blades and rails

A brief distraction from the intercontinental word war.

2008-06-30T00:58:00.002+02:00

So let me vent for a minute. I'm in the hostel that started the year off with a bang; it was full of people and I was wide-eyed at the beauty of ancient Prague. Now, nothing's changed, but nothing's the same. The seventy-bed single-room dorm hostel is like a tomb. I have no proof that there are other people staying here. The key rack is full, all the beds are made, and I don't have to wait half an hour for the internet. The last part is decidedly a good thing, but it's just such a weird contrast to last year, where they were booked out almost every night and there was always someone to talk to in the common room. I realized so starkly today how much I'VE changed, though. I realized Prague is an amusement park. It prays on people's proclivities for novelty, decadence, and vice; it's visible in the facade of every restaurant, souvenir shop, and third-rate titty bar. This place...is too easy, after a point. It's less a place to see and learn, more a place to get hammered and just...vedge. And the thing is this: none of this is Prague's fault. It's the fault of the people who infest this city every summer; they dictate the supply and demand system of the tourist economy, and they get what they want. But in the process, Prague has become a bizarre Disneyland with only the barest roots in reality. You walk the streets in central Prague and can go between ten and fifteen minutes without hearing a single person speaking Czech. Maybe this is only bothering me because I'm getting antsy about going home, but to be honest, the last two days or so I was in Prague all those months ago, I was starting to feel this, but I really couldn't articulate what bothered me about it because I didn't have any frame of reference.

Anyway, I get so...malaise-ridden when I walk the streets here that I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself for the next two days. Let me put it this way: these are the same quiet mysterious streets that Kafka and Dvorak used to walk...only now they're neither quiet nor mysterious. They try to affect it in places, but it's so put on it's painful. But enough about my malaise. I watched the Euro Cup final tonight on the huge tv on the main square. I ended up sitting with the homeless people by accident for most of the first half. Then the smell scared me away. But oh, the black dudes who try to lead you away to strip clubs (you might recall the Cali golden boys incident from about eleven months back)...I got accosted by like five of these guys and I was ready to deck like three of them because they didn't back off. I just wasn't to be flexed with today. But I ain't ungrateful. Prague is still one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and living on tap water and sandwiches for three days won't kill me.

Stay strong, folks. Many of you will see me soon enough.

Fond regards to all, even Lana.

JBH

30.VI.2008

Dear Lana.

2008-06-29T00:41:00.002+02:00

Okay, let's deconstruct this chain of events. You made a simple comment about something I said that was inaccurate (?), and I replied with a simple correction. That, according to your assumption of argumentative simplicity, (e.g. "All, (sic) I asked is for you not to put false information" and "All I did was posted a comment for a (sic) false information.") should have ended things. However, you used the whole thing as a handy opportunity to launch your little dinghy with a laundry list litany of American flaws. You keep coming back to the "irrelevance" of my points, but I'll tell you something: when you open the "grotesque generalizations about nationality" can of worms, everything becomes fair game, especially when there are serious logical holes in your polemic. If it really just was about the misinformation, this would have stopped a while ago. You, however, chose to bring the prevalence and causes of anti-Americanism to the forefront and paint my entire nationality with the same brush as you cited people like me and my father as anti-Americanism's cause. As such, I find it very hard to believe that insults are furthest from your aims. "Cowboy" is inflammatory, as are several other things you've said...you might recall likening my father to an schoolboy. I also like being called ignorant. That's always fun. The correction was made, and I was pleased to move on. Then things got ugly, but to be frank, you instigated it with a few simple words.

"This just show how over-all Americans lack general information about world outside of border of US of A, and if they didn't your son would have researched in advance that there is no direct train link between Sofia and Budapest. You can't just show up to some country (sic), i.e. Sofia, and say "here, I have arrived, I am an American" and have them just for you (sic) build a rail link to another city. Do you (sic) research."

1) Where did I say I thought there would be a direct train connection between Sofia and Budapest? I mentioned that there wasn't one, but that was a simple acknowledgment of fact, nothing else. I did my research, thanks.

2) At what point did I express an opinion that would lead you to think that I'm of the mindset "here, I have arrived, I am an American."?

3) Whence did you infer that I expected everything (ANYTHING, for that matter) to be easy, or that I expected ANYONE to make concessions for me?

In the process of trying to read between the lines, you're hallucinating. You're seeing things that simply aren't there, and that's where the problem lies.

So now that we have a general idea of how this situation arose, let's discuss my nationality, since you have such nuanced ideas about the American national character.

Yes, Americans are not passive people. This is not a bad thing. If it is indeed a national trait, I personally believe it's an admirable one. Just because we don't react quietly or passively when we've been dealt an insult of some kind doesn't make me wrong or you right; at day's end it means that when you step on me or those close to me, I'm going to lash out. I'm not going to do it in a way that's irrational or stupid, but it's not going to be restrained, either. I am open to criticism. Things approaching abuse, however, are other matters. I will happily pick you apart if you've wronged me or those close to me. This is a simple matter of fact. American non-passivity doesn't make me and mine "cowboys," or any less civilized than you are, which, if I were to read between the lines of your comments, I'd say you are MORE than implying that you're more civilized than Americans. This presupposition is arrogant and frankly infuriating. It would be lovely to talk to you with something other than hostility so you could work on an assumption other than the fundamental ignorance of my people, but since you've borne me and mine nothing BUT hostility, I find it very difficult not to respond in kind.

Do be in touch.

Josh

2008-06-28T03:55:00.002+02:00

Also, Sofia isn't a country, last time I checked, and I have no presuppositions about entire countries-worth of people building train tracks in front of me to accommodate my apparently ample American bulk. Not that I'm being picky or anything, but to be fair, I DO do me research.

Go ahead. I'm waiting.

Josh.

I don't want to make this public, but I will. An Open Letter: Let's Spar, You and Me.

2008-06-28T01:16:00.005+02:00

Someone decided to attack me and my father through my blog. That's fine, if only the argument were logical. Read the following and reach your own conclusions.

Response to most recent story-based entry from ANONYMOUS:

American anti-sentiment can not be found only in Serbia and the Balkans, but unfortunately everywhere on this planet. Dumping on Yugoslavia, for my mere comment on where did he heard that Serbia is mine ridden, shows why anti-Americanism is so prevalent. There was no need to go into whether Yugoslavia was a, as you say "a made up country" (I fail to understand what defines a country as being a 'made up' and as being 'real'. It did have political borders, had it not?) My opinion is of Miloshevic, Tudjam & Co. is so low that it doesn't deserve to be mentioned, yet, I again fail to see what that has to do with my side comment of where the man who wrote this article heard that Serbia is mine ridden. This just show how over-all Americans lack general information about world outside of border of US of A, and if they didn't your son would have researched in advance that there is no direct train link between Sofia and Budapest. You can't just show up to some country, i.e. Sofia, and say "here, I have arrived, I am an American" and have them just for you build a rail link to another city. Do you research.

p.s. I am not from Serbia, too avoid any possible commenting and dumping yet again on Yugoslavia (which again had nothing to do with my initial comment)

Dear Ms. (Mr.?) Anonymous:

Okay, I am a patient man. But when you make me say things I neither said nor implied, my patience wanes. John Dryden said a few hundred years ago "beware the fury of a patient man." To be honest, you don't deserve my fury. That's reserved for people I care about. But I will summarily pick you apart at any and every given opportunity when you read an entry that concerns my mother's death and the best you can do is point out an historical inaccuracy. So let me talk to you. I and my father are the reason anti-Americanism (unfortunately?) is so widespread? Let's talk about history, you and I. Facts. Yugoslavia, honest-to-god, WAS a made-up state. If the involved states weren't ethnically overlapped, then why was there genocide? The World Wars fucked things up for a lot of people, and Tito held it all together under the pretense of atheism, but it all fell apart. In the end of ends, yes, Yugoslavia was a made-up state in the same way so many other states were arbitrarily divided without consideration of ethnic or religious differences. If you're more educated than me or my father, then you have yet to demonstrate it. Yes, I'm trying to piss you off. Go ahead, prove me wrong. I dare you.

Mr. Anonymous, the fact that you directed this conspicuously anonymous blog comment against my father further shows your cowardice. I'll quote you. They're your words.

"My opinion is of Miloshevic, Tudjam & Co. is so low that it doesn't deserve to be mentioned, yet, I again fail to see what that has to do with my side comment of where the man who wrote this article heard that Serbia is mine ridden."
__________________________________________________________________________________
My father does not write this blog. If you have a grudge against him, deal with him personally. However, when you bring him into this, I get aggravated. I won't begin to pick apart your inadequacies in dealing with the English language, because, while said list would be long and satisfying to me, it would also be peripheral.

I knew very well that there was no direct train connection between Sofia and Budapest. I'm not stupid, believe it or not. The simple expectation that my train to Belgrade would be on time was a naive one, that's all. I don't know if you've been reading too much Derrida or something of the sort, but you're reading a lot between the lines that isn't actually in the text.

Furthermore, SIR, you could really refer to my dad as though he actually does have a terminal degree in his field. He's actually been quite a few places out of the U.S.of A. As for me, I've been traveling for a year. I've been through scores of transit and other miscellaneous difficuties, and I don't need to justify myself to a neophyte like you; just learn to be quiet, or at the very least quietly criticize instead of just picking on my dad and making yourself feel good. I mean, that's what EVERYTHING on the internet is about. No, but seriously, where do you get off? You're not Serbian, so you don't take national offense, and if you've read ANYTHING ELSE I've written, you'd know that I love European people and the European lifestyle; however, it's a lot easier for you to brand me and my father as ignorant southern hick Americans. If that's how you want to think about me and my family, fine. Know, however, that I will prove you wrong at every turn. The fact that I don't know who you are says much more about your cowardice than it does about anything else, but ultimately, here it is: I'll go. We'll go. We'll fight. If you want to get into a serious political/international argument, that's fine. I'll win. You don't know the basic principles of English grammar and punctuation, and your argument is faulty at best. I'm giving you time. Regroup your forces. Let's go. I'm ready.

Kisses,

Josh

By the way, in case you're afraid of me and would prefer to direct your words toward my father, he's offered his email: geegollee@gmail.com. Have fun.

A Brief Correction/Note

2008-06-27T00:46:00.003+02:00

Yes, I suppose it was perhaps a little silly of me to misremember the particular details of the Yugoslav wars in the nineties. I'm sorry(?) I offended your historical sensibilities, Mr. Anonymous, but there was a fair degree more in the entry than a factual inaccuracy. This isn't Encyclopaedia Britannica, and I was going on the way I felt and what I (admittedly mis)remembered. Something more substantial would be lovely in the future. Do you expect a correction? An apology? Is this a grudge? I'm fine with criticism, I just don't like it when people, instead of criticism, only want to make nice distinctions and in so doing, choose to hide behind the merciful facelessness that the internet gives us all. Keep reading, everyone, just please know that I've got an awful lot of shit on my plate at present.

Best regards.

JBH

Selected Anecdotes from Eastern Europe

2008-06-24T22:07:00.000+02:00

Dear Readership:

I'm more than aware that I've been a far less-than-informative tour guide to the wilds of Eastern Europe in recent months, but a lot has come up. Most of the stories are funny. Some are irritating. Some are sad af first but uplifting overall. Instead of devoting myself to what would doubtless be a twelve-hour storytelling grind of recounting the past few months, I'll instead hit the highlight stories and spare you the details of museums and histories and minutiae. If you really want to know those things, then good; it gives me something to talk about without repeating myself when I see you in person. Stories are not presented chronologically.

Tony from Liverpool (L'viv, UKR, sometime in late April)

You meet the most unusual melange of people in hostels. You meet really interesting people, crazy people, narrow-minded people, stag party people, really good-hearted people, thieves, drunks, people running from their pasts, people putting off their futures...in conclusion, abnormal is the norm, and Tony from Liverpool was among the abnormalest of the abnormal. Sparing you the absurdly complicated details of my lovelife in the months of March, April and May, suffice to say at this point I was dating a lovely Polish girl, Ania. I was trying to achieve a gradual break-up, since I found my return to Poland in the next few years rather unlikely. We were traveling together around Ukraine as I tried to build the foundations for a friendly separation. The hostel I frequented in L'viv, Ukraine, (each of my three visits) is The Kosmonaut. Not to plug it or anything, but if you're ever in the area, it has great facilities, staff, owner, and an ideal location. But I digress, albeit briefly. Whenever I first arrive at a hostel, I try to get to know everyone who's staying there. There was the normal assortment of students, travellers, and expatriates. I didn't have to introduce myself to Tony--he introduced himself amply.

I use all capital letters because volume control wasn't his forte.

"HELLO! WHAT'S YOUR NAME? I'M TONY, THAT'S T-O-N-Y., WHERE ARE YOU FROM?"

"err, I'm from Tennessee, thanks, nice to meet you."

"AND WHAT ABOUT THE LOVELY YOUNG LADY?"

"I am from Warsaw, in Poland."

(slightly quieter) "OKAY, THEN I WILL SPEAK S-LLLL-OW-LY. I...AM FROM...EN-GLAND. ENGLAND. DO YOU KNOW WHERE THAT IS?"

"I...I do understand English."

"Oh, okay, I'm sorry" He kisses us both on the cheek. "My wife died two years ago. Can I play a song for you?"

By this point I was taken aback, so I said with hollow voice, "...sure..." It was a mix CD consisting of "Hey Jude," "Yesterday," "Lady in Red," and a few other songs that escape me because they were all of the selfsamesentimental drivel...sorry to all you Beatles and Chris de Burgh fans out there. It was made worse when I was engaged in a conversation about the Soviet role in WWII with an Englishman and Tony comes up, puts a hand on each of our shoulders and, while we're midsentence and "Yesterday" is playing in the background, he says to both of us:

(sotto voice): "do you know why Paul McCartney wrote this song?...He wrote it...because he lost his MOMMY. HE LOST HIS MOMMY. This song...is ABOUT LOVE. TRUE LOVE FOR YOUR MOMMY." He walked away, only to wedge himself in one of the other group conversations in the room.

At another juncture it was quite late and I was contemplating going to get some late-night snacks from the 24-hour store. Ania was talking to her sister back in Warsaw. Tony comes in and I say "oh god...". He asks Ania "who are you talking to?", and Ania responds that she's catching up with her sister. Tony takes the phone out of Ania's hand as he says "I'll talk to her"

"Hello? Hello, my name is TONY. That's T-O-N-Y. I'm from LIVERPOOL, in ENGLAND. Do you know where that is? Do you speak English?"

Agnieszka does.

"Well, that's good, but I'm going to TALK VERY SLOWLY SO I KNOW YOU WILL UNDERSTAND ME. MY WIFE...IS IN THE SKY. YOU HAVE A VERY BEAUTIFUL VOICE. I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE YOU OUT TO DINNER SOMETIME. I THINK I LOVE YOU. MAY I SING YOU A SONG?"

Whether Aga said yes or not is immaterial, because Tony broke into a completely wretched rendition of "Lady in Red." Some time later, he gave the phone back and proceeded to follow me to the all night shop, insisting that the streets were DANGEROUS.

"YOU KNOW, JOSH, ONE TIME, I WAS JUST MINDING ME OWN BUSINESS IN THE BAR. I WAS ON ME JACK JONES (THAT MEANS BY MESELF, IN YOUR AMERICAN). AND THIS BUNCH OF...OF...OF...CHOCOLATEFACES TAKES ME INTO THE STREETS AND DOES THIS TO ME LIP!" (He points to a scar) "THESE STREETS ARE DANGEROUS, MATE, BUT I LOVE YOU, SO I WILL FIGHT FOR YOU WITH THE STRENGTH OF TEN MEN!" (he grabs me and begins raking his stubble into my neck as he embraces me tightly) "JOSH, YOU MUST BELIEVE ME!" *sotto voce* "I'm not gay, and I'm a good man."

I tell him neither of these things had occurred to me. Truthfully, neither of them had. We go to the 24-hour shop, and I get some sausage, bread, cheese...the basics. Tony's milling around and he comes behind me, grabs my shoulder and solicits me for 10 Ukrainian Hrivna (the Ukrainian currency. 10 UAH=$2). I ask him why, and he says "I want...to buy...your girlfriend...a PRESENT." Despite my assurances that this wasn't necessary, he kept insisting otherwise, and finally I asked him what he was going to buy.

"I want to buy her...an ice cream."

At this point I tried to think of something provocative to say, something to make him go away.

"I want to get something straight, Tony: to the best of my knowledge, Ania doesn't like dessert. She likes cigarettes, sex, and alcohol. Not ice cream"

"BUT EVERYONE LIKES ICE-CREAM! EVERYONE! YOU WILL GIVE ME TEN HRIVNA SO I CAN BUY HER AN ICE CREAM AND REMIND HER OF HER CHILDHOOD!"

I see. He got his ten hrivna, and I was waiting on him to leave. I left ahead of him and when I looked back thirty seconds later and saw he wasn't behind me, I went to check on him. I walked in during the last verse of his heart (ear) breaking rendition of "Yesterday," which he was singing to the bewildered and irritated-looking Englishless staff. After I barked a stream of Russian unrepeatables at him, the staff started stifling chuckles and he got distracted enough that he stopped. He was about to leave when he saw a security guard dressed in solid black trying to buy a pack of cigarettes to get him through the night. It was 4:00 am. The guard looked like he had a lot on his mind. Before I can stop him, Tony goes up to the guy, claps him on the shoulder, pulls him close and says "HEY, MAN, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED. JUST RELAX, IT'S OKAY."

The gentleman in black wasn't amused. He responded in perfect, if thickly-accented, English: "Mister, I work for the state security. If you knew my job, you would know it is not possible for me to relax. Please get your hand off of me."

This story doesn't end with much of a bang; Tony got kicked out of the hostel two mornings later for being drunkenly verbally abusive to the staff. After our foray to the convenience store, however, I couldn't help but think that he had the scar on his lip coming to him.

The Chairrail Incident (Kiev, Ukraine, April 2008)

It was a rainy day near Independence Square in Kiev. I was done there, so I was headed down the metro. My mood was especially good, so I thought I'd attempt a slide down the shiny silver chairrail. It was too wet to allow anything but friction, so I hopped off. The four cops at the bottom of the stairway looked at me in grim amusement and crowded around me.
"That's not legal. There's going to be a fine"
I processed this information and decided it might be in my best interests to plead ignorance. "Shto?"
The leader repeated himself.
I repeated myself. Apparently my...well, I've heard, anyway...Ukrainian accent almost worked against me here.
He said "what are you, stupid?"
I was a little flattered. He thought I should have understood him because of the way looked and said "shto?". I'm better at blending in than I thought, I guess. I answered him "izvinitye, ya nie govoryu po-Russkii."
He looked startled and said "inostranyets?" (foreigner?)
"Da, Amerikanyets."
"ah, Amerikanyets......o.k. good-bye." I showed my passport, he saluted me, and leader & posse walked away.

Another bullet dodged.

The Worst Day Ever. (Sofia, BG; Beograd, SB; Budapest, HU)

Transit has bred more conflict and problems than any other circumstances over the year. I suppose it's fitting that I cap the year with a fittingly expensive and involved fiasco. Here goes.

There is no such thing as a direct train from Sofia to Budapest. They all go via Belgrade, Serbia. My train left on time at 21:20. It was due to arrive in Belgrade at 04:45 the next morning. The ride was uneventful; I had a cabin to myself and there wasn't much to do but read and write in my journal, and I eventually drifted off to sleep and woke up around 4:15. At 4:30, there were no visible signs of civilization (factories, churches, houses, Burger King, Walgreen's) in any direction. When there were still none of said signs at 5:30, I started to get worried. I anticipated a two-hour layover in Belgrade before my train to Budapest was to depart at 6:45. When civilization was still conspicuously absent at 6:30, I started to get worried. the train from Sofia arrived two hours and eight minutes late. The train to Budapest departed on time. You can see my dilemma. I went to the information office and found out that the next train to Budapest was...two days later. I prepared to saddle my luggage at the train station storage area when a smiling little man approached me. He looked good-natured enough, and he said "you missed train to Budapest? Vienna?" Generally I give these people the walk-on-by, but this guy seemed to know something. I stopped and said I did indeed. He said "I drive you to another station; if you hurry, we can make it very soon." It sounded good to me, even as I saw the taxi that was presumably his looming in front of me. I assumed, silly me, that since the train hadn't left so long ago, it would be stopping in Belgrade suburbian stations. I couldn't have possibly anticipated a cabride halfway across Serbia. That, however, is what I got. After the meter had reached some very, very high numbers, I asked my driver how much...this would cost. He wouldn't give me a straight answer, but when I told him that I had 5 Bulgarian Leva ($4), 4,000 Hungarian Forints ($24), and $39 US, he looked...discouraged. He asked me if I had an ATM card, and though it occurred to me that it might be in my best interests to say no and try to bargain with my collected assets to get to this other station, I also realized he was completely within his power to throw me out on the side of the road in land-mine-ridden Serbia. Not my idea of a good time. I erred on the side of wisdom and answered yes. The town from which I was to attempt my second departure, Vrbas, was 140 kilometers from Belgrade, and time was running VERY short. The train was due to depart at 8:53 from Vrbas. We entered Vrbas city limits at 8:42. We still had to stop at the ATM. The driver pulled us into the central square of Vrbas, and I ran over to the ATM. It did not take Mastercard. Neither did the second or the third. By this time I was sprinting to the fourth, making the poor old chainsmoking dude keep up with me the whole way. I found one that took Mastercard, I got the money, and off we went; I got a great deal of satisfaction out of how much longer it took my cabby to catch his breath than I did. At least I was making him work for his money. We pulled in to Vrbas train station at 8:51, and the train wasn't there. He asked an employee to which platform the train was coming, and he said "3, but it's half an hour late." I didn't actually understand the conversation, so for all I know he could have said "it's left already." The driver relayed the delay to me and offered to buy me a drink with a fraction of the massive sum I'd just handed him. I accepted heartily. I'd neither eaten or drunk anything from soup to nuts in the past 16 hours, so I was parched. He said ciao and drove off into the distance, and I still had 20 minutes to wait. Then it occurred to me: "what if he lied to me? What if the train already left? What if I'm stuck in this awful little Serbian town, not knowing the language and without another train to Budapest for two days?" I calmed myself with the assurance that the guy did seem honest, even if he'd just taken 100 Euro off of me, and that he'd really have to be some kind of sociopath to leave a random American stranded in Vrbas, Serbia for two days. Fortunately my paranoid side was just paranoid. The train rolled in and on I got. I had luggage difficulties in Budapest that made the whole experience feel a lot worse, but they're not worth explication. Suffice to say it was one of the worst days of the trip.

As I'm sure most, if not all, of my readership knows, the defining moment of the last year came in late May, when my mother passed away. I won't endeavor to explain my feelings on this medium because it would be at once maudlin and inadequate. Suffice to say that, even though the last month has been the most emotionally difficult time of my life, my mother's spirit has given me the courage to carry on and indeed has been the singlehanded force breathing down my throat to pursue this thing to the very end and keep noticing, keep writing, keep experiencing new things and finding new stories to tell. She's even the reason I'm writing this. Many (most) of you have offered me your support, and you have my sincere thanks in this difficult time. The time I've spent on my job searches throughout the southeast has supplanted the time I would spend writing this, but that just means you have to buy the book ;-). If any of you have any ideas of places to look for employment, please contact me at harrijb1@gmail.com. If it helps, I've pasted my resume.

Joshua B. Harris

Permanent Address: 460 22nd St., Batesville, AR, 72501.

Home: (870)-307-0781. Mobile: 870-834-7552. Email: jharris@alumni.sewanee.edu.

OBJECTIVE: employment utilizing strong writing, editing, and interpersonal skills

SUMMARY:
• Dean’s List, 8/8 semesters at Sewanee (requires GPA over 3.625)
• Hard-working, versatile, quick study with experience in many fields
• Proficient in advanced Russian and English, intermediate Polish, and basic Slovak

EDUCATION:
Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee, TN (2003-2007)
• Double major: Russian and English
• Final GPA 3.91 on a 4.0 scale

• Final Class Ranking 10/354
• Comprehensive Examinations (Both Passed with Distinction, October 2006, March 2007)
• Graduated Summa Cum Laude, May 2007

Lyon College, Batesville, AR (2001-2003)
• Fifteen hours of coursework

• Final GPA 4.0 on a 4.0 scale

EXPERIENCE:
Contributing Writer, The Sewanee Purple (2006-2007)

• Wrote articles about campus life for one of the nation’s oldest student publications

• Attended meetings and gained knowledge of publication processes

Part-Time Secretary and Departmental Aide, Sewanee English Department (2005-2007)
• Assisted in departmental library research

• Compiled bibliographic information and proofread for faculty

• Gained familiarity with office machines

• Administered tests and supervised writing workshops for first-year English classes

Writing Tutor, Sewanee Writing Lab (2005-2007)
• Edited papers and theses
• Helped students improve writing skills

Thomas J. Watson Fellow (7/2007-7/2008)

• Travelled in fourteen Eastern European countries over one year playing hockey

• Gained intermediate proficiency in Polish in five months

• Learned regional variations in Eastern European attitudes, cultures and traditions

President, Sewanee Russian Club (2004-2005)
• Opened cultural opportunities through field trips
• Served as liaison between Russian students and Russian Department

Carpentry Internship, Heritage Repertory Theatre, University of Virginia (2004, 2005)
• Worked 60+ hours per week, under strict deadlines, for two summers
• Developed leadership skills and proficiency with rough and finish carpentry

DJ, WUTS Sewanee Radio (2003-2004, 2006-2007)

• Hosted music variety show

• Hosted The James Joyce Radio Hour, a self-designed show featuring a weekly live reading of Ulysses and guest student authors

SELECTED HONORS AND ACTIVITIES:
• Member, Order of Gownsmen (Sewanee’s Academic Honor Society)
(2004-2007)
• Chairman, Student Activities Fee Committee (2005-2007)
• Technical Director, Dionysus Theatre Company (2003-2006)
• Treasurer and Academic Chair, Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity at Sewanee
(2005-2007)
• Student Liaison, Library Affairs Committee, (2004-2007)
• Chairman, Order of Gownsmen Grievances Committee (2007)
• Personal research and bibliographic assistant for Dr. Elizabeth Outka
(2006)
• Vice President of Recruitment and Intramural Athletics, Interfraternity
Council (2006-2007)
• Dormitory Representative, Student Assembly (2006-2007)
• Team Captain, Central Arkansas Chaos Ice Hockey Club (2002-2003)
• Member, Omicron Delta Kappa, International Leadership Honor Society (2007-present)
• Member, Phi Beta Kappa, International Academic Honor Society (2007-present)
• Fulbright Teaching Assistantship Recipient, 2007 (declined in favor of Watson Fellowship)

REFERENCES:
Dr. William Clarkson

Professor, Sewanee English Department

735 University Avenue

Sewanee, Tennessee, 37383

bclarkso@sewanee.edu

(931)-598-1262

Dr. Elizabeth Skomp
Assistant Professor of Russian, Sewanee Russian Department
735 University Avenue
Sewanee, Tennessee, 37383
eskomp@sewanee.edu
(931)-598-1254

Dr. Pamela Royston Macfie
Samuel R. Williamson Distinguished University Professor, Sewanee English Department
735 University Avenue
Sewanee, Tennessee, 37383
pmacfie@sewanee.edu
(931)-598-1138

Thanks very much and do keep me in the loop; I'll do my best to do the same.

Fondest regards in my final week of la vie hostel,

Josh

Yeah, yeah, I know.

2008-05-10T10:47:00.002+02:00

I sincerely hope I haven't bored my readership into submission with my two months of silence. Despite an extremely productive and educational quarter, suffice to say my personal life has become something of a nightmare in recent weeks, thus hindering my...capacities, such as they are. The details of this aren't especially fit for blog material, as some of you know. Please accept my quarterly report as a sort of amends, that we may all be a community again. For those of you who're still reading, thank you. To those who aren't, I'm very sorry, though if you're not reading, you're not reading the apology. Let's begin--again.

Dear Foundation Members, Fellows, Colleagues, and Parties Yet Unknown:

While it would be unfair to say I’ve lost my way in this quarter, it would be likewise unfair to say that the last three months abroad have been teeming with new teams and hockey possibilities. Instead I’ve had a substantial number of cultural excursions and encounters with bizarre circumstances and continuing healthy doses of Slavic hospitality.

Many kilometers of railway and road have passed behind me since my last report. From Tallinn I headed back through Riga and Vilnius, and the stage from Vilnius to Warsaw involved an unconscionably bumpy ten-hour bus ride and a stubborn driver who wouldn’t relenquish the key to the locked onboard bathroom. Suffice to say the ending of that story was not a happy one.

I returned to Gdansk to a warm welcome mixed with good-natured Polish profanity and numerous “where the hell have you beens?”. I decided to do all the Baltics instead of the five-day tour of duty I’d initially planned in Lithuania largely because, even though my Gdansk team wanted me to stay on for the whole season, certain league regulations barred my participation. So though I had a lot of great cultural experiences in the Baltics, my Baltic tour was, on retrospect and chiefly from a hockey perspective, a failed scouting mission.

In my many miscellaneous trips back and forth between Krakow and Gdansk to play for my respective old teams, I realized at some point that it was time for me to leave Poland. To this day I’m not sure if this came to me as epiphany or by gradual enlightenment, but I became aware that Poland had become something of a second home to me. The food was good, the people were generous and hospitable, I had people I considered my friends in five cities, I’d played ample hockey, I’d learned a substantial bit of the language—I’d even managed to find Ania, my Polish girlfriend. In conclusion, I was far, far too comfortable to consider myself any kind of hardcore Watson fellow. Something had to be done about this predicament. After getting some travel arrangements in order, only a few connection voyages between Poland, Belarus, and points south lay between me and resuming the great journey. So I got my visa and accommodation paperwork in order for Belarus and took a sidetrip to Poznan, Poland with Ania.

On this fateful trip I had what was only the first of many forms of hijinx or hooplah (read: adversity) this quarter. While in Poznan, I received a rather alarming email about the pending termination of my debit card due to “suspicious transactions.” I sent panicked emails to all applicable parties, but my pleas were largely ignored, since my card stopped working at ATMs the next day. Ania was also travelling on a budget, and though she subsidized my existence for a couple of days, the money ran out. We realized our collective destitution on the morning we were planning to return to Warszawa, at the train station. When Ania tried to withdraw money from the ATM for our tickets, it wouldn’t even give her a scant 20 zloty and kept making dreadful beeping noises and flashing bright “insufficient funds” screens at us. It was at that moment I realized we were screwed. With a whopping eight zloty of collected wealth, we went to the internet café and I had a tiny last resort idea, since I’d tried every conceivable pin code on my backup bank card (the pin for which I’d smartly forgotten). I tried the Polish train service’s website, and they’d just recently introduced online ticket purchasing. On a whim, I tried my card number, even though I didn’t have the physical object with me. I had melted it, cut it to pieces, and threw the pieces in five different trashcans out of frustration the previous day. Thanks to my mother’s capacity to remember important random numbers, which I mercifully inherited, I recalled my debit card number and hoped against hope I could buy a ticket online. For reasons that defied explanation, it worked. We got back to Warszawa with little incident, and in the process I discovered it’s a weird sort of rush to be stuck in a strange city in a foreign country with absolutely no accessible liquid assets to my name. Rush though it was, it wasn't something I especially want to repeat.

After a lovely few days with Ania's family, I headed to the wilds of Belarus. I don't think I could have possibly anticipated exactly how wild it would be, though. The border crossing was hijink-free, and my first impressions of Belarus were snow-covered and poorly lit. The first thing I noticed were how empty and spotlessly clean the streets of Brest were, even at 22:00 on a Saturday night. I found my hotel with relatively little incident and turned on the television just in time for the compulsory airing of the national anthem that begins and ends the broadcast day. This was only the first manifestation of the rampant nationalist propaganda which comprises about 55% of advertising in Belarus. Lukashenko's iron fist was glaringly apparent from the very first. The view from my room in Brest was so post-Soviet it hurt; a beautiful green orthodox church in the foreground and a looming, graceless hot water production station, smokestack and all, looming in the background. And it was still snowing. Though I had plenty of observations about Belarus in general and Brest in particular, they're lengthy and ill-suited for something of quarterly report length. The most succinct one I can recall with immediacy is the following:

This place is too entrenched in its old lifestyle to move truly forward, and too heavily invested in new things for the old, decayed vestiges to be objects of actual belief. And yet it's all still there: the statue of Lenin, the “glory to heroes” war monument, the red star on the front gate of the army depot, the nationalist billboards, the compulsory sign-off airing of the national anthem...it's like trying to make a complete, sensible, single image with pieces from three different puzzles. It's like Russia, only without as much bloodthirsty venture capitalism and an (un?)healthy dose of pre-Glasnost USSR. It's poverty-stricken, polluted, perplexing, and completely fascinating. (Journal, v.II, p. 65)

Needless to say with only a one-week visa, finding a hockey team wasn't even on the menu. But Belarus was easily the strangest and most compelling of any country on my journey so far, even though I only spent a week there. The perplexing contrast between Belarus' communist past, its dictatorial present, and its continuing efforts to compete in a capitalist market were even beyond my experiences in Moscow. Although I had to pay through the nose to go ($130 for the visa, 30 Euro/night in the cheapest hotel available), it was incredibly rewarding. At this point in the quarter, perhaps moreso than at any point prior, I realized that even though this trip is hockey-oriented, if I spend one hundred and twenty percent of my energies seeking available teams and thereby skip a destination simply because there's no hockey there, I'll miss out on really once-in-a-lifetime cultural experiences. Such was the case with Belarus. When I learned that I could only afford a week in Belarus, I considered not going since I wouldn't be...fulfilling the one-year plan, as it were. But now, especially considering recently depreciating diplomatic relations between the United States and Belarus, I realize I did the right thing. News indicates that Belarus is not an exceptionally safe place for Americans anymore, and the State Department is seriously considering moving Belarus from its “be careful” list to its “you can't go here without permission” list. No more than three weeks after I departed Minsk, news started coming in and I realized that it might be a very long time before things cool off, so I was ostensibly one of the last few American tourists in Belarus before things got bad.

What would seem to be my final return to Krakow (this year, at least) was built around the arrival of two friends from the states, Cris and Whitney. In my year of expatriation, I've gotten remarkably okay with being by myself in odd situations and just making friends as I go along. Cris and Whitney, however, reminded me that there are a substantial number of people back home who still miss and care about me. Though this reminder was helpful to have, it gave me the first tiny twinges of longing for home since my first baby steps in Prague, practically, with the exception of a couple of bad hair days. I was frankly a little worried I'd return to the US and be disillusioned with my surroundings and have some inverse culture shock. It could still happen, but the more I think about my “touchstones” from home, the things I think about from time to time (e.g. Dr. Pepper, Waffle House, and the million other small things that comprise my quaint southern sensibilities), the more I'm looking forward to going back home. But this feeling is likewise accompanied by an increasing sense of urgency here in Eastern Europe; with each passing day I become more aware of how little time I have left and the utter necessity of seeing and soaking in as much as I can in the time given me. I think it really hit home when I rescheduled my plane ticket. Last July I thought this year would be essentially interminable (in a good way). Now, however, I'm in an emotionally exalted state that lies somewhere between frantic desire to play more hockey and complete the rest of my itinerary in two months, nostalgia for everywhere I've been and everyone I've met, and a growing hunger for home.

After my final, final, final game in Krakow, hockey dried up. I returned to L'viv as a stopover on the way to Kiev to spend Ukrainian Easter with Ania's Polish relatives. It was great, although vodka with dinner (a Ukrainian staple) struck me as a little odd. The similarities Ukrainian Easter shares with Polish Christmas really surprised me. The cakey pre-meal good luck bread, the chicken in gelatin, and the soups were nearly identical to their Polish Christmas counterparts. I'd be curious to know if the Easter customs are different further east in Ukraine, since L'viv was once a Polish city. I suppose I'll just have to go back to Ukraine in the future and find out.

Kiev is a beautiful city; it's also the most expensive place I've been on this trip. The cheapest accommodation was twenty Euros per night, and though I'd been having an email dialog with a team, I chose the fiscally conservative route and moved on, since my daily expenditures in Kiev were approximately two and a half to three times my per diem.

Before my arrival in Bucharest this morning, my most recent stop had been Chisinau, Moldova, which I only planned as an intermittent stay. It's the poorest country in Europe, though life in the center of Chisinau is normal enough, with the chickens walking main sidestreets excepted. It gave the city a certain quirky charm. Though hockey was absent, I skated twice in the inflatable temporary dome rink and taught people how to stop, which was interesting since I didn't really know the correct Russian verbs. I gestured a lot and filled in the blanks with what Russian I could provide. I drew a little crowd, even. And now I'm in Bucharest, home of the first reliable internet I've had in weeks—hence the tardiness of the report. I have several emails in hockey limbo presently, so I'll hopefully have upcoming opportunities to play in Romania and then Bulgaria. In the meantime, I've started teaching myself Romanian and seeing the same regiment of museums and concerts to make the most of my time and maximize cultural absorption.

So how to sum up a quarter that has been an objective disappointment on the bases of my initial hockey-oriented goals? I summarize it thus: I knew going into the year that there would be more hockey some places than others. The season is winding down and now, as I head south, I'll have to reprioritize and seek roller hockey with stronger emphasis. Again, rule number one: flexibility is the key to a successful Watson year. Furthermore, though the hockey was lacking this quarter, the conversations and international bonds I've developed have continued to flourish. As mentioned, a maniacal focus on “the game and only the game” would cause me to miss a hoard of valuable cultural opportunities (e.g. Belarus, Ukrainian easter). So the disappointment...isn't, really.

With nine months gone, I am beginning to draw comparisons between who I was when I left and who I am now, analyzing what's changed and what's remained the same. For instance, I've shed a lot of my ideas of “necessary” amenity. The first time I had to stay up all night waiting for a train, to describe me as “irritated” would have been a grotesque understatement. By contrast, due to delays, cancellations, or simply to save money, I've done it seven times this quarter. I suppose from a different perspective, I've realized the patience, tolerance, and strength being alone in strange and inconvenient circumstances requires. Obviously I've acquired some things as well--not the least of which are my broadened Slavic language skills.

From a wider viewpoint, I've also acquired a deepened sense of pride for my origins and a more nuanced understanding of my role not just as a citizen of the world, but as a miniature American ambassador. I've never received as much vituperation for my nationality as I have this year, but under this intense international scrutiny I've acquired a deepened love for my country and the principles on which it was founded. Please don't read the above statement as some brand of rabid nationalism; in my interactions with people from all over the world, I've come to understand America's role in the international sphere in much greater detail. Finally, despite my language acquisitions, hockey/cultural adventures, and growing comprehension of my role not just as a traveler but as a potential future diplomat, these three quarters so far have shaped me into something approaching a completely self-reliant individual who can deal with most given circumstances, no matter how off-the-wall they may be. I suppose that's been an overarching personal goal for my proposal from the very beginning, but I don't think I could have ever thought far enough ahead to write it down as such from the inception of the Blades and Rails project. So through transit hassles, sickness, money problems, and hockey droughts, I'm still reaching, still learning about lands, peoples, and languages. And I know if I keep sending the emails, laying siege on the rinks and barging into the locker rooms, fortune will find me. In the meantime, I can't waste a moment. And on that note, I'll see you on the Mountain in July, because Bucharest beckons.

Best wishes and sincerest thanks to all involved.

Fond Regards,

Joshua Brandon Harris, V.9.MMVIII

Hel Week

2008-03-13T15:34:00.002+01:00

I'll preface this entry with something that isn't quite a correction, but something approaching it. Since the time of last writing, I've recieved a notification that I was perhaps misinformed about the nature of the bedroom fiasco. Let it be known that I was only relaying events as I heard and understood them, and since this isn't a court of law, heresay is plenty admissable. I would apologize to anyone who got their feelings hurt by my nigh-verbatim retelling of Bobby and Kellie's story, but the apologies frankly aren't mine to give. The story's considerably funnier as it stands, even if the firsthand storytellers might have been groggy and not seen things quite correctly through sleep-fog and insufficient light. So I suppose in summary I'm sorry for not being sorry. Now let's begin.

Hell Week.

This blog entry perhaps finds me at my happiest ever, but that's largely thanks to the enormous contrast between my present state of affairs and where I was a few days ago. I feel sorry for the staff here at Baltic Hostel; I must seem some kind of prodigal son to them. I tell them I'll be back in four days, I come back in five weeks. I tell them I'm going to Poznan for the day, and I end up staying three...though this time for reasons entirely beyond my control. We'll get to that dreadful adventure later, though. My attempted daytrip to Hel, Poland should've told me that any excursions I made during the subsequent week would be doomed. I'm sure it WAS a cold day in Hel, but I never got to find out. There are two ways of getting to the resort community on the peninsula: ferry and train. Trains don't run directly from Gdansk, so Ania, I, and her sister, Agnieszka, had to find alternative means. We got on the tram and headed for the new port. We trundled past kilometer upon kilometer of shipyards and factories and saw nothing resembling a passenger port...just the non-touristy face of a gritty port town. Then the tram got stuck in a series of traffic jams. The final jam, it turned out, wasn't a jam at all, but the final stop, the end of the line. We sat in the tram, waiting to go to something resembling a passenger port, and we were elated when we got moving again...it took me maybe three stops to figure out that we had just completed a loop and were headed back to the train station. So the week of transit nightmares began innocuously enough, with a lengthy tour of the Gdansk most foreigners wisely avoid.
From there we did some asking around and hopped on a train to Gdynia, from whence we could connect to Hel. Agnieszka was misinformed that we could buy tickets on the Hel Train (sounds an awful lot like Soul Train, doncha think?), and only after the doors closed and the train got moving did we ask the conductor, who said "absolutely not." I felt my heart in my throat as the ticket controller drew near--I didn't feel like paying a fine, even though I had the cash on me. So before we could recieve our hefty fine, we abandoned ship in a rainy, cold little smudge on the map called Reda. We bought tickets for the next Hel train. THEN we noticed it didn't come for another three hours and would take three more hours to get there. Combined with the return trip, we'd be back in Gdansk at...oh, you know...five am. This seemed unpalatable at best, so we went back the other way, past Gdynia, to Sopot, Poland's premiere seaside destination. I was cold as...Hel, because what I thought was going to be a pleasant little daytrip had become an all-day rainy chilly subarctic seabreeze festival. And there I was, in my hoodie. Only my hoodie. (Yes, pants too, of course, but no t-shirt). Every blast of wind elicited a curse in one of three languages. We ate delicious fish, but I was honestly a lot happier about the heat than the food. After wandering around the town center for a while, we decided to go back Danzigward. Then I saw a sign that changed my life. On the front side of the Sopot train station, there's a kebab restaurant. But it's no ordinary kebab restaurant; it is KEBABISTAN. It's like the missing link in the history of the stans, the missing tribe! An anthropological goldmine, I tell you! (The baklava wasn't bad, either.)

On a completely unrelated note, there's a town in Poland called Pszczółki PshchOOwki), which means "Little Bees" Maybe it's only funny to me.

But, oh, readers, this was only the beginning. We made a decision to go to Poznan the next day to see a Californian expat play a concert. Imagine a washed-up Mick Jagger (I know, seems redundant) who plays guitar pretty well but sometimes doesn't remember the words to his own songs. The concert was fine, but then things started going wrong. I tried every ATM in central Poznan, and each and every single one declined my card. After burning the number off my card, demagnetizing it, cutting it into tiny pieces and throwing it into eight different trashcans (what's funnier than a dead baby in a trashcan?), I began coming to terms with the fact that I was broke. Ania spotted me on meals and fun expenses and the like, and our lodging was taken care of. I tried to leave for Gdansk the next day, but there were no trains. We stayed an extra night, and Agnieszka headed back to Warszawa with her remaining money. Ania thought she had more money than she did, apparently, because every ATM in Poznan said "insufficient funds." So we were stuck in central Poznan with no percievable way to get back to our hostel, much less our respective cities, or even contact anyone (Ania and I both hate celphones with a passion...they're like little leashes). Since the hostel was in the middle of nowhere, we'd taken taxis to the center everyday. That was out of the question at this point. It was ten till eleven, and the last trams to ANYWHERE ran at eleven. I had ten minutes to pore over the public transit map and figure out how to get back. I did, with two minutes to spare. The next morning brought the harsh realization that we both had places to be and no way to get there. I had an ATM card for which I didn't remember the pin, Ania had no money, and we were ostensibly screwed. With a whopping combined wealth of four zloty and fifty-two grosz, we had little recourse. My last-ditch idea I suppose I owe to my mother, since I can't help but think that I got my memory for long important numbers from her. I recalled the number of the card I'd thrown away, and, given our circumstances, I thought it couldn't hurt to try buying the tickets online. So we spent the last of our collected resources on half an hour of internet time. Sixteen digits, a hell of a hurry, and probably a (mixed) miracle later, we had two e-tickets in hand and we were headed to Warszawa. It merits mention, though, that because the internet at this particular cafe was total crap, we had to reset the form several times, and apparently the one time I got the form to go through was the time I forgot to change the date from the eleventh (the default) to the tenth.

Since the Polish Train Service just introduced e-tickets the previous week, the controller looked at the thing like I had a hole in my head. He called his posse of fellow bureaucratic cogs over and they pored over it for a few minutes. They validated it, but he came back a few minutes later and said "come with me." Huhboy. I followed him and he said I had bad tickets, and there would be a 500 zloty fine ($215) if I couldn't buy new tickets like...right now. The tickets were for the wrong day, and while that wouldn't be a problem with a regular ticket, bureaucracy works in mysterious magical ways. I explained I had no money, no card, no phone, no ability to get funds...period. It was a good thing I put my ATM card elsewhere, because he insisted on rifling through my wallet. "So do you believe me now?" He then asked if my friend had any money.
"No."
"Does she have a card?"
"Yes, but there's no money on it."
"Does she have a celphone so she can call someone?"
"No"
"Does she at least speak Polish better than you do?"
"Yes!"
"Then go get her."
So I did, and then through more bureaucratic hocus-pocus and a friendly Pole who let us use his phone, we made a deal. I gave them my passport as collateral and we called Ania's stepmom, who was to meet us at the platform with the appropriate funds. From there, we could go to the information office and get a refund for the improper tickets. So, basically it was just a lot of hassle for no purpose. With no money and two hours' sleep to my credit, this was NOT my idea of a good time. But it all worked out. After a night in Warszawa, Ania's stepmom loaned me 200 zloty, just enough for the taxi ride to Warszawa Centralna, the train home, a night at my Gdansk hostel, dinner, and my trip to practice the next day. The good lord does provide. I will buy much flowers for that woman when I get the chance.

I arrived in Gdansk on Tuesday afternoon, just in time to go talk with my travel agent about my Belorussian visa. Everything was in the works, but it just seemed to be a continual source of annoyance for people that I had neither money nor celphone. She was very displeased when I told her I might not be able to pay her til Thursday. I told her I was sorry, but that was pretty much the way it was. Then it was time for my first practice in a month and change. The trainride to Gdynia was uneventful, and practice was great, considering how out of shape I thought I'd be. I kept up fine and even netted a couple goals in the scrimmage. I caught the night bus back to Gdynia Station in time for the 00:01 train to Gdansk. Since the primary intercity platform is under maintenance, I had to get on a platform that wasn't...really a platform. I waited, and at four minutes to midnight, the station announcer came on the loudspeaker and said something about "...no train...*crackle*...bus...thank you and sorry." The interstices were lost between train noises, crackles, and my far-from-complete understanding of the Polish language. So I wandered down and got a hamburger that was neither ham nor burger nor hamburger and took my seat close to the burger stand. I was still waiting there half an hour after I'd finished my burger. I was holding on to the vain hope that the 01:26 train would run, and the burger stand was the only place that was free of gutter zombies and the stench of sundry human discharges. Then came the police.
"So, what're you doing here exactly?"
"I'm waiting for my train."
"Most people wait for trains on platforms"
"But it's cold up there..."
"mmm-HMM. Well then, which train, son?" (said with extreme disbelief)
"The 01:26 to Gdansk"
The officers walked over to the schedule and looked. Sure enough, it said "Gdansk, 1:26".
"Okay son, as you were. Have a good night."
The train station is crawling with the living dead and the dead drunk, and they decide to pick on the only person without food in his beard. After killing a few more minutes, I went up to the Gdynia equivalent of platform 9 3/4 and waited a little more. The same voice came over the speaker and said more or less the same thing. I sighed and hauled my hockey bag and tired little butt down the stairs and back to the main station hall. I decided to check the bus station. Compared to the train station, the bus station is basically a new level of low at 1:30 am. The smell is indescribable and the people in corners and under things barely look human. I walked toward what I thought were the bus stands and instead ended up at the end of a hallway where a man was peeing and chugging vodka at the same time. The bus station was very. clearly. closed. For those of you who play video games, it was like Doom 3, only I had no BFG or chainsaw. For those of you who don't play video games, this is a pretty adequate synopsis of the above: you're in a poorly lit room and in perpetual fear of being attacked by things that don't seem quite human but probably were at one time. By this point I was trying to prepare myself for sleeping in the fetal position in my hockey bag, but I had a final recourse. I asked the public transit driver "so, where exactly do I get the bus to Gdansk?" He pointed me in the right direction, and, oh thank you Jesus, I made it back in one piece. I'd like to say that I've fulfilled my quota of transit woes for the year, but lying (even to oneself) is immoral and unadvisable.

Now I have money, I have my visa application turned in, and life's utterly and completely grand. I'm going to Belarus in five days, and I'll have my visa (and my final game in Gdynia) tomorrow. I won't be online much, and I'll need all the luck I can get in my first-ever totalitarian country! My first dictatorship! I'm getting all weepy...

Thanks for reading. Please comment, but remember that while constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, abuse will be deleted aggressively.

Back on top, baby.

J. Brandon Harris

The Great Baltic Cavalcade

2008-03-03T01:00:00.000+01:00

"Nie, nie...będzie jeszcze raz za cztery dni! Na czwartek, na pewno!" (No, no...I'll be back again in four days! On Thursday, for sure!" Those were my last words at Gdansk's Baltic Hostel--five weeks ago. Since I got no replies from any of the Baltic teams, I left my hockey equipment in Tomek's trustworthy care and packed off to see what these quirky, linguistically and culturally isolated little countries were all about. What I found were baffling languages, beautiful streets, and a fierce sense of cultural independence from the rest of Europe.

As I must've mentioned to you at some point, my Baltic odyssey began as a four-day foray to Lithuania. It ended up being a five-week conquest of all three Baltic countries (and Finland) which ended in a triumphant return to my second home, Krakow. Lithuania is fantastic and fantastically quirky. Vilnius is the only city in the world with a public monument to Frank Zappa (made by a former Party man who made busts of Lenin before the fall), who incidentally never even visited Lithuania. The KGB museum and prison was harrowing (and the best in the Baltics, since I went to all three), and Vilnius is just an extremely fun quirky little place. They have their own tongue-in-cheek breakaway republic, too. It's called Uzupis, and it's dedicated to the preservation of avant-garde artistic spirit. The republic issues its own passports, and even has its own parliament and constitution.

The whole extention process began when I started meeting all of these incredibly cool people. The first was Jay Saxon, a Princeton grad and experienced traveler from Birmingham, Alabama. We missed the same things about the south, and he was the first person on this side of the Atlantic to know what (much less where) Sewanee is. "So, wanna come to Riga with me?" I though about ten seconds and said "sure, why the hell not?" Along with us we dragged Anders, an amicable Norwegian merchant marine, and Jay and I took it as our personal responsibility to educate him on the finer points of American culture, from Waffle House to dirty sanchez (if you don't know what a dirty sanchez is already, you're better off not knowing. This is not a family blog, suffice to say). To be perfectly frank, most of his education took place on the dirty sanchez end of the spectrum. We even gave him a written quiz before we parted ways in Riga. (Unrelated: Take one shot vanilla vodka topped with cinnamon and an orange slice; shoot and then eat the orange slice. It tastes like apple pie.)

Riga was basically shit, though the hostel was partly to blame. Friendly Fun Frank's is stag party heaven, and sleep was basically out of the question unless you were very drunk or had a good set of earplugs. I mercifully had good earplugs. The visitors during our tenure there were almost exclusively Irish and British, and they were AMBITIOUS travelers, let me tell you. I'd come back in shortly after dark (mostly because I didn't feel safe in Riga long after dark), and these kids A) had just woken up and B) were already shitfaced. They were interested in what I'd done, but then one of them said "yeah, what's Riga like during the day? We haven't been out before eight pm..." I winced at this one, for the true traveler has the sense to get up early, see what's there, and then still have time and energy to go out, tie one on, and repeat the process the next day. These kids feel like they were having a Real Cultural Experience if they see something in a foreign country other than the inside of a bar. So anyway, the hostel was basically total crap, and the city wasn't much better. For instance, we thought we'd try some of the local cuisine and hit up this place called Hesburger, the Baltic regional fast food chain. I ordered the Hesburger Deluxe, which was like a Big Mac, only infinitely more disgusting. I unwrapped the thing and my hand was instantly coated in the half-gallon of special sauce they'd put on the horseburger. It got worse when I had to get more up close and personal with my patty to keep it from slipping out of the bun. The sandwich was extraordinarily lubricated. I wonder what was in that sauce, anyway? Perhaps that's one best left to the philosophers. Jay's next question: "so, y'wanna go to Tallinn?" I sent an email to my hostel in Gdansk (where my hockey bag still was), saying "I'll be back when I get back." in Polish. Then I said "yeah, why the hell not?"

Tallinn is fabulous. Its medieval center has been immaculately preserved, and the city's lively and cultured. The local museums were fairly consistent with the content of every other museum in prosperous medieval merchant towns I've yet seen, which seems fitting, since Tallinn's roots, like Gdansk's, are proto-Hanseatic. Perhaps the most amusing remnant of yesteryear's merchant culture is the Noble Order of Blackheads, a guild solely for unmarried merchants of all trades. It was basically like a frat, only even more directly connected to greed and debauchery than its contemporary fraternal counterparts (as a Greek myself, I say this with my tongue far, far in my cheek).

Tallinn also brought the first of several complications to my love life. Before getting into the complications in my love life and the incredibly bizarre assortment of winegums who stumbled around in this little Estonian Haight-Ashbury, a little background on Tallinn Backpackers' Hostel would behoove the reader. The place is essentially a commune; half of the employees are locals who work on volunteer basis in exchange for beer and a bed. The hostel culture this fosters is unprofessional at best, but also extremely amicable and comfortable. At all hours of the day you can find people (employees and otherwise) sprawled on the couches in the dim common room either watching angsty films, passed out, or in some state of inebriation. Though a flop house, it was a lovable flop house.

My first close encounter of the...err...*insert adjective here* kind was with Daniel, a Tallinn native who was staying in the hostel because he'd run away from home. He prattled on about terrible fantasy novels for several minutes before turning to me and saying "so, tell me friend, how old you think I am?" Though I thought to myself he acted 14, he had a beard and dressed the part of the twentysomething hasn't-grown-out-of-his-punk-phase-yet unemployee, so I guessed "21." This was apparently the nicest thing anyone had said to him in a long time; his face lit up and he said "no, my friend, you are wrong. I...am sixteen." He proceeded to regale me with some macho drinking anecdotes and a story too angsty and uninteresting to recount here, and when I had enough, I thought I'd see if I could learn something interesting from him. Boy did I ever. I asked him: "So, were you here for the Tallinn riots?"

"Oh, not only was I here, my friend. I have a story for you. First of all, do you know what LARP is?"
(It is the sincere opinion of the author that LARPing is one of the lamest things a person can do. Basically it's like Society for Creative Anachronism stripped of all skill and credibility. People get dressed up in armor and fight each other with foam swords and cast imaginary spells on each other. Now that the reader is informed, we'll continue.)
"err...you mean live action role playing?"
"very good, my friend. Well, my friends and I are all very excited by LARP, so when we heard there were fights in street, ten of us dressed up in our chainmail and got our swords--REAL ones, you understand--and we went out into the city and started breaking things."
By this point I was uncomfortable.
"Then we saw some faggot in pink pants standing in front of Tallinn's gay club. We chased him away and then went inside and broke EVERYTHING and then drank all the liquor they had, even though they only had bacardi breezers."
By this point I was speechless.
"Then we went and robbed three kiosks, went home, and got drunk. It was one of the coolest nights of my life."
Picking my jaw up off the floor would have required finding it. I think it was under the couch somewhere. Jay pulled me away just in time, though; he said:
"okay, man, you coming or what?"
"Yeah, just a sec."
But Daniel wasn't done talking yet, so I cut him short and said "hey, I'd love to talk, but my boi (colloquial American sense) is waiting for me."
His expression changed to horror. "But you seem so cool. Are you telling me you're...one of those?"
I untangled what had just happened and decided he'd misconstrued "boi."
"No, man, I'm hetero."
He took this for its opposite.
"Well me, I'm more traditional man. I fucking hate gays."
I explained the difference between homo and hetero, and hurried to catch up with Jay, inexplicably telling Daniel to "be sure to enjoy his self-fashioned Disneyland of hatred..." I'm still not sure where that one came from.
Mercifully Daniel didn't live there. Laura, however, did, and she provided another curious little episode on this massive cavalcade across the frozen north. It all began when I noticed she was cute and interesting (and eighteen, but that's certainly more a demerit than anything), which led to me making excuses to sit next to her, talking to her, things like that. Long story g-rated, things were going swimmingly and I introduced her to Dr. Pepper in the BIG TEXAS restaurant in Tallinn. She introduced me to all her friends, showed me the town, things of that nature, and then she started completely ignoring me. I was more perplexed than upset, to be frank, because as soon as her interest waned, her best friend, Egle's, interest picked up. We had a Fiona Apple sing-a-long in the snowy streets of Tallinn and when four AM rolled around, she invited me to go back to her apartment with her buddies. Nothing untoward occurred, but I returned to the hostel in the morning to find my dormmates livid about the preceding night's events. Laura had stumbled in with two scotsmen at about five AM loud and blind drunk. She proceeded to make out with the Scottish dudes (yes, both of them) on my bed. So though I wasn't upset about Laura's disenfranchisement with me, I sure as hell would have been if she'd crashed in my room blitzed to have her way with two scotsmen. Bobby, an Australian, began to throw whatever was in easy reach at the amorous young'ns (God bless him, more about Bobby soon). This inventory included, based on the things on the bed the next morning, four pairs of socks, a boot, and a matryoshka doll. Laura left alright, but she said "let's go somewhere else and do something we'll regret!" And I suppose they did. My hat is off to them. Laura's interest magically returned the next day, when the Scots left. When she was asking if I was mad at her, I just answered "more amused than anything, really. Call me when you grow up."
The exclamation mark on this boisterous little triangle came on my final night in Tallinn, though. I was cuddled up with Egle (the best friend) on the common room couch at a VERY strange hour of the morning (like, seven, and I'd been up all night), and life was grand until she asked me what time it was. "Oh, it's 7:30." "Shit! I have to go to high school!"

The moral of the story, quoth both Aesop and Confucius, is that eighteen-year-olds are eighteen for a reason.

The next in the train of interesting and awesome folks I met was Bobby, an eighteen-year-old Persian-Australian who was loud, immature, annoying, and, due to his boundless energy, generosity, and ability to cook badass basmati rice, was also inescabably lovable. There are a lot of little mini-anecdotes I could tell you about Bobby, but I'll cut to a couple of really good ones.

It was Friday, which means, logically, it was time to blade about the town. Watching Bobby work his magic with women is amazing, because he is totally willing to look like an absolute idiot to get a girl's attention. The terrifying thing: it works. He was trying to talk to some Russian girls at Nimeta Baar (bar without a name), and he ran into a big ol' fat wall when he learned that they didn't speak a word of English. Now, when he came over to ask me to do some on-the-fly translation work, I thought he might have been subtly trying to give me an edge with these ladies. But here's how it worked. I introduced myself and Bobby, and I ask Bobby what he wanted to say.

"Ask her if she thinks I'm handsome."

This is Bobby.

His speaking volume in public places also defied rational belief. We were in the supermarket shopping for the evening's curry, and he was saying things like "Josh! JOSH! We need a lemon! Where can we find a lemon, a BIG, JUICY one?"
Me, much quieter: "we're in the produce section, Bobby, it shouldn't be difficult."
After shopping with me for five minutes, we had between four and six dishevelled gutter-zombies following us, hands extended. I used my elite-level ditching skills to put as much aesthetic distance between Bobby and me as quickly and efficiently as I could. I could still hear him several minutes later from the other side of the store "JOSH! JOSH! Where the hell are you? These guys are WEIRD!" Indeed they were, and indeed two of them were still tailing me through the supermarket. I mean, there was no real danger. It was the middle of the day in a nice supermarket, so I really couldn't help but chuckle when we got through checkout and watched the security kindly escort all of the scruffy smelly gentlemen from the premesis. I was livid at Bobby, however, especially when he said "Josh, you look pissed off. What's the matter?" After giving my companion a ten-minute lecture on rule number one of travelling (DO NOT DRAW UNNECESSARY ATTENTION TO YOURSELF UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES), he apologized, and I patted him on the head. It's his first time out of Australia, after all.

Bobby and I went to Helsinki together for a daytrip. It was remarkable how unremarkable Helsinki was. My impressions were that the city was materially self-obsessed and chronically drunk, though terminally overpriced. We were dying for food and ate at the European analogue of CiCi's Pizza: Rax Super Pizza Hall. All you can eat for 7 Euro? Count me in. There wasn't a great deal to see, since it was Sunday and all, and perhaps this is just me speaking after seven months in Central and Eastern Europe, but I found it incredibly off-putting how sterile, clean and organized Helsinki was. Not whirling in some degree of chaos made me really uncomfortable. This said, I suppose have no idea what I'm going to do when I get back to the States.
Though Helsinki wasn't much to write home about, the ferry certainly was. The Nordstar is a nine-story extravaganza of streamlined European capitalism. Maybe it was the eight onboard duty-free stores that make me say so, maybe it was the wide assortment of overpriced restaurants, maybe it was the four nightclubs...but it was overwhelming--a tiny Vegas on the water that would put any Tunica boat to utter shame.
But I digress slightly. Bobby was a central character for almost two weeks, and he required an immense supporting cast to keep him toned down within reason. This crowd included Tim, an Englishman who approached Bobby with the relentless love and violence of an older brother. Tim and I had lots of arguments about history, the worst of which involved a very drunk Tim telling me as the concluding point of a argument on WWII: "THE FRENCH HAD MORE BALLS IN WWII THAN THE AMERICANS HAD, HAVE, OR EVER WILL HAVE!" At that point I realized the vestiges of fact-based argument had been supplanted with the fertile grounds for an international name-calling derby. I wasn't biting. I finished my beer and said "see you at the hostel." He apologized profusely the next day, and again, it was more amusing than anything. Tim, however, remained in Tallinn.
Edo came with us...back to Riga. Edo was a Dutchman with brilliant English skills who shared my penchant for long insufferable saunas in the Tallinn hostel. There aren't any specific stories about him, but he was a great traveling companion, and my hat is off to him. My second visit to Riga was considerably better than my first, partly because of the company, partly because of the hostel, partly because I always love showing people around a city.
Tom was another Aussie we found in Riga, and he, like Bobby, was headed to Krakow after a planned daytrip in Vilnius. Like any dutiful przewodnik with a longing for Krakow in his heart, I agreed to show the boys around Vilnius and Krakow. At this point I figured I'd been gone from Gdansk for three weeks; what difference would four or five days make?

Vilnius was fine. The bus ride from Vilnius to Warszawa, however, was not. We sat in the back, and the bus had no shock absorbers to speak of. It was so bad in some places that we'd fly two feet out of our seats and hit our heads on the ceiling. Bobby was 6'5"; I felt especially bad for him. Once the road calmed down, Bobby slept on the floor, I on the bench seat above him. Unfortunately the calm part of the road didn't last long; I was thrown up, bounced off the rear cushion, and landed on Bobby; all I could hear was a muffled "get...off...me!" from beneath. The worst moment, however, came when I discovered, much to the dismay of my aching bladder, that the bathroom on the bus was locked and the driver wasn't willing to fork over the key. This called for improvisation.

As I began peeing into the massive water bottle, everything was fine. Then we hit a rough patch, and though I tried my damnedest to stay...attached...to the bottle, I failed and splashed the inside of the bus window and the adjacent seat cushion with urine. This made it considerably more awkward at border control, where they scrutinized my passport for a solid ten minutes. They must've wondered what an American was doing in Lithuania smelling of urine. They told me my paperwork wasn't in order, and I was pleasantly surprised when they just told me to be careful instead of soliciting a bribe. Still not sure what was wrong with my papers. I mean, granted, I've technically overstayed my welcome in the Shengin Pact bloc, but nothing in my passport can really prove that, now that they've abolished the majority of border control.

I was beside myself to be back-ow in Krakow, and I really think I imparted upon Bobby and Tom just how unconscionably awesome the town is. Bobby, Tom and I went our separate ways, but then another strange thing happened. I met a girl. Her name's Ania, and she's sweet as hell, loves scrabble, spicy food, writing, reading and has big green eyes and the dearest little round face. She and her Polish posse were in Krakow for a few days on a little respite from Warszawa's concrete jungle. She invited me to see her in Warszawa, and I was under the mistaken assumption that she lived with her sister in some kind of student housing. She lives with the folks, and her dad was a higher-up in the Polish Navy for many years and now works for the defense department. He's pretty much the traditional stern army dad: if he likes you, he likes you a lot. If he dislikes you, you worry about whether or not you'll wake up the next morning. He likes me a lot. It was a lovely few days, and we saw a good Polish rock concert and hit up an awful romantic comedy (my first in another language, and I'm STILL completely unimpressed with the genre.) The movie was called Lejdis...the phoneticized Polish of ladies. It was basically what would happen if you took one part "Sisters" (for those of you who still remember the 1994ish series), five parts "Sex and the City," took away any vestiges of plot and made it wholly terrible.

From there I went back to Gdansk.

And here I am, back in Danzig visa purgatory, reunited with all my stuff, untouched as it is. I was really amazed how much I enjoyed travelling for a month with two t-shirts and two pairs of pants. Aside of not missing the extra 80-odd pounds that came with the rest of my luggage, I really was happy knowing that everything I minded losing was on my person at all times. If this trip has done anything, it's made me incredibly detached from my material possessions and hopefully in the long-term, more connected to the interpersonal connections that comprise the really important things in life.

In other news, Tomek wasn't even mad about my absence; I just got a few good-natured kurwy thrown my way. I'm sure, however, that the two bottles of vodka I brought him in thanks eased any tensions that might've existed beforehand.

So...life's rad. I'll try to take less than a month and a half to write next time, for sure. If Belarus is coming up, I'm sure I'll have some adventures from hell to send your way. Please keep reading and bear with me, even though my entries are sporadic at best.

Wszystko dobrego.

J. Brandon Harris

Second Quarter Summary

2008-01-28T15:11:00.000+01:00

I submitted the following to the Watson Foundation today; peruse as you will :-)

Dear Foundation Members, Fellows, Colleagues, and Parties Yet Unknown:

It saddens me to mention that my calendar year abroad will be one-half complete in two days. My second quarter has been a rollercoaster ride, a series of inconveniences, scary moments, bizarre encounters, and triumphs. Though my hockey possibilities have blossomed into dizzying profusion, the cultural experiences in the past quarter (hockey-connected and otherwise) have proven far more influential on my year so far. Here's a brief summary of my activities.

When I last wrote you, I had every intent of leaving Poland for Kaliningrad, the Baltics, and parts unknown. At the time of my previous report, however, I couldn't've possibly anticipated the kindness and generosity of the Polish people. After my fruitless scouting trip to Ukraine, I returned to Warszawa discouraged. The hostel had no room for me and I was in dire straits; I took a gamble and called a chance Warszawian acquaintance who'd offered me accommodation weeks prior in a smoky Krakow bar. The week that ensued dashed my negative initial impressions of the Polish capital against the rocks; Pawel Godlewski showed me the side of Warszawa that the tourists don't see: the side with a vibrant cultural event happening every night and loads of friendly people who aren't perpetually in a hurry. I spent my time there brushing up on my Polish slang, going to cultural festivals of all sorts, and speaking snatches of Russian with Pawel's female friends, who were enrolled in the Russian language master's program at the local university. I cooked a delicious Thanksgiving dinner for the whole crew and got them in on American holiday tradition.

I was just starting to get a little tired of Warszawa when I received an unexpected email from my team in Krakow: they'd entered an upcoming tournament and wanted me to play for them, if I were still in Poland. Though the tournament itself wasn't much to write home about, it opened a door to A) a much longer stay in Poland and B) perhaps the most rewarding experiences of my trip so far. I extended my Krakow stay because I was waiting to go home to Biskupice with my friend Pawel (Janik, not Godlewski). He and his family thought it would be a shame for me to be alone on Christmas, so he extended me an invitation to a traditional Polish Christmas extravaganza in his home. Though my family has its own traditions (snack food all day, cinnamon buns for breakfast), my holiday at the Janik household was something altogether different and extremely special. For a few days, I was a part of traditions that Poles have observed for hundreds of years, from the exchange of wishes and strictly-fish dinner on Christmas Eve to the Christmas Day twelve-course meal and drinkstravaganza. Said drinkstravaganza featured maybe a little too much of Mr. Janik's delicious homemade strawberry rocket fuel. Aside from the warmth and companionship I found in the Janik household, my best Christmas present involved fulfilling one of the goals on the master checklist I wrote at the beginning of the year: I got to play hockey on a lake as the sun set in the distance. I've been trying to send you pictures for basically forever, but hostel internet is unreliable at best, nonexistent at worst.

I went to Gdansk from Biskupice, and after I shrugged aside my cat-related allergy woes (the Janiks had three cats), I began to search out teams. It bears mention that at this point my Polish, though far from fluent, is completely functional. I sent emails in readable Polish to four teams in the area, and I got multiple positive responses. I was elated to actually have the ability to choose a team. One team was a bunch of showboating jerks who weren't nearly good enough to justify the bloodthirsty seriousness with which they approached the game. Another team was extremely disorganized and unfriendly. The team I've stayed with the longest on the trip so far, though (Gdynski Klub Hokejowy), has provided the most rewarding hockey games yet. They actually have organized tri-weekly practices and they scrimmage twice a week. Playing five times a week sounded like my idea of a good time. I made a big impact, and their captain asked if I'd be interested in staying on to play with them for the rest of the season. I was so enthusiastic I even emailed Watson central to notify them of my quandry and potential change in plans. Only recently did I find out, however, that it's not totally up to the GKH if I get to play. The league has a governing body that has to approve my place on the team. The league requires papers saying that you've never played professionally, and since my league in the US provided no such documentation, my chances are nonexistent. It came as something of a blow, but it's at least helped me reprioritize. Now I'm in the Baltics, where the hockey has been all but absent, but I'll go and reseat myself in Gdansk until my visas for Kaliningrad and Belarus come through.

I realize I've waffled a bit about whether or not I can go to Kaliningrad, but one of the most bizarre moments in my trip came after one of my hockey games in Gdansk. Two of my teammates are Kaliningraders of unusual background. They drive VERY nice cars, curse incessantly, and were so happy I spoke Russian that they took me and my Russo-Polish teammate to dinner at a four-star restaurant after scrimmage one night. I was curious what they did to put them in such comfortable financial standing, so I asked Sergei “so what do you do?” He and his friend had a healthy chortle and then there was a long pause. Sergei's friend, Erik, answered for him “Sergei is...a businessman.” Between that and their assertion that they had “friends who would be more than happy to help me” at the Russian consulate, I couldn't help but think, upon leaving, that I'd just had dinner with the Russian mafia.

The quarter had its share of mishaps too, unfortunately. Two near-miss muggings in Krakow put me on my toes, and the admittedly peaceful robbery in Gdansk's old town proved that walking on the street anywhere is just a roll of the dice. The robbery itself was nowhere near as irritating as the subsequent difficulties I had retrieving my luggage from the train station--before the thugs who took my locker key got there first. Strength comes through adversity, though, so I took the chance to use my Polish in a series of stressed phone calls with the luggage bureau. A few days and approximately 200 zloty later, I had my luggage back just in time for my first scrimmage with GKH. I think it may have been the only time I've ever enjoyed carrying my bag. Ultimately there are good and bad people everywhere, and sometimes no amount of careful planning and awareness can save you from a seedy situation. Managing the aftermath is decidedly the line between novice travelers and more advanced ones. For instance, unlike a gentleman I met in a hostel who wouldn't go out because he was afraid of getting beaten by Russians, I haven't let these little patches of scariness compromise my resolve.

Hence since Gdansk I've headed for points north, namely Vilnius and Trakai, Lithuania, Riga, Latvia, and I'm presently writing you from Tallinn, Estonia, at the end of my Baltic Segue. Though hockey connections have been sparse, the languages and cultures here are so quirky and isolated from the rest of Europe that I'm staying a little longer in the region before returning to Gdansk; I want to get more than just a cursory idea of what's happening in these fascinating places. To substantiate, though sandwiched between major hockey powers (Russia and the Scandinavian countries), the Baltic nations even express their eccentricity through their choices of national sports. Lithuanians play and watch basketball like madmen. Hence every Lithuanian student who tried to start a conversation about the NBA immediately ran into a roadblock of my ignorance on the subject of hoops. From my time in Riga, I've determined that the unofficial Latvian national sport must be organized crime. Estonia, finally and perhaps most bizarrely, boasts extraordinary skill in the field of table football. I'm not terrible myself, but I can't begin to enumerate the times Estonians have destroyed me at foosball.

My flexibility and adaptability continue to grow and flourish. I had no intention whatsoever of spending so long in Poland, but the longer I was there, the more I felt I had to learn before I was satisfied. I suppose I've been that way since I was small; I'd research whatever interested me at the time until I found out what I wanted to know. Having such a massive research/play ground to indulge my curiosities has been immensely rewarding, and my ability to keep my itinerary flexible has yielded some amazing experiences that would have been otherwise impossible. The longer this trip has gone on, the more I've learned to follow my instincts, and not just about where I'm going to find fruitful hockey options, but about people, places, and situations of all shapes and sizes. So while my second quarter has yielded some great games, some great friends, and a whole new pack of language skills and cultural knowledge, I can't really word a lot what I've learned. Traveling is just like any other undertaking in life; you meet good and bad people, and even though you evolve and adapt to circumstances as they present themselves, perhaps the most important thing of all is maintaining a stable core. I've tried to keep in touch with my roots while immersing myself in my surroundings as thoroughly as possible. One really trivial example illustrates my point very well: I met a group of Estonian students who took me for a really nice meal of all the national favorite foods. In return, I took them to the only place I've seen in in this part of the world so far that sells Dr. Pepper. They'd never had it, and I thought that a terrible shame. On the surface, it was a fairly unimportant exchange, but the small things we exchange with others add up. And as we learn from each other, we grow together and perhaps bridge the gaps between individuals and nations. Our Dr. Pepper festival began a lively and fruitful discussion about Estonian culture, international politics and the ideas of America. I won't be so presumptuous to say that I changed anyone's mind about my country, but I planted a seed, and maybe someday, with a little nurturing and positive interaction, that seed will grow into something great.

Whether in rink, locker room, hostel, or bar, I have so much to learn from everyone I meet. Last quarter I was so concerned with finding a team that I'm sure I must have missed some really fabulous opportunities along the way. Now that the hockey's coming easily, though, I've been filling the interstices learning how different we are, and, more importantly, learning how much we all have in common. It's my sincere intention for this all not to sound...fruity. It bears mention, though, that I'm continually amazed, because that even beyond the uniting power of sport that I mentioned in my initial application and last report, there's something even deeper: the simple fact that there's always something to discuss, something to learn from others. It just takes some words in another language, some mutual patience, and a healthy dose of goodwill.

With fond regards and sincere thanks to all involved,

Josh Harris

28.I.MMVIII

P.S. Pictures are forthcoming; I PROMISE.

An Uninspired Title for a Blog Entry Far Too Long to Summarize

2008-01-10T02:51:00.000+01:00

This is the longest blog entry ever; consider yourself warned. Read it in doses if you must. The chronology jumps when necessary, but substories are presented in their entirety so as not to dash continuity against the rocks--just keep in mind that, especially when dealing with luggage issues &c., other things were happening at the time. The episodic format favors the narrative, so please bear with it.

I've been extremely busy and happy since my last blog entry. Perhaps the cultural highlight of my trip so far has been my incredible Christmas with the Janik family. They welcomed me into their home with a generosity and openness that I can neither express nor adequately repay. Pawel's village of Biskupice is five hours' trainride from Krakow, and the journey was pleasant, even, since I had a handy porter for some of my luggage :-P. We changed trains in Katowice, and ate at a restaurant that can only be described as a hellmouth. It was lit by a single sodium lamp, and the roof leaked into my soup a couple of times. It was charming, and the pictures look like an Edward Hopper painting. Nighthawks meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I had some goulash with some incomprehensible and mysterious meat. Somehow "cat goulash" has a nice ring to it. Bums stumbled around our table in various states of intoxication and disarray. If the restaurant were in the American South, it would have been the scene for a Carson McCullars story (Balada Smutnego Kafe?). But I digress.

The holiday began with a big hug from Pani Janik, a refrigerator raid for tasty sausage, and an immediate excursion to hang out with Pawel's rowdy friends. Now, Biskupice is a very, very small town (900 people), so, just like in Batesville, you have to make your own fun sometimes. Our fun the first night consisted of throwing rocks at walls, cannonballing cheap champagne, and generally enjoying each others' company. The following day was Christmas Eve, which for Polish Catholics means no meat. No meat means fish. Eastern Europeans have bizarre penchants for icthyoids, and I made sure to keep a running tally of the foods I tried that I might not have on my own turf. I'll preface this by mentioning that ALL the food was good, even the things that struck me as...odd. Though not exclusively from Christmas Eve fare, see how these strike your mind's tongue (a potentially gross analogy):
1) Pickled herring wrapped around a pickle wedge
2) Fried carp
3) Mackerel paste
4) Zurek, a soup made from moldy rye bread
5) A chicken soup-like substance suspended in gelatin instead of broth

The fish dinner was preceded by the formal exchange of wishes with special Polish wish bread, which bore a remarkable resemblance to communion wafer. Christmas eve was a time for rest and reflection, and we shared gifts. I got two Krakow t-shirts and a Polish hip-hop CD (yes, I know, shut up).

The twelve-course meal on Christmas day was enormous and delicious. Two soups, two meats, four kinds of salads, two kinds of cabbage, and then polished off with almond-poppyseed cake and some of Pan Janik's homemade strawberry-flavored rocket fuel. I haven't eaten that much in months upon months. Christmas night consisted of going back out with the gang. All six of us piled into the Trabant and drove around, as you do in a small town, and we ended up taking turns holding on to the roof rack as we barrelled down a dirt road. Then we walked on the lake. It was grand.

More amazing times on the lake were to be had the day after Christmas, when Pawel gave me a Christmas present I could never have expected. He said "get your stick and skates" I decided against asking questions and said "okay." Fifteen minutes later we were back on the lake, and I was putting my skates on this time. Playing hockey outdoors, without boards or boundaries, absolutely must be the most exhilirating feeling ever. It's just freedom: the wind on your face, the frozen lake grass visible just inches beneath you, the setting sun in the distance that looks as though if you skated across the lake, you could touch it and hold it with your two hands...but it's still a pain in the ass when you miss the puck and have to skate a third of a kilometer to get the damn thing.

It bears mention that the Janik family has three cats: Julian, Mishka, and Burek. Burek was by far the coolest; he was enormous, hid in dark corners, and snuck onto the kitchen counter to eat leftovers whenever he could. The family dog, Sznappy, was extraordinarily awesome and full of energy. I'm not here to tell you about the dog, though. I'm here to tell you about the cumulative effects of cats on my respiratory system. I have an asthmatic allergic reaction to cats, and after three days, I was utterly miserable. In the process of bidding the Janik family a fond farewell, I noticed how miserable I was just going up the house's main staircase-- without my luggage. I could scarcely imagine hauling my things for not one but two train changes. It was simply a matter of necessity, though, so I bore with it. Now I have another train story, though it's not nearly as embarrassing as my last. I've been on the road for over five months now, and I pride myself on doing an adequate job of, if not fitting in, at least not getting in anyone's way. I broke that streak on the train and finally pretended that I just didn't get it. Polish (PKP) trains are outfitted with large luggage cars at the beginning and end of the train. My particular train, however, had a staff lounge instead of the large baggage cart at the end. I started to put down my luggage in the large room when a PKP ice queen asked "a co pan robi?" (what is the gentleman doing?). I thought about answering that I was putting my luggage down, but instead just said "slucham?" (I'm sorry?). I was ashamed of playing the "DUMB" card, but considering my pulmonary state, I decided I'd let someone else be inconvenienced for once. She proceeded to explain that I needed to go to the other end of the train. I understood her perfectly and nodded and smiled a lot, but in the end just took the nearest available seat in the adjacent car. My luggage took the seat next to me. The train went from empty to full very, very quickly, and people were going to get the same employee and yelling about my bag and how it was taking up valuable space for unimportant things like children and husbands. I simply did not care, no matter how much she yelled at me. I gasped for breath, pretended to be asleep, and smiled and nodded in the interstices until she left me alone, though I certainly noticed when she switched from the formal to the informal manner of address. Not my proudest moment, but it was a matter of self-preservation. I felt like switching ends of the train via the platform, as the lady suggested, would not only have caused the train to leave without me, but also to be rolling the dice with my health. Changing trains in Poznan was bad enough, and I didn't want to add ANY unnecessary steps.

Upon arrival at Gdansk Glowny, I chucked my hockey bag into short-term storage at the station and proceeded to Baltic Hostel, which I found in short order, and immediately had to adapt to a new hostel environment: upon my arrival, instead of seeing the smoky common room full of young faces I'm used to, I saw a smoky common room with a bunch of people who'd obviously been there a while. None of them were under forty. None of them spoke English. On first impression, it seemed like walking into a John Waters movie with Polish subtitles. To their credit, though, they're all dears in their own way. You have Artur, the bizarre fortysomething who spends hours a day on the internet looking for a woman. No one knows what he does to make money, where he's from, or any other details that ultimately prove trivial in la vie hostel. There's Fredek, who moments after meeting me wanted to sell me a really nice silk new blazer that he just had lying around. It was too big, and what the hell would I do with another blazer anyway? No matter what time of day it is, he's always encouraging me to eat, "or else you won't grow." There's the slightly-less-likeable and trustworthy Marek, who doesn't have to wear a "ask me about my grandkids" t-shirt, because chances are pretty good that he will anyway. And if he thinks you didn't get all of it, he'll tell you again. And again. And again. I suppose the quantity of vodka the man drinks would do that to anyone. Presiding over it all is Tomek, a man who might be a better fit for times where there were Teutonic knights and crusades and legitimate excuses for chopping people in half with swords. He's a jolly Polish man with an enormous moustache, twinkling eyes, and a jolly Polish belly to match. He makes a different soup every night, and when the hostel guests are being too loud, he produces a great axe from behind the couch and jokingly (or maybe not) brandishes it at the offending parties. All that's missing is the morbidly obese woman-child in a playpen demanding her eggs (see Pink Flamingos).

I went straight to bed; this was far too much input to handle. My recovery from my catass lung nightmare redux continued the next day, when I didn't bring myself out of bed til just before the sun set. I wandered toward the center and discovered that Gdansk is staggeringly beautiful. Though it was bombed into heaps of dirt and rubble in WWII, the center of Gdansk has been restored in all its Dutch Renaissance glory. I meandered along the canals and the long market, but, not knowing where the safe places were and weren't, I returned to the hostel before ten. A pair of new guests had checked in to my room, and to my dismay, one of them had sleep apnea. The room was a tumult of snoring until he just...stopped breathing. Just as I'd drift off, it'd start up again. This went on for several hours, and he finally rolled over, which solved the problem. As I was resigning myself to sweet rest at last, however, a troupe of Slovenian college kids trundled in fresh off the train (it was 5:00). I sat bolt upright in bed and mumbled unrepeatable things in four languages. The day had begun.

Though sleep-deprived, I decided not to be bitter and sieze the day. I got a pre-dawn kebab (perhaps the best kind) and hit the town center just in time for sunrise. The pictures were good, but hardly an adequate representation of the crisp morning. As quickly as I discovered the beauty of Gdansk's center, I discovered that, like most port cities, it gets seedy quickly. In America, you have gang violence. In Poland, you have soccer hooliganism, which is basically the same thing, only better-organized, more condoned, and on a larger scale. Tagging and shoe displays are universal, though, so when I saw the Reeboks slung over the telephone wire, my first thought was not "hey! free shoes!," but "get me the hell out of Dodge." Needless to say I've stuck to well-lit and populated thoroughfares. This didn't help me too much on one occasion, as you'll see.

After the sleepless night and the gorgeous dawn, I'd seen all there was to see in the city center by 9:30. Let's go to the beach. Now, Gdansk is a city by the sea in the loosest sense of the word. The shore is about five kilometers from most of the residential areas, largely due to port pollution concerns. I have a general philosophy: when I'm in a new city, I avoid public transit for the first few days so I can get a real feel for the city plan and the logistics, and not just zip blissfully from place to place. More often than not, this means I walk absurd distances for my first couple of days in a city. And so I did. I walked 16 kilometers my first day, all the way to Westerplatte, the first site of Nazi invasion in WWII. On the way, I found an outdoor market which sold everything from hand-knit clothes to used underwear to half a guitar to hardcore pornography. I crossed over the Pope John Paul II bridge and down a long stretch of barren road surrounded on both sides by freight tracks and intimidating industrial sites. The beach, however, was charming--and covered in frost. As a southern boy, I found something intrinsically novel about frost on a beach. The pictures will be up someday.

Things got pear-shaped on my second night. My hockey gear was still in its railway station locker. I knew I'd have to pay an additional eight zloty ($3) for keeping it there an extra day, but that didn't seem so bad. I was walking around not far from the center of town, and I noticed I was being followed by three imposing-looking youths. They were gaining on me. I looked for a cozy pub or supermarket or person I could walk with or anything at all, but none availed itself in time. In an admirably-executed maneuver, one guy passed me and blocked me, and the other two steered me into an alleyway. I'm not sure why I didn't panic--it was more of a forehead-smacking "DAMMIT" moment. They wanted my money. I just had what was in my pockets, which was 50 zloty, or about $20. Far more important is what was NOT in my pockets: I didn't have my passport, my credit card, my camera, or else anything of particular value. They were sure I had more than 50 zloty, though, so they said "pockets." I turned them inside out, and lo and behold, there was no more money, but out popped the key to my locker at the station. "That too." I shook my head, handed it over, and told them to enjoy themselves. They walked away chuckling, and I walked away grateful that I wasn't carrying anymore than I was and that they just wanted some beer money through illegal means.

I was NOT grateful, however, for the inconvenience my dispossessed key caused me. Further research indicated that the storage lockers required an initial payment of 8zl for twenty-four hours' use. The subsequent twenty-four hours would incur an additional payment of 32zl, and for every twelve hours after forty-eight, an additional 32zl would be added to the total. After 72 hours, the company forcibly removes your baggage from the locker and deports it to Katowice (the above-mentioned hellmouth), a 12-hour trainride from Gdansk, where you must retrieve it. When I was robbed, I was in the Purgatorial "between twenty-four and forty-eight" zone. The customer service number for this company was conspicuously absent; a website was the only thing supplied. I went to the website and found that the company had lockerboxes as something of a whimsical side-venture. They were an investment company, and, out of desperation, I contacted the only email address I could find on the site, an address to which you're supposed to send business plans, investment ideas, and the like. My email's subject heading read in all caps: MAM OGROMNY PROBLEM "I HAVE AN ENORMOUS PROBLEM," and detailed my unfortunate situation as best as my Polish would allow. Mercifully the response was prompt. Time was ticking down, hooligans had my key, and she supplied me with a number. I called it. It was December 30, and the answering machine message said "closed for holidays." My luggage was accruing exhorbitant fines (or, worse, in Katowice), hooligans had access to my things, and a machine was telling me "wait until next year." Glorious. The matter sorted itself out in time. After a series of confusing phone calls in smatterings of four languages, it became evident that my luggage was right where I left it, the locker had not been opened, and there would be a tidy fee for getting it out. The Polish service industry isn't as prompt and cruel as its American counterpart, so my luggage never made it to Katowice. I accepted this fact as a holiday gift. Happy New Year. I paid the nice man with the keys his 136 zloty and was ALMOST glad to have that old, familiar weight hanging from my shoulder again as I carried my nasty burden back to the hostel. I was far more glad that the completed first volume of my journal wasn't gone. Replacing my hockey equipment would have been a pain in the ass, even though I love shopping, but I really might have cried if my journal had gone missing. On the whole I'm just glad I have all my shit back.

So now that you know about the mean streets of Gdansk, I'll tell you who I think is behind my robbery and luggage miseries. In a little perechod, I saw "bylem tu--Osama Bin Laden" (I was here--Osama Bin Laden) spray painted on the wall. Al-Qaeda works in mysterious ways, and we'd sure as hell never think to look for him in Gdansk, Poland.

The hockey aspect in Gdansk is, perhaps as expected, more complicated than in previous ventures. As my Polish has blossomed beyond the rudimentary and into the functional, my emails to various teams have become less and less sloppy. In fact, it was merciful that Jan, my contact in Krakow, understood English reasonably well, because when I look back on the initial email I sent him in Polish, it's unreadable. But before I came to Gdansk, I sent emails to four teams. One didn't reply, one said there was no space on the roster, one replied with a terse "Tuesday 21:00. Saturday 22:00," and one replied with an email in English offering me a heartfelt welcome to their practice on Friday. I recieved this email on Thursday, so I took the opportunity to walk to the rink. It's a six-kilometer walk, and when I got there, it was early yet, so I decided to go to the green-looking oceanside spot on my map known as "Ronald Reagan Park" (no kidding). So I walked and walked and walked. It was worthwhile, but when I returned, I looked back on my map to discover that I'd walked about 24 kilometers round-trip. My feet were ridiculously sore, and so were my hands; I bought two kilos of pierogies and New Year's champagne (two bottles, enough for everyone at the hostel) at a little supermarket not far from the beach. About thirty seconds after I was through the checkout line it occurred to me what a staggeringly stupid idea this was. I walked twelve kilometers with groceries. The above doesn't sound like a lot, but after 3k, it's grating. After 6, it's unbearable--and you're only halfway home.

I wasn't really sure how I managed to stand in the morning, much less how I managed to skate that evening. But skate I did, for Gdynski Klub Hokejowy (GKH), and they liked me. I liked them. A bunch. Walking to the tram stop was difficult, though. When I skated for the first time in Prague, I remember being amazed that I didn't have better endurance because of all the walking I'd been doing. I forgot that you use a completely different set of muscles for skating than walking. It was a bane in Prague, but it helped me out a lot here in Gdansk. I'd walked myself into the dirt in a way that I hadn't since Warsaw, but I've been playing a fair amount lately, so though my walking muscles were close to shot, my skating muscles were in fine form. Grzegorz (my contact on the team) hinted at wanting me to stay for the whole season, which, though the prospect elates me, it complicates the whole nature of my project, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

My Saturday game wasn't nearly as encouraging. The team, the Tri-City Twisters, were a bunch of jerks. They threw KURWA after KURWA (THE Polish swearword) at me for not playing in their system. Now, I would have accepted the criticism if I'd been able to discern some kind of system in the way they played hockey, but to me it just looked like they were trying not to run into each other. It was bad disorganized hockey masquerading as bad organized hockey. Furthermore, when we were scrimmaging, they were total babies about taking a good, clean American hit, even though they were clearly playing full-contact. They didn't say I couldn't come back, but I don't think I will unless I'm just looking for extra ice time.

Since then I've started to get a little attached to my GKH buddies. They practice in a seasonal 1/3 regulation-sized rink in Gdynia, a 20-minute trainride from Gdansk. Our locker room for these practices, in size and amenity, is somewhere between a basement and a garage designed for two small motorcycles. Eighteen people and eighteen hockey bags share this impossibly cramped space, and we change in shifts. You're lucky if you're on first shift, because then you don't have to wade through hockey bags to get out of the locker room. Barn-burning, no-frills ghetto hockey: the way I was raised and the way I like it.

Yes, I know it's been a month. Yes, I know this thing may have felt longer than Hiawatha, but I hope it was at least more interesting.

Happy New Year.

Krakow pt. II. and Attendant Adventures.

2007-12-14T04:28:00.000+01:00

I've returned to Krakow to find the same cast of familiar faces and places, and it's been nice to see the same people more than once, especially with the longing for home that accompanies the holiday season setting in. My Krakow adventures have been pretty extensive, so this may take a while.
The tournament was three games and very informal, but we did well, and it was amazing to see the team again. It just so happened that my return to Krakow coincided with my French-Canadian friend, Melanie's return. Melanie, Krakow Pawel, Pawel's flatmate, Mateusz, and I had lots of adventures in my prior stint, but none could match our mountain adventure. Soon after landing in Hostel Yellow again, Pawel suggested he, Melanie, Mateusz and I take a little Polish-style weekend vacation to the mountains. I was excited about going back to Zakopane, so I said "yeah, Zakopane would be great!" Pawel responded "Polish people don't go to Zakopane. We go to cooler, cheaper places." I'd been spending notable amounts of time in Pawel's flat. Pawel has a cat, and we all know how well cats get along with my lungs. I was out of allergy medication, so before we left for the mountains, we went to three different pharmacies to find something chemically similar. At last we found a place staffed by these two sweet, stern Polish ladies who did more than say "we don't have it." They looked in pharmacology books and found me something just as good, and whereas the medication would cost upwards of $30 in the states, it cost a whopping five dollars in Poland. As though Americans needed any more proof that U.S. health insurance is a racket. So with my lungs sorted out, we set off.
The place we went had no real name to speak of, but I'll try my best to describe how we got there. We rode on trains for four hours (we had to change twice) until we got to Rajcza, which is officially the middle of nowhere. From the middle of nowhere, we took a bus for another half hour to the edge of nowhere. And then we walked straight off the edge of nowhere and trudged through snow for 2.5 kilometers in pitch dark. At long last, there was our little chata for the weekend. The snow was waist-deep by that point, but when we got to the place, the owner of a few years, Darek, greeted us warmly and showed us around. Since it was pitch dark, I couldn't infer much about the place except for the interior. He showed us the shower, the kitchen, the laundry...he even showed us the 4'6" eightysomething grandmother who came as part of the sale of the house. My only real question was "where is the toilet?" The toilet was in a separate building--the one with the goats. And it wasn't so much a toilet as an outhouse. He also reminded the gentlemen not to pee on the seat, or else the next sitting user might end up frozen to the seat. I mean, this place was RUSTIC.
We proceeded to drink the beers we'd brought, and Melanie wanted something else to drink, and, audacious girl that she is, she asked Darek if he had any vodka or anything we could buy from him. Perhaps not surprisingly, he did. He brought us a rather suspect-looking bottle of bimber, or honest-to-god Polish moonshine. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Soviet space program hired men like Darek to mass-produce fuel for Baikonur launches, because the stuff tasted like Slivovice on steroids. It was only ten o'clock, and the logical inebriate thing was to explore the snowy woods on the hill above the chata. And so we did. We ran into a group of folks from another chata in the forest and talked to them for a while, and then the bimber ran out, so it was time to go home. I resurrected my quarterback skills and pegged people mercilessly with snowballs on the way down the hill, which made our cozy, heated room a delightful reprieve from the soaking cold. My boots, pants, jackets, and gloves were waterproof; my companions weren't so lucky. The next day their things were still soaked and cold, so we stayed in and got to talking. We were essentially confined to a single room, since it was the warmest in the house, and from there we talked about how unfeasibly stupid climbing the mountain in the dark was. It sure seemed like a GREAT idea at the time, and we all had fun, so I suppose all's well that ends well. When three people are in a room together for hours at a time, strange topics of conversation come up. We talked about the possibility of wild snow hamsters awaiting us in the woods, and how we could have been tied to the ground and eaten, Gulliver-Lilliput style. Lots and lots of redneck jokes were made, and not just in my direction. Quebec is just as much a cultural backwater as Arkansas, it seems. The redneck jokes culminated in the obvious implication that, since I am an Arkansan, I seek livestock for sexual satisfaction. Instead of getting offended, I ran with it. I told them about my new lover, Daisy, who was out in the barn and white as the driven snow. A few hours later I told them we were engaged, and I'd given her a lovely ring, but I was pretty sure she'd eaten it. *sniff* Daisy, I pine for thee. My finest moment of cross-cultural vulgarity, however, was turning on my camera's sound record feature and belching "JE SUIS...RED NEEECKKKK!" I still have the file, in case any of you are curious. The price of the room included dinner, which was enormous and delicious. We had homemade mushroom soup, chicken thigh, fresh plum compote, apple, carrot, and cabbage salad, and brownies for dessert. And get this: dinner and lodging put together came to eight dollars a night.
After a fabulous weekend we returned to Krakow and I started back on my training/hockey regime. which has gotten substantially easier since they set up an outdoor ice rink five minutes' walk from my hostel. I skate between one and two hours a day, and it's been really good for me. The only day it was otherwise was last Friday, when I skated from six to eight and came home only to discover in my email box that I had a game two hours later. And it wasn't one of those tournament games, either; it was a "it's on the small rink and we don't have a goalie, so play until everyone gets tired" game. So I skated about five hours that day. Lord was I sore on Saturday, too, but in a good way. I had just enough time to rest up before my game on Sunday night, with the big boys on the big rink. One of the goals in my inital checklist was, as mentioned, "score a hat trick in any game." I checked that off and replaced it with "score a hat trick in any game against a goalie." Well, I broke my goalless streak on the big rink in a big way: I had four goals (incluiding the game-winner) and three assists in our 9-7 win. It was the best game I've played this season, easily. And dammit, I may need new shoulder pads soon. I creamed this guy on open ice, and when I was hanging my equipment up to dry after the game, I discovered I'd cracked the shoulder cap I'd used to hit him. The pads have lasted me since my second season, so they've led a long, full life. One of my presents this year is decidedly the game sandwich that comes immediately before and after my birthday: I get the last game of my twenty-first year and the first game of my twenty-second within a day of each other. I'm stoked, especially with the way I've been playing recently.
But since hockey can't fill up all my time, I've been going to museums and taking in Christmastime Krakow. They do a thorough and beautiful job of decorating the city, from the gorgeous tree on Rynek Glowny to the outdoor rink to the lit christmas bells lining the main boulevards. There's even a seasonal outdoor market on Rynek, so I went and ended up buying what will someday be volume three of the Journal Cycle; it's a leatherbound book with blank, unlined paper, and it has the cloth hall (Sukiennice) painted on the cover by a local Krakow artist. I paid less for it than I did for either of my current journals, and it's really one-of-a-kind. I've also been watching pretentious movies with Pawel. We generally trade selections--for instance, he'd never seen "Dr. Strangelove," but now we say "MEIN FUHRER! I CAN VALK!" to each other at least four times a day for no real reason. But of all the new movies I've seen here, the one I'd especially recommend is a documentary called "When the Road Bends," and it's about four gypsy bands from very different parts of the world who come together to travel across the U.S. on a "Gypsy Caravan" tour. It's a fabulous film with great music. The best way I can summarize it is this: it's what would happen if you spliced "Buena Vista Social Club" with "Borat."
So here I sit listening to Polish hip-hop and fighting off the cold with a cup of Grzanie Galyciskie, hot Polish mulled wine. To an extent I'm starting to feel like "one of the guys" in Poland, which may be a sure sign it's time to leave this place. Between discussing the intricate usage of Polish swear words and knowing Krakow more or less like the back of my hand, it really is time to move on. One obstacle keeps me from leaving and has done so for over a week: the chaotic and nonsensical entity that is the Russian visa regime. I had initially heard and read that new regulations prohibited the would-be traveller to Russia from applying for a visa if outside his own country. I've since talked to several people who say that it's a simple matter of knowing whom to bribe and which travel agency to use. How very, very Russian. When I returned from the mountains, one of my first stops was the Russian visa agency I'd noticed in my previous Krakow stint. They had me fill out some forms and turn in my passport, and they said that I could come back in five days with payment and everything would be fine. As you've probably inferred, Krakow isn't an awful place to be stuck; I have reliable hockey here and a place to skate every day, as well as numerous friends in different walks of life. Furthermore, since Moscow and Petersburg were removed from my itenerary, I have a little extra time in case something like this popped up (which I knew it would, in some way, shape, or form). So I waited with a naive and blissful conception that I'd be in Kaliningrad soon enough. On Tuesday, however, I went by to pick up my visa, only to discover that "we can't issue visas to non-Polish tourists unless they have Student identification." Would they had told me that the preceding week. I seriously considered lying, telling them I was studying at Jagiellonian, and showing them my ISIC card, but thought against it since I'd be caught with a couple of quick phone calls. So here I am, back at square one, trying another approach. Lodging places can send you invitations, but not individuals. The hangup here is that all the hotels listed online in Kaliningrad are ungodly expensive ($90 a night minimum? Are you kidding me?) Hence I'm digging around trying to contact student housing places in Kaliningrad to see if they'll sponsor me. My deadline for something resembling luck is Monday. If nothing happens by then, Kaliningrad will off the menu, to my dismay. And if I have this much trouble with my Russian visa, I'm really dreading getting one for Belarus. It's actually geographically necessary to get a visa if I'm to transit from the Baltics to Ukraine without a significant detour. Wish me luck, for I am but a lone man surrounded by imposing bureaucracies, piles of papers, and rubber stamps.

Give me COMMENTS for my birthday!

Love and miss you all, and have a blessed holiday season.

Josh

Thanksgiving Week in Warsaw

2007-11-25T13:00:00.000+01:00

The days leading up to Thanksgiving were uneventful but culturally fulfilling; I spent even more time at the Russian film festival, which included seeing a couple of my old favorites, "Bumer," Tarkovsky's "Mirror," and, most exciting, the Polish premiere of Andrei Zviagintsev's new film "The Banishment." I recommend all of the preceding, by the way. Among those in tow to the Zvyagintsev premiere were Pawel's entourage (though Pawel himself was in Berlin) and a couple of Aussies I'd met in the hostel. I was delighted and surprised when they wanted to go to the Russian film festival with me even after I told them there were no English subtitles--rare creatures indeed. I was anticipating having to live-translate a movie in a crowded theatre with a fair degree of dread; merciful fate spared me (and my would-be annoyed fellow audience members) when the theatre didn't have anything but double and triple seats left; Liz and Ellie, the Australians, sat with Natalya, since she had the last block of seats. For all of us, the half hour following the movie was an examination of semiotics, chronology, and philosophical overtones, all with the general unifying factor of "so what the hell just happened, anyway?" You know, the standard discussion of any decent art film. The Aussies and I also visited the Warsaw Uprising museum and learned in graphic detail what a raw deal Poland in general and Warsaw in particular got in WWII, and followed this depressing endeavor up with a fantastic jazz concert and a martini that was a little heavy on the vermouth for my liking. But as often happens on this long and circuitous odyssey, time arrived for my compatriots to part, and I found myself looking down the barrel of a loaded Thanksgiving.
Since Facebook is the arbiter and daily picayune of my generation's social realm, I couldn't help but notice all my friends' status messages changing to "I'm going home! It's Thanksgiving!" I looked outside, however, and saw a conspicuous absence of cartoon pilgrims, Indian corn, or even stylized Hallmark turkeys. I saw these status messages a'changin and thought to myself "...not here..." This thought saddened me a shade, so I sent an email to my Warsaw friends saying "come celebrate American Thanksgiving with me. Free food. See you at six," and sallied forth in quest of what Arlo Guthrie would call "a Thanksgivin' dinner that couldn't-be-beat." By God, I found it. I made gruyere scalloped potatoes and chicken breasts with a butter-based white wine lemon sauce with bell pepper slices and capers. It was easily the best meal I've had in a couple months, and my guests (all two of them) agreed. They wanted to take me on a tour of Warsaw by night afterwards; this was a substantially more drawn-out endeavor than any of us had anticipated, and Pawel and I got back to the hostel around five am. Pawel came back with me because he wanted more potatoes, which made me happy. As he ate his potatoes, however, I found myself shivering and aching all over. I'm uncertain whether my considerable malaise was a result of Thanksgiving dinner, flu, or the rather questionable kebab from the Warsaw outskirts. What is certain, however, is that I stayed in bed with a fever and all manner of sundry unpleasantry until 18:00. I awoke at 11:00, and after rolling into the fetal position, I started mumbling "H5N1...H5N1" and considered going downstairs for my Tamiflu regimen, but that seemed like far too much work, so I stayed bedridden and decided that it wasn't that bad, like a true Fagan. But no, mother, I drank plenty of water and took acetominophen for fever reduction, so all was well.
But the largest obstacle of the day lay yet before me. I told Pawel I'd meet him and the gang at a billiard club at 19:00, and I thought it would be rude to stand him up, so off I went to "Golden Wheat American Billiard Hall." By my reasoning, Golden Wheat sounds more Soviet than American, but no one asked me. I digress, however. I greeted everyone, and when I got to Natalya, Pawel's girlfriend, before touching me or saying hello, her voice diverged from its usual sweet Belorussian girl tonality to stern babushka, and the dialog went something like this:

"You have fever. You must drink hot beer with honey and cinnamon with shot of hot pepper vodka."

"but you haven't even touched me yet; how do you know I have a fever?"

"I am a woman, I know these things."

And I suppose that just about settled it. Furthermore, I couldn't think of anything more fall-back classic Russian/Belorussian than looking to distilled grain products as the cure of all mental and bodily ills (as backwards as that seems to my prim Western ways.) Since I wasn't paying and I didn't think I could feel a great deal worse, I had a mug of hot honey cinnamon clove beer to chase my shot of honey pepper vodka. Between the two drinks, there wasn't enough alcohol to accomplish much in the way of altered brainstate, but I did indeed feel better. I think if ANYONE tells you to do some bizarre folky health thing in an authentic stern babushka voice, it's bound to work, simply by the power of suggestion that naturally accompanies being old and Slavic.
Yesterday I went to the symphony, and I felt better still, though the state of my gastrointestinal tract left something to be desired. Have you ever pinched your butt cheeks together for forty-five minutes and still tried to enjoy classical music? It's damnably difficult, but I did it. The concert consisted of Bartok, Lizst, and Kodaly choir-based psalmic pieces, and it was beautiful.
Today, not only am I back in something resembling good health, but I'm in a hostel with friendlier staff and decent computers for my final two days in Warsaw. I may have a slight detour soon, though, since I received an email from one of my old Krakow contacts about an upcoming tournament. They want me to play, so I may go back to Krakow for a week or so before heading to Gdansk; train tickets are very reasonable in Poland, as long as they're intranational. There were two feet of snow on the ground in Krakow last I checked, however, so my need for boots deepens...perhaps literally.

More updates are always forthcoming. The speed with which they come forth, however, may vary. Bear with me.

colder than the nipple on a witch's tit (don't blame me, Thomas Pynchon wrote it first),

Josh Harris

L'viv and Warszawa Ephemera

2007-11-19T19:18:00.000+01:00

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this one. I suppose I've felt a little on the dissolute side since there's not much in the hockey way here, and when I write this thing, I want to make sure you actually have something in front of you that's worth reading.
I've traded the narrow streets, barn-rinks, and smoky cafes of Krakow for something far different in Warszawa. Warsaw is huge, scattered, and only the barest remnants of its pre-war old world glory endure. It's traded this old world glory for a different sort: a position as one of Europe's preeminent financial capitals. Between the intimidating skyscrapers and eight-lane boulevards, Warsaw seems every bit the intimidating concrete jungle. To an outsider, it is. But if you have some connections and speak the language a little bit, there's quite a bit beyond Warsaw's grey exterior.
The initial days in my first Warsaw hostel left a shade to be desired.
When I mentioned the globalization discussion in the previous blog entry, it seems that was only scratching the surface. Martin, the receptionist, and Richard, one of the guests, described themselves as "truth-seekers," which is a fancy euphemism for conspiracy theorists. Apparently we live pointless lives because the Illuminati don't want us unlocking the true power of the human mind, ("because they're afraid of our potential") so they make us slaves to financial systems. All this will culminate in one world government and the total enslavement of the human race, and then the greys will come and free us from tyranny.
With all due respect, it seemed to me to be a titanic load of bullshit. I backed them into a couple of corners, though. "So if these events are beyond your control even in the barest capacity, why bother? Doesn't this just give you something other than living and working and dying to worry about?" Something about the way these guys tried to make every world event fit into a handy though sinister system seemed frankly...Ptolemaic. I told them that their ideas were certainly interesting, but if the simplest solution is often the best (thank you William of Ockham), then it would make much more sense for events to connect, sure, but not with a whole bunch of hidden little retrograde movements necessary to explain the interstices. Ptolemy had to invent a beautiful system of obscenely complicated mathematics to make the Earth the center of his universe; it seems these gentlemen were inventing a subsystem of things unseen and unobserved to make the Illuminati the center of theirs. The whole thing irritated my logical sensibilities, but at the same time seemed an interesting manifestation of faith--namely a faith in a system of hidden, mortal connections that cannot exist without skepticism. But I digress.
At any rate, initial impressions of Warsaw were essentially poor. It seemed like a cultural and architectural wasteland, and I was really looking for a change of pace. I've been contemplating a change of strategy for this project for a while now, and with stagnation setting on, I thought it wise to try a different method of attack. My goal was to leave most of my luggage at a home base city (Warsaw, in this case,) and try to make connections in a series of shorter trips to different cities, thus paving the road to hockey in a given place before I went to the arduous physical expense of tacking another leg on to the full iditarod regime. So I set out for L'viv, Ukraine, to find some hockey contacts and re-meet some old acquaintances from Krakow. It's proven infinitely excellent to see the same faces more than once, so beyond the search for contacts, the side excursion was something of a fall break for me. The train ride itself was uneventful, and the entire side trip frankly just made me hate my material possessions more. I traveled with a large shopping bag full of clothing, toiletries, my cd player, and a book--less than ten pounds, all told--and damn it was nice. Even though the train ride was uneventful, other things were not. I tried conversing with this middle-aged Polish man and his daughter, but the gentleman used my eagerness to practice my Polish as an opportunity to practice his English and lambaste me for the color of my passport. He ranted for a solid half-hour about the woes of the Bush administration and the terminal laziness, stupidity, and obesity of the American population. My arguments that "we're not all like that" seemed to fall on deaf ears. I tried talking about Polish culture, but it only seemed to prove his point when the only Polish playwright I knew was Slawomir Mrozek. Ultimately neither his English nor my Polish were good enough for us to reach any kind of mutual understanding, so I sighed and looked out the window until he got off the train, which he mercifully did soon thereafter. So, under the misguided impression that the trainride to L'viv was nonstop, I proceeded to sprawl and sleep. To my alarm, however, a small, friendly Polish man woke me up at the border and ushered me off the train. I was travelling on All Saints' day, and for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me that there would be holiday-related delays. When I finally find another computer and internet connection that isn't wretched, I'll post the pictures from Przemysl, the first of which is me with a "here we go again" face. As I sat outside the customs office, which was closed until an undisclosed and mysterious time, I couldn't help but think of that wretched night in the tiny Slovakian mountain town, Krasnahorske Podhrady. All I knew was that my train left for L'viv at 19:24, and if the customs office didn't open before then, I was many different kinds of screwed. Przemysl is the only Polish town I've yet encountered without a McDonald's, and it had more spires than I knew what to do with. I went up on White Castle Hill, knowing I had a few hours to spend, and listened to the All Saints' Day prayer calls coming up through the mist from the valley below. It was remarkably peaceful, and the peace was only slightly tainted with the occasional twinge of "oh God please I don't want to get stuck here" in the back of my mind.
Mercifully I didn't. The customs office re-opened at 18:00, and I had plenty of time to freeze my ass off on the platform before boarding the train.
Due to the holiday-related travel delays, I didn't arrive in L'viv until 00:45. L'viv is poorly lit and a little scary looking by night. I had no directions to my hostel, only an address and a tiny, rudimentary map in my "Let's Go! Eastern Europe." So on blind instinct I start walking in a direction that would seem to take me to the center of town. It was a combination of dumb luck and a triumph for my sense of direction, because I found the place with relatively little incident. I was expecting the place to be dead, but after putting my bags down, I walked into the kitchen to find a lively party of seven or so people hosted by the owner, Eddie. We all had a good time and slept precious little. The next few days in L'viv were interesting, to say the least. After picking my friends Allyssa and Marissa up from the train station, we explored the city, and I bought my most unusual souvenir yet, an old Komsomolsky Bilet from Soviet days, in other words, a Komsomol (young communist league) membership card. The guy whose defunct identity I purchased had flawless attendance until 1985, when he stopped abruptly. I can't help but think that Gorbachev's reforms were somehow involved in his sudden lack of interest.
All told, L'viv was a pleasant experience, since everyone over thirty speaks Russian in the streets and Ukrainian isn't difficult to understand. I went to the bania while I was there, for the first time since Moscow. For those of you unfamilar with the custom, the bania, or Russian bath house, is essentially the most Slavic thing ever. It's a sauna with three rooms: first, the warm room, where you can bathe and such. Then there's the tiny room that's so impossibly hot that it hurts to breathe. In this room, you flagellate yourself with birch twigs to remove dead skin, improve circulation, and generally just increase your own discomfort. When you're either about to die or pass out...whichever comes first...you run into the third room, which is an icy cold pool. Basically it's just like Russian history and literature: for every ten minutes of abominable suffering, you get thirty seconds of pleasure and release. You leave exhausted and feeling impossibly clean and rejuvenated. For other good experiences in Ukraine, I went with Eddie and another hostelite, Chris, to this bar in town which was Ukrainian-resistance-themed. The atmosphere was excellent, and it had a lot of historical dedications to this band of militants who fought both the Nazis and the Soviets at the same time. We were having a grand old time when, boom, out go the lights. From the sounds of things, they fired up a generator that put out just enough power to keep the keg pumps going. It's good that the bar knows where it's clientele's priorities really are. The bania and the blackout bar were highlights for sure, but so were Ukrainian prices. A three-course meal complete with beverage costs approximately $5.
Between the cultural comfort, prices, company, and a certain quantity of my own laziness, it took me considerably longer to get out of L'viv than anticipated. I had an open ticket, which meant as long as I returned to Warsaw before the first of January, I was sorted. Here enters the laziness factor: the only train to Warsaw leaves at 07:18 daily. We all know how much of a morning person I am. I tried leaving on my planned departure date, the morning of the fourth day, but my strategy for so doing was perhaps ill-concieved. I thought the best way to make my train in a timely fashion was to stay up all night. It seemed like such a good idea that I tried and failed not once, but twice. The third attempted-escape day seemed much more promising. I found a train that ran at 13:25, and that seemed extremely reasonable. So I slept in and headed to the train station with a few minutes to spare. I went to the counter to buy my reservation and discovered, to my dismay, that the train was an express. Paying the additional $75 to board this thing seemed less than palatable, so I finally bit the bullet and, on the fourth morning after my original planned departure date, I got on that morning train with bloodshot eyes and suitcase in hand. And here you'll find my most humiliating (and in my opinion, hilarious) anecdote from the trip so far.
For those of you who have already read the following, I apologize for repeating it. I wasn't originally going to post it in the blog, but my obligation to journalistic integrity (such as it is :-P) dictates that I must.
When changing from Polish to Ukrainian train tracks, you have to stop for a couple hours and change the undercarriages, since the tracks are of different widths. It's pretty cool, frankly, but it's a really irritating delay. At any rate, the Lebanese food I had last night was urging to escape my body, and so I go to the bathroom. I assumed that Ukrainian trains have a certain level of civilized amenity...the ones in Slovakia and Czech did. Now, using this bathroom was an act of bravery in and of itself. I wiped the seat and the paper came away black, and if I end up with an ass disease, I'll know that it came from the toilet seat of the living dead. So I evacuate my bowels in an insufferably foul and loose blast, and proceed to flush. To my dismay, when it flushes, I find myself looking through the floor and onto the ground beside the train. Uh-oh. I decide to leave the bathroom with due haste, but apparently bad news travels fast, because no more than a minute and a half later, this awful old Russian woman with dyed cranberry red hair and a uniform is throwing the longest stream of Russian profanity at me that I've ever endured--it would have made a convict blush. She hands me a broom and dustpan, and, that's right, I have to sweep up my own excrement, corn and all, from the railroad tracks with a straw broom and deposit it in the nearby grass. Her vituperations continued upon my return to the train, and I'm apologizing my ass off, but she just keeps yelling. One of the track attendants, however, a good old Ukrainian gentleman with a moustache, intercedes on my behalf after laughing heartily for about two minutes. I told him I was very sorry, it was an honest mistake, and I thought there would be some kind of tank to recieve my...offering. He tells the old lady to sit on something and chill the hell out (more or less literally), and tells me that it was okay, that I gave him something to laugh about for the rest of the week. I have not been so embarrassed in YEARS. It only took about ten minutes for me to start laughing hysterically about it, though. It was one of those situations where if you can't laugh, you'll break. Good thing it was funny. In conclusion to the L'viv excursion, I made some contacts in, the entire process of contact-hunting and transit was too expensive and complicated. I think I'll stick with my initial strategy.

My return to Warsaw was marked with some difficulty. I got back to the hostel and they had lost my reservation. It was only by sheer dumb luck that they had a single bed left for that night only. So I stayed, but morning brought the realization that I was ostensibly homeless. I recalled an email from a chance acquaintance from Krakow, offering me lodging while I was in Warsaw. I figured it couldn't hurt, given my situation. I called Pawel up and met him and my French friend from Krakow, Mallorie, at the Georgian culture festival. which Pawel had orchestrated more or less by himself. The movies were interesting, the food was great, and the company couldn't have been better. Pawel had other guests in town for the weekend, though: Natasha, his Belorussian girlfriend, and Kate, his Estonian friend. So there we were, chatting in English, Russian, and Polish, and I felt like part of some big, strange multilingual circle of friends. At that very moment I realized how awesome being a polyglot is. When everything was cleaned up, we headed home and the nine of us crashed in Pawel's two-room apartment. Allow me to rephrase, actually. The girls went to bed and Pawel, his friend Kuba, and I stayed up until the wee hours nursing our vodkas in the kitchen and talking about music, art, literature, cars and girls. It was a very Slavic moment.
Since Pawel had to go out of town for a concert and further, since I didn't want to wear out my welcome, I've since changed back to the hostel life, though Pawel's buddies are still more than happy to show me around. Last week I spent most evenings at the first Warsaw festival of Russian film, which proved not only culturally great, but therapeutic as well. I've learned on this trip that sometimes it's invaluable to know everything that's going on, even if only in a crowded cinema for an hour and a half.
So between the films and the festivals and the myriad museums I've visited, I've been culturally engaged and stimulated. My language studies are coming a little more slowly since shifting back to the hostel, but I suppose what's most irritating about Warsaw is the following: there is only a single ice rink in this city of one and a half million people, and its schedule is primarily for, you guessed it, figure skating. I still have two or three emails floating in cyberspace awaiting response, but Warsaw thusfar seems to be a wash. I just have to keep compensating for the lack of ice with linguistic and cultural explorations.

In other news, next week I'm headed to Gdansk, on the shores of the Baltic. You should all fly over here so we can all become members of the polar bear club, because, good readers, the water, like everything else here, will surely be colder than a bucket of penguin shit.

Best regards from the increasingly frigid north,

Josh

P.S. Those of you in the American South, be grateful; you have more than five hours of daylight.

The Quarter in Summary.

2007-10-30T13:38:00.000+01:00

The following is the document I submitted to the foundation. Peruse as you will.

Dear Foundation Members, Fellows, Colleagues, and Parties Yet Unknown:

I knew quite well going into this endeavor that mine was a fairly ambitious project. It began as thirteen countries, twenty-four cities. On a very brief sidenote, when the members of the foundation informed me that I could not enter Russian soil, save Kaliningrad, I was initially irritated. Russian hockey is some of the best hockey on the planet, and I frankly hadn't the faintest what to do with the month I'd allocated for Moscow and Petersburg. I've since decided this was serendipitous; I'm replacing Russia with Moldova, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia, which brings my country total from thirteen to seventeen, with the city total approaching forty. Hockey presence is minimal in the southernmost of these countries, but the places where there's the least hockey have yielded the most results and the most welcoming teammates. For example, I decided to start in Prague, the capital of a country that holds hockey high as its national game. Though I spent three weeks in Prague, I didn't get anything in but practice skates. I talked to coaches and players alike, and they weren't even willing to see how I skated. The ones who spoke English well enough to tell me "why" told me that the rosters were already set, and they didn't want to disrupt team chemistry. With important games on the line, I suppose that's understandable; I just wanted a chance. Brno was too small to have much of a pronounced hockey scene, though I public skated there with fair frequency. I found my first luck in Bratislava, where I met a group of guys who played once or twice a week. They played full contact, and there I saw an advantage. One of the first things I noticed about Czech and Slovakian hockey was that they trained their players much more in the departments of skating and passing than in hitting. This was to my advantage. I'll be the first to confess that I'm about average as hockey players go, but I'm good at skating, passing, and hitting. Even though these gentlemen could stickhandle through autobahn traffic, I could keep up with them in the passing and skating departments. I had a decided edge in the hitting skill subset, however. The first time I racked someone from the other team over my hip and saw him flip on his back in front of me, I thought to myself "okay, I can do this." My stint in Bratislava wasn't entirely injury-free, though good things came from both of my major injuries. Both of the times I got hit in the face were a result of the simple fact that my helmet repair kit...didn't, so my unguarded face was plenty exposed to the puck that hit it in game one and the stick that hit it in game two. Badges of honor, I tell you. Incidentally, when I got a puck to the face, I passed it off for a goal, and when I got a stick to the nose, even though I'd quelled the initial fountain of blood, my teammates were saying "are you okay? you should go change clothes." Being the stubborn hokejist I am, as soon as my alternate center came off the ice, to my teammates' surprise, I hopped on, and wouldn't you know it, I scored a gorgeous goal. Kosice was rather more of a wash for hockey, in a way similar to Brno. It was just too small to accommodate much hockey enthusiasm. Professionals, very small children, and figure skaters dominated the ice time, so opportunities for pick-up games were minimal. When I was in Slovakia's largest gothic cathedral, however, I saw a poster for a floor hockey league. I was excited until I found, upon further research, that it was a devout Catholic ball hockey league. Though I was already excluded on both counts, the tournament didn't start until a solid two weeks after I left Kosice. Before departure from Kosice, however, I made sure to pick up a pair of inline skates to improve my chances of playing. It paid off.

In the month since, my heart, soul and skates have been stitched to Krakow, Poland. Krakow has been by far my most productive location in all possible respects. I played over ten times in my four weeks in Krakow, and the range of talent and surface was amazing. I played with an intriguing mix of extreme amateurs and former professionals on a small rink which was less a rink and more a barn with an air conditioning system. Conversely, in the same complex of ice rinks, I played on the super-nice regulation-sized surface with a fairly solid bunch of showboats who knew how to score, but couldn't and wouldn't pass to save their own lives. It's so rare to meet players who are extremely talented and know how to fit on a team--it frankly amazed me to find this dearth of team-oriented talent to be a fact which retains consistency across the Atlantic Ocean. I made lots of friends in the locker room, from Mace, the economics student with a passion for American politics, to Marcin, a fortysomething pack-a-day smoking physical therapist who made a tidy living; in addition to his private practice, he is the lead violinist in one of Poland's most famous and innovative folk bands. He wanted to know if Chicago was close to Arkansas, since he might be going to Chicago in a couple of years to play for the Polish community there. In addition, I relived a lot of my original hockey days. I played on broken asphalt with people younger than me (high schoolers) until it was simply too dark to see the ball anymore. As though my ego weren't inflated enough, they were calling me "Gretzky" by the end of my first game with them, and they weren't even being sarcastic. Roller hockey is dangerous, since it tricks me into thinking that I rock really really hard at hockey in general. The roller hockey experiences brought back memories, as my blog will mention in more detail. Furthermore, I learned the majority of the Polish swear words I know on those nights. But one uniting factor gives me solace even after the most brutal of hockey games: the ceremonial post-game beer in the shower.

From a practical standpoint, what's been interesting for me is the almost inverse correlation between how popular hockey is in a given place and how often I get to play there. Prague is unquestionably one of the world capitals of ice hockey. The game there is smooth, clean, and lightning fast. Kosice, though smaller than Bratislava, boasts the new U.S. Steel Kosice arena, one of the largest in the country, and as such hosts a lot of elite-level tournaments. The teams in Prague and Kosice were amazing, but, as mentioned, my negotiations with anyone and everyone were fruitless. For counterexample, other than HK Slovan, the Slovakian elite league champions, Bratislava has little hockey to its credit. Its youth teams are mediocre and its recreational teams are nigh-nonexistent. I found the only one in Bratislava, to the best of my knowledge. The team was reasonably welcoming, though they had a limited number of spots on any given week and I generally only got to play in the event of a cancellation. In furtherance, Krakow had the smallest scene I've encountered yet, but I found the warmest reception and the best, most frequent games there. Now I'm in Warszawa, which hasn't yielded much yet. I have some emails floating out in cyberspace, this time written in broken but understandable Polish, which I find an improvement over the hope that I bore the recipients of my emails in Krakow: namely that they would understand more English than I did Polish.

Speaking of Slavic languages, they're improving, by and large. My Czech was never good to begin with, my Slovak is functional, though not conversational, and my Polish is approaching decent, to my delight. I spent quality time with my phrasebook to memorize the art and literature vocabulary, and I use that to talk culture with Poles, some of whom have turned me on to some very good artists/bands. I turn you to Tadeusz Kantor in the art realm and Zion Train in the music realm, in particular. Recently I've started insisting that my hostel staffs speak to me in Polish, and only switch to English if I just don't "get it." I try my best to respond in kind, and it provides a self-crafted immersive atmosphere that enables me to pick up the language much more quickly. Moreover, I suppose the trip so far has been more pan-European that I might have initially imagined. Staying in hostels puts me in regular contact with Slavic natives, but also with people from all over Western Europe. We discuss literature and music, swap anecdotes. At the end of the day, we trade lists of authors, bands and artists (along with contact information). In other words, I'm getting a broader cultural education than I could have hoped for, and while it's perhaps unfortunate that English is something of a modern Esperanto, it's certainly been to my benefit when talking with Western Europeans. I haven't the faintest idea what I've going to do in the Baltics, honestly. Phrasebooks are well and good, but I hate spouting a language without knowing what does what, grammatically speaking. I see myself gesticulating wildly and then feeling very proud of myself when I finally manage to buy grapes in Estonia.

When I'm not playing hockey, I'm exploring the city, either with or without objectives. It frankly doesn't matter. In every case so far, my first full day in a given place has involved an abortive quest for any and all hockey rinks. I often pass quite close to my quarry, but this "no backtracking" policy I've acquired has proven both bane and boon. The bane is that I haven't gone for an excursion on my first day in a city and walked fewer than ten kilometers. But the boon also resides in these deathmarches into the dirt. I see lots of things I wouldn't otherwise. If there's one thing I've learned (and I promise you, I've learned more than one thing), it's this: though my project is hockey-centric, if I focus too much, I miss the entire point. Hockey happens, as does linguistic and cultural interaction. The challenge is filling the interstices. I realized this in Bratislava, where I'll admit that I spent a couple of days trying to figure out what in the hell to do with myself. Bratislava is not the most happening town in the western world, so between going from the largest to the very tiniest art galleries and buying Ulysses to fill out the hours, I just felt like I was marking time between games. It turned out that I was. I've learned since then that the best and most productive way to fill time involves meeting locals, even if only in a service capacity. As a non sequitur, though, Ulysses is the perfect book for my Watson year; a curious little man sets out on a long, strange journey and returns home by an extremely circuitous route. Here endeth the lesson.

I've also learned that I HATE travel days. I'm tempted to join PETA on a new angle and tell them that the iditarod is cruel, because if hauling things through cold weather sucks this much for me, then it must be much worse for dogs. Between being stuck in tiny castle towns, walking miles to find the Hidden Hostel, and walking miles more to find the rink in question, there simply must be a better way. The easiest way is ascetic Buddhism, where I renounce material possessions and just move on. It's a damn shame that you can't play hockey without material possessions. This is all exaggeration, though. Changing cities is simply the least pleasant of the routines I've carved for myself on this odyssey, and only forays to and from the train station are especially awful. Being able to graft structure onto this quasi-nomadic life has often proved my saving grace. From the checklists in my journal (and yes, I grade myself at the end of the day) to filling in my day's journey on my map with a pen, small rituals of organization help me get things done on the chaotic days, and give me the perseverance to fill in the gaps between chaotic days with more than just scrabble, drink, and idle distraction. As it currently stands, my life's structure is extant and reliable, but extremely adaptable, and I love it.

My experiences so far have touched the extremes of sublime and scary, and every point between, though with a reliably Slavic penchant for the bizarre. I've learned substantial amounts about the power of both language and sport, including the consoling power of language. When inundated for hours with the language of the day, sometimes nothing feels better than a relaxed conversation with an Anglophone or a few pages of Joyce. It's a beer in the shower for my brain. On the whole, it's been an amazing three months, and I never cease to be adequately...whelmed. I anticipate more more adventures and look forward to keeping you all in the loop. In the meantime, I'd once again like to express my gratitude to the foundation for its generosity, and leave all involved parties with my best assurance that their investment in me is a sound one.

With fondest wishes and body checks from the frozen north,

Joshua Brandon Harris

30.X.2007

P.S. More detailed anecdones can be found on http://bladesandrails.blogspot.com, while photos can be found at the following locations:
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016785&id=44700686&op=6
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016786&id=44700686&op=6
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016787&id=44700686&op=6
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016788&id=44700686&op=6
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016789&id=44700686
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016840&id=44700686
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016841&id=44700686
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017369&id=44700686
http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017371&id=44700686

The Defenestrated Luggage Chronicles.

2007-10-29T00:51:00.000+01:00

My final hours in Krakow were relatively uneventful, but I've learned a couple of valuable trial-and-error style lessons in my city shift. It all started with a misbegotten plan. In a hairbrained scheme to save some money, I decided to, instead of doing the wise thing and either taking a night train or staying another night at Hostel Yellow, I decided it would be more fiscally advisable to stay up all night and then catch my 6:10 train. In retrospect, that was unadvisable at best.
I went out with the hostel crew and largely avoided the evils of strong drink, since I would have just passed out on the hostel couch. Little did I know that would be what happened anyway. Pubs and clubs were fine, and I said a lot of almost-tearful farewells to my buddies before heading back to the hostel to get my final load of luggage. (as a bit of an aside, one positive lesson I learned was that my life is much easier if I take my hockey bag and clothes to left luggage well before my train leaves--then I just have to take my carryon and sticks when I make the final sojourn to the station.) I returned to the hostel at 3:30 am, with just enough time for a nap, by my reckoning. Karolina was a sweetheart and let me sleep on the couch. The "waking up in time for my train" thing was simply not happening, though. I noted a lack of fixed times on the train ticket, with only validity dates. It seemed the ticket was valid for all of today. So I figured I'd roll the dice and go with my intuition on the subject. I left in a hurry nonetheless, without taking the time to check my email or anything. This proved nigh-unfortunate later. I grabbed the 10:19 train and I was sweating like a dog from nerves (and hauling what is now about 130 lbs of luggage) when the attendant came to check my ticket. Fortunately I was correct, and got to Warszawa without incident. Upon arrival, however, a teeming throng of people boarded the train with what seemed to be very little intent of letting me and my hockey bag (which was as wide as the damn train corridor) pass. Think fast, Josh.

Learning corner! Dictionary.com says:
de·fen·es·trate
to cause injury or death by forcible ejection from a window.

My luggage ain't dead, but one of the zippers popped upon impact on the platform. Yahoo. It was safe, don't worry. I made sure to shout "uwaga!" first. I was chased by a horde of small old men who were all very eager to help me...for a price. When I arrived in the street, taxis would slow down and keep pace with me until I waved them along. I was a source of potential business for half the western world. I got to the corner and realized I hadn't the faintest idea of where I was going. In my hurry to evacuate Hostel Yellow, I'd forgotten to photograph the directions, the tram numbers &c. Huhboy. In a series of deftly made small purchases, I got enough change for a map from a vending machine. I remembered the street, mercifully, and getting to the hostel was a simple enough endeavor, though Warszawa is a city of broad avenues...we're talking six to eight lanes. Hence the only way to cross the road is via what are known in Moscow as perechodi, or undercrossings. The idea of an escalator in Warszawa is more or less foreign, so I guess I know what it feels like for a 320-pound man to go up and down lots and lots of stairs. Just...yuck.

It was already getting dark when I arrived at 3:30. It occurs to me how much I'm going to relish the three to five hours of daylight (I'm optimistic, you see) I'll have in the Baltics, where the women are beautiful and the suicide rates are astronomical. It's apparently connected with the lack of light. At least it's not Finland, I guess...maybe THAT'S why the Finnish gentleman was so odd...perhaps the combination of darkness and alcohol had pickled his brain into mild psychosis.

First impressions of Warszawa are mixed, though I'm not in much position to judge yet; the only part I saw was in the 2km span from the train station to the hostel, where I saw eight-lane roads lined on both sides with imposing governmental and financial buildings. If Krakow is about culture, Warszawa is about money. It's a much harder city than Krakow, and it reminds me of Moscow in this respect. Would I spoke the language here as well as I do in Moscow. To my credit, however, I conversed in Polish for a solid hour on Saturday night, though I was corrected massively. All things in due time. The hostel is great, and the receptionist immediately struck up a conversation with me about America's role in globalization. I suspect I may do well here. Tomorrow I begin the hockey search.

You know the drill. It starts with a C and ends with an OMMENT.

Thanks for reading.

Best,

JBH

The Krakow Cast; Malopolska Curtain Call

2007-10-25T22:04:00.000+02:00

Once again I find myself shamefully tardy at updating this damn thing. You have my sincere apologies.

The hostel has been populated with an even stranger cast of characters than usual. Apparently an entire Orthodox Belorussian geriatric ward broke free of their cages to go on a tour of Krakow. A sundry collection of some forty babushki and dedushki between the ages of 65-80 arrived and stayed two nights. Deprived of Russian speakers as I am, I was delighted to have a captive forty of them. We talked poetry. Talking poetry with Slavic people, especially in their own language, invariably leads to a bottle of vodka being opened. A bottle of vodka being opened leads in turn to Josh singing "Vecherni Zvon," "Katyusha," and Cheburashka's birthday song in a Slavophilic Mitch Miller singalong (sans bouncing ball, sadly). Yes, that's right. I got decently (as in I maintained decency) hammered with Belorussian ancients. When they sang the Soviet National Anthem, however, I sat out. Something about it just didn't sit right with me. They went to bed and I spent the rest of the evening celebrating my youth by introducing the receptionist to the wide and wonderful world of dead baby jokes. What a tasteful creature I am.

Two days later there was a similar jailbreak, only it was a daycare kennel this time. Forty-odd children between the ages of 8-11 stormed the hostel and left a dirty wake of candy wrappers, gummy carpets, and discolored sheets, though I suppose it's equiprobable that the drunk Belorussians were involved in the latter respect. I kept being grateful for my capacities of social restraint, for the temptation to lean over the very littlest child and go "HEY KID, YA WANNA BEER???" was great indeed. I compromised with the devil on my shoulder by listening to a lot of Guns n' Roses at high volume; that seemed sufficiently deviant.

If I were to make a western about the characters I've met in this hostel, it would be called The Young, the Ancient, and the Bizarre. We've reviewed two of the three, but old and young are simple, because they're factual descriptions of people. Bizarre, however, comes in every flavor of skittle man has ever conceived.

Let's begin with the Finnish steelworker who never stopped being obliterate drunk as long as I saw him. He asked me and a couple of my acquaintances "where...you are from?" at least five times each, and he had considerable difficulty finding his own country on a map. These things fall far short of a b-double-e-double-r-u-n, beer run to the corner store with this gentleman and my Polish friend Radek. We found our beer and lined up at the register with due speed, but in the time it took me and Radek to check out, the Finnish fellow had changed his already impaired mind three times on what kind of intoxicant to purchase. We waited a bit on the other side of the register until he had change-of-heart number five, which prompted a rather stern-looking security guard to tell him he didn't need anything else to drink. I saw only the beginnings of the sloppy and heavily language-barriered argument that ensued. After about thirty seconds of his ridiculousness, Radek and I disavowed all knowledge of his existence. The night was not over, however. He stumbled in an hour and a half later, looking quite the worse for wear. I was on the internet playing my scrabble moves (as is my heathen custom). He waited about two minutes before sitting next to me and making rather unsubtle displays of impatience, which culminated in the best English he could muster "is...not just...for you." I told him politely in English and Russian to be patient, which met with a series of mumbled Finnish oaths, probably inciting me to do things that are not just lewd, but physically impossible. I'm uncertain whether or not he understood Russian, but I told him that I appreciated his suggestions, and then followed with my own catalog of Russian unrepeatables.

Then there was the Polish man in the bunk above me who awoke every morning promptly at five, turned on the light and paced loudly around the room for exactly fifteen minutes before putting on pants and going back to sleep.

There's also the strangeness that borders on something more sinister. Lastnight I was walking with an acquaintance to get a midnight snack. We walked past a bus stop where a youngish street drunk was sleeping on the bench...or so it seemed. We walked past and I noticed he was following us and gaining on us, though the straight line eluded him. He oscillated about three feet left to right for every six feet of forward motion. He approached me on my left side, but picked an extremely unfortunate location: there was about four and a half feet between him and the wall of a closed vegetable kiosk. He grabbed the sleeve of my coat with his right hand and balled his fist with his left. Without hesitating, I tucked my shoulder under his chin and used both hands to knock him headfirst into the steel grating on the kiosk front with a hit that would've made any NHLer proud. Who says sports don't have applicable skills off the field of play? At any rate, he dropped to his knees groaning and clutching his head. My acquaintance and I, though shaken up, went to the store as planned and, needless to say, we took the long way home. On my return trip, I noticed with relief and from a distance my assailant was back at his bus stop bench, so he can't've been hurt too badly. Maybe he'll think twice next time, but regardless, it was easily the scariest moment of the trip. Hopefully it stays that way. *knock wood* I'm just happy all parties escaped reasonably unhurt.

In more cheerful news, hockey is great here. There's a nice variety of skill levels, and only the really offense-minded talented showboat players don't know how to pass. Some things never change in that respect, kinda like the way I'm an above average skater and about average at everything else. We'll hopefully improve that in time. I've played seven games now, and it really irritates me that I'm running out of time here. Each change of city means another Iditarod leg, and another roll of the dice as to whether or not I can find a team. From where I sit now, it almost seems unlikely that I'll find a cast of characters as kind, interesting, or, at the very least, as entertaining as the cast I've found here, both in and out of the locker room. Krakow, I shall miss thee.

My year is 25% over, as of today, and as I thumb through my journal, it already astounds me how much I've learned and grown. The profusion of options before me continually boggles my mind, though my time is short and I must sally forth to buy this weekend's train ticket.

do widzenia!

JBH

Maybe it Is All Small Stuff, But Sometimes, Small Stuff is Big Stuff.

2007-10-13T01:32:00.000+02:00

Leaving Krakow is going to be difficult. There's hockey, culture, and oodles of interesting and friendly people here. Examples of each of the preceding three are documented in this post.

The glories of the internet are many and storied. I have discovered them in my time here, and, between ice and roller, I've since been waist-deep in hockey. I can only hope to find similar internet forums in subsequent cities and countries. I even have a login name on one forum, narolkach.pl. I'm amerikanin1215...go figure. I heard about a game on Wednesday, and went in plenty of time to what I thought was the right place. When no one was there at the given time, I started to get worried. Then some highschool kids showed up and started playing. I leaned on two things to give me confidence. First, I was relying on the transcultural bond that sport frequently affords. Second, I was a lot bigger than these guys. Turned out I was a good deal quicker too. They wanted me to show them stickhandling tricks, and they were beyond thrilled (and so was I, needless to say) when I actually did. After a game of 2 on 1 (two of them against me), they got excited and said they'd be back in fifteen minutes. They skated off toward a series of tall, dingy communist flats, and I sat down and assumed that we might just be done for the day. But no. They returned with all their friends from the neighborhood, and we played four-on-four until it was too dark to see anything at all.

Now I'll put in something of an interjection. Those of you who have known me for more than seven years probably remember the Batesville Roller Hockey Association, loose though it was. For those of you who don't, here you go. My hockey background ("career," if you will) began on a cracked and ruined tennis court on a college campus. It lay in the shadow of the modernist deathtrap Smith Science Building. Said building had notoriously moldy airducts and an unusually large collection of sundry preserved...parts...in its basement. On water breaks, I was often unsure if the water tasted of the ducts or the parts. But I digress. I'd play in all weather, whether 35 degrees or 105 degrees...sometimes much to my mother's chagrin. But after a while, there was more interest in Batesville than just me. At the peak of the...okay, I'll be self-important and abbreviate it...BRHA, we had sixteen participants. Because of Batesville's consistent bumper crop of news, we even made the front page of the paper one time. The start of my tenure at Sewanee killed the BRHA, unfortunately, but since the second most-common question I've recieved on this trip is "so how did you end up playing hockey in ARKANSAS?", then this should at least give you some shade of an answer. Here endeth the interjection.

Suffice to say that playing on an unfenced piece of asphalt in rural Krakow with a bunch of people who were younger than me brought back a lot of really fond memories, and a pretty substantial portion of me kept thinking "you know, this is really what athletics should be about...everyone getting together and having a good, competitive time." To put things in perspective, we played to ten goals. The other team wasn't happy, so we played to twenty. We weren't happy, so we played to thirty, and by the time we reached thirty, we couldn't see the ball anymore, so we called it a day.

Remarkably enough, though, the sportsmanship wasn't even the most amazing thing. The thing that touched me the most was the audience we drew. Families with dogs, old men drinking vodka from flasks--about twenty in total, all just enjoying watching us. The most remarkable and enduring audience member, though, was a wheelchair-bound double amputee. He had a great big smile on his face for the whole game, and if the ball went out of bounds, he'd insist on wheeling after it and grabbing it. After the game he said that he used to be quite the hokkejist himself, and that he loved watching such a good game.

On the way back to the hostel, some old ladies who had been watching us play were getting on my bus. One said it was good that we were playing sports; young people get in much less trouble that way. The other said that hockey was becoming very popular these days, and I played well. Unfortunately I couldn't answer very effectively (my Polish is still marginal, and I know better than to try Russian with the older generation), but I thanked them for watching and told them I was glad they enjoyed the game as they got off the bus.

Since then I've played two more games, each one about the same. The faces change a bit, but the atmosphere is just as friendly, and I honestly play better since I have an audience of total strangers watching. The stakes aren't exactly high, but it puts a bit of good-natured pressure on. Between learning street Polish from my teammates (when I say "street Polish," I mean only five percent of it is repeatable. That five percent is composed of pronouns and prepositions) and just playing without barriers, linguistic or otherwise, my roller hockey experiences of the past week have taught me a lot. In my Watson proposal, I talked a great deal about the universality of sport and the power of a game to reach across borders and language barriers. To be perfectly frank, I had no idea. I was making the emotional equivalent of an educated guess. I knew for a fact that if anyone cared about the game like I did, language and nationality simply wouldn't matter, and the field of play would be not just a field of competition, but a field for cultural interchange and learning as well. I can't really express how much it thrills me to find that my guess was correct.

A friend of mine was having a rough time of things recently, and I mentioned in an email that little things make a difference, even if we don't know it at the time. I was trying to find something of substance to back up my point, and I think I have it. I can say with reasonable certainty that we were just playing, oblivious to our audience. But, as a 21-year-old, when you hear an elderly man without legs telling you that he remembers what it's like to play, and that he enjoyed the game, it just hits you. It kicks you in the chest in a way that counterbalances things like unfriendly people in the service industry and a day at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It makes you want to be good at being good.

And that's where I stand.

Doing his best,

J. Brandon Harris

Hockeython and Other News.

2007-10-06T12:58:00.000+02:00

I love Krakow all the more now that I've found a place to play. It amazes me what a little web research and a few emails in drastically simplified English will accomplish. I was rooting around on a couple of Polish amateur hockey forums, and my knowledge of Slavic word roots enabled me to piece together a contact in Krakow. I sent him an email, and to my great surprise, he wrote me back to tell me about a hockey game every Friday night at a small ice rink. When I say small ice rink, I'm not kidding. Some of my Batesville readers will recall the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that was the winter outdoor rink by the White River. I certainly do, because I volunteered and helped out (read: skated for free) for the duration of the rink's existence. For my non-Batesville readers, the Batesville rink was roughly 1/3 regulation size, the ice was in deplorable condition all the time, and on rough days, the place was absolutely choked with a teeming throng of people joyfully falling on their asses with the novelty of it all. This place is an improvement: it's 1/2 regulation size, and they do run the Zamboni. The rink is basically in a barn, and most of the windows are cracked if not broken to pieces. It is, in other words, totally broke-ass. But I had more fun there than I have anywhere else on the trip so far. I showed up an hour early and had to gesticulate wildly at the security guard before he let me in. Said gesticulations included hockey stick movements, complete with swishing noises, the number ten, for ten o'clock, and pointing at my bag and saying "heavy, heavy" in every Slavic language I knew. I had a nice long chance to warm up, and then people started coming in. My teammates came from a variety of backgrounds and skill levels; some were retired pros, some had only been playing a couple of years. It was a great mix. When I started this year, I made a master checklist. On that checklist was "score three goals in any game." Well, I can check that off, but perhaps I should revise that to "score three goals in any game with a goalie." I got six last night, but it was open net, so big whoop. Granted, the net was only 3' wide by 1'6" tall, so I suppose that provides something of meritorious circumstance. Everyone was really friendly and eager to get to know me, how long I'd been playing hockey, what I was doing in Poland, what my family was like. The questions were neverending, and everyone seemed just as happy to practice their English as I was to work on my fledgling Polish. Then it was gametime. The rink staff was really laid-back; we paid for an hour, they let us play for 2 1/2. It was a war of attrition, and I was one of the last eight standing. I returned, spent, to the hostel to indulge in one of the greatest pleasures after any struggle: a beer in the shower. And today I feel like a million dollars (approximately 2.6 million zloty.) I have a roller hockey game this Wednesday, and another ice game next Saturday.

The other story is not quite so overwhelmingly positive. I met a girl from California this week. She has been in Europe for a year, and we had one of the most unfortunate conversations I've yet had with one of my fellow countrypersons. Countrypersons. Somebody slap me.

"I just don't understand why nobody speaks English here. I mean, in Budapest everybody speaks English. You'd think these people would understand that nobody speaks their language outside their little country, and they'd learn something everybody could understand"

After pointing out that there were over sixty English schools in Krakow alone, and that 80% of any foreign-language learning section in any Polish bookstore was devoted to English textbooks for Polish speakers, I also mentioned how the Slavic language family worked, and since fifteen-odd countries speak Slavic languages, the Slavic people can mostly understand each other, though perhaps not perfectly. Hungarian is related to...Finnish. Talk about linguistic isolation. She just didn't get it, so I put it another way. I thought I'd press the Californian button and play the migrant worker angle:

"So you think these things about Europe, but don't you think that Hispanic migrant workers should make at least a token effort to learn English?"

"Well, yeah, of course."

"Don't you think that's kind of...contradictory? Hypocritical, even?"

"But America is different."

"How, exactly? We're no better than anybody else, and I actually think if yours is the prevalent view, we're pretty much just culturally benighted and selfish."

After I explained what "benighted" meant, she rolled her eyes and said "whatever." It just blows my mind that someone can go to so many places and seen so many things and still have come away without learning anything about how the world works or how America really fits in. From my journal:

"God, the fact that this girl EXISTS makes me livid. The idea that someone can be exposed to other cultures so long and still have the cultural sensitivity, sophistication, and awareness of a sessile fucking bay scallop infuriates me to no end. ARGH."

Now I suppose you have a small idea of why I don't just publish my journal verbatim. Blog has more polish, less vitriol.

As promised, more, shorter updates from the Eastern front are forthcoming. Hang tough, keep reading, and COMMENT!

Give me enlightenment or give me death,

J. Brandon Harris

Good Lord, What a Week.

2007-10-02T14:25:00.000+02:00

Since it's been a substantial while since I've updated you, I'll do this by chapters. I apologize for the delay, but I've been swamped in Krakow and loving every minute of it.

Strangers on a Train

In my last entry, I was on the way out of Kosice; I had just bought my train ticket and waited, sleep-deprived, in the internet cafes and phone booths for the seven-odd hours before my train. The sojourn to the train station was...lovely. My hockey bag has developed a (now duct-taped) hole, one of the wheels is torqued out of alignment, and, in summary, seventy pounds is no fun to shoulder all the way to the train station. But shoulder it I did, and found my train with little issue. I had no idea how spoiled I was. My previous train travel experiences on this trip have either involved new trains or refurbished old ones. I can say with reasonable certainty that this one hadn't been touched since...Brezhnev. For instance, I went to the bathroom. The light didn't work, the water didn't run, and after peeing in the cold dark, I stepped out of the rest room and looked to my right to see the train door gaping open into the deep and quickly passing Slovakian night. The train was close to empty, and I had a compartment to myself, which initially excited me, until a small unwashed and ill-kempt man in a uniform came to my compartment. He checked my ticket and was amicable enough, but explained that there was a problem with my baggage. I was pleased with how much I understood, and he said I had too much luggage. One ticket buys you one baggage space. It made partial sense, but A) it had never been a problem before, and B) there was no dearth of seating or storage space on this particular train. When he waffled on how much the "penalty" was going to be, I became suspicious. It ranged from 900 SK (about $36...more than the price of the ticket itself) to 300 SK (about $12). I told him I was just a poor student, and I only had a hundred crowns ($4). He put on a pensive face and gave it a moment's thought. Then he put on a comically exaggerated expression of "Well, I'm not supposed to do this, but..." and said that would be enough. I asked him if everything was in order. He replied "good for you, good for me." I asked him for a reciept; he shook my hand. Protest would have been futile, and he probably just wanted a little vodka or a pack of cigarettes. In the end, I just approached it as a small fee for a language lesson. Congrats, Josh! You just gave your first bribe!

Despite my 48-hour deprivation thereof, sleep was a nonentity on the train. I didn't want to incur further fines for laying down on the seats and exceeding my space allowance. At the border my Russian actually did me some good. The border guard spoke no English, and he had a few questions for me. Instead of being irritated, he just seemed relieved that I could understand him. The train trundled on into morning, and I...well...I stayed unfortunately awake.

Getting Settled

I arrived in Krakow in pitch dark, but I found my hostel with ease, and discovered immediately how much I would like it here. I saw the sign that said "check in at 14:00" and my heart sank at the prospect of going another eight hours without sleep. Kasha (receptionist extraordinaire), however, said "you look very tired, though, so if you'll put your luggage in the luggage room, you can go ahead and take your bed now." The hostel didn't accept cards, though, so my more immediate need lay in finding an ATM. I walked down to the bridge and saw the castle, Vavel, in the half-light. Though I was tired and beteeshirted in the 45-degree weather, I braved the cold and watched the sun rise over the castle. It was magnificent; the barest fingers of dawn pried my slouching lids open and cleaned the cobwebs from my cortical corners with ample dexterity. (God, I'm imagining what a whole entry written in that style would sound like...you'd need hip waders to read a paragraph.)

I returned at 6:15 and slept the sleep of the dead. I went out to get dinner and beer, and that was plenty of activities, by my estimation. As a sidenote, this place (Hostel Yellow) is heaven. Free breakfast, comfy beds, great atmosphere, free laundry, wonderful staff...for $11/night. If you're in Krakow, stay here. I got fantastic homemade pierogies and fried them up myself with a dill, cucumber, and tomato salad. Pavel, another receptionist, tells me that I should be a pierogi chef.

Poland 101

The next day consisted of a walking tour, over the course of which I learned some interesting things about Krakow, like the legend of the dragon Smog, who reputedly devoured virgins and livestock in medieval times (but then again, don't we all). This deflowerment and devourment displeased prince Krak greatly, so he put forth a decree that the hand of his daughter would go to whomsoever could slay Smog. Needless to say that,following said proclamation, the dragon had no shortage of crunchy knight snacks to supplement his regular diet of virgins and sheep. This all came to a screeching halt when the archetypal "little guy from circumstances" concocted a plan, which, of course, was to stuff a sheep with sulphur. I know that would have been the first thing to come to MY mind. The dragon ate the brimstone in sheep's clothing, and it made him so thirsty that he drank half the water in the Vistula and popped. All I could think of was the prospect of seething masses of dragon flesh all over Krakow. Here endeth the lesson.

Maybe sometime I'll tell you why saint fingers taste like sulphur.

The tour was full of colorful stories. We went to the window from wence then-cardinal J.P. II would preach to Polish youth about maintaining faith under the iron hand of Communism. We also went to and town square, the Schindler factory, and the Jewish Ghetto. The last two were good (though insufficient) introductions to the next day's activity.

The Worst Place on Earth

I went to Auschwitz-Birkenau with a Californian and an Australian the following day. Auschwitz was depressing and thoroughly awful, but bearable. The experimental gas chamber and Dr. Mengele's first office were the worst places, though. The room with a glassed-in 30-meter by four-meter by two-meter enclosure containing two tons of victims' hair (the raw material for cheap fabric) really gave me an idea of the scale and the absolutely indescribable horror that tainted this remarkably beautiful Polish countryside.

What surprised me most, however, was that Auschwitz I was the comprehensible part. We walked the two kilometers to the much larger sister camp, Birkenau. When I saw it from a quarter-mile away, a chill ran through me and I just stopped walking, as did my companions. It took a minute to process Birkenau's size: two square kilometers of bunkers and death facilities that at any given time housed 90,000 inmates. I walked in and couldn't think of anything. I was reaching for some kind of consolation, or explanation, or solace, or anything at all, really, but all of those things were conspicuously absent. I sat down at the corner of the first gas chamber that was built specifically for the purpose of murder, as opposed to being a converted air raid shelter, and cried for what felt like twenty minutes, although I'm not very sure. The thing that kicked me in the chest was no longer the size, but the ruthless, inhuman efficiency of the todmacht. I considered the horrifying fact that the camp did not birth itself. Someone was paid to design it and implement the plans. The structure was fearfully symmetrical, designed to assuage panic and crush even the merest vestiges of hope. I won't say anymore, just know that any description I have attached to Birkenau carries not even an angstrom of adequacy in comparison to actually being there. If you're ever in Krakow, it is my opinion that you have an obligation as a human being to go, pay respects, and learn whatever you can from the senselessness of it all.

A Day of Rest.

I woke up the next day feeling emotionally disemboweled. Though the events of the day preceding broke something inside me, I felt something else growing in its place: a dawning understanding of the human capacities not only for evil but for good as well. To keep myself from having a mood the color of gunmetal for the rest of the week, I took the day out and went skating all over Krakow in search of hockey rinks, and discovered that hockey is far from plentiful here. I'm going to improvise in the coming week and do whatever I can to find some inline options. I've even sent some emails out on roller hockey forums in hopes that A) someone will speak English better than I speak Polish, and B) that someone will be interested in my interest. More on that as it develops. I also learned that skating on cobblestone bears absoutely no resemblance to fun.

When I was up until 6:30 AM for reasons that defy rational explanation (I was playing scrabble on the internet and talking to my parents online...decidedly not rational behavior at that hour.), I heard American voices, discussing a visit to the Wieliczka salt mines. Since I was dazed and loopy, I decided it would be a stellar idea to go and talk to them in my compromised state. And so I did, and found my weekend travel companions. It was really refreshing to meet Americans who are in Eastern Europe to do more than drop off the face of the planet to order the whore sampler with a side of absinthe.

We went to Wieliczka two days later, and it was remarkable. Hundreds of kilometers of rock salt tunnels and caverns underlay the town of Wieliczka--in fact, if the mine collapsed, so would the town; hence they stopped salt extraction in 1996. Only two kilometers are open to the public, and those two, in addition to having details on the history of salt extraction, also had lots of statues carved out of solid salt. Many were also illuminated from within. It was amazing, especially the chapel, where reliefs of the annunciation and last supper dominated the walls, while the most recent addition, the larger-than-life statue of Pope John Paul II presided over the underground analogue to the narthex. For positive reasons this time, it really defied description.

The UNH kids and I became as close as people can be after only having known each other two days, so the next day we all forayed to Zakopane, a mountain town near the Slovakian border. I'll post the link to the pictures as soon as I download them to facebook, which won't happen until I find internet that is more satisfactory, but suffice to say that the only place I've ever been that rivals Zakopane for mountain beauty is Switzerland. And Poland is a hell of a lot cheaper. We rode the gondola up the mountain for an astounding view of the Tatras, and saw a cow with what appeared to be five-gallon udders. The poor girl was in dire need of milking. Then we played on a ropes course before it was time to go home, which we did. It was perhaps the best weekend of the trip so far, and I have Allyssa [;-)] Randy, Kirsten, and Marissa to thank for it. So thanks guys.

In conclusion, Poland is stellar, and in the past week I've seen everything from the awful to the amazing, and I honestly like it that way, as long as I learn from everything I encounter. So far, so good, on that front.

And today I'm doing my penance for being so woefully out of touch with the rest of the world. Since it's taken me the better part of the day to write this epic saga of a week in the life, I'm going to try to have a format shift: more, shorter entries. Tell me which you would prefer, and do remember to comment!

Happiest he's been in a while,

J. Brandon Harris

Top of the World/A Cold Day in Hell

2007-09-23T11:43:00.000+02:00

Kosice has been relaxing and culturally fascinating, but I'm writing you as I spend my final few hours here. My train leaves at 11:30 pm. I'll tell you why that sucks in a bit. Icetime at the public rink seems limited to very small children and figure skaters. In order to double my chances of finding something in Poland, though, I bought a pair of decent inline hockey skates. Inline is usually less organized and will hence be easier to wedge into. My Polish is improving, so that should also help.
I went to a museum of underground fortifications in Kosice, which produced some really interesting pictures, but not much else.
Since hockey seemed to be a wash here, I decided to take a daytrip to one of the regional castles, Krasna Horka. The buses run at 6:50 am, 12:50 pm, and 6:50 pm. It's a two-hour bus ride, and the castle closes at 2:00. Guess which bus I had to take! But I made it, and the ride down took me through some lovely countryside (the pictures are uploading this very moment). The tour was interesting enough. Old expensive things rich people once owned can only hold so much appeal, though. The highlights of the castle were the counterfeiting workshop, the torture room, the armaments room full of captured Turkish weapons, the mummified 300-year-old countess...one of those things is decidedly not like the others. I swear to God I've seen more creepy dead bodies on this trip. It occurred to me that there was probably enough skin on her to make a lovely leather hat and glove set, though. Since the old lady's skin wasn't for sale, I bought a pile of postcards instead.
From the castle I could walk to see some low-level nobility man's mausoleum and, no doubt, more expensive things he once owned. I started down the road toward said mausoleum, thinking "why the hell not?" when I saw a path. Then my "why the hell not" shifted gears, and I started down this labyrinthine system of trails. There were little olive-skinned kids playing in the forest, and old women were gathering mushrooms. There were also piles of clothing and garbage, seemingly sorted, in the rows of hedges and trees. I arrived at a clearing and saw a village with dirt roads--many of the houses had no rooves and there was no direct paved road access. Across the valley shepherds were driving flocks across fields. It was like I stepped back in time 150 years. Aside from a highway and a water treatment plant in the distance, were no readily apparent signs of a lifestyle that includes directv, supermarkets, or cars. There was a single, beaten-up Fiat in the village. It was fascinating. From there I changed course and found a rocky peak where I got a spectacular view of the castle and outlying area. Go see the pictures on Facebook.

http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016841&l=b01ee&id=44700686

Because of my admittedly occasionally silly no backtracking policy, I didn't go back the way I came. I wanted to make an adventure out of it. An adventure I made indeed. I stumbled through overgrown trails, whistling and coughing as I did so in order to avoid any possible hunting accidents. I did this for an hour before I came back to one of the better-marked trails. I followed it and exited the woods by a path that was only 50 meters away from my entry path. Not too shabby, methinks.

Here's where it starts to get bad.

I checked the bus schedule. The bus schedule was scratched to the point of illegibility, and were it legible, it would still be remarkably unclear which buses ran which days. After waiting for the time when I thought my bus would whisk me back to Kosice, I asked one of the locals when the next bus to Kosice would be. The answer he gave me was certainly not the one I wanted to hear: zajtra. Tomorrow. I winced and thanked him for his help. My mind flashed over several things at once. Checkout at the Kosice hostel is 10:00. I need to buy a ticket to Krakow. I need to buy a Krakow map. I need to clean my room before 10:00. I'm travelling tomorrow; I need to sleep. None of these things were especially pleasant. I learned the unfortunate fact of my confinement at 15:30, and the earliest listed bus was 5:58 the next morning. I ate pizza (quite tasty pizza, at that), and mulled over my options.

A) Get a room at a cheap accommodation place in Krasnahorske Podhradie.
But Josh, that costs money.
Okay.

B) Hitchhike.
But Josh, that might not be safe and you might end up sold into white slavery in Dubai...or at least just stuck in some totally bizarre part of Slovakia.
Point conceded.

C) Drink beer til the bar that's open the latest closes, then go to the bus stop and sleep.
But Josh, people will think you're homeless, and besides, it's cold outside!
Counterpoint 1: I don't care. Counterpoint 2: I don't care.

The bar was fine. I chatted with the barman to the best of my abilities, and he showed me his collection of spiders preserved in shots of gin. He found all of them at the bar, and caught them himself. 17 varieties of spider, all huge. Made me a little wary of my beer, but I soldiered on. Closing time came, and option C seemed to be the most serviceable. I would be awake for my bus, I wouldn't be spending any unnecessary money, and I might be able to get some sleep. (guffaw)

My good friend Frank said something that really stuck with me, especially last night: "if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough." I got an hour and a half of the worst sleep in my life behind the bus stop, and woke up covered in frigid dew. My layers of t-shirt, hoodie, and wool sweater weren't really helping much in the 36-degree weather. I did jumping jacks, which helped a little, but the ultimate temporary solution was starting a fire with my postcards. I'd grabbed some matches from the bar in case something like this happened, and it got me to the point where I could at least feel my fingers again. I tried sleeping again, on the bench instead of in the grass, and when that failed, I ran in place for half an hour. That worked. A merciful bus driver stopped at 4:50 and picked me up. As consolation, I don't think the sky's even that dark at Sewanee. I looked at stars for easily two hours. From there I packed, and the desk attendant asked me "so where have you been for so long?" I told him as best I could about my ordeal, and he said I could check out an hour late, that I looked like I needed some sleep. And I did. And I do. A seven-hour train ride has to be good for something, right?

Why do I have such blighted luck with bus transit?

Comment, and since the hostel in Krakow has internet, I'll be contactable regularly. Two comments on the last post, guys. That's a poor showing :-P (kidding, I know you read it)

Finally warm again,

Josh

Hockeyless, Cultural, Transit, and Hostel Hijinx

2007-09-19T14:37:00.000+02:00

When you last left me, I was a terminal optimist. "At best I'll have three games this weekend, at worst, one." Some mathematicians argue that zero isn't really a number; it's a placeholder, an absence of quantity, a void. I agree in part. The zero turns out to be the outcome of my hope to play in Bratislava again In retrospect, I guess three weeks, two games is better than three weeks, no games, but still. I extended my stay twice in hopes of hitting the ice again. In my frustration, I alternated between going out to do cultural things (which are all dirt cheap, especially if you're a student), and staying in and spending no money so I would have more to throw around when I needed it later. On the bright side, though, I did a fair number of rewarding cultural things.
The Slovak National Gallery housed an interesting but small collection of Northern and Italian Renaissance and Baroque pieces, but its real highlight was its collection of Slovak baroque and gothic art. The gothic altarpieces were largely dismantled in country churches and put into archives under communism, and many are only coming to the fore now. The exhibition was huge and beautiful, although it still bothers me to no end that some gothic artists couldn't figure out how to make the Virgin Mary's eyes look in the same direction. Something about a googly-eyed Holy Mother of God that's just...hard to take seriously. But the layout of the galleries (all of them) was the real kicker. The gallery didn't make sense sometimes, but it certainly kept its viewer on his/her toes. At the far end of the Gothic room, right next to the most intricate altarpiece of all, was...a climbing wall? It was contemporary art, of course, but the juxtaposition just made its viewer turn the corner, blink twice, turn around, and make sure it wasn't all just a mirage or an elaborate ruse. In all cases, the gallery interspersed contemporary art and sculpture with its older pieces. Sometimes the contemporary art choices made sense; sometimes they didn't. On the whole, though, I give the gallery a thumbs up for not allowing its patrons to sink into historical complacency, e.g. "oh, yes, darling...I know this period. He follows Caravaggio. Look at the elegant contrast between the sourceless light on the Corpus Christi and the dark background...Wait...what the hell is that big black square doing there? Darling, help! Malevich has broken in and wants to rape my art! Call the police!"
The Central European Photo Gallery provided very little about which to write home. One of their side exhibits, however, was a fascinating collection of pictures from the Czech Republic taken in 1967 and early 1968. Soviet hippies, just months before the tanks came in. The exhibition was all the more powerful since I remember all the horrible photos from the Museum of Communism in Prague--the tanks running through buildings, the soldiers on the streets, the removal of the statue from Vaclavske Namesti. It put the pieces in place. I saw the despair in Prague, but the despair only deepens when you consider the immense hope which preceded it. The photographer lives and works in Bratislava now; I got my poster autographed and had a conversation alternately in broken Slovak and broken English with him, and told him how much I enjoyed his work. He was touched, I think.
In conclusion, it took a little effort on my part to keep my last few days in Bratislava from being a total wash. My final nights were spent hauling foreigners to overpriced bars and not drinking. Some Canadians, Brits, Swedes, and Frenchmen wanted a guide, and I told them I didn't know any really cheap places. They didn't seem to care--they just wanted to go somewhere in the middle of town. I took them to the Irish bar, where they proceeded to harp on all the American stereotypes.
Americans are arrogant.

When the Canadian mentioned this, I told him someone had to feel perhaps a little too good about himself and his country to be putting down his own continental neighbor.

Americans are uncultured.

I asked the Frenchman what his favorite classical music period was; did he prefer melodic harmony or did he go for the more atonal stuff? He had no answer. A Swedish guy at the table tried the "Americans are uncultured" angle again, and I reminded him that Sweden exported more terrible pop music than anywhere else on the planet. I cited ABBA, Gunther, and Ace of Base.

Americans don't know what money is worth.

When the British guy mentioned this, I reminded him that I wasn't the one who had already shelled out the equivalent of twenty-five pounds sterling on shitty beer. I would normally just shrug this off, but the table was a Pan-European Anti-America Festival. I delivered all of the above with a nice big grin on my face. *Sigh.*

Combined with my hockey frustrations, this put me over the edge. I was fed up to the gills with Bratislava. The time has come, the walrus said...to get the hell out of Dodge.
Just as with my passage from Brno to Bratislava, my escape from Bratislava was suspiciously easy. As I boarded the train, however, I could already hear the three-ring nightmare circus calliope music from some distant corner of Kosice...the corner with Hostel Kosmalt in it.
The trainride was breathtaking, enough to make me wish I'd brought hiking gear. The Tatras are majestic, and I got to see a good deal of the Slovakian landscape. It's a really varied country, with lots of lakes, mountains, vineyards. And factories. Big, hulking factories belching out tons and tons of chemicals into the pure Slovakian sky. I looked into the distance and through the haze thought I saw a magnificent castle. On closer inspection, however, it turned out to be a long row of 13-story Brezhnev blocks with roof accesses that made the whole contiguous row of buildings look rather like a mammoth parapet. I wrote it in my journal this way: "This country is like a pastoral painting inbred with an industrial nightmare and the decaying vestiges of a failed social experiment." To its credit, though, the pastoral element dominates.
I found my hostel easily enough, and hauling was remarkably minimal. Send in the lion tamers, the midgets and the three-nippled psychics, though, because someone played a MAGICK TRICK on me! I reserved seven nights at 300SK (about $12.00) per night. I arrived, and the reception decided to play the room shell game on me. They put me in the (sic) "delux turis acomodations," which came in at a whopping 950SK/night. Since Kosmalt is on the edge of town, I was too tired to put up much of a fight. I wasn't keen on hauling my luggage through the rain at 11:30 pm 5KM toward the center of town. Though I stayed, needless to say I cancelled the other six nights of my stay. They wouldn't let me at first, but my Slovak is mercifully good enough that I could be firm.
I got what I paid for, I guess. I got a king-size bedroll which was free of bugs, a private shower and my own balcony. In the future, however, I'd really like to have some control over the nights I spend in relative luxury. I was so angry that I dropped my luggage off and walked to town center. I was too pissed off to be tired anymore. I found another couple of places to check out, and the good Lord shone down upon me to pointeth the way to Mackers, as the Aussies call the ubiquitous franchise. Those chicken nuggets were nothing short of consecrated.
I walked 10.5 KM that night, and I arrived back at Kosmalt at 3am. I slept right through my alarm. On purpose. They hadn't told me of a checkout time, so I was going to play ignorant. Besides, there wasn't exactly a line of people clamoring for rooms--I was the only occupied room on a hall of sixteen. So when the maid shouted things at me in Slovak at noon, I hauled my things downtown to K2 Hostel, which has an ideal location and a much more manageable 350SK/night pricetag. In the process, though, a hole developed in the outside pocket of my hockey bag, and my jock fell out in the street and got covered in mud. As though there weren't enough people staring at me already. I scouted out the two town hockey rinks; unfortunately, figure skating *cringe and grimace* is much more popular than hockey here. out of 15 hours/day that the rink is open, nine are devoted to figure skating, the rest to practices. Gross. Kosice could be a wash for hockey, but I'm going to watch a couple of hours today and see what happens.
Today I explored the center, including the musical fountain, the Soviet memorial (which is remarkably unvandalized), and St. Elizabeth's, a titanic cathedral originally from 1207. It's had many incarnations and additions, so it's a real mish-mash of styles at this point, with its baroque Great North Tower and its traditional Gothic facade and apse. I climbed the Great North Tower--it only boasted a modest 172 steps, in comparison with St. Vita's 287, but yielded a gorgeous view of Kosice and its surrounding hilly countryside. If my hockey explorations aren't fruitful, I may take a daytrip to a cave complex or a castle tomorrow. Now I ought to go to the Museum of Eastern Slovakia.

All the news that's fit to print (and some that isn't),

J. Brandon Harris

comment!

Selected Miscellany Between Games.

2007-09-13T00:15:00.000+02:00

So, picking up chronologically, I took my only-marginally-clean bloody face back to the hostel and, as mentioned, the Irishmen took a liking to me. One said, "holy shit! I'd hate to think what the other guy looked like!" We talked hockey and football for a bit, and they were excited that I'd never been to a professional football match. They just happened to have an extra ticket, so I went with them and an Aussie girl. One of the craziest places I've ever been, without a doubt. I thought UT Vol fans were crazy. I had no idea. The gentleman (?) in front of me was dressed in a cassock and mitre. He had a snake around his neck. Yes, that's right. He was Saint Patrick. He'd also jump up and down, hit people with his snake, and scream "BOLLOCKS!!!" every time Ireland did something unadvisable. There were also numerous leprechaun sightings. The Irishmen were very impressed, since I knew all the Irish soccer chants already...they're all just old drinking lays (big surprise), and god knows I listened to my share of Irish drinking songs in college. I also came away from the 2-2 draw with a nifty scarf. One side has the Irish flag, the other has the Slovakian flag. It's neat. We walked home, but I got a nice picture of the trams packed with folks in green. 7,000 Irish came to Bratislava to see the match. It was crazy. The next day came, as it often does, and my Irish friends left. I was lonely, and I finally picked up and finished Choke (which is amazing, by the way), but I had a compulsion to get some books--one book I could read and pass on to someone who needed it more than I, and something that could stick with me. I went to my local English language bookstore in search of the new Delillo novel. It was the tenth, and I thought something concerning the eleventh would be fitting. Big surprise, they didn't have it. But I got "Heart of Darkness" for my pass-along book. The "Stay with me" book was harder to determine. I was looking for something heady, something at least peripherally concerning travel, something multifarious, something I could read in any mood. You know, I'm not picky or anything. The more I looked, the more I realized only Ulysses could fit all these criteria. So I got it, and it has helped. It's been really helpful to get my literary faculties working again. I've been working so hard on keeping up with other languages that I've really started longing to be challenged by my own again. Speaking of other languages, I finally found a Slovak language textbook. It's helping.
On Tuesday, I watched youtube archive footage of 9/11 for about half an hour before making breakfast. The rest of the day was bizarre. I decided to set out for a rural art museum, the Danubiana. When I say rural, I mean a solid 18 km into South Bratislava, and then another 4 km on foot. So said my "Let's Go! Eastern Europe!," anyway. But beyond distances and the bus stop, I had a lot of guesswork to do in terms of in which direction I should walk 3.5 kilometers. The book also mentioned that the building was interesting--silver, blue, and red. I walked around Cunovo (THE most distant Bratislava suburb) in hopes of seeing a sign. Anything. But I found above all that the place was beautiful, quiet, and I got three "dobry dens" from total strangers. The only noise was the occasional car or dog. I followed a main road out to a highway, and saw a gleaming silver, blue and red building in the distance. The wind started to get cold as I walked down the road, and I noticed that half the sky was turning black; the other half was pristine. I turned around and saw at once the most intimidating sky and the most incredible rainbow I've ever seen. Rainbows would be more accurate. There were about five of them. I tucked my shirt into my plastic bag, knowing from my last cold rainy adventure that it's better to be bare-chested than covered in wet slimy fabric. I continued walking along the road toward the building until I noticed that the road would be an extremely serpentine course. To my left was a big, bare farm field. It looked like a straight shot, so I walked, sandal-shoon. And the hail began. I guess it's a good thing I like golf balls when there's no sign of shelter for 500 meters in any direction. Gross. As the ground got wet, my flip-flops became mudshovels. I had little choice, so I kept walking. I walked until I was on another part of the highway, and close enough to tell that the building in question was definitely not an art museum. It had semi trucks and cars driving through. I was also right in front of "Club Happy End Erotic Parlor." Not my idea of an oasis, but good for a funny picture. I saw spires in the distance and walked toward them until I saw a set of signs: "POZOR! STATNA GRANICA!" From my knowledge of Russian, I could approximate this to "Beware! National Border!" I grinned to myself and walked a bold six meters into Austria, just to say I'd been.
From a goal-oriented standpoint, the trip was a failure. From a climatic comfort standpoint, the trip was miserable. But it was a fantastic day, really. A) the only expectations I have this year are to play hockey, learn pan-European (but especially Slavic) culture, and learn Slavic languages. B) a few bruises and a little cold never killed anyone. I stopped at a roller hockey rink in another Bratislava suburb and watched some neighborhood kids playing with a tennis ball. I stopped at still another suburb and peeked through a gate at the ruins of a Roman military garrison camp.
And today I saw Hamlet. In Slovak. Correction: I ran a solid mile and a half to make it to the show in time. I went in an L-shape, it turns out, but in addition to making the show in time, I got my exercise for the day. The sweaty neckband of my shirt is unhappy with me, however. As for the play itself, the staging was fantastic, and I could tell the acting was stellar, even though I only understood 20% of the dialog. I filled in the rest with English, reciting the soliloquies word-for-word in my mother tongue with the black prince. He was a damn good Hamlet. The more I look back on it, the more I detest the production I saw at Rhodes College as a prospective student. They set the soliloquies to shitty guitar music. Shakespeare's great tragedy became a maudlin Jack Johnson song...as though there's any other kind. That's a non sequitur, but nonetheless. At best I'll have three games this weekend, at worst, one. Then I'll close the book on Bratsvegas and move on to Kosice, which looks like it will be about a week of nonstop...well, not much, really. Do be in touch and do comment.

All the best.

Josh

First Blood

2007-09-07T22:37:00.000+02:00

The above title has multiple meanings. One of them is unfortunate. More on that in a bit.

Bratislava weather has been absolutely terrible. It's rained for three days straight, and the high temp has been in the neighborhood of fifty degrees. The time has come, the walrus said, to shop for autumn clothes, for parkas, ponchos, jackets, and a new-ass pair of shoes.

I'll begin by regaling you with a brief selection of stories from my final days at Patio Hostel, the worst place I've stayed yet. My earlier assessment of the staff was charitable, it turns out.

As said, they're all rude as hell, and while I'm sure I'd get tired of managing the affairs of drunken Brits, it went a little too far the other night. I was hanging out in the common room and an Irishman comes down the stairs. He's sober as a stick, and he's been more or less babysitting his buddies. He went out with a bunch of his fellow Irish to a bar around the corner, and some Slovakian dudes offered to buy him and his boys a drink. The sober guy went out to smoke, but his buddies accepted, and within ten minutes, they could tell something was wrong. Fortunately they were just around the corner from the hostel, so they made it back intact, but as soon as they got back, they started sweating profusely and couldn't move. This devolved into quite the scene as the sober Irishman was asking for any kind of help, recommendations, anything, telling the receptionist that his buddies had been drugged. The receptionist replied "it's not my problem." There was another guy who had gone out with them, and he'd also accepted a shot from a Slovakian guy...Mark, the sober guy, was trying to find out what room he was in so he could make sure the Irishman in question, Alan, was okay. He said "I'm trying to find out what room this guy Alan is in." The receptionist said "well, why don't you just go find him?" I babysat the guys for a while, and they were a mess. I've been in three hostels so far, and I hadn't seen anything so callous until now. At that moment I knew that I would be changing locations. My lodging expenses have gone up by another $2 or $3 per night, but I'm under budget for Bratislava anyhow. I've been compensating well, especially since I started cooking for myself. But getting drugged at a club. That's some scary shit. That's why I buy beer at the grocery store and just drink at the hostel before I go out.

But the night wasn't over. I finally start to drift off around 2:15, and then there's awful noise in the parking lot followed by awful noise in the stairwell followed by awful noise outside my door followed by awful noise in the middle of my damn room. Four of the Brit boys who have the rest of my room have returned, and they're in their cups. One goes to bed in the bunk above me. The next batch returns, as loud as the last, and one of the new arrivals stands in front of my bed. I hear a smack as he deals his mate one across the cheek and goes to bed. The guy above me starts yelling his ass off and runs into the other room. I hear the sounds of combat, and wouldn't you know it, I have a front row seat. They're punching, kicking, screaming...one of the guys takes a header into the bedpost and breaks his nose. There's blood everywhere. I offer to go get reception (even though I'm sure they would've been helpful like you wouldn't believe), but one of the Brits says "no, we need to keep this amongst ourselves. Don't worry about it, it's not so bad. Go back to sleep." I tell him that it looks pretty bad to me, and he responds with "look, mate, if you tell the reception, the police will get involved, and if the police get involved, our mate here won't be the only one who gets hurt." Cute. I put my hockey stick in bed with me, put a snarl on my face, called him a something unrepeatable and told him "suit yourself."

the icing on the cake...they yell at me the next morning for making too much noise getting up. This prompts me to make more. What turds. One of them stole my sheets, and I lose my deposit if I don't return the sheets. They were all abed, so I wandered around the dorm and took someone else's. Uggh. That whole place just made me feel like I was living in a flop-house.

And here I am in paradise.

Hostel Blues, right across the street, feels like a five-star hotel by comparison. Big, fluffy pillows, friendly staff, blackout shutters in a west-facing room, peace and quiet, and a considerably higher caliber of guests. I guess you get what you pay for. My life feels much less like a comedy of errors since moving here, and I'll be here until the thirteenth. I may extend my stay by a bit so I can see the Slovak National Theatre perform Hamlet.

Now that you know where I am, I'll tell you a little more about my serendipitous miserable day a few days back. Two days ago, I set out in the rain and cold to walk around, buy a jersey, and ultimately attend what I thought was a public skate. The HC Slovan jersey rocks, and I spent the rest of my afternoon walking around in a cemetery, which was peaceful, but not as interesting as I had thought. I came back to the hostel, and put on my new jersey after wringing out my sweater...yes, the weather was that bad. After dinner, I braved the awful weather again and arrived at the rink, only to find out that I had misread the sign; it wasn't a public skate, but something better--skate sharpening. I discovered in my last game how deplorably dull my skates were after losing a couple of easy edges. Trying to tell a Slovak rink employee that I wanted a 3/8" hollow didn't work for two reasons. 1: I don't speak Slovak very well. 2: Slovak is a metric country. Oops. I told him that I play center, and he should do what he thinks is best. He did a fine job. Getting back was an absolute nightmare. I rode the #14 tram, which presumably takes me back to my hostel. For reasons that defy rational explanation, however, I ended up in a totally unfamiliar part of Bratislava. When I realized I should have been back a good ten minutes ago, I got off on Pionerska. To make sure I wasn't crazy, I looked at the tram as it pulled away, and it said #14, sure enough. I looked at the platform information signpost, and the number fourteen was conspicuously absent. So there I was, with squishy shoes, a soaked jersey with nothing underneath, and a rather suspect-looking blue trashbag which held my skates and gloves. I slogged (or squished, whichever verb you prefer) to the station going the other way. Mercifully, a tram ran from there to my stop. However, it wouldn't arrive for another thirty minutes. It merits mention that the tram stop was totally uncovered, and I was already wet and cold. A tram platform in Bratislava is about three feet wide and dead center in the middle of the street. Hence whenever a car would pass, I would get soaked. I haven't been so cold in years. The tram finally arrived, and I made it home fine. To contrast the discomfort, though, I'm pretty sure the shower I took when I returned was one of the best I've ever taken.

The weather was no better the next day. It was perfect for what I did, though; I went to Devin Castle with an Australian girl. To provide a little historical background, Devin Castle was a hub of trade in the Hapsburg empire. When the Turks sacked Budapest, Devin Castle became the center of government for the empire. Napoleon destroyed it in 1809, and it was dormant until communism. Under communism, the castle became the Slovakian equivalent of the Berlin wall. Snipers were posted in the ruins 24/7 to pick off possible defectors to Austria. There was a really interesting memorial to that effect. The castle was a really forlorn place, so the weather was perfect. The ruins were really imposing, and I got some terriffic pictures.

Later in the day I went out with some Irishmen; the city is packed with Irish, since Ireland is playing Slovakia tomorrow. They took a liking to me, and said they had an extra ticket. So I'm going to my first pro soccer game tomorrow, God willing.

Now for the origin of the title. My second game was today, and I'm starting to get my hockey legs back. I was a much more imposing presence on the ice today. The first sense of first blood is the unfortunate one. I already had two assists when I got into a third-period scrap for the puck in front of the net, and one of my teammates wasn't paying attention. Stick to the nose. Ow. I must admit, though, I'm pretty proud of the bloodstains on the palm of my glove. Again, my teammates were surprised when I cleaned it up with some snow and got right back out for my next shift. That was the shift, incidentally, where I made "first blood" have its second connotation. My defenseman, Martin, angled the puck off the boards and I chased it. I knew from the second I got my start that I had the defenseman beat. I deked on my forehand side, froze the goalie, and then backhanded it into the net for a gorgeous goal. We lost, but whatever. The bottle's been uncorked, and now I'm unstoppable...I hope. My next game is Sunday morning. I think I bought my jersey a little too soon. I'm going to have to tighten my belt even more, because the time to buy a new helmet would seem to be upon me. I have two games and two injuries. They seem to be getting worse, too, so I need to get a new face shield before I find myself decapitated. So here it is. Game: 1 goal, 2 assists, +1. Career: 1 goal, 5 assists, +4. Not so shabby, I think.

Get back to me. I'll post again probably on monday. And don't forget to COMMENT!

Be good, kids.

Josh

No Goals, Three Assists, +2 Rating.

2007-09-03T14:53:00.000+02:00

I'm playing the equivalent of Little Rock Men's League A. My tryout was Saturday, and it went well. As I suspected, my skating skills and speed came in handy. I'm playing with a bunch of middle-aged pack-a-day smokers, so their skating abilities are a little compromised, but they could stickhandle through autobahn traffic. In other words, the start is a good one; we have things to learn from each other.

My first game was a lesson and a roaring success. I learned how out of shape I am. My first two shifts were nightmarish, and though it got much easier from there, I learned that I have a long way to go before my skills are back to a standard I consider satisfactory. Give me two games, and I'll be back to where I want to be, and it'll hopefully be all uphill from there. I recall mentioning that my endurance hasn't suffered because I've been walking so much; I forgot that you use a totally different, much larger group of muscles when you're playing hockey versus just public skating. I'm not nearly as sore today as I thought I would be, though, so I suppose that's a positive indicator. I had another opportunity to play in an informal, optional scrimmage this morning...at seven AM. I don't know if I've taken adequate time to grumble about the Bratislava public transit system, but it's pretty close to innavigable. You can't get anywhere from anywhere directly. I won't complain anymore, though, because I know that Bratislava's public transit will be a dreamboat compared to Kosice's. Taking into account both the time it takes to transfer from tram 2 to tram 1 to bus 34 to bus 83 and the necessary time in the locker room, I hae to leave the hostel a good two hours before any kind of engagement at this rink, which is in rural Bratislava. Needless to say I woke up to my alarm and the grumbles of my dormmates at 5:00 and thought for about ten minutes before saying.."no. Sorry boys, I'll see you tomorrow." I play again Tuesday night at nine.

From a technical standpoint, I really think I prefer the European rink. The wider surface creates more skating, passing, and scoring opportunities...of which I had many. As you've probably deduced by the title of this entry, I did fairly well in our 4-3 victory. On the whole, I think the guys are more or less impressed. They're more than a little baffled that I'm in Bratislava to play hockey and learn the language and culture instead of just frequenting pubs for cheap beer like most anglophones. Thus being diplomatic is easy at the moment, because the standard of behavior for English speakers is pretty low. I've learned from the locals that Americans have a reputation for being clueless and well-meaning, but Brits come over here to have stag parties and break things. Mache, my goalie friend, showed me a statistic online about the ratio of Slovakians arrested to UK residents arrested during Bratislava's tourist season. The ratio is almost ten English to one Slovakian. So when someone knows more of the language than "beer" (pivo), it makes an impression. I think I also got some respect points when I kept playing after getting hit in the face with a puck. My helmet repair kit... didn't, so I played without a cage, and got a pretty nifty shiner for my troubles. There was a momentary pause in the game (not a stoppage of play, but everybody just kinda stopped and looked at me with concerned expressions). I was laughing my ass off, I passed the puck, and we scored. I went to the bench with a huge smile on my face, with my glove over my left eye. So now they think I'm pretty tough or pretty crazy. I'm not sure which. At any rate, we're underway, and I have to research schedules, fit my mouthguard, and look for a helmet repair kit that actually has the right has the right bolts. It'll be fun, and so will the rest of the year, I suspect.

COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT!

Later kids.

Josh

Paydirt.

2007-08-31T15:52:00.000+02:00

This one will be brief, but informative. Unless you have business in Bratislava, (like hockey,) I don't necessarily recommend spending more than three days here. Maybe it's just the hostel. I've shifted rooms three times in six days, and last night was by far the funniest. Again, the traveler's ability to laugh at inconvenience is invaluable. I stayed up late looking for sandwiches after some loudmouths of questionable quality stole the rest of my pasta. I guess since it was on plates, they assumed the hostel refrigerator was a restaurant and just helped themselves. Their timing was poor, though, because I returned from my day's journey just in time to see them rinsing what was very clearly spaghetti residue from two plates that looked suspiciously like mine. They'd just been to Tesco, also. They could've easily eaten their own food, but instead they gave me a handy conduit for revenge. After a fruitless 3AM search for a sandwich in the streets of Bratislava, I went back to the hostel and made myself a lovely meal of a sandwich and two beers--at the Brits' expense. Left a note on the fridge: "thanks for the sandwich and beer, lads! Hope the pasta was lovely!"
But it gets better. I'm fed, watered, and finally ready for bed, and I walk into my room and notice something. It's a Goldilocks moment: "someone's sleeping in my bed!" I'm pretty sure I'd never had a Ludacris song stuck in my head before, but there's a first time for everything. "WHO LET THESE HOES IN MY ROOM?!?!?!?" I blinked, guffawed, and headed down to inform the reception. So I've been moved from a six-bed dorm to an eight-bed dorm to a ten-bed dorm. Woohoo!
My lodging, however, may be much cheaper in the future. I met a guy in the hostel the other day, George, who turned me on to this thing called couch surfing. Young people volunteer space in their apartments to visiting foreigners, and expenses are minimal; just help pay for food. But moreover, it will perhaps be especially helpful to have a few contacts in countries like Belarus before I go in--they're likely to have a much more nuanced knowledge of the visa regime than an outsider would, and hell, they might know some hockey players.
And speaking of hockey players, I watched a men's league game and finally got the intestinal fortitude to go to the locker room and ask if anyone spoke English. I talked to the youngest guy in there (about 18-19), and he seemed very eager to practice his English skills. I get on the ice tomorrow for a tryout, but I can skate with these guys. Hence, though Bratislava may be a tourist trap, I'll be here a while. Assuming I don't just totally suck at my tryout, my first game will be on Sunday morning, and then I'll have a pickup game Sunday night. Gonna be a long day, that one. Gotta make sure to eat all the pasta I can...before another batch of Brits get to it.

Wish me luck, and I'll be sure to update by Monday with all the gory details.

But seriously...who let those hoes in my room?

J. Brandon Harris, the man who would be king

Finding Paydirt in Bratsvegas

2007-08-28T13:57:00.000+02:00

To preface my Bratislava adventures, I'd like to share a little quotation from my journal:

"Leaving Brno should be simple enough. Getting to my hostel in Bratislava, however, may be another story. I think I may already hear circus calliope music in the background."

Compared to the nightmarish affair at the Prague bus station, getting my train business in order was remarkably simple. What followed, however, was not. I arrived in Bratislava Main Station with my remaining Czech Crowns, and looked around at the exchange rates. Though they promised "no commission!," but it seemed the exchange rates themselves were arbitrary. The prices in the station had no grounding in reality, and were more centered on fleecing than business. It was an ill omen, I think, because the stories have only been piling up since then. I decided to withdraw some money from the ATM and be done with it, then I realized I'd need coins to get on public transit. I wasn't about to pay the equivalent of US$4 for a bottle of water just to make change, so I decided to get walking. In retrospect, this may have been a poor choice. It was 95 degrees and I hadn't eaten since breakfast. Did I mention that the hostel was over a mile away? I've started taking pictures of my luggage whenever I depart or arrive somewhere. I'm expecting to see a progression--you know, wheels falling off, nylon ripping. My sincere hope is that the Slavic peoples believe in duct tape. I also took a half-mile detour around a cluster of gypsies who seemed a little more interested in me than I found appropriate. Needless to say I felt like death (and had a mood to match) when I finally arrived at the hostel.
Now let me tell you about my present accommodations. The hostel is tolerable. With the exception of the unventilated bathroom (which smells like a bizarre combination of a beauty salon, a wet dog, and an Eastern European toilet), the hostel is clean, the beds are sleepable, the location is central, and the little garden courtyard is really nice. In other news, the staff is surly, the rooms are extremely hot and all face east, and it takes eight flights of stairs to get to my room. Since this is an exercise in being positive, the heat and exposure issues just guarantee that I get up at a reasonable hour (though I may not be especially happy about it), and the stairs insure I get plenty of off-ice exercise. The staff, however, can all die in a fire. I'm also less than pleased that this place is a full $10 over my daily housing budget. So long, beer fund.

My first day in Bratislava bore great resemblance to my first day in both Prague and Brno. I actually had a map with a scale this time, though, and I calculated it: I walked 13km and saw the northern half of the city. Walking this far wasn't altogether necessary, except that Bratislava has a general flaw in its city planning. When you get out of the center (which is tiny, compared to the outlying commie sprawl), Bratislava is composed of four-to-six-lane boulevards which go in kilometer-long straight blocks with no turns or outlets. Thus changing direction, especially when you're as stubborn as I am, becomes very difficult. "Never get out of the boat" has become one of my guiding principles, and, in following, I never backtrack unless I know EXACTLY how and why. If I need to change direction, I alter my course and take the opportunity to see a little more of the city. But generally speaking, turning on my heel and going back simply isn't done. My body frequently regrets this policy, but so far, my mind hasn't.

In my serpentine course around northern Bratislava, I saw lots of things that should have been sports arenas. Some were, most weren't. Many were originally sports arenas, but they've since been converted into betting offices for the gambling-crazed Slovak population. Seems odd to me. I even saw a damned street sign for the winter stadium, but it led me to a tennis complex. I knew the rink was somewhere in the area, so I kept looking. I bypassed it by one block (argh) and walked seven or eight more kilometers before deciding I'd go back to the same neighborhood and try again. I found it.

I also found something else: pick-up hockey. Paydirt. I'll finally be able to put on the pads this Wednesday and give the Slavs something to think about. Most of them were better than me, but not by as much as I would have expected. Needless to say that this discovery has extended my planned stay in Bratislava. To be honest, I'll be out of cultural things to do by the end of this week. They have public skates every day, however, and and this will be the first city where I can spend most of my time pursuing my project.

My adventures as a drinking mom continue, even when the drinking hasn't even started yet. My first night here, some Irishmen told me about a club they went to on the night previous, Charlie Club. The sign on the door read 50SK entry for guys, 30SK entry for girls. The irishmen came up and asked for tickets in english, and the bouncer said "three hundred." The difference between 50SK and 300SK is the difference between $2 and $12.75...just because you have a passport of the wrong color. I heard the story once, and since the storyteller was kind of an ass, I thought he might have asked for the "additional fee" through his conduct. When I heard the same thing from someone of more substantial character, however, I started telling people to avoid the place. Since I'm in cities for a couple of weeks at a time, people usually come to me for advice on good clubs. Generally I have some recommendations, but since I've been in Bratislava, I've just said: "don't waste your money; go to Tesco and get a pile of dirt cheap beer. Then when you go out, you won't have to buy drinks, and if you're drunk when you get there, you won't really notice if the place sucks." They just blink.

But a more specific drinking mom story is as follows: I went to a staff-recommended bar on the river with a different group of Irishmen, and on the way, a couple of them started playing football (that's soccer to us American dolts) in the street with a water bottle. The time comes for Josh to walk a little ahead of the group and not answer when called. Surely enough, in swoop the police, like angry bats with guns. I watched from a distance, and when things were looking less favorable (because of the language barrier, and because the Irishmen had left their passports at the hostel), I stepped in and asked the officer in Slovak if he understood Russian. He said he did, and I told him that I'd been watching them, and they hadn't broken anything or caused any trouble. He asked to see my passport. When he saw I was American, he gave me a look of surprise and utter confusion. He showed my passport to his colleague, and they had a whispered conversation. He turns to me and says to the Irishmen "ok, there is no problem. Go home." Home we went, but we stopped at the river bar first. I didn't buy anything, because beer was $4/bottle. That's even ridiculous by American standards. But, like the tourists they were, even though they complained the whole time, my party shelled out for drink after drink (including a couple for me, out of gratitude). Instead, I just basked in the accomplishment of saving five drunken Irishmen from the brawny arms of the Bratislava police. There's always a way to get your drinks for free...even if you're a guy. It usually just involves a little cleverness and goodwill.

Going back to beer prices, modern Bratislava was designed by former commie party bosses to wring tourists of their money as quickly and efficiently as possible. It's an objective scientific/historical fact. Prague was about 15% tourist trap. Bratislava (the part of it worth seeing, anyway) is about 60% tourist trap. In restaurants, though there are menus and price lists, the amount you're charged here can often vary from waiter to waiter, bartender to bartender. The reliable thing, however, is the price quoted you is inevitably higher than the one on the menu.

In conclusion, I think the Czech Republic spoiled me a little bit. Bratislava's castle was a little disappointing, but from the castle overlook, I noticed that Slovakia uses wind power. Pretty exciting, I think. I'll put it this way. If I hadn't started in Prague, Bratislava would be super cool. But now it seems...it seems more like...mini-Prague. But there's hockey here, so I'm happy, and mostly free of distractions.

Speaking of distractions, I like comments. Give me comments. Loads of them.

I love and miss you all...especially those of you who are back at Sewanee, you lucky bastards.

Josh Harris, friend of police and hooligans alike

Self-Mutilation and the Superfluous Man.

2007-08-24T16:18:00.000+02:00

Moto GP/Hungarians

Between being sociable and scrambling to find pickup hockey in the summer, I haven't written in a substantial while. However, this is not for a lack of eventful happenings. When we last left our hero (laff laff), he was walking the Brno 15k. Since then, I've returned to the new rink twice to skate; it's the best ice I've ever gotten to play on--really hard and smooth. The skate was a lot more crowded than the ones in Prague, but there was still plenty of room. The European rink provides a lot more space and room for finesse, but it also makes public skates a lot less chaotic. Needless to say public skates are also substantially faster than in the ice-barren backwaters of Arkansas. The new rink is near the old rink. The old rink had its roof cave in sometime in the last two years, and it has since been overrun by gangs and other people of suspect character. It's quite a place, even from a distance...I didnt' really want to go very close.

I actually made it to the charity game I mentioned in my last post. It was a lot of fun, and you could see the players' unbelievable skill, but you could also tell that they were just having a good time out there. It was no contact, and the final score was 13-10. Jagr's Team won (big surprise). It was awesome, however, to see so many talented players in one place. As something of a non sequitur, the girl at the hostel reception desk told me I looked like Ales Hemsky, one of the goal scorers for the Unicef team. Cool. The beer was also ludicrously cheap...you find me a stadium in America where the beer is $1.50. Go ahead. I dare you. When you find it, tell me so I can go camp in the parking lot.

Ice continues to be elusive. Public skates are only on weekends here, and I'm beginning to get a little frustrated. Part of me wants to stay in Brno beyond my ten days, because I feel like I must have overlooked something, but about 80% of me knows that it's in my best interests to just move on. It is summer, after all. There's not an empty football pitch in this whole town, and they're rife with walk-on games. There's a word for this whole situation, and methinks that word is dammit. By October I hope to be up to my ankles in pucks and ice shavings. (I should be careful what I wish for. I hear Poland is very cold, so the ice shavings might just be in the rink parking lots.) It's getting a shade colder every day, I think, which means soon I'm going buy another several pounds of luggage...winter clothing. Just what the Iditarod dog needs: another ten or fifteen pounds in the sled.

I've met even more characters in Brno than I did in Prague...and I was in Prague a solid twelve days more than I've been here. A brief cross-section of the stories:

Unbeknownst to me, Brno is the host site of one of the biggest motorcycle races in Europe. 100,000+ people (and it seems like just as many motorcycles) clog the city and turn it into a tumult for three days, and then leave a wake of burning rubber and empty beer bottles. And I thought this place was quiet.
The first night of the Moto GP, I met Vidor, Adam, and Mike, three Hungarians who told me that I'd never want for food, lodging, or things to do while I was in Hungary. I took them to a decent Czech place. I swear to god they drank nothing but absinthe the entire time they were here.
My Italian friend Matteo and I made a habit of getting delicious (if slightly dodgy) Gyros from a 24 hour place almost every night he was here. I've been trading idioms with other English speakers. An Aussie injected "Dodgy" into my vocabulary, I gave her "sketchy" as a present from the good old U.S. of A. I now also end many sentences with an interrogative "yeah?"

Lightheartedness aside, Matteo and I also saw something really alarming a couple of nights ago. I was keeping Matteo company while he smoked on the porch, and a guy came up to ask him for a cigarette. Matteo obliged, and he offered us a pull of his vodka. As I was taking him up on his offer, I noticed the kitchen knife in his right hand. A warning flag went up, but just as I was about to go inside and retreat from the possibly unpleasant developing situation, I noticed his left arm was dripping blood. Three straight, deep lines were carved into his arm, and the trail behind him was long and wide. I used my still fairly regrettable Czech to ask him what had happened, and he told me he'd done it to himself, over a girl. I guess it turns out my Wilderness Advanced First Aid (WAFA) training was useful after all. I went inside to the first aid kit, and got the poor bastard a beer while I was at it. I was trying to tell him what to do as I dressed his wounds, but here my Czech abilities came to a grinding halt. Fortunately he spoke some English. He said he wanted to stay with us or go back out, since his father was on his way to pick him up. He went on to say that he hated his father. We kept him busy until dear old dad arrived. I thought it was probably better that way, since I was sure his family must have been worried sick, and the hostel probably didn't want blood-covered sheets. His father, brother, and girlfriend arrived in trio, and what followed was not for me to see. So that was my harrowing experience and good deed for the week. I think I'm actually still a little shaken up.

I also recieved an employment offer from an entrepreneur who's traveling around the world making contacts. It was an odd conversation, because what started out as a friendly conversation quickly became a job interview. My interview skills are good as ever, I suppose, because he wanted, in a few years, to make me director of American operations for Transcendental LTD. I told him I'd see.

Some of you may notice that one of my friends from Prague, Dominque, dedicated a song to me on facebook...Drinking Beers with Mom. This hearkens back to a fun Prague anecdote and foreshadows a fun Brno anecdote. One night I took care of my British metal buddies in Hostel Ujezd, and Dominique watched most of it and helped too. She said I was like the Hostel's "Drinking Mom." I've come to be pretty thrilled about this title, frankly. Last night I helped a big guy stand up and not pass out/throw up in the hostel hall. My legacy continues.

I think I'm more or less done in Brno; I feel stuck in a rut here, even though it's beautiful and peaceful enough. I think it probably doesn't help that the hostel is closing, and being in a place where things are ending and winding down generally puts me in a bad mood. I spent two hours today debating whether or not to leave the hostel. Oblomov lives. I think it's time for a change of scenery. I'll see what Bratislava has to offer; Slovakia, from what I hear, has a more favorable exchange rate, and lots of culture strewn among awful Communist buildings. Wish me luck.

Brno's ONLY Oblomovistic Drinking Mom,

J. Brandon Harris

La Vie Greyhound

2007-08-19T13:59:00.000+02:00

And I thought I was doing so well, too. I stretched my final hours in Prague as much as I could; I had a final beer with my British metal boys, said fond goodbyes to everyone at Ujezd...basically I didn't leave the hostel until 23:30. I knew I would be cutting it close. I caught the Metro at Narodni Trida thinking of all the chaotic transfers I would have to perform. When I got on the Metro, however, I remembered that the yellow line intersects with the red line at Florenc, the national bus station. For a short trip like Praha-Brno, the train ticket was $45, the bus ticket was $6. The price difference pretty much made my decision for me. I thought I was the bees' knees. I hauled all 55kg of luggage to the bus station without inconvenience or problem. Then began the shitstorm maelstrom. I arrived to a VERY empty bus station. Workers were hosing off the cobblestones, garbage collectors were collecting the garbage (as they are wont to do). Hmm. Suddenly a very official-looking man came up to me and said "the station closes at 12" in Czech. In my mind, I repeatedly smacked my forehead. Why didn't it occur to me that the bus station would close? Bollocks. It was a "dammit" moment, ala being stranded in Nashville when there was no room for me on the Greyhound back to Memphis. Only this time, instead of being a felicitous "when life gives you lemons" moment, I realized I had nowhere to put my luggage. No lockers anywhere. I considered biting the bullet and taking a night train, but that would have involved much more hauling than I was frankly willing to do. No, instead, I couldn't remove the words "it's gonna be a LOOOOONG night" from my thoughts. And a long night it was indeed.

I set up camp outside the bus station at 00:30. I unsheathed my hockey stick and placed it on my lap to fend off the homeless. It sort of worked, until a man who smelled like body odor, unwashed flesh and rotten garbage came up to me. He wanted a cigarette. I obviously didn't have one, but someone had left an empty pack beside me. Now, know that this man was a trash collector. Not the kind who works for the city, but the kind who collects garbage for fun. Something of a hobby. He carried an impossibly grungy little plastic bag full of...whatsit. I gave him the empty pack, and he smiled with unabated delight. I'd made a friend; it was a pity that he was a friend I was not especially interested in having. I worked on my broken Czech, but between his grunts and mumbles, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to understand him even if I spoke fluently. To be frank, this guy was giving me a rash in a very bad way. When I told him I was American, his eyes lit up. He had something very important to tell me about...well, who else...John F. Kennedy. Screw the single bullet theory. Some homeless dude in Prague did it. He finally left me alone and I wrote some very odd things in my journal, like

"when you're human, the world is your oyster. When you're a dog, the world is your toilet. Dogs win."

After writing for about half an hour, an affable sort of drunk stumbled over and introduced himself as Jan. He was impressed by and interested in my hockey gear. Not the "I'm going to take you down an alley, beat the shit out of you, and steal your stuff" kind of interested, mind you, but the "I'm a fan of hockey" kind of interested. We talked as best we could about Czech hockey. Between his slurring and my inability to put together a coherent sentence, this was an interesting endeavor. Finally we gave up and played street hockey for about half an hour in the bus station parking lot. I figured it was high time for the game to end when the ball rolled under the wheel of a van...a police van. I went around the side to get my ball and I was greeted by four Czech police officers. I think I made their night. They were surprised to see someone playing hockey in a bus station parking lot at 3:00, and greeted me, "dobri vecer!" with an intonation of "well boo! who the hell are you?". After I talked to them a little, they asked if they could play. Then one of the officers (who was quite good, by my reckoning) started playing with the drunk. Yes. I played street hockey with a drunk and an officer of the law. I returned to my former post, the drunk went his stumbling merry way, and the officer bid me fond regards. Bizarre. I caught the 5:15 bus to Brno after my time in Bizarro-World Bus Station PurgatoryLand, and as soon as I found the hostel (at 9:15), I slept the sleep of the dead. I walked around the city center a bit, but that pales in comparison to my first full day in Brno.

The Brno 15k

I explored far more of the city than I really wanted to. I was seeking Hala Rondo, an old professional venue. (Incidentally, I'll be watching Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka, Pavel Kubina, and other NHL stars play in a charity game there on Tuesday.) I never found the damn place, but I ended up walking through the very edge of civilization, past mile after strange mile of fenced-in gardens...all tilled and worked by old people. "Well...this tears it. If I were in America, I would know I wasn't in Kansas anymore when I started seeing car dealerships." It was a day of self-fulfilling prophecy. Half a mile later...SAAB! VOLVO! VYPRODEJ! (sale). I winced a little. The car dealerships are almost always on the city's very periphery. I gave up on finding Hala Rondo; I had two more search options. Since I had no idea where "Sportovni" Boulevard was, I decided to shoot for a rink in Kralovo Pole, in the northwest of the city. I walked toward the nearest thing resembling sentient life and went north...north north north, following the Kralovo Pole signs through other suburbs. Apparently I did an utterly massive end-around on the city center, because I walked from the Southwest corner of the city all the way to the Northeast corner. My feet were wont to fall off, and I was dead close to giving up (I was miserably tired and it was raining to boot). Kralovo Pole isn't a street. It's a damn district. I had a lot of street-combing to do. I came to a wide street lined with factories. "I'm going to laugh my ass off if this is Sportovni." The day of self-fulfilling prophecy continued. Big red letters, "Sportovni." I dropped to my knees and started cackling maniacally as I got utterly drenched. From there I found the newest rink in Brno in short order, and went inside to watch a team play--a team that I could keep up with. It was the coldest I've been in years. I was wearing a soaked t-shirt in a 34-degree room. But I stuck it out and watched the whole game. I tried talking to some of the players afterward. No one spoke English, though, and they didn't seem especially interested in interacting with me. Better luck next time.

My free time has been spent talking politics with Hungarians and speaking Russian with Italians. How's that for weird? This trip just gets more and more surreal with each passing day.

In other news, I missed America for the first time today. Allow a rephrase: I was on the level with myself about missing America for the first time today. My parents are getting a new house and all my friends are going back to school VERY soon, and as solipsistic as this sounds, it's difficult to imagine all these things going on, all these people and places I love and care about...happening...without me. Batesville and Sewanee were fairly seminal parts of my life for the last...well, let's just say forever, and I'm frankly pretty sad at the prospect of not having them as parts of my life anymore. I miss helping my mom in the kitchen. I miss hanging out in my single with my friends. I miss going to flea markets with my father. I miss my fraternity, my professors, and the Society of Pretentious Film. I miss my Batesville friends and Heber Springs mischief. I even miss going to class (yeah, it's that bad).

And at the end of the day, I've decided that it's okay. It gives me something to anticipate on shitty days. Today, however, is not a shitty day. It's actually pretty beautiful, and I think I'll go for a walk and a brisk skate. Comments, as always, are not just welcome, but encouraged.

Love and best wishes.

Josh

First Taste of Ice, a Strange Passage through the Land of the Gypsies, and Other Final 2007 Praha Adventures (Read: Wandering Rocks)

2007-08-15T13:44:00.000+02:00

I have a hell of a lot of news to send your way, folks. Last you read, I was waiting until Monday, when the public rink opened. Since Saturday, life has been more or less a nonstop adventure...I've been so busy I haven't even had time to journal. Gag. I'll try to remember everything in chronological order, but for the purposes of keeping the narrative bite-sized, I'm breaking it up into subheadings. Here we go; hold on, cause there will be a lot of gear shifting.

The German Ladies Go to Malebolge (But Josh Avoids Vanni Fucci)

Shortly after composing my blog on Saturday, I went out with the usual suspects--as though there is any such thing as "usual" here--and met, among others, two German girls. We talked about classical music and literature, and I consequently recommended Kutna Hora (the ossuary) to my fourth group of folks. They were slated to depart the next day, Sunday, and they were bound by train to Bratislava. I asked them their point of departure, and when they answered "Hlavni Nadrazi" I just said "oh." I wandered across Hlavni Nadrazi once, but that was during a cozy midday. Regardless, the place was crawling with mumbling, half-conscious homeless people in various degrees of intoxication and mental imbalance. I turned on my heel and left. These ladies, however, were taking the 1:00 am train to Bratislava. If the place was questionable during the day, I was fairly terrified to think of its nocturnal dwellers. Hence I decided the only gentlemanly and safe thing to do was to escort Carol and Ruth. After hunting down some postcards, we caught the last metro to Hlavni Nadrazi and had an hour to kill. Ruth and Carol wanted to go outside to smoke and drink coffee, so I went with them. Through the duration of my stay in Prague, I've wondered "so, where are the Gypsies? There are supposed to be Gypsies here." I found them. A whole lot of them. And they were all staring at me and the two little German girls...whispering, talking among themselves at a suspicious distance. I looked at the girls and said "ladies, I recommend you finish your smokes now. I'd really prefer to be somewhere that isn't here." Before going, I made sure to say "it's time for our train" in as many languages as I knew and at reasonable volume. By this point, I was trying to avoid having them waiting for me when the girls got their train. There were about fifteen of them by now, and, as expected, they milled around the only exit door as soon as we went in, but I kept making furtive glances back, and they were moving en masse toward another section of the train station. I'd like to think my little ruse worked, because I didn't see any of them when I walked out sporting my Muscovite scowl. The rest of my night was uneventful, but it was about the scariest moment on the trip yet. I'm quite glad I did it, though, because they seemed especially interested in the Germans.

Pete

Upon my return to the Hostel, there was a Brit nigh-dead drunk on the computer. I thought I'd strike up a conversation with him. He had been touring death metal fests all over Europe, and he was trying his damnedest to order a Nine Inch Nails ticket online. Though drunk off his face, He was a good guy, and since fine motor skills were eluding him, I helped him put in his info. I figured if I helped him buy the ticket, I'd have some company to the concert. Helping a drunk dude type in his credit card information is a special and irrevocable bond, I think. He thanked me profusely the next day and we've been buddies ever since.

Skating, no hockey

Monday came (as it often does,) and it was to be a big one. When I read about the public skating thing, it mentioned that they allowed you to play hockey, as long as you were careful. Coming from a U.S. public skating culture of insurance liabilities, I found that unlikely, so instead of buying sticks before I went, I thought I'd scope out the territory first. I thought it was better to skate than look like a weirdo with a hockey stick. (To be fair, though, anyone in Arkansas who owns a hockey stick looks like a weirdo, so you'd think I'd be used to it by now.) I had a good skate, and it seems the walks around Prague have been good for my endurance. But sure enough, there were guys playing hockey, and damn was I jealous. Furthermore, I could actually keep up with them. I checked the bench to see if they had extra sticks, but no. But I had learned a valuable piece of information--it only took me two and a half danm weeks to find, but I found a place to practice.

Stick Shopping Shenanigans

To my shame, I don't know the Russian word for hockey stick, much less the Czech one. So when I go stick shopping, I speak English. I speak English with a crankypants old hockey shopkeeper lady who knows about ten words of English. This proves to be unfortunate, since her English totally overlaps with my Czech. I even tried "baton," but she spoke less French than she did English. The communication breakdown was insurmountable, but when I asked her if she took credit cards (in Czech,) she directed me to an ATM. She took my absence as a handy opportunity to close the hockey shop half an hour early. Dammit.

NIN concert
I had to go back to the Slavia Praha rink later that day, but not for a game. I had the most awesome concert of my life to see. Pete and I went together, and the concert defied words. It was packed, and I might have heard three people speaking Czech out of the cast of thousands.

Karaoke

A bizarre karaoke dive bar followed. I thought it best to avoid singing Russian songs, so I opted for "Sultans of Swing" instead, and brought the house down. Then Pete's metal friends and I more or less screamed AC/DC's "Back in Black" all together. Not artful, but certainly entertaining. On the way back, Pete got propositioned by three prostitutes. He smiled at them, so I guess he had it coming. As a general rule, after 21:00, the Muscovite scowl comes on. It's served me well so far.

If at first you don't succeed...

Yesterday was chaos. I had too many things to do, and too few of them involved hockey for my liking. The obvious thing to do, therefore, was put off the non-hockey stuff for today. I'm on a mission, dammit, and it's a hockey mission. Stick shopping took an eternity, but I succeeded, because I had the money when I got there, and though the lady was clearly displeased, she took my money regardless. Victory was mine. I dashed to the public skating rink (on the other side of Prague) and arrived...at 17:40. The rink closes at 18:00, but I got in a good brisk stick and puck skate. From there, I went to watch a fantastic movie about the Beastie Boys at the Island Outdoor Cinema. Then to bed, because I had a long day the next day.

And I Still Do...

I got my final fix of touristy Prague at St. Vitus' Cathedral, where I started to put together my photo montage of Eastern European stained glass as something of a side project. I climbed the 287 steps again to the top of the great south tower, and now I'm writing my final entry while I still have reliable internet. I'm sure I'll have a good story about getting a report from the Prague police, transit to Brno, and my final few hours of hockey in Prague. Speaking of, I have to get to the rink so I can get a couple of hours in before my chariot awaits. I know this one was rather long, but your comments are appreciated.

One city down, 30+ to go.

Ciao.

Josh

Biding Time Until Monday.

2007-08-11T17:33:00.000+02:00

I'd like to begin by thanking everyone for their encouragement. You have no idea how supported and cared for I feel, and that's incredibly valuable. I'm thousands of miles away from home, and I'm surrounded with people whom I socialize for a few days, and then we part ways. I have fun, but I miss the comfort of knowing people, and, furthermore, knowing that I can build lasting friendships with the company I keep. It's very difficult (impossible?) to do that in a hostel (hostile?) atmosphere, and it touches me deeply to know that I have such a network of supportive and kind people cheering me on. So thank you again, and I promise the preceding statements are the closest to maudlin sentiment I'll ever come in this blog.

Now to begin. It's been a while since my last update, and, quite frankly, that's because I haven't done a whole hell of a lot. I watched another day of games out at Slavia, and I honestly didn't see anywhere I would fit in. One of the pluses to the restaurant over the ice is that no one speaks English. It's a very culturally immersive atmosphere, and very good for my pronunciation. One of the minuses, however, is that no one speaks English. It's hard to make connections. I was thinking of talking to my bartender friend, having him call Jakob, and then buying Jakob drinks, dinner, and a couple rounds of pool if he'd be my interpreter and help me talk to coaches and rink staff. Then the rains came. It's been more or less torrential since Wednesday afternoon, and the weather was essentially prohibitive to any journey more than a kilometer from my hostel. The day it started, Thursday, I went to Charles Bridge at sunrise after staying up all night in the hopes of recovering the amazing pictures that were on my last camera (grumble grumble). The sky was clear until first light, then the clouds came in. Then the clouds turned grey. Then the clouds turned black and the bottom fell out. Before weather got too inclement, though, I had another rather regrettable experience with my countrymen. I was walking around on the bridge and heard the harsh twang of what could only be a Tennessee accent; a group of college-age gentlemen (?) were milling about, and I figured it couldn't hurt to investigate.

"Where y'all from?"

"Tennessee, man, and we're FUUUUUUUUUUCKed UUUUUUUUUUP."

"That's cool. I'm from Tennessee too, and I'm dead tired and sober as a sober stick."

Hence began a discussion of common acquaintances. (Names will be changed to protect the not-so-innocent). Finn, a UT-Knoxville student knew several Sewanee Kappa Alphas, and if you're known by the company you keep...well, suffice to say all parties involved have fairly low standing. They told me about their adventures in the five-story club on the Vltava, drunk as hell and zooed on ecstasy all night long. One gentleman regaled me of his unprotected untoward actions with a certain young courtesan...in the club bathroom stall. Oh, woe is me, to think of the unctuous lavatory passion I must have missed with the Bulgarian Beauty (swoon). And yes, poor Finn had to pay for it, but, as he said with a big dumb grin on his face, "man, I was just so hammered I didn't even care. She only wanted like $1,000 kc" (approx. US$50). I mumbled something under my breath about how I had little doubt that Chlamydia would be a lovely name for the forthcoming baby. The Tennesseeans had made plans to go to Kutna Hora, and they said they wanted me to come too, since I knew what was up. I do indeed know what's up, but I also know that, like the golden boys, these fellows should suffer a little. Maybe they will. Just remember kids, the sexual act in a standing position averages six to eight minutes. But human papilloma virus, like a diamond, is forever.

So since I've been more or less cooped up, I've been pissing my hostelmates off by hogging the internet. They want to check facebook; I have research to do. They can wait. I may have found a place to play at long sweet last. The T-Mobile Arena, a place with 15,000 capacity, seemed like an unlikely choice. It was. When I first scouted the T-Mobile out, however, I failed to notice the smaller building behind the monstrosity. That is the Mala Sportovni Hala...the little ice rink. Right under my nose, it was. I went there in the rain with skates and gloves in hand, but the place was, drumroll please, CLOSED. The arena restaurant was open, though, and the bar girl understood enough English to say "Otrevno Podelnik" (open Monday). So monday will be chaos. I'll skate, if not play hockey, from 14:00-18:00, and then have just enough time to clean up before the Nine Inch Nails concert at eight.

In other news, the count of people who say I speak English poorly is up to three. I really think I'm going to keep a running tally now. Apparently I "do not know how to articulate." The count is as follows: Germany 1, France 2, Josh nought. Being able to laugh things off has proven priceless on this trip. It seems to me that part of being adaptable is being able to have a sense of humor about things, even when the situation isn't necessarily that funny. Europeans picking on my English, however, is HILARIOUS.

Pictures come up when I find a computer that doesn't suck.

My First Smidgen of Prague Success

2007-08-08T19:43:00.000+02:00

...was, in a word, terrifying. But it was multilevelled. I went to the rink down in southeast Prague. Though I didn't find the entrance to the rink, I found Restaurace Nad Ledem, which translates to "Restaurant Above the Ice." True to its billing, it was a restaurant with a big picture window that overlooked the rink. When I came in, they were running the Zamboni, so I ordered a Turkish coffee to pass the time. I ordered in (admittedly Russian-accented) Czech, and watched. The first group to come on was the youth elite team. Now, when I say youth, I mean ages 12-16. Though their skating was sometimes questionable...I was still pretty worried by the end of the session. Their puck skills are fantastic. "If these are just kids, how the hell am I going to keep up?" was the first question to spring to mind. But it had just begun. Next up was a summer league game--easily the most exciting game I've seen in a while. It was fast, clean, and full of finesse. These guys were 18-21, and I honestly wonder how many of them I'll see in the NHL someday. The game was between Slavia Praha (the home team) and the visiting Ceske Budejovice. Slavia Praha jumped out to an early 1-0 lead, but the visiting team scored four unanswered goals to make it 4-1 at the end of the second period. In the third, however, Slavia put three home and ended the game at 4-4. It was a fantastic comeback and a great game. My legs can keep up with most of them; my hands can't. These guys can pass, shoot, and stickhandle better than ANYTHING I ever saw in the states...yeah, Adam and Julien...if you're reading this, these guys would basically end you, except in one thing. Hitting. That's going to be my biggest asset, other than speed. The game was physical, but there weren't the brutal open-ice hits that I saw in the states. It's plenty legal here, but, if the youth practice was any indicator, they just don't teach it in Europe. The result is a much cleaner, faster game that's less about f=m*a and more about sharp puckhandling and passing. Again, it was amazing, though disheartening. If I learned a single thing, it's that I can't (obviously) keep up in the Czech Elite League...(you have no idea how relieved I was to hear that this team was composed of the best players in Prague). However, it provokes a question: where do the little guys play? You know, the ones who play for love of the game and all that frilly whatsit. Tomorrow I'm going inline rink scouting, and if it looks less formal, then I'll bite the bullet and go buy some inline hockey skates, which sucks, since I've already had one huge expenditure this week already.

Said expenditure prompts some good news, however. I replaced my camera, and I'll devote a day of this week to retracing my steps in Prague and making up for lost pictures. I suppose it's good that the theft occurred in my first city, in a way. The expenditure was also not as large as expected; it only came out to US $20 more than the one I got at Wal-Mart in the states. I got the same one not only because it was reliable, but I also suspected that acquainting myself with an electronics instruction manual written in Czech would be an exercise in frustration and possibly futility.

For my non sequitur of the day, I got really irritated when I was introducing myself to a couple of German girls at the hostel. I introduced myself in English and German, and they seemed more or less pleased. But when the conversation surpassed my German abilities (about two sentences later), the girl just made a snooty face and said "your American English is so bad. I cannot understand anything you say." It took every ounce of self control in my body to bite my tongue instead of saying "did it ever occur to you that YOUR English is the problematic part of this equation." I was a good boy, though, so I smiled and said guten nacht with a shit-eating grin on my face. So much for intercultural tolerance, sometimes. Just like the Frenchman the other day who came over and introduced himself. I introduced myself in French, and he asked me where I was from. When I told him "America," he grimaced and said "nobody's perfect, I guess." He hasn't spoken a word to me since. To put a positive spin on it, however, 85% of the Europeans I've encountered at least give me the benefit of the doubt; the above are just exceptions. I suspect that being able to grin and bear it when encountering anti-American sentiment will serve me well in my career prospects. It's a skill I'm developing.

Pictures are forthcoming.

Kielbasa of the Damned.

2007-08-07T02:20:00.000+02:00

Hi there. My name is Josh Harris, and I've learned my lesson. I've learned my lesson not to eat ten-day-old unrefrigerated Hungarian spicy sausage. For the life of me I wanted to sally forth and watch the miracles of Czech hockey, but here's how my day went. My day didn't start until noon. I didn't sleep last night, because, in the interests of intercultural exchange, I taught a whole bunch of Italians and French folks how to play American card drinking games. En processe, I discovered that Italians cannot hold their liquor. All eight of them left drunk as skunks at 3:30 am, and I turned in their bottles for deposit money. Finders keepers, one would think, but because I'm a good sport, I used the money to buy them a round the next day and give them a good-natured ribbing. At any rate, noon befell me, sunlight and all, and I ate about half of this...sausage of the ancients. An hour later, I had a fever and was dizzy, sweating, and doing things to my bowels that would be best omitted from this blog. I didn't feel human again until about eight, when I had a fantastic meal. I'd never had roasted leg of rabbit before, but it was fantastic, ENORMOUS, and reasonably priced. I figure if I'm only averaging 1.5 meals a day, I might as well do those 1.5 right (Hungarian sausage excepted). In order to lead into the rest of the day's events, I'd like to wax philosophical for a moment.

I would really like to think that I'm doing America proud. I'm doing my damnedest to be inconspicuous, respectful, unobtrusive, and observant. And, at least in comparison to my countrymen, I think I'm probably doing a good job. I have become acquainted with two Americans from my hostel. They're a pair of baseball players from California. Read..."BASEball players." They're disgraceful. They're vile and have neither brains nor respect for women nor non-Americans. I've been babysitting the hell out of them, but tonight I figured it was time they recieved a comeuppance of some sort or another. So when the Jamaicans who sell pot and entice unwitting foreigners to come to the tourist-trappy titty bar accosted these gentlemen, I just stood back and watched. I thought it was time for them to learn their lesson. They're presumably still at yon Gomorrah, so more on that story as it develops. One of the Americans in question was especially excited about the free (green) sample which our...hmm...mountebank...yes, mountebank, Victor gave him. At that point Josh said "okay, these guys have crossed the stupidity line. Anything that happens from here, they have brought upon themselves." I stopped at a neighborhood bar, worked on my Czech, and here I am.
Earlier in the day I had an interesting encounter with a drunken Dutchman in the streets of Prague. I was out with my most recent company (six Italian guys and four French girls), and we all thought it would be fun to play with him a little and pretend we were of different nationalities. Most failed, but when I told him "Ya zhe Rossisskii chelovek," he believed me, but said with an inflection of utter puzzlement, "well, I'll be damned. You look Irish." Biggest complement I've gotten all week--granted, it's only Monday, but still...he complemented my language skills and my freckly good looks all at the same time. I'll be damned. So, assuming that there's no such thing as a food poisoning hangover, I'll be at least WATCHING the ice tomorrow. I also need to go camera shopping, which, I'm sure, will be a depressing endeavor, since electronics are fuck-all expensive here. Wish me luck and send me comments.

love for all, hugs for most, kisses for some.

America's #1 hooker deterrent,

J. Brandon Harris (because that other Josh Harris was a total wuss)

Goodfellas Redux/Prague Spleen

2007-08-05T15:19:00.000+02:00

The order of this entry is going to be a little backwards, because I'm dead set on using the following as my introductory line:

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to have an impromptu date with a Bulgarian hooker. I walk into the bar and a girl accosts me and says "hey, can I buy you drink?", which prompts me to think "my goodness, how novel," but also sends up a warning flag or two. We converse, and she's draping herself on me in ways that can only be described as unladylike. About a quarter of the way through my beer, she asks "so, you want to smoke grass? If you buy, I get really good stuff" (maybe it was from Memphis). Warning flags three and four come up. At about this time, I'm starting to get a more nuanced idea of this girl's...occupation, and the bar staff is looking at her with mixed degrees of disdain and disgust. I have backup in case anything gets strange, so at this point ít's a good idea to be a little cheeky...you know, go the extra step and turn this into an anecdote. She finishes her drink and says "okay, next I want shot of havana club rum...250 crowns. You buy." Now, the lady DID buy me a drink, so perhaps I owed it her, but 250 crowns is a shade less than $15. That's a fuck-off expensive drink in what was a pretty reasonable bar. I figured if I shelled out the money, I'd be buying something more than a drink. I pointed out that she wanted one hell of an expensive drink, and the subtlety fell off..."you give me drink money, you take me home."

I see.

"I thought such things were usually the consexquences of dinner and a movie..you're skipping a couple of steps." The grin on my face as I said this was irreverent and probably galling.

"You no like? You no want? My daddy will be here in couple hours, he give you better price. You no want?"

Nope.

She gets up and goes off to work the room, and I mumble some Russian under my breath...tsiganka (Gypsy girl). Apparently this is close enough to the Czech word, because the barkeep stares me dead in the eye, nods firmly, and says something that sounds like"tochno"(exactly). The naughty lady of the night returns to the bar and asks me why I'm not gone yet. "I am running business here. If you no want, you leave." I smile and tell her I have a beer to finish. As guys come in, she keeps looking over to me angrily and saying "ciao. Ciao!" I just smile and nod.

This was the same bar where Fred, my French-Canadian friend, bought me my first nip of slivovice on the night prior. It's a 100-proof plum brandy that tastes like sin, orphans, and the liquid incarnation of suffering itself. After the shot, the only thing to say was "ow."

In other news, someone absconded with my camera yesterday. Dammit. I wake up; it's not in my locker, and I think "it's gonna be a BAD day." I was wrong. I found a place to play. Whether there are any openings for random Americans remains to be seen, but at the very least I can watch. I go first on Monday. More as things happen I spent last night more or less babysitting some people from my hostel...you know, making sure they didn't go home with any Bulgarian hookers.

Too Many Stories, Too Little Time

2007-08-02T17:14:00.000+02:00

Last I updated, my Bar friend was going to introduce me to his younger friend, Jakob. I thought we were going to the dacha. However, we went about Prague, and I saw some pretty alright places. in the process, I faced an interesting challenge--my Russian gets me by, but Jakob spoke no Russian. Furthermore, he spoke English very poorly. I had to will myself to make my vocabulary shrink so we could comunicate. It was an exercise in patience. Among the places we went, we hit up two little chuck e cheese-style billiard places. When Jakob lost two games, he complained that "heer tapels are baat". Obviously. So we went to another one. The tables were bad there too. ;-P
Here's where things get more complicated. The next day I met a really nice Indian guy named Deepak in my hostel, and we wandered around Prague until we met his pakistani friend. So let's talk about multiculturalism for a minute. An Indian, a Pakistani, and an American wander around Prague until they decide to take a bus to a little town outside Prague, Kutna Hora. Kutna Hora is known for several things: five-story communist apartment buildings, rubble, nice people, and Kostnice, a nice little 14th-century cistercian church in the woods. But it's no ordinary little church. It's an ossuary. The church is decorated with the bones of 40,000 dead, just waiting to inherit the kingdom of god. A chandelier utilizing every single human bone in its construction hung over the whole grisly procession, and a big graveyard was just outside the door. I told Deepak, "anyone who says that Christianity isn't a little fucked up needs to come here."

So this was the night of the thirtieth. Because of a booking error, I had nowhere to stay on the thirtieth. I ended up sleeping on the couch in Archie hostel, after checking several places for vacancies. That one took some smooth talking when the attendant came in the next morning. I slithered out of it and proceeded to haul my luggage across town. In the process, I've determined that I'm only staying in one hostel per city. Moving ONE of those bags across Prague would have been a nightmare, but two...well, with two I felt like I should be in the iditarod. My summer sled dog career over here seems to have more promise than My hockey career, though.
My efforts to play are continually thwarted. It's all closed. In the local woodwork, I hear whispered rumors of in-line hockey, and I remember hefting my inlines in my hands when I was packing and saying "nah...there's no way in hell I'm going to need these." Balls. But finding the rinks is rewarding, because I run across cool things everywhere I go. For instance, when scouting out a rink in southwest prague the other day, I stumbled on the Charles University Botanical Garden. It was gorgeous, and...well...I filched a tomato. Yes, I know, I'm ashamed too. It brings to mind a question Deepak asked me the other day: "Josh, do you think that life is a journey or a destination." Though I've always held this belief, It seems now more than ever that my life has very little to do with destinations, and everything to do with the things I encounter along the way.

"Never get out of the boat. Never get out of the boat...unless you're going all the way."

Instead of missing the states, I think it's more productive for everyone involved if I just wish you guys were here. So get your asses to Prague.

Hugs for most, kisses for some, love for all.

often licked, never beaten,

J. Brandon Harris, Conqueror of Europe.

All is NOT quiet on the Eastern Front.

2007-07-29T11:04:00.000+02:00

So...overwhelming isn't the right word, but it's the first one that comes to mind. The journey here was surprisingly uneventful, other than meeting a couple of people in the houston concourse who kept me company on the plane. One was going to do mission work in Latvia...the other...well...suffice to say that her story was complicated. She was from Holland, and she said that I should officially be in Holland for at least a couple of hours. I didn't leave the airport, but it felt good to get another stamp in my passport. She bought me coffee (awww) and we went our separate ways. I felt substantially less beleaguered and sallied forth to wait on my plane to Prague. I learned rather quickly that I can read about 80% of Czech, can understand 50%, and can speak 0.005%. I learned this the hard way on the plane when I thought the flight attendant was collecting trash...when she was actually handing out chocolate. Being the conscientious passenger that I am, I got eager and handed her my sandwich wrapper. This gesture was met with a stern (decidedly slavic) frown and head-shaking of disapproval. Oops. I arrived in Prague only to discover that my hockey bag had remained in Amsterdam. As with the Greyhound incident, I thought "well, shit..." for about fifteen seconds, then decided that it could be for the best. It was. It took me two and a half hours to find my hostel after I followed their directions. I was wearing my dress shoes, and the blisters I recieved were nothing less than horrific. I'm still trying to imagine how much worse it would have been had I needed to pull two fifty-pound bags instead of one. As it was, I felt like a damn sled dog. I finally caved and went into a restaurant. When my fledgling (read: abominable) five words of Czech just got perplexed expressions from the waitstaff, I switched into Russian, which got expressions of simultaneous understanding and annoyance. Out of desparation I finally switched to English...they're not kidding when they say that EVERYONE here speaks it, though I try to speak English as little as possible as a matter of principle. I got some food (the first since the less-than-satisfactory airplane breakfast) and the correct directions. When I followed the directions, I realized that I could have just as easily been lost for another two and a half hours had I not asked someone. Yecch.

The hostel is tolerable, but loud as hell. I thought my mattress back home was uncomfortable...then I had to sleep on a bedroll placed over unevenly spaced 2x4s. With the exception of my first night there, my roommates(yes, all seven of them) have been loud and chronic snorers--and door-slammers in the morning. The bright side to this is that I might not get up at a reasonable hour if I slept soundly...but that's the bright side. The first night I was there, my roommate was cool. We went to a neighborhood bar owned by an older russian gentleman (more on that momentarily). Though my sleep has been less reliable since then, I fell asleep at 1:00 am and did not awaken until 18:00 the next day. At any rate, I struck up a conversation with the Russian bar owner and asked if he would help me with my Czech. He agreed, and I went back last night to get lesson number one (and beers number three and four.) I helped him close the bar, and his wife kept talking about what a nice young man I was. She pestered him into giving me my beer for half price (though I paid in full anyway). He said it was rare to meet an American who "feet een so goot" and invited me out to his Dacha today, so that'll be a cool opportunity, I hope. More on that as it happens.

I'm finding hockey rinks slowly but surely, and since I didn't get my equipment until yesterday, there wasn't much point in doing anything but getting oriented. And boy oh boy have I been getting oriented. There is no way I have walked fewer than twelve miles in the last two days. I save money and see the city by avoiding public transit. Now, if you have a map of Prague handy, czech (hurr hurr...I mades a funni) this out:

Full day one (the one that started at 18:00), I walked in a very roundabout manner from my hostel in the middle of Prague 2 (Vinohrady) over the Charles Bridge to Prague Castle and environs...and back.

Day two: I started at 8:00 and walked from the hostel to the National Theatre, then up the bank of the Vltava to the metronome (which is absolutely Soviet in its over-the-top tacky appeal), doubled back over the bridge and kept walking up the East Bank until I got to Stvanice Ostrov, where the winter stadium is located. When I found that the stadium was closed (either for the day or for longer...I'm not really sure), I walked all the way down the west bank, went to the Modrian, Kupka, and Warhol exhibit at the Kampa Museum, and then crossed Most Legii (the bridge in front of the National Theatre). Since I'd done just as much walking the day before, I caved and took the metro the remaining three stops back home. I'm glad I did. The soreness in my feet and the blisters...well...both are brutal. Hence I'm spending today just going grocery shopping, checking up on stateside life, finding rink addresses, and going out to the Dacha--only to continue at my previous pace tomorrow. It's too early in the year to drive myself into the ground. I would love comments. Let's have 'em.

With hugs for most, kisses for some ( ;-) ), and love for all,

Josh

Alright kids, here goes.

2007-07-25T00:55:00.000+02:00

Life is chaos. I'm packing and Packing. I'm packing for Eastern Europe, and Packing for my family's upcoming move from Spragins House--a move that I will be mercifully spared. Oops. As such, I have absolutely no time to write at the moment. Maybe soon.

Keep reading, and tell me what you think! I'll be hell of lonely sometimes.

Best to all,

Josh