All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.
I'm writing under a very slanted wall in my new apartment. Over the last month, I've been taking one Ikea bag full of my shit for a 90 second bus ride and then up six flights of stairs to a flat which is tough to spatially navigate for the short and tall. If a hipster hobbit lived in Brno, they might have a place like this.
My favorite part of my new spot.
I returned my keys to the landlord of my first apartment in Brno this past Sunday. The Skacelova flat was my landing pad, my home base furnished with white leather couches and glass coffee tables. Over time I realized the comforts of that sizable flat was unnecessary for a single person plus cat and I was paying for a lot of space I wasn't using. I had an alcove with a desk and an entire living room I didn't sit in until six months after I arrived. These spaces collected dust and an unimaginable amount of cat hair during the year I inhabited the contemporary concrete dwelling and in an effort to save money and feel like I was really living in a space, I moved.
Looking for the right apartment took a few weeks. Time was of the essence during this point in the summer as it was right before the throngs of university students descended upon Brno for their careers in horticulture or veterinary science. Instead of being up against those living away from home for the first time, I decided to look earlier than I initially intended. I found a few places I really liked. I even told the real estate agents I met with "I'll take it!" more than once, only a few days later to discover it was given to someone else with no warning despite my firm and enthusiastic response. What was it going to take to actually secure an apartment in this city?
When I found the apartment I'm in now, I immediately fell in love with it. The walls are slanted and I have skylights for windows. There's no carpeting, and the space is just enough. I didn't want this apartment to turn out like the last few by slipping through my fingers, so if the Czechs wanted to play hardball, fine. It's supposedly my national past time. Why not make an attempt at getting what I want? I would be living in it, after all.
I pulled 10,000 crowns out of the bankomat at 8am and met with a real estate agent who could probably star in Real Housewives of the Former Iron Curtain. Her nails were very manicured and her strapless pink jumpsuit was usually seen poolside somewhere in Vegas. She and her tall hair led me up six floors to the flat I'm still struggling to name. After shaking hands, it became apartment she knew zero English and I could point at things and name them in Czech but was unable to create any concrete thought which conveyed meaning. But money doesn't need a language.
As soon as I saw the apartment met my minimal requirements of a separate bed space, washing machine, and walls I could drill into, I pulled out my cash and slid it across my new kitchen counter to the agent. She laughed as she outstretched her arm to count it and possibly make sure it's not counterfeit which I hear is still a thing here. She immediately wrote me a receipt and I had officially reserved the flat for September 1. I'm officially in and most of my things have a space of their own which isn't cluttered. Maybe I'll even buy a TV because
While I was sorting out moving from one flat to another, I made reservations to come home for the first two weeks of November. Thanksgiving and Christmas weren't available to take due to popular demand, so I inadvertently decided to travel during the most tumultuous week of the year: the midterm elections. I didn't even realize I had included this burgeoning clusterfuck in my travels until I gave my mom the dates of my visit. "You're going to be home during the election!" was the first reply I got to my news. Panekristo. I'm in a weird place with going home. I haven't told a lot of people I'll be in town with the exception of my family and a few close friends. I've been off Facebook for about three months meaning I didn't send out some pointless press release announcement to everyone in the digital ether. I haven't tried to book any shows or schedule things which can't be unscheduled. I've had 30-some Novembers in Seattle and this one probably won't be much different. I can honestly see it now: first I'm going to borrow my mom's car and hopefully remember how to drive. Then I'm going to go through the Starbucks drive-thru and go back home. And maybe I'll hit a mic or two.
Right now I get the feeling I'm really rusty with comedy. When I first got to Brno I had to test out which material worked from home and which stuff didn't. I had to adapt certain jokes or completely forget others that relied too much on local references or inside jokes. I'll probably have to reformat what I've written here prior to going on stage in the back of a Thai restaurant. In my head it goes a certain way. I make an awkward joke about being away and I stumble through a combination of old and new jokes that don't work regardless of what country I'm in. Am I going to be judged? But I want the attention and validation of being on stage without having people look at me.
Better try stand up!
I know I seem pessimistic about returning, but I think it's because I don't know what to expect. I'm sure friends and family will be happy to see me and I'm sure I'll be consoling one or multiple family members on election night due to some fantastic upset we'll act like we didn't see it coming but in reality we were in the backseat as it had been careening out of control for months. I get to meet my niece Emily just in time for her very first birthday. From what I hear she's an extremely happy baby and kind of a ham. But as I'm writing this, I realize it's not even the actual visit back that I'm concerned about; it's getting through Heathrow in under two hours.
In 1999 I spent six hours somewhere in the sprawling duty-free stress zoo of London-Heathrow. My family and I were returning from a trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe and the trip home to Seattle was roughly 36 hours starting from Livingstone, Zimbabwe. My only real memory of the seventh biggest airport in the world was that my mom bought a watch. Our layover was long, even by international standards, which meant shopping and ogling at things like cigarettes and booze, dormant items which would awaken in about five years. A silver Seiko, my mom bought. I'm not sure why that's the one memory I'm clinging to about this English detour, but that's all I got.
To get back on track, holy shit it's a big place. The website for Heathrow is actually pretty adorable. There are a ton of little video tutorials on how to go through passport control, customs, how to get from terminal to terminal, take the Underground into the city, and where to exchange money. I plotted out my course and realized the last time I was making a connection was with two duffle bags and a cat on my back so this should be a bit easier.
I've traveled enough to have developed habits along the way to ease the process and not stress out. Here's my foolproof to-do list:
1. Put your headphones in before you even get on the plane. Don't even listening to anything if you don't want to or need to keep your hands free from the Shuffle function. You know that guy waiting in line to board and you know he's just a chatty motherfucker by looking at him and his stupid jacket and utility vest with all the pockets? Don't risk it. This flight is 10+ hours and by no means can you speed it up. Chatting may make the time go faster, but the last time I tried this I ended up sitting next to a Mormon guy ("Elder Matt") and he was very confused by the presence of a tattooed girl leaving the Tucson area and had to know more. If you don't want to talk, headphones.
2. If you're in line for security and there's a sign that reads "you no longer have to remove your shoes or belts!", remove your shoes and belt. More than half the time people act like they can cruise through a metal detector when it's not like any of us have anywhere to be and the process slows to this unprepared passenger rubbernecking through zigzagging lines. The little Vietnamese kid making six cents an hour assembling your shoes probably didn't think the little piece of tin or aluminum wedged in between the arch and sole of your shoe was going to cause massive delays. But here we are, waiting on you because the signage stated our travel plans are impervious to hidden materials. Nope. Take 'em off.
3. Buy shit when you get there. Every time I was traveling to Tucson, Los Angeles, or Minneapolis, I was having to buy tiny containers of bullshit every time, and I ended up buying more than I needed because what if three tiny containers of hairspray wasn't enough!?
At Target these little guys are $1.08 before tax. The average woman uses 7-8 products during her shower and beauty routine, and given the frequency I was flying, I didn't want to fork out money for every round trip flight, so I bought stuff and kept it where I was landing. But if you're booking a one-way to stay in a yurt out on the Mongolian steppe, good luck.
4. Schmooze with a flight attendant for extra perks. And if you're a dude I don't mean try to fuck one of the flight attendants. I just mean be nice to them and show them some extra courtesy while they're doing their job. And I understand being nice to someone on a long trip while 38,000 feet in the air can be demanding, but it doesn't have to be. On the trip from Seattle to Frankfurt, I had kitty underneath the seat in front of me and the seat next to me empty, leaving us considerable room to spread out in the luxurious world of Economy Plus. I stuck to the basic please and thank yous but also remembered to maintain eye contact and telling them I appreciate what they were doing for me. After a while, one attendant would "serve" the empty seat next to me so kitty and I would have extra potatoes, rolls, or teeny bottles of water. Other times an attendant I hadn't seen yet would appear from within the aisles and ask to see the hidden kitty at my swollen feet. Wo ist der katzen?
5. If you don't want to check a bag and have everything with you in the cabin, don't use a rolling rectangular suitcase. A habit I picked up from my dad is checking to see which kind of aircraft is taking me from A to B or A to B to C. You might have traveled in the past and realized with a pang of panic that you're suddenly taking a two engine prop plane to your final destination instead of the now seemingly luxurious 737-900. It was nice knowing you!
Travel with a backpack meant for light travel or for serious backpacking. If you don't overpack, the shape of the backpack can be malleable and more forgiving in unexpected spaces. You know that shitty little luggage test space (I'm seriously blanking on the name of this thing) where you try to squeeze your bag in to see if it's up to the airline's sizing standards? Never will you be asked to compare your luggage to this if you don't use a rectangular bag. You don't even need to get a serious hiking backpack, just something that lends enough support for your back and shoulders. Also you'll have both your hands free. AND you won't look like a doofus trying to figure it out how to get a rectangle into a rectangle. Get a backpack, shove that thing in the overhead bin and be done with it.
5b. Don't have a backpack but don't want to pay the $25 to check a bag? Carry it through security anyway and gate-check your luggage. 90% of flights offer to check your bag for you at the gate rather than at the check-in counter prior to security. Usually this happens because “aw wouldja look at that folks, we're oversold and need some volunteers to take advantage of this undiscovered trick we either haven't realized or chose not to tell you about!"
I've gotten to gates and been like "What do you mean it's too big?" Play dumb and volunteer. Don't forget to take out any medications, keys, chargers, etc before separating from your belongings.
Obviously a few of these are strictly for international flights, but yeah have at it. This is the closest I've come to giving advice on this blog for about a year, the last being "So you want to expatriate." I've lived in the Czech Republic for 352 days. 352 days ago, everything here was brand new. Little processes you'd gloss over and not think twice about took some major maneuvering. The simplest answer was never the easiest. The scenic route wasn't always scenic. I've cried at bus stops, on trams, and outside of hospitals at 2am. I've been yelled at in a few different languages, sometimes by a person in the immigration office, sometimes a person at the embassy. Someone told me I'd be home by March 28 because I would give up and want to come home. I fight for this because it's what I want. It's painful, exhausting, depressing, and discouraging at times. There are times when I've really wanted to pack it in and stick kitty back in his backpack and book a flight home. The inner child in me runs home to my mom for refuge, reassurance, and a good blanket. That inner child yearns for a bedtime story and for someone to tell her that just because things are unpredictable right now doesn't mean it won't be okay.
There have times I've been unhinged and very un-Dude. Most of these situations involved a government or business entity leaving out key pieces of information I needed in order to plan my time and spend my money accordingly. There are so many instances of this I'm not even going to list them. I'll leave my flat with a mission, get these three things done!
And I return home with half of one to completion. But the comfort, ease, and automation of bureaucracy currently present in the United States are a few things I chose to sacrifice. The Czechs still run on a take-a-number system in the majority of public places. I might even go so far to say the Czechs run the take-a-number system. In the bank, the doctor, the post office. It's as if every moment of progress backslides because standing in a queue (weird) is a thing of the future, a thought which hangs out with "walls that aren't cement" and "my ATM not being an actual person." It's frustrating, but I chose this. The longer I live outside the United States, the less I want to go back.
I've changed positions a few times under my very slanted ceiling since I've been writing this. I'm in bed which is in a nook that resembles a mid-century-modern opium den with oversized pillows, slightly askew angles, subpar lighting, and a cup of rooibos. I feel safe in the nook. Kitty is snoring next to me and we both got our toenails cut today. I'm on the mend from being sick and I may have some changes on the horizon. Lateral move changes, not move-to-Sihanoukville changes. I hope the United States gets it's shit together soon. If it doesn't, you have my permission to burn it to the ground.
"YEAH, YOU'D THINK."
I don't even know where to start because a lot has happened but also nothing has happened at all. This is my first entry for all of June because, like I said, nothing has really happened worth noting.
Czech bureaucracy has worn me down to the point of tears. The immigration and employment processes seemed fairly streamlined and straightforward when viewed on a website. But when you're having to go from one brutalist building to another to ensure the concrete ship is being ran tightly while being forced to hand over the wheel to someone else, it can become extremely discouraging.
To be more specific, I'm having to do a lot of the work myself. You might be thinking "oh poor you, Liz. You LIVE in Europe, how can that be so complicated and exhausting?" Because I can't trust anything anyone tells me. Usually when you speak with someone directly from the government, you have some some faith that you're being told an official, correct answer. Between the information I get from the Ministry of Interior, my new job, their respective websites, and the faceless person who may or may not communicate effectively with me via email, something is always left out, I receive four different answers to the same question, or I get information too late that would have been much helpful at an earlier point. As a result, this poorly oiled stroj has made any attempt at planning ahead, organizing a schedule, or getting any kind of clear answer to do so next to impossible.
Here's a "quick" timeline of 2018 so far:
January 27:
Got hired at new job pretty much immediately. Woohoo! This means applying for an employee card, a two year "visa" that allows me to legally work for a business in the Czech Republic as opposed to using my trade license and a long-stay visa through a term of one year.
January 27 through March 27:
Gather certified documents, translations, and degrees to apply for employee card. I find out my start date at work is April 23.
March 23:
I give notice at my teaching job as I must notify my employer more than 60 days out if I have the intention of leaving my position.
April 9:
Apply for employee card at Ministry of Interior. I'm told this process should take six weeks. I pay an administration fee of 1500 crowns but I have to use government issued stamps as, I quote, "bribes are still a problem here."
April 23:
I'm pushed back at my job until May 14 as my employee card is still processing. I get a letter from the Ministry of Interior saying I need to come in with a certified Czech translator for an interview on May 10.
May 10:
My interview with the Ministry of Interior is centered around me switching from my trade license to an employee card. A ton of questions ensue about my assets in the Czech Republic, how I spend my time freelancing, why I will no longer be teaching at an accredited institution, and why I applied for the job. 90 minutes later, they tell me I could be approved as soon as Monday or by the end of the following week.
May 11:
My last day at my teaching job. I quit at this time because I was under the impression I would be working that Monday.
May 14:
I'm not approved and my start date at my job is pushed back to June 11.
May 17:
Receive a phone call from the Ministry of Interior my application for an employee card was approved. I'm told I'll receive an official copy in the mail within ten days so I can formally confirm with my employer. I am given a date, June 27, to come into the Ministry of Interior for biometric data to be included on my employee card, 13 days after my supposed start date. The person who calls me tells me I can start work even if I don't have the card in hand.
May 22:
Because my employer wants to conduct a medical check, as in an exam making sure I can actually do the job I was hired to do, I meet with a doctor who doesn't know me. He determines that because I have Type 1 diabetes, I might be a risky hire. I'm given a test tube to pee into as I have to provide my own sample (or anyone's) and meet with another doctor assigned to my employer on May 24.
May 24:
The second doctor doesn't ask for my urine sample. I record this conversation as I have now learned I can't trust what anyone tells me. She agrees that I might be a risky hire because I have Type 1 as well as depression. My case is sent over to a board of directors in Prague to review and my endocrinologist is called to confirm my diabetes is being successfully managed and I have zero complications as a result. She doesn't ask for my urine test and I then realize I basically could have lied about the whole thing because no one was going to bother to check or follow up with me. She then stammers with me for ten minutes while I ask her what is it exactly about my disease that prevents me from working my job. I leave with no answer.
June 1:
My medical check is approved but I haven't received any information in the mail that I can show my employer I can start work on June 11.
June 11:
I don't start my job. Turns out I can't work unless I have the actual card printed and in my hand.
June 12:
My employer pushes me back until July 23. My employer tells me there might be a possibility I can start on July 16, but no one confirms this.
June 27:
I go to the Ministry of Interior to get my picture taken and get fingerprinted for my employee card. I am told I can pick up the card on Tuesday, July 17. I notify my employer my card will be ready to pick up on said date.
June 28:
My employer tells me I can start on July 16, but they can't tell me if I can work without the physical card in hand or if I am able to take time in the middle of the following day to pick up the card. I sit in bed and write this post. As of yesterday, this has now taken six months.
The Czech Republic is a weird place. In some areas you'd think it would be incredibly advanced but in other areas, it doesn't add up. The main example I use is with our debit cards. Across CZ we can use a "contactless card," meaning I no longer have to swipe it and I can just tap the card on a receiver and my purchase goes through. Not a lot of banks have instituted this technology in the United States so it's kind of a one up.
However, the main branch of my bank is in central Brno, and if I want to take money out or deposit money, I have to pick a number like it's the fucking DMV and wait until I'm called to then tell a real person how much money I want to deposit or withdraw. So the technology is great...but the automated system overall is not updated or consistent.
The major thing I have learned in the past nine months since I've been here is that expecting all of the bureaucracy to go seamlessly is ridiculous. The first tip I should have noticed this at is that for me to apply for a visa in the Czech Republic, I had to go to Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna, or Bratislava. I had to leave the country to apply to stay in the country which I came from. I thought it would be...easy.
Not only has the process been long, annoying, and every level of frustrating, it's been emotionally taxing. Because of the delays in my job, I had to back out of Edinburgh Fringe as I thought I'd be able to take time off in August if I had started on time. I lost my deposit I put towards a bed in a shared flat and my flight didn't get refunded. Overall I lost about $500 on this, money I could have put towards a deposit on a new flat or used for airfare to fly home and visit. There were times where I thought I could have gone home for a week, but because I couldn't trust any of the information being told to me, I couldn't risk being out of the country during a time where something might change...again. This process has affected my stand up, my family time, my creative drive, and my determination to be a real person.
My main "character defect" is patience, as AA told me. I don't have it. I don't know what to do with it when I do have it. I absolutely hate not having the answers to questions I have. My dad told me a story a few weeks ago where he was watching me when I was about age 2. He took these magnetic alphabet letters we had off the fridge and put them in front of me to spell different basic words. My dad would put the word out in front of me and say "cat!" while he'd point to Jake or Elwood, named after the Blues Brothers. I picked it up fairly quickly, but once the letters were scrambled, I didn't do well. He put the word "cat" with the letters out of order in front of me. I was getting agitated because I knew all the letters were there but I didn't know what to do to make it say "cat." I became inconsolable, crying and saddened, a two-year-old only wanting the answer that couldn't be given to me.
I've been too depressed and angry to write this post and part of me didn't want to let everyone know how I was doing. A lot of the complications are hard to explain to someone who hasn't gone through it themselves. For six months I've been trying to create some semblance of a schedule or routine, but I haven't had that. I sleep from 3am until 3pm. I've watched a lot of sitcoms and my YouTube history is full of conspiracy-related time holes. I try to do one thing a day, whether that's a load of laundry or checking. I cried myself to sleep last night because I really don't want that much: I just want my tiny apartment, my cat, and my job.
I've been looking at other flats because the one I'm in now is excessive and I'm paying for a lot of space I don't use. I went to look at a place in a panelak, a panel style building constructed in the former Czechoslovakia, and I fell in love with it. On the top floor with no one living above me, the windows looked out over the hillsides and industry of the city. I had a deck with windows that could be pulled aside in the summer for fresh air. The bathroom was brightly lit and there was sample storage space for the items I don't have. The kitchen was pristine but not sterile. With two major tram lines and five major bus routes at the bottom of the building, I'd have easy access to the job I have yet to work and the rest of the city, but being up thirteen stories, you couldn't hear anything and it was reassuringly quiet.
The weather has been cold and 50ish. It rained all night so when my hometown weather is upon me, I use it as an excuse to not go out. "Well at least I'm not spending any money!" I think to myself as I restart Brooklyn 99 and eat a tortilla for dinner. I cried myself to sleep last night because I honestly thought it wouldn't be this hard. I've put in the effort, made appointments, showed up on time, filled out the right forms, certified and translated all my documents correctly, followed up with phone calls and emails, and I still feel like I failed. Why is it that the Czech system is so backwards but I'm the one who feels like she failed? I don't want to sit here and be like "Yeah man the system, man...it's just the system out to get us" but really I don't think people realize how much easier these processes could be. I'm definitely spoiled coming from the US, but you'd think some changes would be implemented given that so many immigrants and foreigners are going through these exact same steps just to get a well paying job in a different country on a daily basis. At what point is it not worth it anymore?
And the worst part of all of this: the United States is so fucked up right now, I feel like I can't go home, even if I wanted to. Do I try to do best with the cards given to me in CZ or do I risk not having access to certain human facets at home? Do I have a home right now? I feel like I can't go home.
A lot of this is me simply rambling but I'm realizing it's a pretty accurate example of the state I'm currently in: I'm lost with no organized timeline and I can't trust anyone.
We Fucking Did It
I don't even really know where to start.
Tuesday was the most stressful day I've had in quite sometime, and not for the reasons you'd think. From beginning to end, my journey from driving to Sea-Tac to shutting the door to my new apartment after my landlord left lasted about 18 hours. I had my last pumpkin spice latte until further notice and had some bizarro goodbyes and not the kinds you want to stay awake thinking about in a bed that doesn't even have sheets yet.
While checking in for my flights, I had to move some weight around between bags to make the attendants and airline policies happy. Four duffel bags and three carry-ons was an ordeal and I'm incredibly thankful my mom took a half day to help me. I know I'm alone now, but I'm not sure if I could have completed that part of my journey by myself. The cost of these duffel bags was pretty absurd and I started to regret hanging onto things like an actual cowbell and Christmas lights and blankets and the shoes that only look good with one outfit and gosh darnet if I want to wear that outfit, it had better be complete.
Patrick did an amazing job. I had these visuals of him sprinting off through the airport in a Home Alone-esque dash. He was in a harness for the first time since I was going to have to remove him from his spaceship to go through airport security. When I returned from Minneapolis, I asked a woman on my flight home about traveling with her cat and if she had any tips that made anything easier. She told me that when going through security, send all of my shit through first and take Patrick last so that way I can have my hands free. And we did just that. Patrick made the littlest of peeps when I unzipped his cargo and grabbed him by his harness to release him very briefly while we went through an old school metal detector. A TSA agent swabbed my hands and helped me put Patrick back into his carrier after we were cleared.
He was a sight to behold, a toothless tabby being transported in a spaceship and defying the laws of aerodynamics in a single security checkpoint. Lots of people would stop and look at him peering out of it, especially if I was in line and someone was forced to stand behind me. Lots and lots of questions. But how does he pee!? was the most commonly asked inquiry. I had inserted pads beneath him just in case, but after the 18 hour journey, he didn't make any business. At one point during my flight to Frankfurt I took little potato pieces from my breakfast and sort of flung them into the carrier with my finger in hopes he wanted to eat, but after arriving at the flat in Brno, I discovered no pee but small ignored potato morsels.
I had two flights, a ten hour flight to Frankfurt and another one hour flight to Prague. Thanks to German efficiency, this process was probably the least stressful part of my trip. I was sitting in Premium Economy because Patrick was at my feet and we wanted the extra legroom, but when booking this flight about ten weeks ago, I didn't realize that my flight wasn't full, so I had no one sitting next to me for the long haul. I was able to sleep on and off while Patrick did little circles and poked his head up in the bubble of his backpack. The German flight attendants were quite pleased with his little capsule and cooed to him in their native language.
For most of the long flight, I slept on and off and weirdly enough, it was more uncomfortable to try to find a position to sleep in because I had extra legroom and no one sitting next to me. I had two meals, watched "Se7en" with the sound off, and watched the aerial digital graphic of our plane moving across the earth. I could get up and pee as I pleased, and I didn't have to crawl over anyone sleeping while trying to examine the perfect time to do so between food and drink carts and more complimentary coffee. I watched the sunrise over the Netherlands and most of the continent was foggy coming in. Lots of cooling towers and wind farms dotted the yellow and green rolling landscape. The best part was seeing the roofs of houses becoming more red as the sun protruded into Thursday. You don't see red roofs from above in the US unless it's the shitty motel chain the Red Roof Inn or you're flying over a new cookie cutter real estate development somewhere in the suburbs of Phoenix.
The one part of my journey I was nervous about was changing flights in Frankfurt. Frankfurt International is a huge airport and I had 80 minutes to change planes, go through passport control, and possibly another security checkpoint with Patrick in tow. Row 26 in a 747 isn't as far back in the plane as I anticipated, so I was able to get off the plane quickly after being bombarded with cute comments about Patrick from people who didn't even know he was on the flight. We disembarked into the Z Gates and needed to make our way up to the A Gates. Z14 to A60 shouldn't have been a long walk but going the opposite way through the alphabet probably would have been quicker. Moving walkways helped us pick up our pace and we made it to the gate in about 15 minutes. I talked to the attendant at the counter to make sure I was seated somewhere that gave Patrick enough room underneath the seat in front of me, and he placed us in a whole row by ourselves. I sat in the window while Patrick went underneath in the middle during our second segment to Prague. The inflight snack was...a pastry. That's all I know because I couldn't read the rest of the label. However I now know "sacharidy" is Czech for "carbohydrate" so it's made calculating insulin dosages less mysterious.
Patrick and I got off the plane and made it to baggage claim at Vaclav Havel. I had been sporadically using my phone's data to contact and update folks where I was in my journey and I now had to make a phone call to the person who was picking me up and driving me to Brno. Petr picked up the phone after a series of beeps rather than rings, and said he'd be waiting for me past customs. Ahh fuck, customs.
All of my bags arrived and I was able to push all of them on a cart but was stopped by the most European looking border patrol agents you could imagine.
Border patrol agent in broken English: Anything declare?
Me: Nope.
BPA: What about this?
He points to my back. Ahh, Patrick. I never thought I'd have to declare something as gentle and weenie as Patrick, but there we were. Kitty didn't receive a pet passport since he's not an "EU citizen" but instead had a 15-digit microchip, rabies vaccination certificate, and official forms signed by the USDA in Washington State. The three border patrol agents scurried away with my passport and kitty's forms while we watched other people simply exit the terminal and into the Czech Republic. I was probably held up because of the four duffel bags and cat in a spaceship thing but whatever. About five minutes later, they came back with a scanner to make sure Patrick did indeed have the right microchip to enter the country. We were let go and told "okay, enjoy now."
Petr was waiting on the other side of customs for me. For the first time in my life, I had someone waiting for me at the airport with my last name on a sign (which was fucking spelled right, btw - if you're a comedy producer and you're making flyers on Facebook but can't double check the spelling of my last name and literally the first person I make contact with after officially arriving in a country that doesn't speak English, get your shit together, get it ALLLL together...). Petr helped me with my bags and once again, Patrick's space capsule was ultimately confusing but admired.
Petr drove like he was on a suicide mission, like Liam Neeson's daughter was in trouble and we had to make it from Prague to Brno in under two hours. I've been told the trip can take up to four hours depending on weather and construction so basically it's no different than Minnesota WHY WOULD YOU CLOSE 35W IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY ON A WEEKEND GAWD. There's a heightened sense of nationalism here that I think transpired when Czechoslovakia split into two separate nations. All of the billboards here are Czech flags. There are other kinds of advertisements on bridges and banners, mostly for beer and some kinds of bottled water, but all of the regulatory sized billboards promote a different red, white, and blue. I nodded off a lot in the car with my mouth agape having only slept minimal hours on two different airplanes. Occasionally I'd wake up to foggy rolling hills beside semi trucks that are flat in the front, or a "lorry" as I guess I should be putting it now.
We arrived at my apartment with my landlord and his son waiting for me. They spoke more English than I expected so I felt good going forward with the process. My place is just like I expected it to be based off the pictures I saw a few months back and there are definite perks to the place. My building is covered in graffiti (some of it is actually good) so it adds to the distant 1980 central European aesthetic. I feel like I should be selling black market Levi jeans and vinyl records. The downstairs has a full size kitchen, a nook with a desk, and a lot of storage cabinets for all the things I gave away before I moved. I also have an upstairs on the "first floor" since the ground floor is now the first floor and that'll be confusing at some point. Upstairs is a living area with leather couches and armchairs, more storage space, a small bathroom, and a king size bed whaaaat I can basically fall asleep in any position and not touch the sides of the bed. It fucking rules.
Everything is hardwood and freshly painted. I have a balcony (which sounds so bourgeois; let's just call it a deck) overlooking some walkways and a carpark. My neighborhood is popular and in order to experience any social stuff or culture based activities, I only have to walk under 100 meters. Also getting used the metric system is real wacky. I keep converting it in my head but at some point, all these powers of ten will be useful since it makes way more sense. The only other countries that use the imperial measurement system aside from the United States are Myanmar and Liberia.
And then I got horrendously sick. I've had a flu type thing for the last few days and it zapped me of any initial energy I had to get anything set up in my place. I actually don't think I left the apartment for the first 24 hours I was here. My landlord left me a bottle of wine, which is probably now in some drainage pipes somewhere in Slovakia, and some sweet treats to get me to survive so I didn't have to leave. I have a grocery store akin to Albertson's a two minute walk away and an ATM where I can fill up my prepaid phone number. RIP 206 number I've had for over ten years. We had some good times.
On Friday I woke up early to venture out for household items to make the place more comfortable: trash bags, garbage can, dish towels, paper towels, bath mat, electric kettle, sheets, etc. Tesco is European Walmart and I was told if I ever needed to get anything basic, they'd most likely carry it. So I popped some cold medicine and headed for the bus. I'm usually pretty savvy with the public transportation of wherever I am, but it's always a bit unnerving boarding a bus when no one speaks English. The ride took under ten minutes and I was able to get in and out of Tesco with a ton of items in a huge duffel bag not fit for public transit and a Czech SIM card in under an hour. I'm not one of those people who dinks around in stores and needs to look and touch every single thing, so I'm pretty much a stereotypical male when it comes to shopping: get in, get out.
Aaaand on Friday night, I had my first comedy show with some other English speaking comics. For most of the day, I ran through all of my jokes and tried to come up with the Czech/European equivalents to very American things (Walgreens, Boeing, true crime Netflix documentaries, creepy vans, not having good health insurance, etc). I took a tram to ArtBar Druhy, a dungeon like bath/slaughterhouse style space with curved brick ceilings and bright white tile that only went up 8 feet on the walls and drains in the cement floors. Aside from the location where they filmed Saw, the place was great. I followed two comics who were born in Prague but are bilingual in comedy. There's this weird style of observational humor they have that's so clean yet integral to being a Czech citizen. I did a little over 20 minutes and blew out my voice for the remainder of the night, but I had a good feeling. Based on the size of the crowd and the responses I was getting for the majority of my jokes, the idea of performing stand up in English while in a country who's secondary languages are either German or Russian seems a bit easier than I anticipated. Feeling good and accomplished, I took the tram back to my street and spent the five minute walk looking at the can control of the local graffiti artists and the fog engulfing all the lights around me. I may not have to title my first album "Do You Guys Have That Here?" after all.
I finally got my phone set up, a fitted sheet on my bed, and compiled a list of things I still need to get for the place. Hangers. Ziplock bags. A Swiffer if there is such a thing here. Cat food. I'm proud of myself for spending so much time being well prepared. It's probably a Girl Scout thing but having a few months to research and plan helped me not be as stressed. I mean Tuesday can straight up go fuck itself into the ground, but having kitty with me and gaining new life experiences while making friends and telling jokes is so worth it.
On Monday I go to Prague to start my visa process with a specialist because I don't trust myself enough to get it done correctly. I have an appointment at the embassy in the morning for a criminal record print out because the Czech government wants to be sure I'm moving here and not "fleeing," as someone put it. I'll then register with the foreign police to let them know I have intentions of staying in the country longer than 90 days, which is the maximum time the Schengen zone allows you to stay without a visa. I'll probably check out the neighborhood where I stayed in 2009 and get some food and make a day of it. I return in the evening so Patrick won't be alone for the whole day. I wonder if I should get him a friend...
I'm not exactly sure where this blog is going or what I intend for it, but I wanted to provide my experiences for other people who are entertaining the idea of expatriating. The Czech Republic has a large expat community, roughly 15% of the whole country, and it appears even larger than that with students coming here to study on erasmus. I'm going to be documenting my experiences with comedy, sobriety, Czech and American bureaucracy, and trying to finally put my English degree to use. If you have any questions, shoot me an email at cedonehue@gmail.com. Also I'm sure these posts won't be as long and text heavy in the future depending on how well my progress is proceeding. Na schledanou! :)
One Week
I didn't realize until last night that my planning has been going really smoothly and I haven't encountered many hiccups along the way: no crashing browsers in the middle of purchasing airline tickets, most emails are replied to within 24 hours, and with enough intensive Googling, I can find the answers to most of my questions. I'm feeling strong and confident. And after beating the shit out of United Healthcare and knowing I'll never have to deal with them ever again, I'm feeling pretty good.
Part of me was wondering if this move, the apex of the biggest decision I ever made, was some sort of travel mania I was experiencing as a result of European separation anxiety, which, let's admit, that's the whitest thing I've probably ever typed. Half of my family has this huge knack for going above and beyond to experience the ultimate wanderlust at whatever cost. I use the word "wanderlust" hesitantly because it's such a Pinterest loving, university experiencing, privileged Instagramming phenomenon.
You know, this kind of bullshit.
I was reassured the sense of mania which arose was more of a longing or yearning for change, a chance to do something for me. Mania would have meant I decided to go to Europe the next day and emptied my bank for a one way ticket and left my apartment and kitty behind. Instead, this exodus for a better life, cost of living, even pseudo-socialism, was planned in a methodical, systematic way to navigate away from the challenges and worries I've successfully avoided.
Wanderlust isn't documenting it for everyone else except you. The last time I went to Europe, I wanted to be selfish with my experiences and I prevented anyone from accompanying me. I went on my eight-week trek alone and corresponded with those who needed updates regarding my whereabouts. I'd update Facebook when I was leaving one place and arriving in the next, which was effective since most people know if I haven't posted on social media in more than 24 hours, something's amiss and a Liam Neeson type character may need to be contacted. I documented my trip through extensive writing and pictures with the camera I last owned before succumbing to a phone with a camera feature. I knew I'd be back, I just didn't know when. Someone once told me the average American makes it to Europe once every seven years, even though definitions of "average American" are drastically different. All numbers aside, I see it as more of a pilgrimage and less of a visit expedition.
With kitty on my back, I'll be flying into Frankfurt for a tight little connection before the hour long flight to Prague. After arriving in Prague, I have about a three hour journey by car to Brno. All in all the journey will be roughly 14 hours for me and 18 for kitty. The minimal anxiety I have right now is having to take Patrick out of his carrier twice in order to pass through security check points. I have a little rocket ship backpack he'll be traveling in out and open on my floor so he can approach it instead of me shoving him into an unknown airline approved abyss at the last minute. Last week I managed to take him out for a small walk in it. His unstable weight made me unstable as well and it took him a minute to adjust to not traveling in a crate at my side. I talked with him as he looked out of his capsule at the surrounding condominiums, trees, asphalt, and changing leaves. After we got back indoors and I unzipped him from his container, he didn't bolt away and hide and hiss like cats do. He calmly walked out of it and rubbed against the framing, a good sign.
The reports I've found online have given me conflicting reports. Some sites tell me that once we pass through security at Sea-Tac, he'll be able to stay in there all the way to Bohemia and he'll only have to endure a security screening one time. Other sites tell me that once I arrive at my transfer point in Frankfurt, I'll have to go through passport control and take him out of his carrier again, at which time I'll have an hour and fifteen minutes to complete. It will be tight, but I've also heard of these famous "express lanes" for passengers who have connecting flights under 90 minutes...but we'll see.
A sneak preview of me trying to run through Frankfurt International Airport.
At the end of September, I moved out of the apartment I've been living in on Beach Drive. Oooooh Beach Drive, how fancy! Yeah, except I was living in a closet with barely any access to natural light and a ton of IKEA furniture, 90% of which I was able to resell during some mostly not sketchy situations via Facebook Marketplace. Most of the messages I received were just numbers a lot lower than what I placed the item at originally. 30. 45. 20.
No "hi" or "hello, I was inquiring about the like new piece of flatpack furniture you've placed upon the internet for those to peruse during the late night hours before bedtime?" Or whatever. Having worked in furniture and consignment for a bit, I was pretty confident placing prices on items that were hardly showing any signs of wear but definitely weren't new. After selling everything I could, I racked up about $900. I also spoke with my apartment complex and I'll be getting only $100 less from my original deposit because this broad knows how to spackle.
I went to Minnesota for a few days to say some much needed goodbyes and for a few stints of stage time. I headlined the club I started at in 2011, which has now changed hands something like 5-6 times. Upon landing, I immediately went into autopilot for navigating through the city and suburbs but then remembered lingering road construction from the summer was a thing and ended up traveling on streets I never knew existed until this weekend. The rental car company rented me a Chrysler 300 because why the fuck not, and it was a nice lil pick me up after having sold my car the week before. I saw my old roommate's two-year-old who is very adamant with her "yes" and "no" answers even though she doesn't really take "no" for an answer. She showed me Peppa Pig and her dad's guitars and the garden and pond in their backyard. I ate Culver's for breakfast one morning. Between the Vikings not doing that well and the goofy accents, Minnesota hasn't changed that much.
She's right.
Tonight I'm going to my last AA meeting before I leave Seattle. What I'm about to write may receive some pushback, but you know I'm not one to bullshit (at least I hope you know) and I'm going to be honest about how I feel in regards to my sobriety:
I no longer consider myself as someone "in recovery." In my eyes, the term "recovery" implies that I am weak or in constant need of care, attention, or help. Today, in my 32 month journey of "sobriety" (which I don't use interchangeably with "recovery"), I see myself as someone who is sober, someone who abstains from mind altering chemicals. Keep in mind, the definitions of sobriety or recovery are different depending on who you talk to. In the AA realm of sobriety, some people don't even take prescription medication, even if it's under the care of a doctor with specific instructions. Others use a method of "marijuana maintenance," a term I've become less fond of in recent months because although it may be a substitute for alcohol, you're still technically abstinent from alcohol.
I maybe average one meeting a month now. I haven't had a sponsor in over a year, and I don't work the 12 steps because I don't see the correlation of the claim to sobriety and not drinking. If alcoholism is a gene, or a chemical mutation or however you want to vaguely put it, then shouldn't it require a scientific solution? The Big Book (or Grandpa Big Book, as some people put it because grandfathers sometimes say things they don't mean or shouldn't or use antiquated terms for phenomena which have grown throughout the decades and manifested into something new or helpful) mentions that because alcoholism is a scientific disease, it needs a scientific solution. Yet, only the first step mentions alcohol.
When I began to do my fourth step about two years ago, the step where you need to write down all of your resentments, your entire sexual history, your fears, and everything you've done wrong in hopes that some of these things could be cleansed by turning your will over to something not all of us believe in, I was instructed to go to five meetings a week. Some of these meetings had 12 people, others had more than 100. In each circumstance, the same story arose within different stories of sobriety. "I've gone through treatment 10 or 12 times and let me tell you, this program works." Clearly it doesn't. It isn't a one size fits all program, however the treatment network in America treats it as such. Occasionally I still meet someone who is surprised I haven't relapsed.
You have 32 months? Well what did you have before that?
In my experience, there's a general sense of shame that comes along with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Unless I'm going to do the steps with a sponsor and go to meetings, I'll surely relapse. And if I do, it's because I didn't do just that.
But I haven't relapsed. I feel stronger than ever after I made the biggest decision I've ever made next to getting sober in the first place. I've encountered people who have said, "Oh, well you don't have a sponsor? Good luck out there!" in a tone matched by Bill and Bob in the Big Book. It's incredibly condescending towards atheists and women, and since the last serious revision of this book was done sometime during the Cold War, it doesn't make sense to me that there needs to be this ultimate solution to alcoholism. If I don't drink, I can't get drunk, and I know that if I relapse or "go back out" as it's put in program terminology, I'll die. I know that. But isn't that enough? Why do I need to be guilt tripped into doing something I don't believe in? Something that will shame me and separate me from others when the whole point is to unite us under one common addiction? The only reason I still attend sporadic meetings is because they're the only place I can meet others like me, others who had their lives destroyed by their chemical dependency. These people all happen to be in the same place as the system sets it up that way, but in turn, only 4-6% are successful. This attitude of "ride or quite possibly die" in Alcoholics Anonymous has even been incorporated in meme culture. Here's a few I found in a quick Google Image search:
Obviously these memes touch on a few different issues, but nowhere in my Google search did I ever see Leonardo DiCaprio or Keanu Reeves saying something like "Hey, whatever keeps you sober!" If anything, this attitude has isolated me from the program. I don't believe in god, whether it's your god, her god, whoever, and because of that, I can't force meaning onto something I don't believe in. Friends stopped calling me. I stopped getting invited to places. People who were really avid comedy fans stopped attending my shows, and I'd hate to think it was because I've found medical methods that work for me aside from Alcoholics Anonymous: seeing a therapist/psychiatrist, taking medication, visiting r/stopdrinking, reminding myself every day that I have a drinking problem and if I go back to my old ways, all of the progress I've made for myself will be erased.
All that being said, I've located an Alano club in Brno so if I feel that I need to attend a meeting, I can. There's English speaking meetings twice a day, one at noon and one at 7pm at a place not too far from my apartment. We all have the same goal, so why does it matter so much how we get there?
I leave one week from today. One week from right now, I'll be on a plane somewhere over Canada thinking about all of the regrets I have in regards to my journey. I have two boxes to ship, three open mics, and one more show to do. One more trip to Olympia, one trip to Everett, and a trip to the mall to walk Patrick around in his backpack so he gets used to busy, florescent environments.
It's actually here. I'm a week away.