Circular Foodstuffs, Circular Logic?

So, for a second post in a row I'm beginning with an apology - this time for my long silence. I have been adrift (sometimes paddling manically to stay afloat) on a sea of academic conferences (nebo v academické obci - at least I'm still finding time to study Czech).

It occurred to me earlier that today, being the day before Ash Wednesday, is perfect fodder for a blog that ostensibly concerns itself with national/cultural differences. As David Sedaris explores hilariously in his story "Six to Eight Black Men" (if you haven't, read it - preferably in private or people will stare as you laugh uncontrollably), holiday customs have much to say about our national differences.

Where the-day-before-Lent is concerned, nowhere is this more apparent then in Central Pennsylvania, where I grew up. Central PA was largely settled by Germans and, accordingly, maintains a number of German traditions. In addition to producing multiple types of potato salad and the best pretzels in the world (seriously, I've been to Germany and ours are better), these include the hallowed tradition of Fasnacht Day. What, you ask, quite rightly, is a fasnacht? For the uninitiated, which once upon a time included my grandmother, who hailed from the exotic land of non-German Pennsylvania, the fasnacht is a donut that looks something like this. Two fascinating things about Fasnacht Day: 1) In Pennsylvania Dutchland, donuts are donuts 364 days a year, adopting the name fasnacht, the name of southern Germany's carnival, only on Shrove Tuesday. 2) Most Pennsylvanians of German descent are Protestant, while giving up things for Lent is more popular among practicing Catholics, a paradox which calls into question the necessity of emptying one's kitchen of lard on a random day in February. But hey, let's not nitpick.

My only experience of a genuine Central European carnival happened in Prague in 2006. My friend Werner dragged me to Kino Aero in Žižkov. The Plastic People of the Universe were onstage. Fake meat was hanging from the ceiling - the name of the festival, Masopust, means, literally, something like "stop meat." Beer was flowing and the atmosphere was closer to what I imagine that of a New Orleans Mardi Gras to be, though I have never attended.

In London, Shrove Tuesday disappears into the ignominy of "Pancake Day". When I first heard of it, advertised a diner as "Pancake Week", I didn't connect it to Lent at all, suspecting it was akin to Arbor Day, International Book Day or similar...As with most British interpretations of feast days that have their roots in the Christian calendar, it feels oddly commercial and alienated from these sources. My local Waitrose went so far as to erect a special display of all the ingredients one would need to make pancakes. So much for emptying ones cupboards of comfort foods verboten during Lent - instead we were being encouraged to go out and buy them!

It's all quite Platonic, I suppose - there's the form of the thing, epitomized by Carnival in Venice or Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and then all our little local attempts to participate, via a circle of fried bread, plastic sausage or humble flapjack. One wonders, increasingly, why we bother at all, particularly in nations firmly on the path to mass atheism. What earthly pleasures will we deny ourselves for the next 40 days to justify a day of gorging on circular pastries of one kind or another? It's kind of sad, actually...though a glance at the clock tells me its now over. And I haven't eaten a single fasnacht. What would my Grandfather, descendant of fasnacht-devotees, say.

Špatný den v Praze...

This shall be a post without pictures (I got a bit crazy on the last one), in part because trying to document a cosmically bad day is a bit like snapping a picture of vampire - dreadful in person, but impossible to capture on film. Obviously this doesn't apply to catastrophic events: natural disasters, war and like, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about the sort of the day that, like an astute and annoying younger sibling, knows exactly what secret buttons to push to unleash one's private hell.

Just as every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, it strikes me that misery is articulated differently, depending on location, even if the same person (e.g., me) is always its subject. In London, transport fiascos tend to get me down, while in Warsaw the very placeness of the city can sometimes make jumping off the top of the Palace of Culture seem reasonable. That and the lack of fresh mushrooms. I tend to be happier in Prague - I should like it, considering that the topic on which I've chosen to write my thesis requires that I spend a fair bit of time here. Still, today Prague delivered a knock-out punch of annoyance that couldn't have occurred anywhere else. Today was not, therefore, a bad day but a genuine špatný den. I am not v pohodě, though I'll admit (grudgingly) that tomorrow everything may be v pořádku.

So what actually occurred?

The day began well enough - the sun was shining, if a bit less fiercely than yesterday. All was fine until I reached the metro, where a text from Warsaw informed me that I would need to vacate the flat in which I've been staying sooner than anticipated. Like tomorrow sooner. Cue manic search for alternate accommodation which immediately threw the day's schedule for a loop. Unfortunately I had one appointment I had to keep, with my doctor at the Canadian Medical Centre. I'd spoken to them twice on the phone to confirm the appointment and, accordingly, schlepped halfway to the airport to Veleslavin, crossed a massive building site and made it on time, only to be informed that the appointment had been made with the wrong doctor and I'd have to come back - tomorrow.

I went back into town and headed for the Municipal Library to do some work, where my computer, after working perfectly the day before, refused to speak the internet. I needed to make some calls for work, so headed for Vinohrady, where I ended up in a dodgy internet cafe on Americká that was full of smoke and slightly scary men speaking Russian. Calls completed, I headed for a celebratory beer at Meduza, my favorite Prague cafe, only to find that it had closed. Today was the first day it was not operational. The sign on the door said something about the owner desiring to sell the building and/or refusing to renew the lease.

This is where it began to feel personal.

Meduza's real estate fiasco echoed my own accommodation search, both of which plugged into the Prague Real Estate Curse, a major narrative thread of my personal mythology, which has its origins in last November, when my landlady did to myself and Mr. P precisely what Meduza's had done to them. Since then, I've been on a Kafka-esque quest for sensibly priced, pleasant and reliable accommodation, the unavailability of which has been tremendously annoying and disruptive to the work I'm allegedly meant to be doing here. Meduza's eviction also set off a reactionary, anti-capitalist righteous-foreigner-in-Prague streak in me of which I am not particularly proud. It drives me nuts when long-term expats become enraged by Bio potravinys, the Body Shop and Starbucks, as if it's their responsibility - and right - to determine another country's policy towards foreign businesses and capitalism in general. But Meduza was so great. And there are already two bio-cafes on Belgická street, where it's located. It's also, I should disclose, where Mr. P and I shared our first glass of wine. But, I digress...

Still reeling from the Meduza debacle, I made for one of the bio-cafes (I know...) and ordered tea. I've had Czech lessons in there repeatedly and no one has ever spoken English to me (apart from once, to explain something very complicated involving a radiator that would melt the table if I did not keep it a certain distance away). My stunned/sad expression from earlier events must have been misinterpreted as "stupid foreigner" because EVERYONE was addressing me in English. This only made me miss Meduza more, as that would never have happened there. I tend to massively underestimate my language skills, but even I know that if I can explain my thesis topic to a librarian at the Theatre Institute and order tickets by phone in Czech, then I am certainly capable of ordering a bio-tea. The fact that I now react with anger, instead of tremendous linguistic insecurity, in such circumstances is, I feel, a clear demonstration of progress...but I digress again...

Going back to the original theme, - the geographic specificity of annoyance - this sort of pique couldn't happen in Warsaw. Even if my default coffee/lunch/dancing spot, Nowy Wspanialy Swiet, ceased to exist, I know I won't be back in Warsaw regularly enough for it to effect me, whereas I'd hoped to be drinking Svijany in Meduza till I died (possibly of the secondhand smoke). Nor would the language problem occur since, unlike Czech, the Polish language and I are not (to borrow a phrase from a Czech colleague) "friendly". To cap things off nicely, the Prague-specific piece de resistance occurred just an hour ago, as I was leaving Flora, the shopping centre closest to my current abode.

One of the companies that I study is headed by an extremely talented and thoughtful individual who is brilliant in the way that strikes a respect-driven fear into my heart. I've been following his work for years and only recently spoke with him, briefly, for the first time. I was waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street when I noticed him standing two people away. What was he doing in Žižkov? How in god's name had we ended up at the same pedestrian crossing on a day so bad that there was no way I could possibly say or do the right thing. Or anything at all, as it turned out. Totally at a loss, I stood there, clutching my bag of cleaning supplies and Easter egg dye, and grinned like an idiot. He smiled back, briefly, before crossing the street without waiting for the light to change. He may have had had to be somewhere urgently, but I suspect it was fear of the lunatic that motivated him. Dear god. Random real-life run-ins were not covered in my PhD seminar on research methodology.

I am now safely locked up for the night with several DVDs and left over stir-fry, any thoughts of venturing across town to the penultimate night of Febio-fest forgotten. It's just too dangerous - the way I'm going, I'd only trip over Václav Havel or fall into the Vltava anyway.

Fidlovačka, or No Tag and No Joy

In a week of milestones, which included my first completely successful Czech language phone call, last night was my first trip to a non-subtitled Czech play. I went to see Fidlovačka, aneb kde domov můj? at Divadlo na Vinohradech. Fidlovačka is a nineteenth-century Czech play by J. K. Tyl with music by František Škroup. It was first performed in 1834 when its nationalistic content and championing of the Czech language in a German-dominated cultural sphere caused quite a stir. The performance was banned for a time and Tyl considered it a failure. It was later resurrected and enjoyed great success, its greatest achievement being the adoption of the fourth act aria, “Where is my home?” as the Czech national anthem. The subtitle of the original production translates to “no anger and no brawl,” but the one playing at the Vinohrady Theatre invokes the national anthem and juxtaposes the original text and story with debates in EU Parliament concerning the adoption of an EU symbol, flag, and/or anthem. Impassioned debates about collective and national identity ensue. The Czech delegate is particularly outspoken – he is tremendously concerned with the preservation of Czech national identity and ends the first act with a rant concerning the importance haček, a diacritical mark that essentially ads an „h“ to Czech consonents (š is pronounced “sh”, for example). His final (hilarious) point was “Čapek neni Capek!” – a reference to the frequent mispronunciation of celebrated author Karel.

The performance was also remarkable for the appearance of the dignified and formidable Jířina Jirásková as Parliament chairwoman. Born in 1931, she’s performed at the Vinohrady theatre for an amazing sixty years. As always when I got to a “stone theatre” (read big, official) in the Czech Republic, I am struck by the sheer number of bodies on stage – there must have been thirty people on stage last night, about twenty of them playing Euro-MPs, lending credibility to the Parliament scenes and chiming on the songs as Tyl and Škroup’s text increasingly dominated proceedings in the second act. It makes me long to have been born in such a system, in which a career as a theatre actor is a reasonably attainable and financially viable goal in a way it just isn’t in countries that lack repertory systems.

The only hiccup in the evening was my interaction with the lady who ran the šatna – the coat room. When I checked my coat prior to the start of the play, she chided for me coat's lack of a tag that would facilitate hanging. Here it is, in all its barren glory:

I don't know what this is called in Czech (or even if there’s a specific English term) and I’m not up on my tailoring vocab, so I’m not sure if she was cross with me (admittedly in a pleasant, good humored way) for failing to sew one in, or with my beloved COS for failing to place one in the coat. As I waited for the play to begin, I couldn’t help wondering if there’s a correlation between a country’s degree of coat-check obsession and the occurrence of hang tags on locally available coats. My coat is manufactured by a Swedish label and I purchased it in the UK, where coat checking is nowhere near as common as it is in central eastern Europe, though I would think that there’d be a high incidence of it in Sweden, given the length and severity of the winters. Considering the Czech (and Polish) dedication to coat-checking (which I quite like, when I'm not getting in trouble), I wonder if a coat’s check-ability is considered when deciding which brands to import. Have I finally discovered why so many of my favorite labels have no foothold in the Czech market?

Unfortunately, my relationship with the keeper of the coats did not improve post-show, when my exit from the loge revealed the fact that I’d had the audacity to check my troublesome coat when there was ample space and coat-hooks in my box. I only realized this was what she said later, as I replayed it in my head…at the time, the surprise at being publicly dressed down over a hang-tag and my lack of suitable vocabulary for the situation conspired to render me mute and unresponsive. While it is now an amusing anecdote, the entire encounter makes me long for spring, when it will no longer be necessary to take a coat of any description along for a night at the theatre.

PS - Curiosity and a desire to avoid writing a conference paper on hybrid-form theatre has led me to explore the hang-tag issue further. I'm now back in Warsaw with the rest of my coats, which I have now surveyed, along with some of Mr P's. Coats and blazers with tags (by brand and nation of purchase): Wilson's Leather (US), Brooks Brothers (US), J. Crew (US), Zara (PL), Superdry (UK). The only other coat sans tag (apart from random vintage ones) is my black and white full-length Zara wrap coat, purchased, unlike Mr P's peacoat, in the UK, lending (admittedly inconclusive) credence to the theory that tags are added and subtracted according to market. Fascinating.

Expat or Foreigner? Cizinecká Policie v. Česká Spořitelna

On Monday, Mr P and I had two extremely diverse experiences of expat life in Prague. Where did we go to achieve this? Well, first we went here:

And then, a bit later, we went here:

The first photo is our new Czech bank, Česka Spořitelna on Rytířská ulice in Prague 1. The second, is the Foreigner's Police in Pankrac. The two could not be more different and experiencing both on the same day was something of a head trip.

First there's the terminology. Česka Spořitelna is equally famous for its gorgeous interior and its Expat Centre, which allows you to conduct all your banking in English. When you open an account, you are plied with tea, coffee and sparkling water and offered a variety of discounts on local services (including a slightly pricey gym which we had both, annoyingly, already joined). You're also asked to fill in a card listing your favourite leisure activities, so ČS knows to which of its swanky sponsored events it should invite you, the coveted expat customer. At the CP, by comparison, there are no expats, only foreigners. While I don't love the term expat (too often a glamorous-sounding synonym for socially irresponsible adult adolescent), "foreigner," at least in English, feels quite rude and calls up images of a crowd of Tea Partiers armed with pitchforks, hillbilly accents, tar and feathers. But I digress…

For our stint as foreigners at the cizinecká policie (CP) in Prague 4, Mr. P and I arrived armed with our passports and health insurance cards and accompanied by Nora, our unflappable immigration agent. We needed an immigration agent because the foreign police (despite the fact that the people they deal with are almost exclusively non-Czech-speaking) speak only Czech, and while my vocabulary is reasonably adequate for most daily interactions, Czech legalese is well and truly beyond me. We also needed help because the regulations and paperwork necessary for applying for residency in the ČR are constantly changing, making it difficult for a lay person to keep remotely on top of which forms and documents are currently necessary. We had thought our case would be fairly straightforward, Mr P being a European citizen and all. We'd had a visit from a couple of CP officers (which sadly I missed), who examined our flat (how many people live here?), our photographs and our wardrobes, followed a few weeks later by a letter instructing us to appear to pick up our resident permits. Stress free, right?

Wrong. First off, there's the atmosphere of the CP itself. We arrived at a modern building in Prague 4, where an open door revealed a shiny, white police station. I was just thinking "ah, not so bad", when Mr P pointed out a sign on the door directing us to the next door, which opened onto a far dingier scene, somewhat reminiscent of a US DMV in all its take-a-number-and-wait-five-hours splendour. (That's the Department of Motor Vehicles, for the uninitiated, aka the place you go to when you need a new driver's license, or want to experience Soviet-style bureacracy coupled with American righteous indignation – a fascinating juxtaposition, really.) The chairs were uncomfortable, wire-mesh creations, but at least there was the ubiquitous instant coffee machine in case we hadn't had enough coffee at the bank, though by the time I spotted it, the atmosphere had me so stressed out that the thought of consuming anything made my stomach churn. The creepiest thing about the CP were the doors. I really wanted to photograph them, but was scared I'd be yelled at for doing so, so description will have to suffice. I needed to use the bathroom and the doors to get there were all numbered, in creepy block numbers more suited to jail cells than public conveniences. Also, they weren't in numeric order. Door 47 (WC pro zeny) opened to reveal doors 13 and 62 (stalls, only one of which actually opened). I felt trapped in a prison film, a suspicion which increased when I washed my hands and was effectively hosed down by an overzealous tap and emerged dripping. Lovely.

Mercifully, we didn't have to wait long, as Nora had arrived early to get us a good number. We did encounter some difficulties surrounding Mr P's accidentally laundered passport and previous Czech residence permit, which had been retained by his last Czech employer and was thus not on his person. The lady dealing with our case was about to fine him 3000kc (£100) for not having it, when a passing colleague told her that to do so would be ridiculous, as the permit had expired anyway (whew!), so in the end, we were let off with only a bit of hassle. Hassling seems to be what the foreigner's police do best. Why make a simple request when it's so much more fun to harangue? For example, US passports list the state, not city of birth. CP lady wanted my city of birth, so first she called Nora to the desk, who then called me to the desk and explained what was required. While I was writing it down for her, CP lady continued to lament that "Pennsylvanie" was not a "konkrétní místo" (a concrete place) and that she needed the city. I wrote "Harrisburg, PA." CP lady entered "Harrisburg" on my residency permit, which, ironically, is not at all a konkrétní místo when separated from the PA bit, as god knows how many Harrisburgs there are in the United States! (A quick google search reveals Harrisburgs in Utah, Arkansas and California, for a start.)

In the end, however, all was well and I was issued with this lovely blue document, which means that I am legal. What excites me the most, though, is that I can now finally get a library card with borrowing privileges at the city library (hurrah!) without a friend needing to vouch for me.

Still, a few days later and I'm feeling distinctly ambivalent about both these experiences. A friend recently pointed out to me that my Facebook location still lists London as my current city. I know it does. I know I should change it. I just can't seem to. Coming here has left me feeling so dislocated – between here, there and somewhere else, with the place I'm coming from not the place I'm from, though it was for the past three years. If that sentence is confusing, it's meant to be. I'm a bit of a psycho-geographic jumble at the moment and don't know where I'm coming from or going to. None of this is aided by recent political events in the US, which have me wondering whether I need to go home and pitch in against the lunatics (I'm convinced, after seeing this photo of Christine O'Donnell that Sarah Palin is actually asexually reproducing) or seek political asylum here in Europe. Sigh. Do you always know where home is?