the rumours are true...

(a look back at the city i couldn't quite discard...or the garbage my wise companion)
...the positioning of my feet are now further west but my sentimental alliances remain consistent. so as long as prague holds a dust-free corner of my heart i will remain "julie anne in prague." please follow me along what i suspect will add up to a sprawling list of forwarded mail and address changes. in the meantime, i am keeping my spectacles off and my eyes open to a brief return to my homeland.

whether or not i will one day adapt my notes from this stay to a biopic of an unknown california public library employee has yet to be confirmed. but i do know everywhere people interest me...i remain. no matter.

vesele velikonoce! part 2: the beating

1. me at 8:45 this morning...

2. the generous soul.
3. we admire the crasftmanship of his pomlazka.
4. 8:50 "the beating"
5. fertility at my fingertips.
this morning i woke up feeling a little older than usual. i was met with an easter sunrise and the stark realization that these 24 years have really gotten to me. i grabbed a mirror noticing my eyes a little less wide and bright, my skin a little less supple. i yawned and pondered over what could be done. had this been new year's i could make a series of resolutions. had it been my birthday i could have asked for all types of magic potions and elixirs that promise to transform me into a 12 year old again. in exasperation i threw the mirror to the floor and jumped up.

"alas, there is no fountain of youth!" i exclaimed!

suddenly, there was knock at the door. then a heavy, consistent thump.

i quickly turned and there he was "pomlazka" in hand. singing a little ditty that went something like this,

Sem poskakuje Petr, ten divoký králik,

poskakuje zajíčkovou cestou,
skakity, skokity
nastává Velikonoce

[Here comes Peter Cotton tail
hopping down the bunny trail
hippity, hoppity
Easter is on it's way.]

i received my switches and suddenly i was transformed! with each switch i felt as if a year were knocked off. thankfully the song was quick and punchy. he stopped just short of puerility and i am now a spry děvčátko (girl) once again.

vesele velikonoce! part 1

a 1954 postcard i purchased at a local antikvariat depicting czech boys skillfully braiding their own "pomlazkas" from young pussy-willow twigs.
easter time has arrived in the czech republic and all over women are getting prepared for the infamous easter monday festivities; all week girls and their mothers have busied themselves preparing beautiful eggs and bread while the boys make themselves useful with shots of alcohol and tree branches. the way it goes is each year the girls must be beaten to promise fertility, beauty, youth and all the loveliness a girl could aspire for and, if you haven't already guessed, it is the boys job to impart this magic with young unbreakable twigs artfully woven together. naturally, women are grateful for the services rendered and must repay the boys with painted eggs, a shot of something strong, presents and even money. but before you are appalled, be at ease, us women here still have some unalienable rights...we are allowed to have a bucket of water to pour on the fellas if they get too out of hand. these days the tradition is mostly upheld in the villages and moravia but prague hasn't completely let go. the pomlazka caroling has been modernized to suit the times. here is an unedited transcript of a text message jeremy received this afternoon...

"hello i was just wondering whether you an your wife are at home tomorrow since i would like to come beat her and get a shot with you between 9 and 11." -jakub

as i go in search of a spare bucket in my building i wish you all a happy and safe easter. please tune in tomorrow for more cultural background, photos, and perhaps emotional and/or slight rear damage.

i spy two...

i snapped a few photos this morning to assure myself i wasn't actually asleep. 1. art imitates life...chocolate lambs dangerously close to the butcher shop. 2. you tell me whether or not these are conjoined shaggy dogs that proudly wait in front of a tesco express.

today my isomnia brain had a field day adventuring around hradcanska in search of the russian embassy with mel. with little more than an hour of sleep and a lovely cappuccino as payment for my translating services we traversed like global trick-or-treaters from embassy house to embassy house well aware at our ineptitude to identify flags (but still agreeing whole-heartedly on the superfluousness of aforementioned skill ) and that it isn't seemly to have a clearly marked entrance to any russian establishment or at least must be an appalling concept in their architect's minds. everything was surreal as it should be for such a russian affair; the embassy's serpentine line without a soul behind "okna 4" and yet we continued to wait with nothing but hope and our companions....time moved slowly but a man finally appeared behind the glass and before i could muster more than 6 grammatically immaculate words i had the documents forced through the window with more exertion than was ever deemed possible from a government worker. and thus we departed in glorious nationalistic russian splendor as two boys from the same "okna 4" line followed us out guitar in hand warmly singing "katusha" as they walked down the road.

eye-spy: a conversation with speechless faces

public: "weather. a space-filler. a banality."

private: "no. i disagree today the faces shone free from layers of cashmere, synthetics, and moldy parkas. just a little ray and the town emerged like the first flower. why was everyone so pleased? to greet the sun and sit with the earth set free from its icy oppressor."

public: "czechs are not friendly and the service is bad."

private: "never have so many faces smiled. i want to catalogue each face unseen without making a single person shy or uncomfortable or intruded upon. if i could just snap one shot to prove the friendliness and jovial faces. the sweetest voice that respected my attempts to be a native and brought my coffee. the dancing children and humpty-dumpty babies trying out their stumpy limbs. hugs and groups and passed bottles and families that do not require a fenced in backyard."

public: "charles bridge"

private: "far below the music is not spectacular but a man is dancing so featherbrained moving hips that were caged at acute angles all winter and then it becomes clear his shaggy dog is running towards him for another intermittent tussle."

public: "what have i gained from this day...who is in the blackened limousine? how many cars and sirens assure this is greatness?"

private: "the raucousness of movements and laughter of the seditious duo of darlings is just right and doesn't only carry on but is met with the viewers laugh. the admittance of the spectacle of the scene. and the congenial breeze joins in as the pomp of an instant is the theater we have been waiting for."

public: "our holiday."

private: "our festival of frenetic friendship."

a maly game of eye spy in kampa park

poplarsphere...more from a place beyond the metroline

a bath was run for an ice queen but she was no where to be found..




an abandoned house of the queen perhaps was full of ice and water but some of the freshest lace curtains i've seen.

weather as a central figure

spring passed through our neighborhood sprinkling about a few beguiling days. it almost seemed the variations of a shade of white would soon be gladdened by the new prismatic flecks trying so earnestly to find a place before our frozen eyes. the snow vanished and with vague remembrances light-footed we went down the newly widened streets that had to reacquaint themselves with the sun... theirs and our long lost love.


i made sure to hug prague in thanksgiving.



unfortunately, after only six days the sun decided to take another brief holiday before making any formal commitments. hours before winter made her second appearance i took a diversion filled walk through the subdued landscape towards the bus from my lessons at Kosmas.

czech men part deux

exhibit B.

czech men part 1

there are two versions of the czech man... thanks to the meticulousness of this chart we can diagram the first type... the balding man (this type is not age specific).

30 seconds of Czech

Tonight I hurried like all the local penguins too proud to be seen taking a huge fall on the newly fallen snow that is so artfully decorating the inches of slippery ice beneath. I have learnt not to be fooled by the powdery artifice that so quickly makes us think we can hop around freely like little does. As I fumble for my keys with gloves and arms sticking out perfectly perpendicular thanks to 5 layers and 2 coats I watch the children whose dad own "Dobre Trafika" the little cafe and cigarette and wine shop below our building. Their dad reprimands them briefly in Czech as the small girl drops her glove and plows heedless of a small brother figure in her path. Within the course of 3 seconds I try to catch her attention about her lonesome green glove likely gone for good realize I reacted in English not Czech and before I could begin another sorry second attempt she snow shovels her brother straight into the front door and I decide to take the opened door offered to me rather than get involved in the sibling catastrophe. The Komwag man, or so I call our trash collectors simply because the word is written on all the canisters on the streets, holds the door for me so I hold my nose as normal in our building's entry and begin to run up the stairs trying to pass the flight that never has a functional light switch wanting to make it to the next switch with all the glory and convenience of tungsten. Somehow the light is switched off quicker than usual and I hear a deep and assertive "Dobry vecer!" coming from the direction of a rectangular figure at the top of the landing. It is only his extremely American ball cap that leads me to believe it is my landlord and not the crate greeting me "good evening!" In broken English he pants, "I go too!" and suddenly my aged landlord Lubomir makes it nearly as quickly up the stairs as me while holding what must be twice his weight even beating me to the next light switch and graciously keeping us from utter oblivion. As I fancy he is our little belfry's darling Quasimodo with a more right-angled impediment than the traditional hero I skip up the tiny little stairs to our attic flat which he shares the left half for his storage and marvel at this vivacious Czech and all the absurd poetry of the quickest seconds.

a brief farewell to our friend the Christmas Carp

The holidays are over in Czech Republic... but unlike the worn-out Christmas trees that now line the streets of Prague the Carp booths have vanished like a phantasm. Where once I slowly approached with girlish hesitation the crowded pisciform prisoners and the virile young carp executioners the corner holds nothing for me but pedestrians waiting for a light. Where once was a miasma of perspiration and fish innards is merely the crisp and apathetic January air.

It's true we never took home a carp of our own and the blanketing snow has covered any dreams we held of possessing the most distinguished one (with a little wry smile and an extra flip-flop in its tail). Alas, the old year just like the new year will hold a clean and vacant bath tub and for any absence of hygiene we will only have ourselves to blame.