Ahoj, Bratislava
Soooo it’s been a while, maybe even longer since the release of that shitty song by Staind. The New Year has produced multiple job opportunities, never-ending Central European bureaucracy, comedy shows, and my first jaunt to Slovakia.
And I'm still waiting to hear about my visa.
But during this seemingly infinite waiting period, I’ve taken two teaching jobs that are happily withholding my pay until I can become a legal Czech employee. They don’t have to pay me until further notice so I’m basically working for free, and hooooo boy do they know it. My schedule went from sleeping most of the day and going down a rabbit hole of late 90s Saturday Night Live videos to mapping out an entire timetable of trams and busses for my assignments all over Brno and its dingy yet incredibly charming suburbs.
I’m traveling to different companies in the metro area to help employees with their conversational skills, business English, and strange grammar unique to my native tongue. Most of the students I encounter are very intent on the idea that their English isn’t great but really it’s the opposite. I swear I had someone tell me, “My goodness, I am astonished at your surprise because I do believe my English is quite terrible!” but they aren’t speaking like a Soviet caveman. They’re actually speaking very well, better than me in some cases. I usually spend 45 to 90 minutes trying to produce some semblance of a lesson plan that revolves around discussing current events, politics, movies or other popular American media, and common dialogue from their place of work, but also HOW we discuss them. But what surprises me is that during every lesson, my students become so curious how a thirty-something woman from a booming yet not beaming country like the United States ended up in a place like Brno.
Brno has roughly 400,000 people. It’s been described to me as St. Paul without Minneapolis. There are enough people here to cause a very slight delay during morning traffic or a decent back up in any store in the mall on Sunday. Trams during peak hours are full and standing room only. This city as a pulse, and the only thing that would for sure kill it or at least slow its resting heart rate is something like Amazon becoming a budding and brooding feature. So when students ask me, “Why here?”, I usually respond with something that promotes the differences in cost of living while not having to live somewhere like Terre Haute, Indiana. I also explain that I’ve been through the Czech Republic before and liked it enough to move my life here. I’m not sure I have the balls (I don’t) to throw a dart at a map and expatriate to places like Kiribati or Lhasa or Ushuaia in Southern Argentina. But here I can live inside former communist architecture while practicing peaceful democratic resistance. Oh and that whole health insurance thing, too.
So right now, even though I come prepared each week with a loose lesson plan that can often derail like it did today when I had to explain the origin of the phrase “don’t drink the Koolaid,” my students are vastly interested in me and what I’m doing in the second biggest city in the Czech Republic. They also tend to ask me, “Why not Prague?” Prague seemed incredibly romantic at first. If I was going to write my own Eat, Pray, Love bullshit novel, my journey would probably start in Prague. The city (and most of the country) has amazingly preserved architecture. It wasn’t destroyed during the Second World War so a lot of the streets and flats and businesses are decades old and still in seamless operation. Prague carries a lot of the business in the Czech Republic but it isn’t all smokestacks and concrete. When I think of people in Prague, I imagine a woman wearing a silk bathrobe looking out her tall windows, tall windows that are emulated in the US because we can’t have things that are genuinely old so we destroy new places to purposefully make them look old. She has one of those stupid chunky blankets with the giant yarn draped around her. It’s snowing. There’s a dog outside leaving tiny footprints on the cobblestone sidewalk as a young boy chases muž’s best friend. The woman in the window snuggles her face into the giant yarn catastrophe while her gorgeous husband swoops in from behind her while carrying the smallest fucking espresso cup you’ve ever seen. She receives the bright white cup and saucer from within her Pinterest cape as they giggle over the idea of reading Faust in their giant sleigh bed in front of an exposed brick backdrop for the rest of the day. That’s Prague.
Brno is much more industrial, as are other cities here like Ostrava, Olomouc, and Plzen, so it leaves people wondering why I chose cooling towers over historical bridges. In short, it’s cheaper. But most of the expats in CZ are based in Prague, yet out in Brno it feels less like a vacation and more like an ongoing journey. If you live in Prague, you can go days without needing to speak Czech because everyone in your bubble speaks some derivation of English. I wanted to be around Czech people, not people who want to be around Czech people. I feel like a resident here. Somedays in Seattle I felt more like a tourist due to barely leaving the house during the throes of depression and anxious bullshit.
Teaching currently has me busy for roughly four days a week. I have some breaks midday and some downtime before hustling across town with a different set of folders for a different set of students. The nice part being is that if I notify the schools far enough in advance, I can take time off for comedy. This past weekend I ventured to Bratislava, Slovakia for a comedy show, my first time to the other half of the previous state of Czechoslovakia. Bratislava is a grungier version of Brno that could stand a good pressure washing. The city of 420,000 people is the largest in Slovakia and it is proving to be somewhat of a booming new metropolis. Slovakia is also on the Euro which catches people off guard. Surely the Czech Republic is on the Euro if Slovakia is, right? Wrong. CZ is on the Czech Koruna (crown) while Slovakia became a loose cannon and confused the fuck out of everyone by switching over to the popular Westernized currency. I exchanged money at the train station before I left, and two hours later, I walked off the train and onto a movie set designed for Liev Schreiber or Elijah Wood to extract their vengeance on the surrounding community for a betrayal of past generations. People think CZ is in Eastern Europe when really it’s in Central Europe, but Bratislava flirts with that misinformation much more, especially when people are confusing it with Slovenia.
Every European city east of Berlin has a section commonly referred to as “Old Town,” a four or five block district in or near the city center. At least one large church, forged statues and sculptures, and outdoor markets are picturesque both in person and on the overpriced postcards sold within the area. Bratislava’s Old Town is a nexus of hidden passageways featuring popular pubs, souvenir stores, flower shops, and coffee and wine bars. I’m not using the Oxford comma between “coffee” and “wine bars” because they are constantly featured together under one business. There’s a good intermingling of the old country’s hardened Slovaks enjoying their nightly pinot noir with younger travelers who wanted a piece of cake and tea (me). Since I arrived in the city at 4pm on a Sunday, a lot of businesses were closed and I only had roughly an hour of daylight remaining to take pictures, so I walked around and got lost in the caverns of brick and doors that weren’t rectangular in shape.
A few photos from my visit
The comedy show I was in took place at Goblin’s Pub, a dungeon-esque pub with plenty of beer and zero cell service. Upon arriving, I encountered a group of Irish dudes who were actually swinging their beer mugs from side to side with their arms around each other while they sang/yelled old Irish folk songs. Groups of football clubs, rugby teams, and bachelor parties will often come to Central and Eastern Europe to get their drink on because it’s so much cheaper. I was an economic drunk and 40 cents for a beer was nothing to sneeze at. I wrote out a setlist, similar to the setlist I was working off of the night before in Brno. I’m having a tough time deciding when to compromise my comedy. When I say that, I mean I don’t know whether to give the people what they want, which happens to be easy stereotypes and blanket statements, or do the comedy I really want to do and know I’m capable of. I want to have some measure of integrity without leaning towards an entire setlist of Blue Collar Comedy style jokes and tag lines. My set at Goblin’s was like most of my other sets in Europe; people like me and my enthusiasm, but if it’s not slightly off color in a way they want it to be, they’ll smile and have this sort of Resting Czech Face that I proceed to pander to for the remainder of my stage time. Doing 25 minutes is incredibly easy for me. Being confident in the jokes I’m telling to an audience expecting a certain style of humor is difficult.
I left the venue and hopped Bratislava’s tram back to the train station, took the train back to Brno, missed the night bus home, and called a Liftago, our version of Uber. My driver seemed happy I was communicating in broken Czech and he compromised with me by speaking some broken English in return. I checked my blood sugar when I got home realized my levels weren’t as predictable as they usually are. If I ever get sick or stressed, I can usually see it in my blood sugars before I actually feel or sense the onset of it coming. And by the time I had woken up a few hours later after falling asleep during an embarrassing Vikings loss, I was definitely sick. I had mono at 16 and ever since then I’ve been prone to sinus infections. I maybe get two to three a year where there’s a tremendous pressure in my sinuses, I feel and sound like I’m underwater, my neck and shoulders ache a bit, and I can’t focus. On Monday this week I was supposed to start at another school but had to defer my start since a) I’m not an asshole and don’t want to get other people sick, and b) talking for six hours a day while running all around the city by public transit wasn’t an option. I pretty much slept for three days and ended up being really hard on myself. I was supposed to start a new job and my body let me down, thus letting my employer down. I want to be ready and capable and worthy of work but this stupid sinus business wasn’t exactly allowing me to do just that. I felt worthless, not working and wanting to get better while trying to simultaneously practice the act of patience. And I fucking hate being sick. I turn into a swearing three-year-old sailor who has seen some shit, so much shit they can’t even drink anymore. Kitty and I slept and drank soup and as much water as we could, and today I’m almost back to 100%.
Today was my first day back teaching in four days and I learned that I was not the only teacher who was sick this week. Classes were cancelled, moved around, delayed, and rescheduled due to most of us combatting some type of a pseudo-plague. My Thursday class is my favorite. They’re a bunch of young dads who understand my puns and are eager to talk about politics, current events, traveling, and generic smalltalk used in getting to know one another. The 90 minutes goes by quickly and I don’t feel like it’s work because I’m learning, too. The second round of the presidential election in CZ is tomorrow. People throughout the country will pull their little grocery carts behind them while seeking to uphold the tenets of democracy or bring the country down to the level at which I left the United States. They told me about their candidates and the voting process. Brno (and the rest of the country I’m assuming) has a system that is similar to precincts, districts, and counties. People vote on a Friday by using paper and pen at a polling station, most often located in a school, and the results are then tabulated until the next morning on Saturday. I told them about the US having fifty different states, which means having fifty different sets of laws for how people vote. I explained the mail-in process for the state of Washington and how ballots are tracked and counted before the election. The two countries honestly don’t seem that different, and there has been an overwhelming turn out to support the guy who is more like a combination of Hillary and Bernie than President Fuckface (fingers crossed). One of the main areas of debate right now in CZ is the issue of "immigration." One tough thing about understanding the accuracy of politics and political views here is that the terms “immigrant,” “migrant,” “foreigner,” and “refugee” are all used interchangeably, so I went over the differences with my students and they agreed with their correct usage:
foreigner:
anyone who is of a different nationality or ethnicity than the place they are in presently
immigrant:
a person of a different citizenship or nationality legally seeking rights and citizenship in another country
migrant:
a person who is moving to a new country in seek of work, can be done legally or illegally, and is an economic based decision
and
refugee:
a person seeking asylum by escaping their country of citizenship due to political reasons (war is most common).
This class has been fun and valuable to me. In some ways, it feels like I’m getting paid to learn about my new home and the varying political climates by age group and geography.
My little victories are important here. I’ve had a master list of things I’ll eventually need to take care of, and today I got to cross of a major one: open a Czech bank account. Two banks have turned me away because I need to bring a Czech interpreter with me, even though I was told this in English. From my understanding, they don’t want to have a foreigner (refer to the above) signing a document if they can’t fully understand it. So today I went to a bank whose website is in both Czech and English and not by way of Google Chrome. It took about a half hour and the Czech banker was patient with my English and we both used Google Translate to ensure our definitions of terms were the same. Victory! I’ll get my “contactless card” in about two to three weeks. I’ve seen the magic of the contactless card at various stores: you’re supposed to hover the card over a hub and it will register as a physical swipe, but people end up needing to tap the hub numerous times and sometimes outright slam on it in frustration for it to register. Contactless!
So it’s after midnight. Tonight I had the energy to cook so I made this eggplant tomato basil…mash. I don’t know what to call it. Half the time I cook I’m coming up with something where all the flavors and textures are good but it doesn’t have a real name. I also put pepitas, capers, and cranberries in it and I shredded super good gouda on top. I’m going to be super farty tomorrow. Hopefully next week will be better than this week. I’m excited to officially have employment and an actual schedule. It will take some time to adjust and I’m just happy I don’t have to watch the fucking Pro Bowl this weekend at an absurd hour to distract me from doing great things. Oh yeah, and speaking of which,
Fuck you, Tom Brady!
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.
I Am Human
I went into Arrival not knowing much about the movie. I knew it had something to do with Amy Adams and aliens, but I wasn't provided with any context until actually viewing the movie itself. On my 29th birthday, my mom and I ate dinner at Palace Kitchen and went to the AMC theater for this mysterious movie about pods that may or may not contain extraterrestrial life.
The film centers around Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics professor who had previous translation experience with the military. After 12 pod shaped spacecrafts land all over the globe, there's a worldwide race to decipher the intentions of the pods: curiosity or destruction. Contact between us and the beyond was surrounded by language and the components that were necessary to communicate effectively. Do the aliens understand the concept of a question? How is their sentence structure comprised? Is syntax relevant? Does the written version of their language indicative of what sounds are produced?
I'm not going to do a WhOa SpOiLeR ALeRt!!!11 thing here because if you're interested in language at all, I've probably piqued your interest in seeing the film and I'm not going to ruin it for you, but I'll offer up some interesting ideas. The aliens communicated with Louise and her fellow researchers by using curls, swoops, splats, and twirls measured out in a circle called a logogram, and the team finally breaks through with one word: human. Eventually, after some test runs and estimations were successfully executed with minimal clues or prior knowledge, Dr. Banks is able to not only see the language, but is able to visualize the language through time. I don't mean "well she had an hour so she understood it after a while" time, but actual time.
Arrival made me cry a few different places. It's a rollercoaster when you least expect it to be, especially when walking into it not having any frame of reference for the plot. Today I have the logogram for "human" tattooed around my pulse on my left arm. A lot of people think it's some sort of significant coffee stain when really it's a great example of what it means to communicate, and if heptapods do invade the earth in the name of curiosity and things which cannot be expressed in what we know as an alphabet, at least I'll be tagged and bagged when they get here.
I'm a language nerd. I excelled in reading, writing, and spelling, even though I still have a tab open to Google just for typing words I'm nervous of spelling wrong (maintenance, privilege, and indigenous are among them). I'd like to think most people enjoy communicating effectively in their native language or another they picked up along the way. Most bilingual people I've talked with in the Czech Republic have brought up the subject of language, whether it's asking if I'm learning Czech or asking how difficult of a time I'm having learning Czech. English is now a much more common language throughout the country. Lots of old timers speak a second language, but it most likely isn't English. If you lived in Czechoslovakia before it went the way of film and the VHS, chances are you were speaking Czech, Slovak, German, or Russian since that whole "we're gonna occupy the fuck out of you" thing really took off in the 20th century.
I've been in the country for about three weeks, and I've only had to use "do you speak English?" maybe once every other day, most of the time with people over the age of 40. These Czechs are hardened Czechs, as in they've witnessed power exchanges multiple times throughout their lives and endured influxes of languages other than their own, which I'm sort of experiencing in reverse right now. Czech is supposed to be more stark and halting while Slovak is more sing-songy and whimsical. But for now, I just hear a bunch of hard consonants with murdery letters and sounds. They even made up their own "r," which is a combination of the letter itself and a bit of both "z" and "j."
I met Lenka under a clock near the popular tram stop of Česka. She sent me exact coordinates on Google Maps because the Czechs have this peculiar habit of making the current time very public on multiple surfaces, so some clarification was needed about which historical timekeeping monument I needed to find. Lenka is almost 40 but when it comes to her age, she's ambiguous. She could have given me any number of ages and I would have believed her. Her dyed auburn hair compliments the highlights in her face and doesn't wash her out like many women I've seen here. She carries herself well and speaks English with a British accent from spending time in London. A few weeks before I arrived in Brno, she contacted me on Facebook about wanting to find an "adventure buddy" for her nine-year-old daughter. She explained how she wanted to have her daughter exposed to more conversational and non-traditional English rather than what was taught in school for someone her age, which is usually a verb and its relative conjugations, trying to figure out which adjectives are placed before which noun, and a vast array of numbers which might as well all be the same. I was excited to take on my own language while analyzing and using it from a beginner's perspective. And I could finally put my fucking Creative Writing degree to use in a vocal sense and not just...on here.
Lenka explained that not only do I just get to hang out with her daughter, Alžběta, but her current best friend whose status will undoubtedly change three or four times before high school. Alžběta (the Czech version of "Elizabeth") and her friend Miša (I now have a sticky note open on my computer with all of the relevant hats and reverse circumflexes for the alphabet) are extremely bubbly and act like nine-year-old girls do. They met me in front of a church across the street from their school. Both buildings are incredibly expansive and are complete with ornate architecture and pumpkins cut out of construction paper placed neatly in the windows for the fall season.
Alžběta was holding a huge Czech/Slovak/English (Anglicky) dictionary from the 1970s. It was almost comical to see a young kid carrying around such a ridiculously thick book that could have easily been mistaken for Moby Dick or The Count of Monte Cristo. We greeted each other in limited English but I was really blown away with the amount of English they've already learned just from being taught in school, as in it wasn't just pointing at things and knowing the vocabulary. The two girls had complete thoughts and sentences in English and a lot of giggling in Czech.
My memories of language learning at a young age aren't great. The teacher I had as an elementary school student was extremely selective and active with her favoritism while teaching my class. I had an easy time learning Spanish and all of the words to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in a different language, but if any sort of enthusiasm or humorous contribution was made to the class, you were linguistically shunned and given the silent treatment in both languages.
When I entered middle school, I discovered I was to take Latin for two years in order to prepare me for the life or death decision of taking French or Spanish through high school. While I couldn't exercise my learned Latin in every day situations, it was during this time I figured out that I was a visual learner. Even today I'm seeing it in action. If I go to the supermarket (not grocery store!) up the street from my flat, I can remember the labels of food after I see them accompanying the appropriate food. But if someone were to stop me mid aisle and say, "the Czech word for 'butter' is ‘maslo,'" I won't remember it at all. And after using this sentence, I'll always know the Czech word for "butter."
Alžběta and Miša took me around the center of Brno to a few different stores and coffee shops they find interesting. I tried to ask them as many questions as I could without seeming like a hipster version of the foreign police. If I asked them something and they didn't know what I said, they would either ask me politely "again" or all three of us would stop and huddle around the giant dictionary while we tried to find a Czech word and it's English equivalent. Some of these words ended up being "music," "pathway," "take," "late," and "decaf." Technology ended up saving us a lot of time because we all defaulted to Google Translate. We used my phone to type and pass back and forth, but this process illuminated the difficulties and vagaries of the English language. Words such as "take," "go," "set," and "be" have many definitions so zeroing in on the exact one to translate a particular thought effectively can take some patience. There were a lot of guesses as to meanings and estimations on which phrases were actually intended to be a question. In a lot of ways, I felt like Dr. Banks with her new alien friends except I don't feel threatened and I know why they're here.
After a confusing amount of time, Lenka's daughter led me back to their flat on Rooseveltova, about a ten minute tram ride from my flat. Czech flats usually have what Minnesotans would refer to as a "mud room." There's an entirely different room you go in prior to entering the apartment that is meant for shoes and storage and a place to kick dirt and snow off of your boots, which I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of but it appears Seattle and Minneapolis both beat me to it. Their flat is homey and well lived in. There's a small loft for a bed above their living room and their ceilings are very tall. Large double insulated windows let a lot of light in so the need for indoor lighting was minimal, even after dark.
Alžběta's room is the perfect nine-year-old girl room. She has a stack of books on her nightstand for bedtime stories. She has little pink boxes that I'm not even sure hold anything in them; they're just boxes meant for buttons or small things magpies would pick up. There are plenty of small stuffed animals on her bed. Everything in her room has a label (in Czech) for which items go where. She has a hook for her backpack, a perfectly made bed with polka dot sheets, and picture frames with bright flowers around the edges. Her shoes are perfectly aligned underneath her steel coatrack and her white curtains are somewhere between doily and fabric meant for an American Girl doll.
Alžběta and I played Bejeweled, Merged!, and Angry Birds and I realized I could use games to help with her English so we may be spending a lot of time on tablets in the future. I'm going to be helping Miša out as well and I hope her and Alžběta don't find new best friends too quickly. At some point Alžběta messaged Lenka and asked if I could stay longer because "Liz is really cool and we like her," and I have my Monday afternoons blocked off until further notice.
While I've been writing this, I found out today I have a brand new niece named Emily November Vekich. She was born this morning and she's already smiling. I lost my favorite aunt this week but gained a little bundle who will make the family incredibly happy. It's times like this where I wish I was home, just for a hug and a warm exchange. Facebook is stupid for a lot of reasons but it's helping me connect with people back home so it's acting as my temporary portal. I'm nine hours ahead of most people I know, which has made communication somewhat easy due to me keeping weirdo hours but it's made watching football on Sundays rather difficult. I guess I'm still adjusting but I feel at home, but not home home yet. And I'm doing better than most of my league in fantasy football and I'm not even in the country. Two thumbs up for this human right here.
"Graffiti is beautiful, like a brick in the face of a cop."
So I've been in Brno for a little over a week. I've gathered my bearings, made some connections, and developed a routine while waiting for my visa to go through. I have a main grocery store, too many pharmacies to count, a bodega called a večerka, an ATM that doubles as a payment depot for my new Czech phone number, kebab place, pretty much all I need within walking distance of my place.
Speaking of my place, I've been trying to think of a whimsical and triumphant name for the apartment. When kitty and I were on the beach, in the overpriced storage locker/prison cell/cardboard box/studio apartment, we referred to it as the Bantam Bungalow. Small, hidden, concrete. I'm sure I'll think of something in the coming days.
Here's my downstairs and my upstairs:
It's more like a townhouse rather than an apartment. My kitchen, eating area, storage, and nook with a desk are on the ground floor, and my bedroom, bathroom, living room, and deck are upstairs. I'm convinced a man installed my shower because shaving anything at all will be a hassle in a very small slippery space, so it's a good thing no one will see my legs for the next six months. I have a good amount of sunlight, and due to the shade of wood and cantaloupe colored walls, it appears brighter than it looks.
I did my first load of laundry and didn't fuck it up! There are infinite dials and knobs and numbers accompanied by different beeps on a very small machine meant for very small clothes. American dryers are larger and I can usually fit three weeks worth of laundry in a load of cold water because separating colors is for nerds and people who have their shit together. I picked the lowest temperature, which was 20 degrees Celsius (still not super sure what that equates to) and selected a clock graphic that looked like it was in a hurry. I don't have a dryer so when my clothes became stationary and unscathed, I hung them up on a heated drying rack in my bathroom. I think it's specifically meant for towels but I'm going to choose to ignore that because I enjoy dry clothes.
So roughly ten days have passed since I boarded a plane and won the air travel lottery by having no one sitting next to me on two different flights, and I've gathered a few observations about the Czech Republic and the people who reside here, whether they are Czechs, Slovakians, expats, students, etc.
1. Women love coloring their hair red. It could be any number of shades; actual red, scarlet, burgundy, copper, maroon all seem to be sought after by the sophisticated Czech woman. I think this popular style is the cosmetological equivalent of the blonde obsession in the United States. I'm not sure why the color is so popular here. All I can think about is how difficult the maintenance is with red hair. I loved having copper hair. Adored it. And what I'm going to write is going to sound super gross, but during the six months I had copper hair, I only took a whole shower three times HEAR ME OUT. Red hair bleeds, it's not friendly with warm water, and the maintenance to keep up the appearance of a natural Merida is not cost effective. Before showering myself, I'd put my head under the faucet with cold water and shampoo with a color depositing shampoo that completely destroyed my scalp. Then I'd pin my hair on the top of my head and only expose my body to warm water to prevent my hair from bleeding. Then afterwards I would take color depositing conditioner, wrap my hair in it and leave it on top of my head for 25 minutes before rinsing it out in the tub with cold water. NOT fucking worth it, so I went blonde, neglected my hair into an ombre, and never looked back.
2. The closer you get to train tracks, the condition of buildings is rough, but the caliber of graffiti is top tier. A lot of major railways throughout the country cut through small farmland, rolling hills, and sparsely populated collections of trees too open to be deemed an actual forest. A lot of the buildings in towns that do nestle up to the Czech railway system are decrepit, empty, hollowed out from decades of political neglect. Loose and porous stones, broken panes of glass, soaked wooden beams, and bent dangling pipes were all popular features of many buildings along the way from Brno to Prague. But the larger surfaces and barriers that remained intact over the course of multiple revolutions was heavily spray painted. Czech graffiti artists have tight can control and bright color palettes against a bleak and derelict canvas. They go big or go home. Most pieces are large in order to be seen but they aren't messy. Artists clearly had the time to linger near the train tracks and do their work without getting caught in the moonlight by the town crier. Being fast but good is something graffiti artists take pride in, and trains and locations near the tracks provide excellent spots for "bombing" and "throwing up" designs since so many pairs of eyes will see them. Everyone will know who you are without really knowing who you are, anonymity and notoriety rolled into one. (Also if you're interested in learning about or seeing more graffiti, watch Style Wars here or the lesser known Piece by Piece based out of San Francisco in the 90s here, both for free).
3. I don't have the right of way as a pedestrian, even in the "zebra stripes." I mean legally I do, but holy shit, drivers here don't give a suicide mission driving fuck about it. Busy intersections here have lights for trams, pedestrians, and cars. People won't stop for you, even if you're standing and waiting. When I'm out walking around now, I need to be more cautious and since I came from the largest US city without a light rail system for a number of years, I need watch my six...and my three and five and eleven.
4. Czechs mind their own business. When out and about, riding the tram or simply walking, it's rare to make eye contact, and if you do, don't you dare fucking address it. Seattle always had this reputation of a "freeze," which...honestly I never noticed all that much. When meeting the eyes of another person on the street, I'd say maybe 50% of the time I would be met with a chin nod or a small smirk on one side of the mouth. But here, you sit on the tram, you stare at you phone, you mind your own business, and you don't talk. There's an underlying strictness of it that I think comes along with having your country invaded twice and annexed once all in the same century. Czechs are hard, willful. They have dark senses of humor but they won't let you in on it right away. I pretty much speak (poor Czech) when spoken to, and I keep to myself, easy to do if you have headphones.
5. The Czech Republic isn't another planet. A lot of people I've talked to assume I'm moving to a remote village where women wear handkerchiefs over their hair while washing clothes in a babbling brook and they swirl around a May Pole before springtime (I mean maybe they do, I don't know). I've been to both a Tesco and an Albert, both called "hypermarkets" as they carry more than just groceries, and they have more, if not the same stuff as most US grocery stores. There's no big Sunday shopping trips here for the family of four so people come and buy what they need as they need it every few days, and if you need dinner plates, sweatshirts, or a chainsaw, a hypermarket will have it. But if I need something here, I can go get it. There are multiple internet providers, new cars, IT companies running rampant. It's like Seattle without the crazy ridiculous cost of living, bad traffic, skyrocketing homelessness, and the widespread progressive arrogance.
This post is shorter than my others, but I just wanted to note some quick observations about my new home. I'm comfortable, happy, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle not including all of the cheese and array of Haribo candy I've been eating. Otherwise, so far so good.
So You Want to Expatriate
For the last six months, I've been deliberately oversharing on social media because so many people have asked me what the expat process is like and it's just been easier to be open about it. I've shared a lot about the differences in culture between the Czech Republic and the US, the language, common history, politics, etc, but I haven't gone into explaining about the process itself: with starting a new life abroad comes a ton of bureaucratic tape, and not all of it is in English. This post is mostly for those who are interested in expatriating and what worked well for me and didn't work well, even if you're looking elsewhere than "Czechia." (lol get a load of this guy, trying to go by "Myanmar" when he's actually Burma, get real).
1. DO YOUR RESEARCH. The question I get asked most is "why the Czech Republic?" Before I even started looking at other countries, I needed to narrow down what it was about Seattle that I was attempting to escape. The cost of living and the quality of life were two things I needed to compare in whatever place I ended up. I started crunching numbers with international cities and made a baseline of what cities I could live in that were similar, just to get an idea. Among those cities were Paris, Dresden, Munich, Milan, Brussels, Amsterdam, Oslo, Osaka, Incheon, and Copenhagen. All of these places had their own perks stemming from the influence of Western European culture but they were also all on the Euro. If you're going to be working overseas, there's a chance you'll be getting paid from overseas depending on what job you secure, so when it comes to the Euro replacing your dollar, even though you may be getting paid in USD, there's a chance it won't extend as far as it would in places like Ukraine, Thailand, or Poland.
So it was narrowed down to places not on the Euro, which left me with places where I'd need to join a tribe and get a Travel Channel special or in a place living way below my means and having someone from the US sponsor me for just pennies a day. Then it came to down to places I had been to before, so in this case it was the Czech Republic, Poland, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I had traveled to Central and Eastern Europe in 2009 and remembered it incredibly fondly. The terrain was something pretty to look at, like if Wisconsin actually had some substance. The people had a resting bitch face attitude like I do, and my dollar could go further here than anywhere else.
Another facet I had to research was if there is an existent expat community where I wanted to go. Is there any kind of social safety net where you can locate people who speak and write the same language as you? Is learning a language with clicks and hieroglyphics going to hinder the time you'll be spending wishing you had picked another location to move to? Am I going to let that dangling preposition bother me? No.
The cost of living in Brno is 70% less than it is in Seattle. How bad is Seattle? There are BRAND NEW "micro studio" apartments, as in a 270 square foot dorm room with a shared bathroom with other tenants in the building for $900 a month. Seattle used to be an affordable, liberal haven on the West Coast that shook its head at the San Francisco smugness and the even worse Los Angeles traffic all the while remaining creative, progressive, and still one step ahead of Portland. This factor alone combined with the possibility of losing my health insurance was enough to get me to start this research in the first place, as living in Seattle with an auto-immune disease was becoming increasingly unsustainable.
Since a move to Africa seemed a little too reverse Mean Girls, I started looking at the actual immigration process for both the Czech Republic and Poland. Actually, let me back up.
You know how every election there's one person who's like Fuck this I'm moving to Canada and I'm never coming back! but they don't move? The reason people don't move to Canada because it has a super strict immigration policy and they can't. If you can't prove you have expertise in areas that will directly benefit very specific sections of the economy, you ain't gettin' in. Since most of the people I know disagree with the president yet they're biochemical engineers, oil field design specialists, or data IT farmers, they're not moving.
Anyway, back to what I was saying. Once you've thrown your dart at your Google Map and had it successfully puncture land and not water, research the immigration policies by looking at expat forums from those countries. A lot of these forums have insights on current job openings, various immigration situations from student visas to marital situations, and what government offices to navigate once you've arrived and in most cases, which language to pursue while doing so. It was in this process that I discovered a trade license for the Czech Republic called a Živnostenský list, which allows me to be self employed as long as I can prove I have the funds to move. I would select areas of work that I'd most likely be self employed in, such as customer service, teaching English, writing/editing, and IT. Most countries don't take kindly to people overstaying their visas or thinking they're going to become a brand new citizen with a backpack, dreads, and $20 they got from busking in another country in which they overstayed illegally. So make sure you qualify for your chosen country's legal immigration process. Otherwise you'll just be Patty from accounting who keeps bitching that Canada has better healthcare than the US at whatever chance she gets. So that brings me to my next point:
2. Save your money. When you apply for the appropriate visa in your country, chances are you'll need to prove that you have money. If you're applying for a student visa, this may be less important, but these are also the most common visas that people overstay. They graduate and just become an illegal lifer wherever they are. In my case, I sold my car and everything else and lived a very very thrifty lifestyle for the last few months before I left the US while putting everything else on a credit card that gets airline miles for an airline I don't fly anymore.
Some countries will have different limitations on what you can have. For instance, I needed at least $5,500 in my account as well as an official notarized statement proving it. You'll also need to prove that you'll be able to maintain that amount, which is currently difficult. In the Czech Republic, you need a Živnostenský list (called a "zivno") AND a long stay visa in order to work, so right now, I'm biding my time by eating cheap cheese and walking a lot of places. I'm currently forgoing clothing hangers at the moment because I need to save money, but I'm lucky that the exchange rate between the Czech koruna and the US dollar is in my favor.
If you're retired, fucking awesome! Lots of people retire to Central and Eastern Europe because they can live above their means with the money they have left. But this also means that they no longer have any incoming income, so it's a toss up with what you'll end up doing in the end. Hopefully dying happy knowing you lived a good life.
3. Wager your sacrifices/comfort. When I say that, I'm referring to taking stock in what you're leaving behind and what your expatriation will mean for other people, friends, family, or coworkers. I applaud the people who uproot their family of four to a country where the language is difficult all because dad had a weird dream one night. I decided to move because I wasn't in a relationship and I had just lost my job at a furniture consignment store, something that was hardly integral to the creation of a career. So what was I clinging to? Expensive rent?
(also sidenote I swear I just heard a seagull but that can't be right).
After the plug on the move was pulled, I made a list of things that would bring me back to the US, most of which were incredibly bleak. These circumstances varied from deaths in the family to the somewhat likeliness of a nuclear war breaking out. And when I say "bring me back," I mean cancel my lease, repack everything, ship everything, not buying-a-return-ticket bring me back. Moving from Minneapolis to Seattle in the past was in some ways minor preparation for this journey, a scrimmage or pre-season game. No big life changes in the first year of sobriety! I was told, but I returned to my hometown to protect my sobriety and I knew that staying in Minneapolis would mean coming out of retirement. But this time around, with my sobriety safely guarded, I wasn't moving to protect anything. I was moving for me. And the cool part is, you know what? If any of this happens to suck, I can always move back. Having a great support network allows me to make these types of decisions, but I understand not everyone can make grandiose ideas become reality in one night.
You'll also need to prepare yourself for some pushback from people after you've made the decision to move. When I first told people I was moving, I was met with concerns that had simple solutions. But you don't know the language! I can learn it. Do you know anyone there? I'll meet people. I don't want to trivialize valid concerns, but when I was met with opposition, it wasn't discouraging; it only pushed me further and made me more determined to leave. Others may come across these difficulties and fold right there. You're right, I don't know anyone so living in a country where English is not the chosen first language may not be the correct path for me. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe Amsterdam is more your style. Everyone speaks English because they realized lol fuck us no one is going to learn Dutch, it's a ridiculous language. But the Czechs held on tight and will make it very clear to you they speak Czech and so will you.
Like I said, this pushback made me all the more determined in my search for a different life. For the last five months, all I've done is research (see Step 1). I constantly have over ten tabs open on my computer of PDF forms in Czech and English, a currency conversion calculator, a tram line map, a tram line ticket pricing guide, a tram line offices guide, regional train ticket website, private health insurance guide, public health insurance guide, Netflix, and Facebook. Research became my part time job before moving. I was up on my phone at night even after I shut my laptop lid for the evening. I was seeking out new sections of bookstores and language websites. I picked up a phrasebook and started practicing preemptively.
4. Get involved in expat stuff, but not too involved. Prague is famous for this bubble in Prague 2, which is a section that's teeming with expatriates from many other first world nations. These expats rarely venture out of their bubble and become dependent on their surroundings in their own language, sort of what the Italian immigrants did with Little Italy and the Russians with Brighton Beach. Once you arrive, it's nice to be able to know other people and have some security, but after a while, you'll probably need to register with the foreign police or go on a journey where everyone in your train carriage is speaking every language but your own.
It's going to be okay, but it's going to be uncomfortable as fuck. Even today, I went to pick up my 30 day tram pass from the local office here in Kralovo Pole and I asked the woman Mluvíš anglicky? She immediately responded with ne. So we kind of stood there and looked at each other for a minute. I got out my phone and used Google Translate and she responded using the same tool on her computer. We were able to have a slow conversation that took a few minutes, but I got the information I needed and thanked her and left.
Expats are going to be really handy with knowing other events in your own language and other hangouts in your town, unless you're the first expat - good for you! And since Facebook is essentially an entity all on its own now, use it for good and not stalking your exboyfriend. There are a ton of Facebook expat groups dedicated to finding housing, offering language exchanges (you help with my Czech while I help with your English), buy/sell/trade, job offers, etc. I'm in roughly ten of these and I was able to get connected to a website to find my apartment and another job board that posts jobs for bilingual candidates or jobs in need of native English speakers. Let the expat experience be a tool but not your lifeline.
5. HIRE A VISA AGENCY. I don't trust myself to handle my paperwork, visas, signatures, affidavits, appointments, and all of the bureaucratic nonsense that comes along with moving to a different country, so it turns out there are agencies that do it for you! Whaaaat super awesome. I'm using an agency in Prague that I contacted a few months ago. They praised me for getting a jump on this before I left since most people land in Prague and the countdown starts from their 90 day visa-free stay in order to get legal. No place to live, no job, etc. So a team originally from Pittsburgh helped me out with what documents they needed, what I needed to fill out, what needed to be translated, etc. They make the appointments, I show up. For instance I have a visa appointment in Berlin in late November. They'll interview me to make sure I am who I say I am and that I'm qualified for what I'm putting down as my list of trades. It's basically a job interview to live in another place. AND you don't want to be deported because you didn't have your ducks in a row, so it's best to let someone do that who has not only has done it themselves.
I'm sure there's a ton more I could be talking about and stuff that hasn't even occurred to me yet, which is why having a blog is handy since you can ramble anytime, anywhere. A lot of this is Czech-specific. But I'll leave you with this (puts mic back in the stand): the easiest countries to immigrate to if you are NOT a student or legally single/not married are the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. Or just marry a broad you meet on the internet I don't know who cares WHOZZISS GUY THINK HE IZZ ahhhh okay time for bed.