The Tale of Two Thanksgivings

When Phil and I commigted to spending the year in Prague, we anticipated many incredible things about living in Prague: the old beauty of St. Vitus across the river (a view we see almost every day), the newness (and challenges!) of a different culture and language, the vibrant city life of Prague, and the accessibility of so many amazing places to visit from our new home in Central Europe. While there were so many things we were excited about, but we never anticipated the best thing we've experienced living here: the incredible people we've met. Our Thanksgiving(s) highlighted this for us in a very special way. Being far (in distance) from our family and friends back in the States, we have been blessed to be able to celebrate with new friends in Prague. And we were lucky enough to celebrate it twice;)

On Thursday, November 22, we attended a Thanksgiving day extravaganza at the home of our new friends, Phil and Shanna. They are an incredible couple with two children (and one on the way!) who are missionaries here in the Czech Republic. They throw an annual Thanksgiving Day bash, and this year was no different. They had fifty adults, twenty children, four turkeys, truckloads of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and assorted casseroles, and six pumpkin pies. To say that they outdid themselves would be an understatement. And to really make it feel like Thanksgiving, the Lions vs. Packers game was on TV thanks to the magic of satellite cable. There were a few funny discussions between some Americans and British expats regarding American football vs. "real" football (i.e. soccer)! While the rest of the Czech Republic went on like any other Thursday, we were able to take a break (from my Czech classes and from Phil's research and writing) to share a wonderful day with new friends.



On Saturday, November 24, we helped organize our second Thanksgiving a.k.a. The Fulbright Thanksgiving Blowout. The director of the commission generously offered to host a sit down dinner for 25 people at her home. All the Americans had to do was come up with the meal...no problem! I quickly emailed a sign up sheet to all the Fulbrighters to organize what everyone would bring for dinner. (Yes, I'm really that organized on occasion.) The response was fantastic! We had every side dish you could think of...and now all that was left was to get the turkey. Phil and I were able to procured a 18 lb. turkey and two 4 lb chickens from a British butcher in Prague. I won't bore you with all the details of getting the birds, but just picture Phil on three different trams carrying them in an oversized Ikea bag. To complicate matters, we don't have an oven (welcome to our Euro flat and tiny kitchen!) so we spent Friday night roasting them at our friend Alice's place. Yes, we took photos with the bird...Phil named her Queen Zophie. Don't ask me why... (editor's note: Zophie was the queen of Bohemia during the 1410s and a real fan of Jan Hus. Obviously, that's why the turkey was named after her)



On Saturday afternoon, all of us and our assorted Thanksgiving offering made it to Hanka and Pavel's house, about 20 miles outside of Prague, via cars and trains. By the time we sat down for dinner, I was astounded again at the incredible meal we had put together! At the end of the day, we had to appreciate the new people we had found in Prague. If friends are the family you choose, we felt very thankful for our new Czech family. And while we can't wait to see everyone at home for Christmas and New Year's, we must admit that we never really missed Thanksgiving in the States - it felt like we were there.

Life in a Northern (Czech) Town

As the Dream Academy once sang, "In winter 1963, it felt like the world would freeze." Well, it's 2007 now, but last weekend Danielle and I knew what they meant. We ventured to the northern Czech Republic to visit our fellow-Fulbrighters, Chad and Chloe, and to take a serious look at the glass industry in our new home. Just to remind everyone where we are, here is a map of the Czech Republic:


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Before we get details, I have to say I'm sorry. I've been hiding for weeks, because I've been writing, and we have been keeping our heads down. Thus, posts have been few and far between. The good news is that things are picking up again - we had our visit last weekend, our Thanksgiving(s) here, the beginning of the Christmas season, and a potential visit to Austria. So, be prepared for Na Zdravi to pick up again...

So, here's the back story. Chad, Chloe, and their son Thomas live in a small town named Kamenicky Senov. They are from Seattle, and Chad is a glass artist. He came over here to learn certain techniques for engraving and sculpting that are done in the C.R., so he can teach these techniques back in the States. Chad is working and studying at a technical high school in Kamenicky Senov that is the oldest glass-working school in the country, with a man named Frantisek that he has known for several years. Last weekend, the school had an open house, and Chad invited us all up. We also visited a glass factory, a combo glass-studio and restaurant, and experienced life in a small Czech town. All in all, about fifteen of us headed north via car and the Czech bus system (ugghh - it makes Greyhound looks like Rolls Royce; trust me - stick to the trains in Europe), and we got in on Friday night.

The whole trip was amazing. We ate in a great restaurant on Friday night that featured traditional Czech food and glass blowing. It was called Ajeto, and was in Novy Bor, which is the largest town near Kamenicky Senov. Chad blows glass there once a week, and the owner is an incredible artist. We watched him (his name is Petr Novotny) create a sculpture which consisted of a hand holding a conical vase; he also let Elise, the seven-year-old daughter of our friends, Heidi and Mark, blow a Mickey Mouse head after dessert.

After dinner, we retired to our hotel, which was a German villa during the first half of the twentieth century. After WWII, most of the Germans left (read: were not so politely asked to leave by the new Czech government), so it was taken over and turned into a hotel. It also has a spring in back of the hotel which still delivers clean water. Kamenicky Senov is set on a couple of hill tops that rise from a small valley, and it became a glass center because the forest there is primarily beech - the ash from beech can be used to fuse glass when it is burned, so it was natural for glass furnaces to be built there. The town has about 5,000 people, and a couple of major glass makers. The most famous is Preciosa, who makes chandeliers; they recently sent a crystal chandelier to Dubai that was 8 meters high.

We toured the Jilek factory, which is a smaller firm that makes hand-blown art glass. They also do a lot of sales in the Middle East, and the factory was amazing. We watched the workers, who operate in teams of three or four, blow vases - one man takes a lump of molten glass and smooths out the imperfections, a second blows it into a a hollow globe, a third blows the vase into a mold, while a fourth works the mold and finishes the base. We learned several surprising things from the tour:

1) The glass blowing industry is unapologetically all-male. The blowers and bosses are all men, while the few women work the molds or finish pieces. When asked why this was, the director of the factory suggested that women weren't strong enough to handle the steel glass-blowing rods, would be offended by the blowers' lack of manners(!), and wouldn't want to use the communal rods. Needless to say, Danielle was totally satisfied with this explanation.

2) Everyone drinks while they work. Generally, I would hesitate to mix alcohol and 1300 degree molten glass, but it seems to work for them.

3) Being in a small town and seeing a traditional industry made us appreciate just how how conservative life can be in the Czech Republic. People were nice, but older men really seemed to feel responsible for us. It was surprising, and sometimes frustrating, but you could really see how traditional social values have persisted in the country.

The undoubted highlight of the weekend was our visit to the school where Chad works. It is called Střední uměleckoprůmyslová škola sklářská. The school was amazing! The students' work was remarkable, and we learned about blowing, carving, engraving, and finishing glass. We also learned about how the students are trained, because they have to master figural drawing, scultpting, and some art theory and history before they begin to work with glass. Students elect to attend this school at age 14, and train until they are 19. Even though the school is the equivalent to a high school in the U.S., the students' education is more like a college degree in art. The showcase of their products was amazing, and Danielle and I bought a beautiful clear glass plate with sandblasted squares and cut grooves on the edge of the surface. It was crazy to think that an 18-year old had made this! Be sure to check out the gallery on the website to see what the students have done.

Otherwise, we had a long dinner and lunch in local hotspots (i.e. smoky pubs) and just spent time walking through the town and the beautiful woods surrounding it. There were 10 inches of snow on the ground, and it was misty all day. Between the surroundings and the amazing art we saw, it was a great escape from Prague. The tiny town was REALLY different, but an incredible experience; seeing people create something beautiful out of ash, sand, and a handful of chemicals (for color) what an unexpected reminder of what people can do with artistic vision and traditional materials. BIG thanks to Chad and Chloe (and Thomas!) for hosting us and sharing their world with us for a weekend. Below is a slide show of some of the incredible photos from the weekend.

D's Czech Lessons - I Love Consonants

In the past two weeks since we went to London, Phil and I have spent a wonderful two weeks here in Prague. We have a few trips planned before the Christmas holidays, so we thought it might be a good idea to stay put in Prague for two weekends in a row;) I wouldn’t want anyone to get the false impression that our life in Prague is all fun and games. (Well, it’s mostly fun and games with a little work thrown in here and there...) Phil has been digging through archives, translating Czech and Latin texts, and getting down to the lengthy process of writing his dissertation. I can testify to the fact that he is working hard, but then again, I can also tell you there isn’t a time when he isn’t working hard! On the other hand, I decided to take the plunge and begin an intensive Czech language class. It meets five days a week for six hours a day. I decided to dive head first into a Slavic language and see if I would sink or swim. I prefer to think of myself as currently treading water while desperately grasping for a life vest...but that’s just on good days;)

As many of you know, Phil spent eight weeks in Bloomington last summer taking an intensive Czech language class. And as even more of you know, that husband of mine has a real aptitude for languages. He is well on his way to being “that American guy who can communicate”. In other words, he speaks solid “Survival Czech”. I, on the other hand, am just beginning to get a feel for the sounds, the accent, the grammar…all of it is completely new. I have only been in class for eight days, but I thought I'd report on my initial thoughts and impressions.

First and foremost, the pronunciation is astounding. I’m not in Virginia anymore. Even the deepest Southern drawl or the harshest New York accent cannot compare to the new sounds I hear everyday. As I listen and read Czech words, I've learned that there are specific rules for the pronunciation. As long as you follow them, things should theoretically be ok. But, yikes! Learning the rules with a few totally new sounds that don’t exist in English (or French, my only other foreign language) is proving to be, shall we say... challenging. The sounds I am attempting to make are very foreign to my mouth and ears. For instance, the letter ř is pronounced “ruh-jzuh”... sort of. (Forgive me, I am learning!) On the other hand, "c" sounds like “ts” in the word cats. So the world “co” (‘what’ in Czech) is pronounced “t-so”, a bit like the English word ‘so’ with a ‘t’ sound at the beginning. An ě when paired with the letter m becomes “mě” pronounced like “mn-ye”. Whew! My brain hurts just thinking about it.

My pronunciation issues started to kick into high gear when I realized that Czech has a serious dearth of vowels. I am overwhelmed by the number of consonants I am supposed to be able to pronounce in a row. Seriously. A few of my new favorite words are: zmrzlina = ice cream; samozřjmě = of course; čtvrtek = Thursday; trh = market. And just in case you didn’t believe me, this is a sentence that has no vowels: Strč prst skrz krk. I’m not kidding, I learned this on day two in class .

So after eight days of Czech classes, what have I learned? Well, you’d be surprised. I can say things like

Excuse me, I would like to buy a loaf of bread and an apple. = Promiňte, chtela bych cléb a jablko.

I can carry on the following conversation:

Would you like something to drink? Yes, I’ll have a large beer, please. = Co si daté k pití? Ano, dám si vélké pivo, prosím.

In addition to my useful knowledge, I’ve also learned some ridiculous phrases that I will never use:

I have a blue notebook= Mám modrý sešit.

And my personal favorite:

I’m hungry like a wolf! = Mám hlad jako vlk!

Yes, the title of lesson eight in my textbook translated to hungry like a wolf. Wasn’t that a Duran Duran song? Better question: why was this the title of my lesson today? I'm not making this up.

Even with the extraordinary newness of Czech, I am really enjoying my class. There are eight of us in the class from all over: Paraguay, Spain, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Israel. Each person has a fascinating story about why he or she is living in Prague, and everyone has been extremely friendly. We are all beginners trying to figure out what is going on everyday in class. I have found the experience of starting from ground zero quite liberating. While daunting, it is concurrently freeing to learn Czech from the very beginning with “dobry den” (hello) and good bye (na shledanou).

I guess one of the most important reasons I wanted to take Czech was the fact that a small amount of Czech goes a LONG way to making life easier. We live in Praha 1, the center of things, and there are tons of tourists as well as locals in the area. From our interactions at the local potraviny (convenience store), to the ticket counter in the metro, to the local grocery store, everything is made easier and more pleasant with a few small Czech phrases/niceties. Many people here speak great English, though they will almost undoubtedly tell you they do not. It seems to me that many Czechs I have encountered really appreciate any attempt by foreigners to speak Czech. Phil has had more than one older Czech lady at the potraviny give him an extra smile just because he can tell her “You are very kind to help us” in Czech. I have no illusions that I’m going to master the Czech language in one short year. Regardless, I know I made the right decision to take some Czech lessons while here Prague.

I can’t wait to use my new Czech skills this weekend. Along with a few other friends, Phil and I are going to a small town on the Czech-German border called Novy Bor. One of the other Fulbrights is a glass artist and is studying at an art school. His school is having an open house and invited us all to visit. It will be my first experience in small town Czech Republic. I’m guessing English won’t be useful, so I’ll just have to try out some of my new Czech phrases. I’m hoping to find a way to work into my conversations, “I’m hungry like a wolf”. If that happens, I think the weekend will be a success! We will be sure to report back when we return…

NYG vs. Miami – NFL in Europe – 28 October 2007

My love of the New York Giants is an inherited passion. My Dad first bought season tickets to the NYG about 500 years ago. Just kidding, but it was over forty years ago! The autumns of my childhood were filled with Sunday tailgating at the Meadowlands with my immediate family (Mom, Dad, and brother) and my aunt and uncle. We had lunch in the parking lot before heading inside to the swirling winds of Giants Stadium. (Anyone who has ever been there knows the wind is ridiculous, especially during a mid-December game). We knew every person in row 22, section 107 of Giants Stadium. When I think about my love of the G-men, part of it is certainly about the game of football. I love watching great football on TV or live. The other part of my Giants love is certainly due to my childhood and the memories. There is a happy piece of my life as a child, teenager, and now adult that is wrapped up in the Sunday experience of cold weather/tailgating/game watching/cheering for Big Blue. I have a special place in my heart for the experience of going to a Giants game.

My brother has inherited our family’s season tickets now and attends every home game, rain or shine. (Solid work, Big Brother). If Phil and I ever end up living in the NY/NJ area, we’d be right there every fall. Instead, our life has taken us to other places like Charlottesville and now Prague, and attending a Giants game has become a once a year activity if we are lucky. Nostalgia aside, when I heard that the Giants were going to be playing in London the same time Phil and I were living in Prague, I thought to myself, “Obviously, this is a sign. We must go.” The game sold out extraordinarily quickly even though Wembley Stadium seats over 90,000 people. Thanks to our extraordinarily resourceful friend Tia, (a Tarheel living in London), we got tickets and we made it to the game (T, you are the best!)

The entire day was fun-filled from beginning to end. Let me just go ahead and say it: the best part was the Giants win. The fan in me that is so excited about the Giants six game winning streak and 6-2 record. Even if the football was ugly (which it was) and the game stats were less than ideal (which they were), a win is a win. Here are a few pictures I snapped during the game:

Just some of my thoughts on our experience of NFL football in London:

1) Giants Fans on the Tube: While heading to Wembley on the tube, we encountered a family from Garfield, NJ heading to the game. They were season ticket holders (section 308) who had booked hotel and plane reservations the day the NFL announced the Giants were going to play in London. It was incredible: three generations of Big Blue fans (I talked to grandma for awhile), complete with heavy Jerz accents and decked out head to toe in Giants gear –and one Slippery When Wet-era acid washed black jean jacket. I felt like I was back in the parking lot at the Meadowlands…

2) God Save the Queen: The Star Spangled Banner was followed by the British national anthem, God Save the Queen. Impressively, everyone in the crowd was belting out the song and I captured the last few moments of the song on video. Though the quality of the picture isn’t great, I do love how fired up the crowd was. As a mortifying “I love Americans” side note, I heard more than one story about Americans in the crowd wondering why England stole the tune of America the Beautiful for God Save the Queen…yikes.

3) Unusual booing: Proof that the game was being played in London and being watched by people who didn’t really understand the game:

• During the coin toss, one of the honorary captains was John Terry, captain of Chelsea (and English national) soccer team. Chelsea is seriously underachieving right now and London is not happy about it. When his name was announced, the crowd booed so loudly that you could barely hear anything during the coin toss. Love it.
• At the end of the game, it was 13-10 Giants. After the onsides kick attempt by the Dolphins failed (Jay Feely kicked it out of bounds – which didn’t surprise any Giants’ fans), Eli and the G-men knelt down for three plays to run out the clock. You could not believe how much booing ensued! The Brits wanted more football and were mad they weren’t getting anymore.

4) Streaking: A man dressed up as a referee streaked the field at the start of the second half. The security response was pretty apathetic – perhaps they thought this was typical in American football? Enough said.

5) Public Drinking: consuming beer seems to be encouraged in public places in England, especially on public transportation. 90,000 fans + no laws about beer + long lines = one heck of a game day atmosphere.

6) Outdated Jerseys: I know that ridiculous throwbacks are gaining in notoriety these days (for proof, see the “Straight Cash, Homey” section on ESPN.com), but we saw some sweet ones in London. I really liked the Culpepper and R. Williams Miami jerseys, and was surprised that they were more popular than the jersey of the actual starting quarterback for the Dolphins (Cleo Lemon??!!). Here is a photo of a quality Ron "No Gain" Dayne " jersey. What is with the Eagles helmet on his head? Obviously, not a real Giants fan...

7) Cheerleaders: I guess they don’t have them across the pond, so pretty much all we heard about from the English dudes was their…ummm…"appreciation" for the cheerleaders from the Dolphins. Some of the guys might have seen some of the game, but I doubt it.

8) Wembley Stadium – fantastic but underprepared: I loved the “Wembley arch” which is visible as soon as you exit the tube station. The stadium is enormous, seating 90,000, and an excellent place to watch a game. Our seats were near the end zone on the Giants sideline and our view was top notch. The only problems with Wembley were how unprepared they were to deal with the rush of consumerism. First, the lines at the souvenir stands were outrageous. Londoners love to queue up (stand in line), but throw a bunch of American NFL fans into the mix, and the queue ceases to exist. Not a pretty scene. Secondly, there were two ATMs in the entire stadium and one ran out of cash halfway through the game. Come on people. Didn’t you expect people to spend their money?? Favorite items at the stands: “match day scarves,” which are a soccer staple, and “the rugby balls you play with,” as Tia’s friend from New Zealand described the balls. He stood in line for twenty minutes to buy one, but they sold out just as he got to front of the queue/line/mob.

All in all, this was a day to remember. Good friends, fun times, and the NY Giants.