First Christmas in the Czech Republic

One of my roommate's (or, in European, "flatmate") invited me to spend Christmas with her family in her hometown. They do the main thing, with CARP, on Christmas Eve (what they call "Christmas") with family. So, on the afternoon of the 25th, I hopped on the bus for a quick one-hour journey north toward the German border.

It was such a weird thing. I was on the bus, just looking out the window. I see this wonderful wall with grass on top and it looks like what used to be a moat surrounding the wall. I was wondering to myself what wonderful place this could be....and then I saw the sign...Terezin. And then there were all the tour signs for the Jewish Ghetto, etc. I would like to go back and have a tour, maybe when the weather warms up a little. And when I'm really ready for a good cry!

The name of the town in Czech is Terezin, but like most things in that region there are Czech names and German names for just about everything.
I didn't read all the detailed history, just the beginning and the end...of the 15,000 kids sent there...93 survived. Uuuggghhh...how can people do this to one another??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_concentration_camp

Here are some pictues (not taken by me...just from Google Images): http://images.google.com/images?q=terezin&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=M3Y4S42YEomEmgPoi6iTDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCIQsAQwAw

The city I was headed to was just a little further on, Litoměřice.
http://www.litomerice.cz/eng/
A truly beautiful city. I loved it there! December 26th was a beautiful warm (relatively) and sunny day! So we took off on a hike up a hill. The view of the city was incredible. I spent 2 nights with my friend's family. They were so warm and inviting to me. I had such an excellent time. A wonderful first Christmas in the Czech Republic!

Pictures to come soon!

Applying for a Long Stay Visa

To apply for a visa to a country, you have to do it at the country's embassy OUTSIDE of the country. So, in order to apply for my long stay visa for Czech Republic I had to go to the Czech Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia. The embassy takes visa applications from the US, and other "friendly" countries without an appointment between the hours of 10 and 11 Monday through Thursday. In order to be there on time, this required getting on the train in Prague at 12:42 A.M. for arrival in Bratislava around 5:30 a.m. The train was going from Berlin to Budapest but I was lucky to find a seat to commence 5 hours of attempting to sleep sitting straight up. Lucky me.

At 5:30 a.m. nothing in the Bratislava train station is open. I just needed to kill some time, have a cup of coffee, etc. Not even the coffee shop was open. And the train station is open air. There are no main doors, it just opens to the street. So, at 5:30 in the morning, when my options for warmth included only coffee and hot chocolate from the vending machine, I found a place to sit on a ledge (there aren't benches there either) and read.

Finally, around 6:30, the coffee shop opened. I sought out some warmth and a freshly made cappuccino.
Disappointment 1: it wasn't any warmer in there
Disappointment 2: the cappuccino tasted like someone made it yesterday it was the WORST cappuccino of my life
Disappointment 3: the first and ONLY cockroach I have seen since I left New York City was slowly meandering it's way up the wall next to the table where I was sipping the worst cappuccino of my life

Around 8 a.m. I left the train station to head into the city to find the embassy. The bus was dirty ... dirtier than any I've been on in Prague or NYC. I found the embassy. A very unassuming building right next to the American Embassy. The American Embassy had a huge fortress covering the street so no cars could go by without checking in. There were metal detectors and guards and just an overall showy appearance. The Czech Embassy had a red door and a doorbell. I rang the doorbell, told them I was there to apply for a visa, and they buzzed me in.

The process went pretty quickly. I was there for about an hour...not sure why...just waiting around. But I was able to get back to the train station to get the 12:30 p.m. train back to Prague! And I was so happy to be home! I picked up Kazimir from the babysitter (ahoj Sarka!) and headed home to sleep.

Except I wasn't able to sleep. My friend Dave came over and then guilted me into going to movie night at Tim's house. So...I had a VERY long day!

Keep your fingers crossed that the embassy will smile on me and grant my long stay visa!!

the other day in the grocery story

So I was in the grocery store the other day humming along to the music. I didn't really realize I was doing it at first because I was paying more attention to my shopping list than to what I was listening to. Until I started singing along....I was singing along to "I touch myself" by the Divinyls. Lyrics and everything...not elevator music...was playing in the grocery store.

Here's the youtube link so you can reminisce about high school with me! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SszHoW5ogNs

I love Prague!

Venetian Travels

Wednesdays are really long days for me. I got home around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, 18 November. My roommate started talking about going to Venice...would I be interested. Come to find out...they were leaving the next night. Well, of course I was interested! So, we left Thursday night around 9 and drove through the night. Got to Venice and settled into a hostel and wandered around the city. On Saturday and Sunday we toured La Biennale, a huge world wide art exhibition. It was wonderful! We left Venice around 6:30 Sunday night and after driving around Innsbruck looking at architecture, got back to Prague around 6:30 Monday morning! I slept for a few hours in my bed and then started the week!

Of course, Kazimir came on the trip. He was such a good boy. We even met another chihuahua in Venice who looked a lot like him!

The funny thing is that while I was driving to Venice my mom was driving from Northern California to Southern California. The drive to Venice, going through Plzen, Munich, Innsbruck, etc was about 575 miles. The drive from my mom's house to my sister's house, going through PART of California, was 550 miles!

My Name is Suzannah!

Zuzana is a Czech name. The name day for Zuzana is August 11th. For information on name days click here: http://www.myczechrepublic.com/czech_culture/czech_name_days/

The point is...I've met more people in 3 months here named Zuzana then I've ever met in my life. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm happy that elsewhere in the world this wonderful name is celebrated.

So here's the problem: Whenever a Czech meets me, even after I've introduced myself at Suzannah, they call me "Susan"...and as anyone who's ever made this mistake will tell you...THAT'S NOT MY NAME!!! Apparently that's the translation of Zuzana into English...so they think that's my name. It is exceedingly difficult to get them to understand that my name is, in fact, SUZANNAH. And while it isn't spelled the Czech way (Zuzana), it's the SAME NAME.

I just had to get that off my chest. Off to bed!

What I should be updating about...

to answer Jeff's question...NO, Kazimir did NOT eat my next blog post. My camera and my computer have stopped communicating. Not sure what the fight is about but they are clearly NOT on speaking terms. So, I'm going to borrow my friend's card reader but he happens to be in the Ukraine right now. As soon as he gets back I will hold him down, steal his card reader, and update the blog, properly with photos.

Here are some things I should update about (NOTE: not in chronological order...and they probably won't get updated in chronological order either!):
where I live and my living situation
the Praha zoo
the Jewish Quarter
visa woes
Kazimir
Czech holidays (and how they differ from American holidays)
amazing live Irish music
heavy metal in old town square
my roommate's going away party

That's just a sampling of what is to come! (I PROMISE!!!)

The New Addition

Anyone who's known me for more than maybe 10 minutes knows that I love animals. When I came to Prague, the hardest thing I had to do was leave behind my two beloved critters, Charlie Parker and Kiyomi. They are both in extremely loving homes. Half the time Charlie chose Ilana over me anyhow, so no big stretch that he stayed with her. And Kiyomi, the wonderful herding dog, gets more exercise and more herding practice now than she ever did before. She has 4 great kids to herd around the yard.

So the animals are doing well. The problem was that I wasn't doing well! And no matter how many times I weighed the positives of not having an animal to look after....I couldn't accept it! I have NEVER in my life lived without animals. And I decided I didn't like it one bit.

The challenge then....what to do? I would have cost a LOT of money to ship Kiyomi to me, been extremely hard on her, and then another LOT of money to ship her wherever I end up going next. And, it would be hard to take her away from those four kids she gets to herd around!

So I began a search for a LITTLE dog so that I could take it with me and never leave an animal behind again. Which brought me to Professor Ellyot Kazimir.... Kazi or Kazimirek is what he's called. He's 6 months old today. Currently weighs about 1 kg 600 grams! He will probably never even get to 2 kg! Super tiny and super adorable. His teeth aren't "perfect" so his tongue is usually sticking out which is just about the cutest thing ever! I got him from a woman who shows chihuahuas and breeds them. But they all run around her house and yard free, not kept in kennels. I met Kazimir's parents and grandmother! Kazi can't be shown or bred because he's too small and has funky teeth which makes him the perfect boy for me!

And he loves me best!