take your prague and shove itby michelle
First off, let me just say that we didn't really think things through when we planned the trip to Prague. We already had this five day trip to Venice planned. While we were in Venice, our friends C.J. and Mather were going to be in Vienna and we were going to completely miss them. So we thought, why not meet them in Prague at the end of their trip? We haven't been to Prague. We've heard great things about Prague. Let's do this. This gave us about a three day break between trips. Those three days included Christmas Eve and Christmas. I might also note that we had a terrible sleeper train ride back from Venice which pretty much rendered Christmas Eve a wash as I slept through most of the day. At some point, I might write a sidepost about this, but for right now, suffice it to say, I slept nary a wink on that train trip due to an unfortunate and unexpected downgrade in service.
So after the wasted Christmas Eve, the decent Christmas Day and maybe a day or two of recuperating in between, we headed off to Prague in the Czech Republic. The train to Prague is about three hours. Here are a couple things about Prague that are good to know. They don't use Euros. And they don't speak a language you can even hope to decipher. Well, maybe I am stereotyping you, but if you are anything like me (and that's decently awesome), then good luck with reading or eavesdropping Czech. When the young train ticket-taker came by, we asked him to teach us a few key words. I don't think I mentioned this before, but in my opinion the number one most important word to learn in any language is the word for "Excuse me/Sorry." In German, it is "Entschuldigung." In Italian, it is "Scusi." In French, it is "Pardon." And in Czech, as we learned, it is "Promiňte." Closely following that in importance are the words for "Thank you," "Please" and it's always nice to learn your "Hi's and Bye's." I can't remember those words. And in full disclosure, I had to look up "Promiňte" just to make sure I had the spelling right. Even fuller disclosure: I did not.
The train trip was uneventful. When we arrived to Prague, we managed to navigate to our hotels via public transportation relatively easily. Also, in a stroke of lucky coincidence, using Hotwire we managed to get booked at the same hotel that CJ and Mather were at. For those unawares, Hotwire is a travel site where you can search hotels (among other things) via location, star ratings, amenties, price, etc but you can't find out the name of the hotel until you actually make your purchase. I love it. And you usually get pretty good deals. They are not paying me, I swear. (But if you read this Hotwire, why don't you throw some more hotdollars my way.) Anyhow, our hotel was right on the river. And for whatever reason, we got a room upgrade. It was a round bed, mirror on the ceiling and white tiger short of being the master bedroom of a Czech drug kingpin pimp. We were ballin'.
Are you jealous of my frosted closet mirrors?
Later that night we ventured out with CJ and Mather into the city center. We went to supposedly one of the oldest pubs in Prague. You sit down, they come over with a tray full of Jagery type of shots and you take a few, then they come over with a tray full of beer and you take a few, then the shots again, then the beer, and so on and so on. It's like a Brazilian churrascaria but replace the meat swords with alcohol. I took a gander at the all-too-familiar menu and it was kind of the beginning of the end for me then. At that point, I came to my breaking point with the food of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. No offense, Hapsburg! Fighting the urge to storm out, I played it safe and ordered sausage and kartoffelpuffen. Alex thought he was playing it safe but he ended up with something that looked like a beef sundae.
Alex ordered this puzzling dish.
After dinner, as we were walking around the city, I was just exhausted. Prague really looks a lot like Vienna. The architecture is very similar with the differences being the tops of the buildings. And as aforementioned the food is the same Grandma's food I had been eating for three months. There were just more people. More tourists. It was basically just a dirtier version of Vienna. And I'd rather just be in Vienna. That was when I went on vacation strike.
The next day, CJ and Mather wanted to take the train to go see a bone church two hours outside of Prague. I woke up, opened one eye to look at Alex and said nope, then I turned over and went back to sleep. They were gone for the whole day. And I could care less. I lived it up! I used the free internet in the lobby! I had a decent Ceaser salad in the hotel restaurant! I took a bath! On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is gazing upon plague-infested bones and 10 is ballin' Czech drug kingpin style, my day ended up being a strong 9.5.
Alex contemplating becoming a serial killer. Look at the art he could make!
We left the next day. It was a short trip. Perhaps Prague really didn't get a fair shake. Or perhaps Prague didn't step it up enough. I don't know. I would like to blame the circumstances leading up to this trip for my poor impression. And I'd like to give Prague a second chance, but I don't know if that will happen. We might be forever starcrossed. And if you're some Prague person reading this, cut me some slack. You're telling me that you never went to the U.S. or something on a crosscountry tour and after seeing Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago, you just weren't having Des Moines? And if you're some Des Moines person reading this... I don't know what to tell you, I can't imagine your city being anything other then a snoozefest. Good job on the gay marriage thing though! I don't know how to end this paragraph. I'll just end it right here.
flugzeuge, zuge und autosby michelle
I wasn't really banking on doing any stand-up whilst in Vienna. However, an opportunity presented itself to do a USO show in Stuttgart, Germany. That opportunity came by way of Bengt Washburn, a comedian I had never met, though who was vouched for by my esteemed comedy colleague Moshe Kasher. So I knew he wasn't an axe murder. Or, at least he wasn't a hacky axe murderer. Hacky as in bad comedian, not as in hacking with his murderin' axe. No pun intended. And, yes, I am saying I'd rather be axe murdered by somebody who has a good sense of humor or at least somebody that has a bad sense of humor who knows it and doesn't try. The last thing I want before I die is some arrogant boy murderer who feels the need to get overly physical with his technique while making references to things we all remember. Or maybe that's exactly what I want...
Me: Could you please just commence with your murdering? (Hold my hair up and turn my head to the side to expose my bare neck.)
Hacky Axe Murderer: Let me axe you something... (waves his axe around and then paces for about 10 seconds) You remember Nintendo?
Me: ...
Hacky Axe Murderer: You had to blow in those damn cartridges to get them to work. YOU HAD TO BLOW IN THEM! (He drops axe to mime blowing into a Nintendo cartridge.)
Me: (Zork-style: Pick up axe. Kill Hacky Axe Murderer with axe.)
But I digress, let's get back to our adventure. We got into Stuttgart the day of the show and the never-met-before wonderful Bengt Washburn picked us up at the airport and let us stay at his house for the night. He even took us on a bit of sightseeing in the picturesque German town of Tübingen. Proof below:
In Tübingen, Germany with young Ian, son of Bengt
So the USO show was at 7pm preceded by a lovely buffet dinner at 6pm. This should have been the red-flag warning for me. Young, comedy-loving, entertainment-starved servicepeople don't need to be lured in by buffets. Older people do. To them it isn't COMEDY SHOW in capital letters and buffet in teeny-tiny letters. It's BUFFET BUFFET BUFFET (oh, there's a comedy show too?). And do you know what older people do? They bring kids. Sure, that's a great idea. I mentioned something to one of the organizers who came back a bit later and told me she talked to all the parents and told them that this is not necessarily a show for kids and the comics will not be censoring themselves. Then I explained that my problem wasn't whether or not the parents were cool with it, but rather it wasn't my desire to tell any of my jokes with all their innuendo and colorful language in front of children. Also, it might actually make other people in the audience uncomfortable with the kids there too. That was all I could do though. I was introduced and brought on stage. And as I grab the mic, two kids both younger than 7 take seats in the front row. You have to be kidding me, Uncle Sam. I can't remember exactly what I said as I addressed those children but it was a thinly-veiled announcement to the parents that it was extremely inappropriate for their children to be in attendance and shit was gonna get uncomfortable. It worked. Those kids left after my first joke and the other kids left not long thereafter. Mission accomplished! The show ended up being great. The crowd was fantastic. I even got a fancy USO coin for doing the show. And, if you were wondering, it is not legal tender. I found that out the hard way.
Telling jokes to folks at the USO on the Panzer Kaserne Base in Stuttgart, Germany.
The next morning, superhost Bengt Washburn brought us to the train station. We were going to travel to Strasbourg, France. This was our first European train experience. How exciting! We even managed to find our correct track and get on the correct train in the correct car. Did I mention it was a speed train? It was awesome. Well, awesome except for the fact that there were no murders on the train. How am I suppose to solve any train murder mysteries if there are no murders? I thought that's what you did on trains. Next time I'll just have to get the ball rolling and do the murder myself. And a future you are welcome to you.
We had made reservations at a Best Western quaint little mom-and-pop bed and breakfast in the middle of town. We checked in and realized that we got a room with two twin beds instead of a queen. And the Best Western bed and breakfast was sold out for the weekend so we could not switch. Merde! So we get up to our room and we realize that the twin beds are pushed together in the middle of the room with night stands on either side making it essentially a queen bed with a scary dangerous chasm in the middle. This is exactly how the bedroom in our Vienna apartment is set up. It is maddening. It's like a 50s television bedroom up in Europe.
One huge thing we learned in France is... that we do not speak French. I think somehow our brains thought with all of our success learning basic German, we would be able to understand and speak any language. Oh, not true, mon ami. We were just so used to people speaking to us in other languages and then responding to them in German. We were not used to this Frenchspeak. We would listen so hard trying to understand what they said until we realized we didn't have any idea what they said. We would just get so flustered trying to respond which resulted in a string of words from all the languages we knew. "Dankethankyougraciasankyouthay!" And then we would run away. So embarrassing.
This post has gone on long enough. You get the idea. And as a special treat, here is a video of dogs playing in a Strasbourg street. Enjoy.
vienna is auf dem tischby michelle
A few months before we moved to Vienna, Alex and I both decided to start learning German. We both had our own methods. I bought a few "How to Learn German" books online. And Alex bought the German-language first book of Harry Potter. He is still about five pages into said book. It is his thinking that since he has already read the book and that it is an easy read (it's for kids for god's sakes), he will be able to fly through the book, quidditching his way into German fluency. I am not sure that plan worked and now I think he just brings it out every once in a while to prove a point. One effective thing we both started doing though is taking the online German course at livemocha.com. It's a great free site. In one of the first lessons, we learned the phrase "auf dem tisch" which directly translates to "on the table." Alex and I have given it the looser, more awesomer translation of "off the hook." It's got the perfect matching cadence. I think it will catch on. Grassroots, everybody. Join our "auf dem tisch" brigade.
Alex was a few weeks ahead of me here in Vienna and he managed to pick up an impressive number of helpful Viennese German phrases. He can buy things at a store, order at a restaurant and use the public transportation like nobody's business. I'm catching up a little. Viennese German is different than German German. Don't step in Wien thinking you can Guten Tag your way around. You got to know your "Gruß Gott." You say "Gruß Gott" when you're entering anywhere... a bank, a restaurant, a store, etc. It literally means, "Greet God." You say it to them, they say it to you, you say say it to them, they say it to you some more. It really goes on and on. Another good one is... "Schonnen tag!" That's Viennese for "Have a good day!" My coffee shop lady taught me that one. Maybe the next thing I should learn is what is the Viennese German for "coffee shop lady."
It isn't really enough though. You can learn how all these survival phrases but that really doesn't help you to have a for-real conversation with anybody. I can hi-bye until der cows come home but that's not going to help me be a jackass. I need vocabulary. I need verbs. I need some vernacular firepower. It's been great living in this city for the last couple of weeks as average everywoman notnecessarilyfunnytoanybody, but I've had enough. It's like my own "Black Like Me." It's hard for you not-funny people, I get it. I now can empathize with your frustratingly dull empty lives. Now, I'm ready to move on and work on taking over this town. So I decided to sign up for German school. I comparison shopped and ended up going with Deutschakademie. They offer an intensive German course in December for 250 euros. Three hours a day, five days a week for three weeks. I'll be missing the first day because I'll be on my way back from American Thanksgiving in Bonn, Germany. They're cool with it. They respect our religious holidays.
When I went into the offices to sign up, I had to take a test. Now, as intimidated as I am in most person-to-person interactions here in Vienna, being tested on it was frightening. However, I didn't do that bad. I picked up enough things on the livemocha and living here the last couple weeks to get 11 out of 20 on the first test. That kind of put me on the bubble between the first two levels of classes, so she had me take another test. That test kicked my ass. I gave up around question 15. However, still apparently, I was somewhere in the middle. So then we had a German conversation in which I held my own. The one thing I have been having lately are basic conversations so I talked my way through the fake store, fake restaurant and fake himynameis and howareyous. And I landed myself in the second-level class. With that I have promised to continue studying until the classes start. Uhhh, yeah...of course. Let me explain to you, my M.O. for this class and for any class I have ever had in my entire life with the exception of that Journalism Law class I took in college and flunked twice forcing me to drop my Journalism Major (sorry for hearing it like this, Mom)... ahem, so my M.O. for this class is to learn the shit out of German before class starts so it's super easy and I can just spend my time being a jackass. Jackasses make friends! People love jackasses! Jackasses make fun of themselves. Jackasses make fun of teachers! Jackasses make the world go round. And if any of my highschool or college teachers/professors somehow find their way onto this page and decide to comment their beg-to-differs... ignore those buzzkills. They loved it and they know it.
Classes start December 1st. I'll report back then.
when in doubt, just say mozart lived thereby michelle
First, I just want to say a little something about living your life in another country amongst another language. Living in Vienna seems much like how it would be if you were recovering from a massive stroke. Stay with me, here. You're trapped inside your head. You want to tell the waiter that you would like tap water. You want to tell the woman she just dropped something on the sidewalk. You want to tell a hilarious joke whose punchline hinges on impeccable comic timing. You can't. You can stammer some words you know that seem related. You can make sounds and gestures. You can't say what you want though. You never get your tap water. The woman is afraid of you and runs away. And your attempt at a joke with the 20 German words you know fails miserably and probably insulted its recipient. When I started this paragraph, I really thought that I had this stroke metaphor worked out. It kind of got away from me. I still think it holds. Don't you agree? One blink for yes, two for no.
So what this post is really about is my historical city walk on Tuesday with the OLP (Old Lady Posse). Here is a photo of our guide in front of the historic Stephansdom. Let me just say something about this lady. She had the fanciest accent I have ever heard. I have no idea how old she is or how much money she makes or if that is her real hair color. I just know that she works it. I would let her tour guide me around a Burger King bathroom. Oh, that sounded dirtier than I meant it to. Okay, I meant it to sound dirty. The thing is it might sound a tad dirty to some and really funny and dirty to Sharon. Ya heard, Sharon?
So the Stephansdom is probably one of the most famous places in Vienna. And I could probably tell you what I remember about it but I think it's best if you consult your bff wiki. I really did learn a lot of things from my walk. However, I have to be honest, later that evening, when I went to caption all the photos I took, I barely remembered anything. I just remembered things are really old (really, really, REALLY OLD). And if something looks like an apartment, Mozart probably lived there. I think that's a good rule to follow when sightseeing in Vienna. Here's a few more pictures to illustrate this point....
I can't remember what this is. I do know it's old. And I think it's a church.
I can't remember why this is important. Maybe Mozart lived here? Yeah, let's say that.
This is what you would be looking at if you lived in 740.
Mozart lived here?
word of the day is rechnungby michelle
That means check, by the way. I have proudly used it twice today. And I'm thinking about going to sit down at a cafe again just so I can drop it thrice.
Enough about that though. I promised I would tell you about my first few days in Vienna and I am now going to deliver.
I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. My bff Jim Hamilton parked the car and helped me lug in my suitcases. I had one large suitcase which the night before Jim and my friend Cesar lifted and declared the weight to be around 35 pounds IF THAT. They scoffed at the idea that the suitcase was anywhere near the 50 pound maximum. Even though I trusted their supreme non-accredited weight-guessing skills, I brought a bag just in case some clothes would have to be removed to shave off a few pounds. Well, I did not have to do that. However, it was closer to me having to do that than the suitcase weighing in anywhere near 35 pounds. It was 47 pounds and change. Nice, gentlemen. I hope this comedy thing works out for you because your hopes of a lucrative career in state fair weight guessing have just been dashed. I'm writing strongly-worded letters on your... what's the opposite of behalf?
So the LAX to DC flight was mostly uneventful. I had my middle seat switched to an aisle so that was a huge win. I had plans to not fall asleep at all but nature took over and comatosed me for the better part of two hours. I'm glad I got that energy nap because I needed it for the breakneck sprint I had to take in order to make my connecting flight. Well, I had a heavy roller suitcase, bulky laptop bag and a pillow so it was only a sprint relative to that. It was more like a breathing-hard, long-strided shuffle wherein after I got off the shuttle to the correct concourse I alternated between looking at what time it was on my iPhone and counting off the gates as I got closer. I hoped to be able to get something to eat and go to the bathroom. I was lucky to make it on the plane. My luck ended though when I found myself in a middle seat on a nine-hour flight. I think somebody's bad karma must have gotten mixed up with my great person karma. I was sandwiched in between a young nomadic fellow who had a Fulbright scholarship to teach English just outside of Vienna and a veteran of the State Department who has lived in a litany of countries some of which I'm pretty sure she just made up. In between visiting with my plane pals and eating and drinking and Xanax pill taking, I probably slept all of 90 minutes. That Xanax was a waste. Sure it made me not scared about falling in to the ocean but it did not render me unconscious as I had envisioned. I think on the next flight we might have to take my two beers and a Xanax on a full stomach plan up a notch. Maybe three beers, two Xanax and I don't eat for 48 hours beforehand? I'll try it and report back.
So the flight gets in to Vienna about 40 minutes early. I managed to follow the little pictures of suitcases to the passport line to the baggage claim and I even figured out which carousel my bags were on. However, I realized for the first time in my entire life... I had to get one of those cart things. Lordy, I am stumped. Why, the instructions to extricate one of these carts appears to be in a foreign language. As I stood there mouth agape looking lost, a fine young airport employee came to my aid and told me I needed Euros.
"Uhhh, I don't have any!!"
He points to the currency exchange behind me.
So I go to the counter and plop down my $30 and change I have in American. The Frau hands me what look likes Monopoly money and some doubloons. I walk back over to my new best friend and just held out the money to him my eyes pleading help me. He took it from there and soon I had my cart. Carts are fun! Why didn't I know this before? Suddenly it was a party. I got my bags and grand prixed my cart out through customs to the very, very happy open arms of Alexander Platt!! Three weeks and five days apart is way too long. It won't be happening again.
Umm, I know I said I'd tell you about my first coupla days in Vienna. I didn't really get that far. I'm a jerk. Stay tuned. I'll fill you in, I promise.
the @whatupvienna twitter
the @biloon twitter
the photos
the weather
-
Mostly Cloudy
32°F
-
Fri
37/30
-
Sat
42/30
-
Sun
42/33
the comments
- MomBiloon on action photos
- sphobia on take your prague and shove it
- katy on take your prague and shove it
- AP on take your prague and shove it
- Stephanie on he liked it so he went and put a ring on it (among other things)
the most commented
the links
- american women's society of vienna
- bjarni & dorte machen wien
- deutschakademie
- english cinema in vienna
- english theatre in vienna
- germanwings
- livemocha
- official website of comedian michelle biloon
- the @drplatt twitter
- the daily flailure
- the gregor mendel institute
- vienna expats forum
the calendar
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Feb | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | ||||