, and a lot of people here from the US are Philly fans. The philly fans didn't show, however, because their train was late getting back from Budapest. Perhaps it was for the best since they got totally decimated. Respect.

There was a dude from georgia at the bar, though, and he was totally weird. He heard Tom, Richard, and I speaking english, and finally turned around and, I suppose by way of introduction, said, "do any of you gentlemen know where I can find a good risk party in this town?" Nothing lewd about it, of course, he was talking about Risk, the game of world conquest. No, 'hey, are you americans?' or 'I couldn't help noticing you were speaking english.' just straight into the 'I don't know you, but met me make a bizarre request to play a twelve hour board game with you'.

He asked us if we had been to dragon con in Atlanta, and we all didn't know what he was talking about. Of course, I know what dragon con is, but that's as far as my knowledge goes, and I thought it best to plead ignorance, pay our bill, and get the hell out.

So that brings you more or less up to date. Anything else you want to know, comment or e-mail. I'm going to go drink thera-flu (thanks dad) then put on my scarf and gloves (thanks mom) and set out for food.

MUSIC: david bowie: changes

this is the quality of light here at three PM. ridiculous. take note, america, of the tram tracks and wires, indicative of excellent public transportation. 

a street 

big crowd.... this is the brno airport. 

Who'd have suspected

that Sunday would be an epic party night? Certainly not me. But perhaps one would have such suspicions if they knew that THE SCORPIONS were in town.

That's right, I'm not embarassed to say that I went and saw the goddamn scorpions last night at the Brno Rondo. I admit, however, to being pretty embarassed that so many other people did too. The crowd was monstrous and they were so happy to hear Winds of Change and Through my Eyes and whatnot (note that I only learned these song names last night at the concert) that it was almost sad.

The lead singer (I think his name is Klaus) was into audience participation to a ridiculous degree, and led many, many sing alongs when he wasn't busy playing his (I'm not kidding) tambourine. By the end of the night, however, I did hear 'Rock you like a hurricane' so now I can die happy.

After the concert, having heard of a plot amongst many of the american kids to watch football in a local sports bar, my roommate and I made our way there. The american kids had bailed, but since his home team was on and neither of us particularly wanted to go home, we hung around. We drank a few pilsners and talked a bit about the concert and eventually began talking to someone beside us at the bar who happened to be from Massachusetts. We talked to him for a good long while and then he had to go, so his seat was taken by another person who wanted to talk to us.

This person, however, was not american. This person was a fairly drunk and very friendly czech man who spoke almost as little English as I speak Czech. He spoke slightly less german than I do, too, so conversation was very difficult. Tom, my roommate, ended up talking with his two younger companions while the older fellow tried desperately to talk to me. I understood him to say quite loudly that Scorpions were shit!! and that he 'is' rock and roll (meaning the czech man speaking).

He told me how Rush concert prague is number one and that I am from Nashville: country. I love America music! Ozzy Osborne, I love. I am rock and roll, love.

This is pretty much all I could grasp for a long time, then he invited me home. He said something to the effect of getting me girls (or me getting him girls, maybe) and that he wished I could go to his home, where his friends speak good english and am rock and roll, too.

Of course, it doesn't take that long to write, or to read, but to figure all this out took me an excrutiating hour and a half. Finally, I think when he wasn't looking, I paid the bill and we split. The bill was a bit higher than usual (twice as much) because we had thought it a nice idea to get these other guys each some Johnny Walker. Of course, the gentleman I was speaking to quickly informed me "Johnny Walker is shit! Like Scorpions" then he spit on the ground.

Anyway, last night was a long one, but tomorrow I have the day off to study the hell out of Czech, which is terrifically hard. Despite the fact that I know only ten words or so, the guy at the bar embraced myself and my roommate and told us we were "Czech boys! Good Czech boys!"

So this is one good czech boy signing off for the evening.

Nashledanou!

MUSIC: beck: bottle of blues

friday

so it's friday.

I've been without my computer for nearly the whole week again, and I'm getting used to it. It's a nagging annoyance, but that's about it.

This week I got into a class on american independent films finally, and I went to my first eastern european cinema class. I watched and must expect to watch at least one movie every wednesday and another two movies every thursday. No complaints.

Thursday was my roommate's, Tom's, birthday, and so I slept very little last night as I was obligated to stay up and party. In fact, in something less than an hour, I'm meeting him to head to a bar to celebrate a bit more stylishly (this being compared to sitting on our balcony).

Today I met a fellow who spoke perfect english and was very polite, then I found out he was a czech mormon and was trying to get me to go to his church on sunday. I made up something about being out of town to visit bratislava and got out of it.

I think it's starting to rain and I already have a pretty nasty cold, but I don't now have time to go to my room (which is all the way across town) and get a jacket or something. C'est la vie.

So that's my brief entry for the week, more or less.

Expect more of the same until I get more time in these labs or my computer returns to the land of the living.

HEY! Read this!

All right, so I just screwed up a little. I intended the series of pictures to be in order of my approach from outside the dorm to my bedroom, but I screwed it up and did it backwards.

So, to get the right feel for it, scroll down to the bottom of the pictures with today's date, and start there, scrolling up until you get back to this post. Then you'll have completed the tour and will have no trouble finding me when you come visit to give me lots of money and bring me american dvds and books and cough medicine.

Enjoy!

MUSIC: pedro the lion: indian summer

And here's my little bed. Covered with crap. 

See. 

Here's the shower/sink. Over here they put the toilets in separate tiny rooms all by themselves. 

the veiw down the hall. I told you it was broad day light. 

And the hotplate where I make tea. 

Here's my little kitchen. 

I can't explain the effects I'm getting with this camera. This is my hall again, and it's broad daylight and a nice day, to boot.