Ahoj from Praha

Jen has been an amazing host. Her daughter and she have established a wonderful adventure here. Coral is fifteen, and has an amazing amount of freedom to match her fiesty ass-kicking personality. Through a matter of complicated misfortunes, the only school she could go to was a fundamentalist christian private school that teaches both microbiology and evolution, so she gamely wears her Obama t-shirt every other day among the Palin-lovers.

Sebastian arrived from Italy by train yesterday, and has been a perfecto adventurer/fun provider. And the only man I can recall holding my hand while he sleeps. Plus, now I'm not the only one speaking Italian to the Praguers. Major bonus, since Jen still laughs hysterically at the time I said "Dorby Den!" instead of "Dobry Den!" Urgh. It's really hard to switch from Italian and French to Czech. Brain is sloooow. Oh, but there was a big anti-American demonstration yesterday in front of Jen's school (the Czechs are NOT happy about the radar system the US is installing to watch Russia), so when we got off the Tram, THEN Sebastian and I loudly spoke Italian to each other. Hahahah.

They count the average amount of sunny days a month here in Bohemia, and apparently I just used them all up. Sebastian and I woke up today under the big cozy blue blanket he affectionately calls "The Cookie Monster Blanket" and hit snooze on his phone for an hour and a half. Finally, I bounced up (soooo unlike me), looked at the grey bleak sky and said "Let's go Mister, a whole dreary town to explore!"

He just finished reading "Eat Pray Love" and had reminded me the word for Rome was "sex", which is 100% true. We agreed Los Angeles is "Stab-you-in-the-back" but Prague...He settled on "stern", while I'm quite sure it's more in the "scarcity/fear/rude" vicinity.

Whatever it is, I'm quite happy Jen is importing her friends and meeting connectors on the Expat website, or I'd be worried about her. The second night I was in town, we met up with Dominick, a gregarious English guy STARVED for civility and conversastion. We can see how he got that way...We've had a fun adventure together, but it was absolutely of our own making; of our own extroverted personalities and ability to laugh under the cold, judging stares of the natives. The witch marionette dolls in the window have nothing on the actual citizens' evil eyes. The older people actually flinch if you make eye contact with them. Jen and I have had hours of absolutely fascinating conversations about the cultural differences, history, and how she has been treated living here the last month.

My luggage arrives today. Dominick is quite certain by now every Italian airline worker has worn my underwear on his head, so the first thing I'm going to do is wash everything. But I'm so relieved it's not all gone. Especially since I didn't have a suitcase lock. Silly me.

Today Jen took a big midterm on Hegel, Marx, Kant, Kierkegaard, while Sebastian and I ran around beautiful gardens and poured Baileys in our espressos. He has a wonderful architectural assignment he can do while here: take photos of landscapes, and do a drawing and poem about them. Can't wait to see what he comes up with, since he's also a painter. Tonight we're all eating homemade chicken soup, doing facials, and having absinthe. It will be cozy.

Still have all Thursday and Friday to explore the city with Sebastian, and then he'll be taking a sleeper train back to Italy. I have to figure out how much money I have, because if I'm running out I may just go with him to Venice for a few days, then get a train back to Rome and a big plane back to California. I don't know. I'm playing it by ear. Jen finally has a day off Saturday, so that would mean I would miss seeing her more and maybe going to the bone church, which sounds pretty fun.

That is all for now. Nah Sklah...