Goodbyes

Saying goodbye really sucks. It's better when you know you will see the people again, but you still know that things will never really be the same as they are in the moment, with the same people, and the specific place.

Last night we took Lulu to the train station and our goodbye was like a scene out of a movie. Lulu put her suitcase on the train and was coming out to the platform to say goodbye to us when the conductor walked by and slammed the train door shut before she could say anything. Our last view of Lulu was through the window on the train door and her crying with her hand on the window while the rest of just kind of stood there screaming "I love you Lulu!" and lamenting that our chance at a lovely goodbye had been so rudely taken from us by the bitchy train lady. As the train rolled away I turned to one of the boys and just said, "I didn't even get to hug her goodbye!" and started to tear up.

The only happy part to this sad story is that I will go visit Lulu in Paris before leaving Europe so atleast I have that to take solace in.

It's also my last day of work today. They had a little party for me with champagne and presents and I gave them maple cookies. Everyone lined up to say thanks and bye to me and I started to cry before getting through even half of the people. I am becoming such a sap in my old age. I never thought I would be so sad to say bye to Ostrava. But fortunately, I will come back!

I am leaving tomorrow morning to Prague and then flying to Finland on Thursday, so I probably won't update this until I get back in January. So....MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Christmas Cottage!

This weekend me, my roommates, and a bunch of people from AIESEC spent our time at a cottage in the snowy mountains of the Czech Republic. It was definitely an experience.

We arrived on Friday evening after taking 2 buses into the middle of nowhere while it was snowing, drinking slivovice (Czech liquor made from plums) on the bus, and disembarking at a bus stop not having any idea where to actually go. It was dark and snowy and there was no cell phone reception. We walked down the one road that was there and hoped we were headed in the right direction. Without too much trouble we located the cottage only to find out 2 things: the electricity was not working and there was no running water. This meant:
-toilets did not work
-dinner was bread with cheese
-the pump for the kegs did not work since it needed electricity

However, we (my roomies and I) are smart people and had brought extra booze. The night basically consisted of my roommates and I sneaking off to drink so the other people wouldn't see and we wouldn't have to share. They pretty much knew what we were up to since we were obviously intoxicated while they were not.

The next morning the electricity AND the water worked so we felt like the cottage was a mansion. A bunch of us went for a walk in the snow and played around. I forgot how much fun that is. Me, Lukasz, Tommaso and Mirka hiked up a snow covered hill, laid on top of each other all linked together and rolled down the hill. I wish we had video, it was completely awesome. When we got back to the cottage we decorated the tree (with ornaments we made ourselves...needless to say the tree was not going to win any beauty contests), had a traditional Czech Christmas dinner and got our party on.

It was honestly the best way to spend our last weekend together as a "family". There was a lot of bonding that took place. Lulu said, "After a weekend like this, how can I leave??" Yeah, it was definitely a lovefest.

Some of the highlights (warning: they may be really immature and verging on gross):
-Tommaso and Mirka (we call them 'the fuckers' because they are dating) asking us, "you don't use the towel in the bathroom do you?" and also informing us that the kitchen is warm and empty at night.
-Drinking tequila and feeling perfectly fine the next morning (it's no longer the enemy! Now it's an amigo!)
-Hong asking us if he needed a visa for when he goes to the Vatican
-Debating with Lukasz about whether or not it is absolutely necessary for guys to wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Lukasz contended that he did not pee on himself, and it was just like holding any other part of the body. I informed him that was a horrible argument and made him go wash his hands. (Actually, my exact words were "I don't hold my vagina when I go to the bathroom and I STILL wash MY hands!")
-Making "Christmas clothes" for ourselves out of tissue paper. Lucie and I had "skirts" but during the course of the night hers ripped and there was a hole. So we said, "Lucie has a big hole!"
-Receiving a box of chocolates for Secret Santa with the brand name "Delicious Nut". I then asked many people if they would like to try my delicious nuts.
-Dressing Lukasz up like a Christmas tree
-Hong breaking a chair by accident (the leg fell off) and then taking the chair leg and naming it "The Magic Stick". We totally stole that from the cottage and it's back in Ostrava
-Tommaso (Italian) trying to give Vasek (Czech) a tutorial on how to seduce a girl. ("The bra doesn't matter! Push her against the wall!") Funny, funny stuff.
-Making all sorts of promises with each other. Including the fact that we ALL have to go to each other's weddings. That will be a total gong show.
-Stealing soup from the kitchen-there were a lot of leftover packages of soup and at night when we were hiding in the kitchen drinking Hong came up with the brilliant plan to TAKE some soup. He got Tommaso's duffel bag and stuffed a bunch of packages in there. We had soup for dinner last night.
-Talking about poop. Lukasz and Hong had to go into the wilderness to do their business (water not working) and were gone for about 45 minutes finding the perfect spot. They felt much better afterwards. The next day Lukasz had this really pained expression on his face and I asked "Lukasz, what's wrong?" and he said "I have to POOP!". Ok, we are probably part of the minority that thinks bowel movements are just freaking hilarious.

These are just some of the few priceless moments from that weekend. There were a lot of times we were literally on the floor laughing. It was great.

The Cheap and Lazy Motivational Theory of Aruna

One of my latest realizations about myself was the fact that most of my decisions are strongly influenced by 2 things: the fact that I am cheap and the fact that I am lazy.

Sometimes these factors work in combination to influence a decision (i.e. I am too cheap AND too lazy to do that) or sometimes they work against one another (i.e. God, I am SO cheap and it hurts me to pay this much, but I am too damn LAZY to do anything else). As well, at times there are decisions which are influenced by one but not the other.

Specific examples in the Czech Republic:
-The fact I have a tram pass in Ostrava-
I work less than 10 minutes walk from my house and I rarely ever go anywhere that's more than a 10 minute walk from my house. But I still have a monthly tram pass which costs 200kc (about $10CAD). Why do I have a tram pass? Because I am so lazy that I take the tram to work so that I can have an extra 10 minutes of sleep. Also, I am much too lazy to poke around in my wallet for the 8kc needed for a ticket whenever I decide to take the tram.

-I don't buy much junk food in the Czech Republic-
I am usually too cheap to buy lots of chips and other crap when I have to pay for it myself. Also, if I were to get really fat I would probably still be too lazy to exercise.

-I have learned to cook a lot of things with boiling water-
Like instant soup. Yum! Sometimes I'm too lazy to go shopping and buy something better (even though the supermarket is directly on my way home from work), too lazy to wash the many dishes that more complicated meals would create, and too cheap to do something like order in. Plus ordering in would involve using my cell phone and spending credit. And speaking in Czech...which is just not possible for me.

There are probably (definitely) WAY too many more life examples for me to list. I won't go there.


As for what's happening lately...Wednesday we went to karaoke (not the same without Erick and Bina!), and yesterday we had a Mexican dinner at our house where we ate all the canned Mexican food that Erick left behind. Then we sat around feeling sick because we all totally over-ate. Hot.

Weekend Update

This weekend consisted of:
1. Work Christmas Party on Friday- Yes, the drinks were free and it started at 6pm.
2. Chucho and Bina's Farewell Party on Friday- I had to make it to this party after my work party
3. Chucho's 2nd Farewell Party-Where we promised ourselves we would only go to Stodolni for a little while yet didn't get home til about 5:30am.

Bina left on Saturday (boooooo) and Chucho left on Monday (booooo again). Fortunately, I will see Bina again before she heads back to Brazil, so no reason for the crocodile tears yet. As for Chucho, hopefully I will see him in Mexico sometime soon. Pero te vamos a extrañar Chuchito Cachondito!!!

Quote of the weekend from anonymous trainee: "Desperado [our favorite club] was like my home. I had so much fun there. I drank there. I was naked there. I met girls there. I fell asleep there. It was like my second home."

That pretty much sums it up.

Christmas Dinner!

I know it's a little early, but last night we had our Christmas Dinner in Ostrava. We even had a tree, Christmas music playing in the background, presents, and mistletoe. Fancy-shmancy. My roommate Mirka made sure that we got the full experience by showing us traditional Czech Christmas activities. It was a smart plan--made sure that we didn't gorge ourselves, rip open presents, and lie around like beached whales. We did all of that anyway, but did some other stuff as well.

-Good Luck or Death?-
For this tradition, you have to cut an apple in half width-wise and see what the shape in the middle is. If it is a star, you will have good luck in the next year. If it is a cross, you will either die or just have something really bad happen to you. Happy eh? Luckily, we all got stars.

-Health?-
You have to eat a wafer with honey and a big chunk of uncooked garlic. Yummy. Meet you under the mistletoe!

-Marriage in the stars?-
You have to throw your shoe over your shoulder and if it lands right side up and pointing to the door you will get married in the next year. Surprise, surprise, none of us are getting married.

-Presents-
Gotta love secret Santa. I believe the most entertaining presents were received by Lukasz (a thong and a rubber ducky) and Bina (a little toy with a Christmas tree on the end that when you press the button spins around and opens to reveal something naughty)

-Mistletoe-
I think there was way more same-sex kissing than anything. Very entertaining. Although Hong might feel a little molested now.

I think the pictures probably do more justice to the night than my description. They are in the 'Christmas Dinner' album. Also, pictures from 'Bina's Karvina Goodbye Party' on Wednesday are posted in their own album.

Vitkovice 6 Karlovy Vary 2

Yesterday I went to a hockey game with some of my roomies. We watched Ostrava's team (Vitkovice) pretty much kick the ass of the Karlovy Vary team. We really enjoyed ourselves, and tried to heckle the players a bit in our foreign languages as well as with our limited Czech knowledge. One of the expressions we know in Czech is 'son of a bitch' and we got some weird looks when we yelled that one out.

I noticed 3 major differences between NHL hockey and Czech hockey.
1. Definitely not enough violence.
I remember the first time I went to an Oilers hockey game my sister and I were appalled by how much fighting and violence there was. But then we realized that all the fights help make the game much more interesting. During this game, just giving someone a little push would incur a penalty. Consequently, there were a lot of penalties given but no real entertainment value. BORING!

2. There are cheerleaders for hockey games here!
This kind of spiced up the little breaks. Instead of people clapping half-heartedly to one of those songs they always play at hockey games (like We Will Rock You), there were perky little cheerleaders doing coordinated routines. Kind of fun.

3. No nachos.
And really, aren't nachos the best reason for attending any hockey game? With extra jalapenos. Yum.

Pictures are in the 'Czech Hockey Game' album of 'My Pictures'

My Very Difficult Name

Many people in the Czech Republic are never actually called by their real names. Their names can be modified by adding something like -ka to girl's names and -ek to guy's names. For example: Hana could be Hanka and Jaromir could be Jarek. Sometimes it is good because the nickname is easier than the real name but sometimes the opposite is true.

However, this leads to an interesting problem sometimes when I introduce myself.

Person: What is your name?
me: Aruna
Person: That name is very hard for Czech people to say, isn't there something easier?
me: [after having this conversation many, many times before and realizing that for some convoluted reason this is actually much easier for some people] You can call me Arunka.

At first I said, "No, I don't have a nickname. It's just Aruna." But they called me Arunka anyway. I actually kind of like it now. It sounds soooo Czech! I guess adopting this Czech name makes up for the fact that I've been here 4 months and can't really speak any Czech. Right?

POLSKA!!!

Whew, crazy weekend. Lukasz had to go home to Bialystok for the weekend so Bina and I decided to join him for the trip! He dropped us off in Warszawa Friday night and then we went around sightseeing on Saturday and took the train to his town Saturday night. We got to experience both a Polish houseparty and a Polish club, very entertaining. Plus, his mom cooked for us, it was so great. We cook here, but there's just something special about food prepared by a mom, it tastes so much better. It was my first home/mommy cooked meal in almost 4 months! So, here are some of the highlights:

-Warszawa-
I was pleasantly surprised by Warszawa, mostly because I've had a few people tell me it's a horribly ugly city. Considering the fact it was almost completely destroyed in WWII it's not looking so bad these days. The center is really nice, even though quite a bit of it still has that communist chic look. Bina and I had fun looking around, going to the museum and seeing the palace. It was our last romantic trip together!! Tears. It was funny, on Friday night in the hostel we stayed at I woke up around 2am to the sounds of a guy in a top bunk hitting the guy in the bunk below him with a pillow and telling him to go take his snoring spray. It was understandable though, because the guy snored really loudly. Sadly, the spray didn't help and the snoring continued ALL NIGHT.

-Partying Polish Style-
Me, Bina, Lukasz, and Lukasz's friend Beret went to some house party of one of their friends. Bina and I were obviously a walking freak show since we were random foreigners. Here's some dialogue from the night:

random guy: You know, Poland is much more advanced than the Czech Republic, we can drive faster here.
[me and Bina thinking...yeah ok...good logic...]

the same guy a bit later on
random guy: Oh, but Germany is the best because they don't have speed limits
[me and Bina thinking...mmmm....yeah...can't he make better conversation than this?]

and the same guy again
random guy: So what are you guys doing here?
Bina: Well, our roommate Lukasz wanted to bring along some beautiful, clever girls, so here we are!
random guy: You're not clever
me and Bina: What? Are you telling us we're not clever? Are you calling us stupid?
random guy: Yes.
Bina: You have a bad approach.

Honestly, how do some people ever expect to get action?

Later on a bunch of us were dancing to the song by Juanes -Camisa Negra. Afterwards we were in the kitchen and Bina and I were saying something in Spanish and this one girl who was wearing a black shirt said something to the effect of "Kurva [bitch]! I have no idea what the hell they are saying!" And since the only word Bina and I understood was kurva I turned to Lukasz and was like, "Lukasz, is she calling us kurvas?" It was so funny, she was just like...no, no, I am not calling you kurvas. And then we made friends with her and called her Camisa Negra (it means black shirt and she was wearing a black shirt...we are so funny).

Also, the owner of the apartment we were at (Kamil) was telling us how he was trying to impress this one girl that was there, and we were like...oooh which one is she? And so he said something to the effect of "the one with the shirt that shows her boobs". The rest of the night when he came over to talk to us we would just say, "Kamil! What are you doing here?? Go for the boobs!!" It was probably funnier in combination with Polish vodka.

After getting our party on at the house, we decided to head to a club to meet up with some of Lukasz's other friends. It was great, we managed to make friends even through the language barrier. Even though Lukasz and Beret helped out with translating ;)

-Lazy Sunday-
The next day we slept in late and went for a tour of Bialystok. It was cold so we only got out of the car once to take pictures with the palace, but it was still good. While we were busy being touristy Lukasz's mom made us food and it was delicious.

-On the Road Again-
We finally hit the road about 4:00pm back to Ostrava with the beginnings of a snow storm. Luckily, we left that behind in Bialystok and mostly just had fog to contend with the rest of the way. It was so weird, the fog would just come out of nowhere and disappear as quickly. Kind of creepy. It was funny though, the first few times we would drive for a bit through the fog and Lukasz would say "What the fuck!" and the fog would clear up right away. Divine intervention maybe. ;) We were making decent time until.....

-Border Crossing-
Generally, the border crossing is not that difficult. It usually takes about 5-10 minutes. However, on this occasion the border control people decided to be evil bastards and hassle me about a missing stamp. I went to Krakow last month and evidently I was missing a stamp for my way into Poland even though I gave my passport on the train to the passport control guy. They didn't care when I entered the country on Friday, but apparently on a Sunday around midnight when people are tired and want to go home it becomes an issue. We were stuck at the border for over an hour while they filled out some form. The form had like 10 blank spaces for name, address, etc. but apparently it takes a very, very long time to fill out. Idiots. Incompetency. We were getting so annoyed at the border waiting while we saw all the other cars go through that we decided to take some pictures. Then we were still waiting. Finally, things were sorted out. We were all a little cranky since we were tired and just wanted to go home. I've been trying to regulate my emotions and not become frustrated and yell at people lately but that trend ended at the border crossing. It was something like the following:

Border control guard to Lukasz: [blah blah blah in polish blah blah blah]
Lukasz to me: The border control guard says that you should make sure to get your passport stamped
me: But I gave the passport to the guy on the train! He was supposed to stamp it! And why is it a big deal now when it wasn't a big deal on Friday? [getting a little heated here]
guard says to Lukasz: [blah blah blah in polish blah blah blah]
Lukasz to me: He says to make sure you get your passport stamped
me: I GAVE IT TO THE BORDER CONTROL GUY! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO STAMP IT! THIS ISN'T MY FAULT!

Mmmm...yeah. I might have yelled a little. And ranted to Bina and Lukasz about how I was going to write an angry letter to...someone. Then we realized that we were free and we ran to the car and drove back to home sweet Ostrava.

So basically, Poland was amazing and a lot of fun although the Polish/Czech border control guards are totally on my shit list. Check pictures in the Warszawa and Bialystok album of 'My Pictures'.

Lesbian's and Gay's SONG!

Yesterday the girls (me, Lulu, Sabrina, and Mirka) arbitrarily decided to wear our hair in pigtails when we went out to karaoke. We are so hot. We were going to do 80's side ponytails, but they give you a headache.

So--it was the girls, Chucho, Liviu and Ionut and good times were had by all. I think the best song of the night was definitely the Slovak classic by Horkýže slíže called Lesbian's and Gay's song. Now, it was a little difficult because 1. It is hard to read and sing at the same time and 2. It is even more challenging when some of the lyrics are in Slovak. The song itself is hilarious and dangerously infectious. I haven't been able to get it out of my head! Here are the lyrics:

Poď sem, nech sa s tebou zblížim,
poď sem, ja ti neublížim,
poď sem, ja ťa nezbijem,
I´m sorry, I´m Lesbian.

Poď sem, som tvoj dvorný básnik,
mám energiu za dvanástich,
a k tomu lubrikačný gel,
I´m sorry, I´m really Gay.

The best part is the chorus:
Lesbian´s and Gay´s song...Lesbian´s and Gay´s sooo-oo-oo-ooong(repeat continuously)

So we can't understand the whole song, but what we do understand is really funny. At our place at any moment you might hear someone yell out "Lesbian´s and Gay´s song...Lesbian´s and Gay´s sooo-oo-oo-ooong!!!!" And it hasn't stopped being entertaining yet.

Also, there's a clothing store here called Titty Twister. Hello flashback to junior high when guys thought it was really cool to run around and give each other titty twisters. On the way home from karaoke last night we took a picture of me twisting Ionut's nipple outside of it. Original, I know. I'll check how it turned out and post it later.