|
|
Ok, I'm back again here in my room, my little place in Prague. Last night was Saint Nickolaš' eve, or St. Nick's eve in English. Now we normally call Santa Clause, Old St. Nick, but they are really two different persons, from two different traditions. Now here in Prague, where I noted a total lack of the Halloween spirit, I found that they made up for here, in the Christmas season. St. Nickolaš comes out on the fifth of December to, and like Santa hear the boys and girls. If they were good, and promise to be good they are rewarded with some sort of candy, or fruit, something like getting an orange in your stocking. Little things, and mostly sweets, a lot like the stocking's we hang. But St. Nickolaš doesn't come out alone, he has help. Along with St. Nickolaš is an andęl, and chert. I'm having a real hard time with my character sets here with windows, so please forgive the grammatical, and spelling errors in Czech. So with him are an angle and a devil guy. Now the angle is pretty self explanatory, but why the devil too you might ask. Now here's how it was explained to me. Ya see chert isn't the devil, but rather just a devil, chert is like a name and a title at the same time. Now is you were to end up in hell the beasties that are feeding the fires and wielding the red hot pokers and such, they are chert's, but this still doesn't explain what the chert is doing with St. Nickolaš. You se because the chert is a devil it's got powers, all that neat stuff, but because it's not the devil you can deal with the chert. This was explained to me in the form of an abbreviated Czech tale about it.
Once there was this boy who's mother had died and father had remarried. Now his new step mother was wicked and didn't like him. She took all he had, and all he produced, making him a pauper. Now when St. Nickolaš came that year and the chert with him the chert made a suggestion to the boy. He said, "Why don't you come and work with me. If you work for down in hell for seven years I'll give you what ever you want." The boy had his reservations about it and he said, "Well what will I have to do, what will my job be Chert?" And the chert replied, "You'll have to feed log's into the furnace every day to keep the fires hot for the sinners." That being the job description and the boy not seeing his present situation as any better accepted the job. Now, down in hell he worked every day and is was hard work, but every night he had off, and he would sit and play cards and talk with the other cherts. It wasn't a bad job at all, and after his seven year contract was up the chert came to him and said, "Well you're done, you've worked and kept your word, and I'll keep mine. What would you like? Name Anything?" The boy really hadn't thought of it as he was enjoying his time with the cherts, and so asked what the chert could recommend. "Ah, I have just the thing." replied the chert, "Here take this coat. It's nasty and ugly and old, but every time you put your hand into the pocket, you'll take out gold, forever!" Now the boy thought this was pretty good and so he took it and went back to the world, and now wealthy lived happily ever after.
Now the point of this very abbreviated story was to show that the chert's purpose, although a devil can be good. If you keep your head about you, you can make a good deal with this character, and that's why he's with St. Nickolaš. So some get the best of all worlds on this night. Ok and now how it ties into Halloween. Marty and I having the next day off from school decided that we would go out to a pub that his father use to haunt in Malostrana. An old and well known student place, so it was agreed upon and we set off. On the way to our tram stop however we began to pass some strange characters. There were lots of people on the street last night in general, but and I was warned, some were dressed for the part. We passed a St. Nickolaš and entourage on the sidewalk, only to board a tram with another. After a few stops a pair of ladies dressed as chert's got on and began to harass he occupants. It was really fun. They had on old brown vests and their faces were all blackened. They had little red devil horns and devil tails. And they had a sack to put goodies into, an old burlap sack. They basically harassed everyone on the tram till we go to the subway station, and during this time we remembered that there was going to be something going on down in Staremesto, the old town square. So we decided to go for some hot wine and to see the festivities, and if the night still looked good then we'd go up the Hradchany to the student pub.
Now getting down town, the scene was really something else. The old square was flooded with people. Families and friends took the square, dozens of people dressed as the various parts. Nickolaš', angles, and a disproportionate amount of cherts. The cherts had cherry bombs too, and so every few min's you would hear another explosion. The men with the horses and carriages were not pleased! However is was all in good fun and nothing that I would expect to ever see in a city back home. Maybe it's something like Binghamton's Sparkle as the population takes to the streets for nothing more than good fun.
It was all a little strange for a Christmas celebration. Fireworks, and devils don't normally work into the season where I'm from, but then again neither does carp for Christmas dinner! Marty and I deciding that the night was still young enough to head up the hill to the pub did so. Had a little beer and some Fernet (one of the bitter liquors they drink over here), and headed home and to bed. Hope to have a carp report for you soon too! Today is XII.06.00 I've got twenty more days and then I'm coming home, and I hear that Christmas has been postponed for me this year. Now you all know better than to do that! You just have to save me some food! Cookies, stuffing, beans, wine, cranberry, roll's and turkey or what ever you have! I'm getting tired of Ramen noodles!
Actualy the Ramen is not bad, neither is the Czech food, I've come to like it very well. It's going to be strange to get home and not have it at anymore. Not unless I make it, and I do have the recipe for on Bulgarian dish that you'll have to try when I get back. But It's probably just as well, they fry everything here, and I mean everything. If you don't make it yourself, it's a plate full of grease. It's going to be hard to convert back to the relatively light diet that we have in the USA. If you thought McDonalds sat heavy in the tummy, you've got some learning to do in the CZ. Not really though, the McD's here is about the worst thing that I think you can put into your body. It's exactly the same as at home, and just as bad for you. No I think what will be missing is going into any bar at home, or restaurant, and getting a meal for 2 bucks that someone just made for you. The one place we go to often, you can hear the cook beating out the schnitzels in the kitchen before he breads them and fries them. Skinny guy with long hair, looks like Ashley's friend Tom Fraily, but he can cook well. Most of us here do miss the foods from home though. Although Craig said that when he gets back to Toronto that he's going to the Czech deli for lunch and a Thai place for dinner. They do have that up in Toronto over us, I don't know where I can get the Czech food at home. But worst comes to worst and I want it, I can always drive to Toronto! I'm ready for the food of home, the Sopranos pizza and the Pudgies, and the House Of Wings. Breakfast food too, you can't get eggs and bacon and hash browns here, they just don't eat that stuff like we do.
Now Craig just got back from his trip today too, and so our explorer to the far east brought back many tails to us, of the exotic Thailand. He said that it's good to be back, and it's good to have him back, but that also he could have stayed a month. A place where it's relatively cheap to live, and it's warm and nice. Staying on the beaches in little towns, moterbiking about the place, it sounded very nice. He said that the prostitution was the only troublesome thing about the place, it abounds there, and it is disturbing. However the images that the stories he told generated in my mind says that it is a place to go for sure. One beach he described sounded like the beach from "Lord of the Flies" long with the large pile of rocks at the end, however this beach had a huge statue of the Buddha on it, tucked away in the foliage. His stories really makes me want to explore the sub-continent.
One more thing that Craig brought up today, as we sat watching the tube and the America election thing came on again he asked be if it was embarrassing. I said that America had done to many embarrassing things before I was born to really make it a strange feeling, but in general being an American here is embarrassing. I never thought that Americans were so bad as I do now, nor as proud and grateful that I was brought up as I was. I was hailed by my friends as perhaps the first American the they have met that doesn't act like an American. As if to act like an American is a bad thing. Now I'm not ignorant to the fact that we as a people have a bad rap. I know the term the "ugly American", but I never really understood the bad vibes we've generated around the globe. When Marty and I are in bars and we are chillin' and talking to people, two out of three have noting good to say about Americans. One guy last night looked up at me and said "I hate Americans" it was the only English he knew. Now from my standpoint, and the people I know I can't understand why anyone would say such a thing, but now meeting more Americans removed from their home turf I can see what they mean. My old Roomie Ali is a perfect example of not only an ugly American, but a ugly human, but he is an American and so it reflects poorly on us as whole, and maybe that is the key. He is not a good person, somewhere things did not go right in his upbringing, and being sent into the world he behaves just as poorly as I would imagine him to at home. Now seeking a label for the situation it's easy for him to use the title American and weight that it carries with it as an excuse for this behaviour. But he must not be the minority in the situation, as no rational person could stereotype off of one encounter, yet that is what people around the world expect of me and my behavior when they learn that I too am an American.
Now I'd like to ask that all who read this to question how you perceive people. People from other states, provinces, countries, hemispheres. We all know that jerks will arise in time, but how can we as Americans make this situation right? I personally believe that it can and only will start with upbringing. That as a nation we must change the way we do things, the saying is that it takes a village to raise a child, and as much as I dislike the policy of Hillary Clinton, I think she is right in this. We need to take more care with our youth, to ensure that they are not only ready to enter the world, but can act responsibly in it as well. People have always been surprised with the size of my family, and how close we are, but in comparison to the "normal" American family, it seems to have worked for the next generation, at least I believe it has in my case. And I'd like to think that I can change the minds of the people I meet around the world. Most telling me very negative things about my country, and being pleasantly surprised after we've spoken for some time. But this one man war will be a loosing battle until more people realize, this again bringing me to my reasoning for the necessity of American youth to travel and see the world. I think that once anyone of my fellow Americans was placed under the spotlight as I have been here as an American, it would generate in then a similar feeling. They should wonder what we've done wrong too, and how we are going to fix it.