Prague to Warsaw Odyssey, Part 2

I made it! Yes, I'm here. Once I left the Pendolino train in Ostrava, it became a bit of an adventure. My next train, the EC Polonia from Vienna, was delayed by twenty minutes, so I had time to sample a local speciality: the Ostrava latte.

When I ordered it, I thought it must have been a mistake, until I saw about half a dozen people ranging from a young crusty couple to a professional twenty-something drinking the same thing. Apart from hot beverages served in cups obviously designed for cold drinks, Ostrava delighted me by playing the sorts of train station songs (composed of the bell-like sounds that precede announcements of arrivals or departures, and always make me feel like boarding a train for Moscow or Bucharest) that used be common at Hlavní nadráží pre-refurb. I also realized, while there, that I can now understand train announcements in Czech, which delighted me, as I still think I can't speak or understand it properly, even after 100 hours of instruction in the past 4 weeks. Unfortunately, the EC Polonia didn't function as well as my language skills – we had made it one stop out of Ostrava when the train ground to a halt. Forty minutes later, after much frantic running back and forth by engineers in orange overalls and an announcement in Polish that I couldn't understand , we were finally on our way again. I was greatly relieved, since given the start to my journey, an announcement advising us all to detrain and seek accommodation in Ostrava and environs until the next day would not have seemed at all out of keeping with the mood of the journey. Luckily there were no more breakdowns, though the journey did become marginally more interesting at Katowice, when the Viennese hipsters in my carriage were replaced by a mother with two daughters in their early twenties, one of whom looked like she'd just been in a fight. If only I could understand Polish better…

As for Warsaw itself, I had a great weekend. I don't understand why the city gets such a bad rap. Perhaps I'm more predisposed to like it – there aren't many American cities with the concentrated beauty and consistent charm of many of the European cities I've visited, and I suppose if you're used to Bath, or Prague or Vienna, then Warsaw is something of a monstrosity. But for an ex-Philadelphian who's risked life and limb navigating the museum district on foot or going to a concert at the Electric Factory, crossing four lanes of speeding inner-city traffic to get to dinner doesn't create a lot of cognitive dissonance. To be totally honest, I find the motorists of Warsaw a lot easier to deal with – and less intimidating – than the cycling hordes of Amsterdam. I also love the air. The city's built on sand – when you cross the Vistula, on the east bank you can actually see a sandy beach – and the air feels saltier and cleaner than in Prague. It was windy this weekend and freezing for August which only enhanced the crispness. Plus it has some green parts, like this park by Mr. P's flat:

The people watching is fab – lots of cool style going on in Warsaw, which seems not to be plagued by the grown-up skater/punk style that haunts Prague – and great bars. We went out with some of Mr. P's new colleagues on Saturday, which ended up being a tour of places I want to go back to – an arty club in the vaulted-ceilinged basement under the Zacheta gallery, and a lounge with fantastic chandeliers and a retro-glam vibe hiding in a courtyard nearby. Early in the day, we went to Praga and found this delightful, artist-haunted and book-filled café in a converted vodka factory (which reminded me of the set of Karamozovi)...

...then stopped at another on our way back, where we found both Becherovka and a wonderfully atmospheric dark interior. Then there's the sense of history, which is everywhere you turn. The city feels like a geode – grim on the outside, but sparkling inside. Dark and haunted and hip simultaneously. I love it. So far.

As for now, zpatky do Prahy na práci – I am so behind on work. Which I'm going to start doing. On the train. Right now. After I figure out if the men in my carriage are Czech or Polish. I think they're speaking Czech, but they're reading Polish newspapers. But I can read Polish a bit, so they probably read it very well. But I can't understand them very well. Maybe they're Moravian? Oh the endless joys of Slavic languages.

Prague to Warsaw odyssey, Part 1

I wasn't even supposed to go to Warsaw this weekend. Mr P. was supposed to come to Prague, but it seems that, despite my protestations that Warsaw isn't really that bad, any Czech resident there who's able to hightails it back to Prague at the weekend. Traveler be warned: book your Friday night plane tickets well in advance. Since everyone is coming here, I've been left with no choice but to go there. And what a journey it's been thus far.

This the Metro C station at Hlavní nádraží.

Four hours ago, when I really needed to use it, it was closed. I found out while on a stationary train at I.P. Pavlova, when the driver announced that we would not be leaving the station after all. It was 9.45. The train to Warsaw was leaving at 10.11. I didn't understand how this could be happening. While living in London, I proclaimed the genius of the Prague metro. It's not like the tube – no weekend closures, no signal failures, no waiting for an available platform at Earls Court. It always works. It's never, in my experience, not worked. Until today, when I had an international train to catch. My caffeine-deprived brain couldn't process the information. Following the crowd out of the station, I decided the sensible thing would be to hail a cab. Except that there aren't any cabs at I.P. Pavlova at 9.50am on a Friday morning. I tried phoning a cab company and was given a 10 minute wait time. No good. At 10.11, I was slightly hysterical and on a tram to Náměstí Miru, wondering how I ever thought another foray into multi-city living was in any sense a good idea.

Not to be daunted by the broken metro and missed train, I proceeded by other means of transportation to the station. I thought I would be consigned to the slowest train of the day, a 10-hour long nightmare that arrives in Warsaw at 10.45, but was rescued by a Pendolino service to Ostrava that would get me there an hour and half earlier, in time for a fashionably late dinner. Score. At this point I realized that it was after 11am and I had yet to eat or drink anything. An early lunch seemed a good idea. But first I had to find the loo. Here it is:

You can't quite make out the blurry blue sign, but it says "WC". Yes, that's right. The loos, in a busy international train station, where people, like the man in this photo, are carrying baggage, are at the top of a long flight of stairs. They also cost the princely sum of 10kc to use, which is a trifle steep, though I would happily fork over twice that amount if all profits went to the construction of an escalator. Considering that Hl. Nádr. has just been through an extensive remodeling, I'm not sure how this happened. How is this at all logical? Whoever designed it seems to have realized that the act of dragging heavy suitcases up there was likely to make one hot and sweaty, as they kindly installed showers (40kc, prosim). Unfortunately they failed to take into account the fact that you'd then have to schlep your stuff back downstairs after showering. Perhaps a shower at each end is the answer? You may right ask if there are luggage lockers at the station – surely the weary traveler can deposit his/her baggage and proceed unencumbered up the stairs? Yes, there is a lovely locker bank. But only, apparently, if you have the right change. I thought I did, until I tried to pay and realized the lockers don't accept coins smaller than 5kc, at which point I gave up and hauled my stuff up the stairs.

After this adventure, I collapsed in the Potrafena Husa restaurant in the station. I had briefly considered running out for something lighter and of Asian extraction, but given how the day was going, I thought it best not to leave the station. I grabbed a table next to a group of semi-annoying backpackers and ordered a šopský salát (tomato, cucumbers, peppers, Balkan cheese, onions) and, from the beer menu, toasty s kozím syrem (toasted bread with goat cheese and caramelized onions). When my food arrived, I appeared to have ordered two large salads. I was too tired to attempt an ironic comment to the waiter or to check the menu again to see if I'd missed the fact that the goat cheese toast came with salad. I just ate them.

In happier news, Potrafena Husa had wi-fi. I started writing this post and was checking the email when the salads arrived. After I'd eaten them and tried to get back online, the network had disappeared.

Now, however, I am caffeinated and on my way, speeding east across the Czech countryside between Pardubice and Olomouc armed with Bourdieu, sparkling water and sláné tyčinky. The Pendolino is lovely and best of all, the loos are at ground level.

Do you have any train travel horror stories to share? Or suggestions for re-redesigning Hlavní nadráží?

From London to Afghanistan via Černošice

It's Monday in Prague and rainy and gray again. On the plus side, my teacher assures us that this is the best weather for studying (unless, like me, you're partial to studying under trees in parks) and Petr and Kristyna have resurfaced in Lesson 2 of Communicative Czech - for those dying of curiousity, Kristyna has splashed out on two tickets to the opera in Italy and has asked Petr - via written note, no less - if he will accompany her.

Romance aside, it's a bit surreal at the moment. While shopping in Tesco last night, Paul and I picked up The Observer. Looking at the front page while queueing to pay, we realized that the leading article about a British doctor killed in Afghanistan was about our upstairs neighbor, Karen Woo. I don't know what to say about it really, apart from that she was lovely. She discusses her relief work in Afghanistan on her blog. Paul knew her better than I did, but I remember her coming to our epic 2009 Fourth of July party and bonding with the pigs. We used to get her post by mistake sometimes...I think we still have some of it.

It's hard to know how to feel in the wake of something as senseless and disheartening as the killing of a group of people authentically responding to the genuine needs of others. Reading the comments some have made on Karen's blog and other sites, there are the usual comments that surface in such situations including an attempt to couch the whole story in religious terms. As for me, I would like to feel empowered by Karen's life and example, but instead I feel predominantly anger and frustration. I am angry, perhaps unfairly, at the free Prague city papers for not mentioning this story - or really any foreign news - at all and instead devoting a full page (for the sixth day in a row) to cities in the Czech Republic with foreign names. I am angry with myself for feeling this way, when it is my choice to live here and my problem that I prefer to turn the pages of my newspaper rather than scroll through them online. I'm frustrated by how much I still don't know, by my inability to speak enough to participate readily in the kinds of conversations that came so easily in London. I am sad to have left a neighborhood where, despite the vastness of the city that contained it, I knew my neighbors and spoke to them. Despite the good times I've had in this city - and know I can have again - I can't shake the feeling that I'm going home at the end of August. I suppose that's the big realisation of the last three weeks...sometime in the past three years, London became home. And for the first time in my life, though it surprises me both in terms of where it's occurring and for what place, I am homesick.

Before picking up The Observer, I had intended to write about my Sunday adventures in the countryside outside of Prague. One of the definite advantages to life in Prague is its proximity to said countryside and though I am admittedly suspicious of any pursuits requiring sensible shoes, I agreed to accompany Paul on a sunny walk from Černošice to Třebotov. En route, we saw...

...fairy tale-esque pine forests...

...an abandoned Jewish cemetery on the edge of the forest...

...and a very small, but aesthetically pleasing church.

That's all I can bear to upload at the moment...for a snap of the smallest frog in the world, you'll have to see my facebook page. I suspect (and Paul concurs) that Karen would have liked the frog.

PS - I have an office!

I am so very excited to have an office that I thought it deserved its own post. Here is a picture of me in my office.

Though you can only see one, my office (I derive a great deal of pleasure from describing it thus) has two windows. It is a work in progress, but it already contains a fab ergonomic chair designed to correct my posture, a french memo board and a colorful rug. I shall post another picture when it is finished and which will hopefully contain an antique writing bureau, but for now, this is my lovely, IKEA-fabulous den of reading and writingness.

The third side of the coin…

Each time I take a break from writing here (and let's be honest – there's been significantly more break time than writing time), I always feel the need, upon beginning again, to write some sort of explanation for my absence, accompanied by a new mission statement and pledge to do better. I'm going to break with tradition this time and dispense with the preamble – what's new is that I've moved to Prague for at least a year to work on my thesis and study Czech, meaning that, for the time being anyway, this will be a space to contemplate three contexts - London, Prague and the US – as well as to chronicle my current adventures. In addition to issues of language and human behavior, I'll also take the odd detour in

to fashion and matters artistic.

So, without further ado…

Right now, my life is being dominated by Czech class, specifically Charles University's Letní škola slovanských studíi 2010 (the typing of which reminds me how badly I need to get a Czech keyboard…). As a casual teacher of English, it's fascinating, particularly after my experience teaching summer school at UCL last year, to see the process from the other side of the classroom. I always envied my students at UCL, and elsewhere, who had nothing to do but roll up to class at nine o'clock. No arriving an hour ear

ly to cut out little bits of paper for communication activities, no queuing endlessly for the photocopier or having to maniacally improvise a paperless lesson if the photocopier was broken. My non-stressful student commute is even lovelier than I imaged – I'm living a block from the river, so I leave the house, stroll around the corner, cross Palackého Most and either amble along the river to the Philosophy Faculty (see below) or catch a tram that takes the same route.

As a teacher, I find that I tend freak out before the lesson – I'll change the material five times, convinced it's all horribly boring or patronizing or inappropriate for adult learners or I photocopy two extra grammar activities and a speaking exercise two minutes before class starts in case all else fails – but once I'm actually in front of the class, I calm down rapidly and seem to know what to do without thinking about it. As a student, the stress begins when the class does. I am shocked, daily, but how much I don't understand. I've never had a class entirely in another language before and it amazes me the extent to which I miss things. I don't know how English students cope. In the idiosyncratic and ego-stroking Czech-for-foreigners language leveling system (of which more later – this deserves its own post), I'm considered advanced (about pre-int/int in English levels) and mine is the first level in which students are instructed solely in Czech (unless we are absolutely dying, in which case we can request, in Czech, a translation). I've lived in Prague for over a year altogether and studied in London for a year and a half and I still understand only about 80% of what my main teacher says (not bad) and 30% of what my conversation teacher says (she speaks so fast that I still haven't managed to catch her name). Is this what it was like for my students, all of whom, from beginners up, were instructed only in English? How did their beginner and elementary level heads not just explode? Or is Czech really a great deal more difficult than other languages?

The pedagogical methods employed in teaching Czech fascinate me. In comparison to the wealth of EFL materials available, much of which is, admittedly, redundant and/or of dubious value, teachers of Czech seem to survive on two main textbooks – Communicative Czech and Czech Step By Step – neither of which appear to come with communication activities involving little bits of cut out paper. There's no obsession with the phonetic alphabet a la New English File either, and Communicative Czech in particular appears to delight in thematic and narrative randomness. In the Elementary textbook, we follow the burgeoning romance of Bulgarian student Kristyna and her Czech boyfriend Petr for three chapters, during which they go to the theatre, plan a trip to Bulgaria and visit Petr's family in Brno. Then, just after the Locative Singular, Petr and Kristýna disappear in favor of shopping friends, a middle aged couple arguing about what to wear to the theatre and another man named Petr, who is dissatisfied with his job in Prague and wants to relocate to České Budejovice. Nothing further of K & P. What happened?! Kristýna is studying Czech…so perhaps the locative singular proved too much for her to master? Or possibly their romance will be rekindled in Intermediate Communicative Czech! Watch this space!

Seriously, though – the methods employed in teaching Czech are the sort of old fashioned drills that delight the perfectionist in me, but which would likely get an EFL teacher a bad evaluation should s/he employ them. Lots of teacher time – my teachers almost never stop talking – and little variation. No controlled language practice moving towards free improvisation – just grammar, grammar, grammar, while the conversation class doesn't pre-teach structure, but instead confronts shell-shocked students emerging from a two and half hour grammar class with "UNESCO, good or bad? Discuss." I'm not saying it doesn't work – already on day two I'm catching significantly more than I did yesterday – but it does make me wonder whether each language requires its own carefully calibrated pedagogy or if the EFL method really is the best – purely as a result of what a big business it is, as compared to the teaching of Slavic languages, which apart from Russian, are a relatively small game. Has all the money invested in EFL resulted in the best of all possible language teaching models, or does the EFL industry just churn out methodologies and textbooks the way Jerry Bruckheimer cranks out blockbusters?

I shall continue to think about this as the course progresses…but should any language teachers or learners read this, do share your opinions on the matter. (This should not, however, be interpreted as an invitation to the online Esperanto lobby to advocate their cause, as they did the last time I posted about language.)