Happy Easter!!!!

It's really hard to ignore a holiday when the world around you is celebrating it.

peace

Boogie We Can Believe In

Time for another Saturday tune. As it stands now, it looks like I'm DJing tonight at the Blind Eye in Zizkov and then attempting to wake up bright and early to assure myself a spot in Hradcanske Namesti to see President Obama deliver his first speech in Europe as leader of the free world. In keeping with both themes of my weekend, here's a great medley of the Flinstones theme song and Hail to the Chief as performed by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band:

Enjoy!

Obrazky

OK
So I borrowed a camera from my wonderful friend Roni (thanks again!) and took some pics of things. Here are some snippets of a day in my life.

I wake up and turn on the light. The Czech light switch, which is similar to its American counterpart in operation, is far superior in design due to an increased smackability:



Then I gotta unleash the dragon (pee). I know. You're jealous. It's only natural.

Then I step outside my apartment and breathe in the frigid air. Ahhh, what a doorstep view!



Then I gotta go teach. I take the metro to Pankrac and take a leisurely walk to my class. On the way....what's that?.......that's right, more beautiful scenery!



Class is over! On the way home I gotta stop by the store. Just down the street from my local grocery store just happens to be a mural dedicated to my favorite author, Bohumil Hrabal. Apparently he used to live in this neighborhood.




It's a rare sunny day so I walk home instead of taking the tram. Here's an abandoned theatre/cafe/etc. that Hrabal used to write about:


And here's some random nice old building on the way home:



Walking through the park. I'm almost home!! (my building is the yellow one)

Later that day I dropped off a job application at a school in Zizkov. I'm glad they never called me back because their street is pretty crooked.


Instead of just tramming it home, I decided to walk under the mountain to get from Zizkov to the Krizikova metro station. The tunnel is one of my favorite places in Prague. The acoustics are just amazing.


In the afternoon, Marit and I went for a walk around town. I promised myself I wouldn't take any touristy pictures but I succumbed for a couple minutes (these next 3 pictures are all taken on the same 2-block spanse).

some building:




some fountain:

some CASTLE!!:


Later in the evening we met up with Roni in her neighborhood for dinner. Little did I realize that the artist David Cerny had a sculpture in this neighborhood of a pink Soviet tank sinking into the mud. This is of course in reference to his previous act of vandalism inflicted on the Moument to Soviet tank crews. I think reading about Cerny in Hrabal's Total Fears (which is the first book that made me fall in love with this city) was probably what began my fascination with the color pink.
So I gave Roni her camera back. Thanks again Roni!!

Jaro je tady!!

So even though Spring officially started a week ago, today was the first day that I was able to walk around outside comfortably without a coat. After my first real winter, the sun and the warmth felt amazing. The next 5 or 6 months are gonna be heaven.

In honor of such a lovely day, here's a Tom Lehrer classic for y'all:

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

Come on baby. Get in this mud with me.

Alright, well I'm still having trouble getting these mixes into a sharable form, so I've decided to post a song a week until I figure this out.

So I've been dling a ton of New Orleans and Louisiana music from the 50s to the 70s because I want to start DJing a New Orleans music night at a bar somewhere around here. This track isn't by any means the funkiest or most danceable of the songs I've hoarded, but I can't help but chuckle every time I listen to it. Enjoy!

Danny James - Boogie in the Mud

PS-sorry to all the mac users, but it's in wma format. I'm sure you'll figure something out.

Spring is on its way, I can almost taste it

Sorry it's taken forever to update. I was hoping to unveil the new blog look with a mix available for download but I keep running into tech roadblock after tech roadblock trying to make that happen. So you'll have to settle for more words and a couple pictures.

I've begun teaching! I only have 2 elementary classes and 2 advanced classes per week so far, but I'm loving it. All of my students are fantastic and fun. The hardest part of the job, lesson planning, is getting easier each week.

Whilst job hunting online I stumbled across a few ads looking for American males for "dubbing." Now, I've heard that the porn industry is pretty big here in Prague, so I can't help but assume that these "dubbing" jobs will require just as much of a mastery of American English as the ability to give a good groan on command. I possess both of these talents. Unfortunately, both of the jobs were already taken, but since that morning I search for "dub" on the employment sites every day. A dream has been inspired within me of making a full time living as a voice actor for Czech porn. I know you're all thinking "but Kyle, you're a star, you don't need to work behind the scenes, GET IN FRONT OF THAT CAMERA!" Well I'm saving myself for Jesus, so you'll just have to make do with my luscious voice. I hope!

Back to real life. As I'm sure some of you know by now, I've been seeing a lovely Swedish pre-med student named Marit for a while. For one of our first dates we went to see the ABBA show with some of her fellow students. They were about the most faithful, impressive tribute band I ever could've imagined. Going to see the equivalent of ABBA with a Swede was almost like getting invited by the Pope into the Vatican to see the Ark of the Covenant. Only Abba are way cooler than the Ark.

On Valentine's Day there was a pink-themed party at this great bookstore/cafe/bar called Shakespeare & Sons. I know many of you might think that a pink party is right up my alley, but I got rid of all my pink clothes as part of the whole "starting over" thing. All I kept is my Flash Gordon belt buckle with the pink lightning bolt. I still ended up going to the party with some friends, just not in costume. In the back room there was a little Valentine's themed open-mic nite. During a lull in the evening I decided to serenade the room with my now-legendary rendition of "the Girl from Ipanema." We went out dancing after that and then took a midnight walk up to the castle. A week later I did my laundry and apparently one of my red shirts felt the need to share its dye with the rest of the wash. Pink has followed me to Prague. Apparently not everything can be left in the past.

A few days later was Masopust in Prague! The celebrations were very similar to those of Vesely Kopec only there was a parade through the streets of Zizkov, stilt-walkers, free beer, and some Marigny-looking mutant bike. It was nice.

My name day for Svatopluk landed on Feb. 23rd. Marit, Josef, Barbara and I went out for some good authentic Czech food. I drank some Slivovice, which is a plum brandy and one of the CzR's national drinks (right after beer, wine, absinthe, and Becherovka). We met up with some friends afterwards for Karaoke at the Blind Eye.

A couple of weeks ago two of Marit's Swedish friends came to visit. Thanks in large part to the wonderful care package sent by my mom (THANKS MOM!), I was able to treat them to a small American junk food feast. A main course of fritos and rotel dip followed by a dessert of peanut butter rice krispie treats with chocolate on top. MAGNIFIQUE!



Later that night we went to go see My Name Is Ann again. This time at Hall C, which was more like the punk warehouse artspaces I'm accustomed to seeing shows in back in the states. They were predictably fantastic.

That's all I've got the patience to share right now. But how do you like the new blog layout? Snazzy, huh?

Rad tančim a zpívam

I graduated from the course on friday. It was an almost hellish four weeks but I've got a fantastic feeling of accomplishment. I'm pretty sure I'm fully equipped to become a great teacher, too. Just in the lessons we taught at TEFL, I got a really proud glow whenever I heard my students using new lexis or grammar that I had taught them. Now it's time to job hunt. I've got an interview on Tuesday and am in the process of scheduling a few more.

I'm moving in to a new place today. I'll be living in Liben (Praha 8) with some Czech friends I just recently made, David and Karolina. I'll be sharing a room with David, but it's a pretty big room and he travels a lot, so i won't be wanting for privacy too much. Plus, I get my healthiest chunks of alone time when I'm just walking around the streets of the city. The apartment is pretty sweet. It's got wifi (hint: Skype: for those of you who haven't heard my voice in ages), a transparent aquarium-looking toilet seat and lid, and a beautiful view of the city when you walk out the front door.

Yesterday, Josef and his girlfriend Barbara took me out on a daytrip to Vesely Kopec, a centuries-old village out in the beautiful hills of Moravia. We went to celebrate Masopust (the czech mardi gras). A couple dozen locals were dressed up in ridiculous costumes, drinking, dancing, and marking everyone's face with coal. I'm still not sure of the significance of the coal. The whole experience actually reminded me more of the May Day festival in the Wicker Man than of NOLA's Mardi Gras. It was still loads of fun though. At one point I wandered up a snow-covered mountain and for a second thought that I was in the Sound of Music. Josef veered off the main roads for a while onto a country road in the middle of nowhere so his beautiful beagle, Rosara, could run alongside the car for a while. We ended up getting stuck in the snow and spent about 30 minutes shoveling the snow out from under his Škoda and trying to push the car out of the trap we had landed in. Needless to say, it was some of the most fun I've had in ages. Josef and Barbara took lots of pictures, so i'll try to post them when I can get a hold of them. For lunch we ate at this little uber-authentic Czech restaurant nearby that's been around for over a hundred years. I had my first non-smazeny syr Czech food so far (in my defense, being a vegetarian rules out about 95% of the Czech diet for me). It was what I think were boiled nuggets of potatoes smothered in sheep's cheese, with a side of cabbage. Delicious (is anyone else bothered by the fact that sight, touch, and taste are the only three senses that get their own adjectives regarding quality? or am i really just forgetting something. i guess smell has it too, but i'm having an impossible time thinking of a word that means "good sounding" If you can think of something, please prove me wrong). I also went to Josef's birthday party a few days ago and had some homemade pickled birthday cabbage. I had no idea cabbage was so delicious. I think my diet is about to get another staple food.

On my birthday a couple weeks ago, a few of us went out to Karaoke at this place called the Molotow Cocktail. The vast majority of songs sung that night were sad ballads in Czech. I sang the Final Countdown. It was nice.

thanks to pilates, I can now touch my toes. This is exciting.

In by brief moments of spare time lately, I've been doing a good bit of dancing, a very healthy enterprise. The main place I've gone is this club called Lucerna, where every Friday and Saturday night they have 80s and 90s dance night. It's quite a different experience from what you'd find in America. There are still as many meathead douchebags and flaky girls as you'd see at the American equivalent, but when the whole crowd goes crazy for shit like "cotton eyed joe" and "barbie girl" you can't help but shake your head in wonderment. They make up for it with healthy doses of Abba, Boney M, and Kylie Minogue (her Stock Aitken Waterman stuff). Though why they're always so eager to play Gloria Gaynor and the Village People and never go for the gold with Donna Summer is beyond me.

That's all I can think of for now.

PS-Czechs celebrate name days as much as they do birthdays, so I've chosen my own Czech name: Svatopluk. It's the name of a legendary Czech king and it means "Saint Column." Meaning the military form of "column." I intend to learn how to ice skate, eventually achieve Czech citizenship, and lead the Czech curling team to its first ever olympic championship as Svatopluk Herbert. So keep your ears to the ground, because the Svatopluk train is on its way. Later in life I will write and direct a Rocky style movie simply called Svatopluk and Survivor will come out of the woodwork to write a song more inspiring than Eye of the Tiger, the Final Countdown, Don't Stop Believing, and You're the Best put together. Just look out is all I'm sayin'.