Goldilocks and the Halloween Windows

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit behind, so this is about the first two weeks of October.

This week our neighbors had invited me to a ballet. (They know me because they once hosted a student through SIT and had been interested blah blah.) This family is always suggesting things for me to go to and inviting me to things, that usually don’t work out. Obviously, I’d completely forgotten about the ballet.

I was even sleeping over at my friend Aidan’s house when I got the text that morning, telling me the time and place we would meet. I rushed there without enough time to take a shower or realize that I should put on something semi-formal.

The text I’d received was just signed with the family’s surname, so I expected that most of them would be there. Surprise. It was only the youngest daughter, Marie, waiting for me. She is about eleven.

When we got to the theater I dropped my complain-y attitude because the building was beautiful. I couldn’t take pictures of the show itself but I got a few of where we were sitting. 

And the sit-ees, that is, us. (Or probably "sitters"... we were not being sat on.)

The ballet was Goldilocks, but there were no three bears. I couldn’t grasp what was going on until Marie bought a program and let me read the English part. Czech Goldilocks is a beautiful princess with such golden blonde hair, that an evil king from very far away wants to marry her. He sends a messenger who helps animals perform certain tasks on the way. He saves ants from a fire, lets a fish go, etc. Each of them tell the guy that if he ever needs a favor he should just ask. When he arrives he has to jump through all these hoops to get Goldilocks, including perform three tasks that he could only do with the help of animals (like find a ring in the bottom of a lake or pick up pearls scattered in the forest).

Then he has to guess which daughter is goldilocks with their hair covered. Luckily, the fly he had saved from a spider’s web whispers the answer to him. Goldilocks has permission to be married, and the evil king ends up dying due to a complicated side story. Now the messenger can marry G-girl!!

At the end, the clapping never stopped, something I have learned is normal here in Czech lands. You see, the actors bowed, we clapped. They bowed again, we clapped. They left the stage, I grabbed my coat, but they came back and bowed again. They kept bowing in different combinations and leaving and coming back over and over. This happens at every performance I’ve seen. You just keep clapping for about five minutes straight. This is probably why the arts thrive in Prague.

Another thing I did during this week, was interview an artist. My art prof. Jan suggested him for an assignment, most likely not realizing how little English the guy knew. Waiting for him I was really nervous he would think I was late and leave because a massive statue was obstructing my view of most of the room. I took a picture just so you could feel my pain.

He did come eventually, and I think I learned a lot from the interview, but it was hard to tell really. He knew lots of English words but no grammar, so some sentences were really confusing to listen to. I just nodded and smiled.

That week I recorded the adorable rule postings for the busses and metros. They go across all languages.

Plus, my mom sent me a Halloween themed package! So for the past month, the view out of my window looked like this:

Homestay in Roztocky

Hey everyone, I would like to start out by saying that I didn't fail my goal right away. I wanted to blog yesterday but my computer decided it hates the internet at my homestay. So I'm at school right now.

Speaking of homestay, I haven't told you about that at all yet because it started this week! Now I haven't taken pictures of my hostmom or her house yet because I have to ask her to make sure its okay to put them online and whatnot. But I can give you a snippet about the hostfam:

I live with Jarmila and her blind dog Homer north of Prague. She has a cute little house with a green gate. Homer bumps into everything and can't hear very well, but he's very fluffy which makes up for it. Jarmila has three older daughters who are moved out of the house. Two of them have kids, two of them live in England, and one lives in Amsterdam but is currently on an archeological dig in Greece with her Canadian husband. I met the middle daughter and her children over Skype and marveled at the wonders of technology.

Anyway, my class had a big dinner Saturday night where we met our families. The next day they picked us up.

Jarmila and I took a walk around her (aka OUR) hometown of Roztocky on Sunday. This is a place one might deem a "liddle widdle town" because its very adorable, contains cottages and is near a river.

We also walked down to this really old church as well, but we had no money to pay for the tours so I'll show you pictures of that later... SPOILER ALERT: WE WENT ON THE TOUR THE NEXT WEEKEND.

Monday morning my hostmom rode the bus with me to help me get to school. (Yes, this is real life and I'm 22.)

On the way home I thought I knew what I was doing alone but got off at completely the wrong stop. After wandering around a bit I caved in and gave my hostmom a ring. She told me how to get home of cours,e but my pride was a bit unhappy.

I took a (mediocre, frantic) picture of the right bus stop when I got home because I was so happy to see it.

On Wednesday we saw some art in my studio art class (no way!).

The only piece I took a picture of was this crazy wall-sized picture made entirely out of staples.

[detail]

[even smaller detail]

 Also, our kind teacher Jan (pronounced "yan" and I def. can't remember his last name at the moment) gave us plastic cutouts shaped like the Czech Republic. Awwww! I'm going to pull it out every time someone asks if I went to Czechoslovakia. 

Another night that week (Thursday, perhaps?), Jarmila made fruit filled dumplings. I discovered the key to making them really good: butter, sugar, cinnamon AND curd cheese. 

Brian, sometimes I think of your Europe travel blog, and I realize the only pictures I take of food are dessert.

Another day we went to the mall--not everything we do has to be traditional Czech--and I took a picture of this horse lamp at the (relatively) expensive cafe we went to.

[Both Naomi & Lee seem to be humoring me...]

On Friday we went to the Kampa museum to look at "pre-war art," which actually meant Kupka's art; he was one of the first abstract painters. We couldn't photograph his stuff, but they had a quality sculpture garden:

 ["Open Wall"]

[detail: there's paint in them bricks!]

 [reminded me of Lipchitz... not by him though]

Afterward we went to a cafe flanked by a lot of wall and not very much window.

On Sunday I went back to the Kampa, because we have to write a small paper about an art exhibit. It was the overachiever in me that made me go back whilst others are just writing about things we saw in class...

The artist I'm going to write about is Marian Karel, who currently has a big exhibit there.

[if Sten Nilsson read my blog he would totally relate.]

 I noticed more pretty stuff outside even though it was raining...

[get it, "pretty"?]

 

I also creeped on some Czech boys who were making a film on a pretty walkway where the trees thought it was autumn.

[or perhaps I should have told you they were in love?]

OKAY ALREADY, one more thing, this has been lengthier than I planned!

Jarmila took me to an exhibit of fair souvenirs from hundreds of years ago when "fair" mean pilgrimage or Christian processional.

[Mary of Madonna and Child can look rather manly in the wrong hands]

[Aha! So cheap/flimsy things are not unique to the modern fair!]

Damn it! That wasn't the last thing. Here are some photos from Levy Hradoc, a church that has been around since the 8th century or so... the oldest church in the area in fact. (Remember ages ago when your read something about a spoiler alert? THIS is what I was spoiling for you.)

[our tour guide refused to speak English for the self-centered American.]

[original stone foundations, below the current church]

Goodbye, cao, ahoj, na schledanou, until next week! 

(Or if I am wise it will be sooner because I take so many freaking photos each week.)

Turtle/Dove

My sad, sad absence from the blog world is finally over!

I am working with Bethel's gallery again this summer. An artist named Sandra Ceas showed there. She makes these little porcelain Blessing Doves that she prays over and leaves all around the world as unexpected gifts for people. No note is left or anything, just a smooth white dove.

I got to leave one, so I went to a bridge near where I grew up in St. Michael.

My thoughts were that maybe a child who played by there now would find it, because I totally played there. When you live in a suburb, small bridges are exciting.

I shoved the dove above my tire with love... just kidding... I put the dove and my camera into my bike basket and biked back and forth suspiciously until people left so I could put the dove there without anyone seeing.

It is supposed to be a surprise, after all.

There was no question in those stroller-pushers' minds... These packages were holding drugs.

Eventually, the people walked past and I put the little guy by the bridge. 

 

On the way home I found ANOTHER baby turtle! Just a little quarter's worth of a turtle! 

I decided to "rescue" him by leading him closer to a little stream. Turtles want water, right? Right? So I delicately placed him in my basket and cranked the pedals as slowly as I could while still keeping the bike straight. I was amazed at my brilliance, until the little guy tried to jump out of the basket. This was bad, I thought, as I poked him away from his unintended suicide. This light poke made the basket fall off the bike! Lucky my turtle had a shell. I walked him to the stream area, after scarring him forever, I'm sure. 

The unknowing victim.

Hope to see you more often this summer :).

What a Pleasant Surprise

A few weeks ago I found a piece of art in the halls that I had never noticed before. It's a lovely still life painting that reminds me of Cezanne.

It's called Round Table and it was painted by George Robinson, who I believe helped found the art department here. Also, it's 51 years old! My gosh, 1960 it was painted. The textures and colors are still gorgeous today.

It's in a weird little corner at Bethel, back by the philosophy department offices, where they have a wooden sign that says "Philosophers' Corner."

Reptile-mania-insania

Taking pictures of kite festivals wasn't the only thing I did in my January photography class. You see, we had to make an entire project based off of a random subject line from a spam email, drawn out of a bag. Mine was:

533 reptiles stolen from wildlife park

So many possibilities, but obviously I decided to make shitty cardboard-duct-tape-pipe-cleaner costumes for my friends and coerce them into dressing up as reptiles. Seemed the most logical, right?

The first day I started to make costumes, I got my awesome friend Sarah to help. We both figured it would be easy to get people to wear our fantastic outfits, so we went excitedly to Brian's room after a few hours of working. His roommates were surprisingly reluctant.

Begging and pleading and begging a tad more did work eventually, and I got some pretty quality photos that day:

 

[Nick Ramberg was a  stegosaurus of some sort.]

[Brian was a sensitive dragon]

 [with a definite coy side.]

 [And good ol' Paul was a snake.]

Luckily my teacher found the combination of (admittedly crappy) costumes and sets really funny and urged me to keep going and make it even more elaborate and stupid. Hooray!

Shelby posed for me and hers turned out to be some of the best:

[Lady Gaga-esque? Chameleon.]

[Might be my ultimate favorite.]

My good luck kept coming when my mom agreed to play:

[A reptile shocked by its reflection.]

 Things got even better. A guest artist came to my college to help us make an on-site artwork. It was going to be a giant cardboard collard green, but there wasn't enough time to paint the leaves so we ended up with a hideous duct-tape and cardboard tree-like thing. This was my moment. Or should I say, Sarah and Chris's

[Shallow depth of field]

[Deep depth of field... "deep depth" sounds wrong.]

[At this point I have no idea what kind of reptiles they were.]

[But they looked pretty awesome.]

The final photo shoot was just a 23 minute free-for-all with random costume parts and set pieces all over the place. 

[Chris makes a good anxious turtle.]

Chris called the costumes "repties," a play on the little know cult/club of furries, people who dress in animal suits for fun. He wanted the subtitle of the project to be "Reptie Convention 2011."

Sometime this semester I might be able to print out more, if so, you will see them!