Paris

I love Paris. It's a beautiful city with beautiful people and beautiful food. It reminded me a bit of New York, with its extensive metro systems (though NY metros aren't as clean/colorful/FULL OF STAIRS) and big city-ness, except it's prettier than New York, and the people are more polite less in a rush.. for example, a woman held the door to the metro station open for me, made eye contact with me, and smiled, and I found myself thinking something along the lines of "What the hell are you doing?!" and "What do you want from me!?" because that would never happen in the Czech Republic or maybe New York (the smiling part). Paris metros also seem to be inhabited by cute little mice as opposed to the gigantic rats of New York. So quaint. Love love love it.

One of my friends studying there remarked that France is kind of like the America of Europe, in that everyone learns French in schools and whatnot, so not a lot of French speak a second language. France was also different from the Czech Republic in that there were French flags displayed everywhere, and the Czechs aren't nearly as patriotic, just because during the communist era they were required to display the Czech flag during national holidays and the like, and if they didn't there would be consequences, so now they're probably turned off by the whole thing.

Western Europe really differs from Central Europe. There was more diversity in France (again, like New York). Of course, still no one knows what to do with Asians. Having forgotten my student ID, I got in for free at the Louvre with an asian friend's ID. It's sad that such ethnic ignorance exists, but I console myself by being able to work the system thanks to the inability of white people to tell asians apart. Yellow fever is another story though.

Love Paris. But left my heart in Prague. Glad to be back. Don't really want to return to the United States. :\ So obviously the solution is for all my friends in the states to move to Europe. Kthx.

Food in Prague

Along with all the usual herbs and spices and other things you use to make food taste like something, supermarkets here have these prepackaged spice mixes so you can just sprinkle them onto whatever food you're cooking and make the dish that the mix corresponds to-- for example, "american potatoes"(french fries) or "grilled chicken" or "chinese" (which... doesn't taste anything like chinese food i know).

Makes me wonder how unique and creative one can really be in cooking if it's so easy to just adhere to these condiment companies' ideas of what constitutes the "taste of asia".

More Elaborate Fall Break Post: Copenhagen

We took an overnight train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen. I was still so high that night that I was hallucinating that my cabin (I had a sleeping compartment intended for 6 people all to myself) was haunted because I kept hearing fingers snapping right behind my ear. I woke up the next morning fairly well rested, though, despite being woken up three times by police and conductors checking passports and tickets, and despite the imaginary finger snapping ghosts, though my head was pounding because I was super dehydrated from all the weed.

We had to wait for a friend's friend who was studying in Copenhagen to get out of class so we could drop our stuff off at her dorm and eat and shower or whatever, so I wandered around Copenhagen for a couple of hours. When she arrived at the train station, we took a bus half an hour to her dorm, where she lived in a single, with one bathroom, for twelve people. Half of us commandeered the kitchen with its two and a half couches and a sleeping mat (I took the half couch), and I have no idea how the other half managed in that tiny room.

Overall, I found Copenhagen to be very clean, very beautiful, and very fucking expensive. I enjoyed Freetown Christiania, and got high some more because the pre-rolled joints they had were cheaper than beer. I tagged along with my roommate and her friend from back home who was also studying in Copenhagen, and spent a night in an amazing estate/mansion on an organic farm in the Danish countryside while most of the rest of the group caved and got a hotel instead of infringing on dorm friend and her hallmates' space. I learned a lot from my roommate's friend about schooling in Denmark. Apparently there are these alternative preschool/kindergarten classes where the classroom is a school bus, and kids go somewhere different every day, following the philosophy that "the world is your classroom" and "life is learning." Silly hippies.

We also went to Louisiana, a modern art museum, and I really enjoyed the exhibits... there was a photography exhibit by a Danish artist Jacob Holdts called Amerika, displaying photos and stories of people holdts met while hitchhiking across America... meaning mostly of poor blacks and whites and KKK members in the deep South. Not quite a complete picture of America, but interesting to see how a non-American wants to portray Americans to other non-Americans.

Halloween night we went to Sensation: Wicked Wonderland, a huge rave in a stadium Copenhagen with an all-white dress code with five live DJs spinning from 7:30pm to 3:00am. It was epic and quite an experience. There was a snag in my happiness though when a group member got lost from us, didn't have a phone despite us pairing him up with someone who had a phone just so this wouldn't happen. After the rave there was no sign of him, so we thought he was dead until people went back to the hotel and found him on the bed, cracked out. Apparently he snorted some mystery powder (which turned out to be crystal meth) from a stranger, freaked out, and taxi'd back to the hotel. WHO DOES THAT? But at least he's okay.

The next day we flew back to Prague, no problems. I am glad to have survived Fall Break, and I am glad to be back in Prague.

More Elaborate Fall Break Post: Amsterdam

I was basically high for three days in Amsterdam, so the details are fuzzy. Also looking back at my photos, I seem to have mostly taken pictures of light sources. I learned that I don't like body highs because your body feels heavy and it's too hard to move (so don't smoke hash-- but I do enjoy space cakes). I also learned that I have been taking the feeling of being sober for granted for 20 years. I don't understand how some people enjoy being high all day all the time. I couldn't focus, couldn't see, couldn't walk, could barely handle crossing streets (and am surprised albeit glad I survived), and didn't see much of Amsterdam except the Heineken Museum because we spent all our time sleeping/watching TV in our awesome movie-themed hostel (our room was The Wall by Pink Floyd), in coffeeshops, or at Wok to Go, a fake Asian take-out place. Have you ever watched fake wrestling while high? We were mesmerized because the little muscly guy was wrapping his arms and legs around the big muscly guy and it looked like a lovers' quarrel.

My impression of Amsterdam is that the streets never stay in one place, like the staircases in Hogwarts, because I never had any idea where I was or where I was going or where I came from-- however, I also feel that all the streets lead to Wok to Go. I did walk down the red light district at night, and it would have been a weird experience sober but it was way more intense stoned out of my mind. Walking down the narrow alleys, I was confronted with FUCKING HOT GIRLS, scantily clad, waving and winking from behind glass doors, the tiny rooms they were in simulating bedrooms, bathrooms, locker rooms, etc. bathed in red light. It was like live Barbies that people have sex with. The men (or whoever) of Amsterdam are spoiled, that they can just walk down these streets and fuck near physical perfection... though of course, it differs from "real" relationships with women.. but that's a sex work lecture.

Anyway, I came out of Amsterdam severely dehydrated and with a nasty cough from smoking too much that I am still currently suffering from as I type this a week later. My mom thinks I'm sick when I cough when I skype with her. Too bad the real reason behind the cough is less than reassuring.

More Elaborate Fall Break Post: Barcelona

Our flight to Barcelona included an 8 hour overnight layover in Frankfurt--or, rather, an airport that was roughly the size of and looked like an abandoned warehouse 45 minutes outside of Frankfurt. My group of 12 people and some other NYU kids also traveling to Barcelona huddled in a corner in front of papered up glass doors, where a restaurant was currently under construction, and tried to sleep. It was cold and noisy and the man driving the linoleum tile cleaner tractor/machine probably hated us. I got about 1 hour of sleep and somehow made my way onto the plane going to Barcelona in the morning without collapsing on the tarmac (ghetto as this airport is, we had to walk outside the building along a marked path to where the airplane was parked a quarter of a mile away. that's what you get for flying budget airlines).

I got a few more hours of sleep during the flight but still felt and acted like a zombie. We boarded a bus to take us into Barcelona -- our plane landed in Girona, an hour away from Barcelona (budget airlines!!)-- and I slept for one more hour. Upon arrival, we clumsily navigated the metro system, found our hostel, and napped. When I woke up I had a fever and felt like dying. I went out anyway, got drunk on sangria, slept it off and was fine the next day. We went sightseeing hardcore despite being hungover, and I really like Gaudi's architecture, and really liked the weather, and really liked the beach, and really liked the seafood.

Oh and I got molested by some old lesbian on the dance floor of a gay club. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around thinking it was one of my friends but there was just this mouth on me, and when I pulled back she was like "You're so beautiful, do you like me?" and I just stared at her because I was too drunk to think of a response. My spanish speaking friend talked to her when I managed to flee and she kept trying to make all of us go back to her apartment so she could "be with me" because "she was in love with me." We were like nothxbye and fled. BARF. I can sometimes still feel her tongue down my throat and it makes me gag a little.

Spaniards, like Berliners, party fucking hard into the morning hours. Barcelona was pretty and the people were friendly but I found myself missing Prague, which would be a recurring theme throughout my trip.

Racist Things That Have Happened to Me in Europe

Prague: people thinking I'm Japanese or Korean, people thinking I wasn't born in America (nothing new). No specific incident stands out.

Barcelona: ten year old kid skateboards up to me sitting on a park bench, yells "KONICHIWAAA" while making karate motions with his arms, skateboards away.

waiter greets me, obviously speaking English with my other friends, with "ni hao."

Amsterdam: too high to remember anything.

Copenhagen: White guy asks me if I like asian men (no), white guy who bumped into me accidentally at Sensation, in order to apologize, bows at me.

Also at rave, while waiting for friend to get out of bathroom, white guy asking me if I knew [asian sounding name here], who was an asian man who apparently used to wash dishes for him, and according to white guy "was a good guy." good for you. i don't know all the fucking asians in the world. (just the gays.)

Seriously Europe. Come on. I mean, I was never violently beaten or threatened for being asian in the states, but comments made and attitudes people had still made me feel like an "other." I'm not fully accepted in America, but I am less so in any asian country, even though "that's where my parents are from." But it strikes me that America, or lots of parts of America, might indeed be the place that one would meet the most diverse populations.

WHATEVER. Our law schools are better anyway.

Post-Communist Transitions

My Czech teacher offered a brief glimpse into her private life today. We were talking about how to decline the word "kola" (Coca-cola) and she told us that when she was growing up under the communist regime, the "truths" they were taught were that everything in the West was bad, so therefore coke was bad. But someone got the bright idea to make a knockoff of Coke (that tastes nothing like coke) and called it kofola, and that's what they drank. However, after the Velvet Revolution the "truth" completely changed and suddenly everything Western was good, so Coca-cola became popular. Only recently has Kofola come back into the market and it's beginning to be hip again. It tastes like a mix of watery coke and lemonade. Well to each his own.

I thought it was interesting how she framed this story and this narrative of change as "truths" changing. As if there were only one universal truth. Big T Truth. Oh memories of high school English debates coming back to me.

In other news, slowly adding Czech to my arsenal of languages-I-kind-of-know-how-to-speak is messing up my brain. I find myself more and more often mixing up words from different languages and thinking things like "I need to take the vingt-deux tramvaj and then i'll stop by the potraviny protoze j'ai envie de 桔子我是一隻草泥馬 ."