Life In Prague

"Dog Days"

In Prague, I was quite surprised to see that most of the dogs don't even have leashes when they are being walked on the street. Not only that, but there are so many dogs in general. Small dogs, big dogs, chihuahuas, docksons, and German Shepherds. The thing that makes this so remarkable to me, is that there are no leashes and the dogs are so well behaved. On the subway, they lay down on the ground next to their owners, while walking in the park, they don't stray too far from the path, and everywhere around the city the dogs in general are very well trained and well behaved. The funniest part about this whole thing is that Ekta and Zhou Lin are both afraid of dogs. And by afraid, I mean petrified of them. Ekta can't even walk on the same street as a dog, cowering every time they come near. Even for the smallest ones, she thinks they are vicious people-eating monsters. It's quite comical. Ana (from Brazil) always has to be her bodyguard when we are walking in public and the dogs come. She stands in between Ekta and the dogs, even though they never do anything more than sniff around and pee on trees. I don't think Ekta or Zhou Lin will ever get over her fear of dogs, no matter how many types we see or how many times we see them, but it'll never get old to see Ekta running around, avoiding the dogs path or to hear Zhou Lin squeek and hide.

"Morning Rituals"

One thing I wanted to talk about, was the morning ritual that we have to go through every day. With four people living in the living room of Jenny's house, we have three of us sleeping on the floor. We've removed all the cushions from the couches and use three to sleep on. This means that there is nothing to sit on when we use the couches and that the floor is covered by three makeshift beds. Every morning, when one alarm goes off, we all are forced to wake up to the other's schedule. Sometimes, the alarm is just snoozed, the person goes to shower, and then we really have to get up to turn off the ringtone. Speaking of showers, there are 4 people, using one bathroom, and none of us want to wake up to be the first to shower. This means that every morning, we wake up an hour before we have to leave, and somehow, one by one, we shower and get ready. Sometimes, we are forced to all get ready within 30 minutes because by the time we wake up, we've already wasted 20 minutes of the morning still laying in bed. It's the funniest when we wake up, and need to catch the train, and all of us are running around the living room, moving from suitcase to kitchen to bathroom to suitcase again. Each of us running into each other's path and getting in each other's way. There's also the fact that there are 4 girls and I. Which means that every morning, I have to deal with them doing their hair, picking their clothes and just taking forever to get ready for the day. I'm always shouting out "10 minutes left" or "5 minutes left" or even "Guys, we were supposed to leave 2 minutes ago!" I don't know how I survived the past two weeks like this...

Czech Out My Shirt

One time, while waiting in the train station for my train, I was sitting on the bench, tired and hot. I couldn't really get comfortable and I can remember this was only my second day in Prague. I was really tired and gross from walking around all day and really wanted nothing more than to just go home (have no hill to climb) and rest. As I was sitting on the bench, eyes closed, I felt a little tug on my shirt. It was the guy next to me. He pointed to my shirt, which kind of looks like it has paint spatter on it, and said something in Czech. I obviously didn't understand him, so I kind of mumbled something like "I don't speak Czech" and smiled. He continued on, using gestures and still speaking Czech to me. He was pointing to my shirt and using a painting motion his shirt. By this time, I think he was trying to ask me if I had painted the design on my t-shirt. I said no, and shook my head and moved my arms. He pointed to my shirt again and said something. OK, now I'm getting tired of this. I once again tried to convey that I didn't speak Czech. The older man, who was wearing a dirty t-shirt with grease stains on his rounded belly and gray hair with a stubbly beard, refused to not talk to me. He heard me say something about English, so he was mumbling something and I said "American" and he said "Arab?". I said no, "American" and he said "Muslim?". By this point, I was so confused and had decided that this conversation was going no where. I said no again, and then he said, "Gypsy". I said no no no no no and he responded by pointing to himself and saying again, "I Gypsy". OK. By now I figured he might be Hungarian or something but I didn't really know where he was going with this. I smiled and said OK and then turned away, hoping to end the conversation. He kind of mumbled a little bit more, but I think he got the idea that I was confused and can't really have a conversation with him when I don't speak his language. When my train arrived at the platform, I left, smiled and waved at the guy, who waved back and smiled. It was an oddly bizarre encounter, but after telling Jenny about it, she said it's very common for Czech people to try and communicate with foreigners in this way. She said she has had friends who have hosted English speaking foreigners and whose parents would talk to them in Czech. When the visitors would respond in English or not at all, they would continue to speak--either slower or louder or both. It's kind of like when someone can't hear you after you say something and you have to speak with emphasis on every word, like "Do--You--Under--Stand--What--I'm--Saying--To--You". I laughed about the whole situation and took the experience as a compliment. The old man liked my shirt. Great.

Living in Czech: My House is Not Your House

Waking up this morning, I guess I was a little thankful that we didn't go out last night. I woke up feeling well rested and ready to go. I went to the Our Lady of Victory Church, home of the Infant Jesus of Prague. Many churches have statues of the Infant Jesus of Prague, so it was really nice to go to mass at this well known church. We went to the 12 PM English mass, which was said by an Indian priest. It was kind of hard to hear with the echos of his voice bouncing off the walls and ceiling of the beautiful church. Ana, Tete, and Zhou Lin came late because they got lost, but it was good to all share in the mass together. It was Zhou Lin's first time in a Catholic service, so she thought it was very nice. It was cool to share this experience with someone who doesn't know anything about the Catholic church.

After mass, Veronika, one of the AIESECers from Prague, took us around the neighborhood to show us a few things. We first stopped by this awesome park. There were people laying out in the sun, having picnics, enjoying the beautiful weather. Everyone else thought it was weird to see people enjoying the weather so much in public, but I thought it reminded me of summer in NYC and Sheep's Meadow in Central Park. From the park we made our way to Lennon's Wall. A graffiti painted and tagged wall dedicated to The Beatles and John Lennon. It was awesome. By far, the coolest thing I've seen in Prague. It's modern, urban, and hip-hop. Also, on the way to the wall there was a "Lover's Wall" with locks and stuff attached to the fence on the bridge that crosses the stream underneath. It was really cool and if the world isn't small enough, I saw, amongst the hearts and names and messages of love, a small "Colorado 2010" signature. Weirdly enough, I know my friend's younger sister had just recently been to Prague and been to Lennon's Wall, so I'll be sure to ask if she wrote that.

After Lennon Wall we were starving. We headed over to a restaurant a little after 2 and sat down to eat. I've heard Czech service is pretty terrible, but today was completely unbelievable. I've never had to wait an hour to get my food. The waitress quickly got our drinks when we sat down, but after ordering our food, she just walked by us time after time after time with no acknowledgment that we had been waiting so long. It was only after 45 minutes that we begin to show our frustration and she told us a few more minutes. When we finally got our food, we were all so hungry, we spent the next 20 minutes in silence eating everything in sight. It was decent food, but the service was so terrible I don't think any of us would return or recommend that place to anyone. I almost felt like telling the people entering to "Leave now, unless you want to get your food tomorrow morning!"

When we finished lunch, we headed to Petrin Hill, to get some spectacular views of the city from a tower on top of the hill. The tower looks like a mini-Eiffel Tower from Paris and is quite picturesque. On the way, we passed by a few modern art sculptures, one of giant naked babies with smashed in faces (metal sculptures) and the other called "The Hunger Wall," which represents the many people who starved to death during the Soviet control of Czech (something like that, I'm not really sure). We took the tram to the top of the hill, and ended up just taking a leisurely stroll through the park on the way down. We caught some great views of the city--better than the postcards. I decided to head home after the hill because I wanted to take the bike up the Vlatava from Roztoky and explore the Czech countryside, so I left the girls and headed back to the train station.

When I got home, I discovered the bike was gone, which was weird because we were the only people home, so I was sad I couldn't go for a ride along the river. Turns out, Jenny's roommate is back in the house. It was a really awkward night when we were all working in the living room, and he comes down asking to watch the football game on TV. Of course, we said yes and continued on with our work. He then asked where Jenny was, and I told him that she was home for the weekend. He questioned how we got into the house and if we had keys, and I told him we've just been using the ones by the door that Jenny had given to us. Then things got really awkward when he said that Jenny never told him or any of the other roommates that four people would be living in the house. He tried to express his frustration by saying that he has to pay to live in the house and it's not really fair that we have been living here for free, etc etc, and  I tried to explain to him that Jenny had told all of us it was OK to live here... but I figured I might was well leave this between them and not get too involved. This is not my problem and I'm not going to deal with it. I felt bad for the guy because you better believe that I'd be pissed off if I had four strangers (from all different parts of the world) living in my house because my roommate said they could--we're using the bathroom, the kitchen, and for above anything else, I'm sleeping on the floor and Lessya is sleeping on the couch!! We've completely taken over the first level and it was totally not fair for the other people. But at the same time, he had spent the past 10 days at home, and there's nothing we can do about it now. It isn't our fault so, to make things better for the rest of the night we tried to keep quiet and clean our messes (although we had just cleaned the day before after Global Village --thank God because he would have had a fit if he had seen the kitchen yesterday).

Anyway, we all spent the rest of the night finishing our projects and night activities for the camp. Tomorrow Martin and Jenny have to buy all the materials and I've got a meeting at 10 am with the University of Northern Virginia (who has decided to be a partner again). We'll discuss briefly their expectations for one of the projects and then I'll do my souvenir shopping and any last minute sightseeing. Tomorrow is Ana's 21st birthday so we're all excited to spend the night out in celebration! I know I can't wait to finally have a night of fun!

The Meet & Greet

Today just solidified the fact that this camp is going to be awesome. Let's begin with the morning. Last night, I went to bed after the beans were completely cooked and I left them in the fridge overnight, to be mashed in the morning. When I woke up at 8 AM, I began to prepare my burritos. I first mashed the beans, without a masher, using a serving spoon to try and find every bean. Then, I had to heat the tortillas, but I didn't want to use the microwave. By this time, Ekta was finishing her curry on the stove and Lessya had taken over the table to use as a dough cutting station to wrap her beef into beef pastry-type things. I was using the window sill to prepare my food because there was no counter space. I was using an open burner on the stove to heat the tortillas, and I began making the burritos. The first few were a little odd looking, but by the third or fourth one I got the hang of folding the burritos and I made a little assembly line. First the tortilla, then the beans, then salsa and then cheese. It was good. I made about a dozen burritos, and I still have extra beans left over. By 9:45 AM, we were rushing out the door. In the last 10 minutes, we wrapped all of our food, gathered all our materials for our tables, and were running out the door with plates, pots and backpacks.

It never fails. Whenever we're going somewhere, we always look like a bunch of clowns when we're traveling around Prague. I'm in a basketball jersey (because it's my "traditional" clothes), and all of us are with plates and bags. Ekta is carrying an actual pot from Jenny's house with curry and of course we have a case of 30 eggs for a game we're going to play with the students after the Global Village. When we got to the train station, we met up with the other four leaders and got to the university just in time to set up. When we got to the university, I realized that I had left my American hat and t-shirt at home, along with the American flag I had made on a piece of poster. Great. My table was practically empty, except for some notes I had written down earlier in the week. I had brought my computer, so I was planning on showing pictures, but of course, when I plugged in my external hard drive with my pictures and music and all, it wasn't recognized by my computer...I hope that doesn't mean something bad, but I still can't figure out the problem. We were able to give me a little something by getting me speakers and I used someone's computer to listen to KS 107.5 online, a hip-hop station from Denver, CO. It worked out OK.

At first, no one came to my table. I thought it might be because my burritos weren't hot anymore and if you've never seen a burrito before, they can look kind of weird. Eventually a few students came over, they ate my burrito hesitantly, but after the first bite they realized it didn't taste as bad as they looked. I actually had one and it was pretty good for my first time (they need more salt, cheese and better salsa, but overall B+). I was actually surprised at how interactive the students were during the Global Village. Compared to the other high school students, these were very outgoing and eager to ask questions. There were a lot of questions thrown at me, especially about me being Mexican. They were kind of confused that I had Mexican food and that I mentioned something about Mexico. I had to explain that since America has so many different types of people, it is common to ask people what their heritage is, in order to get a better understanding of who they are. They seemed to understand, but they were also curious about US-Mexican relations. They knew about the drug war and border issues between the US and Mexico and I was surprised how many questions they asked about it. While I was speaking, I tried to focus on the diversity of the US. I talked about the different regions of the US (Northeast, Mid-atlantic, South, Southwest, Mountains, West Coast, Mid-West) and how each region is different in speech, weather, lifestyle and the rest. They seemed to enjoy it.

After the Global Village, we went outside to play some games with them. We played the typical name games and get to know each other games. Which killed time and allowed us to be more comfortable. We also played a game where they had to "buy" materials at an auction and use these materials to build something to prevent an egg from breaking when dropped from a meter above. We wrapped up the afternoon by taking some time to talk in small groups about their expectations about camp and why they joined the program. We were really tired at the end of the day, but the students had a blast and it was a really great way to start off the weekend.

When it was time to go home, everyone went out to dinner (except Aysegul and Lessya--who wasn't feeling well) at a Czech restaurant. It was delicious food and I got some potato dish with bacon and cheese. Yum. My kind of food--salty, filling, and cheap! We headed home afterward to get ready to go out. I took a nap and when I woke up, I was bummed to see that everyone else had fallen asleep too. Lessya was awake, but she had decided that she wasn't going out. We asked the girls online if they wanted to go out, but they too were not in the mood...I guess we'll just go out the next time we're in Prague. Oh wait, who knows when that'll be. It's kind of disappointing that we're in an amazing city, but can't enjoy the night life because we're "too tired," or maybe too lazy to have some fun time. Or maybe I'm just over reacting, but to me, all work and no play means for a boring adventure.

Tomorrow, we're going to church and then to the Lennon Wall. Afterwards, I have to finish my project and work on the final schedule. I just found out today that I'm also going to have to meet with a university on Monday morning, so the time I had dedicated to sight-seeing and souvenier shopping is now interrupted by a meeting. I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

Until next time, take care!

The Pictures have Developed

Here are the pictures!

Aroung Prague

St. Charles Bridge and Prague Castle

And here are some videos!

Enjoy!

I'm going to Europe!

Hello everyone!

So, once again, I'm going on a crazy adventure, but this time it's not to the Middle East, Africa, or South America; I'm going to Europe! I've been to Europe a few times before, the most recent and extensive trip I took was after senior year of high school. Three friends and I backpacked through Europe, armed with strict budgets, a few articles of clothing, and an scheduled itinerary complete with hostels, hotels, and train schedules. This trip was, to date, one of my favorite experiences of my life. We started in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and continued on to Paris in France, San Sebastian in Spain, Zurich in Switzerland, Munich, Germany, Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, and Rome in Italy, and finally ended in London in the United Kingdom. It was an amazing experience that I'll never forget.

For those of you who haven't heard yet, I'm going back, but this time to Prague, Czech Republic. In my four years at Fordham, I've become very involved in many clubs, but most notably AIESEC. I was introduced to AIESEC my sophomore year. It is the worlds largest student run organization, that works to promote international awareness through cultural exchanges, mostly in the form of internships. AIESEC is present in over 107 countries, and over 1,100 universities. I started AIESEC at Fordham (with the help of my friend Patricia). Now that I'm graduating and my full time job doesn't start until October, I've decided to go on an AIESEC internship to keep me occupied this summer. I figured I have nothing to lose, right?

AIESEC has many times of internships on the database, some are paid positions to teach English, work for a large international corporation or for a small local business. Some are unpaid developmental internships working with NGOs and non-profits helping with local domestic issues in the given country. But for me, I wanted something not business (I'm going to be working for a long time in the financial industry, I don't need to start early!) but also not dealing with little kids (as some English teaching positions are). I finally found the My Better Myself program, or MBM for short.

My Better Myself is an English program that helps high school students learn soft skills such as managing groups, leading teams, presenting, communicating, and working in groups. The program consists of ten international leaders who help facilitate the two camps. Each camp is two weeks long with 40 high school students in each camp. I'm one of the international leaders. The others are from Portugal (Lisbon), Brazil (Salvador), India (living in Singapore), Taiwan (living in USA), China (Hangzhou--I visited there remember?), Kazakhstan (Almaty), and Turkey (Izmir).

So here are the details, I'm going to be working for the next few weeks to further develop this program. MBM hasn't been established in the Czech Republic, and this is the inagural year for the summer camps. In order to make this the best it can be, I've been selected as an Agenda Manager with a facilitator from Kazakhstan. I'm going to have to get out to Prague a little early, so I'm leaving June 7th, although the facilitator/leader training doesn't begin until June 14th. Here's the tentative schedule:

• June 14-25: Training/preparation for the camp.
• June 28: Depart for camp (2 hours outside of Prague)
  
• July 1-13: First two week camp
• July 19-31: Second two week camp

I'm so excited to go. I have so many expectations about this program, the people and the experience. I'll let you know more of what I plan to do and, more importantly, where I plan to go later! Other than that...

I'm going to Europe!