New country unlocked!

After spending several nights in bunk beds in a run-of-the-mill 10-person hostel room, we were more than relieved to settle into a comfortable airbnb.com apartment in Prague.

Prague quickly stole my heart and took a place high on my list of favorite cities.  The first things to strike me were the extremely steep and fast escalators.  The second thing (especially after the modern buildings of Berlin) was the style of architecture: I found myself wanting to take a picture of every single building.  By day, it's like Paris, but with plenty of color; at night, it has a unique golden glow.

While it's not difficult to survive Prague speaking English, we tried out a few bits of Czech vocabulary:

dobrý deň - hello
na shledanou - goodbye 
prosím - please
děkuji - thank you
ano - yes
ne - no

Our first task after arriving Saturday, late afternoon, was to quickly find a legitimate place to exchange money for a good rate.  There are plenty of money exchange scams in Prague simply because the Czech Kč is very different from other currencies (1 Euro is about 27 Kč; 1 American dollar is about 24 Kč) and it's easy to manipulate foreigners: go for the kiosks that clearly advertise 0% commission.  There's one near Wenceslas Square (Štěpánská 42), one west of the river on Stefánikova about a five-minute walk north of Anděl, and a handful of others throughout the city if you keep an eye out.

Equipped with cash, our next task was to find a typical Czech meal.  One of the only downsides I had to live with during our stay is that the Czech Republic allows smoking in all restaurants.  To best experience Czech cuisine without too much smoke haze, I'd recommend eating at restaurants during the lunch hour, which tends to be quieter.  At the very least, the dining room shouldn't be quite as full of smoke early in the day.  The good news is that food (along with most other things - museum entrance fees, souvenirs, lodging, etc.) is extremely inexpensive in comparison to western Europe, especially France.

Goulash and bread dumplings
at Vinárna U Palečka

The Czech Republic is known for its heavy wintry meat dishes with dumplings made from bread or potatoes.  We had a good (but maybe overpriced) traditional meal near Wenceslas Square our first evening, complete with accordion music, but the real deal was a ways off the beaten tourist path at a hole-in-the-wall place called Vinárna U Palečka.  Nearby, we stumbled upon a beer garden called Beer Geek where we found an excellent selection Czech Republic brews.  A block away, you can find a restaurant called Baba Jaga which also has authentic Czech food, a cozy atmosphere, and a small authentic non-English-speaking Czech staff.  This particular neighborhood in the southeast corner of Prague is out of the way and doesn't look like much, but the restaurants and shops are absolute gems if you know where to go.

Another gem of Prague, in my musical opinion, was the small but sweet Dvořák museum.  One of my favorite composers, Antonín Dvořák, probably best known for his New World Symphony, was born in a small town near Prague and died in Prague.  New World Symphony was inspired by the United States; Dvořák spent a handful of years in New York.  The museum, located in a historic pink house with a garden used for summer concerts, has a small collection of his personal items and photos, including his viola, piano, reading glasses, and graduation gown from Cambridge University.  Upstairs, you can spend hours listening to recordings of his works.

We later visited the graves of Dvořák and of Bedřich Smetana (another of my favorite Czech composers, most famous for The Moldau) at Vyšehrad, a dark castle and church on a hill.  I recognized Smetana's grave easily by the notes of The Moldau's opening flute solo etched into the stone.  The cemetery itself is the equivalent of Paris' Père Lachaise - many famous Czechs are buried there.

Municipal House

To get our fill of art, we stopped by the Municipal House, the home of the Prague Philharmonic.  While we weren't able to hear a concert, it was a treat to admire the beautiful building and visit the Art Nouveau exhibit upstairs.

Another day, Elyse and I visited the Veletržní palác, which is one of the most famous art galleries in the city.  It reinforced all of our stereotypes of eastern European art: dark, twisted, unfiltered, and generally unsettling.  The middle floor even had an exhibit including works by some of my favorite artists: Degas, Monet, Renoir, Matisse, Van Gogh, Cezanne...but they were certainly the darkest of their works that I'd ever seen.

On a brighter note, we were lucky to have chosen to visit the Pražský hrad, or Prague castle, on our one clear, sunny day.  The castle, which is also a cathedral, is at the top of a hill overlooking the city.  The cathedral is one of the few in Prague (and Berlin) that you can enter without paying an entrance fee, so we peeked inside.  The architecture is very similar to that of the Strasbourg cathédrale in France and the Köln Dom in Germany.  In addition, we had a picnic while listening to street music, watched the changing of the guard, and took a little hike on the hill.  On our hike, we came across and visited the Klasterni Pivovar, a unique monastic brewery and restaurant; inside is a cozy, classy candlelit cave with candelabras at every table.

If you still have energy after all that, the Tančící dům (Dancing House) and the Lennon Wall are both at least worth walking past.  The very modern Dancing House was built on the site of a house destroyed by the United States in 1945.  The Lennon Wall, hidden away near the Charles Bridge, has been full of Beatles lyrics and graffiti since the 1980s.

Dancing House; Lennon Wall

Prague is a comfortable and exciting city to be in; though some areas are touristy, you can definitely find some unique things off the beaten path.  I can see myself returning in the future, especially during the summer to hear some outdoor music.

Now we sit quite beautifully in the ink.

Sunset over Nantes:
airplane view

It's a little strange in France when the language assistants go out in public as a group, all speaking French but with very different and in some cases extremely heavy accents.  More exceptionally, we all manage to understand each other very well but from time to time struggle to understand French people when they speak French.  But, especially once we get outside of small towns, people assume that we're a group of foreign exchange students and it's not that weird.

Now take a French-speaking group of two Spaniards, one German, and two Americans and place them in Germany.  Even in an international city like Berlin, the two main languages are German and English...both of which we butchered fantastically.  The transition from bonjour to hallo, s'il vous plaît to bitte, merci beaucoup to danke schön, pardon to entschuldigung, and au revoir to tchüss was far from fluid.  Luckily, we had Lisa's expertise and native German language skills to guide us.  She taught me the handiest two words for shop and café situations (if you'd like to order, for example, a laugenbrötchen for breakfast but are mortified that you'll completely butcher the name):

das da - that one

"Das da, bitte" plus a finger point got me far in life in Germany.  At the very least, it got me breakfast much faster than, "Uh, bonjour, non, errr, nein, uh, bitte, ça?  Non, with fromage.  Er.  Cheese.  Käse?  Ja!  Merci!  Non non non - danke.  Danke schön."

Knowing nothing about the city, we decided to start our five days in Berlin with a walking tour.  Ironically, there was a Spanish tour for Claudia and Laura, an English tour for Elyse and me, but no German tour for Lisa...and no French tour, for that matter.  (She knows English well, though, and tagged along on our tour led by a man from Manchester.)  I highly recommend these tours to anyone going to Berlin for the first time; it was well worth it despite being outside in the freezing damp cold for almost five hours.  The tour we found was free, but you tip your guide as much as you think it was worth at the end.  And our guide was very good, despite having a bottomless pit of American jokes to fire at Elyse at me.  Besides getting a sense of the layout of Berlin, we also discovered the hidden but rich history of the city that you simply can't get otherwise; Berlin is now a modern city, the political seat of Germany, but it has been through a lot as has Germany as a country.

Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate); Berliner Dom (Berlin cathedral); Holocaust-Mahnmal (Holocaust Memorial)

We started at the Brandenburg Gate (first picture above on the left), which was built in the 1730s as a symbol of peace...ironic, since it played a role in several wars that followed its construction.  On the top of the gate, you can see the Quadriga, a horse-pulled chariot, which was taken to Paris by Napoleon I in 1806 after his victory over Prussia (don't worry - it was returned in 1814).  The Gate was a Nazi party symbol during WWII, badly damaged and later restored.  During the Cold War, one of eight checkpoints along the Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall) between East Berlin and West Berlin was situated just east of the Gate.

One of the next stops was one of the most solemn but fascinating places in Berlin: the Holocaust Memorial, or Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (right photo above).  The memorial itself was designed in 2005 by Peter Eisenman, a Newark, New Jersey native.  It's a city block full of concrete slabs with uneven walking spaces between them; no two are the same.  Part of the beauty and genius of the memorial is that Eisenman himself will not tell you exactly what the slabs are: you have to reflect and decide for yourself what they mean.  For me, they looked like coffins; their plainness is what struck me the most, which is supposed to represent the lack of proper burial the Jews were given, especially in concentration camps.  Later during our stay, we returned to visit the memorial museum located below, which was extremely well-done and worth a visit if you have plenty of emotion to spare.

We moved from there to the parking lot which stands over the bomb-proof bunker where Adolf Hitler died.  The story is strange, almost comedic, and very dark all at once, and our guide did a fantastic job of spinning it.  In the spring of 1945, after spending too much time in down in the bunker with no sunlight, Hitler and his army had become slightly delusional...so much so that they didn't fully realize or care that they had already lost the war and were going to be overtaken.  He married Eva Braun in the bunker less than forty hours before they committed suicide; their bodies were burned at his command, but their skull and jaw fragments were later tested and confirmed.  A couple of years later, the Soviets attempted to destroy the bomb-proof bunker by bombing it.  It didn't work.  Today, the bunker still exists, but there is no memorial to mark the place so as not to give undue attention to Hitler; it is only a parking lot.

The middle picture above shows the Dom (cathedral) of Berlin.  It's an impressive building, but not as old as it looks: it was completed in 1905.  King Frederick William IV decided to build it because their old cathedral was not nearly as impressive as those of other cities; he told the designers to "make it look old".  Behind the cathedral to the left, you can see the Fernsehturm, or television tower, the fourth-tallest freestanding structure in Europe and one of the landmarks of Berlin.

In addition, you have Museumsinsel, or Museum Island, an area near the cathedral with many famous museums.  We later went to one recommended by our guide, the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German History Museum), which took half a day and reminded me a lot of Invalides in Paris - so much excellent information and so many artifacts, but no human possesses enough brainpower to take it all in during one visit.  There are a couple of other museums on Museumsinsel that I'd like to return and see as well.

Then there's Gendarmenmarkt, maybe my favorite square in Berlin.  On one end is Französischer Dom (the French cathedral) and on the other Deutscher Dom (the German cathedral), in theory completely identical except that the German cathedral was the second built, and may have made its dome just a little taller than that of the French.  Between the two is the Konzerthaus, or orchestra hall, where the Berlin Philharmonic plays.  It was closed when we stopped by, but the inside is supposedly incredible.

Brandenburger Tor in chocolate

It was right next to Gendarmenmarkt that we discovered heaven on earth, Fassbender & Rausch.  This was either the most wonderful or terrible place I've discovered.  In France, chocolate is typically expensive; just under one Euro for once small piece.  In Germany, prices in general are lower; in the chocolate world, that means that for the absolute best chocolate in the country, the price was equivalent to so-so chocolate in France.  So we made a daily meal of it.  When Elyse's dad emailed her to ask if she'd been to his favorite historical museum in Berlin, she responded, "No, but we went to Fassbender & Rausch five times."  To be fair, the chocolate shop was definitely a cultural and historical experience, with Berlin monument models in every corner.

Bundestag in chocolate

East Side Gallery

One morning, we visited the East Side Gallery, the longest-standing portion of the Berlin Wall (about 1.3 km) which is now decorated with 105 paintings by artists around the world.  The paintings are all vibrant and varied; they all stand for change and hope for a better future.  It's an experience to simply stroll along the wall.  There's one area where you can see a bit of the second wall and get a sense of the space between them - the Berlin Wall was actually double-walled with several awful traps set between them for anyone who tried to escape from one side to the other.  Sadly, many sections have been severely vandalized and some of the painted wall was recently knocked down to make room for the construction of modern apartment buildings along the river.

Afterward, we took the tram to Mustafa's Gemüse Kebap - the best street kebab place in Berlin.  We waited in line at least thirty minutes, and it was so well worth it.  The line luckily deters you from ordering a second and third and fourth.  If you are in Berlin, don't miss it.

View from the Bundestag

We had also made a reservation to visit the Bundestag that afternoon - the government building of Berlin and of Germany.  With a reservation, you can go up and down the spiral walkway in the glass dome at the top, listen to an audioguide describing Berlin, and take in many excellent views of the city.  As you look down, you can see straight into the room where the German parliament meets.  The principle is that the government is always below the people, and if they forget that, they just need to look up and see civilians circulating above them...but the reality, as our tour guide pointed out, is that they are really just seeing a bunch of American tourists.

Elyse, Laura, me, Claudia, and Lisa at the Bundestag

Today, aside from being a historical site of interest and political center, Berlin actually doesn't have a main industry like many other German cities...aside from tourism.  It therefore seemed very liveable if you know and can avoid the areas swarming with selfie-stick-wielding tourists and pickpockets.

Germans are fascinating and incredible people.  Their undergrad college tuition is free because value is invested in the next generation and what they will do with their education.  So many efficient, intelligent, and artistic people who have contributed to the world in positive and revolutionary ways have come from Germany:  Gutenberg, Einstein, Beethoven, Marx, Luther, Nietzsche, Klee, Liszt, Kant, Goethe...  But the stereotype and image of Germans that prevails in the world is still that of Naziism during WWII.  It's a terrible thing to have to take responsibility for something like the Holocaust, but the Germans do it with dignity.  Everyone would like to say that they would never participate in something as terrible as the Holocaust, even in the smallest way, but it's truly easier said than done.  At the time, even at the beginning of the Nazis' ascent to power, no one knew how it would end.  Today, Germans still tend to be quiet about their national pride, even during events like the World Cup and Olympics; they also have war memorials and monuments placed front-and-center in their cities so that they are reminded every day of the painful parts of their history.  They don't sweep their historical failings under the rug: they rehash them out in the open, educate themselves, and try to make sure that they don't repeat the horror.  Something I'll think about the next time I see an "evil German" reference in the media.

To end on a lighter note, Lisa introduced me to something called Denglisch - German phrases that are directly translated into English...that are not parallel and make no sense.  They are all over Germany on postcards and T-shirts.  For example, the title of this blog:

Take the German phrase Jetzt sitzen wir ganz schön in der Tinte.
Directly translated, it says, Now we sit quite beautifully in the ink.
The real English equivalent is something like, Now we're in a real mess.

Try also:
No one can reach me the water.
Meaning: No one can be as good as me.

There stand me the hairs to mountains.
Meaning:  (You're driving me crazy;) I'm going to pull my hair out.

And, probably the most famous:
I think I spider.
Meaning:  I think I'm going crazy.

After five full days in Berlin, Elyse, Laura, and I continued on by train to a new city, country, and language...  Prague, Czech Republic.

"Madame, how do you say PS3 in English?"

At some point during the train ride from Nantes to Strasbourg last December, it struck me that I was content not only because I was headed to Strasbourg, a city I love.  I was also content because I knew I would be happy to return to the Vendée...not because it's known as the most beautiful region of France, but because I have built so many strong new relationships in the area with students, colleagues, other assistants, and friends.  I always love being on a train that is taking me to a friend.

So, I enjoyed my return to work after the Christmas vacation.  Even though I still see most of my classes for short periods of twenty-five minutes twice a month, I finally started feeling like I knew my students well enough to create lesson plans that interest them.  My terminale students (seniors) at the lycée are busy preparing for the Bac - their huge final exam in June.  The Bac is, in my opinion, a mix of good and bad.  In the U.S., students are constantly tested and measured against others state- and nation-wide starting in elementary school.  From my experience teaching in a public middle school, it seemed like students were always preparing for or taking one test or another - at least three per year.  I can attest to the amount of stress the tests put on students, and the amount of time that was spent teaching them to eat a good breakfast the morning of the test, tricks like sucking on peppermint candy to jog the brain, and how to properly do eenie-meenie-miney-moe if they were stuck between answers on a multiple choice question.  It didn't leave a lot of room for learning what they actually should have known for the test in the first place, which is only a small fraction of what could be learned about the world.

The silver lining to that system is that American students are very used to standardized tests by the time they reach senior year of high school.  In theory, the Bac in France should be very passable; the problem is that, when French students reach it, they have only ever had two examens blancs (mock tests): one in January of their 3ème year (around 8th grade - my students at the collège just took it) and one in January of their last year of lycée.  They also have very little support with things like test anxiety and test-taking strategies.

Outside of school, my friends and I celebrated the fête de rois, or l'Épiphanie on January 6 - the Epiphany, in honor of the three kings.  Laura told us that it is a huge holiday in Spain; though it isn't a jour férié (bank holiday) in France, it is widely celebrated well into the new year with les galettes du rois - kings' cakes.  In the Vendée, many galettes are made in brioche style (our region's main bakery specialty).  Inside each galette is a small toy; the person who finds the toy in his or her slice (hopefully not breaking a tooth) is the "king" and gets to wear the crown that comes with the cake.  Some boulangeries even have punch cards for galettes (buy five, get the sixth free; etc.).  At our dinner, we made crêpes, exchanged gifts, and crowned Elyse post-galette.

My first weekend back in January, I was cleared to play at my first (and probably only) band concert with the Phalhar of la Roche; we went to a very small town fifteen minutes away called Chaize-le-Vicomte to play in their hall.  It was especially fun for the flutist and clarinetist who sit on either side of me; they have extensive family living in the town.  I was happy to have a carful of fans in the audience as well; Lisa, Laura, Elyse, and Henry came to listen and cheer in the front row!

I have also gotten to know Nantes quite well in the past month.  I've been back and forth at least once or twice each week to visit different language schools and get to know the university.  It seems I have a job for the semester as a professor in the foreign language section of the Université de Nantes.  Because of re-structuring of the department, three L2 (second-year) American civilization courses were left without a professor; in cases like this, they post the position as an enseignant vacataire job and hope that someone with more animation than a coat rack and some knowledge of the English language steps forward.  Since the classes are on Wednesdays, my free day, I sent in my CV.  Paperwork-wise, I am working with my employers to try to figure out if this is in fact possible to pair with my job as far as my contract and visa go; in real life, I've started teaching anyway.  And I love it already.  I teach three classes of around fifty students each; there are topics, required readings, and an outline from another professor than I can follow and an exam I need to prepare students for, but otherwise, I am free to teach whatever and however I want.  My students are fun, motivated, grateful to finally have a professor...and, surprisingly, not phased by having a professor only about four years older than they are.  To my relief, I realized during my lesson planning that I remember a lot more from AP U.S. History in high school than I thought I did!  And I've realized already that looking at America through the lens of a European is somehow more fascinating to me than learning about America in America.  I'm sure I'll learn at least as much from this course as my students will.

Two days until our two-week winter vacation.  I'll be leaving France for the first time since September to experience two new cities (and countries): Berlin and Prague!