"Graffiti is beautiful, like a brick in the face of a cop."

So I've been in Brno for a little over a week. I've gathered my bearings, made some connections, and developed a routine while waiting for my visa to go through. I have a main grocery store, too many pharmacies to count, a bodega called a večerka, an ATM that doubles as a payment depot for my new Czech phone number, kebab place, pretty much all I need within walking distance of my place. 

Speaking of my place, I've been trying to think of a whimsical and triumphant name for the apartment. When kitty and I were on the beach, in the overpriced storage locker/prison cell/cardboard box/studio apartment, we referred to it as the Bantam Bungalow. Small, hidden, concrete. I'm sure I'll think of something in the coming days. 

Here's my downstairs and my upstairs:

It's more like a townhouse rather than an apartment. My kitchen, eating area, storage, and nook with a desk are on the ground floor, and my bedroom, bathroom, living room, and deck are upstairs. I'm convinced a man installed my shower because shaving anything at all will be a hassle in a very small slippery space, so it's a good thing no one will see my legs for the next six months. I have a good amount of sunlight, and due to the shade of wood and cantaloupe colored walls, it appears brighter than it looks.

I did my first load of laundry and didn't fuck it up! There are infinite dials and knobs and numbers accompanied by different beeps on a very small machine meant for very small clothes. American dryers are larger and I can usually fit three weeks worth of laundry in a load of cold water because separating colors is for nerds and people who have their shit together. I picked the lowest temperature, which was 20 degrees Celsius (still not super sure what that equates to) and selected a clock graphic that looked like it was in a hurry. I don't have a dryer so when my clothes became stationary and unscathed, I hung them up on a heated drying rack in my bathroom. I think it's specifically meant for towels but I'm going to choose to ignore that because I enjoy dry clothes.

So roughly ten days have passed since I boarded a plane and won the air travel lottery by having no one sitting next to me on two different flights, and I've gathered a few observations about the Czech Republic and the people who reside here, whether they are Czechs, Slovakians, expats, students, etc.

1. Women love coloring their hair red. It could be any number of shades; actual red, scarlet, burgundy, copper, maroon all seem to be sought after by the sophisticated Czech woman. I think this popular style is the cosmetological equivalent of the blonde obsession in the United States. I'm not sure why the color is so popular here. All I can think about is how difficult the maintenance is with red hair. I loved having copper hair. Adored it. And what I'm going to write is going to sound super gross, but during the six months I had copper hair, I only took a whole shower three times HEAR ME OUT. Red hair bleeds, it's not friendly with warm water, and the maintenance to keep up the appearance of a natural Merida is not cost effective. Before showering myself, I'd put my head under the faucet with cold water and shampoo with a color depositing shampoo that completely destroyed my scalp. Then I'd pin my hair on the top of my head and only expose my body to warm water to prevent my hair from bleeding. Then afterwards I would take color depositing conditioner, wrap my hair in it and leave it on top of my head for 25 minutes before rinsing it out in the tub with cold water. NOT fucking worth it, so I went blonde, neglected my hair into an ombre, and never looked back.

2. The closer you get to train tracks, the condition of buildings is rough, but the caliber of graffiti is top tier. A lot of major railways throughout the country cut through small farmland, rolling hills, and sparsely populated collections of trees too open to be deemed an actual forest. A lot of the buildings in towns that do nestle up to the Czech railway system are decrepit, empty, hollowed out from decades of political neglect. Loose and porous stones, broken panes of glass, soaked wooden beams, and bent dangling pipes were all popular features of many buildings along the way from Brno to Prague. But the larger surfaces and barriers that remained intact over the course of multiple revolutions was heavily spray painted. Czech graffiti artists have tight can control and bright color palettes against a bleak and derelict canvas. They go big or go home. Most pieces are large in order to be seen but they aren't messy. Artists clearly had the time to linger near the train tracks and do their work without getting caught in the moonlight by the town crier. Being fast but good is something graffiti artists take pride in, and trains and locations near the tracks provide excellent spots for "bombing" and "throwing up" designs since so many pairs of eyes will see them. Everyone will know who you are without really knowing who you are, anonymity and notoriety rolled into one. (Also if you're interested in learning about or seeing more graffiti, watch Style Wars here or the lesser known Piece by Piece based out of San Francisco in the 90s here, both for free).

3. I don't have the right of way as a pedestrian, even in the "zebra stripes." I mean legally I do, but holy shit, drivers here don't give a suicide mission driving fuck about it. Busy intersections here have lights for trams, pedestrians, and cars. People won't stop for you, even if you're standing and waiting. When I'm out walking around now, I need to be more cautious and since I came from the largest US city without a light rail system for a number of years, I need watch my six...and my three and five and eleven. 

4. Czechs mind their own business. When out and about, riding the tram or simply walking, it's rare to make eye contact, and if you do, don't you dare fucking address it. Seattle always had this reputation of a "freeze," which...honestly I never noticed all that much. When meeting the eyes of another person on the street, I'd say maybe 50% of the time I would be met with a chin nod or a small smirk on one side of the mouth. But here, you sit on the tram, you stare at you phone, you mind your own business, and you don't talk. There's an underlying strictness of it that I think comes along with having your country invaded twice and annexed once all in the same century. Czechs are hard, willful. They have dark senses of humor but they won't let you in on it right away. I pretty much speak (poor Czech) when spoken to, and I keep to myself, easy to do if you have headphones. 

5. The Czech Republic isn't another planet. A lot of people I've talked to assume I'm moving to a remote village where women wear handkerchiefs over their hair while washing clothes in a babbling brook and they swirl around a May Pole before springtime (I mean maybe they do, I don't know). I've been to both a Tesco and an Albert, both called "hypermarkets" as they carry more than just groceries, and they have more, if not the same stuff as most US grocery stores. There's no big Sunday shopping trips here for the family of four so people come and buy what they need as they need it every few days, and if you need dinner plates, sweatshirts, or a chainsaw, a hypermarket will have it. But if I need something here, I can go get it. There are multiple internet providers, new cars, IT companies running rampant. It's like Seattle without the crazy ridiculous cost of living, bad traffic, skyrocketing homelessness, and the widespread progressive arrogance. 

This post is shorter than my others, but I just wanted to note some quick observations about my new home. I'm comfortable, happy, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle not including all of the cheese and array of Haribo candy I've been eating. Otherwise, so far so good.