Tuesday, February 28, 2006

a photo to pass the time..


Well, we went to Terezin today - a concentration camp 60kms north of prague. It was extremely full-on, and rather horrible, and I can't really write much now because it's still digesting. I will, however, attach this photo of me, neil and ben at the bar on saturday night. that's definitely the happiest ben looked out of the whole night - the rest of it he spent quite grumpy and trying to pick fights with balding taxi drivers. haha. so funny.

anyway, here's a photo to pass the time. i will write about Theresienstadt soon. But not now. brrr. i'm off to have nightmares about the 500metre underground crypt-filled dark tunnel i had to walk through today. oh heavens.

'night!

j x

Sunday, February 26, 2006

this weekend



hi there,
well, lots of stuff has been going on this weekend. on friday everybody moved out of my room in the hostel, which gave me a beautiful peaceful night's sleep all alone in a big empty room. then 6.15am saturday morning heralded the arrival of my roommates, one of whom is now affectionately known as The Vomiting Belgian, for reasons i needn't go into... aaaah youth hostels. divine.

anyway, i eventually got up and went downstairs for breakfast. i must say i'm very much enjoying mooching around the hostel - in such freezing cold weather (yup - still snowin' it up outside) - a welcoming, warm atmosphere is a beautiful thing.

yesterday (saturday) i wandered around the marketplace before going in to the city to meet neil and his friend dan to go to a Jan Saudek exhibition. the market at Delnicka is interesting. it makes me feel quite uneasy. it borders on the most notorious red-light district in the city. at many of the stalls you can purchase a red lace g-string, AND a nice shiny pair of brass knuckles. the people are gruff, and there is certainly a menacing, inhospitable feeling to the place, even though objectively there's really nothing wrong with it, it's safe, and i'm probably just being precious. but frankly, whenever i go there i can't leave fast enough.

anyway, i was late to meet neil in old town square because my watch stopped. strange. but i got there, and we went to see this exhibition by this famous czech artist called jan saudek. his work is very full on, not a lot of clothing to be seen, but it was really beautiful. very confronting, quite twisted, but really, really, beautiful. google him. it's worth it. but he's strange.

then we went to neil's apartment. it is brilliant! 144 steps up to the top of this big yellow building, into their loft apartment. it's ramshackle and a bit falling apart, but has a lot of character and is comfortable and homey. but any mother (mine, his, anyone's!) would not find it such a treasure. a renovator's delight, indeed. :)

then we went for a few drinks at this underground pub, where the dutch barman, punk, did a lot of throwing-bottles-around tricks. it was quite cool. i'm quickly learning that going out in prague is an exercise in avoiding the ex-pat and american student communities. it's pretty damn difficult though - they're everywhere!

then we went to another bar (it was 2am by this stage), where on the door there was a sign advertising 'anglo-american collage party downstairs', so of course we were forced to make lots of jokes about wet newspaper and glue. hehe. anyway, it was a bit tragic (in a semi-nude 19 year old american college student let loose in a country where drinking is legal kind of way) but fun, then at 3am i came home and went to bed.

the most exciting thing i've done today is wash my hair. says a lot. oh - and i bought kurt vonnegut's 'breakfast of champions' at this little cafe where neil and ben and i had brunch. fun.

will's arriving tonight, which will be fun. cheerio!

j x

Friday, February 24, 2006

Prague Oddities


- lots of things smell like soap. lots of things. rooms, shops, people, doorways, trams. all sorts. it's very strange.
- today a man walked past me carrying a tusk. i don't know if it belonged to an elephant, a water buffalo or a woolly mammoth but the mofo was as long as his arm and quite a bit wider
- another, older, man with a round moon-face and grey facial hair walked past me and hiccuped. he then gave me a very forlorn look and i began to concoct this story about his hiccups in my head. anyone who has ever had a conversation with me about hiccups will know that i have an irrational fear about them - each time i get the hiccups i get quite frightened that they'll never go away. ever. and i begin to think about the disastrous effect that would have on my life. so that's what i imagined had happened to this guy. he's had the hiccups for 27 years, and is so distressed by them he's even given up shaving. oh, the shame.

a melbourney day in prague


it's 4pm on Friday afternoon and i've just had a day which closely resembles a lot of days I have in Melbourne. I received a phone call today, and the person on the other end of the phone asked me "what are you doing?", the answer to which was, "i'm just in a cafe, doing some work". those of you who know me a bit will know that that is a very typical thing for me to be doing, and I enjoyed it just as much here on the other side of the world today as I usually do in Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn. The only thing that's different is that it's a bit of a shame for me to have work to do while I'm here! But that's ok - it's 9 below zero today, so an excuse to stay inside is most welcome.

I've taken myself to the Next Level of seeing Prague as a tourist. I have all but banished myself from using a map, as I'm now at the stage where I know which tram sort of goes where, and how useful that is to me. There are a few key points in the city from which I know how to get home, and I am now taking great pleasure in getting completely lost between them. I love meandering into little side streets and finding restaurants, little shops and hidey holes that usually just get stampeded past by the tourist throng. I'm doing lots of walking around, lots of stopping and watching, resting against a wall or in a little sidestreet watching things unfurl before me. I think in Prague it's important to look up often. There are so many beautiful spires and ornaments and statues and decorations and little jokes and surprises that can be missed if you keep your consciousness at eye-level, like the statue of Lenin near Betlemske Namesti, hanging by his right hand onto a wire about 8 metres above the ground. Apparently it's a joke characteristic of the inimitable Czech humour - something to do with when capitalism fails he can just jump down from where he's hanging, and his right fist will already be raised in solidarity and strength. Apparently if you're Czech that's hilarious :)

The No 12 tram takes you from the Mala Strana side of the Charles Bridge to Delnicka, where I am staying. It takes you from the centre of Tourist Hell - postcard shops and crystal shops and McDonalds - through the middle of what looks like Czechs doing it hard. There are shitty housing commission flats, people living on top of each other in cardboard box-style housing, doing their shopping in the cold, and it throws into stark relief the contrast between Prague for tourists and Real Prague. I love seeing both. I love seeing how a city with such majesty and mystery and beauty and charm must also have a seedy underbelly. A mundane, grotty and difficult post-Soviet state of existence. I don't know why that makes me appreciate the place more, but somehow it does...

J x

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Letter to The Age 24/2/06

Teehee look at this letter my lovely friend Bec Rowe wrote...

Thank goodness we won't be embarrassed

WELL, I for one am so relieved to hear that, due to the new Victoria Police and State Government policy, there will be no "distressed" homeless people on our streets during the Commonwealth Games. I would be so worried if all the important international visitors thought that our homeless people were distressed about their living situations. How embarrassing that would be for our city!

And thank goodness for the 24-hour number that will direct homeless people to shelter. They can just whip out their latest model mobile phones, dial the number, and be hidden from sight in no time. Now, that's a load off my mind.
Rebecca Rowe, Thornbury

I'll refrain from quoting a little quip about something other being the lowest form of humour... hehe. Go you little sarcastic good thing, Miss Rowe!

:) j x

prague: city of snow and wonder!


well first things first. it's freakin FREEZING! i woke up this morning after a jet-lagged tainted night of terrible sleep, looked out the window at the snow falling onto the streets, and suddenly the prospect of getting out in the cold was very exciting!

i want to go back to the beginning however. as i stepped out through the door of the aeroplane at heathrow, i was whacked in the face by a gust of cold northern-hemisphere air, with all the promise of a new morning. it was, after all, a little before 6am. walking through the arrivals hall at heathrow i experienced the first of a collection of uniquely european sensations - the smell of 35 smokers in a little glass box next to the departure lounges, and the novelty of 0 degrees celsius.

i changed terminals on the little bus, and had some time to kill, so i went downstairs into the shops sort of bit at heathrow and started looking around a shoe shop. within 1 minute i was enlisted as an interpreter for a french couple who were yelling about sizes at the poor indian sales girl. so that was fun. ha i also ordered a coffee, and the guys said to me "skinny milk, yeah?" and i said "no, why??" and he said "oh, you just look like you might be on a diet" and his boss started yelling at him. haha it was great. clearly a bit of a legend with the ladies, that one... :)

then my flight was called and we were all put on a little bus to go out to the plane. as i was standing on the tarmac under the grey sky with the wind and sleet and wearing insufficient clothing for the weather, I suddenly remembered the exhilaration that comes from travel. the idea that every moment is for discovery and adventure. that it is what you make it. and in that moment the next two months just opened up before me like the pages of a book waiting to be written in! very exciting.

so i got to prague and neil met me at the airport. it's funny to remember the basis of our friendship (in summary: we met in the hostel in may 2003, talked for 12 full hours one night, then shook hands and took a photo, and i went and took a flight to paris. then a year and a half later he was still here, and my mates richie and rusty were here, and they were hanging out with a whole lot of guys here. then one day one of them asked them "i know this is a ridiculous question because australia's kind of a big place, but do you know jess taylor??". haha. and it was him. so there you go.), because techically we really don't know eachother at all and are hideous at keeping in touch, but we've had some great conversations about very interesting stuff, not to mention sharing lots of interesting books, music etc. so it's been cool. it's good to see him again.

anyway, we had dinner last night, then i came back to the hostel and went to bed at about 9.30. i woke up again at about 12.15am feeling absolutely TERRIBLE - had a bit of a funny tummy, and was jet-lagged like a crazy byatch, so i got up and went downstairs, read a book for a couple of hours and then went to bed again at about 3. then woke up at 9.30 and went downstairs for breakfast, and then got enlisted to do a walking tour with this crazy, angry, hilarious german guy. i think he's an historian, but i really don't know. he's totally anti-establishment, anti-tourist, anti-everything, and uses a LOT of superlatives in his tours. "oldest, biggest, trendiest, first..." so it was funny. and the snow really does make this beautiful city even more so. although, having been here in summer i must say it really is a different experience entirely. prague is somewhat melancholy, or quiet, or reserved at the moment. there is almost a contemplative air to the city, whereas in summer it's just full of bloody brits and their 'stag-dos'. haha. shocking. anyway, i'm going to go and read a book. will write again soon, i'm sure...

j xxx

Thursday, February 16, 2006

things i'd write more about if i didn't need to sleep right now







hi.

wowee it's really late at night but i was overcome by an urge to do a post about books that i really love. hmm. excellent early-hours-of-the-morning prioritising, jessie.

anyway i'm not going to WRITE anything about these books right now, except that you should read them. particularly perfume. it's amazing in a way that when you enjoy it and find it fascinating its really quite macabre and you feel a bit grimy.

actually that's not fair. they're all amazing books.

oh alright one sentence on each book.

catcher in the rye - j.d. salinger: different that what you expect, study of a sad bastard, equally sad and comical.
master & margarita - mikhail bulgakov: if i say it's underground soviet allegorical fantasy you won't read it. so i'll just say it's a story about satan disguising himself and coming to moscow and creating utter chaos, it's hilarious, it's peculiar, and it was banned by the bolsheviks so it must have had something going for it.
female chauvinist pigs - ariel levy: interesting book about the fact that so many young women these days love to get their, erm, 'assets' out, and consider it to be empowering to behave in ways that tend to objectify them. really good book.
the bell jar - sylvia plath: particularly poignant in light of the author's suicide, which i believe followed very soon after the publication of her only novel. extremely insightful look into a 'normal' girl living with depression and suicidal ideation. hmm.
perfume- patrick suskind: sensual, rotten, putridly evocatic writing about a boy born under a table in a paris fishmarket on a stinking hot day and left to die. he doesn't, but gee does he end up a total whacko. if you want to be morbidly fascinated by a character in literature, this is the book for you. luckily it's been translated from the original german, so that might make things easier, eh?

'nuff said for now.

sleep needed

j x

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

number three with a bullet!


well, it's official. I have three blogs. I may now legitimately be accused of being a scary old lady with too many cats who sits at home on a saturday night surfing the web for new and fabulous ways to fool my opponents on online backgammon. or not.

luckily i have three robust defenses to that accusation: 1. i have no cats 2. it's wednesday afternoon 3. i've never played a game of backgammon - online or otherwise - in my life.

i have just packed a backpack full of washing to do, and i'm going to mum's place to go and do it. i leave in 5 days, i'm very excited but also a bit stressed! as always there's lots of stuff to do, but unfortunately i have deadlines looming and all i want to do is have a snooze! i'm writing an article for a conservative migration journal called People & Place, on the Bridging Visa E. It's going well, but damn that's a complicated topic.

Anyway i have to go. Dirty laundry calls.

Later!

J x