Karlovy Vary

So this is the lovely town of Karlovy Vary in western Bohemia. It's about 30 minutes from the border with Germany.  This means it has a very different feel from Plzen for many reasons that I will get into. The town is famous in this part of the world for the hot springs and the spas that grew up around them. King Charles discovered the hot spring hundreds of years ago. Karlovy Vary was a favorite vacation destination for Peter The Great of Russia. As a result Russians love to come here. 

In fact the Russians have a huge impact here. For one thing, well I might as well go back to the beginning of what I know. For as long as anyone could remember Germans and Czechs lived in Karlovy Vary and got along fine.  But when Hitler rose to power he saw it as something he could use. The infamous Munich Agreement, you know "Peace in our time" and all that gave this part of the Republic, the famous Sudetenland, to Germany and the nazis. 

As one might expect there were lots of hard feelings at the end of WWII and all the Germans were kicked out. They were literally driven from their homes. So as the Communists took over the Russians again began to impose on the Czechs here. Apparently they filled the vacated German homes with people from Bulgaria and Serbia and wherever they felt like shipping people in from. I hope I'm not boring anyone with the history lesson but it really explains the way things are now for me. 

One of the things the commies did in every town was to build a huge "cultural center" building in town. It was mostly a way for them to say that "We have all the power and will do what we want." They built a big ol' building right on top of the hot springs.  Here I am in my embarrassing tourist pose.

The whole building is mostly glass except for that wall behind me to the right. What you can't tell from the picture is that on the other side of the wall just across the street is the Russian Orthodox Church. They very obviously blocked the Church on purpose just to show disrespect. There's no functional reason to put a brick wall up where they did. It's just there to say, "We are in control here." 

So anyway now the Russians are back. But now they're just gangster businessmen. During the communist era many of the buildings were allowed to run down. They're 100s of years old remember. Now Russians are bringing tons of money into the town and things are being fixed up which is great. But the Russians kind of own the town now which understandably rubs the Czechs the wrong way. 

Even with all that it is a very nice little town and one of the most beautiful I've ever been in. You really feel like your big "E" Europe here.  I mean just look at it. 

A couple other notable things are that movies are filmed here from time to time because it's so pretty. Casino Royale, the James Bond movie was filmed here. This building below is the actual "Casino Royale" where he was playing poker or whatever. 

One of the most famous buildings which I did not take a picture of was the Grand Hotel Pupp (pronounced Poop, hee hee hee) Apparently Last Holiday starring Queen Latifa was filmed there. Deidre says it's a good movie but beyond the Czech landmark I'm not sure it's my kind of thing ;) Oh and James Bond (Daniel Craig) ran down the street in front of the Hotel Pupp in his movie. Just to be sure you know, this picture is not the Pupp. 

As you could see fall is in full swing here in the CR. I'm glad I made it to Karlovy Vary when I did. The trees are really pretty.

I'm very much looking forward to coming back again when the snow comes it should be just as gorgeous. Speaking of gorgeous check out the UMC Church in Karlovy Vary.

Deidre can correct me if I'm wrong but I think her classroom where she does her English lessons in the Church. How awesome would it be to go to work here everyday? Unfortunately they don't have Church services here on Sundays. They've got a really big challenge in Karlovy Vary. Mila and Deidre are doing really well getting teenagers to come in for lessons and camps and whatnot. It's just a really tough place to get people interested in Church. Mila is a pretty amazing guy and does so much good here in KV. I don't know if I explained, Mila is the main representative of the UMC here in Karlovy Vary and "looks after" Deidre. Not that she needs looking after, she can handle herself fine. But I know it's got to be great to have him a minute away. 

So that's pretty much it. Deidre still won't let me take her picture. For some reason she thinks I've been telling everyone that she's late all the time. I must have imagined it or something. She's never late. That whole story about us being late that day in Prague was all my fault. It turns out that nobody ever noticed Deidre being late to anything. So she is not a late person, I fully retract and regret any implication that I may have given to this effect. And I apologize wholeheartedly.  Somehow I think I may have just dug myself a lot deeper.

Greetings from Prague

Hey everybody. Guess what? I'm in Prague!
Don't worry about that dude behind me. He's just some random KFC patron. Yeh, the KFC here has wifi so I thought I'd take the opportunity to check in. 

I've come up to Prague to meet with the guy who teaches  English for the HQ UMC Church. It's been really helpful so see how he does things. I'm feeling a little better about getting going. 

Slavo and I have been working on a schedule and price scheme for the classes. All we need now are students and a curriculum. I'm hoping to iron that out this week. 

Shoot, now that I've got the chance I can't really think of much to write about. Prague is a really cool town. The buildings are all pretty amazing. Even the Borg-like commie "Culture Center" building was impressive in an evil Star Trek cyborg army kind of way. 

I did manage to get a better photo of the creepy skull post on the Charles Bridge. Check it out, I have this as my wallpaper on my phone. 

I'm hoping I can get this better image onto it somehow. I feel like I need to hurry up and get out of here. But really in CR they don't care if you linger after a meal. You have to pretty much chase your server down and ask for the bill or they'll let you sit there all night.  Nevertheless, I feel a bit exposed writing on a laptop in KFC.

Well, I'll try to get some photos of the the Church compound here in Prague. It's pretty wild. You could walk past it on the street and not even see it. I've walk past it several times on accident already. (Update: I got some photos after all) But when you get inside the doors there's a whole big courtyard and tons of apartments that belong to the Church. I'm actually staying in a small apartment at the Church while I'm here. It's 200Kc (about $12) a night. Not bad. Especially since Maranatha is paying for it. The only thing is I apparently do not have hot water. Now I took cold showers in Nicaragua and didn't mind a bit. But when it's 50 degrees outside and your water is about -20 you don't really want to get too much of it on you. Therefor I might be pretty funky by the time I get home. 
This is the actual Church.

And these below are some of the apartments owned by Church. They were burned in a fire a few weeks ago and they've been working to get them restored ever since. My apartment was not up there but over by the Church.

I may be even funkier because I'm thinking about swinging over to Karlovy Vary to visit Deidre before I head back to Plzen. She has started her classes so I kind of want to see how they're doing things over there.  She thinks we'll be doing vastly different kinds of lessons. I'm sure she's right but I still can use all the input I can get my hands on to figure out how to teach the Plzners. 

All right. I think that's going to be it for now. 

Ciao

Progress and Practice

It's been an uneventful week for the most part. But I have made some significant progress. I got a PlzenskaKarta. Which is a pass for the trams. I put that to good use today. I took the picture on the way over to the office to get the card which was an all morning adventure to find. I had as bad a case of bedhead as it's possible for me to have. I admit it may be hard to tell. 

But the best news is that I've actually started doing what I came here to do, officially anyway. I have one English student. She doesn't really even need my help. She speaks quite good English already. But I've been helping her get used to hearing English again. She's going to Texas this week with a couple other women from Maranatha to meet and spend time with their sister Church there. She is putting a Power Point presentation together for the 4 services the Texas Church does every weekend.  I think she said it's one on Saturday evening and three on Sunday. Whew!

I guess she won't mind me telling y'all her name. She's Linda Cechova. Actually she is Vitek's wife. I've mentioned him before. He's a great guy and their children Stepan and Kristina are lot's of fun too. We all went to lunch after Church today. Vitek is well known around Maranatha for being the guy to go to if you want to know the best places to eat. We ended up going back to U Mansfelda again 'cause his favorite Italian place was inexplicably closed. That place is so good. I had wild boar last time. This time I had a wild boar steak. It's different, seriously. This dish has a sauce with cranberries and congac and almonds. Whoowie that's some good pig. Oh and I had bacon knedliky (dumplings) as a side dish.  So good. 

Also one really cool fact. Mila is Vitek's brother. Mila is looking after the other American, Deidre in Karlovy Vary, a town about an hour from Plzen. Their father is a well known artist here in Plzen.  He painted this huge mural.

In this painting are all famous Plzners. On the right is a guy that created a famous marionette, the guy climbing up on the ladder invented electric street lights and there's all kinds of significant people.  I don't know if y'all have noticed but if you click on the pictures you can see a much bigger version in which you can pick out a lot more detail. I highly recommend it here. This mural is so cool.  There's actually a guide to show you who all the famous dudes are. 

I took a picture of the text but it's in Czech so it won't do any good anyway.  There is so much public art and a lot of it is 100s of years old. So it's especially awesome that Vitek's Dad has such respect that they want him to do something this huge and this significant. All Czechs are fiercely proud of their cultural heroes and each town is very proud of their local historical figures.  

It's funny now that I've been here for a little while I'm starting to get used to stuff. But every once in a while I walk by something like this and I'm like, "Whoah! Holy cow! That's right I'm in Europe!" This kind of stuff is all over the place. 

There are also a few reminders that I'm in Eastern Europe in particular. There is a "Culture Center" that was built during the communist time and it is about as soul crushingly ugly as would only fit with communist architecture. 

People can laugh now about how ugly the commie buildings are which is nice. But they haven't forgotten how bad it really was either. 

This is an exhibit in the main square of town. It is a representation of a concentration camp that was operated by the Czech Communists. Not the Nazis.  The photos are the file photos of actual victims. Their names and portions of their stories are in the exhibit. 

As you can see the exhibit covers the years after WWII up until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. There were students as well as people old enough to be their grandparents that were taken. Also many, many Priests and clergy were put in the camps. Basically anyone that may at all be suspected of being against the regime could be taken. This is what the UMC faced in Czech Republic. Vitek was saying that Maranatha consisted of 3 old ladies during these years. 

But at least this ended. After the Velvet Revolution people swarmed back to the Churches. I've covered a lot of this before I know. But apparently many people started drifting off after a while. Unfortunately many of the people that became Pastors right after the revolution have since left the Church. We don't really know why. 

So enough of the gloom and doom portion of the show. Things are going well. I used my new tram card to do some aimless wandering.  There are 4 tram lines so I hopped on #1 and just rode it to the last stop. Guess what? It's awesome! There's a big park right where you get out.  It's not that far but check it out! It's like you out in the wilderness!  . . . sorta

It was nice to be able to get out in some trees though. I start to get a little twitchy if I'm cut off from them for too long. Here's some proof.  I can't ever tell when my camera is actually taking a picture. I was too busy looking around to make sure nobody saw me taking my own picture like a big loser. 

I guess I might as well go all the way with it.  My Mom likes it when I put pictures of myself in here so bear with me. 

Hi Mom!

So I had a fun day. I also got some good news about the whole teaching thing too. Slavo, who will be my new neighbor starting in October, has taught English before and is totally fluent and all that. He's Czech. Anyway Pastor Petr told me today that Slavo said he'll put together some lesson plans for me that I can use to teach English to Maranatha folks. The upshot of all this is that I should finally start to have a regular schedule of classes to teach. Having Linda Cechova as my only student is really nice but it will be good to really get down to business. 

Here we go! Hopefully. 

Egghead Time

OK so I'm going to be all tedious and philosophical this time. I don't have any pictures or funny observations (that I know of) so please bear with me.

I went to an English Movie night that's put on by my neighbor Becky as part of her work with Y.Y.M.  Maybe some of y'all know what that is but I admit I can't remember what it stands for. I do know that "Youth" and "Mission(s)" are in the name so that gives a bit of an idea what the organization is like.  

Well the movie we watched was Unbreakable starring Bruce Willis. It's directed by the guy that did The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan. Unbreakable is about a normal guy that discovers that he may in fact have extraordinary abilities. In short that he's a super hero. I happen to think that this is one of the most woefully underrated movies of past 10 years but what do I know?

 Throughout the film nobody can bring themselves to believe it's possible for a guy to have these kinds of abilities. It's a big theme of the movie. The main character goes through a tough process of discovering his abilities and believing that it's actually true. This leads him to a decision of whether or not to use these abilities. 

As we discussed the movie and the things we liked about it this quote (which I can't remember exactly so I'll paraphrase it) came up. "People can easily believe something that is impossible but cannot at all believe something that is only improbable." This got me to thinking. 

Whenever a believer (a character that thinks Bruce Willis has superpowers) in the film tries to convince someone that he really has these abilities they are resistant. People do not want to believe that someone may be extraordinary. Why is this? There are people (some of my friends among them) that do not want to believe in God, any God, much less Jesus. Why? I have not always been a Christian but I've always wanted to be. I've doubted, I still struggle with it from time to time. But my desire for God to be real and for Jesus to have really died for my sins has been constant. A world without God is pointless, hopeless, cold and empty to me. Why do so many people seem to be comforted by the idea of a Godless world? How could this be preferable to an eternal life full of love?

What is so threatening about the idea of God? C.S. Lewis was a notorious Atheist in his earlier life. But even he wanted to believe. He felt that the Christian story was a beautiful myth. A way of explaining things that were unexplainable to people of the time. The story goes that J.R.R.Tolkien (my hero) and another of The Inklings (I think it was Charles Williams but I'm not sure) locked themselves in a room with Lewis one night and refused to leave until they convinced him that God was real and he could in good conscience believe in Christianity. It worked obviously. I like to flatter myself that I could be Tolkien to some of my friends' C.S. Lewis. The big difference is that my friends do not want to believe it. How do you get past that? 

I feel like if I could crack the mystery of the desire to disbelieve I could get past it. Really I can only just be the best friend to them I can and always treat them with respect and love. But what is so threatening about Belief? I don't have an answer. So far all I can come up with is that once we believe in Jesus we have a responsibility to live accordingly. It's not a set of rules, "Do this, this and this. Don't do that, that or that." But you can't just pass the buck and say, "Not my problem" anymore. You can't help but feel your connection to people and want to help. The easy thing to do is just be out for yourself and the suffering of others does not affect you. You answer only to yourself. But at the end of the day you're alone.  Is being your own master really so attractive that it is better to die than to serve a higher purpose and have an eternal life? 

I don't mean to make this about being scared of death. But obviously if you do not believe in God then you believe that once you die that's it. You're worm food. I know that being Christian makes life worth living and gives us a much richer experience that we could ever have on our own in a random world of accidents and moral relativity. But there are many very smart people (smarter than me for sure) that prefer that very existence. Being agnostic I can understand. It does not take any amount of faith to say you don't know the answers. But atheists are just as sure (and in many cases much more certain) that they have the answer. They have figured out the true nature of the universe. Really, believing in God is also accepting the mystery of creation and acknowledging that we humans do not have all the answers.  

I'm sure there are Christians out there that think they've got it all down. The whole "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" thing. Probably many atheists think that this is what it means to be a Christian. That's one area I know I can change things with my friends. Some people have never known an actual Christian for whom they had any respect. I like to believe that's just 'cause they haven't known many genuine Christians. So when we let our light shine they can see the source, hopefully. But how do you crack that barrier of just not wanting to believe? 

So I'm not any closer to an answer now am I? I guess not. One of those myriad people smarter than me is this guy Michael Novak. He's written a book called No One Sees God that seems to cover this exact topic I've been rambling on about. I haven't read it but he has an article on National Review Online about it. I think it's definitely worth checking out. His article is mostly about the argument for Belief. I've basically just said many of the same things. So much for my big original insights. But it doesn't really attack the answer to the question "Why do atheists not want to believe in God?"  

Since I don't have the answers obviously I invite anyone and everyone to put their two cents in the comments. I'm all ears!

Big Weekend cont'd

OK so now I'm really going to talk about Sunday. I hope. 

Sunday we all went to Church in the morning of course. David talked about the Team's week and all the close connections they made. Very nice. Then we all went down to Vitek's jewelry shop so the Team could get some stuff. Vitek makes his own jewelry at his shop. It's really cool to see him work, he's a true artist. He also has some antique jewelry too btw. I left the guys there though because I had to go get ready for The Picnic.

We had a family day out at a park in town. I finally got to play fotbol! Yeehaw! It was fun but it really showed how bad out of shape I am. I managed to hold up alright though. Somehow at the end of our game it was 6 on 3. Three Petrs (including myself) against Vitek and a horde of kids and adults both. I think we won though. I can't remember for sure but we played much harder then. Tons of fun. 

Then we retired to the playground and fire for lunch etc. 

This is the fireplace where we roasted, you guessed it, sausages. I can't say how I am glad at  how much Czechs love sausage. Sausage has always been one of my favorite things to eat. I never get tired of it. So I've come to the right place. 

Sausage wasn't the only thing on the menu that day though. Periodically this loud blaring music would ring out like a demonic ice cream truck and shock everyone into silence. At which point some unknown purveyor would sing "Laaan-goshe!" Then then everybody would laugh. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then Vitek came up to the table with this stuff that kind of looked like a pizza, if pizzas were made by Lunchables sized for adults.  It was a piece of fried bread (yum) with ketchup (eeew!) with some unmelted cheese on top of that. Believe it or not it's pretty tasty. Nobody believed me though when I kept saying I liked it. 

All in all it was quite a pleasant little picnic. We were intruded upon by a beggar though. Just look at this shameless miscreant!

Just look at him! Food all in his beard! Giving us those "sad puppy dog" eyes! Shameless I tells ya! He did get some sausage before he was through though. Weiner dogs are popular here for some reason. Go figure. This guy was pretty funny. 

I planned on getting a picture of the kids in their natural habitat playing on playground but they spotted me.

These are the Prochazka kids, Petr, Barbara, and Karla. They lined up like good little kids when they saw me. I tried to get them to just go play but they don't speak much English so I just went ahead and took the picture. They crack me up. Whenever I run into them they do a bit of a double-take while they remember how to say "Hello" or "Good Morning" in English. They think it's hilarious to say "My name is. . . " in English.  Petr has the makings of a legendary "preacher's son" by the way. On the way to the park, Ivana, their Mom was teaching one of the kids words with that rolling R sound sort of like some Spanish words. I was like, "This is great! I need practice with this!" It was comforting to learn that some of their weird 6 consonant in a row words give them trouble too. Even if it's just the little kids. 

But the picnic wound down and it was time to get home and get ready for the farewell dinner for the Team. 
The dinner was at U Mansfelda, an old (I'm guessing it's old, everything else here is too) restaurant that serves traditional Czech food.  That's Karl in the white shirt. And of course I got the back Petr Balous. That's Mirek on the right. I had wild boar with the Czech dumpling assortment. Boy was it good. Oh so you think I should have gotten veggies? This is Czech Republic! Actually the boar came with a little salad on the plate which I promptly ignored. I could have been worse though. One guy had fried cheese as his main dish with french fries on the side and he was Czech. John sat next to me and got Trout. Believe it or not it tastes a lot like American trout according to him. John was on a quest to get carp at some point during his trip. 

In CR it is a long standing tradition to have Christmas Carp. Every year people go a buy a live carp. You know those things are huge. Anyway, they keep it in the bath tub for a week or so to let it's (aherm) system (ahem) clear out.  The kids play with it and all that fun stuff. Then they eat it on Christmas day. I'm so looking forward to that! Uh, not really. Well because of this John was curious to see how they prepare the notoriously gross-tasting fish. Alas it was not on any menu the whole time he was here. Which to me just proves that nobody actually likes to eat those nasty things they just do it for tradition. 

Well dinner was finished and dessert gotten through and the party broke up. I rode back with team to drop them off at Hotel Plzen.
Here's the gang again once more. Kellie, Serena, Karl, David and John. I only really got to hang out with them for a weekend but felt like I'd known them for a long time. I'm glad to say they're keeping in touch. They all got home OK (with a few adventures in customs). I really appreciate their openness and how they took Deidre and me in. We're all on the same Big Team.  Thanks guys.

pax

So I had more to say about last weekend. "Not possible!" you say? Oh yes I do. That big long post was just Saturday in Prague. Not even the whole day. It was a big day. 

Well, we all got back to Plzen fairly early in the evening. We were pretty wiped out but it was about time for supper anyway so we ate together because that's what we do. We decided to just eat at Hotel Plzen where the team was staying. Good food there. There was a couple who I'm just going to say were from Germany, they just seemed like Germans to me. One old lady seemed a little alarmed at us being kind of loud. Well you know what? We were a bit loud. That's one stereotype I don't mind perpetuating. What's wrong with people laughing and enjoying each other's company? Nothing that's what. 

So maybe we weren't the most high minded bunch that night. We somehow seemed to get onto the topic of certain Czech phrases and words that could be misconstrued by an English speaker as having scatalogical meanings bear a striking resemblance a certain word of old Saxon origins that has taken on impolite connotations in recent years.  OK so what I'm getting at is sometimes Czechs sound like they're cussing in English when in fact they are really saying perfectly respectful things in Czech. We found this to be very funny. Mostly because it is very funny! 

Anyway it's nice to be able to just relax with folks. I very much appreciate this about the Team. They are very easy to just relax and be yourself with. We didn't only talk about funny words though. We did talk about what we are doing here. I must say I'm pretty psyched about what's going on in Churches these days. I've been running around the world in a way this past year and have been blessed to meet people from all over. We ran into some girls from Kansas when I was in Nicaragua, I got to be good friends almost instantaneously with the TN Team this week, and Deidre is a strong member of the Texas contingent.  So many in America are looking outward and humbly (that's essential) trying to spread the Good Word and just really, truly, and sincerely going out of their way to love their brothers and sisters. 

I know I said no more mushy stuff but I feel like this is kind of important. Pretty much any Christian I've talked to in the last year shares a sincere and humble wish to serve and really live Jesus' commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. There are all kinds of different challenges around the world. There's so much poverty in so many places. And there are Christians in all of those places trying to help. But there is also the challenge of relatively wealthy peoples that just have forgotten (willfully in some cases) the Good News. That's what I've been drawn to do something about. Living in New York really made this impression on me. 

In a lot of ways I feel like someone who did not grow up in the Church. This won't make my Mom happy but it is the truth. I've always gone to Church. But until I was in College it never really made much of an impression on me. Mostly because I am willful and like to do what I want to do and not so much what I ought to do. I've always believed, or wanted to, but I didn't really have the foundation to back it up. That's not my Mom's fault. It is to her credit that I went to Church at all.  

I apologize for rambling so much. I've been trying to sort this all out in my own head for a while now. I have yet to really explain it to anyone with any success although I have tried. 

Most of my friends are not Christians. For the most part they just were never exposed to it. Some are even very hostile to the idea of any kind of God. But just by being open about my faith, not pushing it on them, just living it openly has changed some of their attitudes. I've even had friends ask me, "So what's this Jesus thing really all about?" I know, what a question right?

That's a big one to answer on a 2 minute subway ride home.  

Here's what I'm getting at. These are my people. These are the people I want to reach. I relate to these guys, they are my friends. This is the challenge in a place like Czech Republic I think. This is why I wanted to come here. I've had a running "discussion" with Mom for years. So much feels like preaching to choir to me. I certainly support and have benefited hugely from the fellowship within the Church family. I mean look where I am! That's because of my Church family. But I also feel like I'm one of those people outside the Church. Or maybe that I'm straddling the line between those two. I want to pull my friends, my "people" in that are on the outside.  But one thing we have got right is humble, loving spirit with which "Church Folks" are reaching out to those on the outside.

This is why I put Mathew 5:14-16 up at the top of the blog. That's my goal. The trick is not hiding the light under a basket. "Hide it under a bushel, NO! I'm gonna let it shine!"  Your supposed to sing that last bit by the way. 

OK so this is not at all what I meant to write about. I hope it made sense and is not too much of a self important bore of a rant.  I feel like such a windbag!

pax

Adventures of a Monolingual Doofus

OK so I've been slacking a bit. My internet went down a few days ago so I was unable to finish writing about the weekend. Of course now it's almost the weekend again but hey, such is life. Turns out I had internet all along I just couldn't figure out how to fix it because all the instructions and information are in Czech. I've learned a valuable lesson, Learn Czech! 

I actually went down to pay for my internet (you can't just pay online here, you have to go down to the bank and fill out a form etc.) and of course I paid with the wrong ID number. Yep, I'm that guy. The thing is, I didn't know I needed a number when I went down to the bank. Fortunately I always use the same 4 digit number when asked so I used it. 

But when I got home I found out that Pilsfree (that's the internet service) gives you a number. So I texted that number to the Jan, guy who installed my stuff. Then I got into my profile by accident and discovered that my correction was in fact not my ID but Petr Prochazka's. So I texted Jan again with my actual ID. I think I spent 15 Krowns in texts that day. OK so it's not that bad, that equals a little less than a dollar. 

I just hope they get around to attributing that payment to my account. By the way I've still got a month before it's due but I somehow managed to forget that in my panic to get internet again. Duh!