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.
All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.
I'm writing under a very slanted wall in my new apartment. Over the last month, I've been taking one Ikea bag full of my shit for a 90 second bus ride and then up six flights of stairs to a flat which is tough to spatially navigate for the short and tall. If a hipster hobbit lived in Brno, they might have a place like this.
My favorite part of my new spot.
I returned my keys to the landlord of my first apartment in Brno this past Sunday. The Skacelova flat was my landing pad, my home base furnished with white leather couches and glass coffee tables. Over time I realized the comforts of that sizable flat was unnecessary for a single person plus cat and I was paying for a lot of space I wasn't using. I had an alcove with a desk and an entire living room I didn't sit in until six months after I arrived. These spaces collected dust and an unimaginable amount of cat hair during the year I inhabited the contemporary concrete dwelling and in an effort to save money and feel like I was really living in a space, I moved.
Looking for the right apartment took a few weeks. Time was of the essence during this point in the summer as it was right before the throngs of university students descended upon Brno for their careers in horticulture or veterinary science. Instead of being up against those living away from home for the first time, I decided to look earlier than I initially intended. I found a few places I really liked. I even told the real estate agents I met with "I'll take it!" more than once, only a few days later to discover it was given to someone else with no warning despite my firm and enthusiastic response. What was it going to take to actually secure an apartment in this city?
When I found the apartment I'm in now, I immediately fell in love with it. The walls are slanted and I have skylights for windows. There's no carpeting, and the space is just enough. I didn't want this apartment to turn out like the last few by slipping through my fingers, so if the Czechs wanted to play hardball, fine. It's supposedly my national past time. Why not make an attempt at getting what I want? I would be living in it, after all.
I pulled 10,000 crowns out of the bankomat at 8am and met with a real estate agent who could probably star in Real Housewives of the Former Iron Curtain. Her nails were very manicured and her strapless pink jumpsuit was usually seen poolside somewhere in Vegas. She and her tall hair led me up six floors to the flat I'm still struggling to name. After shaking hands, it became apartment she knew zero English and I could point at things and name them in Czech but was unable to create any concrete thought which conveyed meaning. But money doesn't need a language.
As soon as I saw the apartment met my minimal requirements of a separate bed space, washing machine, and walls I could drill into, I pulled out my cash and slid it across my new kitchen counter to the agent. She laughed as she outstretched her arm to count it and possibly make sure it's not counterfeit which I hear is still a thing here. She immediately wrote me a receipt and I had officially reserved the flat for September 1. I'm officially in and most of my things have a space of their own which isn't cluttered. Maybe I'll even buy a TV because
While I was sorting out moving from one flat to another, I made reservations to come home for the first two weeks of November. Thanksgiving and Christmas weren't available to take due to popular demand, so I inadvertently decided to travel during the most tumultuous week of the year: the midterm elections. I didn't even realize I had included this burgeoning clusterfuck in my travels until I gave my mom the dates of my visit. "You're going to be home during the election!" was the first reply I got to my news. Panekristo. I'm in a weird place with going home. I haven't told a lot of people I'll be in town with the exception of my family and a few close friends. I've been off Facebook for about three months meaning I didn't send out some pointless press release announcement to everyone in the digital ether. I haven't tried to book any shows or schedule things which can't be unscheduled. I've had 30-some Novembers in Seattle and this one probably won't be much different. I can honestly see it now: first I'm going to borrow my mom's car and hopefully remember how to drive. Then I'm going to go through the Starbucks drive-thru and go back home. And maybe I'll hit a mic or two.
Right now I get the feeling I'm really rusty with comedy. When I first got to Brno I had to test out which material worked from home and which stuff didn't. I had to adapt certain jokes or completely forget others that relied too much on local references or inside jokes. I'll probably have to reformat what I've written here prior to going on stage in the back of a Thai restaurant. In my head it goes a certain way. I make an awkward joke about being away and I stumble through a combination of old and new jokes that don't work regardless of what country I'm in. Am I going to be judged? But I want the attention and validation of being on stage without having people look at me.
Better try stand up!
I know I seem pessimistic about returning, but I think it's because I don't know what to expect. I'm sure friends and family will be happy to see me and I'm sure I'll be consoling one or multiple family members on election night due to some fantastic upset we'll act like we didn't see it coming but in reality we were in the backseat as it had been careening out of control for months. I get to meet my niece Emily just in time for her very first birthday. From what I hear she's an extremely happy baby and kind of a ham. But as I'm writing this, I realize it's not even the actual visit back that I'm concerned about; it's getting through Heathrow in under two hours.
In 1999 I spent six hours somewhere in the sprawling duty-free stress zoo of London-Heathrow. My family and I were returning from a trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe and the trip home to Seattle was roughly 36 hours starting from Livingstone, Zimbabwe. My only real memory of the seventh biggest airport in the world was that my mom bought a watch. Our layover was long, even by international standards, which meant shopping and ogling at things like cigarettes and booze, dormant items which would awaken in about five years. A silver Seiko, my mom bought. I'm not sure why that's the one memory I'm clinging to about this English detour, but that's all I got.
To get back on track, holy shit it's a big place. The website for Heathrow is actually pretty adorable. There are a ton of little video tutorials on how to go through passport control, customs, how to get from terminal to terminal, take the Underground into the city, and where to exchange money. I plotted out my course and realized the last time I was making a connection was with two duffle bags and a cat on my back so this should be a bit easier.
I've traveled enough to have developed habits along the way to ease the process and not stress out. Here's my foolproof to-do list:
1. Put your headphones in before you even get on the plane. Don't even listening to anything if you don't want to or need to keep your hands free from the Shuffle function. You know that guy waiting in line to board and you know he's just a chatty motherfucker by looking at him and his stupid jacket and utility vest with all the pockets? Don't risk it. This flight is 10+ hours and by no means can you speed it up. Chatting may make the time go faster, but the last time I tried this I ended up sitting next to a Mormon guy ("Elder Matt") and he was very confused by the presence of a tattooed girl leaving the Tucson area and had to know more. If you don't want to talk, headphones.
2. If you're in line for security and there's a sign that reads "you no longer have to remove your shoes or belts!", remove your shoes and belt. More than half the time people act like they can cruise through a metal detector when it's not like any of us have anywhere to be and the process slows to this unprepared passenger rubbernecking through zigzagging lines. The little Vietnamese kid making six cents an hour assembling your shoes probably didn't think the little piece of tin or aluminum wedged in between the arch and sole of your shoe was going to cause massive delays. But here we are, waiting on you because the signage stated our travel plans are impervious to hidden materials. Nope. Take 'em off.
3. Buy shit when you get there. Every time I was traveling to Tucson, Los Angeles, or Minneapolis, I was having to buy tiny containers of bullshit every time, and I ended up buying more than I needed because what if three tiny containers of hairspray wasn't enough!?
At Target these little guys are $1.08 before tax. The average woman uses 7-8 products during her shower and beauty routine, and given the frequency I was flying, I didn't want to fork out money for every round trip flight, so I bought stuff and kept it where I was landing. But if you're booking a one-way to stay in a yurt out on the Mongolian steppe, good luck.
4. Schmooze with a flight attendant for extra perks. And if you're a dude I don't mean try to fuck one of the flight attendants. I just mean be nice to them and show them some extra courtesy while they're doing their job. And I understand being nice to someone on a long trip while 38,000 feet in the air can be demanding, but it doesn't have to be. On the trip from Seattle to Frankfurt, I had kitty underneath the seat in front of me and the seat next to me empty, leaving us considerable room to spread out in the luxurious world of Economy Plus. I stuck to the basic please and thank yous but also remembered to maintain eye contact and telling them I appreciate what they were doing for me. After a while, one attendant would "serve" the empty seat next to me so kitty and I would have extra potatoes, rolls, or teeny bottles of water. Other times an attendant I hadn't seen yet would appear from within the aisles and ask to see the hidden kitty at my swollen feet. Wo ist der katzen?
5. If you don't want to check a bag and have everything with you in the cabin, don't use a rolling rectangular suitcase. A habit I picked up from my dad is checking to see which kind of aircraft is taking me from A to B or A to B to C. You might have traveled in the past and realized with a pang of panic that you're suddenly taking a two engine prop plane to your final destination instead of the now seemingly luxurious 737-900. It was nice knowing you!
Travel with a backpack meant for light travel or for serious backpacking. If you don't overpack, the shape of the backpack can be malleable and more forgiving in unexpected spaces. You know that shitty little luggage test space (I'm seriously blanking on the name of this thing) where you try to squeeze your bag in to see if it's up to the airline's sizing standards? Never will you be asked to compare your luggage to this if you don't use a rectangular bag. You don't even need to get a serious hiking backpack, just something that lends enough support for your back and shoulders. Also you'll have both your hands free. AND you won't look like a doofus trying to figure it out how to get a rectangle into a rectangle. Get a backpack, shove that thing in the overhead bin and be done with it.
5b. Don't have a backpack but don't want to pay the $25 to check a bag? Carry it through security anyway and gate-check your luggage. 90% of flights offer to check your bag for you at the gate rather than at the check-in counter prior to security. Usually this happens because “aw wouldja look at that folks, we're oversold and need some volunteers to take advantage of this undiscovered trick we either haven't realized or chose not to tell you about!"
I've gotten to gates and been like "What do you mean it's too big?" Play dumb and volunteer. Don't forget to take out any medications, keys, chargers, etc before separating from your belongings.
Obviously a few of these are strictly for international flights, but yeah have at it. This is the closest I've come to giving advice on this blog for about a year, the last being "So you want to expatriate." I've lived in the Czech Republic for 352 days. 352 days ago, everything here was brand new. Little processes you'd gloss over and not think twice about took some major maneuvering. The simplest answer was never the easiest. The scenic route wasn't always scenic. I've cried at bus stops, on trams, and outside of hospitals at 2am. I've been yelled at in a few different languages, sometimes by a person in the immigration office, sometimes a person at the embassy. Someone told me I'd be home by March 28 because I would give up and want to come home. I fight for this because it's what I want. It's painful, exhausting, depressing, and discouraging at times. There are times when I've really wanted to pack it in and stick kitty back in his backpack and book a flight home. The inner child in me runs home to my mom for refuge, reassurance, and a good blanket. That inner child yearns for a bedtime story and for someone to tell her that just because things are unpredictable right now doesn't mean it won't be okay.
There have times I've been unhinged and very un-Dude. Most of these situations involved a government or business entity leaving out key pieces of information I needed in order to plan my time and spend my money accordingly. There are so many instances of this I'm not even going to list them. I'll leave my flat with a mission, get these three things done!
And I return home with half of one to completion. But the comfort, ease, and automation of bureaucracy currently present in the United States are a few things I chose to sacrifice. The Czechs still run on a take-a-number system in the majority of public places. I might even go so far to say the Czechs run the take-a-number system. In the bank, the doctor, the post office. It's as if every moment of progress backslides because standing in a queue (weird) is a thing of the future, a thought which hangs out with "walls that aren't cement" and "my ATM not being an actual person." It's frustrating, but I chose this. The longer I live outside the United States, the less I want to go back.
I've changed positions a few times under my very slanted ceiling since I've been writing this. I'm in bed which is in a nook that resembles a mid-century-modern opium den with oversized pillows, slightly askew angles, subpar lighting, and a cup of rooibos. I feel safe in the nook. Kitty is snoring next to me and we both got our toenails cut today. I'm on the mend from being sick and I may have some changes on the horizon. Lateral move changes, not move-to-Sihanoukville changes. I hope the United States gets it's shit together soon. If it doesn't, you have my permission to burn it to the ground.
“I'm going to fight it, but I'll let it live.”
It's been a while since I've updated, mostly because life happened. I started my new job, acquired a new apartment, and basically quit comedy for the time being because those last two things haven't allowed me to travel or know my schedule anymore than two weeks in advance. Maybe I haven't updated because things have plateaued and there haven't been these urgent, bureaucratic developments to report on as the race to a two-year visa is over. I didn't win and I didn't lose the race, but holy fuck did it take a while.
I worked at Comcast in 2012 and 2013 in the company's last departmental resort to retain customers commonly referred to as "Loyalty," but anyone who has worked in the telecommunications industry will know it as "Retention." Between disconnecting or downgrading services, I was sometimes the last point of contact for customers who hadn't been using their OnDemand services like they imagined, or they only watched three of the 450 unnecessary channels for which they paid. Half hostage negotiator and half sales rep, I convinced people to step away from the ledge with three free months of HBO or Cinemax. I didn't feel like I was getting paid enough to be yelled at every day after my training wage dropped from $18.57 an hour to $12, so on my 90th day, I didn't come in. It took a week for them to call me. Since the turn over rate was so high in the "future of awesome," keeping track of employees was an afterthought.
I'm now in a similar situation in Brno. I'm training to be a manager in a call center alongside two others in Bratislava and Kosice, Slovakia. The technical support world is drastically different than that the sad sap, desperate world of retention. With technical support, people actually want their issues solved. With retention, people want to eliminate those issues completely. I went from bargaining to sleuth-like maintenance for customers who mostly live south of the Mason-Dixon line. Their accents are difficult for Czech people to decipher, and the Czech accent is quickly grouped into the generic Slav language pool by those who think communism is still a danger to society. Some of my Czech coworkers even had to change their Moravian sounding names to something more American, like from Djanna to Jane in order to woo the customer into thinking we're all on the same team.
For the last four weeks, I've been in training during the day and I'm now working second shift to align with US business hours. The six to nine hour time difference means no more early mornings as I'm doing my best to help the guy who mowed his lawn ("cutting his grass" as I explained to my Czech colleagues) and subsequently ran over his telephone line, or the woman who is convinced her modem would regain life by unplugging the power cord and leaving it unplugged. As much as I make fun of the southern accent and accompanying etiquette, it's nice to speak with Americans. I'm able to use the entire catalog of my vocabulary and not just the universal basics. One guy even told me he was glad I wasn't from India. I politely explained that our company is multi-national and we employ people with many different ethnicities and backgrounds. He told me, "I like the way you put that." I work with people from Egypt, Israel, Mozambique, Mexico, Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Africa, Ghana, Turkey, Greece, and Zambia. Sometimes I feel guilty having the easy calls with even easier communication, but I hope my vernacular can rub off professionally.
Between eating an apple with some crackers for lunch and taking phone calls from properties which used to be plantations, I started looking for another apartment in Brno. I love the place where I am but it's very big for a small town (no one here knows where Seattle is) girl with her cat. I'm basically in a two-story townhouse. The size would be appropriate for a couple or someone whose best friend is always passed out drunk on their couch, but I don't fall into either of those categories. My kingsize bed is just a giant shelf where some of my stuff now stays because it's mathematically impossible for me to reach. I don't have any of my own furniture except for a nightstand. The flat came furnished with a glass chrome coffee table and boxy cream leather couches. It's like the Czech version of Weekend at Bernie's except there's less blow.
The new place I found is three blocks away from me in Kralovo Pole. It's on the fifth floor (technically sixth floor according to Europeans) with no elevator so my legs are about to get...and I think I'm using this right, "swole"? I'm on the very top of a yellow building with a red roof. The tram is about fifty yards away and I have a vecerka mini-mart across the street. It's sunny with windows in my slanted ceilings and it comes with a washing machine, a nook for a full-size bed, and an outdated wardrobe I'm going to call "Spare-Oom." I like it because it's small, not super small in the sense that I would need to disguise its size with the word "cozy." It will be unique to me with my own items and furniture not unique to a Czech cocaine dealer. The transitional housing I've been in was great as a jumping off point, but I need something that's mine. I'm justifying the continuation of my selfishness because I'm the only human I'm invested in taking care of right now. That's why I'm here in the first place. Also my new apartment is almost half of what I'm paying now so I'm feeling pretty good about it. A common thing for foreigners to experience here is being ripped off by landlords as soon as they discover their potential tenants aren't Czech. I was turned away from multiple apartment listings once they found out I wasn't Czech and that I was clearly writing my emails using Google Translate. But eventually I found a place where I can thrive alone and I move in September 1.
Last month I was lucky to have some traveling sober friends in town. We went to the oldest restaurant in Brno for a traditional Czech meal, caught up on program-related aspirations and developments, and discussed current and past travels through Europe. It was fun poorly translating in restaurants and shops, digging through Czech thrift stores for outdated fashion and even further outdated fashion, and not having to worry about the overindulgence of alcohol. My friend brought up that I should get a Czech Big Book (Modry Kniha, or "Blue Book" in CZ) so I could learn the language better since the AA verbiage is the same in every language. The next week I went to the one Czech AA meeting in Brno. I brokenly told the group of five I had moved here from the US and I used to work as a teacher but now I'm working in Bohunice. I told them I haven't had a drink in over three years and where I live, about kitty and my family back home. My Czech is still very "white" as in it's broke and is probably doing more harm than good, but I was able to use the language effectively to find the small sober community here. Due to working second shift temporarily, I haven't been able to attend and I found out there are no English-speaking meetings in Brno, so while I feel isolated, having two sober friends come visit further made me acknowledge I made the right choice. I couldn't do what I'm doing today if I had kept drinking. To be blunt, I'd probably be dead.
In regards to my non-hypothetical health, I'm doing much better than I was back in April. My diabetologist doesn't give me any shit and he trusts me to take care of myself and manage my dosages. He was able to order me the appropriate amount of test strips I need per month and SURPRISE I didn't have to cry on the phone to my insurance, endocrinologist's office, or the pharmacy. Trying to get my health straight in the US was like playing medical Three Card Monte every few months while the institutions play this circular blame game of finding the designated person to help me. Pharmacy says I need to talk to my doctor, doctor says I need to talk to my insurance company, insurance company says I need to talk to my pharmacist. If I need any prescriptions in CZ, I email my diabetologist, I pick up the slip, take it to the pharmacy, and they give it to me on the spot, no questions asked. Insulin only has a 30 day shelf life if it hits room temperature so moving a large supply by public transport can be tricky. Every time I pick up insulin, I also buy frozen veggies and berries to keep it cool on the sometimes 40 minute ride home. That's honestly the worst part about all of this. I'm sure there are easier ways to do it but I like making things hard on myself.
My dad told me about a story that was on NBC Nightly News last week about "black market insulin," something I was partaking in before I left last fall. Because the cost of insulin has risen over 1000% since 2006, the diabetic community has taken to Facebook and Reddit in order to seek advice and supplies that aren't prescribed by a doctor, which fortunately isn't illegal. One of the stupid things about diabetes is that we have to get refills for something we're going to have for life. Countries with universal healthcare sometimes give diabetic patients a pharmacy card that they simply show to the pharmacist to get the drugs and supplies they need to stay alive.
Alas in the United States, diabetic patients are turning to GoFundMe as their health insurance provider because the pharmaceutical industry knows we have to pay for insulin and going without is not an option. A guy in Minnesota aged out of his mom's health insurance plan at the age of 27 and struggled to pay for his insulin. He didn't meet his fundraising goal and he died. Other stories include diabetics rationing their insulin and up to 25% of people with the disease admit to cutting back because of the rising costs. Doing so can lead to blindness, kidney issues, severe nerve damage, liver failure, and DKA, the point where your body can no longer handle the excess glucose in your system and starts shutting itself down. Some people say I overreacted. Between a bad break up, losing my job, and having the repeal of Obamacare pass in the House, I couldn't stay in the US anymore. That entire day scared the shit out of me. No one believed it would happen. And it did. That wasn't a risk I was willing to take.
Fuck this guy.
Last week I went to buy some frozen food before picking up my insulin and I paid $6 for a $2,300 supply. I had wanted to live abroad for years and now was the opportunity, not for my life but also literally for my life.
It took ten months to the day, but I finally have my job, my kitty, and my apartment. I'm excited to have my own blank canvas and not have to share any of my square meters with a roommate. I'm going to build ledges in the skylights so kitty can have a place to perch and modify a bureau that's unique to me and no one else. It took forfuckingever but it's finally coming together. It's been exhausting trying to relax. I can't wait to get back to the point where I can stop caring. You know, in a healthy way.
Czech and Date
I first used Tinder in 2015. I had just moved back to Seattle from Minneapolis and I wasn't really sure of my relationship status at the time, so I hopped on the app with a notoriously simple UI. After a few cautious swipes I got a match! My first match! What should we name our kids? What will he think of a color scheme containing seafoam and taupe?
After some further investigation, I discovered my future husband and I had around 60 friends in common from Facebook. Of course, he was a comedian.
Tinder is such a mystery to me because I've seen people use it like a sperm donor donation guide but also in a hot-or-not rating system way just to innocently pass the time. None of the matches I ever made came to fruition. The furthest I got was moving from the app to text messaging with our real phone numbers. No movies, no dates, no walks along Alki. A daily "hey how's it going" turned into a weekly "what are you up to this weekend?" I wasn't crazy determined to meet anyone every time I've used Tinder, and I spent most of my time swiping left to find people I know and giggle over how they chose to represent themselves through six Instagram pictures and their recent Spotify artists.
Honestly, meeting someone from Tinder sounded like a lot of work.
Are they going to like me? I'm leaving the country soon so I could ruin his life. I'll ruin his life. I'm running out of foundation. Is this guy worth scraping the bottom of the tube with a q-tip just to give off the illusion that my skin is decent?
I'd rather stay home and watch Brendan Fraser movies with my cat (this ended up happening a lot).
For the first three months I was in the Czech Republic, the only person I thought of was myself. Initially this idea is selfish, but when transitioning to a post-communist country with a lot of people who have been through some shit, I had to make sure I was doing okay before I even considered romantically invited someone into my life who may have very different societal ideologies than myself. I redownloaded the app and edited my profile with more recent pictures and a few notes about my eating habits (cheeseburgers), my drinking habits (there isn't one), and my love for sitcoms (not that there's anything wrong with that). But even after ten minutes, I could tell my main issue would be the language barrier.
Most people here who are under the age of 30 speak English to some degree. It is now taught in primary schools as opposed to German or Russian. The more profiles I went through, the more I realized that I'm either going to have to find someone who speaks English or I'm going to have to learn Czech very quickly. I'm very sparing with right swipes, so any dude who I became interested in superficially had to meet a certain set of criteria: not all of their pictures should be of them drinking, they need at least one photo someone else took of them, no gym selfies, and they had to indicate they spoke at least some English. After a few minutes on the app, I saw a popular pattern emerging among Czech men:
(I accidentally swiped left on a couple of these goobers so I'll update if anything happens.)
If you guessed "men on vacation wearing sunglasses," congratulations! Most of the profiles I saw had an absurd amount of men traveling and being active. If you swapped all of these pictures out with American girls who recently studied abroad for all of two months, there would be zero difference. I shied away from making contact because I think I was intimidated. I know myself well. I don't surf. I don't mountain climb. I don't go to places where I can't at least buy a snack. I like being comfortable and where there's no threat of large crowds or riptide or bees. There is a residual fear of not being able to connect with any of these people because I like movies and writing and typically things that involve being indoors for an extended period of time. What am I going to talk about? How I found a good Russian cam rip of Isle of Dogs or what subreddit deserves more attention?
I only had one successful match where the conversation lead to WhatsApp and eventually a date at a teahouse. He looked like a young James Spader and majored in astrophysics. In his spare time, he's working on getting his pilot license and spending time with his family. English wasn't his first language and my first instinct was to correct his actually pretty decent grammar, but it was so harmless and cute I almost couldn't take it seriously. And that's why I think I'm largely unsuccessful with dating apps: I can't take them seriously.
Every profile becomes a joke to me. By the end of my perusing I've given half the guys ambiguous Slavic accents and butchered their English while they talk about the differences between good and bad dinner rolls. Tinder has now replaced Reddit as the "hmm what else can I do" entertainment portion of my evenings. It's incredibly mindless and I only login after I'm convinced I've read the entirety of the internet. I forget I have Tinder. I open it maybe once a month, and each time I open it I have to reacquaint myself with the conversations I left dangling or the five guys named Martin and the three guys named Ondrej or the couple of guys named Pavel. I'm also convinced there's only seven Czech names for men and that's why I can't keep any of them straight or differentiate them from one another.
I wonder if Tinder is worth my time because it slowly came to feel like a chore. I became more content with continuing to spend time with myself than muster the effort to meet someone who may not understand me, both emotionally and linguistically. James Spader understood my jokes and we texted a few times after our date, but we haven't talked in maybe two weeks. Things fizzled out and I think neither of us saw the point of carrying it out any further. I also have my own suspicion he lost interested when he found out I don't drink or go clubbing. The only thing in common was our age. It was tough to build a cultural connection in such a short time, but maybe it was for the best. I always feel safer when I'm alone. The act of procreation is really popular here, and I don't mean the euphemism for sex, I mean actually procreating to make children, so the older generation urges the younger to make offspring. I can't even start my job, let alone a family. What I'm getting at is that I don't know how I'll measure up to Czech expectations of how life is supposed to proceed. I'm on a very different unpaved road and I'm not trying to rush into anything. For now, Tinder is only a source of entertainment, a digital carousel of traveling millenials and Adidas tracksuits. I'm not desperate. I think the only person I need right now is me.
"YEAH, YOU'D THINK."
I don't even know where to start because a lot has happened but also nothing has happened at all. This is my first entry for all of June because, like I said, nothing has really happened worth noting.
Czech bureaucracy has worn me down to the point of tears. The immigration and employment processes seemed fairly streamlined and straightforward when viewed on a website. But when you're having to go from one brutalist building to another to ensure the concrete ship is being ran tightly while being forced to hand over the wheel to someone else, it can become extremely discouraging.
To be more specific, I'm having to do a lot of the work myself. You might be thinking "oh poor you, Liz. You LIVE in Europe, how can that be so complicated and exhausting?" Because I can't trust anything anyone tells me. Usually when you speak with someone directly from the government, you have some some faith that you're being told an official, correct answer. Between the information I get from the Ministry of Interior, my new job, their respective websites, and the faceless person who may or may not communicate effectively with me via email, something is always left out, I receive four different answers to the same question, or I get information too late that would have been much helpful at an earlier point. As a result, this poorly oiled stroj has made any attempt at planning ahead, organizing a schedule, or getting any kind of clear answer to do so next to impossible.
Here's a "quick" timeline of 2018 so far:
January 27:
Got hired at new job pretty much immediately. Woohoo! This means applying for an employee card, a two year "visa" that allows me to legally work for a business in the Czech Republic as opposed to using my trade license and a long-stay visa through a term of one year.
January 27 through March 27:
Gather certified documents, translations, and degrees to apply for employee card. I find out my start date at work is April 23.
March 23:
I give notice at my teaching job as I must notify my employer more than 60 days out if I have the intention of leaving my position.
April 9:
Apply for employee card at Ministry of Interior. I'm told this process should take six weeks. I pay an administration fee of 1500 crowns but I have to use government issued stamps as, I quote, "bribes are still a problem here."
April 23:
I'm pushed back at my job until May 14 as my employee card is still processing. I get a letter from the Ministry of Interior saying I need to come in with a certified Czech translator for an interview on May 10.
May 10:
My interview with the Ministry of Interior is centered around me switching from my trade license to an employee card. A ton of questions ensue about my assets in the Czech Republic, how I spend my time freelancing, why I will no longer be teaching at an accredited institution, and why I applied for the job. 90 minutes later, they tell me I could be approved as soon as Monday or by the end of the following week.
May 11:
My last day at my teaching job. I quit at this time because I was under the impression I would be working that Monday.
May 14:
I'm not approved and my start date at my job is pushed back to June 11.
May 17:
Receive a phone call from the Ministry of Interior my application for an employee card was approved. I'm told I'll receive an official copy in the mail within ten days so I can formally confirm with my employer. I am given a date, June 27, to come into the Ministry of Interior for biometric data to be included on my employee card, 13 days after my supposed start date. The person who calls me tells me I can start work even if I don't have the card in hand.
May 22:
Because my employer wants to conduct a medical check, as in an exam making sure I can actually do the job I was hired to do, I meet with a doctor who doesn't know me. He determines that because I have Type 1 diabetes, I might be a risky hire. I'm given a test tube to pee into as I have to provide my own sample (or anyone's) and meet with another doctor assigned to my employer on May 24.
May 24:
The second doctor doesn't ask for my urine sample. I record this conversation as I have now learned I can't trust what anyone tells me. She agrees that I might be a risky hire because I have Type 1 as well as depression. My case is sent over to a board of directors in Prague to review and my endocrinologist is called to confirm my diabetes is being successfully managed and I have zero complications as a result. She doesn't ask for my urine test and I then realize I basically could have lied about the whole thing because no one was going to bother to check or follow up with me. She then stammers with me for ten minutes while I ask her what is it exactly about my disease that prevents me from working my job. I leave with no answer.
June 1:
My medical check is approved but I haven't received any information in the mail that I can show my employer I can start work on June 11.
June 11:
I don't start my job. Turns out I can't work unless I have the actual card printed and in my hand.
June 12:
My employer pushes me back until July 23. My employer tells me there might be a possibility I can start on July 16, but no one confirms this.
June 27:
I go to the Ministry of Interior to get my picture taken and get fingerprinted for my employee card. I am told I can pick up the card on Tuesday, July 17. I notify my employer my card will be ready to pick up on said date.
June 28:
My employer tells me I can start on July 16, but they can't tell me if I can work without the physical card in hand or if I am able to take time in the middle of the following day to pick up the card. I sit in bed and write this post. As of yesterday, this has now taken six months.
The Czech Republic is a weird place. In some areas you'd think it would be incredibly advanced but in other areas, it doesn't add up. The main example I use is with our debit cards. Across CZ we can use a "contactless card," meaning I no longer have to swipe it and I can just tap the card on a receiver and my purchase goes through. Not a lot of banks have instituted this technology in the United States so it's kind of a one up.
However, the main branch of my bank is in central Brno, and if I want to take money out or deposit money, I have to pick a number like it's the fucking DMV and wait until I'm called to then tell a real person how much money I want to deposit or withdraw. So the technology is great...but the automated system overall is not updated or consistent.
The major thing I have learned in the past nine months since I've been here is that expecting all of the bureaucracy to go seamlessly is ridiculous. The first tip I should have noticed this at is that for me to apply for a visa in the Czech Republic, I had to go to Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna, or Bratislava. I had to leave the country to apply to stay in the country which I came from. I thought it would be...easy.
Not only has the process been long, annoying, and every level of frustrating, it's been emotionally taxing. Because of the delays in my job, I had to back out of Edinburgh Fringe as I thought I'd be able to take time off in August if I had started on time. I lost my deposit I put towards a bed in a shared flat and my flight didn't get refunded. Overall I lost about $500 on this, money I could have put towards a deposit on a new flat or used for airfare to fly home and visit. There were times where I thought I could have gone home for a week, but because I couldn't trust any of the information being told to me, I couldn't risk being out of the country during a time where something might change...again. This process has affected my stand up, my family time, my creative drive, and my determination to be a real person.
My main "character defect" is patience, as AA told me. I don't have it. I don't know what to do with it when I do have it. I absolutely hate not having the answers to questions I have. My dad told me a story a few weeks ago where he was watching me when I was about age 2. He took these magnetic alphabet letters we had off the fridge and put them in front of me to spell different basic words. My dad would put the word out in front of me and say "cat!" while he'd point to Jake or Elwood, named after the Blues Brothers. I picked it up fairly quickly, but once the letters were scrambled, I didn't do well. He put the word "cat" with the letters out of order in front of me. I was getting agitated because I knew all the letters were there but I didn't know what to do to make it say "cat." I became inconsolable, crying and saddened, a two-year-old only wanting the answer that couldn't be given to me.
I've been too depressed and angry to write this post and part of me didn't want to let everyone know how I was doing. A lot of the complications are hard to explain to someone who hasn't gone through it themselves. For six months I've been trying to create some semblance of a schedule or routine, but I haven't had that. I sleep from 3am until 3pm. I've watched a lot of sitcoms and my YouTube history is full of conspiracy-related time holes. I try to do one thing a day, whether that's a load of laundry or checking. I cried myself to sleep last night because I really don't want that much: I just want my tiny apartment, my cat, and my job.
I've been looking at other flats because the one I'm in now is excessive and I'm paying for a lot of space I don't use. I went to look at a place in a panelak, a panel style building constructed in the former Czechoslovakia, and I fell in love with it. On the top floor with no one living above me, the windows looked out over the hillsides and industry of the city. I had a deck with windows that could be pulled aside in the summer for fresh air. The bathroom was brightly lit and there was sample storage space for the items I don't have. The kitchen was pristine but not sterile. With two major tram lines and five major bus routes at the bottom of the building, I'd have easy access to the job I have yet to work and the rest of the city, but being up thirteen stories, you couldn't hear anything and it was reassuringly quiet.
The weather has been cold and 50ish. It rained all night so when my hometown weather is upon me, I use it as an excuse to not go out. "Well at least I'm not spending any money!" I think to myself as I restart Brooklyn 99 and eat a tortilla for dinner. I cried myself to sleep last night because I honestly thought it wouldn't be this hard. I've put in the effort, made appointments, showed up on time, filled out the right forms, certified and translated all my documents correctly, followed up with phone calls and emails, and I still feel like I failed. Why is it that the Czech system is so backwards but I'm the one who feels like she failed? I don't want to sit here and be like "Yeah man the system, man...it's just the system out to get us" but really I don't think people realize how much easier these processes could be. I'm definitely spoiled coming from the US, but you'd think some changes would be implemented given that so many immigrants and foreigners are going through these exact same steps just to get a well paying job in a different country on a daily basis. At what point is it not worth it anymore?
And the worst part of all of this: the United States is so fucked up right now, I feel like I can't go home, even if I wanted to. Do I try to do best with the cards given to me in CZ or do I risk not having access to certain human facets at home? Do I have a home right now? I feel like I can't go home.
A lot of this is me simply rambling but I'm realizing it's a pretty accurate example of the state I'm currently in: I'm lost with no organized timeline and I can't trust anyone.