vary'd it up

We shied away from windows. We knew if we looked, we wouldn’t go. It’s a good thing we didn’t. The whole world is white. White sky, white land, white trees scattered among fields and mountains and hills of intemerate whiteness. It’s absolutely breathtaking.

A quiet bus ride with three sweet friends is all it took to go from what we thought was the most beautiful place in the world to what may actually be the most beautiful place in the world. Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad in English) is a town outside of Prague founded by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and celebrated for its healing spas.

We hopped off the bus and wandered a little way, feeling as though we’d entered the twilight zone. Everything was silent. Snowy streets were untrodden, shops that lined the streets were closed tightly, and we were the only souls meandering the lamplit streets.  

I have a friend from Karlovy Vary who is studying in Prague, so I asked him what we should do on our day’s visit. By fortuitous accident, Jozef happened to be in KV for the weekend and offered to show us around! We found a map left outside an information stand and began to walk to where we’d meet him. Ten minutes into our exploration found three pairs of snow soaked boots and layers upon layers of wet socks and tights, but we were so distracted by our surroundings that we hardly minded.

I can’t count how many times we stopped short in awe of snow-capped gazebos or larger-than-life Christmas dollhouses. We rounded one corner and were met with the Kostel Sv. Petra a Pavla, a church built in Byzantine style by Russian architects. I’ve never seen anything like this in person before; even looking at pictures now it’s hard to believe such a thing exists.

We met up with Jozef and he gave us the grand tour of his hometown, from one end to the other. He showed us the healing fountains and told us the legend of Charles IV’s founding of Karlovy Vary: the king was hunting with his dogs when a deer led them off the side of a mountain. They landed in a pond of magical water and were instantly resurrected, so Charles decided to establish this as his town.

Jozef made us taste some of the spring water, explaining that we must experience the city with all of our senses. The water, though refreshingly hot, was terrrrrible. We gagged and sputtered and felt like vampires—it was full of metallic minerals. Jozef laughed and took us to a place with the famous KV delicacy, oplatky, to get the bad taste out of our mouths.  We watched them make the thin, wafer cookies, and then we chose a few kinds to try. Our dear tour guide did not lead us astray this time. They were delicious! I will be sending some home for souvenirs :)

 We all fell in love with Karlovy Vary and cannot wait to go back in the spring to go rafting down the river and in the summer to the famous film festival. Everyone talks about how beautiful it is in the springtime, but I seriously can’t imagine it being any more magical than what we experienced yesterday. 

"What's that?" we asked Jo, indicating the massive boulder protruding between two buildings and atop another.
"That's Jesus!" Jozeph replied, astonished with such a ridiculous question.

Life In A Snowglobe

Our backyard, a winter wonderland

Charles Bridge

(such a magical place. credit to www.ivebeenthere.co.uk)

Promises

Lindsay and I were experiencing some major symptoms of FOMO this week with Mardi Gras impending in the homeland, so we did a little recon to discover how Prague celebrates our favorite time of year. Saturday was so cold and gloomy that we almost didn’t pull ourselves from our warm beds, but I’ll forever be so happy that we did. Carneval Praha rocked. my. world.

We greeted the morning with mimosas at Lindsay and Ryan’s house and moved on to the shindig. We knew we were getting close when we heard accordions and a little street band, and then we saw the costumes. Medieval gowns, egg carton hats, jesters, bears, horses, gorillas, straw men—you name it, there was a costume. The band played and everyone danced and sang, and surrounding pubs passed out shots and beer and doughnuts. This is what life’s all about—so much joy. 

Conspicuously present were legions of an older generation, just as blithe and merry as the rest of the revelers, if not more. We deduced that this is a form of triumphant rebellion: communism suppressed so many expressions of art, music and dance; this is their way of showing that it did not defeat them.

Our Czech friend Kryspin joined us on our adventure, and we were so glad to have his language interpretation when three masked men hopped aboard a stage set against the Malo strana skyline and began to shout. We were asked to join them in a solemn promise to put revelry first, with a minor caveat prohibiting us from storming the castle.

We joined the parade down centuries old cobblestone streets, pausing at intervals to accept a mug of beer or mulled wine, all the way down to the island adjacent to Charles Bridge. Snow began to fall as we partook in more singing and dancing, a pig roast, and the traditional “shooting of the bear.” We’re still not entirely certain what this means; from what we saw, the costumed bear we’d followed down the route was veiled in white and gently poked with a knife. A few hours later, we saw the bear smoking outside a fried potato kiosk—maybe that’s what caused his untimely demise.

Today again we experienced the season’s jubilation when we stumbled upon another pig roast. It was exceptionally cold, so the band was inside a pub and folks young and old were swinging to a band of jammin geriatrics. Unless you’ve witnessed it, there’s no way to convey the way this scene just warms the soul through and through. Our wee bit of homesickness assuaged, Lindsay and I and the rest of the group made our second solemn promise of the weekend—this time next year, you’ll find us in costumes celebrating the triumph of the human spirit in the best city in the world.    

czechin in

Because it’s been so long since I last wrote, I’m just going to include a few relatively unconnected vignettes. Here goes:

1) Our course ended a week ago. The day itself was shrouded in mystery, as both alums and teachers had warned us that the last day was going to hold a menacing surprise. “Just wait,” they said, “it won’t be pleasant but you’ll be a better person for it.” We were all on edge anyway, having stayed up for a few nights straight cramming for methodology and grammar finals, so when we walked back into the room at 5pm that Friday and there were lists of various schools for which we had to plan a lesson and substitute for a 90 minute class (with only 30 min to prepare a lesson) some people LOST it. Pretty sure there were tears. We were scurrying to create impromptu lesson plans when our instructors informed us that they had brought some materials to help us out. They opened their briefcases and pulled out champagne and pastries and said “congratulations, you made it…don’t forget to scare the next class!”

2) The next day was Saturday, and one of my students had invited me on a tour of “unknown Prague.” Of course I was intrigued, and Ronya was an interesting person anyway. She was always quiet and the other students hated her because she was a wee bit more skilled than they but still insisted upon speaking Czech in English class. She works for a publishing house in Prague, and speaking English will make her more qualified for a promotion she’s anticipating. Anyway, Lindsay, Andi and I met Ronya at the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square with a little trepidation—no idea what this tour would hold.

She gave the tour just like she was telling a story. The main character was Czech Princess Anushka (St. Agnes), who had denounced lucrative marriages in favor of the religious life. Ronya had drawn diagrams and written out key words and phrases in a notebook so that she could remember how to explain things in English. One of these phrases was “holy roller,” and throughout the tour she continually referred to the princess as such. Lindsay, Andi and I are still laughing. She took us to the hospital that Anushka established, because there are secret chapels and a necropolis underneath. There’s a flu epidemic in the city now, so we weren’t able to see much, but when we walked outside again, Ronya whipped out a package. “Do you know what this is?” she asked. We hesitated for a minute—suspicious Americans as always, but Ronya had just handed us an insert of odd looking pills. “Veetameens!” she exclaimed, “so you will not have flu!” It was precious, and so thoughtful. We expressed our gratitude and quietly slid the pills in our pockets. Suspicious Americans.

After that, Ronya took us to Princess Anushka’s convent. It was beautiful, but sort of sad at the same time. The Czechs are not a religious people. Anyone you meet will tell you in a heartbeat that they do not believe in God, that it is as foolish as believing in Christmas (aka Santa Claus). The convent was entirely empty of pews, an altar, icons—really anything at all. It’s all walls and ceilings, emblematic of their national religious identity.

We proceeded to a nondescript building down the street, and therein discovered an extensive gallery of 14^th century religious artwork. The pieces were breathtakingly beautiful and old—just chillin in this building no unsuspecting person would have reason to enter. There were quite a few people milling about, however, and Ronya pointed out a few more “holy rollers” in the centuries old works. I’m still pondering what all of those painting and sculptures mean to people who don’t believe in any of it. We finished the tour with Czech fast food and the story of Princess Anushka’s beatification just 5 days before the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism in 1989.  One of the many things I love about the Czechs is that their hundreds of years of history is tied so tightly to the present—it’s pretty cool to feel like we’re living a major part of it even right now with their first democratic election.

3) The last few days: I feel unbelievably blessed to have met so many incredible people here so far. It’s amazing to think that 6 weeks ago, I didn’t know any of these people who are such a huge part of my life now. My roommate Andi is one of these people—we could not have had more opposite backgrounds yet could not be more fundamentally similar. We have been arranging our apartment and gathering all the little things (you never think about needing a huge soup pot until you’re knee deep in chopped vegetables and raw chicken with nowhere to put them) and attempting to break the mental barrier that is cooking/grocery shopping here.

One of our friends is having a housewarming potluck dinner tonight, so I decided yesterday’s challenge of the day would be making a king cake. Everyone’s pictures and tweets were making me so jealous! So I translated the ingredients into Czech and set out on my adventure. It took about 7 stops, a few drawings and a česky/anglicky dictionary, but I eventually found everything I needed. FYI: Food coloring (potravinářské barvivo) is not a thing. I had completely resigned myself to a lame white frosted king cake, when I entered one last potraviny and shared a special moment with a worker who took me to a side room with an entire shelf of the stuff.

Aside from using a peanut as the baby, it’s pretty legit. No one in our group has ever heard of a king cake(travesty), so here’s hoping for a good first impression.

I s’pose that’s enough for now. I start my new job Monday! Send some good vibes my way :)