Coronavirus III: The Charm
Welp...
I honestly have no idea why I'm here, here as in this website updating this blog with that old email address. I realized I hadn't updated in a while, and I feel like that's how I always start these posts. It's been a few months since our second wave, and now we're into our third. Hat trick! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, welcome back! I have some tough news for you and you may want to sit down but please do so at six feet away.
The pandemic has left me feeling...laughably defeated. In one week it'll be a year since IBM sent us packing. Well, not packing, but they sent us home not knowing when we would return. In the beginning, there was a lot of optimism. We'll ride this out the best we can and be back in the office by September! It's currently March and I'm still very much isolating in my home, and it's because the situation in the Czech Republic has become a catastrophic failure.
We've had rules and restrictions against covid in place the entire time, but last September folks began scratching their chins no longer covered by masks and pondered why our once very good numbers (which only occurred when we followed the steps of every other country in Europe) were now quickly becoming very bad numbers. The Czech Republic at one point was actually the last country in the EU without a covid-related death. Pretty impressive for people who don't give the flyingest fuck about regulations in place or enforcing them. That public Prague dinner send off after the first wave really caught us with our pants down, probably because no one was wearing pants anymore.
When the second wave started to gather strength in mid-August 2020, I was sheltering myself before any restrictions were in place. And honestly my situation hasn't changed because I still don't have a choice. Regulations didn't need to be active for me to observe proper social distancing protocols and limiting my interactions with others. I didn't renew my tram pass because I hardly ever take public transportation enough to justify getting one. I wore my mask indoors and outdoors. I had opportunities to leave and go be social and frolic or whatever it is we used to do, but I didn't. My new normal was having each day be exactly like it was the day before. Around 5pm each day, I switch to my personal computer from my work computer and stay in the same place, typing at the same speed and visiting the same websites.
While many new regulations have been introduced, they largely haven't affected my day-to-day Liz stuff. I'm still indoors, I still show up to work on time, I still need to tire Gossamer out around 11pm. I did get a blender in January and that was a real game changer diet wise. I got new glasses on a wild crapshoot spawned from an Instagram post I saw at 3am. I bought an obnoxiously loud Hawaiian shirt I definitely don't need. All this was orchestrated from the same table in my same apartment with the same movie on in the background.
However, the third wave regulations are fierce, fierce because we can't afford to fuck this up again. We had two pretty good chances, but we burned that bridge during the public dinner on the literal bridge to celebrate "the end of coronavirus." Each county border is patrolled by police and/or the military. To enter the adjacent county, you need formal documentation from your employer. The curfew was mostly abolished as our freedom of movement is extremely limited anyway and we're not supposed to be out unless we're gathering supplies. Pretty much everything aside from grocery stores, mini marts, pharmacies, medical facilities, banks, and the post office is closed. You need to walk your dog within 1km of your home. We also need to wear ffp2 respirators. No more cloth masks, and if you don't have an ffp2, you can wear two surgical masks at the same time. Again, all these changes by and large don't affect me as a health-conscious person. What does affect me is the covid vaccine and when I can get it.
The vaccine rollout in the Czech Republic has been horrendous. The first inoculated were citizens over the age of 80 and healthcare workers. Supposedly my group of "high risk" was also supposed to be included in that starting 1 January. But it's 5 March. We didn't purchase enough vaccines and we don't have the capability to store them. Other European countries are even donating vaccines to us. If Trump was still president he probably would have thrown paper towels at us. The Czech government is in talks with China and Russia about procuring some of their vaccines, and of course there's been a lot of push back from the Czechs. Russia anything is bad, and like...I get it. You don't just become a Soviet satellite state overnight (well, actually you do). This trend of dismissing the Russian vaccine because it's Russian seems silly. Some could argue science has taken the place of god in the Motherland over the last 100 years, and time and again they proved it, you know with that whole moon thing or whatever. There's also a crazy amount of xenophobia increasing above the usual levels here because the Chinese vaccine is Chinese, home field advantage for racists and coronavirus. But our hospitals are maxed out. High school kids are doing shifts in hospitals and doing on-the-spot training because our healthcare system is exhausted. Poland, Germany, and Austria have offered to take in Czech patients because there aren't enough people here to care for them, and you know you're fucked when Poland is the one offering to lend a hand. Acute procedures are getting cancelled in hospitals and clinics across the country, and we still can't wear our fucking masks right.
A friend took this TODAY. TUH. DAY. We are one year into this thing and this woman, not only is she sporting a nose dick, but she's almost going out of her way to not wear it and is refusing to observe the structural purpose of the metal piece in the bridge of the mask. That's the point of the mask. One time use! More effective! YOU'RE SO CLOSE.
Of course none of this is enforced. Obviously enforcement means money and money means...something here, I'm almost sure of it. Maybe a bribe would work instead... I'm not trying to insinuate this woman will kill people by nosing around while on public transportation. It's the careless, lazy attitude that's easily in view and adopted by others is what will kill more people. This is why I don't have a tram pass. This is why I leave my home once, maybe twice a week if it's absolutely necessary. I know what I can't be around, and it's been like this for one year.
The good news (hahahahahaha) is that the vaccine registration website has recently been updated with information that may prove to be factual! Supposedly I can have a GP or a care specialist register on my behalf as they're more official than me. Imagine that, a doctor being more official than me, the woman who bought a Hawaiian shirt in January for no reason at all. I emailed my diabetologist with the information on the website in both Czech and English to nullify any translation errors. I realize I did this on Friday at 6pm, and I have inadvertently created a minimum of 48 hours of waiting time for myself, but it's the first step.
And that's all I can do. A lot of times I feel ultimately helpless. A couple of weeks ago I entertained the idea to fly back to the US to get the vaccine, but after some reflection on the logistics of what would be needed for this to work seamlessly (vacation time, no missed appointments, appointments happen as scheduled, open and available airfare, crossing borders, going through layovers and transit points not in the Czech Republic and abiding by their rules and restrictions, getting the negative test to travel and hope that will get me all the way through to Seattle, waiting the weeks between the two doses, isolating between doses in a safe environment) was really overwhelming.
I know it's absolutely not healthy, but I caught myself doing the "man if times were normal and I had a lot of money, what would I be doing?" imaginary thinking that makes us immediately depressed. And while it was very escapist, it was pleasant to take a momentary break and think about owning a ranch in New Mexico and having one or two horses and some really big dogs and Gossamer, a wraparound Roche Bobois Mahjong sofa and a big telescope on the extended porch, an art studio set up for photography, painting, welding, and sculpture, a kiln, sprawling carpets, only wearing caftans with big glasses and no shoes except for cowboy boots, amateur archeology, huge windows to watch the thunderstorms in June, roasting pinion and maybe marshmallows, writing in front of a fire all year round, trail riding after breakfast, sometimes owls hide in the eaves, collecting arrowheads, roasting jerky in the smoker...
...or something like that.
In this alternate fantasy where Liz has her shit together, I can never tell if I'm alone. I think it's because it's very selfishly me and it doesn't take anyone else into consideration. There's a difference between self care and being selfish. Is collecting arrowheads selfish? The jury is still out and very socially distanced on that one. I'd like to not be alone, but in this fantasy I'm alone.
The part that hurts is that even if all of this was available to me, I'd probably still be doing what I'm doing right now: typing on a computer wishing I wasn't alone.
Ahoj, Polsko!
Last week I went on my first real comedy tour that wasn’t just two back to back nights in Wisconsin. Prague’s Kristyna Haklova founded Velvet Comedy and has been a force with whom to be reckoned in the European comedy scene. She organized four dates for her, myself, and Lucie Machackova over five days throughout Poland. We had all been discussing the shows, promotions, and transportation for a few months now, and this past weekend, it finally manifested into a Soviet-laden and bombastic spree through a country whose borders have been fought over for centuries.
Former Soviet countries (or Second World countries as they’re less commonly called) are often bundled into one specific group where many assume they’ve endured the same hardships. Sure, the Czech Republic and Poland both have had their fair share of annexations, battles, and fluctuating political borders, but Poland is different. While the country has adopted many Westernized ideas such as the hipster coffee and wine bar and the scalp massage parlor, the gray scenery is still a haunting spectacle reinforced with brutalist architecture, large scale monuments of mountain movers past, and little old ladies pulling shopping carts across the cobblestones behind them. In five days, we visited Wroclaw, Lodz, Warsaw, and Krakow, each with their own unique comedy clique and variation of the Polish street food known as “zapiekanka,” which is basically pizza on a baguette. Krakow is the only city I’ve been to in Poland and I was eager to see what the rest of the cities had to offer. When we weren’t on stage, we were either sleeping or taking a bus across the great plains of the country. Buses proved to be the most economical way to travel and we splurged for the train when we wanted extra legroom or a steadier wifi connection.
Starting and ending in Brno.
We all convened in Wroclaw, a city roughly four hours north of Brno. Lucie and Kristyna had come from Prague earlier in the day and I took three separate trains over five hours to meet with them. Jim Williams, another American expat comedian whose job is a hospital clown akin to Patch Adams, gave us his AirBnB for clean and hospitable accommodation. Located near the main train station and “Old Town,” Jim’s place was a short walking distance to the venue. With lots of stone and brick, the location for our first show was as if it was built by Hogwarts students for open mic nights and interpretive magic. More often than not, the shows I’ve done have been in a basement or cellar or bunker, which means no cell service. It feels strange to be immediately cut off from the world that’s so close above you, but it was nice not to have a handy distraction on me at all times. The crowd was warm and happy and extremely ready to laugh. They weren’t overly generous with their laughter, but all the jokes I wanted to land went as planned and my new stuff about my moving process from the US to CZ has been working well. We even met a few other American comedians based in Wroclaw, which is so strange to say considering most Americans have probably never even heard of the place.
After a great show and a night well rested at Jim’s, we caught a bus to Lodz. Three of the letters in “Lodz” have some sort of slash or line above them so in Polish, it’s technically pronounced “wouldge.” As Americans, we pronounce it “Loadz” and giggle when we say it. It was in Loadz (haha) we realized the more east we went into Poland, the less Westernized it was. This may seem like a fairly obvious observation where west is West and east is East, but the further east we traveled, conveniences, dry wall, and clean air weren’t found. Poland’s air quality is generally terrible. It’s hard to differentiate the smoldering smog from the manufacturing industry from the slate colored climate surrounding every city, but it added to this Soviet aesthetic which is only seen in certain spots in the Czech Republic. The old Cyrillic style font is used by many businesses, signs are trilingual in Polish, English, and Russian, and every surface could have used a decent pressure washing. Of course there are malls, Ubers, and KFC in Lodz, but you could tell the outer shell of most businesses and people have been through some shit.
Upon arriving, we found a Polish restaurant with a whiteboard menu outside and a very homey yet commie feel on the inside. The walls and ceiling were only half painted, the floorboards probably came with the original purchase of the home back in 19xx, and the tables were set up in what was at some point definitely a living room. The kitchen in this home was neither industrial nor steel, but instead a kitchen like you’d find in any two-bedroom home that served as the laboratory for all things pork and potatoes. The server only spoke Polish, but both Kristyna and Lucie are Czech and they were able to translate some Polish since the roots of both languages can be similar. We tried to order water but we were told there was none. Bottled water is common in many restaurants in Europe so initially we thought maybe she didn’t have any, but after some linguistic investigation, we were told there was no water period. Between our guestimations and Google Translate, we were able to order a variation of potato with some kind of meat off of a handwritten menu. My order was a large potato pancake filled with gravy and pork pieces that could have choked a horse. Like most Polish food, it lacked salt and spices commonly found in most kitchens. Lucie and Kristyna also received similar dishes of some rendition of potatoes and chicken cooked in an indistinguishable manner, so at one point we all traded dishes so we could each taste our poor navigation skills of a Polish menu.
Prior to the show we stayed in a “stack,” those giant Soviet style apartments with a billion units, the same floor plan in each unit, and an elevator in desperate need of speed, repairs, and safety. We stayed with Rui, a Portuguese resident in Lodz who works in IT. He explained that the reason the city can look so empty is because there are jobs available yet no one wants to move to Lodz and take them. He works specifically with translation and while he has as comfortable life, he seems like he could be happier elsewhere. Rui led us to our venue for the night, a hipster New York City style loft with white walls and a black floor. All of the chairs and tables were forged out of old shopping carts, barrels, and other items and materials you’d see in a challenge on Project Runway. The show wasn’t well attended, but the 15 people we did have were incredibly happy with the show, a few of which were other comics in Lodz. The idea of comics living everywhere is sometimes surprising, I guess because comedy is such an American thing to me, so while the buildings and food are very Polish, the humor is American. I’ve been trying out new material regarding the differences between “here and there,” a common topic for expat comedians to elaborate upon. Stereotypes and the fascination with different habits, people, languages, and culture is popular material for those wanting to hear stories from other places. In Warsaw, this worked the best, probably since I made fun of it a little bit.
Stacks, Night Woodge, and Kristyna and I with our flyer.
Warsaw is its own animal when it comes to Poland. Most cities look fairly industrious from the outside but they have a charming middle, like a Marxist Cadbury egg. When you emerge from the main train station, all you see is glass and steel. Large hotels, large billboards, and streets with sputtering old cars and an upsetting amount of lanes are common place in what’s nicknamed “The Big Village in the Middle of Nowhere.” It’s almost alarming. It was so busy and hectic it made Brno seem sleepy and a place where people would stroll instead of walk. Of course there aren’t many historical caricatures so often found in European capitols. Warsaw was the second most destroyed city of WWII behind Dresden and before Leningrad. Some say Warsaw looked like a sea of swept fire while it choked on its last battle cry. There was a lot of rebuilding to do in the years following 1945 but some villages and plots on the outskirts of “Nowhere” had clearly been abandoned for decades. I’m sure the Iron Curtain rusting over helped to create these giant intersections under which had tunneling pedestrians since there’s no time to pause the traffic of the busy streets for safety, but even in its new, shiny industry, Warsaw was weirdly haunting.
Outside Warsaw Glowny
Our show in Warsaw was in another dungeon close to some fake palm trees erected on a busy street. I still don’t know if this is a fun joke Poles have about their climate or something, but it seemed out of place (as opposed to a normal palm tree?) Loko was very kind with us and extremely busy. The show was oversold due to the hustle and bustle of another expat comic living in Warsaw, Christine Skobe. She hails from Canada and calls Warsaw a more temporary home as the air quality borders on opaque and it’s a considerable health concern for some. She also gave up her living room couch which three women managed to sleep on for a few hours in the middle of the night after some much needed showers. Christine was a saint and hosted the show with a few guest sets sprinkled in between our common sarcasm and jokes. The stage we were on was a pallet with a Persian rug over it. I had to be careful not to step in between the slots of the MacGyvered stage and end up in a Warsaw emergency room, but I had fun with it. At one point I think I said “This is Polish as fuck.”
I’m still not 100% confident doing my sober material over here, or anywhere for that matter. Drinking is a huge part of multiple cultures so when someone brings up that they don’t drink, people are sort of taken aback but in a way that mean mugs you with comments like “So why are you here, then?” It would be like someone moving to Seattle who doesn’t smoke weed. Oh wait, that happened to me too. I trudge through it because I want to be honest and tell my truth. Sometimes I talk about it at the start of my set so I can get it over with and move onto material which is more relatable. If I put it in the middle, people aren’t sure what to do. They feel bad for me, like they’re not sure if they should laugh. I felt like I had to discuss it since I had my three year sobriety anniversary on Valentine’s Day, the day I arrived in Wroclaw. I’ve thought to myself on occasion, “well what am I gonna do, not talk about it?” And not talking about it doesn’t seem like an option. Not drinking is now a part of me, a part of my identity but it doesn’t entirely create who I am as a human being.
Team Warsaw!
Everyone on the show did great and we retrieved more zapiekanka on the way home to Christine’s. In the morning we Ubered to the bus station to catch a ride to Krakow. We had the day off so there was no rush on getting into the city, but we had about five hours to spend in a cramped space and wanted it over with as soon as Polishly possible. Lucie, Kristyna, and I grabbed snacks from the “delikatesy” before boarding to trek across the plains to my favorite little city, which is technically the second biggest city in Poland.
Krakow is this weird mix of Old World charm, cranky Jews who refused to move or survived hell, well-preserved historical monuments, and carbohydrates. It’s my favorite place. With the cobblestone streets so jagged they could crack a cankle or two, the place known as Slavic Rome, Little Vienna, or the Florence of Poland has roughly the same cost of living as the Czech Republic but they have better war stories, street art, and graffiti. We stayed with a couple who are friends with Kristyna and live a short tram ride away from the city center and Kazmierez, the Jewish Quarter. We spent the evening wandering between brick synagogues, old iron gates, and neon signs featuring old communist facets while navigating the seas of obvious tourists. I don’t really go barhopping unless I want to try your best club soda on tap, but I was able to drink some amazing tea alongside some creative but grungy cocktails.
Walking alone in the winter became tiresome and upon returning to our temporary home, I slept for about 14 hours. Everyone reconvened for lunch the following day at a place we had walked by the night before. Israeli and Jewish food was their specialty and although I’ve never really had either, I believe it to be true. Afterwards we (they) got coffee from an Israeli teahouse and I drank rooibos alongside my fellow caffeine consumers. We took it easy for the rest of the day until our show at a punk bar near Old Town, or “Miasto Stare.” It felt so safe and serene to be back in Krakow walking under barren trees and cathedrals on the way there. Krakow feels like a less industrial Brno despite it being a bigger city. I’ll definitely be back, maybe in another nine years.
The last show wasn’t full and the audience wasn’t quite sure what to do with me, as I’ve discovered with Czech people. I don’t look European. I have fairly non-traditional features and I’m not afraid to present myself as such and augment my differences. There’s a very sleek “look” Central and Eastern European women strive for. Their hair is always very straight and pristine. They wear the same winter style of a puffy parka jacket, skinny jeans, knockoff Timberland boots, and minimal make up. So when a short sarcastic American woman treads on their turf, they become confused and gawk. I’m not even really sure it’s gawking; it’s probably more of a Resting Czech Face and I just perceive it to be negative ogling. When I go on stage, I feel like there’s the same silent judgement of “Make us laugh, yankee.” It might not be that aggressive, but there have been times people are so inquisitive about WHY I’m in their part of the world. They’re honestly astonished a person from a country like the United States of America has expatriated to a place of cold weather and even colder wars.
I stumbled through my set and caught my bus to Berlin. Actually, let me back track a minute.
Two days into the Poland trip, I was notified I could pick up my visa in Berlin (because Germany is the place a person needs to go to obtain legality in the Czech Republic?) or I could pay someone twice the amount it would take me to get there to do it for me. I cancelled one bus ticket and scheduled another, a nine-hour rumble through Southwestern Poland and Eastern Germany. Luckily I had two bus seats to myself so I managed to get roughly three hours of sleep while huddled in a fetal position. I watched the sunrise over Germany and safely arrived at the main bus station in Berlin, which featured many popular and whimsical characteristics found in most bus stations: used syringes, someone looking for half smoked cigarettes on the ground, and a person having a cell phone conversation at a really unreasonable volume. I took the U-Bahn (it sounds so much cooler than subway) to the Czech embassy and after 15 minutes of waiting, I FINALLY GOT MY VISA!
It's real!
But I couldn’t go home just yet. I hopped on a train in Berlin an hour later to head to the trade license office in Prague. They needed to see my visa so I could officially get my trade license, however it wasn’t going to be ready for two more days. Instead of making a trip all the way back to Prague later in the week, they kindly agreed to mail it to me in Brno. I spent roughly two hours in Prague and then hopped on a train back to Brno where I sorted through my pocket change of Crowns, Zlotys, and Euros. I returned much earlier than I assumed I would and got to spend the evening snuggling my kitty who barfed in my bed and on a Late Show with David Letterman t-shirt. Someday I’ll spend more than four hours in Berlin and actually get to see some of the city instead of just the walk from the train station to the embassy and back.
So I’m home now. Barfy kitty is in my lap and he’s been really clingy this week. My teaching schedule has picked up big time and I decided to be exclusive with just one school as organizing two separate schedules was becoming conflicting and ultimately costing me money. I’m happy I’m becoming close friends with the other teachers at my school and they’ve been happily able to accommodate me during the time while my visa was pending. I have three days off so I’m looking forward to sleeping, conquering an apparent black mold invasion in the window in my bathroom, and watching some recently released comedy specials. I also made plans with my mom and she’s coming to visit me in 25 days! We’ll be spending half the time in Brno relaxing and taking it easy and then half the time doing some major sightseeing in Prague. This week has been busy as fuuuuuuck.
But for now, hurray! I’m legal to work in the Czech Republic for the next year and no one can stop me.
Red Pill vs. Blue Pill
Woo! My visa has been approved!
With a long stay visa, I'll be legal to work in the Czech Republic for the next year. I have a few more bureaucratic things to take care of in regards to getting paid, but the waiting and the hard part is over. A year from now, I'll need to reapply for two years after I prove I'm able to support myself being independently employed with my trade license. The schools I currently work for allow me to teach as a contractor, meaning I'm responsible for my own taxes, health insurance, and future visa processes.
It's a huge relief. I've heard these horror stories of messy visa applications with different contracts and the length of stay available to expats and so far I've done my best to avoid that. One of the complicated things about visas is that no one situation applies to everyone. While I was doing research before I left the US, I was getting an insane amount of misinformation from people who assumed I was from the EU or that I was already a Czech resident but not a Czech citizen. CZ separates expats and their rights by where they come from. For instance, members from the EU, people from the UK, Americans, Australians, Canadians, and other citizens labeled "third country nationals" all require a different visa process to apply for residency or for work. My dear friend KD swooped in during June of last year to alert me to her existing troubles as an American abroad. She highlighted details given to me that were incorrect and struggles she encountered both in CZ and abroad to steer me in the right direction. I'm infinitely thankful for her and I couldn't have completed this exodus without her. She's also been extremely real with me in that she explains things about Czech bureaucracy with no sugar coating. I'd rather someone be up front with me and be brutally honest than leave me in the dark to figure out these processes on my own. The truth can hurt, but it makes for good progress in the future.
Prior to receiving the email regarding my visa approval, I went to my first therapy appointment since October. I had done some research about who to contact before leaving the United States but hadn't bothered to contact anyone until about two weeks ago. Therapists generally don't take health insurance in CZ and just do a flat rate for one hour, which alleviated me trying to find someone who takes my non-existent insurance but won't break my back. In USD, prices average out to about $20/hr. In the past, my therapists have been anywhere from included in the cost of my health insurance or their rates were north of $130/hr. There also seems to be a sliding scale with bilingual therapists where the cost is lower in Czech but a few more crowns if you require an English speaker.
Bretislav is a mix of Hopper from Stranger Things and a Czech version of Dr. Frasier Crane. I had seen his picture online when I was looking for therapy options in 2017 and like a lot of comedians I know, they look incredibly different from the professional headshot they've loosely been relying upon for a number of years. He listed his credentials and his areas of expertise, which is important when seeking out therapy. Two years ago I had made the mistake of going to therapy with someone who wasn't keyed in about addiction, the recommended treatment involved, and the after effects of staying sober. I ended up having to explain a lot of facets of AA and how the recovery system works, which was fine, but needing to contextualize addiction within my anxiety and depression proved to be fairly difficult. I was relieved to see Bretislav specialized in all three areas.
We emailed back and forth about finding a time to meet and I met him at his office. His entire workspace was larger than my last apartment in Seattle. Fifteen foot high ceilings (or roughly four meters?) and tall windows allowed for a lot of natural light to be complemented by bright hardwood floors and off-white walls. He had two IKEA swivel accent chairs facing each other with a coffee table separating them. Books in Czech and English and plants I assumed were fake decorated his bookcases. After seeing the entire arrangement, I went into design mode and mentally reorganized his space with my belongings to my liking. The space would photograph well.
Bretislav sat across from me with a pen and a legal pad. I've been trying to figure out where the fuck to get yellow legal pads in Brno since I've arrived but I was determined not to be distracted during our first meeting. He asked me a few basic questions and explained that there are some complexities in the English language he may not understand so there's a chance I'll need to clarify on occasion. I've had to do this a lot in CZ since I've arrived and doing it for the person treating me for my emotional free-for-alls didn't seem like too much to ask since he'll need to understand me on multiple levels. I talked about where my issues stemmed from: my parents' divorce, dating men I shouldn't as a result, alcoholism, mentally taxing diabetes care, feelings of inadequacy, running away from my problems and my severe fight or flight instinct, and the general idea that I am not enough and I never have been. Of course a lot of these things are going to take longer than 50 minutes to delve into, especially when talking at half the speed I normally talk to ensure no one is lost in translation.
Because it had been so long since I've spoken to an impartial party, it became overwhelming to not leave out any details about why I scheduled an appointment. I wanted Bretislav to know everything immediately so he could stamp a diagnosis on me or lend me resources to curb the things I've been told are wrong with me, my faults, criticisms, and critiques. I explained how a recent text from an ex-boyfriend threw me for a loop of would have/could have/should have hypotheticals and how it has led me to second guess a decision my mom once deemed "dramatic." From what I understand, a lot of expats experience this phenomenon. Moving abroad is easily the biggest decision we've ever made, maybe behind on deciding which university to attend or other life struggles I'm unaware of. We start to examine all of the different paths our lives have taken, what prompted us to pack up everything important, sell whatever wasn't important, and uproot ourselves from the life of familiarity we no longer desired.
But this wasn't just a "well maybe if I wasn't so irrational, we'd be married" situation. This was a "maybe I should have continued my studies in Art History and applied for graduate school abroad" situation or a "maybe I should have picked a profitable major and ignored all of my creative impulses so I'd be rich but boring" possibility. It wasn't the text I received at 4am; it was all of these paths culminating into a Czech nexus of uncertainty. I'm happy I'm here and I'm happy I made the decision to move. It feels selfish from time to time, but ultimately the path I'm on right now seems to outweigh all of the others, and the part that bothers me the most is never knowing what could have happened if I took a different path, leading me to feel guilty and ashamed.
I tried to explain all of this to Bretislav in the five minutes remaining in our appointment and he politely reminded me that if I decide to move forward with his services, we'll have plenty of time to discuss the events and neuroses which make me a human being. After all, whatever has happened will stay that way. Things that have happened to me can't erase themselves no matter which country I run to. Sometimes I wonder if I didn't move east enough. Instead of being nine hours ahead of Seattle, I should be 14 hours ahead and living in a yurt with a dirt floor and a couple who does all of their hunting with a trained eagle out on a vast steppe. But choosing to live in a yurt means little to zero access to insulin, so here we are in Brno.
It's been an emotional week. Now that my visa is done, I can acquire Czech public health insurance. I used my credit card for the first time since I've been here to pay for medication for the next four months - $130 for a four month supply of Cymbalta and Wellbutrin with no insurance. In the US, a 30 day supply of Cymbalta alone is $260 without insurance. Even though my costs are cheap in comparison to the United States, I'm happy to know I can officially begin this process, as it's a lot of the reason why I'm here in the first place. I gotta take care of me, and sometimes I forget to do that.
Some resemblance of an actual life here in Brno is beginning to emerge. I'm no longer in visa limbo, I have access to an incredible network of doctors and specialists, and I can legally acquire income to support myself. The first few months have been tough because most of my savings has gone towards paying rent without receiving anything in return as it was illegal to get paid. I can go forth and be productive! And I have incredibly amazing things on the horizon. On Wednesday I leave for Poland for a five day tour with two amazing female comics from Prague. Our journey will take us to Wroclaw, Lodz, Warsaw, and Krakow with an extra day to do some sightseeing. Poland has similar costs to CZ so we won't be going broke and our accommodation is with other comedians, meaning new friends and neighbors. Another American expat comedian in Poland is helping us coordinate travel and costs with different venues where we're performing. I can't wait.
So in hindsight, wanting to have a solo adventure in my life isn't bothering me; it's all of the unknown adventures I'll never know about that could have been possible.
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.