Little shop of...horrors?

No indeed, as Atelier Le Boheme makes its custom by being cute and charming. Hence my only job is to be cute and charming (and also fluent in english, which is what landed me said job in the first place). I am pleased to say that I am quite good at being cute and charming for money. However, it was very startling to undress a mannequin only to realize it was, in fact, a male mannequin, perhaps it could be said a VERY male mannequin. If this mannequin had a name, it would be Bruno.I mentioned this to my boss, who shrugged and told me to have it wear a dress anyway. My inner skeptic doubted the wisdom of this plan, since the model had "male definition" and all, but it cannot be said that I didn't try:



After realising that this was perhaps not the correct path of action, I simply grabbed a purple linen shirt and dressed Bruno in that, which posed a problem as well as Bruno has an arse but no legs and thus cannot properly clothe his nether regions. As a result, Bruno looks rather flamboyant. Bear this in mind if you ever meet a headless, legless but indisputably hot bohemian figure in Old Town. His name is Bruno and he would be absolutely delighted, darling, to have a pot of tea with you.

All in all it was just a brick in the wall.

I've been keeping quite busy. I biked some more (140 km to Plzen - my legs hate me), attended a protest that appeared on CNN (in the form of one photo and a caption that said, succintly, "people protested"), and spent inordinate amounts of money on books. I also finally saw a film I've really been rather wanting to see - Pink Floyd's The Wall. I had heard amazing things about it across the generations (and read great individual reviews online -yes, yes I am a nerd, ok?) but had never managed to see it, so I trekked across Prague to a tiny little hole-in-the-wall establishment where it was playing. Two hours later, I stumbled out, trying to remind myself that life isn't so bad and that giant cartoon bugs wouldn't materialize out of thin air and start morphing into other giant cartoon bugs.

This was because The Wall is dark. It's dark, morbid, graphic, and depressing. It's brilliant in its music, which is Pink Floyd at their spacey best, and it's brilliant in its aforementioned cartoon segments, which are really rather good if completely unnerving - think Tim Burtonesque figures on acid minus the happiness plus horrible disfigurement and spacey Floyd in the background. At one point the Woodstock dove explodes into the Big Dark Falcon of Death which turns into a bomber plane and terrorizes a very gray England. Orwell with surround sound. But this was my problem with it. Yes, it's an hour and a half of rather well-done bleakness, but that's just it - a portrait of the world as a horrible place full of war and abandonment and oedipus complexes, and the story of how a little boy turned out to be a psycho because of that - no real hope, no real ok-how-can-we-change-that. I guess if it started being hopeful and optimistic the artistic vision would be compromised, but I personally like my films to have some sort of ray of light somewhere eventually. So in conclusion, The Wall - brilliant film, worth seeing, that I didn't end up liking.

Other pictures of fun Czech awesomeness, no cartoon bugs allowed:

You want peace? I want peace, too! Awesome! Now...uh...what next?

RIOT POLICE: No one goes up the castle steps! We shall guard these steps with the blood of our fathers! YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
LARGE CROWD OF PROTESTERS: uh, well, do you mind if we just go around then and get to the same point?
RIOT POLICE: Yeah, no worries mate.
LARGE CROWD OF PROTESTERS: Well, that's all right then. Cheerio, cap'n.
(I'm exaggerating. The police were very nice and the protest was peaceful and lawful, which was awesome.)

Me, sticking my head out of the window of the train from Plzen to Prague like an overexcited dog. Note: I do not normally look this red, or this distorted. Actually, I barely recognise myself in this picture. Internet anonymity maintained!

Life is grand.

Tour de the area around Prague (a.k.a. my legs hurt)

I didn´t have work yesterday, so I planned a bike trip in the countryside surrounding Prague. It was a very long and hilly affair, but I enjoyed it immensely. I plotted a route on the czech version of mapquest that took me to two castles and two interesting cities and was about 100 km long. Being the foolhardy kid that I am, and full-well knowing better, I neglected to buy a map and it was only once I realized that I had merged onto the wrong highway/"highspeed roaday" and was now in effect doing the entire loop backwards that I bought one. A pleasant day of alternately internally bitching about the arduousness of hills, zooming down winding downhills, and every five minutes thinking "holy crap this world is beautiful" ensued.


The first bloom in a field of sunflowers

Coming into a typical village

Whee! A big castle! (the most famous one in the Czech republic, longterm residence of Charles IV etc)

Why not bring back something home for the kiddies? Say, a pair of brass knuckles or a ninja throwing star (a real, razorsharp one...)

Such is the image of a typical country road. Highways are still fairly rare, since there are small villages very nearby and it wouldn't make sense to keep merging and unmerging etc, so this is what people drive on to get anywhere. At some point someone decided to plant trees along all the country roads, so most of the stretches have either apple or cherry trees alongside them, and you can eat the fruit, provided you don't mind that it might eventually give you cancer from the exhaust fumes, which I don't. Typical irresponsibility of youth, I know.

Main lesson of the day-Invest in maps. Prague is big. I realized this when I rode into Černošice, which is technically in the jurisdiction of Prague but very far away from my quarter, so in effect I added another 20 km to my already significant 100 km. At or around the moment of this realization, it started raining. Not drizzling, not spitting, more like a the-gods-coming-down-from-Vallhalla thunderstorm downpour. The picture doesn't do it justice. So I rode another fifteen miles in the rain in the shoulder alongside the cars, singing songs from Juno to keep myself company. And you know what? It was fun! Coming through the centre I passed another cyclist who had a wide grin on his face. Maybe he just proposed to his girlfriend, maybe he got promoted at work, but I like to think that he was reveling in the thunderstorm too.

This morning my intent was to go run, but my body informed me, loudly, that I had just biked 120 km, was in significant pain, had slept ten hours and could have slept more, and my intent could go bother someone else. So I went back to bed. Cheers.

Sorry for the long post, I need to curtail my rambling.

In praise of butlers and crumpets for tea

Although I am not by any means posessed of a butler, I am posessed of a grandfather who is posessed of an inordinately large amount of Agatha Christie novels. I've been occupying some of my time reading said Agatha Christie novels while drinking Earl Gray tea and eating bread with honey. (When left to my own devices, I eat only bread with honey, which leads to interesting energy crashes at inopportune moments.) When I get to an English-speaking country, I plan on saying "rubbish!" "balderdash!" and "poppycock!" at every possible moment. I must say that it's so refreshing to read something that used to be major entertainment before the digital age. Everything seems charmingly removed and otherworldly. Murders are solved because the detective spots the chalk on the sleeve of the suspect - no forensic science necessary, and people speak with a propriety that belies their sinister intent. Next time it rains, pick up something by her. It's not quality literature, which is why it's so fun. Or get a butler. I want a butler. I also want to live in a yurt when I grow up and be a bike messenger in Stockholm. Something tells me something's gotta give.

On a related(?) note, I think I'm giving up on Ulysses for now. I'm not getting enough out of it. James Joyce: 1. Me: 0.

the green ferry

Shortened version of actual conversation on the twenty-two tram (yes, the twenty-two tram is both my second flat and surrogate mother, what of it?):

College Kid (all-american attractive, Abercrombie polo and cocky but friendly demeanor, clutching a bottle of luridly green liquid): Hey, excuse me, but do you know if this stuff makes you go cRaZzYy?(the intonation suggests the capitalization)
Me, laughing: Uh, no, that's actually a common American misconception, you'll just get really drunk and the morning after might not be fun.
College Kid: Oh, so no green fairy and all? Is there anything that DOES make you go crazy?
Me: Well yeah, but that's, well, illegal.
College Kid: *slightly crestfallen, then brightens* But like this amount should be enough to get two people pretty messed up right?
Me, noting the "half-liter" label on the absinth bottle: Yeah, I think you're good.
College Kid: Where are you from?
Me: Here.
College Kid: We're from Tennessee, our team is playing lacrosse here *makes lacrosse motion in case European girl doesn't get what lacrosse is*. Can you tell us where the clubs are?
Me: (I do my best to explain where the centre is and where most of the clubs are)
College Kid: Wanna come clubbing?

I continued laughing for a good three stops. The kid was really nice but so perfectly adorably touristy-clueless that it made me happy. The whole green fairy thing is a purely Eurotrip idea I think. The green ferry, however, is a purely my-coworker-was-hanging-out-with-some-Americans-in-Netherlands idea. Europe is a place of many accents and someone told her about the fairy and she responded, "haha! FERRY! let's take a trip on the canal! Awesome!"

Since for the most part I leave the mind-altering substances to Ken Kesey and co., I will probably never forget the time someone asked me where to get hallucinogens on public transit. Loves it.

The above is an illustrative photo of a green ferry. In case you were wondering.

insert lyric with the word "street" in it here

I'm in Prague. I have a digital camera and too much time on my hands.


You know, I'm almost glad I didn't go. It would have broken my fragile little heart.


This giant grafitti has been on this wall for years. "We were watching each other on the 22 tram, call me". Despite evidence that it may just be a smart advertising campaign, I keep hoping it's not, because it's kind of beautiful.


Someone has a Sharpie and a simple sense of humour. Chuckle.


Deep and narrow alleys are Prague's trademark.


Hamas armistice notwithstanding, I think we've forgotten.


Yeah, me too. Why they're not illegal and why they're occasionally given seats in Parliament completely confounds me. Anyone remember 1968? I don't, but still...


Well, I wouldn't. But since neither of us are US citizens, my feline friends and I are irrelevant. For shame.

In the past few days, I've gone to the United Islands of Prague festival, which was great, and the World Cup of Slalom Canoe and Kayak, which is a scene that I guess only interests the people in it or connected to it, but still great. I saw an old friend from camp, which was hands down the best three hours of this week. I did another shift in the coffeehousebar, much more laid back and fun, my coworker was a very nice person and we had all of five patrons. On Friday I ran ten miles and ran to the watchtower that overlooks the city. Today I rotted on the couch and read books and ran barely three miles. Such is life.

Seven hours of espresso and tap

Yesterday marked the start of my second job, which involves serving various beverages at a cafebar type thing. It was a seven-hour accelerated course in hotel management and rather stressful to say the least - every time I made a mistake it seemed rather dire, and there were two of us (my boss, ie the owner and myself) serving six tables and a bar. I felt like I was expected to know how to do everything already, and I kind of wanted to vehemently explain, "I'm seventeen! I don't know how to serve beer on tap, ok? In the country where I live most of the time they don't allow seventeenyearolds to serve beer on tap and thus I haven't had much practice! Please be patient with me!"

Lessons learned:
-Serving beer on tap is complicated as there are high standards of presentation and thus it is woth taking the time to do properly.
-Don't ask whether capuccino is served with milk. It's not. There's already milk in it and things like "extra milk" are not de rigeur and you look extremely stupid.
-You get interesting types in any sort of establishment. We had a lady (evidently a local) who looked like a Hell's Angel (I actually couldn't tell she was female initially), ran some sort of international magazine publishing and during the four hours in which she was there drank an entire liter of white wine and various whiskeys and suchlike. Totally fascinating character.
-When the customer simply orders "red wine", don't just grab any red wine. Ask. (Ok, this was one of my rather weaker moments, but shouldn't the customer know better when she is sitting next to a full glass case of red wines?)
-Don't calculate tabs until the customer has paid, otherwise you cause panic and disorder backstage.
-When your kitchen is three feet by three feet and there's a giant black dog standing in it, simply shove the dog out of the way. The dog isn't paying you.

Actually, the owner hasn't paid me yet either.

After that job I handled two separate distant relatives, neither of which was pleasant, so at about eleven after everyone had left I collapsed in a corner and called my mommy. Very independent of me. Here's to hoping I don't get kicked out and do eventually get paid.

The Bohemian Atelier

My place of employment while in the Czech Republic is an atelier whose name is the French equivalent of "The Bohemian" which sells handmade clothes. It's mostly aimed at older well-heeled "ladies of fashion", and most of the customers are women with an interest in handmade and suchlike. My task consists of doing everything that doesn't take skill (ie everything except the sewing of the clothes). So I mostly talk with customers, act much more bubbly and cheery than my normal cynical self would, catalog the clothes, do shop finances, dress up the mannequins, etc. For having only been there three days, I have rather a large amount of responsibility. The store owner routinely leaves me there to man the store by myself, and after the second day, I was told to lock up the store for the night, basically putting me in charge of the security of thousands of dollars worth of clothing and shop materials. This was rather daunting, but I managed ok, and only got slightly told off for leaving the potted plant outside where someone could have stolen it. Why someone would steal a giant potted mass of leaves I'm not really sure, but duly noted.

Anyhow, photographic evidence of my hard work:

It's an incredibly pleasant workspace, filled with various colorful objects and such and a very nice, non-corporate atmosphere.

We have a chandelier. I spend large mounts of time staring at it when I have nothing better to do, which is often, because customers are scant.

A dressmaker's dummy, painstakingly dressed by me. Have you ever tried to dress a dressmaker's dummy? To me it's an incredibly awkward experience. It's like a dead person going through rigor mortis, and I constantly feel as though I'm feeling it up or intruding on its privacy.

I have no idea what this is. It could be one of those avant-garde headpieces for Prada which make the model look as though she has a donut on her head (which she in fact does), a kinky pair of handcuffs, or something else. I have affectionately dubbed it the UFO (unidentified fashionable object) and continue to wonder why it sells for the equivalent of 61 dollars.

Fotbal!

I've never really been a sports-watching person - I don't know the rules to football (in gym when I scored a touchdown someone had to inform me of this after the fact), I've never seen a baseball game, and despite running ridiculous amounts and beinginvolved in various such physical endeavours, the whole TV-and chips thing has no interest for me. That said, fotbal (soccer) is impossible to ignore. It's Eurocup season here in Europe, and the excitement is palpable - or was, until recently. But more on that later.

On Sunday night I went to watch the CzechRepublic/Turkey match in Old Town Square, dressed in sturdy pants, running shoes, a hoodie and carrying a conspicuous lack of valuables (I learned earlier on that wearing a skirt of any length in Prague after six PM is not necessarily a good idea). Attire-wise I felt as though I was going to a punk concert, but the tendency of fotbal fans to brawl after beer is not to be underestimated. The scene was crowded and drunk and energetic. I tend to get high off crowd energy, so that was the positive aspect to the night. The negative aspects were present too, however - ignorant drunken comments, the "sponsored" feel to it (hyundai logos were everywhere and Staropramen had a monopoly on beer, selling it for about twice the normal price - hence guess who didn't buy any?). Wanting to avoid the post-match crowds, I left a bit early so I didn't get to see us lose spectacularly (we were winning for 3/4 of the game and then got 3 goals in about the last 15 minutes, which is allthemore heartbreaking). Anyhow, it was a good experience and one that I'm glad I lived through but maybe not one I'd go to again.

I'm adding some photos from the previous day's match (Greece-Russia), but it doesn't really capture the feel because it was during the day, not at night, and everyone was sitting down because there's no reason to get up and jump around if it's not even your country, right?



Thr crowd is seated and boring...

It's a giant footballer!

Ummm, hey, sorry, but would you mind not waving your flag around my city's town square? I have nothing against it and all, but like see the last time you did that it had a hammer and a sickle on it and there was a tank under it, and we kind of weren't cool with that, but I guess it's ok as long as you don't try to take anyone over again and don't mind the US radar that we're going to install. Kthanks! (To be fair, they were drunk - I'm not sure if this would be done when sober)

...and this is the backdrop to all of this.

I've started my "selling handmade clothes to rich artsy people" job. Will post about it soon. It's quite something.

Pražská Muzejní Noc/ Prague Museum Night

Last night was museum night in Prague, which operates on the principle that for one night a year all the museums in the city are free and furthermore transportation between them is free as well, which is a rather enlightened notion that makes for a giant happening because the populace of Prague can't resist free things. There were crowds of people at every museum which really heightened the festive atmosphere.


It's a girl dressed up as a dinosaur spinning a hula hoop in the national museum. Any questions?


My country's national museum's wall hanging beats your wall hanging! (I really want a giant mammoth head in my bedroom. Although that might be creepy.)


A whale skeleton. Mostly just added to prove that I saw it, because the last time I was here I managed to miss it. Don't ask me how.


A concert by the Cuban band Son Caliente was a sideshow at one of the branches of the National Museum. They sang a poem by Jose Marti which happens to be the only poem in Spanish that I know. I felt cultured (and or folk revolutionarish).


A photo from the exhibit of Asian, African and American cultures.


Performers at the museum of fine arts. They had several, including a guy in a trash can wrapped in celophane blowing bubbles outside their door.


A piece at the museum of fine arts entitled "Amoeba". There was another which was a cylinder of semi-opaque white glass, entitled "Cylinder". A few art kids were viewing it next to me, staring at it quizzically until one of them finally proclaimed, "Yep, that's a cylinder."

Overall it was quite the experience.