Poland in a Pipe

Alright so this trip was fairly eventful as most are and to keep this post from becoming a 20 page paper we are going to just give bits of stories if you want to know the whole story you can ask or just wait until I get back and you can get a live version of the story in less than a month.

For starters when you are crossing country lines you should have your passport on you. If not you get asked in polish to follow the officer with the gun off the bus as he shakes his head and calls over more guards. It is much easier than trying to talk your way out of getting arrested in English to officers that don't understand a word you are saying. So outcome of the story is that I am back in Brno so what do you think happened...

Next, The city of Pszczyna (no i can not say that word). This is the city where you can order pizza and then try to pay but you can not pay with cards or your cash...
The Castle of Pszczyna is a great place for a Time Journey with a German guide that does not want to bore us with lots of historical names but has no problem telling us every word the no named person said why they were alive and every room they walked into.

The following stop was a visit to Oswiecim to see the former concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. I don't think I can really put much of this experience into this post but it was a very cold dark gut-wrenching evening. If you have ever read or heard any of the stories about this place you can only begin to imagine it.

We ended the day in Krakow at our hostel that gave us tight little ID cards that make us look like we are secret agents. I once again shared a room with Andy, Laura, and Richard. We had a balcony so Laura and Andy went to see the view. The next thing I knew Laura is on the floor by the door and there was a loud squeal. Turns out we have pigeons sitting on the rail on the balcony and they were talking to Laura and Andy. The rest of the weekend consisted of flying objects being chucked out the door in the pigeons general direction.

Speaking of pigeons, in the Market Square people just feed pigeons and they get covered head to toe by these disgusting skyrats. Marco, from Venice, Italy, was standing with the group as we were watching all the pigeons. He then decided to run through a huge group of the pigeons to see them all fly away and such. That plan back fired. So Marco takes off running into these pigeons and these things are not afraid of a thing. Long story short, Marco emerges off the ground from under a pile of pigeons. Yes there is a video of it, I will try and get my hands on it.

The castle is up on the top of a rock above the river. At the base of the rock there is a cave that legend has it a dragon once lived in. To try and get rid of the dragon and save the city a person put a ship outside the cave. Ok so that makes sense kind of...Put a huge ship outside the cave to block the dragon in, sure why not? Then our guide (Wojtek from Poland) continues to tell the legend of how the dragon came out and ate the ship. Ok stop..What? Ate the ship? That has to be a massive dragon to eat an entire ship. Wojtek is confused, yeah he ate the ship, you know bah bah. Oh ok now that makes a difference, its a sheep that he ate, no ship whatsoever. So long to short...Dragon got so thirsty from eating it that it drank so much water it exploded.

A cool part about the City of Krakow is that there used to be another river that circled the city. Since the city is always cloudy and rainy the people thought there was too much water, and they filled in the river. Every where the river went is now a park and greenway/walking path. It is such a great idea to have a city encirled by a park that way more people can enjoy it with ease.

Ok and the drinking experiences in Poland. Beer is always cheapest so 3 of us each got a different polish beer to taste. One tasted like good old "beast" and the other two were just even worse than that. So we had to find out what polish drink since there is no way we were drinking the beer. Turns out they put syrup in there beer and then drink it either hot or cold. So I had a normal beer and added Raspberry syrup to it. I know it sounds very strange, I was sacred but it was like a Shirley Temple Black (her name when she was an adult so we liked that better than an adult Shirley temple). They also drink vodka with grass in it, cannot tell you how that one was, sorry just could not do it. They also have a polish drink that is Apple Juice with Vodka, not a bad idea either.

Now back to the beer or Piwa as they call it. Five of us went out one night to a Pub that served Rura Piwa. This is a 3.3 liter clear pipe of beer, it has its own tap. So i guess its like having your own tap at your table. It is a very interesting idea. It saved the waiters from having to carry a ton of pitchers all the time since these pipes held over 3 liters. Sorry i have no pictures of it because I did not bring my camera that night, the one night, skoda!

ok so it is still way to long, i just can't cut enough out. About 3 weeks left, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

updated joerg site

he has changed the password one more time so if you want to see his new pictures, you can go here: http://service.gmx.net/mc/wRi4n33yGok3D1JcYJXD3j6U5BLJoN

I think he took more pictures of Krakow than me so you can look at his.

Joergs pictures

Joerg has once again changed passwords so if you want to se his pictures, which he took more pictures of krakow than I did, you may look at them here: http://service.gmx.net/mc/wRi4n33yGok3D1JcYJXD3j6U5BLJoN

Random Info

Tak (Czech for...Ok, well, how is that? Is that ok? So, ect.)
Recently I have tried a beverage called Kofola it is an original Czech cola aka the communists' answer to Coca Cola. Well being here in the Czech Republic I thought it would be a good idea to drink like the Czechs do. Well Laura and I have given the drink a fair chance, but we have come to our conclusion. The cola has to be made with cabbage, like everything else in this country. Once you get over the slight cabbage taste there is a tiny cheese burger after taste. It first we thought it might just be because of the food we had earlier but after several attempts we have banished the drink for good. I am not a big soda drinker but man oh man I wanted a real coke so bad after that. I had to settle for Toma Cola, a "kids" soda, its not half bad. Next on the list is Tesco Lemonade cola its only 4 cents for 1.5 liters so it must be good.

Until next time, it is Czech essay writing time, this should be fun.

Louskacek

This evening i attend yet another theater performance. Tonight was a Balet and in my opinion more entertaining than the Opera, but i must admit I am looking foward to David Copperfield next week. Anyways, act 1 started with all of the dancers in normal tights and leatards and finished with them in tan underware standing under a UFO? Act 2 started with a man standing in a kitchen taking off all his clothes until he was again in his underware and danced the entire act that way. The first group of girls in this act had on huge red hoop skirts that quickly found there way to cords that made the skirts dance above the girls heads,so yet more people dancing in underware. Act 3 In this act all the boys wore skirts and halfway through the lead dancer again lost clothes. The group of girls kept there clothes on but enjoyed throwing themselves to the ground. They danced, hung, and swung on there male partners and 7 foot high boxes. The girls would lay down on the box then the guys picked the box up and the girl slide hard to the stage. Then the last scence the lead was down to just underware once again and was throwing roses at a girl sliding around on the boxes in her underware. Then it was all over. It was very artistic and well done. Thats about it. I am going to have to go to the theater more often back home to see if it is just european theater that is so strange or just theater in general.

Beware of Pool Halls

This evening after a nice couple games of bowling we head of to play a few games of pool. I am very new to the game of pool but thought it would be fun to test my skills. So maybe it is just me being new to the pool scene or maybe its just another fun little quirk about these wonderful European countries, but something seemed a little off to me. When we walk in all seems fairly normal, a few arcade games scattered about, few folks at the bar and in the distance, a few pool tables. Well as I walk towards the pool tables, singing quietly along to the Nelly Furtado that is playing in throughout the joint, I see a girl dancing on a pole out of the corner of my eye. Come to find out, this pool hall has strippers as well, kind of an attempt of an over all entertainment place i guess. Well the real strange part about these strippers was that for one they kept putting on clothes, which I don't really have any first hand knowledge, but i did not think that was how it was done. The other bizarre fact was the music, most of the music was slow ballads. For instance, Bryan Adams and Sting were heard very often as well as a song about children and smiles for the seasons or something. Ok well this adventure has just bewildered me to utter exhaustion, wish I could explain it a little better, but good news in the Battle of the Sexes pool matches girls came out on top 3 for 3. And by no means am i claiming much of that credit Laura Lou gets the props for that one. Goodnight

Language Barriers

Alright so leave it to me to get sick in random country. But hey its another new experience. Well I have been looking for a doctor to go to all week. At first I brought along Andy (she speaks English, Czech, German, and Croatian)to help me in case I can not find an English speaker. Well it was a good idea because she understood when the hospital said they were only taking emergencies at that time. Then I found out there was an English speaking doctor in the same building as the international students office. Next day I go to find her. She is on her honeymoon or something and then it was a national holiday. So i finally get into a doctor's office by the end of the week. The nurse keeps coming out and bringing people back, everything is moving smoothly. I am the only one left and she comes out speaking Czech of course, so I give my usual response, ne mluvim cesky (I don't speak Czech). So she keeps talking in Czech asking me more questions. Then she waves me in and points to a chair. I get out an ID and insurance card because that is just a given. As she is taking to me a voice from behind a curtain ask if I speak English. I was saved, for a moment. Then they could not figure out the insurance card and wanted me to go get another card and new insurance. Then they said i could just pay it all myself but it was going to be very expensive and it would just be easier to buy a new one and save time. Which would be so wrong because they would only speak Czech and I would take another like 2 hours to fill out a form. Finally I told them I would pay all $10 on the spot without insurance at all. First problem solved. Next, all doctors do pretty much the same thing to sick patients so I followed directions well. The tricky part was telling her why I was there. Being the good student I am I looked up all my symptoms in the waiting room and handed her a sheet of paper. The next problem is to fill the medications. The voice from the curtain was still there and took me to the Lekarna to translate for me. What a nice boy, who apologized for his unfriendly country and said he loved how nice the people were in America when he studied in Colorado. Good Job Americans on being nice. The only problems I have ever had with any Czech person has all stemmed from language barriers...grrr...i wish i learned languages better.

But at the end of the day pointing and acting out what you want or need seems to do the job 99% of the time...Granted we do get Liver instead of chicken for dinner or mushroom rice when we order mashed potatoes but hey that's what makes this place so memorable.

Why it would be very hard to live on this side of the ocean forever

after telling my sister i went shopping and it made me think of them she responded with MojoBarbee: hahaha.. thats sad the worst thing in the world to u reminds u of us

ok so here you are MOJO...impatient one...
StokedCaneFan: blog post time and you are on it
MojoBarbee: oh super im gonna have to go read that
MojoBarbee: i dont see it
MojoBarbee: oh ic me deary
MojoBarbee: i picked up a lil irish while u were gone

man oh man I can't wait to be home for the holidays...singing out of tune christmas carols while baking cookies and whinning about how much more we have to decorate "do we have to put it all up because then we are just going to have to take it ALL back down again, its just making us work hard twice for no reason"

Broadway: The Musical

Tonight walking in from TESCO (the Czech version of super Wal-mart or Target packed full on all 5 floors) I ran into Tadeja. She was heading out to see if she cold get tickets to a sold out theater performance. I am going to miss this part of being here. Tonight was my 4th theater experience and in my 4th theater as well. Broadway: The Musical was performed, which is random songs from as you might of guessed Broadway Musicals. It started out so well singing the opening song of Hair in English. By the time Chicago and West Side story rolled around the songs were in Czech. It was very funny as always to hear music I know with words that mean nothing to me. But don't worry only the songs I would of known were in Czech everything else I had no clue about was in English. Sorry this is not a very exciting post. I have not really been doing much lately.

JEDEME BRNO JEDEME!!!!

Alright, today I attended my first European football match. I must say that the game itself was only ok, but the fans are awesome. Just like at hockey games the crowd chants and cheers through the entire game with people in the front leading all the cheers and some people with drums to help as well. People bring homemade confietti and toilet paper to throw from the stands randomly and when goals are scored. So today the weather in the 30s and rainy, more or less miserable, but we stood out there for 2 hours trying to understand the Czech cheers. We ended up just putting English words that "sounded" like the Czech ones in there place. It was some what easy on a few because they were to the tune of an English song like "yellow Submarine" and "life goes on". The most exciting thing came in the second period. During half time people came around handing out balloons to all the fans. On these balloons were printed the words "F*** off Praha" so everyone blew them up and waved them around when Praha came back to the field. The true highlight was after the balloons men came around taping this firecracker looking things to the railing through out the fans. The one closest to me was placed in the center of 4 boys who were drinking and smoking but looked no older than 13. With about 5 minutes to go in the game all of this fire/sparkler things start shooting up in the air filling the stands with smoke. Then people were throwing paper as the fire is spraying everywhere. As these sparklers stop fans throughout start lighting these red flare type things that are shooting flames everywhere again. By this time I can no longer see the field and the game let alone the people 5 rows in front of me. I did how ever see the super intelligent man with the flare that chucked his still lit and flaming firecracker towards the field and into the crowd of fans. Oh I also did the European thing of purchasing the scarf to wave during cheers and when goals are scored. Ok well the result of the game was Sparta Praha 1 and FC Brno 0. Either way it sure was fun. Now its time to thaw out...

Interesting things

SO earlier in the week I had the fire drill which ended up causing me to miss my British Lit class since i could not get into the building to get my books. Well today I saw the professor in town and stopped him to explain and ask for the homework. He goes over everything in his fun British way that so reminds me of the teacher in Harry Potter, but anyways, after telling me all i needed to know he says "but you really don't have to do any of that if you just want to show up to class next week that will be fine". Crazy, teachers in america never do that, i love this place.

Tonight I went to see the Opera Aida. It was very good, lots of music, singing and dancing. It was my first opera and I must addmit I have heard that it does not matter if you understand the words you can still follow the opera. I was lied to, I mean sure I knew who was talking to who and I figured out who died and when but as for the rest of the story line, nic, nothing. The opera was sung in Italian, which I expected and it was beautiful. The story was about ancient Egypt. The subtitles were in Czech and the only words I new from those were the verb to be and all its forms, the words must and can, and death, oh yeah and Aida. I think I am going to have to go to an Opera that has english titles.

Tonight I was talking to my awesome roommates back in Boone about all the fun they are having without me and "Moving On" by Weekend Excursion started playing, how said is that? oh well just sharing there story because its fun "well, we had a gray mouse in the basement, and of course we all acted like girls.. the neighbor boy came over, he couldn't find it.. so, then we called casey and he caught it with gloved hands and took it outside, evidently it only had 1 eye... not only were we scared of a mouse, but of a 1 eye mouse geez... yeah, it was probably the highlight of the week"
Man I miss those girls!!

now i must go to bed to rest up for a big day of friday classes...aka...Squash class!

Running out of room

So the whole limited picture posting space on free webpages is no fun, but have no fear I have created a new one. So the rest of my pictures will be posted to this site until I run out of room again.

http://community.webshots.com/user/stokedcanefan

lessons learned

In Retrospect to the weekend in Budapest...

~Plastic Wine bottles are safer than glass ones.
~Rolls of pictures are fun but should be of more than just 4 people.
and in the wise words of Jörg "you are never look drunken, but you recognize it if you speak Czech, Spanish and Engl. Mix"

Prosim POZOR!!!!! (Excuse Me DANGER!!!)

Ok so in the dorms every room has this little speaker box which is used as an intercom system for the women at the front desk to tell us important things like "the key to washer machine is free" or "Joe smith you have a package at the front desk". But this morning I was woken up by the woman saying "Prosim Pozor . . ." (then a bunch of Czech I did not know). All I understood was "Excuse me! Danger!" and she kept saying it about every 15 seconds then I heard knocking on my door and people running all around. Then I saw firemen running in with hoses. SO I got dressed, got my wallet and passport and followed the crowds. It was very funny because everyone was still asleep and they never made the announcement in English and so all of the international students are all just trying to figure out if everything is going to burn to the ground or if it is a drill. This one guy came running out with his computer tower and trash bags full of clothes and then ran back in for a second load. It was pretty funny. Another guy came down with a wet towel to breathe into, when he was leaving his room the hallway was filled with smoke. He also said the fog machine was placed just outside his door. Then TV crews arrived and reports and everything. But they all spoke in Czech and so we just sat there. But one of the Czech students said she will write an email explaining what happened and send it to all the international students so I can tell you more about it later. If that is how they do fire drills that's insane but smart at the same time. All I have to say is that if there are 120 international students in one dorm who do not really speak Czech then when something like this happens find someone who does speak both to make the announcement in English so the other half of the dorm survives. Or I guess we can all study our Czech a little harder but seriously the language is ridiculous.

Laura the Turtle 

Here is the one that got mad at me for taking so long to find my ticket 

Here is our little man on the Children's railway, he did not lke me taking his picture 

We are just so lady like! (me, andy, & laura) 

A little info on Budapest

First, I am not sure if this is just me being uneducated, but here is a little fact about Budapest. So the Danube river runs through the city dividing it into Buda on the west and Pest on the east. I had no idea, but nonetheless the city is terrific. I might even go as far as to say my favorite Major European City to date. Not that that says much since I have not been to that many, oh well you understand. The sightseeing highlights would be the Children's railway, the Market, church service in St. Stephens Basilica, and the Szechenyi Baths.

The children's Railway is a railway that was started during the Communist reign in Hungary. Children ages 10-14 run the railway. They do all of the work from printing, selling, and taking tickets to working the switch boards, changing the tracks, and directing the trains. At every station you can see the children salueting the trains and every cabin has its own worker. They are adorable but at the same time freighting. It was kind of creepy almost like a bad horror movie. You are riding in an old train through the woods on the mountains surrounding Budapest with little kids dressed up as adults being in charge. Well of course my pictures are not up yet but here are a few of the kids... http://www.budapestinfo.hu/images/gallery/gallery_en.phtml?imagename=R_526

The Market pretty much was just a huge building with a lot of stands like a flea market type thing. It was nice alot of interesting things such as pig and chicken heads. St. Stephen's was just a beautiful place. It had a good mix of burgandy, grey and white marble with georgous frescos, statues and alters. The service we attended had an amazing Choir to go along with the huge pipe organ. It did not even matter that the whole mass was said in Hungarian.

The Szechenyi Baths were a very interesting place. It was a huge old yellow building in the middle of a nice park. Inside the building was several small pools of varrying temperatures, a few suanas, and a steam room. Then in the center of the building outside there are there main pools. One had a center hot tub area that was surrounded by a ring of water that reminded me of Emerald point where you just go around and around in a circle real fast. That is always fun. Then throughout the pool there were random jets. On the side of one of the pools was a chess board that was taken over by a few elderly men. It wold be so cool to retire in Budapest and just come play chess in a heated pool all day. We need these things in America. You can not take pictures of the baths for people's personal saftey since all areas of the building are co-ed so here are a few pictures i found... http://www.budapestinfo.hu/images/gallery/gallery_en.phtml?imagename=B_001143

Alright well that is about it for now if anyone is thinking about studying abroad look into Budapest that would be a great place to study. Just in case you wanted my thoughts on the matter.

Finally a real entry

So last Wednesday my mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather flew into Prague. Since Thursday was a holiday in the czech republic I headed on up to Prague. It really is a nice city. Way too many tourist but the buildings and the atmosphere are beautiful and fun. It was decent weather, cloudy and foggy, but not too cold and no rain. After a few days in Prague we headed down to Southern Bohemia and stayed in a little town called Cesky Krumlov. This town is just adorable. It has small winding cobble stone roads on the side of a mountain and down into the valley with the Vltava River running through it. In the summer you can go tubbing down the river as well as horse back riding, rock climbing and a ton of hiking trails in the surrounding country side. The castle is perched high on a hill with a beautiful garden located even higher on the hill. Next we took a taxi all the way to Vienna, Austria. It was great because we got to see the real country side and not just tracks. Everyone was very excited to get there passports checked at the borders into and out of the countries. Its amazing how much fun it can be to just collect stamps in your passport.
The taxi driver was very nice but did not speak any english only czech and german. So as we were getting into Vienna and were telling him where he needs to drop us off he pulls over and gets out a map. Which is not always a bad sign he was prepared so he pointed out the hotel and then expected to be taken there. We were wrong. We had to navigate for him. My dad is in the front seat with the map and only speaks english so I moved up to see if i could offer my expert translation skills. Everything is working out fine, thank goodness we went over czech direction words in my czech class. The route is all set it is simple, only 3 roads. Then we get into the city center on the main road we planned to take and about 200 meters up the road it becomes a huge sidewalk. . .ahh so thats why that part of the road is pink on the map you can not really drive on the road. Ok so now we have to make a new plan and we are in the center of the city which means lots of people, cars, and one way roads. So to make a long story short we drove around and around the same building about 8 times because everytime we wanted to turn is was one way, but have no fear we finally found the way. It only mad the 2 hour and 30 minute trip last a little over 4 hours.
Either way it was a lot of fun speaking broken czech and the driver was very nice and patient. The rest of our time in Vienna was spent walking around the city, a boat tour of the Danube river, the Melk Monastary and a horse-drawn carriage ride around the city.
Then it was back to good old Brno and a little bit of fun at the Pegas Brewery/hotel. It was very good to see my family and I hope that had a good time. Any one else who wants to come visit just let me know.

Joerg's updated link

these are Joerg's pictures that he adds to but on a new link so here you go if you want to check out those.

http://service.gmx.net/mc/mufA43Q3f3GVSDuWApa9Je7ii6d35Y

Click on the GMX Media Start Center. I know its in german still. If you want to watch the pictures as a slideshow click on "Bild" and then "als Diashow ansehen".
Oh and yes he does like to steal pictures from other pages (like mine) and put them on his but we will forgive him.

Joke from Kelsey

So one day a neutron walked into a bar. The bartender says hey what can I get you. He says a Rum and coke. So he drinks it and ask how much do I owe you. The bartender says (while pointing at him) " For you No charge"

So today in massage class my teacher, who does not speak english at all, comes up to me and very quickly and loudly in my ear says "Bush or Kerry" in a thick czech accent. I just gave him a strange look and he repeated the question. So then I said nerozemim (I don't understand in czech). Then al the czech people laughed and he just turned and walked away. Then the polish boys translated the english to english for me...man oh man language barriers are all a big mental game.

Plus these two events both happend the morning after all the american students were staying up with little naps to keep track of the polls closing.