Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Lost in the Great Wide Open
Well its been about 10 days since I've written anything, so I guess I owe it to you heathens to say something. Whether or not its important, or useful, or coherent is for you to decide. Ok so I got a couple of jobs with a couple of different firms, but its only about 5 hrs a week between them. So lots of free time to do things that don't cost any money. I got a little stir crazy recently and decided to splurge on the $15 roundtrip train ticket to Cesky Raj, translated, Bohemian Paradise. Its about 3hrs north of the city and it is one of the most beautiful places I have seen. I started in Turnov around 2 pm on Sunday and walked at a pretty good pace. Gorgeous rolling hills, and huge rock formations made from magma from the Cretaceous Period. At one such formation, there are two huge spires that emerged. And dogoneit, about 700 hundred years ago, somebody put a couple of castles on top of them. Its really an amazing feat. I found a sand dune about a kilo south of the castle and slept under the stars with a near full moon. It was gorgeous.
The sun comes up at 4am during the summer here, so I was on the trail near after that. My hike was composed of walking through little villages, interspersed with areas of dense forest. So much fauna around; deer, hedgehogs, birds, bees. The villages are very agrarian, so you would hear bleating goats and roosters for a couple of hours straight. Geese would randomly walk across the road, and chickens and cows would do their usual doubletake to decide if I was a threat before returning to their masticating desires. I came to a forest preserve around 9 oclock. Having been walking for 5 hours and having gotten very little sleep (I had no sleeping bag and the nights become chilly), I decide to take a quick nap under one of the most gorgeous forest canopies I have ever seen. It was cool and relaxing, with birds chirping and a small brook in the distance wooing my soul into the unconscious. After dozing for an hour, I woke up refreshed and invigorated and continued on my way. The area I was in I cannot pronounce and do not have the map, but it should have been called "No fucking way!" Everytime I turned around, there was a huge formation or a color I had never seen. One of the rocks had a natural staircase up to an area that had the most beautiful view of the area. I saw the castle in the distance and realized how much I had walked that morning. I found a lake at the foot of the hill that has camping and swimming and boat rentals and a restaurant and, of course, cheap beer. I stopped and had an ice cream and enjoyed watching the Czechs enjoying themselves.
50km and 24 hrs later, I got to the town of Jicin around 2 that afternoon and treated myself to lunch and a brew in the town square. It was one of the best experiences that I've had in my life and I was so excited to clear my head and reflect on how lucky I am to experience what I do. I hope all of you get out from behind your cubicles or schooldesks or restaurants or wherever you happen to spend your time and get out and explore a new place not created by the hands of men. It will do you good, I promise. Peace and Love. MtL
The sun comes up at 4am during the summer here, so I was on the trail near after that. My hike was composed of walking through little villages, interspersed with areas of dense forest. So much fauna around; deer, hedgehogs, birds, bees. The villages are very agrarian, so you would hear bleating goats and roosters for a couple of hours straight. Geese would randomly walk across the road, and chickens and cows would do their usual doubletake to decide if I was a threat before returning to their masticating desires. I came to a forest preserve around 9 oclock. Having been walking for 5 hours and having gotten very little sleep (I had no sleeping bag and the nights become chilly), I decide to take a quick nap under one of the most gorgeous forest canopies I have ever seen. It was cool and relaxing, with birds chirping and a small brook in the distance wooing my soul into the unconscious. After dozing for an hour, I woke up refreshed and invigorated and continued on my way. The area I was in I cannot pronounce and do not have the map, but it should have been called "No fucking way!" Everytime I turned around, there was a huge formation or a color I had never seen. One of the rocks had a natural staircase up to an area that had the most beautiful view of the area. I saw the castle in the distance and realized how much I had walked that morning. I found a lake at the foot of the hill that has camping and swimming and boat rentals and a restaurant and, of course, cheap beer. I stopped and had an ice cream and enjoyed watching the Czechs enjoying themselves.
50km and 24 hrs later, I got to the town of Jicin around 2 that afternoon and treated myself to lunch and a brew in the town square. It was one of the best experiences that I've had in my life and I was so excited to clear my head and reflect on how lucky I am to experience what I do. I hope all of you get out from behind your cubicles or schooldesks or restaurants or wherever you happen to spend your time and get out and explore a new place not created by the hands of men. It will do you good, I promise. Peace and Love. MtL
Monday, June 13, 2005
The Killa with a Villa
Ok, so lets jump around a bit. Alejo and Dom left me in a pool of my own blood and vomit and didn't even pay me for the night. I felt so used. So I finished my 4 week intensive TEFL Certification, get my certificate and get thrown out of my apartment. Well this happened to everyone, so myself and 3 other guys decide to find a place together. It took us about a week or so of house hunting, but we ended up landing a sweet villa about 5 mins from the city center by metro. Its a four bedroom two floor palace by any of our current standards. It has a pool, a sauna, surround sound stereo, tv, dishwasher, washing machine/dryer, a finely-tuned piano (which is wasted on our dumb asses. Shane get over here and Sing us a Song, You're the Piano Man) and a muthafuckin round bed. Unfortunately it was not won by yours truly, I lost it in a cutthroat bout of RPS. "Trusty rock. Nothing beats Rock." Lest I forget about the mythical Paper, rarer than Sasquatch. Curses! It is pimp nonetheless.
The decor is quite eccentric. When you walk in the door there are holograms on the wall of a vampire who turns into a zombie who turns into a werewolf. Also some of planets and bicycles and other mind-bending images. Not the most welcoming of sights after a long night, but interesting, still. The living room has a smorgasbord of dead insects (mostly butterflies and beetles) and spiders enframed on the wall. Also, there's a dank map of the Alps and Egyptian Papyrus e'rwhere. We have a balcony and a rose garden. Across the street is a university with kids running around at all hours of the night playing music and drinking (yes {shock and awe}drinking) on campus, not even hiding in the bushes. The other night, my roomates went to one of the parties and saw a dude break his arm in half in an arm wrestling match. It sounded like a pretty harrowing experience, considering the guy kinda nonchalantly got up and walked towards the pay phone to call the paramedics. I'd freak.
Anyways, theres a music club called Madona inside the school, plays all your favorites from '81-'83. The sign says its open from 8 until ? Its a pretty Jerry place to be, but its right across the street, so its not bad if you dont want to truck it into town. Better than Illusions or Hammerheads and its fully stocked with Czech women. There's a public pool about 15 mins down the hill and it has a racing pool, a regular pool, an indoor pool, a kiddie pool, a real waterslide, and a huge lawn that everyone lays out on. Being in Eastern Europe, most dudes are in speedos only and the women are dressed similarily. Nice place to go to people watch to say the least. They sell a half liter of beer for less than a dollar. I think I like the Czech Republic.
Still looking for full-time work, its kinda slow in the summer. People take vacations (they call it holiday, the weirdos) seemingly once every ten days. The working schedule is holding at 35 hrs for full time, and a lot of salaried employees still only work about 30 hours a week. Its not bad. They work to live, instead of the other way around. Prague is so beautiful, every time I go into the city, I find a new little treasure. Yesterday, I walked past a wall and lo and behold, it opened up into a huge park/garden. Complete with fountains and grottos and an in-house peacock. All through a random, arbitrarily-picked gate. Unbelievable. Well that's enough for now, looks like the Cubs are on the up-and-up. Although it would've been sweet to pull off the sweep against Boston. Arlene looks like it was just a dream, what a dream. I'll update more, now that I have free internet access at one of my agencies. Peace and Love, MtL.
The decor is quite eccentric. When you walk in the door there are holograms on the wall of a vampire who turns into a zombie who turns into a werewolf. Also some of planets and bicycles and other mind-bending images. Not the most welcoming of sights after a long night, but interesting, still. The living room has a smorgasbord of dead insects (mostly butterflies and beetles) and spiders enframed on the wall. Also, there's a dank map of the Alps and Egyptian Papyrus e'rwhere. We have a balcony and a rose garden. Across the street is a university with kids running around at all hours of the night playing music and drinking (yes {shock and awe}drinking) on campus, not even hiding in the bushes. The other night, my roomates went to one of the parties and saw a dude break his arm in half in an arm wrestling match. It sounded like a pretty harrowing experience, considering the guy kinda nonchalantly got up and walked towards the pay phone to call the paramedics. I'd freak.
Anyways, theres a music club called Madona inside the school, plays all your favorites from '81-'83. The sign says its open from 8 until ? Its a pretty Jerry place to be, but its right across the street, so its not bad if you dont want to truck it into town. Better than Illusions or Hammerheads and its fully stocked with Czech women. There's a public pool about 15 mins down the hill and it has a racing pool, a regular pool, an indoor pool, a kiddie pool, a real waterslide, and a huge lawn that everyone lays out on. Being in Eastern Europe, most dudes are in speedos only and the women are dressed similarily. Nice place to go to people watch to say the least. They sell a half liter of beer for less than a dollar. I think I like the Czech Republic.
Still looking for full-time work, its kinda slow in the summer. People take vacations (they call it holiday, the weirdos) seemingly once every ten days. The working schedule is holding at 35 hrs for full time, and a lot of salaried employees still only work about 30 hours a week. Its not bad. They work to live, instead of the other way around. Prague is so beautiful, every time I go into the city, I find a new little treasure. Yesterday, I walked past a wall and lo and behold, it opened up into a huge park/garden. Complete with fountains and grottos and an in-house peacock. All through a random, arbitrarily-picked gate. Unbelievable. Well that's enough for now, looks like the Cubs are on the up-and-up. Although it would've been sweet to pull off the sweep against Boston. Arlene looks like it was just a dream, what a dream. I'll update more, now that I have free internet access at one of my agencies. Peace and Love, MtL.
