Ahoj, Polsko!
Last week I went on my first real comedy tour that wasn’t just two back to back nights in Wisconsin. Prague’s Kristyna Haklova founded Velvet Comedy and has been a force with whom to be reckoned in the European comedy scene. She organized four dates for her, myself, and Lucie Machackova over five days throughout Poland. We had all been discussing the shows, promotions, and transportation for a few months now, and this past weekend, it finally manifested into a Soviet-laden and bombastic spree through a country whose borders have been fought over for centuries.
Former Soviet countries (or Second World countries as they’re less commonly called) are often bundled into one specific group where many assume they’ve endured the same hardships. Sure, the Czech Republic and Poland both have had their fair share of annexations, battles, and fluctuating political borders, but Poland is different. While the country has adopted many Westernized ideas such as the hipster coffee and wine bar and the scalp massage parlor, the gray scenery is still a haunting spectacle reinforced with brutalist architecture, large scale monuments of mountain movers past, and little old ladies pulling shopping carts across the cobblestones behind them. In five days, we visited Wroclaw, Lodz, Warsaw, and Krakow, each with their own unique comedy clique and variation of the Polish street food known as “zapiekanka,” which is basically pizza on a baguette. Krakow is the only city I’ve been to in Poland and I was eager to see what the rest of the cities had to offer. When we weren’t on stage, we were either sleeping or taking a bus across the great plains of the country. Buses proved to be the most economical way to travel and we splurged for the train when we wanted extra legroom or a steadier wifi connection.
Starting and ending in Brno.
We all convened in Wroclaw, a city roughly four hours north of Brno. Lucie and Kristyna had come from Prague earlier in the day and I took three separate trains over five hours to meet with them. Jim Williams, another American expat comedian whose job is a hospital clown akin to Patch Adams, gave us his AirBnB for clean and hospitable accommodation. Located near the main train station and “Old Town,” Jim’s place was a short walking distance to the venue. With lots of stone and brick, the location for our first show was as if it was built by Hogwarts students for open mic nights and interpretive magic. More often than not, the shows I’ve done have been in a basement or cellar or bunker, which means no cell service. It feels strange to be immediately cut off from the world that’s so close above you, but it was nice not to have a handy distraction on me at all times. The crowd was warm and happy and extremely ready to laugh. They weren’t overly generous with their laughter, but all the jokes I wanted to land went as planned and my new stuff about my moving process from the US to CZ has been working well. We even met a few other American comedians based in Wroclaw, which is so strange to say considering most Americans have probably never even heard of the place.
After a great show and a night well rested at Jim’s, we caught a bus to Lodz. Three of the letters in “Lodz” have some sort of slash or line above them so in Polish, it’s technically pronounced “wouldge.” As Americans, we pronounce it “Loadz” and giggle when we say it. It was in Loadz (haha) we realized the more east we went into Poland, the less Westernized it was. This may seem like a fairly obvious observation where west is West and east is East, but the further east we traveled, conveniences, dry wall, and clean air weren’t found. Poland’s air quality is generally terrible. It’s hard to differentiate the smoldering smog from the manufacturing industry from the slate colored climate surrounding every city, but it added to this Soviet aesthetic which is only seen in certain spots in the Czech Republic. The old Cyrillic style font is used by many businesses, signs are trilingual in Polish, English, and Russian, and every surface could have used a decent pressure washing. Of course there are malls, Ubers, and KFC in Lodz, but you could tell the outer shell of most businesses and people have been through some shit.
Upon arriving, we found a Polish restaurant with a whiteboard menu outside and a very homey yet commie feel on the inside. The walls and ceiling were only half painted, the floorboards probably came with the original purchase of the home back in 19xx, and the tables were set up in what was at some point definitely a living room. The kitchen in this home was neither industrial nor steel, but instead a kitchen like you’d find in any two-bedroom home that served as the laboratory for all things pork and potatoes. The server only spoke Polish, but both Kristyna and Lucie are Czech and they were able to translate some Polish since the roots of both languages can be similar. We tried to order water but we were told there was none. Bottled water is common in many restaurants in Europe so initially we thought maybe she didn’t have any, but after some linguistic investigation, we were told there was no water period. Between our guestimations and Google Translate, we were able to order a variation of potato with some kind of meat off of a handwritten menu. My order was a large potato pancake filled with gravy and pork pieces that could have choked a horse. Like most Polish food, it lacked salt and spices commonly found in most kitchens. Lucie and Kristyna also received similar dishes of some rendition of potatoes and chicken cooked in an indistinguishable manner, so at one point we all traded dishes so we could each taste our poor navigation skills of a Polish menu.
Prior to the show we stayed in a “stack,” those giant Soviet style apartments with a billion units, the same floor plan in each unit, and an elevator in desperate need of speed, repairs, and safety. We stayed with Rui, a Portuguese resident in Lodz who works in IT. He explained that the reason the city can look so empty is because there are jobs available yet no one wants to move to Lodz and take them. He works specifically with translation and while he has as comfortable life, he seems like he could be happier elsewhere. Rui led us to our venue for the night, a hipster New York City style loft with white walls and a black floor. All of the chairs and tables were forged out of old shopping carts, barrels, and other items and materials you’d see in a challenge on Project Runway. The show wasn’t well attended, but the 15 people we did have were incredibly happy with the show, a few of which were other comics in Lodz. The idea of comics living everywhere is sometimes surprising, I guess because comedy is such an American thing to me, so while the buildings and food are very Polish, the humor is American. I’ve been trying out new material regarding the differences between “here and there,” a common topic for expat comedians to elaborate upon. Stereotypes and the fascination with different habits, people, languages, and culture is popular material for those wanting to hear stories from other places. In Warsaw, this worked the best, probably since I made fun of it a little bit.
Stacks, Night Woodge, and Kristyna and I with our flyer.
Warsaw is its own animal when it comes to Poland. Most cities look fairly industrious from the outside but they have a charming middle, like a Marxist Cadbury egg. When you emerge from the main train station, all you see is glass and steel. Large hotels, large billboards, and streets with sputtering old cars and an upsetting amount of lanes are common place in what’s nicknamed “The Big Village in the Middle of Nowhere.” It’s almost alarming. It was so busy and hectic it made Brno seem sleepy and a place where people would stroll instead of walk. Of course there aren’t many historical caricatures so often found in European capitols. Warsaw was the second most destroyed city of WWII behind Dresden and before Leningrad. Some say Warsaw looked like a sea of swept fire while it choked on its last battle cry. There was a lot of rebuilding to do in the years following 1945 but some villages and plots on the outskirts of “Nowhere” had clearly been abandoned for decades. I’m sure the Iron Curtain rusting over helped to create these giant intersections under which had tunneling pedestrians since there’s no time to pause the traffic of the busy streets for safety, but even in its new, shiny industry, Warsaw was weirdly haunting.
Outside Warsaw Glowny
Our show in Warsaw was in another dungeon close to some fake palm trees erected on a busy street. I still don’t know if this is a fun joke Poles have about their climate or something, but it seemed out of place (as opposed to a normal palm tree?) Loko was very kind with us and extremely busy. The show was oversold due to the hustle and bustle of another expat comic living in Warsaw, Christine Skobe. She hails from Canada and calls Warsaw a more temporary home as the air quality borders on opaque and it’s a considerable health concern for some. She also gave up her living room couch which three women managed to sleep on for a few hours in the middle of the night after some much needed showers. Christine was a saint and hosted the show with a few guest sets sprinkled in between our common sarcasm and jokes. The stage we were on was a pallet with a Persian rug over it. I had to be careful not to step in between the slots of the MacGyvered stage and end up in a Warsaw emergency room, but I had fun with it. At one point I think I said “This is Polish as fuck.”
I’m still not 100% confident doing my sober material over here, or anywhere for that matter. Drinking is a huge part of multiple cultures so when someone brings up that they don’t drink, people are sort of taken aback but in a way that mean mugs you with comments like “So why are you here, then?” It would be like someone moving to Seattle who doesn’t smoke weed. Oh wait, that happened to me too. I trudge through it because I want to be honest and tell my truth. Sometimes I talk about it at the start of my set so I can get it over with and move onto material which is more relatable. If I put it in the middle, people aren’t sure what to do. They feel bad for me, like they’re not sure if they should laugh. I felt like I had to discuss it since I had my three year sobriety anniversary on Valentine’s Day, the day I arrived in Wroclaw. I’ve thought to myself on occasion, “well what am I gonna do, not talk about it?” And not talking about it doesn’t seem like an option. Not drinking is now a part of me, a part of my identity but it doesn’t entirely create who I am as a human being.
Team Warsaw!
Everyone on the show did great and we retrieved more zapiekanka on the way home to Christine’s. In the morning we Ubered to the bus station to catch a ride to Krakow. We had the day off so there was no rush on getting into the city, but we had about five hours to spend in a cramped space and wanted it over with as soon as Polishly possible. Lucie, Kristyna, and I grabbed snacks from the “delikatesy” before boarding to trek across the plains to my favorite little city, which is technically the second biggest city in Poland.
Krakow is this weird mix of Old World charm, cranky Jews who refused to move or survived hell, well-preserved historical monuments, and carbohydrates. It’s my favorite place. With the cobblestone streets so jagged they could crack a cankle or two, the place known as Slavic Rome, Little Vienna, or the Florence of Poland has roughly the same cost of living as the Czech Republic but they have better war stories, street art, and graffiti. We stayed with a couple who are friends with Kristyna and live a short tram ride away from the city center and Kazmierez, the Jewish Quarter. We spent the evening wandering between brick synagogues, old iron gates, and neon signs featuring old communist facets while navigating the seas of obvious tourists. I don’t really go barhopping unless I want to try your best club soda on tap, but I was able to drink some amazing tea alongside some creative but grungy cocktails.
Walking alone in the winter became tiresome and upon returning to our temporary home, I slept for about 14 hours. Everyone reconvened for lunch the following day at a place we had walked by the night before. Israeli and Jewish food was their specialty and although I’ve never really had either, I believe it to be true. Afterwards we (they) got coffee from an Israeli teahouse and I drank rooibos alongside my fellow caffeine consumers. We took it easy for the rest of the day until our show at a punk bar near Old Town, or “Miasto Stare.” It felt so safe and serene to be back in Krakow walking under barren trees and cathedrals on the way there. Krakow feels like a less industrial Brno despite it being a bigger city. I’ll definitely be back, maybe in another nine years.
The last show wasn’t full and the audience wasn’t quite sure what to do with me, as I’ve discovered with Czech people. I don’t look European. I have fairly non-traditional features and I’m not afraid to present myself as such and augment my differences. There’s a very sleek “look” Central and Eastern European women strive for. Their hair is always very straight and pristine. They wear the same winter style of a puffy parka jacket, skinny jeans, knockoff Timberland boots, and minimal make up. So when a short sarcastic American woman treads on their turf, they become confused and gawk. I’m not even really sure it’s gawking; it’s probably more of a Resting Czech Face and I just perceive it to be negative ogling. When I go on stage, I feel like there’s the same silent judgement of “Make us laugh, yankee.” It might not be that aggressive, but there have been times people are so inquisitive about WHY I’m in their part of the world. They’re honestly astonished a person from a country like the United States of America has expatriated to a place of cold weather and even colder wars.
I stumbled through my set and caught my bus to Berlin. Actually, let me back track a minute.
Two days into the Poland trip, I was notified I could pick up my visa in Berlin (because Germany is the place a person needs to go to obtain legality in the Czech Republic?) or I could pay someone twice the amount it would take me to get there to do it for me. I cancelled one bus ticket and scheduled another, a nine-hour rumble through Southwestern Poland and Eastern Germany. Luckily I had two bus seats to myself so I managed to get roughly three hours of sleep while huddled in a fetal position. I watched the sunrise over Germany and safely arrived at the main bus station in Berlin, which featured many popular and whimsical characteristics found in most bus stations: used syringes, someone looking for half smoked cigarettes on the ground, and a person having a cell phone conversation at a really unreasonable volume. I took the U-Bahn (it sounds so much cooler than subway) to the Czech embassy and after 15 minutes of waiting, I FINALLY GOT MY VISA!
It's real!
But I couldn’t go home just yet. I hopped on a train in Berlin an hour later to head to the trade license office in Prague. They needed to see my visa so I could officially get my trade license, however it wasn’t going to be ready for two more days. Instead of making a trip all the way back to Prague later in the week, they kindly agreed to mail it to me in Brno. I spent roughly two hours in Prague and then hopped on a train back to Brno where I sorted through my pocket change of Crowns, Zlotys, and Euros. I returned much earlier than I assumed I would and got to spend the evening snuggling my kitty who barfed in my bed and on a Late Show with David Letterman t-shirt. Someday I’ll spend more than four hours in Berlin and actually get to see some of the city instead of just the walk from the train station to the embassy and back.
So I’m home now. Barfy kitty is in my lap and he’s been really clingy this week. My teaching schedule has picked up big time and I decided to be exclusive with just one school as organizing two separate schedules was becoming conflicting and ultimately costing me money. I’m happy I’m becoming close friends with the other teachers at my school and they’ve been happily able to accommodate me during the time while my visa was pending. I have three days off so I’m looking forward to sleeping, conquering an apparent black mold invasion in the window in my bathroom, and watching some recently released comedy specials. I also made plans with my mom and she’s coming to visit me in 25 days! We’ll be spending half the time in Brno relaxing and taking it easy and then half the time doing some major sightseeing in Prague. This week has been busy as fuuuuuuck.
But for now, hurray! I’m legal to work in the Czech Republic for the next year and no one can stop me.
Ich bin ein Berlizzer.
I've been extremely stagnant trying not to spend money, and it's been somewhat easy considering my seasonal depression kicked in as soon as it began to get dark at 3:45pm. I don't really have anything resembling a schedule right now; Monday afternoons are for hanging out with my nine-year-old Czech friend and the experience has been extremely valuable.
Alžbětka and I went to the library next to her school this past Monday. Most of the libraries I've been in are new or remodeled or have been demolished and rebuilt. But walking into the Brno library located near the center of town was like entering some kind of governor's mansion. The marble stairs, floors, and columns were stoic while embracing the new technology needed for navigating the various worlds of literature. They have a coat check and a few librarians surfing the web and awaiting for questions to be asked very quietly. When loud noises do occur, they echo broadly against the high ceilings. The experience was familiar but different. No one around me was speaking English except for Alžbětka and I, which was slow and rudimentary to accommodate everyone's skill level.
She took me up three flights of expansive marble stairs to a Young Adult section where the walls were covered in remnants of Halloween decorations and DIY paper pumpkin projects. She gravitated towards a shelf with books for young girls, hardcover books with pink filigrees and a main character looking hopeful because she hasn't discovered the horrors of society yet on the cover. I assumed the content was about taming a wild horse or a gardening contest or a softball team full of tomboys or whatever else nine-year-olds are into. I wandered away and found a section for "komiks." The French comics from the Asterix series and Tin Tin weren't out of place but what tickled me was discovering Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield in Czech. I became visually excited, much like a nine-year-old, upon discovering familiar comics with depictions of the Czech words. I flipped through a few of them to get an idea of what was happening and to see if I recognized any of them specifically, but focusing on my memory game proved to be difficult. I had to combine the minimal amount of Czech I knew with the illustrations as well as the context of the illustration. Sometimes Garfield was being a total dick, but was it about Nermal or the lack of lasagna? Did Odie say anything in Czech at all, or was it just the word "haf" ("woof" in Czech) repeated a few times? The Czech in Calvin and Hobbes was more difficult than the empty blanket statements made by Jon and his orange Monday hating cat. I needed to start with something basic.
Over the weekend, I finally found a stationary store which carries flashcards, so I bought 200 of them to practice vocabulary, everything from days of the week, seasons, general salutations, numbers, food, and navigational questions. I'm confident in my ability to learn Czech, but people are right: it's difficult, on par with learning Vietnamese, Mandarin, or Arabic. I showed Alžbětka my flashcards and she was really eager to quiz me. What helped most was the pronunciation of Czech words. I'm often studying alone using Mango Languages, a Duolingo type website, or with a dictionary and Google Translate, so it helped to have a native speaker solidify the tones and inflections of a very consonant heavy language. We stood in the library and giggled at my horrendous pronunciation and Alžbětka's clues to words I had immediately forgotten upon writing them down.
She brought me over to the reference section of the library. Each reference category was separated from language, biology, mathematics, science, music, arts, literature, etc, but they were all for readers at a similar level as Alžbětka. I found an encyclopedia and plopped down on a beanbag chair while Alžbětka started the most recent book in the series Diary of a Wimpy Kid. For an hour we sat in silence and occasionally asked each other if we liked what we were reading. I was going over encyclopedia entries for things like dinosaurs, Asia, photography, birds, the solar system, vegetables, insects, farming, robots, etc. I was mostly seeing which words I could point out that were obvious and that was borrowed from a Germanic or Romantic language. Having a picture and the title of the entry helped frame the context and from there I looked for articles and nouns I was familiar with. Some things started to click with adjectives and syntax and all of a sudden it didn't seem so crazy to learn a language with Slavic roots.
I took Alžbětka home and went to a bookstore to see if I could find the encyclopedia I was reading at the library. The entire downstairs floor of this store was language texts, tools, study guides, and school supplies. I found an encyclopedia that was similar to the one at the library; the format is in alphabetical order, each entry comes with a graphic, and there are little sayings and rhymes peppered throughout to familiarize the reader with Czech quips and idioms. The illustrations are very new and not antiquated like Gray's Anatomy drawings. It feels very new, which is weird because I always imagine encyclopedias to be very old and musty. I also picked up a Czech-English English-Czech dictionary since I was mostly using a Czech phrasebook that is more meant for travelers and not actual residents. But I'm sure all the names of animals I'm learning will come in handy sooner or later...
Very very early Wednesday morning, I left on a quick trip to Berlin for my visa interview, which sounds a lot more official than it actually was. With trains and layovers in the middle of the night, the trip from Brno to the bustling German city took roughly nine hours. The German countryside is lush and green and full of goats and hills and old cars no longer in production. While outside of Dresden, I saw these little "tiny house" communities as they're coming to be known. People retrofitted sheds and garages next to the train tracks. They even had little roads dividing them and clothes hanging up outside and small gardens and yards that were well manicured. It seemed cute and cozy. I started imagining a life where I had just a little bit of space with a brick chimney. And then I remembered that's why I'm here in the first place, to get away from closet sized dwellings and live according to my means. I saw a post on Facebook early this morning of a house for sale on Beacon Hill that was gutted from a recent house fire and the price tag was still above $500,000. Fucking ridiculous.
So the train went on and I arrived in Berlin. A clean sense of German efficiency and production welcomed me to a city I've always wanted to go to but was reserved from my last experience in the country. I visited Munich in 2009 and left underwhelmed. A lot of the monotony surfaced from the Bavarian capitol being so similar to Seattle. While charming in some areas, there wasn't much there to soak in. Buildings in Germany may look old, but due to the massive bombing sprees by the Allies during World War II left multiple cities in Yosemite Sam-esque smithereens, so a lot of the new structures were modeled like the old ones they were replacing, producing a physically large facade of well cultured and experienced history. Now that skyscrapers and institutions of all kinds have taken over the skyline, a vast array of steel and glass protects the financial energy generated by the city.
The one building I did see that was rather impressive was the Reichstag. One thing Germany is good at is producing large, fast, and efficient things, and this building was the pinnacle of cultured design remaining in Berlin. The structure had been remodeled and damaged numerous times, once by a fire in 1933 under circumstances which are still unclear. It was heavily bombed during the war and it changed names, ownership, and governments depending on who was in charge of the country at the time. Today it features a large dome where you can walk up and experience the inside offices, possible bunkers, and architecture no longer produced by the industrial city.
I walked a total of about six miles over the course of my afternoon in the city, and I was coming upon sights by complete accident. I had my map from the main train station to the Czech embassy conveniently located four hours from the Czech capitol, but I hadn't really marked out anything to see since I didn't have the time. I successfully turned on roaming on my phone, which is now incredibly amazing for travelers. It used to be that every time you went to a new country in the EU, you'd have to purchase a different SIM card. Today you can buy one and tell your phone you're abroad so it will work in other places aside from your home country. I was stuck in the Apple orchard while navigating down busy streets when I looked up and saw these concrete blocks that were incredibly geometric and particularly placed. An entire square remained void of any tall buildings but instead was just a sea of gray concrete. I've seen pictures of this sea numerous times and recognized it as the Holocaust memorial, even though I didn't realize I would be seeing it on this trip. It felt strange meandering through all of the columns and rows knowing I had a time constraint, otherwise I think I would have been there for much longer. I took some pictures while trying to avoid photographing others taking pictures, and spent maybe 15 minutes imagining the pure size of the systematic operation represented by these individual monoliths.
Auschwitz is the toughest place I've ever physically had to be. I had been to the extermination camp a few years ago on an incredibly gloomy day. The days were getting dark in the afternoon and the people in my tour group remained huddled together like somber penguins when traveling from building to building. The tour started off in Auschwitz I, the site of the main camp and administration. All of the brick buildings are still standing. The barbed wire still lines the perimeter. A skull and crossbones with the word HALT are still written on signs before the previously electrified fences. Many of the buildings house what was turned into the museum. These buildings are currently holding the displays of the many suitcases, shoes, eyeglasses, crutches and canes, and human hair collected by the Nazis upon selection. They had small chambers for caning prisoners and even smaller chambers for solitary confinement, dark closets with heavy doors to ensure light and sound were subdued. Trees still line the pathways and promenades in and around the buildings. If you hadn't gone under the iron gate reading ARBEIT MACHT FREI, you might think you were in a gated community of sorts, or a university campus. The buildings and history within them were well preserved within the brick and design of Auschwitz I, but Birkenau was a different story.
Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, was roughly two kilometers down the road from the main camp. You've probably recognized the main train entrance in movies like Schindler's List and Sophie's Choice. The building opened up into a massive field containing the foundations for barracks. Hundreds of them throughout what must have been two or three football fields. Wooden watchtowers ran parallel to the tracks where the selections took place. Like Auschwitz I, the perimeter was still lined with electric barbed wire fences with these ominous looking poles, as if out of an industrial revolution Dr. Seuss tale. Our tour group went down the train tracks and through a few of the barracks and latrines that remained standing. A lot of dark, quiet wood and damp concrete made up the majority of these lingering barracks while the rest are simply cracked rectangular foundations, many of them with chimneys.
Birkenau may be the largest place I've been to. It seemed to go on for miles, miles of plots and death. After my visit here, I didn't speak much for the rest of the day. I almost felt guilty even though my family had no direct lineage either to the victims or the war criminals orchestrating the events. I started having nightmares of the place. They were always in black and white and from a first person perspective. In one nightmare I was running along one of the perimeter fences. I was barefoot and I could hear my heavy breathing in my dream, like a manifestation of my adrenaline. There's a dog barking a ways behind me, and it sounds big and focused on my capture. The ground was muddy and I struggled to not fall or clutch the electric wires next to me to keep me from falling. My other nightmare was me simply sitting in what seemed like a paddock but for women. Again the ground was muddy and thick with recent rain, and a woman with a shaved head was sitting directly in the mud across from me. She cradled a child in her hands and looked at me with a severely sunken face. Her bone structure was gaunt and seemingly made of clay. She adjusted the child once or twice before turning her face away from me, but displaying the starkness of her skull. Thinking back on it, I don't normally talk about this experience in much detail, but I can't tell if the child was dead or alive.
After my visit to Auschwitz, I spent the next two days in bed at my Krakow hostel. Plans to pay someone to go into the woods and teach my friends and I how to shoot assault rifles and 357s were put on hold. We'd go out to dinner but we didn't really say anything about the experience. It was sort of like we all felt the same way but didn't address it.
But the memorial in Berlin was much different. It was daytime underneath sunny blue skies and next to a main arterial with heavy traffic. You could hear traffic and sounds upcoming appointments and cell phone conversations and tourists attempting to find their next sight worth seeing. I didn't want to rush my time with the memorial, but I myself had somewhere to be, and it felt strange leaving the experience abruptly after having discovered it by accident.
The Czech embassy in Berlin looks like it is modeled after 2001: A Space Odyssey since it was clearly constructed during a time where modular angles, shapes, and space age architecture was the new hot aesthetic. Full of brown glass and brick, it looks like Andy Warhol constructed an egg carton in the middle of a city block surrounded by a very Soviet style looking concrete. I arrived in the main office and met my visa person along with five other American women who are on the same path to Czech citizenship as I am. It felt reassuring to know I wasn't alone in this journey and it gave me more confidence in my visa person, as well. My visa person, the person who I paid to avoid fucking up any paperwork or bureaucratic business completed by myself, explained I would have an interview in regards to my job history, academic background, qualifications or completed certifications, and the means I have to support myself within the country. I imagined this 45 minute job interview that I had accidentally worn a BOMBING FOR PEACE t-shirt to stressing me out, but instead, I filled out a questionnaire with similar questions, turned over my documents for my bank account, proof of accommodation, my Czech trade license, and then I signed a piece of paper confirming my visa person had translated the documents for me and that I understood what I was signing. It took no more than ten minutes, and in retrospect, the nine hours of travel time for ten minutes of paperwork seemed...uneven. So now, I wait. When my visa gets approved, hopefully 4-6 weeks from now, I'll return to Berlin to pick it up, or my visa person will pick it up and I'll meet her halfway to exchange confirmation that I can legally stay in the country for one year :) One year from now, I will go through a similar process that will take much longer, but will approve me for a stay of two years.
I spoke with the other girls in the lobby for a bit while I waited for my phone to charge. That's something else I don't think I've mentioned: there are no outlets. Anywhere. Gone, goodbye, none. So when you see an outlet in a building that's available, you lunge for it like someone is dropping the Spirit Stick. I left my phone in a potted plant for a bit while getting to know the other girls and how they were adapting to life in the Czech Republic. They were mostly all based out of Prague and so we exchanged a lot of questions about what it's like living in a very touristy area versus a city whose focus shifted over to IT and manufacturing. I got my phone up to a non threatening battery percentage and left to go back to the main train station for my train(s) home. I found a McDonalds for food and also an available outlet for my phone, and hopped on the train back to Prague, where I'd have another three hours to kill before going home. It was snowing in Brno when I arrived. At 3am I waited for a night bus outside the train station and arrived home at almost 4pm. I don't sleep on trains well so at this point I had been up for about 40 hours. I opened my door and I had a very loud and adamant kitty waiting for me to get into bed so he could crawl under the covers and sleep with me, a habit both of us have come to like in the cold winter months.
Most of my time in Brno has been a waiting game, a waiting game where if I win, I'll be able to get a job, spend money, and live above my means, one of the reasons I'm here. I still don't have a direct answer to why I moved here, and it's been for a lot of reasons. For some reason, expats from other nations are somewhat standoffish when they find out I'm from the US. "You're just here for the health insurance and the cost of living." Yeah, we all are, dude. I guess I had this idea that as a whole, expats are all in this together, but based on me being a diabetic American, that places me in a different category because my pancreas doesn't work which means I'm obviously mooching off the system. As I explained to these idiots online, nothing I'm doing is illegal. There's some confusion here on occasion because a lot of folks will use "immigrant" and "refugee" interchangeably. I, Liz Donehue, am not a refugee in a xenophobic sense of the word of the word being used by some people here. But I do see myself as an immigrant, a qualification that supposedly places me with the nations and religions the Czech people fear, or have been told to fear. I've tried to tell them they should be more concerned about white guys with guns, but that's neither here nor there. I guess I am taking seeking refuge, but not in the sense where my home country needs a drastic humanitarian overhaul from the neighboring nations. I mean we do, but hopefully that will change.
Overall, I'm happy. Christmas is coming up and the Christmas markets have exploded here. Authentic cider, ceramics, candles, jewelry, steins, wind chimes, children's toys, leather goods, knives, and all kinds of pastries, meats, cheeses, and holiday centric candy are available until December 25th. There's constant chatter about which European cities have the best Christmas markets, and from my understanding it's between Berlin, Vienna, and Zagreb. I'm hoping to check some more of these out while sipping some hot cocoa and people watching while trying to understand their native language. Usually this time of the year really bites for my family and I, but since I'm without family this year, I'm going to attempt to brighten the next few weeks with merriment typically unavailable during other parts of the year on my own. Ciao.
Note: photos were pulled from Google Images.