Last Day on the islandWe left Chania at 5:30 in one of the dreaded Greek cabs and it was everything I feared. I have never seen anyone drive like a Greek. They thoughtlessly zip around pedestrians and other cars, honking their horns (even at 5:30) at anyone in their way. The car is driven in the exact middle of the road, blocking both lanes, so swerving is an essential maneuver. Pile all of these quirks on top of a healthy lead foot and what you get shakes your nerves more than a cup of Greek coffee. If these guys are driving the cabs their brothers must be flying the planes…
My final impression of Greek infrastructure was at the security check in Chania airport. Right below the pen-drawn “no smoking” sign sat a ungodly hairy Greek man, belly and chest hair bursting out of his little blue uniform, smoking a cigarette as he watched an x-ray screen. I will miss it.
We arrived at Berlin’s Tegel airport around 9:00 and hopped on a bus to the central train station. The station, all enclosed in glass and multi-leveled, is quite an engineering marvel. While we were waiting for our train I decided to use the restroom and even that was an experience. First of all, you have to pay a decent amount at a turnstile to even use a public washroom. After I paid my fee, I noticed that there were arrows on the floor and signs on the walls pointing to the urinals, leading me along like some trail of skittles used to lure small animals, and then there were little boxes drawn on the floor where you are supposed to stand while releasing into the basin. It wasn’t really a maze…there
was one turn and there were no options, but maybe there has been a history of people getting lost in German bathrooms and just peeing all over the walls and floor in distress. Washing my hands, I had to do a double take of the attendant to make sure she was a woman, which she was. It was especially interesting to think that everyone else finds lines traced on the floor and cross-gender attendants quite normal.Finally our train to Prague arrived at the station. The train was very roomy; we had our own booth which was basically six seats facing one another and two l
arge panorama windows. The ride was five hours long and every station we made a stop at the German conductor would announce something over the PA system. I felt like I was intercepting transmissions for the Allies. Every once in a while he would toss in a little English phrase in a perfectly stereotypical German accent (hewwo wadies and yentelmen, ---‼GERMAN‼---, good biiiiiiiie!). We got a little sleep and got to see a lot of southern Germany’s countryside. When we finally arrived in Prague it was just after dark, a fitting context setting for the sinister feel of this gothic medieval city. Our new roommate, Petra, met us at the train depot and showed us to the apartment. We have two roommates, Petra (27) and Thomas (24) who both speak fluent English and Czech. Our apartment is in an awesome location just around the block from one of the largest urban shopping centers, grocery marts, and metro stations. It is called the Flora station; maybe in spring flowers grow out of the dark cobblestone that covers everything…
Our next day was our tour of the city with Petra, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy her role as host. She is awesome and we had a great time visiting all of the popular sites. I put the first Prague album up on Picasa. The feel of this city is very epic but also very dark and forbidding. The statues depict gruesome murders: burning people alive at the stake, stabbings, clubbing, capturing and torturing. The history behind the art is an invisible evil that seems to creep up out of the sewers like those shadow-demons from the movie Ghost. Much of the common knowledge of Prague’s long history (gained from Petra) sends tingles up my spine.
One story tells about a man who was cast into a pit in the castle to starve because of some treason. The man asked for a violin and succeeded in teaching himself to play a piece of music and keeping himself a live until he could recite it beautifully. At this point in the story I was expecting to hear that the king heard this music and released him for his extraordinary dedication but no, he starved. True or not, it serves as an allegory for the complex feeling of hope and despair that this city sings to me.
Being recently independent from soviet overlords, the Czechs have a bit of a chip on their shoulder. While American presence here is quite large and the reputation of US expatriates is decent, I sense a silent distaste for outsiders... sometimes, not so silent. I was walking to the grocer and a man in a phone booth, probably around 30, was eying me intently as I approached. Right as I passed he spat a huge blast of saliva on the inside of the glass box, which would have struck me quite directly. I spent a few minutes trying to think of other reasons for this unprovoked and aggressive gesture with no good alternatives to the obvious: he could tell I was a foreigner and he didn’t like that. Well, I could tell he was an asshole and I didn’t like that; he is lucky he had a pope-box to protect him from some American-made boots.
Anyways, I am settling in. the roommates and I drank some fabled absinthe and it is quite interesting. It is very, very strong (although not as strong as Greek “after dinner mints” which were shots of ice-cold grain alcohol) and leaves you with a very airy feeling aside from the drunkenness. I only took a single shot, just to try it, but it may have more to offer in larger doses. The woman working the absinthe parlor made it sound like the right amount would result in a unique evening of dreamlike waking and lifelike dreaming. Time (and my budget) will tell.
My job does not pay an extraordinary amount when it is converted to dollars (although the dollar is falling still…) but it is decent wage for life in Prague. The food here is cheap and the metro is cheap; I ate a roasted duck and a pile of dumplings with cabbage and cranberry as well as a tall pilsner for about $10 (which converts to about 200 Czech Korunas [crowns]). I will keep you updated on life as a business-English teacher. Take care.
