I Am Human

I went into Arrival not knowing much about the movie. I knew it had something to do with Amy Adams and aliens, but I wasn't provided with any context until actually viewing the movie itself. On my 29th birthday, my mom and I ate dinner at Palace Kitchen and went to the AMC theater for this mysterious movie about pods that may or may not contain extraterrestrial life.

The film centers around Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics professor who had previous translation experience with the military. After 12 pod shaped spacecrafts land all over the globe, there's a worldwide race to decipher the intentions of the pods: curiosity or destruction. Contact between us and the beyond was surrounded by language and the components that were necessary to communicate effectively. Do the aliens understand the concept of a question? How is their sentence structure comprised? Is syntax relevant? Does the written version of their language indicative of what sounds are produced?

I'm not going to do a WhOa SpOiLeR ALeRt!!!11 thing here because if you're interested in language at all, I've probably piqued your interest in seeing the film and I'm not going to ruin it for you, but I'll offer up some interesting ideas. The aliens communicated with Louise and her fellow researchers by using curls, swoops, splats, and twirls measured out in a circle called a logogram, and the team finally breaks through with one word: human. Eventually, after some test runs and estimations were successfully executed with minimal clues or prior knowledge, Dr. Banks is able to not only see the language, but is able to visualize the language through time. I don't mean "well she had an hour so she understood it after a while" time, but actual time.

Arrival made me cry a few different places. It's a rollercoaster when you least expect it to be, especially when walking into it not having any frame of reference for the plot. Today I have the logogram for "human" tattooed around my pulse on my left arm. A lot of people think it's some sort of significant coffee stain when really it's a great example of what it means to communicate, and if heptapods do invade the earth in the name of curiosity and things which cannot be expressed in what we know as an alphabet, at least I'll be tagged and bagged when they get here.

I'm a language nerd. I excelled in reading, writing, and spelling, even though I still have a tab open to Google just for typing words I'm nervous of spelling wrong (maintenance, privilege, and indigenous are among them). I'd like to think most people enjoy communicating effectively in their native language or another they picked up along the way. Most bilingual people I've talked with in the Czech Republic have brought up the subject of language, whether it's asking if I'm learning Czech or asking how difficult of a time I'm having learning Czech. English is now a much more common language throughout the country. Lots of old timers speak a second language, but it most likely isn't English. If you lived in Czechoslovakia before it went the way of film and the VHS, chances are you were speaking Czech, Slovak, German, or Russian since that whole "we're gonna occupy the fuck out of you" thing really took off in the 20th century.

I've been in the country for about three weeks, and I've only had to use "do you speak English?" maybe once every other day, most of the time with people over the age of 40. These Czechs are hardened Czechs, as in they've witnessed power exchanges multiple times throughout their lives and endured influxes of languages other than their own, which I'm sort of experiencing in reverse right now. Czech is supposed to be more stark and halting while Slovak is more sing-songy and whimsical. But for now, I just hear a bunch of hard consonants with murdery letters and sounds. They even made up their own "r," which is a combination of the letter itself and a bit of both "z" and "j."

I met Lenka under a clock near the popular tram stop of Česka. She sent me exact coordinates on Google Maps because the Czechs have this peculiar habit of making the current time very public on multiple surfaces, so some clarification was needed about which historical timekeeping monument I needed to find. Lenka is almost 40 but when it comes to her age, she's ambiguous. She could have given me any number of ages and I would have believed her. Her dyed auburn hair compliments the highlights in her face and doesn't wash her out like many women I've seen here. She carries herself well and speaks English with a British accent from spending time in London. A few weeks before I arrived in Brno, she contacted me on Facebook about wanting to find an "adventure buddy" for her nine-year-old daughter. She explained how she wanted to have her daughter exposed to more conversational and non-traditional English rather than what was taught in school for someone her age, which is usually a verb and its relative conjugations, trying to figure out which adjectives are placed before which noun, and a vast array of numbers which might as well all be the same. I was excited to take on my own language while analyzing and using it from a beginner's perspective. And I could finally put my fucking Creative Writing degree to use in a vocal sense and not just...on here. 

Lenka explained that not only do I just get to hang out with her daughter, Alžběta, but her current best friend whose status will undoubtedly change three or four times before high school. Alžběta (the Czech version of "Elizabeth") and her friend Miša (I now have a sticky note open on my computer with all of the relevant hats and reverse circumflexes for the alphabet) are extremely bubbly and act like nine-year-old girls do. They met me in front of a church across the street from their school. Both buildings are incredibly expansive and are complete with ornate architecture and pumpkins cut out of construction paper placed neatly in the windows for the fall season. 

Alžběta was holding a huge Czech/Slovak/English (Anglicky) dictionary from the 1970s. It was almost comical to see a young kid carrying around such a ridiculously thick book that could have easily been mistaken for Moby Dick or The Count of Monte Cristo. We greeted each other in limited English but I was really blown away with the amount of English they've already learned just from being taught in school, as in it wasn't just pointing at things and knowing the vocabulary. The two girls had complete thoughts and sentences in English and a lot of giggling in Czech.

My memories of language learning at a young age aren't great. The teacher I had as an elementary school student was extremely selective and active with her favoritism while teaching my class. I had an easy time learning Spanish and all of the words to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in a different language, but if any sort of enthusiasm or humorous contribution was made to the class, you were linguistically shunned and given the silent treatment in both languages. 

When I entered middle school, I discovered I was to take Latin for two years in order to prepare me for the life or death decision of taking French or Spanish through high school. While I couldn't exercise my learned Latin in every day situations, it was during this time I figured out that I was a visual learner. Even today I'm seeing it in action. If I go to the supermarket (not grocery store!) up the street from my flat, I can remember the labels of food after I see them accompanying the appropriate food. But if someone were to stop me mid aisle and say, "the Czech word for 'butter' is ‘maslo,'" I won't remember it at all. And after using this sentence, I'll always know the Czech word for "butter." 

Alžběta and Miša took me around the center of Brno to a few different stores and coffee shops they find interesting. I tried to ask them as many questions as I could without seeming like a hipster version of the foreign police. If I asked them something and they didn't know what I said, they would either ask me politely "again" or all three of us would stop and huddle around the giant dictionary while we tried to find a Czech word and it's English equivalent. Some of these words ended up being "music," "pathway," "take," "late," and "decaf." Technology ended up saving us a lot of time because we all defaulted to Google Translate. We used my phone to type and pass back and forth, but this process illuminated the difficulties and vagaries of the English language. Words such as "take," "go," "set," and "be" have many definitions so zeroing in on the exact one to translate a particular thought effectively can take some patience. There were a lot of guesses as to meanings and estimations on which phrases were actually intended to be a question. In a lot of ways, I felt like Dr. Banks with her new alien friends except I don't feel threatened and I know why they're here.

After a confusing amount of time, Lenka's daughter led me back to their flat on Rooseveltova, about a ten minute tram ride from my flat. Czech flats usually have what Minnesotans would refer to as a "mud room." There's an entirely different room you go in prior to entering the apartment that is meant for shoes and storage and a place to kick dirt and snow off of your boots, which I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of but it appears Seattle and Minneapolis both beat me to it. Their flat is homey and well lived in. There's a small loft for a bed above their living room and their ceilings are very tall. Large double insulated windows let a lot of light in so the need for indoor lighting was minimal, even after dark. 

Alžběta's room is the perfect nine-year-old girl room. She has a stack of books on her nightstand for bedtime stories. She has little pink boxes that I'm not even sure hold anything in them; they're just boxes meant for buttons or small things magpies would pick up. There are plenty of small stuffed animals on her bed. Everything in her room has a label (in Czech) for which items go where. She has a hook for her backpack, a perfectly made bed with polka dot sheets, and picture frames with bright flowers around the edges. Her shoes are perfectly aligned underneath her steel coatrack and her white curtains are somewhere between doily and fabric meant for an American Girl doll. 

Alžběta and I played Bejeweled, Merged!, and Angry Birds and I realized I could use games to help with her English so we may be spending a lot of time on tablets in the future. I'm going to be helping Miša out as well and I hope her and Alžběta don't find new best friends too quickly. At some point Alžběta messaged Lenka and asked if I could stay longer because "Liz is really cool and we like her," and I have my Monday afternoons blocked off until further notice. 

While I've been writing this, I found out today I have a brand new niece named Emily November Vekich. She was born this morning and she's already smiling. I lost my favorite aunt this week but gained a little bundle who will make the family incredibly happy. It's times like this where I wish I was home, just for a hug and a warm exchange. Facebook is stupid for a lot of reasons but it's helping me connect with people back home so it's acting as my temporary portal. I'm nine hours ahead of most people I know, which has made communication somewhat easy due to me keeping weirdo hours but it's made watching football on Sundays rather difficult. I guess I'm still adjusting but I feel at home, but not home home yet. And I'm doing better than most of my league in fantasy football and I'm not even in the country. Two thumbs up for this human right here. 

Czech Healthcare Adventure! Part I

Today I experienced the Czech medical system as an uninsured foreigner! And it's fucking awesome! When I say uninsured, I mean that I am not yet on the Czech public health insurance that is offered to me as an American expat, the same insurance offered to Czech citizens. I currently have travelers insurance that I paid for upfront for the next four months while I'm waiting for my visa to be processed. This insurance protects me in case of an emergency and extends outside the Czech Republic, whereas the state insurance is only effective within the country itself. After my visa is approved, I'll be able to get on that sweet, sweet state system and reap a multitude of benefits as a diabetic woman with depression and anxiety and a reproductive system.

The one issue/non-issue with the travelers insurance is that hardly anyone takes it. I've scoured the internet for endocrinologists, gynecologists, general practitioners, and therapists who take my insurance, Ergo, with little to zero success. Then I searched for English speaking doctors who are accepting new patients. Google's reviews sent me to the guy I went to today and I've been smiling like an idiot the whole afternoon. Not to mention booking an appointment with him was incredibly easy. I chose a time slot on his website and I showed up.

I should note that depending on your affliction, you'll need to see certain doctors for certain things. For instance, I can't get my birth control from a GP, so I'll need to make an appointment with a gynecologist. I was unsure what the case would be for both my Wellbutrin and Cymbalta, a cocktail of which keeps my neurotic and anxious tendencies at bay. Who would I need to see for this? An actual psychiatrist? If today's guy couldn't do it, then I'd be able to get a referral. Just one more extra step.

Living in Královo Pole means I'm in this nexus of Brno tram lines and busses that can take me pretty much anywhere within two stops, and this morning I only needed to take one. I also stopped at the ATM to withdraw cash for my appointment since I'd have to pay out of pocket in case my insurance wasn't accepted, which it wasn't. I stammered a bit trying to figure out how much to withdraw. $100? $3,000?

I realized I got caught up in my "Americanness" because I was assuming a doctor appointment was going to put me into debt or at least reinforce a ramen-style eating habit until further notice. Americans are so used to sacrificing shit just to pay for their healthcare. If I lost my insurance while living in Seattle, my life would have become unsustainable and I'd be working just to afford all of my medications I can't go without. The numbers were staggering after looking at them. It was scary and it lit a pseudo political fire under my ass to protect myself. So here we are.

Dr. Otsar is located in an intricate webbing of tram lines near some of the universities. Lots of young people were milling about in their white sneakers while drinking Red Bull and snickering at what I assumed was me. I found the building and went up to the third floor. The waiting room had six Poang chairs from IKEA so I parked myself and hoped that someone would attend to me based on the absence of windows to the actual clinic. A robust redheaded woman came out of a very white closed door and barked Sit, you wait at me. So I sat and waited. Other patients were coming to and from the waiting room and were seen before I was, but I figured this was because I was new. One thing I did notice was that whenever someone entered the room, they were greeted.

Dobrý den!

It was like entering a room with a surprise AA meeting on the other side. I followed suit and did the same for whoever showed up. Normally in an American waiting room, you're sizing up the other patients wondering what's wrong with them and you feel fine after a minute or two but then you hear a loud sputtering wet cough that everyone will leave with by the end of business today so a really great experience overall. 

Dobrý den!

The redheaded Czech Trunchbull came back out and asked me for my ID and my insurance card. I gave her my passport and showed her a picture of my travelers health insurance card on my phone. She waved her hand dismissively at me and said No Ergo. You need pay cash. 300 crowns. Through a thick furrowed brow, she looked saddened or disappointed to tell me this.

300 crowns? What is 300 crowns? 

Czechs have a monetary system based in the hundreds or thousands for the average transaction, so even though the written numerals printed on the banknotes should have a comma in them, this was business as usual. 

300 crowns = $13.63

Am I actually seeing a doctor for less than what most airport sandwiches cost? Not to mention that, but this is WITHOUT insurance? How is this possible? 

I waited around for about an hour or so and when I was called back, I discovered the English speaking doctor who was praised on Google for speaking English spoke very rudimentary English. Armed with paper prescriptions and medical records, I entered what looked like what used to be an old Eastern European classroom with an exam table. Dr. Otsar was wearing a VERY tight and white v-neck sweater and equally tight white pants because I guess he wanted to give off a vibe that while sterile, he still has style. He took my height and weight in centimeters and kilograms and spoke slowly with me. He asked me

So what is your problem?

I lethargically explained I had just moved to Brno and was looking to establish care. I told him I have Type 1 diabetes and he looked amazed at me for a moment.

Inzulin dependenti, yes he said to me. I'm not sure if it's because he didn't expect me to live this long as an American with the shitty health insurance I had or what it was, but it was though I appeared to him as a miracle of modern science in this office with very thin windows and very fluorescent lights. I gave him my handwritten US prescriptions for my diabetes supplies as well as two bottles of Cymbalta and Wellbutrin. He explained that I need to see a diabetologist, a term I hadn't heard of prior to researching the Czech healthcare system, and he wrote me a referral to someone who he thinks might speak English. That'll do.

He then checked the time on his hilariously huge digital watch and turned his attention to my prescriptions for depression and anxiety. On the tram ride down, I imagined the questions I'd be asked involved my history with these disorders, how long I've been on the medication, who prescribed them to me in the United States, you know, typical doctor questions. Instead, he didn't ask me a single question. None. He pulled up his catalog of medications in some kind of a Czech formulary and gave me prescriptions for two months in less than five minutes. I think having the medications themselves with me helped the process along and I didn't have to explain, and very slowly, that without these scientific creations, I am not a functioning member of society no matter which country I'm located. His last order of business was ordering blood work for me on a sheet of paper much like what I'm used to seeing back home. He checked different boxes for which labs were needed and handed it over to me. Okay, 300 crowns. I pulled out a two-thousand dollar bill which sounds fucking ridiculous but that's what it is. He gave me change, thanked me for coming in, and told me to come back after I had been fasting for 12 or more hours to complete my blood work. This CAN'T be this easy. Can it? WITHOUT insurance? With zero insurance. $13 and I'm out the door? With a prescription for two months? 

I stopped at a cafe near my flat for a quick...bread with cheese and egg and salami and pickle on it before heading to the pharmacy. There are pharmacies everywhere noted by their big neon green crosses, like a beacon of a good healthcare system! The only other time I had been in a European pharmacy was when I got bedbugs in Vienna. I went into an apotheke near my hostel and mimed to a pharmacist using my fingers as pinchers that I had been bit and needed something to make me less itchy. He gave me a German ointment to slather around my wrists, ankles, and stomach and even though I was completely miserable, the experience was noteworthy for future reference. 

I entered a pharmacy chain called Dr. Max, which is very clean and green and pristine. Three pharmacists had their own workstations with a computer and a phone. There was no singular pharmacist up high, towering over everyone with malaise and discomfort underneath. It felt like walking into a mobile phone store. They each greeted me.

Am I on a game show?

I gravitated to the pharmacist closest to me.

We greeted each other with Dobrýden! and I slid the prescription across the counter like I was withholding something sinister when really I'm just a foreigner who doesn't speak much Czech trying to access prescription drugs. He did a few quick motions with the computer and turned back to me disappointed, much like the Czech Trunchbull had earlier. He spoke a bit in Czech and while doing so he realized I didn't understand, so I asked him 

Mluvíte anglicky?

In English, he said he was sorry to tell me that I would need to come back tomorrow for my prescriptions as they weren't in stock at the moment. The look on this guy's face was usually saved for parents who needed to tell their kids that beloved Freckles or Froofles "went to visit the happy little farm" while they were in school that day, or an American finding out that their health insurance costs were going cause them to go bankrupt. I almost was 180 degrees turned to leave when he told me that the costs were going to be 600 crowns. Fucking WHAT. So if we double our math from earlier, two months of two different prescriptions will cost around $27, which brings today's costs to about $40. Without insurance. In the US, today alone would have put me roughly a thousand dollars in the hole. 

It's been a few hours since my first healthcare adventure in the Czech Republic and I'm still blown away at the amenities and services available to me as a foreigner who has yet to access public health insurance. The language barrier is proving to be a bit jumbled but with the right terminology and speed at which words are spoken, it should solve itself as it did today. I was scared going into this morning. I needed to make an appointment and see someone about my prescriptions before they ran out, and even though I'm still unaware of when my visa will be processed or when my public health insurance will go into effect, I was still able to accomplish my business and more.

I will still need to navigate through the thickets of endocrinology (or diabetology?) and the gynecological bureaucratic systems, but considering I've only been here for a little more than two weeks, I've made significant progress. Right now I'm working on this post and kitty is curled up in my blanket I was using for a pillow. I lit a couple candles and I'm going to make garlic broccoli for dinner. I'm not beating myself up about high blood sugars; I've had a few meals where I've been over 300 but I'm chalking it up to the fact that I'm underestimating the carbiness or sacharidy of the fucking squishiest bread loaves in the world. Yeah, I'm insulin dependent. I'm insulin dependent as fuck.

I'll keep updating the further I navigate. But as an introduction into the Czech healthcare system today, I'm incredibly happy that I can be healthy here.

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

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

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

Here's my downstairs and my upstairs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So You Want to Expatriate

For the last six months, I've been deliberately oversharing on social media because so many people have asked me what the expat process is like and it's just been easier to be open about it. I've shared a lot about the differences in culture between the Czech Republic and the US, the language, common history, politics, etc, but I haven't gone into explaining about the process itself: with starting a new life abroad comes a ton of bureaucratic tape, and not all of it is in English. This post is mostly for those who are interested in expatriating and what worked well for me and didn't work well, even if you're looking elsewhere than "Czechia." (lol get a load of this guy, trying to go by "Myanmar" when he's actually Burma, get real).

1. DO YOUR RESEARCH. The question I get asked most is "why the Czech Republic?" Before I even started looking at other countries, I needed to narrow down what it was about Seattle that I was attempting to escape. The cost of living and the quality of life were two things I needed to compare in whatever place I ended up. I started crunching numbers with international cities and made a baseline of what cities I could live in that were similar, just to get an idea. Among those cities were Paris, Dresden, Munich, Milan, Brussels, Amsterdam, Oslo, Osaka, Incheon, and Copenhagen. All of these places had their own perks stemming from the influence of Western European culture but they were also all on the Euro. If you're going to be working overseas, there's a chance you'll be getting paid from overseas depending on what job you secure, so when it comes to the Euro replacing your dollar, even though you may be getting paid in USD, there's a chance it won't extend as far as it would in places like Ukraine, Thailand, or Poland.

So it was narrowed down to places not on the Euro, which left me with places where I'd need to join a tribe and get a Travel Channel special or in a place living way below my means and having someone from the US sponsor me for just pennies a day. Then it came to down to places I had been to before, so in this case it was the Czech Republic, Poland, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I had traveled to Central and Eastern Europe in 2009 and remembered it incredibly fondly. The terrain was something pretty to look at, like if Wisconsin actually had some substance. The people had a resting bitch face attitude like I do, and my dollar could go further here than anywhere else.

Another facet I had to research was if there is an existent expat community where I wanted to go. Is there any kind of social safety net where you can locate people who speak and write the same language as you? Is learning a language with clicks and hieroglyphics going to hinder the time you'll be spending wishing you had picked another location to move to? Am I going to let that dangling preposition bother me? No.

The cost of living in Brno is 70% less than it is in Seattle. How bad is Seattle? There are BRAND NEW "micro studio" apartments, as in a 270 square foot dorm room with a shared bathroom with other tenants in the building for $900 a month. Seattle used to be an affordable, liberal haven on the West Coast that shook its head at the San Francisco smugness and the even worse Los Angeles traffic all the while remaining creative, progressive, and still one step ahead of Portland. This factor alone combined with the possibility of losing my health insurance was enough to get me to start this research in the first place, as living in Seattle with an auto-immune disease was becoming increasingly unsustainable.

Since a move to Africa seemed a little too reverse Mean Girls, I started looking at the actual immigration process for both the Czech Republic and Poland. Actually, let me back up.

You know how every election there's one person who's like Fuck this I'm moving to Canada and I'm never coming back! but they don't move? The reason people don't move to Canada because it has a super strict immigration policy and they can't. If you can't prove you have expertise in areas that will directly benefit very specific sections of the economy, you ain't gettin' in. Since most of the people I know disagree with the president yet they're biochemical engineers, oil field design specialists, or data IT farmers, they're not moving.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. Once you've thrown your dart at your Google Map and had it successfully puncture land and not water, research the immigration policies by looking at expat forums from those countries. A lot of these forums have insights on current job openings, various immigration situations from student visas to marital situations, and what government offices to navigate once you've arrived and in most cases, which language to pursue while doing so. It was in this process that I discovered a trade license for the Czech Republic called a Živnostenský list, which allows me to be self employed as long as I can prove I have the funds to move. I would select areas of work that I'd most likely be self employed in, such as customer service, teaching English, writing/editing, and IT. Most countries don't take kindly to people overstaying their visas or thinking they're going to become a brand new citizen with a backpack, dreads, and $20 they got from busking in another country in which they overstayed illegally. So make sure you qualify for your chosen country's legal immigration process. Otherwise you'll just be Patty from accounting who keeps bitching that Canada has better healthcare than the US at whatever chance she gets. So that brings me to my next point:

2. Save your money. When you apply for the appropriate visa in your country, chances are you'll need to prove that you have money. If you're applying for a student visa, this may be less important, but these are also the most common visas that people overstay. They graduate and just become an illegal lifer wherever they are. In my case, I sold my car and everything else and lived a very very thrifty lifestyle for the last few months before I left the US while putting everything else on a credit card that gets airline miles for an airline I don't fly anymore. 

Some countries will have different limitations on what you can have. For instance, I needed at least $5,500 in my account as well as an official notarized statement proving it. You'll also need to prove that you'll be able to maintain that amount, which is currently difficult. In the Czech Republic, you need a Živnostenský list (called a "zivno") AND a long stay visa in order to work, so right now, I'm biding my time by eating cheap cheese and walking a lot of places. I'm currently forgoing clothing hangers at the moment because I need to save money, but I'm lucky that the exchange rate between the Czech koruna and the US dollar is in my favor. 

If you're retired, fucking awesome! Lots of people retire to Central and Eastern Europe because they can live above their means with the money they have left. But this also means that they no longer have any incoming income, so it's a toss up with what you'll end up doing in the end. Hopefully dying happy knowing you lived a good life. 

3. Wager your sacrifices/comfort. When I say that, I'm referring to taking stock in what you're leaving behind and what your expatriation will mean for other people, friends, family, or coworkers. I applaud the people who uproot their family of four to a country where the language is difficult all because dad had a weird dream one night. I decided to move because I wasn't in a relationship and I had just lost my job at a furniture consignment store, something that was hardly integral to the creation of a career. So what was I clinging to? Expensive rent?

(also sidenote I swear I just heard a seagull but that can't be right).

After the plug on the move was pulled, I made a list of things that would bring me back to the US, most of which were incredibly bleak. These circumstances varied from deaths in the family to the somewhat likeliness of a nuclear war breaking out. And when I say "bring me back," I mean cancel my lease, repack everything, ship everything, not buying-a-return-ticket bring me back. Moving from Minneapolis to Seattle in the past was in some ways minor preparation for this journey, a scrimmage or pre-season game. No big life changes in the first year of sobriety! I was told, but I returned to my hometown to protect my sobriety and I knew that staying in Minneapolis would mean coming out of retirement. But this time around, with my sobriety safely guarded, I wasn't moving to protect anything. I was moving for me. And the cool part is, you know what? If any of this happens to suck, I can always move back. Having a great support network allows me to make these types of decisions, but I understand not everyone can make grandiose ideas become reality in one night.

You'll also need to prepare yourself for some pushback from people after you've made the decision to move. When I first told people I was moving, I was met with concerns that had simple solutions. But you don't know the language! I can learn it. Do you know anyone there? I'll meet people. I don't want to trivialize valid concerns, but when I was met with opposition, it wasn't discouraging; it only pushed me further and made me more determined to leave. Others may come across these difficulties and fold right there. You're right, I don't know anyone so living in a country where English is not the chosen first language may not be the correct path for me. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe Amsterdam is more your style. Everyone speaks English because they realized lol fuck us no one is going to learn Dutch, it's a ridiculous language. But the Czechs held on tight and will make it very clear to you they speak Czech and so will you.

Like I said, this pushback made me all the more determined in my search for a different life. For the last five months, all I've done is research (see Step 1). I constantly have over ten tabs open on my computer of PDF forms in Czech and English, a currency conversion calculator, a tram line map, a tram line ticket pricing guide, a tram line offices guide, regional train ticket website, private health insurance guide, public health insurance guide, Netflix, and Facebook. Research became my part time job before moving. I was up on my phone at night even after I shut my laptop lid for the evening. I was seeking out new sections of bookstores and language websites. I picked up a phrasebook and started practicing preemptively.

4. Get involved in expat stuff, but not too involved. Prague is famous for this bubble in Prague 2, which is a section that's teeming with expatriates from many other first world nations. These expats rarely venture out of their bubble and become dependent on their surroundings in their own language, sort of what the Italian immigrants did with Little Italy and the Russians with Brighton Beach. Once you arrive, it's nice to be able to know other people and have some security, but after a while, you'll probably need to register with the foreign police or go on a journey where everyone in your train carriage is speaking every language but your own.

It's going to be okay, but it's going to be uncomfortable as fuck. Even today, I went to pick up my 30 day tram pass from the local office here in Kralovo Pole and I asked the woman Mluvíš anglicky? She immediately responded with ne. So we kind of stood there and looked at each other for a minute. I got out my phone and used Google Translate and she responded using the same tool on her computer. We were able to have a slow conversation that took a few minutes, but I got the information I needed and thanked her and left.

Expats are going to be really handy with knowing other events in your own language and other hangouts in your town, unless you're the first expat - good for you! And since Facebook is essentially an entity all on its own now, use it for good and not stalking your exboyfriend. There are a ton of Facebook expat groups dedicated to finding housing, offering language exchanges (you help with my Czech while I help with your English), buy/sell/trade, job offers, etc. I'm in roughly ten of these and I was able to get connected to a website to find my apartment and another job board that posts jobs for bilingual candidates or jobs in need of native English speakers. Let the expat experience be a tool but not your lifeline.

5. HIRE A VISA AGENCY. I don't trust myself to handle my paperwork, visas, signatures, affidavits, appointments, and all of the bureaucratic nonsense that comes along with moving to a different country, so it turns out there are agencies that do it for you! Whaaaat super awesome. I'm using an agency in Prague that I contacted a few months ago. They praised me for getting a jump on this before I left since most people land in Prague and the countdown starts from their 90 day visa-free stay in order to get legal. No place to live, no job, etc. So a team originally from Pittsburgh helped me out with what documents they needed, what I needed to fill out, what needed to be translated, etc. They make the appointments, I show up. For instance I have a visa appointment in Berlin in late November. They'll interview me to make sure I am who I say I am and that I'm qualified for what I'm putting down as my list of trades. It's basically a job interview to live in another place. AND you don't want to be deported because you didn't have your ducks in a row, so it's best to let someone do that who has not only has done it themselves.

I'm sure there's a ton more I could be talking about and stuff that hasn't even occurred to me yet, which is why having a blog is handy since you can ramble anytime, anywhere. A lot of this is Czech-specific. But I'll leave you with this (puts mic back in the stand): the easiest countries to immigrate to if you are NOT a student or legally single/not married are the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. Or just marry a broad you meet on the internet I don't know who cares WHOZZISS GUY THINK HE IZZ ahhhh okay time for bed.

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! :)