Love It Or Loathe It?

The communists have been blamed for a lot of bad things here in the Czech Republic. Endless government corruption. A high unemployment rate and sometimes slow-to-recover economy(although doing quite well in recent years.) A complete freeze of cultural and social evolution for 50 years. And really, really ugly architecture.

Ladies and gentlemen, I behold to you, the ugliest of all ugly Communist desings - the Zizkov Television Tower!

Architectural merits - or lack thereof - aside, this is a tower that does not belong in Prague. Anywhere but Prague would be a more fitting home for this concrete monstrosity. Built for telecommunication purposes between 1985 and 1992 by the Communist powers that be, the Zizkov Tower completely dominates the Prague skyline. Honestly, it *is* the skyline here in the city. Prague is a city sans-skyscrapers (well, other than a couple around the convention centre out in the burbs at Pankrac Metro Station...) Known as The City Of 1000 Spires, instead it's Prague's many beautiful church spires and cathedral domes that grace the heavens above our beautiful medeival city that Prague was famous for, for centuries. Well, them, and now also a tower that looks like one of those tripods from 'War Of The Worlds' with a tampon stuck on its head.

At 216 metres in height, the tower is so tall it can be seen not only anywhere in the city, but even when you're miles and miles outside city limits. Once again, in a city known for castles, stone bridges, and ancient town squares, a gigantic tower right in the middle is the last thing you'd expect to see here. Of course, because of the political situation at the time, local residents were not able to protest the construction of the tower. And, to add insult to injury, the Communists actually tore up part of an ancient cemetery in the quiet residential neighbourhood of Zizkov to built the damn thing! Wow - talk about a tower with bad ju-ju! Even the dead hate this tower!

If a giant rocket launchpad/hypodermic needle/tripod-with-tampon wasn't enough, David Cerny, a local artist, decided to put his own special flavour on the tower in 2000. He added ten sculptures of giant black babies crawling up and down the pillars. Yes, you read right - giant black babies. The most common immediate response that comes to mind at seeing these babies is, "WTF!!??" They really have to be seen to be believed - check out the photos below...

So, in case you can't tell already, me and the tower aren't exactly BFF. I adore Prague, every inch, every crevice, every cobblestone and alley, every gothic church and art nouveau balcony - except The Zizkov. I live in a neighbourhood right nextdoor to Zizkov called Vinohrady, and so I see the tower every single day on my way to the metro. After having been forced to stare at the damn thing every single day, I have gotten a bit used to seeing it. Like the locals after it was first completed, I absolutely despised it for the longest time, merely hated it with dark passion for quite a while after that, and am now starting to enter the 'not noticing it so much' stage. Hmmm... Where is this heading?

I've protested the tower by refusing to go up it (there's an observation deck, as well as a restaurant and cafe), but couldn't resist taking a few snaps of it the other day for my photography project (more on this later...) Scroll down to see the rest of my tower pictures, and feel free to draw your own conclusions. The Zizkov Tower - a modern architectural masterpiece simply ahead of its time and worthy of praise and glory? Or an ugly scar on Prague's skyline that will forever remind locals of the fucked-up Communists? (I'll choose the latter, thanks!)


See...I wasn't lying about the babies!

Here's two pictures of the beautiful old cemetery that was torn up to build the tower.

Yeah you better keep crawling away from me, you baby bitch, cause if I catch you I'm gonna kic your ass!!!

One baby on the lower left scurries away to seek shelter from my promised violence, while he sends backup down on the right. "Yeah, bring it, baby...you wanna fuckin' fight? I'll take all ten of you on at once! If I don't blow up your frickin' tower castle hiding place/playground first! Whattya gonna do then? You wouldn't be so cheeky without your fucking pillars to crawl up and hide!"

Great News!

Guess who *FINALLY* has a flat!!!

SCOTTY!!!!

YAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After the world’s longest search ever for a flat, I’ve finally found a place to live! But man did I ever have to work my ass off to get one…

When I came back from holidays, I decided to, once again, revamp my Plan of Attack for finding accommodation. Realizing that I really couldn’t afford to live by myself after all, I decided to pursue a new option – flat sharing. By changing my search to looking just for a room within an already-occupied flat, I opened up my options big time. And with most of these postings to be found on expats.cz – Prague’s English website for foreigners – I could actually do this search all on my own and not have to burden Ivana with it anymore.

But, despite the plethora of flats to be found on the website, it again turned out to be much harder than I originally thought it would be. I must’ve looked at at least half a dozen flats within a week and a half, and most of them just weren’t places I’d actually want to live in. Either too dirty, too sparsely furnished, too far from work, or occupied with weirdos, the pickings were pretty slim.

And then I finally found a great place, to be shared with three international students, but I was person #5 of a good 12-15 people they were interviewing for the room. God, such competition! Looks like everybody and their dog is looking for a place… So not only do I have to find a flat that I like, I then have to be chosen, like in some reality-show competition, in order to move in. Frig! Needless to say I didn’t get chosen for this flat, and I was totally bummed out.

But then a new posting came up a week later, and I knew that this was the one! I was the first in line to be ‘interviewed’, immediately clicked with the guy living there who was in search of finding someone new, and found out the next morning that the place was mine! And let me tell you how awesome it is…

It’s a HUGE ROOM in a 3-bedroom flat shared with two cool guys – 22yo Marco from Spain, and 27yo David from Wales (we’ll be quite the international house!) I’m buying the furniture in the bedroom for dirt cheap, and so I’ll be getting a huge bed, a COUCH, a desk and chair, a shelf, and a wardrobe for my clothes. And the room has wifi!

And the location can’t be beat – it’s right in central Prague, near Karlovo Namesti. I’ve got a tram stop right out front of the building (including 4 night trams) and am only a block away from the metro! SWEET! So it’s all of this, and somehow, it’s the cheapest place that I’ve viewed! Talk about a major score!!

I can’t emphasize enough how big the room is…I could easily conduct yoga classes in my room! (This means that I’ll have PLENTY of space to host out-of-town guests…Hello Lydia & Danielle in May!) So, with my new fab flat, consider this blog posting to be *your* personal invitation to come and stay with me in Prague, absolutely anytime you like!

I can’t tell you what a huge relief it is to have this taken care of. I’ve been couch-surfing it at Carolyn’s for three and a half months now, and as much as I truly appreciate her gracious hospitality, it’s soooo time to have my own place. Just imagine…a real proper bed! Not living out of a suitcase! Four walls and a door to make a space that’s just for me! Wow, what luxuries! Hehe… As you can tell, I’m pretty damn stoked about it! Moving day is Feb. 1st, so the countdown is on. I’ll post pictures as soon as I move in.

A new chapter begins in Scotty’s Prague Saga…

Scandalous SLEDD!

Okay here they are, as promised! The scandalous photos from my SLEDD camp party! And oh what a party it was... Cause you know what they say... "There ain't no party like a SLEDD camp party!!!" ;-)

Scroll below and see what happens when 6 youngins gather in a remote winter cabin and consume copious amounts of alcohol. HELLO DANCE PARTY! :-) Enjoy, and Lydia, Eric, Emily, Derek and Danielle...try not to be *too* embarrassed! ;-)

Love you guys!!!

Welcome!!! Eric, Danielle, and Emily , as adorable as can be, cuddle it up in the kitchen!

The camp may look all quiet and peaceful and innocent on the outside...but on the inside it's a different story!

Danielle's SO HUNGRY for the pizza she's just gonna start eating it now, in the raw! Slow down, girl!

Check it out! Our Pizza Hostess with the mostess...

It was a bit chilly inside the camp, so I decked everyone out in wool socks courtesy of Grandma (minus Emily's red generic store-brand socks!)

StudFactor3000! Derek and Eric...their names even rhyme!

The Cranium Scandals begin! Lydia shows off her rendition of "push-up bra".

Danielle's a great artist - check out her "square dancing!"

Is Derek showing us a new yoga move, or some tantric sex position he picked up in the subway in Toronto? Nope - he's doing his best imitation of Lara Croft! The most surprising aspect of this is that Eric was actually able to guess it, in about three seconds!

The drawing was of acne (with my eyes closed), but I'm not even going to tell you what Dani thought it was! (think dirty...*really* dirty!)

"Quelle-que chose a boire?" Lydia shows off the plethora of bevvies available.

Scotty + Emily = Uber Adorable!

Strike a pose, kids!

Ohhh gotta love that Double D factor of Dani & Derek!

Everyone loves a good kitchen counter chat!

And the molestation begins... Emmy's Scotty's first victim, but she seems to be, in the spirit of Mickey D's, "lovin' it!"

If there's anything that SLEDD is famous for, it's legendary Dance Parties! Emily & Eric burst into dance at the mere intro of "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go!"

Sexy babes!

Wow! That's a whole lotta teeth...

Dance Dance Dance!

Dani demonstarting clearly the benefits of a good conditioner. What gorgeous hair!

Wow! Both Scotty & Derek are *really* excited about something! Could it be "Mr. Roboto?"

Could it be "Thriller?" Either way, Emily looks pretty damn thrilled!

Dani and Scotty breaking out into some choreography.

Everyone's into it now!

Oh here it is...Molestation #2! Lydia looked far too peaceful in the chair, so Scotty had to make sure that she didn't feel left out from the fun!

Look what's making a second appearance at a camp party - Scotty's Belt! And look at Danielle's face - she couldn't be more excited about it! Like she's been waiting for The Belt all night long!

Yep, it's a fact...when it comes to The Belt, Dani's gagging for it!

Man it's amazing what you can get away with when girls think you're... ;-)

Yep we're cute!

And completely sloshed!

Wrestle time! Emily loves gettin' it from two guys at once!

The SLEDD gang the morning after!

Actually, these days it should be called SLEEDD! Is Eric the new 6th member of the band?

SURPRISE!

So you may have noticed the lack of blog entries for late December. Hmmm…where did Scotty disappear to? Did he fall off the map? Well, that’s partially true…he did, in fact, fall off the European map…

…and then reappeared on the North American map!

Yes, you read correctly, Scotty went home for Christmas this year!

In mid-November my parents surprised me with the ultimate gift – a free plane ticket home for the holidays! I was so shocked with this offer, as it was completely unplanned and we had never talked about me going home for Christmas prior to this. The funny thing is, I had really, really been wanting to go home for Christmas this year, but wouldn’t allow myself to seriously consider it. At one time I had thought about splurging and buying myself a ticket home, and then make it a surprise and not tell anyone and then just show up at home one day… But, looking at the prices, I realized that this was far out of my reach thanks to my meager Czech wages.

Sooo, when Mommy-Mo said she wanted me home for Christmas, I jumped at the chance! Together we researched online and found a ticket that wasn’t too exorbitant, and with an extra week approved as time off from my school, I had a full two weeks off for Christmas! WOO HOO!

To make it that much more fun, and to keep some bit of a surprise element in the trip, I decided not to tell my friends that I was coming home. (And that’s also why you didn’t read about this in the blog beforehand!) I couldn’t wait to surprise them by showing up at their door completely unannounced. SLEDD is gonna go wild!

I woke up at the crack of dawn on Saturday, Dec. 16th and made my way to the airport. I had a long journey ahead of me, but overall it was smooth sailing all the way. It was only an hour and a half on KLM to Amsterdam, and with just a short layover I thought I could hang out and take some time to meander through the ginormous Schipol Airport. Well, security had other ideas for me… The American security was absolutely ridiculous – it was bloody ‘Level: Orange’ in the States while I was traveling, which meant huge line-ups for security and than a private interview for each passenger before getting on the plane…WTF?)

After dancing through the security hoops we were finally able to board the big bird that would fly us all the way from Amsterdam to Minneapolis – a 9 hour-long journey that took us over the North Sea, Scotland, just south of Iceland and Greenland, and then over Labrador, Northern Quebec, Northwest Ontario (‘ello Thunder Bay down below!) and then finally into Minnesota.

And, I have to confess, I have a whole new level of respect for Northwest. I used to seriously dislike the airline, even going as far to call them ‘Northworst’, the catchy nickname for them I picked up from my Korea buddy Michael. But, I have to say, this time I was really impressed. Northwest has bought new Airbus A330’s for all of their transatlantic flights, and so each seat comes with your own personal entertainment centre. You get your own little screen, and a choice of at least 30 movies that you can start and stop anytime, plus hundreds of songs where you can make your own private playlist. They even have a few computer games, and for the geography geek in all of us, cool maps and satellite images of the globe, so you can see exactly what the plane is flying over. Way cool! I was entertained the whole time, and the food was pretty good too. Maybe Northwest isn’t so bad after all! ;-)

I had a six-hour layover in MSP, but no need to be bored! My good pal Becky, who I’ve known since high school, lives in the Twin Cities with her son, and she was sweet enough to meet me at the airport and take me out for dinner with her new man. The four of us had a lovely meal at IHOP and it was great to be able to catch up with Becky. On the way back to the airport I even got to have a quick peek at Becky’s new home. And then I was back on the plane – again – for the last leg to Thunder Bay.

I landed just before midnight and it was so completely wonderful to walk through the doors and see my excited Mom, Dad, and sister waiting for me in eager anticipation! I had missed them dearly while away and it was a big happy reunion in the middle of the airport, very Kodak moment, very airport arrival scene from ‘Love Actually.’ :-)

Home was fully decked out for the holidays, and I stayed up a bit before finally crashing. I had been awake for just over 24 hours at that point (other than a few short naps on the plane) and really, really needed to go to sleep.

The next day was especially wondrous and memorable. After a delicious breakfast with the family, I decided to head out into Thunder Bay to try and find my friends. I couldn’t wait to see their faces when I surprised them! I had no idea where they’d be, but I figured that Starbucks would be a good place to start. That turned out to be the best idea ever…

As I was walking up to the big glass doors of the café I looked in and saw Danielle out bussing some tables, and Derek (who now lives in Toronto, and was also just home for the holidays.) Wow – two birds with one stone! This is gonna be good…

Derek saw me just before I entered the store, and there was a short two-second delay, as it took a moment for his brain to process the image of me…in Starbucks…in December…when I’m supposed to be in Prague. He let out a huge “WHAT!!!???” that caused everything in the café to stop and every single head turned towards the scream, and he ran and attacked me with the most massive of hugs, a flying fury of beard and hair. Danielle turned to see what all the fuss was about, and then I think she went into the Ninth Level of Shock at the sight of me! She walked over and threw herself into the unbelievably joyous HugFest, and then she started crying, and I started crying, and even Derek got all teary-eyed… It was a very amazing, emotional moment that I’ll certainly remember for as long as I live! I couldn’t have asked for a better reaction from the ‘Double D’ component of SLEDD!

With two more missing componentg of SLEDD still left to find, Derek and I made our way to the mall to try and surprise Emily. Derek attempted to lead her out of the store eyes-closed to maximize the surprise factor, but Emmy and her suspicious/uber-curious nature wouldn’t have any of that! I jumped out from behind the corner and we had another huge warm public embrace!

Lydia was a bit harder to track down… She wasn’t at work, and when we went and buzzed her apartment we got no answer at all… Where could the girl be? Her car was in the driveway so she should be home… We tried buzzing and knocking some more, and then finally a very sleepy Lydia poked her head out from the window upstairs, stared for about five long seconds in silence, and then yelled out “What the fuck!” Once more hugging and dancing took place a few moments later. SURPRISES ARE GREAT!! :-)

With word out it didn’t take long for the news to spread, so in fact a few surprises that I had planned, including Eric, Emma, Wendy, and Ellen found out before I got to them. But I was still able to surprise Jason, Karen (sorta, she actually surprised me in the line at Starbucks one day), Carley, Sarah, Cindy, Kate, and Ryan & Mandy. It was so wonderful to see all my friends, and I got to spend a lot of time with them hanging out and catching up.

The two weeks at home fly by in such a flash. I hate how holidays always move along at such a mach speed! There was virtually no snow this Christmas, but I got to spend the holiday with my whole family so it didn’t matter to me. We had our traditional ‘Toblerone Night’ and spent some time playing games as well.

And as for my friends, well most of my time was spent just relaxing around at someone’s house, but I did host a party at my camp that was a total blast! Lots of music, lots of dancing, lots of drinking, as well as rousing game of Cranium (including some *hilarious* guesses from Danielle!) and some good ol’ fashioned story-telling in the kitchen. Yes, the party had it all, and everyone had a blast. I have lots and lots of incriminating photos…perhaps a few will make it onto the blog site soon! ;-)

Before I knew it, it was New Year’s Eve and time to go back. Sad goodbyes all over again, but less emotional this time than when I first left in August. I know I’ll be seeing my parents soon this summer, and Lydia and Danielle have promised to come visit me this spring, so I have lots of guests to look forward to. I doubt I’ll be back in Thunder Bay any time soon – probably not at all in 2007 in fact – but this visit was one that I really needed, and I now feel strong enough to be away from home for quite a long time.

New Year’s Eve 2006 (or is it 2007? Which year do we use?) turned out to be as non-existent as could be. My plane took off from Minneapolis at around 11pm Central Time, and then next thing I knew we were being served dinner, and it was already 1am Eastern Time (shit! Did we miss it? Or do we use the time zone that we’re currently over? I’m so confused…) and then, unexpectedly, after dinner I fell asleep…and woke up as we were descending into the Netherlands! Shit! Wow! I slept the whole way across the Atlantic! So….uhhh….welcome 2007….? Very strange indeed…

My Czech buddy Stepan was kind enough to pick me up at the airport that evening and drive me back to the flat, but the ride turned out to be a lot longer than we imagined. Prague has a fireworks show for both the 31st and the 1st, and I had arrived just in time to get stuck in the traffic jam for the show. Beautiful fireworks exploded in the sky and it was a nice welcome back to Prague. It’s time to go back to work tomorrow…blah…holiday times are over. But what a great one it was!!! :-)