The Gun Show

I've never held a gun. I did "riflery" at Camp Orkila as a kid, but when you hand a bb gun to a 13-year-old wearing a tie-dye shirt, there are a few confederate soldiers who might like a word with you about using the term "riflery" so casually. Or maybe not. The 1860s weren't exactly a hotbed of safe and harmonious activities for Americans.

If my circle of people encountered someone with a gun, we would shout "Oh fuck, someone with a gun is here" and not "Hurray! Someone with a gun is here!" I grew up in a family who didn't have guns and they had their reasons of not wanting them around future generations. My parents were both within six degrees of gun experiences that weren't pleasant, stories I didn't find out until I was almost 30. Me personally, I've never had a bad experience with a gun that would have influenced my opinion about them one way or another. Experiences were exposed to me, however, that turned me into someone who isn't necessarily anti-gun, but someone who is anti-certain-type-of-person with a gun, or anti-military-grade-weapons-available-to-the-general-public. The instances I'm speaking about are the mass shootings at schools, concerts, and nightclubs, places where people of any background or history should feel safe and not feel scared of other Americans who turn their political beliefs into violent cries for help. One might say the new millennium hasn't exactly been a hotbed of safe and harmonious activities for today's Americans, either.

When I was teaching last year, I taught one of my classes about the second amendment, the one where some 18th century guys with syphilis said that we (men) had the right to bear arms (shitty muskets) as long it was well regulated (not regulated at all). I explained that the legal tenets of our society had not properly forecast the changes in technology over the next 250 years. We no longer fight each other with cannons and death does not arrive via guillotine. I suppose a group of five cannons could be well regulated. You push them off one ship and onto another. You have to pull it by a rope. It's tough to lose them. You'll always know if it's loaded, god forbid a cannon gets into the wrong hands.

This piece of law hasn't aged gracefully and its benefits are often the first straws at which people grab when defending their rights to own a gun. Some people own guns simply because they can. I can legally own a horse, but I don't. I'm sure there's some research out there proving that horses are more deadly than guns, but I'm not clinging to colonial law for my right to own a horse. This is the conversation I imagine people having when making a case for the second amendment:

"I'm going to eat some ice cream, mom!"

"Not right now, Johnny. You'll spoil your supper!"

"BUT DAD SAID I COULD!" 

That's what people sound like, and when I say "people," I mean large white men with a particular rural accent who are somehow deathly afraid the government is going to go door-to-door to make them surrender their semi-automatic ice cream. I'm also not trying to get into a huge debate or an argument about why certain people act the way they do when they're in possession of certain guns. When I spoke with my students about the gun rights in the Czech Republic, they seemed supportive of their laws, probably because there are only an average of 165 gun-related deaths per year. We often equate gun-related deaths to homicide, but this figure includes suicides, hunting accidents, accidental discharges, or improper training. We were able to hold a civil discussion about our countries' differing laws, our views on violence, society, social constructs, and stereotypes, and no one lost an eye or got blocked on Facebook. It didn't boil down to the popular argument of guns vs. mental illness or white men vs. everyone else. Most of them supported the idea of owning a gun simply because of the stricter laws in the country. 

During this class, a student of mine asked me when was the last time the United States had a school shooting. This was the day after Parkland last year. Now I have to clarify which mass shooting I'm talking about. Was it the outdoor concert? Was it the college or the high school? Was it the synagogue or the mosque? There are too many to keep track of. I asked my students when the Czech Republic's last school shooting took place, but they told me they've never had one. 

The Czech Republic has a population of ten million people and it boasts as having less strict gun laws than the rest of the EU nations, but when compared to American gun laws, they're actually fairly comprehensive. Multiple tests need to be passed, you can only own certain types of firearms, and education and licenses must be acquired prior to purchasing a gun. You have to complete on-course training and clear a medical check. I explained the complexity behind gun laws in the US as we have 50 different states, meaning there are 50 different sets of laws and ordinances that are sometimes fully enforced or not enforced at all. Czech people are always mystified by the size of the United States. 350 million people are spread out across a country whose width is equal to the diameter of the moon. Imagine how many guns are in a place like that. 

I don't know a lot about guns. To be honest, mostly what I know about guns comes from the ballistic analysis scenes in Law & Order: SVU. I know about muzzles, gel tests, accuracy vs. precision, the components of a cartridge, etc. But I don't know what they cost, which states have which laws, where to acquire one in which country. I am not the most knowledgable nor the most confident when talking about firearms. I can identify guns, as in I can stand here and say "that is a gun." That's the extent of my education when speaking with people about their collection, arsenal, bunker, stockpile, or whatever.

About two weeks after losing my job last November, I got a call from a Czech "engineering company" I had applied to for a social media management position. He spoke to me in Czech and I greeted him with much poorer Czech, but we continued the conversation in English when he asked if I was American. I told him I was from the States and had been in CZ for a little over a year. He explained they needed a marketing specialist who would be in charge of their social media presence and content creation. I have eight years of experience and they needed someone who spoke English, so it seemed like a perfect fit. But then he asked me, "So let me ask you, how do you feel about guns?" I laughed nervously and gave him a non-answer. "Well I'm American, so..." He laughed and didn't inquire any further. I couldn't tell if asking my opinion about firearms was job-related or the fact that he found out I was American, and as you know, every American is from Texas and obsessed with guns and 1980s butt-rock. He gave me instructions on what to do when I arrive and I scheduled the mysterious job interview into my phone. 

The next week I took two buses way out to the suburbs of Brno. This part of town is mostly factories, warehouses, sanitation facilities, the old airport, giant smokestacks, highways with no crosswalks, weird smells, and trucks with flat faces. I'm no stranger to the public transportation system here and I'm accustomed to looking slightly disheveled whenever I show up somewhere, but I tried to look my best. I wore my nicest flannel to cover my tattoos and my thicker boots to stay warm. After arriving at their facility, the sprawling warehouse campus had no reception but instead had a buzzer with a secured door. I hit the button and introduced myself in bad Czech. A voice responded in actual Czech and buzzed open the door.

There wasn't much to see at first. There was a drop ceiling and some ignored dusty ficus plants in the lobby. I looked out the windows while the sun set behind the smokestacks across the highway I ran across to get there. By 4:30pm Brno was dark but busy with commuters on trams and buses. I toodled around on Facebook and checked the forecast when a guy came out of an office and introduced himself as Jan, the man I spoke to on the phone. He asked me a few questions, like how long I've been doing social media work and how in the everliving fuck did I end up in Brno? The answer to the latter has a million different possibilities and the explanation is usually longwinded, but I've learned to stick with "I traveled through here ten years ago and really liked it" and not "well this tanned tangelo asshole got elected and he threatened to take away my health insurance and the cost of the life-saving medication I'm on has risen 600% in the last 15 years and I couldn't risk it so I moved to your former communist country for the socialized healthcare, cheaper cost of living, and the chance to live for myself and no one else." 

Jan asked about my working status in the country and I explained I could work on my trade license as my visa will be held through IBM, but he didn't tell me much about the job aside from most of the work could be done offsite and I'd be able to work remotely. The nice part about working in social media is that it can be accomplished from anywhere: you're no longer tethered to an office with specific work hours, especially when working for an international company who operates through multiple timezones. While Jan was taking some notes about my trade license, I noticed the pen he was writing with had a bullet casing as a cap, but I smiled and kept my hands in my lap to hide my knuckle tattoos. Jan ended the last sentence he wrote with purpose and led me into another office to meet the owner of the company. I still wasn't sure what it was exactly they produced in their huge warehouse, but as soon as I stepped into the owner's office, it was clear this was not your garden variety Central European engineering plant.

Henrik was an Austrian man who commuted to Brno from Vienna. He drove a BMW and donned a style of simplicity and efficiency. While he finished a phone call with his feet up on his desk, I examined the elk head hanging on the wall behind him. The glass coffee table to my left was stacked with magazines featuring tactical gear and survivalist advice, and the long gun mounted above the door to his office had been recently dusted. He ended the call with an auf wiedersehen and brushed away some loose bullets on his desk to make room for his phone. We greeted each other with a strong but appropriate handshake.

Like Jan, Henrik was curious how I ended up in Brno, but he wasn't satisfied with my "ohh, you know, I just wanted to live somewhere else" answer. I talked about my employment history, my writing skills, my social media work, my "comfortability with public speaking," my life in Seattle, and my knowledge of firearms. While Henrik's company did indeed specialize in engineering, they specifically manufactured firearms. Brno does have a rich history with the military and the weapons developed here to assist with imperialism, so the idea of a functioning firearms manufacturer in the Czech Republic wasn't completely absurd. 

Henrik was impressed with me. He said the difficulty they've had with social media is that gun production must be treated as a sensitive process: it is way more delicate than marketing lightbulbs, charcoal toothpaste, or mobile phones. But he figured with my past experience combined with my native language and commitment to research about an industry on which I knew next to nothing, I was a good fit for the position. I discussed my freelance rate with him and what sort of hours I would be looking at per week, and he told me he'd call me the following day.

I bundled myself up and left for the bus stop. I was happy I had a job with however many hours it would be, but I also didn't feel wildly comfortable discussing the nature of my new position with anyone. I told my parents I got hired with "an engineering company." Prior to making this post, only five people knew what I was doing a few evenings a week while waiting for my start date at IBM. In someways it felt hypocritical to be anti-gun in a very gun country while working for a gun company. I was mostly afraid of the frustration or backlash following the announcement of my new employment. I felt like I was betraying my own beliefs, or that I was so anti-American while living in America that I became even more stereotypically American while not living in America. I should be doing the social media work for a cat cafe or a goat yoga studio or a food truck. Somehow this felt wrong, but also kind of exciting. 

Before I made it to my bus transfer, Henrik called me and asked if I could come back the next day. One of their partners from Bahrain was coming in from Vienna and he saw an opportunity to introduce me to some higher ups. The company was known on an international scale but I didn't realize how quickly I would encounter it without even leaving Brno. Henrik had only just met me an hour ago and he already wants to introduce me to others? I was proud and impressed with myself, even though I was a little fish in a big pond filled with guns. 

Mr. Aabir reminded me of Frankie Sharp from Wayne's World in that he looked like he'd own a stretch limo with a huge antenna on the trunk. At my height, the Bahraini businessman had a messy ponytail and a giant ring on his pinkie finger so I figured he was doing okay for himself. Mr. Aabir didn't know what to do with me right away. He appeared skeptical and hesitant to have a small white woman with tattoos representing a company in which he held more than one stake. Henrik introduced us and the three of us sat around a conference table. Mr. Aabir took the remote for the television and muted the stream of Fox News. He seemed to know his way around the office, or at least seemed to be the type of guy to make himself comfortable wherever he is. Henrik gave him a recap of our talk the day before but his business partner decided to continue the conversation with me in depth. 

"What do you think the gun problem is in America?"

"Can you clarify 'gun problem?'" 

"Americans are known for their guns."

"...I don't think it's a matter of the guns necessarily but more of the hands they get into that are contributing to the violence."

"So you agree that guns aren't the problem?"

I was mildly annoyed but tried my best to maintain professionalism during this meet-and-greet turned sudden political discussion. I continued while trying to keep my new job but still be a faithful bleeding libtard.

"I believe...that the laws in my country did not accurately anticipate the advances in technology or accommodate the changes in our political culture. Unfortunately the documents which give Americans the freedom to own guns also protects them from scrutiny after any tragedy."

Mr. Aabir cocked his head to the side while looking at me, like a puppy trying to find its good ear. 

"Do you own guns?"

"No."

"Did you in America?"

"No."

"What do you know about guns?" 

Fair question.

"I'm familiar with the measurement system and some of the terminology, the main manufacturers--"

"What do you really know about guns?"

"...I'm familiar with the measurement system, some of the terminology." At this point I was more about people accepting my answers and not about giving them what they wanted to hear but this was just the beginning. 

"We have a YouTube channel with videos and some of them have proven to be controversial."

"Controversial how?"

"Marketing firearms can be a sensitive issue. How would you go about marketing a controversial product?" 

"I would strive to focus purely on the mechanics and selling points of the firearm while avoiding politics and current events." 

Mr. Aabir didn't seem satisfied, but Henrik was intrigued. 

"One of our videos has 20,000 comments on them. How long would it take to go through and delete all of the unfortunate and irrelevant commentary?"

I was suddenly doing math I didn't think I'd ever be doing. If I'm on the page of a YouTube video, and I'm scrolling at .035 miles per hour, and each comment takes .5 to 1 inch on my 13 inch screen, how long would it take to completely fabricate an answer to this question?

"If it was just the one video, I could probably do it in a few hours." 

"Really? Just a few hours?"

"Many larger companies with a social media presence do not police online commentary as they know everyone on the internet has an opinion. Engaging or making an attempt to alter genuine interactions can sometimes create even more controversy than the original statement."

Henrik nodded and took some notes, and Mr. Aabir confirmed what he wanted to hear. 

"So if there were...idiotic comments or something of the nature in the comments, it would take you half a day to delete these?"

"Roughly. Again it's best to let other individuals stir up the controversy rather than engage in it ourselves."

"Liz has a good point," Henrik took over. "We simply want to create and monitor our online presence, not create and monitor the controversy of other users." While he seemed to back me up, Henrik also seemed unsure of what he was saying. Mr. Aabir shrugged and told Henrik they would talk. He retrieved an actual briefcase, shook both of our hands, and left without saying anything. Once the door to the conference room was closed, Henrik seemed relieved. "Don't mind Mr. Aabir. He wants to control the internet. Very unrealistic." I smiled. It felt nice to be defended even after my "non-biased" beliefs had surfaced.

My first real task for the company was to do research. If I was going to market firearms successfully, I needed to know more than just the ballistic information Olivia Benson discovers halfway through an episode. As I gained access to their existing accounts and examined their current status, I clearly had a lot of work to do. Most businesses realized the eventual migration towards social media marketing about eight to ten years ago. They created Facebook pages and neglected Twitter accounts. This company had some catching up to do, and two of my previous jobs had also brought me in at the 11th hour for one of two reasons. Sometimes a company realizes they should have been doing this all along, and they need to get caught up while their product or service remains relevant, so companies either a) hire someone to get them caught up because they don't have the time but are aware of the tasks and measures that need to be completed to be successful, or b) they have no idea what to do and I need to do a lot of hand holding to get them up to speed. And with this new position, I discovered it was mostly Part B. 

In the beginning I still didn't feel 100% comfortable with what I was doing. I didn't tell people about my new job and if I did, I chalked it up to doing freelance work for an "engineering company" like I stated earlier. No one really questioned it because a Czech engineering company not utilizing social media doesn't sound like a completely farfetched idea to begin with. As time went on, their demands for success turned from reasonable to unrealistic. Some companies have asked me "We JUST started our social media page last week. Why haven't we gone viral?"Viral. This is a word I've learned to hate. If you look at the reasons behind why some content went viral, it's because it caters to a mindless interest everyone has at the time. Viral content usually fits into a few categories: new media released by a celebrity, an unconventional marketing tactic used by a popular company, a local feel-good story that turns national, or a fad, ie Harlem Shake, where companies make their own version of the original content and it turns out being unnervingly more successful than the first. And then there's the meme. 

Memes are mindless and sharable which contributes to their massive reach within a short time. Memes are visual and they don't need to be read for more than five seconds. They're a disgustingly cheap way to attract an audience because platforms like Facebook make it so easy to digest and regurgitate. You can never run out of content to post on social media if you're a business as long as memes exist. Unfortunately for the firearms industry, a gun meme not only will dumb down the serious nature of the business, but it could ultimately destroy it. Mr. Aabir was right: the firearms industry is sensitive and it needs to remain that way in order to be aware and successful of their customers. You've probably seen a second amendment meme and haven't really thought about it until now, but it was likely successful because it was a meme. If you took that same thought or premise and applied to a regular text Facebook post or a tweet, it would remain innocuous, or at most it would be liked or favorited by your one gun-nut friend. 

Guns are already viral, which makes them difficult to market. The conversations and controversies are already in front of the internet, especially during a time where the school shooting has, and I don't want to say it, become commonplace in the United States. When a new contender for gun manufacturing enters the arena, they want the attention that Beretta or Glock have been receiving. The problem is that Glock and Beretta abandoned the analog ship ten years ago and have cultivated a social media following based on their legacy, the functionality of their products, and the name itself. Henrik would occasionally say to me, "Why does Glock have two million followers on Facebook and we don't?" And it took everything in my power to not respond with, "Because we're not Glock." 

The main pistol we sold was a 7.5 field pistol that sold for $7,500. Even I knew that was a lot for a handgun. The company wanted to emerge internationally as a prestigious manufacturer from a historic area of the Czech Republic. The problem being is that buying a handgun means going through an authorized dealer. You can't buy one off of Amazon and it'll be on your doorstep in two days. It's an experience that must be tested and compared. Only 1,100 of this field pistol are being produced, thus the price and its availability as a limited edition item. The price wasn't the only factor discouraging the public to engage with the gun. There was only one location in the entire United States where you can purchase it: Florida. 

With featured posts on Fridays and Sundays, I made sure to post at internationally friendly timezones for our worldly audience, refrain from engaging with politics or sassy internet comments, and explained the social media process thoroughly as I was executing it. There were times where I needed to explain things such as a hashtag or "trending," which is what I referred to earlier as hand-holding. In order for the company to understand or consent to my process, they also needed to fully understand the content, language, and strategy I was implementing. There were a few times I got frazzled phone calls asking for a further explanation about a certain verb I had used that didn't quite translate into Czech or German. One time I brought them back from the edge and had to ensure them that the verb "produce" was not the final nail in the firearms industry coffin when describing our business.

Over time the demands increased and the expertise I had gained over the last eight years was frivolously dismissed. They were incredibly displeased that our paid ads were against Facebook's advertising community guidelines, something to do with us advertising a really expensive firearm to different demographics in the United States. Back in November, I was hired to heighten the presence of a firearms manufacturer, but in the end, my advice for success was no longer needed. Henrik called me and explained they were going to go with someone in-house to do their marketing, which prior to my hiring, didn't go that well as I understand it. We were polite and cordial to one another, he thanked me for my time, and he proposed that if we cross paths in the future, we should go out for a beer. I chuckled and said "sure."

During my time with the company, I grew their social media presence by 700%. They now have a steady stream of likes, followers, and shares which is all a business needs to get off the ground. I don't feel like I compromised my integrity by working for a company in a controversial industry because they were directly in need of my experience. I don't think my work contributed to school shootings or ended the lives of countless Americans. I took a job to tie me over until I started full time at IBM, which has been going swimmingly well. My parents now know what I've been doing for the last four months, and they both agreed it's a really bizarre situation, especially after I explained the quirks and frustrations of the industry and being micromanaged. I now have a somewhat useless knowledge about certain handguns, which I will put into good use by not owning a gun. The experience wasn't totally pointless. What's pointless is selling a $7,500 firearm in the state of Florida.

Down by the Water

My first trip home from the Czech Republic was surreal. Including an 11-hour layover in London-Heathrow, the entire journey came to about 33 hours from start to finish. One tram, one train, one bus, one plane, one bus, and another plane later, my step-sister picked me up and we made the essential white girl stop on the way home before doing anything else: Starbucks.

Seattle changed but didn't change at all. I kept expecting this massive influx of reverse culture shock but instead it was little mannerisms or habits I picked up in CZ I noticed, like putting my key in the door the wrong way, assuming the flush for the toilet was located in the center of the tank, or how to drive a car. It wasn't like coming back to the Pride Lands after your British uncle screwed everything up for you by killing your dad. Everything was still standing even though the mood was openly more volatile than when I left. Despite the crazy jet lag and early morning insulin regimen, I slipped back into the normalcy of being an adult living at home with their parents.

After arriving, I came to realize how much I missed a few things, like Corn Chex. I don't mean this as a pun and I temporarily had to rewire my brain to type that word, but cereal isn't a common breakfast food here. In the US you have an entire aisle dedicated to cartoons and the sugary nonsense they sponsor. But what I missed was lumbering out of bed, haphazardly pouring squares or circles out of a really noisy bag and then dousing it with a milk of my choosing. Then I was done! That's it. Boom. Breakfast, and not necessarily a balanced one.

Cereal does exist here but not in the way it does in the US. Same thing with big trucks. I maybe see a truck twice a week here, a Ford something-or-other. It's not that I completely forget they exist, but it's kind of like I completely forget they exist. They're just impractical. Brno is a tremendously easy city in which to not own a car. With 12 tram lines (well, 11 tram lines but the number 7 is missing...) and numerous busses and trolleys, there's no reason for me to get a Czech drivers license. As a resident here, I can no longer get an international driving permit and I would need to take drivers ed in Czech.

A little more than 24 hours later after landing in Seattle, I headlined a show in Tacoma at a community cafe/gallery/meeting place or whatever these multifunctional purpose spaces are called. All 25 minutes of me rambling were interrupted with little jet-laggy sighs or intruding thoughts with zero filter. It felt good to let loose in front of an audience that could understand me in our mother tongue. On stages in CZ, Slovakia, Poland, and Austria, I've had to slow my pace WAY down just to get a simple joke across but also to make sure everyone could understand me. Now I had a room full of people that understood me and a mic to make it even louder. It might have been the jet lag, but it felt so relieving to relax on stage, dick around, and take my time.

I did a handful of sets in Seattle with a trip to Tucson sandwiched in. As I was getting used to one jet lag, I set off for Arizona to see my dad, step-mom, and uncle for another subpar time change. The desert was welcoming with temperatures in the 70s and food which wasn't commandeered by another culture who tried to create what they think is Mexican food. Everyone in my Tucson family is a photographer so the images which resulted from my trip look easy, natural, and effortless.

After looking through the photos, I sighed when realizing that there haven't been a lot of pictures taken of me in the last year because of how much time I've spent alone. And this isn't going to turn into a pity party; it's just fact. In Brno I'm either taking pictures of myself or other stuff, usually kitty. I was pleased how my hair turned out, which was done three hours after I landed in Seattle, and it was nice to be outside in a t-shirt because Brno was crazy cold when I returned. 

I flew back to Seattle from Tucson on Thanksgiving Day and spent some time in Salt Lake City between connections. The family dinner in Seattle was a bit bumbling, a little off-the-rails, and somewhat distracting, but we kept it together between wrangling kids and passing dishes in a direction that was never discussed beforehand. I also got to meet my new niece, Emily. Well, not new. She's a year old now and was born only a few weeks after I had left for CZ. She's an incredibly happy baby and very interested in everything around her, especially her almost three-year-old sister. When combined with eight-year-old Laszlo, there are actually a troupe of kids now at family gatherings. For so long it was just Laszlo in varying degrees of age over the years, but now he has cousins who are beginning to communicate better. I don't use the word "rambunctious" ever, but that's exactly what Thanksgiving was. It was like the Benny Hill theme was the soundtrack to Toy Story.

The next day I turned 31. I went out to dinner with mom and step-dad who were trying incredibly hard to get the server to become interested in me. I think he was until my mom went the extra mile and mentioned I live in Europe, which is something else I'm going to debunk now:

I'm not on vacation 24/7 because I live here. I received some confusing reactions right after I moved, comments to the tune of "god it must be amazing to be on vacation every day." If you've kept abreast of my immigration situation on here or my social media, you're well aware that this has been far from vacation. All bureaucracy aside, I'm doing everything I'd be doing in the US. For instance today I went to a psychiatry appointment and the discount grocery store on my way home. I stopped to take some pictures, and now I'm home with Patrick. This exact day has clearly played out in Seattle more than once and I'm really not trying to be hacky, but that's where I'm at. One day last year I watched all three Men in Blacks in one sitting. Depression doesn't know I moved to Europe. My anxiety sure as shit does, but my depression doesn't. 

Anyway, my birthday. It was great. I did a show in White Center and overall it was cool seeing how Seattle is getting it's shit together with comedy, and when I say that I mean there are some seriously great people doing some seriously great things. Some parts of me felt weird to be back, some places definitely felt like the cafeteria in Mean Girls. I wasn't sure of what my status was or if I would be perceived the same upon my return. I had a lot of shit to clear up while I was trying to sort out my life while living nine hours ahead, and I'm hoping a lot of it has been forgotten. 

One important day when I was home was seeing my three closest friends in comedy but also just my three friends who I can get real with. We had a family dinner of sorts with chicken wings and hella La Croix. We talked about our fears, tumultuous events from the past year, our travels, and our current standings with stand up. It felt good to be myself around the people to whom I feel comfortable revealing myself. No pressure. 

And to be honest, the hardest part was leaving. The only other time I've cried when flying out of an airport was when I was in Burbank and I was leaving a relationship that had ambiguous boundaries at the time. This time it was different, even harder than moving last year. I felt so reconnected with my family and my hometown and my familiar environment. I'm still unclear about what was making me cry. It could be a lot of reasons but I think maybe it's because I didn't want that camaraderie to end. I was knowingly taking a trip forward, and this time I even knew what was on the other side. I knew what was waiting for me. So why was this time so much harder, so much more emotionally taxing than the original move itself? 

I returned to Brno with the city anxiously celebrating Black Friday because they don't have a Thanksgiving. The Christmas markets are up and running and all of the white and red holiday lights are running through the alleyways in the city center. We had our first snow on Saturday and I turned my heat on in my flat for the first time. Nothing blew up or caught on fire so I think we're safe for now. I outfitted my sleeping nook with some shelves and a nightlight so now my opium den is almost fully functional and almost ready for Instagram.

Right now I'm spending time waiting to hear back from IBM. Oh yeah, probably should have explained that earlier. I've been too stressed to write until now but long story short I got let go from my job at AT&T and due to the timing of it, the trial period I was under erased any valid visa I had so in order to not get deported at the end of December, I needed to find a job which will sponsor both my job and my residence in the Czech Republic. I interviewed at IBM with a group of four women and within the next week, they offered me a position. Part of the reason I was stressed was because I had initially made plans to go home for the first two weeks of November because it was the only time I could take from my job for the holidays...but then I had no job for the holidays and I needed to patch things up with immigration before leaving the country. I suspended my trip for two weeks while I communicated with IBM and made sure everyone knew I would be on holiday and unavailable for interviews and phone calls. The situation with IBM became more and more solidified and on Thanksgiving morning I woke up to an official job offer. 

I'm hoping to start sometime in January, but as I've learned over the past year, I need to add an extra 60 days to any sort of bureaucratic timeline in the Czech Republic. So maybe before Easter is more realistic. Once again I have something on the horizon, but now I just have to wait.

Also I went to Dick's while I was home and it was fucking awesome. 

"Lord, beer me strength."

I've been sitting on this post for a while because I'm not sure how to address certain things without getting a lot of flak for them, but fuck it. 

I haven't been to an AA meeting in almost six months. Part of this is due to the geographic isolation of Brno and the lack of English speaking meetings. When I first arrived, I made a call to a number listed for expat meetings and discovered that because so few people attended, it eventually disbanded. Like many websites in the Czech Republic, the directory hadn't been updated in a few years. Larger cities such as Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, and Bratislava are more likely to have more than one English meeting since they have larger populations than Brno and many English speaking expats have chosen to settle in those places. So if I'd like to attend a meeting, the closest one is almost two hours away. 

I live in an alcohol dominated culture here in the Czech Republic. This wasn't my intention upon moving here because let's face it: if I'm going to relapse, this was a really expensive way to go about it. Czechs drink more beer than any place else in the world at roughly 43 gallons per person per year. If you lived here during the 13th century and stole hops, your punishment was death, and Pilsner style beers originated from the Czech city of Plzen. People often drink their beer out on the streets due to lax open container laws, and there's multiple pubs and restaurants specializing in the nation's obsession on every block . Drinking seems to be a way of life here. I'm not sure if it's solely based on alcoholism, but it's definitely conjoined with celebration. Christmas and Easter markets feature mulled spiced wine and different styles of Moravian lager. Even older pagan traditions incorporate more modern styles of liquid celebration, the next one being on the 30th of April where an effigy of a witch is constructed from straw and then burned to the ground to welcome the season of spring. Moravia, the historical country where Brno is located, is infiltrated every year by tourists looking for good wine and cheer, both of which are usually absent in their home countries.

To be honest, it hasn't bothered me that much. My obsession to drink is gone but I'm still very aware and alert of my surroundings. I can't let my guard down at anytime and I need to stay attentive if I'm going to maintain the current spree of not fucking up my life. I've turned down drink tickets at shows and no one seems to care if I ask for water, even though it is almost always served in a beer mug. After a show a while back, a few people outside were smoking a joint and they asked if I wanted to smoke. I politely declined and he said "I didn't know people could be sober from marijuana." Everyone's definition of "sober" is different, but I sluffed it off with "Well if I smoke then I'll definitely drink." They got a laugh out of it, I got a laugh out of it, and I continued on with my night. It would be silly to move to another country and think you're not going to encounter any kind of drinking or drug culture, but a short absent minded change of heart can quickly deter things from the path I've chosen for my life to take.

During my sobriety (I no longer use the term "recovery" because it makes me feel my decision to abstain from alcohol makes me weak, helpless, and powerless), there have definitely been a few evenings or circumstances which have led me to grit my teeth and feel like I am really in need of a meeting. When these moments arose, I was quick to talk with a sober friend or just message someone who supports my sobriety. I know what my triggers are, everything from old friends to sunflower seeds, and sobriety allows me to continue being sober, as redundant as that sounds. The reason I haven't been to a meeting in six months, or gone four hours out of my way to attend one, is because I have learned to cope with life's unfortunate circumstances as they come up, something the AA program draws you away from.

I first started going to meetings when I was in rehab because at the time, I didn't have a choice. All of the addicts and alcoholics would sit in a cafeteria and a former resident of our program would come in to discuss the "only three ways" of staying sober: going to meetings, getting a sponsor, and working the program. I was scared out of my wits. I certainly couldn't go back to the life I had barely maintained of drinking every day and destroying everything in my path, and if these people were speaking the truth, I needed to hike on those paths, too. My life depended on it, as I thought. 

My nickname in college.

I was in rehab for 21 days. Upon being released into the wild, I started attending one or two meetings a week depending on my schedule. At all of these meetings, this three-pronged approach of attending meetings, getting a sponsor, and working the steps was echoed throughout all of the rooms. But one narrative particularly stood out. Time and again, I encountered people (and I'm going to paraphrase because I still respect the anonymity of the program) who would say something along the lines of "You know I've tried to get sober eight or nine times now and this program really works. You gotta keep coming back and work the steps and get a sponsor and find your higher power." The problem with this statement is that the same person would say this every time between those eight or nine attempts of getting sober. Newly sober folks are thrust into the realm of Alcoholics Anonymous without even being asked what sort of path they would be interested in taking to sobriety. It's assumed that AA works as it's popular and many people who don't have the resources to go to rehab or treatment can attend for free. 

I've read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous twice, once when I was "forced" to get sober at age 16 after I was caught for under age drinking and again when I entered treatment at 27. I underlined passages that made sense to me, or sentences that resonated with the person in me who really wanted to be sober. Little quips and phrases are common in the book and "The Program," as in there's always a proverb to accompany every problem someone brings to the table. Tough time staying sober for the long haul?

Take it one day at a time. But things are so complicated and I'm worried about drinking!

Easy does it. There are even entire chapters dedicated to atheists and women as they weren't equally represented in AA and were completely inferior to the white men who wrote the book prior to the last World War. I came into AA skeptical. As an atheist (that's probably the most pretentious way I've ever started a sentence), I don't believe in a god, gods, or anything that can assume a consciousness and change the direction of my life so that it becomes significant to me. My viewpoints aren't particularly militant and I don't go out of my way to address them unless I'm asked. The idea of finding a "Higher Power" didn't sit with me well. If I don't believe in religion or have a faith of any kind, how am I supposed to apply energy to something that is supposedly going to help me stay sober? 

One of AA's popular credos is "Well, your Higher Power can be anything. It can be a doorknob!" Which...doesn't sell that point particularly well. Later I'll be instructed to turn my will and care over to this doorknob "as I understand it" and expect it to alleviate me of the perils of alcoholism, a scientific problem in need of a scientific solution. I don't understand god because it doesn't exist for me. For a while I even tried making Jeff Lebowski my literal High(er) Power to no avail, just to see if I can really buy into what Bill W was attempting to do for people like me. Clearly AA didn't take other subsets of society into account when creating the literature pushed on people from the very beginning. I was getting uncomfortable following the program. Another popular AA motto is "fake it til you make it," and if you know me at all, I don't fake shit. In a way, I was expected to not only "check my beliefs at the door" and to follow a path to sobriety which I was told was the only path from the beginning. I couldn't see any correlation between 11 of the 12 Steps of AA and me staying sober. What did me divulging my entire sexual history, my fears, my wrongs, and my resentments to another person have to do with me drinking? What did me giving up my power and assuming powerlessness to a program keep me sober? What was the scientific evidence behind any of this?

Overtime, I started going to meetings less and less. I came to realize I didn't have to be dependent on AA to stay sober. As long as I was keeping myself busy, not isolating, and not putting myself in risky situations, I had this sobriety thing on lock. AA masks its acceptance of all people due to the Third Tradition (there are 12 Traditions, as well): the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. So in short, if you want to stop drinking, AA has a seat for you. However, if you have any disbelief in a Higher Power or have no interest in getting a sponsor, the judgement in that room will be paramount to any shame you've ever experienced. I was told I would drink if I didn't have a sponsor, and I haven't had a sponsor for two years. People knew I was skeptical of many different aspects of the program except for one, being AA is where I can meet other people like me. Unfortunately there aren't many other arenas I can navigate that can accommodate the same groups of people. Cruising the subreddit r/stopdrinking helped, and staying in touch with the sober people who did accept my different points of view also helped. 

So the less and less I came to meetings, the more and more people stopped talking to me. I had met numerous friends through the program over the 18ish months I was attending. I met people my own age, people who grew up in houses just down the street from me, and people who were adamant that following the Big Book was the only way to achieve sobriety. It seemed hard for people to understand that there was more than one path to achieve the same thing. AA isn't a one-size-fits-all program, and while it got me off on the right foot, it abandoned me in the long run. Even though there was a chair figuratively saved for me at every meeting, it was clear I wasn't welcome if I didn't strongly believe in the fundamental tenets. Watching people come back to meetings after they relapse was one of the most cringeworthy experiences I've ever had. Someone in the program would have a few months of sobriety and then come back to a meeting a while later and announce they only had a few days, or a week. The judgement in the room would become suffocating, face after face of growing, unanimous disappointment in someone who had they "came to meetings, got a sponsor, and worked the program" would have remained sober. In AA, there's a response to everything. "Well he worked the program but he didn't really try."

Only going to one meeting a week won't guarantee sobriety!" "The book says 'half measures availed us nothing' so of course they aren't sober -- they didn't follow the steps correctly!"

I knew I was socially cut out from the program and the people I met when I had my going away show in September. I had two previous sold out shows when I was producing One Laugh at a Time, a show featuring sober comics in whatever capacity as long as they were committed to sobriety. The sober community saw it as a chance for fellowship and enjoying comedy at the same time, and it was great to have people like me on the same line up. For my going away show, I had my favorite Seattle people perform with me on "Liz Czechs Out," the show that inspired the naming of this blog. I advertised for about a month and I was able to have it at the club I spent most of my time at. The crowd was reserved but fun and the other comics gave me a card before the night was over. After the show I thanked friends, family, old boyfriends, and former colleagues who came to celebrate my coming adventure. The audience filed out of the club and I finally had a moment to catch my breath, and that's when I realized that not one person I had met in AA during my two years in Seattle came to my show. 

The program that was supposed to free me of resentments was only creating them. Sometimes I meet sober people and they assume I'm in AA just based on the fact I'm sober. I don't trash the program or speak negatively of it to their face, but I politely imply I was able to find help for my sobriety elsewhere. One guy in Brno messaged me a while back after finding out I was sober. We exchanged some pleasantries but in the end, his tenacious attitude about AA was extremely off putting. He messaged me a while back asking "Still sober?" under the guise of care.

Yep, I'm still sober. I live an environment not conducive at all to sobriety yet I've fallen asleep every night without the use of alcohol. I show up on time 20 minutes early to everything, and I know when to separate myself from situations that might make me uncomfortable. I keep myself busy with writing, working, learning, and staying in contact with people who accept me for who I am, the beliefs I have, and the methods I choose to support sobriety. AA fronts itself as an all encompassing program, but after enough meetings and experience, I ultimately felt alone. I feel alone here in Brno sometimes, but this was me choosing to be alone. We all chose to be sober, so who cares about how we get there as long as it's the common end result? 

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.

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! :)