Happy Birthday to the Best Grandpa in the World!

Olny 90 plepoe can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a
wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be
in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed
it whotuit a pboerlm. T! ihs is b cuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed
ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I
awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

My sister sent me this e-mail; it gave me hope that people will understand my poorly spelled and edited blog. Never have been too good with English, maybe Czech will be better.

and dad, I have been doing school work you will be seeing the fruits of my labor very soon, architecture is my life. I promise to spend less money [wink] ... and work as diligently as possible when in Europe.

Return from the East

old city gate

After boarding the train at 10:00 on Thursday night, I hunkered down and settled in for a long ride. During this excursion we were we going to experience the city of Krakow, the Wieliczka Salt Mines and the city of Oswiecim, mostly commonly known as Auschwitz [Nazis changed the name of the city to Auschwitz, which consequently became the name of the camp.]
The train ride was long and uncomfortable. It was 10 hours of sitting and trying to sleep upright. On the way there a tall, round albino, Canadian choose to sit next to me, however soon the action of sitting next to was replaced by sitting on. I was squished in between to guys who like to use their room to the fullest, the Canadian by far the most.

old town hall clock tower

fire breathing dragon [not breathing fire @ time of picture, but it did I swear!]

After suffering through 10 hours of on-again-off-again sleeping we arrived in Krakow and headed to our hostel at 7:00 am. After a brief nap and breakfast we headed out into the cold and wet snow to see the sights of the city. We saw numerous old churches built in Gothic and Renaissance styles, the city's Castle, Jewish Synagogues, and even a fire breathing dragon. Our tour guide led us to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch, for a quick Lenten lunch where we defrosted from the brisk morning tour. On the afternoon tour we were able to see more of the town square and the main cathedral [St. Mary's] located on the perimeter of the main square. Upon entry of the space the colors hit you with force and grandeur. I have never in my short sheltered life seen a church that looked quite like this. The color pallet was bold. Strong red and grene bands stretched across the ribs of the side aisle archways. The main nave had elegant archways that were painted a deep blue, not a navy blue but a rich mix of almost Caribbean blue and navy blue, the cling detail was finished off with gold stars covering the archways like the night sky. Every square inch was covered with decorative pattern, gold leaf, or a painting depicting a saint. It was truly a beautiful sight, I wish I could have been allowed to take pictures, however there were no pictures allowed. After taking in all the sights on the square we headed toward the hostel for dinner, a shower and a good nights rest. However the idea of rest was short lived, as many of us went out on the town celebrate St. Patrick's Day, green beers and all, I guess even in Poland on St. Patty's day everybody is Irish.

St. Mary's is the church in the background with the two towers

some random club in the city, Luke and I were the coolest people there!

The next morning started early at 8:00 am. We walked across town back to the train station and boarded a train bound for Oswiecim. An hour later we found ourselves walking about a mile in the cold wet sloppy streets to the most notorious concentration camp of all time. I think the name of Auschwitz is synonymous with unbelievable; unimaginable pain, suffering and horrific death. I think that the weather of the day fit the mood most appropriately. It was a cold, gray, slushy day. It didn't look quite night and didn't look quite day, it was just all around pretty depressing. It's hard to say that I enjoyed the tour, because I don't think that anyone can enjoy that sort of thing, I did however get a lot of information out of it, the situation became more than just a series of pictures and lecture notes taken from history classes of the past. The places became real and the faces came into focus. I think the most striking part of the tour for me was when the group was walking down a corridor in single file line [because of the narrowness of the hall]. Lining these walls from about shoulder level up were 8x10 mug shots of people who were kept within these walls. The building that we were in was the camp's jail. People were imprisoned here for various reasons such as tying a shoe, smoking, or going to the bathroom. These pictures were also accompanied by some dates, names, and identification numbers. The expressions on the faces were nothing less than hunting. You could see that all the life had been drained out of their faces, the sparks of their eyes had faded and replaced with a siring glare of despair and heart ache. The dates below the picture indicated the date of arrival and the date of death, in many cases the dates were less than a few months apart, and some a few days. Seriously this was one of the most sobering days of my life. I thought about how these people got cheated from a life of happiness, filled with family friends and growing old. It blows my mind that this event only took place 60 years ago, in the scheme of things, 60 years isn't a very long time at all. What makes it even harder to comprehend is how it's happing today in various forms and in various places. When we left the camp I came back to 2006 and had a much greater appreciation of the life and luxuries that I have. The train ride back was a quite one, I mostly reflected on the days experiences and looked forward to Sunday when the tone would be a lighter one.

"Arbeit Macht Fri" [Work sets you free] main gate

Auschwitz I

Auschwitz II

[ you can see the chimney stacks in the background where more shelters once stood]

A lighter day indeed Sunday was. It was sunny outside and warmer than it had been all week! The sun felt warm and bright on my cheek as we stood outside the visitors center for the salt mine just outside Krakow. We toured the pure rock salt mine for a few hours seeing various sculptures carved from salt. Some of the rooms were amazingly huge and some were uncomfortably cramped. We also learned interesting historical facts about the mine, none of which I can remember. After the salt mine we returned to Krakow and had some free time to wander the city and eat Kebabs. After a few hours of shopping and wandering we boarded the train for another miserable ride back to Prague. After the ten hour return trip I practicably ran from the train station to my bed to sleep a few hours before I had to show up for my morning ornamentation class.

room in salt mine, carved from rock salt

woring hard in the mines

city market place

inside market place

sweet music!

I had a great time in Krakow and would highly recommend it, it was a lively city where there was plenty of English speaking individuals to get around!

randim pics

Keeping very busy lately I think is the theme of this one. We have finally started actual classes where I am responsible for doing actual work. Yesterday we began our first sculpture class, which for me was my first time ever dealing with real sculpture, as opposed to ceramics where you can just about make anything look good. We started the lesson by making hands. Our teacher came in, mumbled some random works and walked into the next room where we all followed him nervously. Soon he handed us all wooden pallets and shoved a bucket of tangled and mangled wires at our feet. Each of us grabbed a wire and nailed it to our boards; I guess this was to serve as the structure for the clay replicas of our hands. Throughout the class period my instructor destroyed my clay hand three times. The first time I had left the molded hand on my pallet as I left the room to retrieve a carving tool. When I came back my hand now was apart of the base for my friend Chris’ hand. Ok no problem, deep breath, I hadn’t gotten that far with my hand even tough all the fingers were in place and it looked slightly more human than ball of clay, it was going to be ok, I would just start over. Second hand, apparently it didn’t have enough arm supporting it, so it became a squished pile of clay to be sculpted into a base for my third hand. This next hand was destroyed because the wire supporting it wasn’t long enough. After my teacher removed the clay from my pallet and ripped off my metal wire, he replaced it with a longer more dynamic piece of wire. My fourth hand was the winner I guess, because it survived the last hour of class. Even though I had sculpted at least four hands, I wasn’t too far behind the rest of the class [thank God]. I was able to shape my wrist and all my fingers. Now I guess the next four weeks will be spent refining and making this thing look like the thing attached to my arm.

In other news we will be off to Poland for the weekend! Will be visiting Krakow and a few other places that I will be happy to tell you all about upon my return to Prague! We depart from Praha train station tonight at 8:41 and will arrive in Poland sometime tomorrow morning. I have a feeling that this trio will test my sleep deprivation endurance as I’m sure we won’t waste any time with sleeping, but will rather start right away with sightseeing and meandering.

The weekend update:

This weekend was full of snowy fun! We traveled nearly three hours by bus to the Krkonoše Mountains, located in northeast Bohemia between the Czech Republic and Poland. As we approached the area it was a pretty flat landscape, and suddenly appearing out of nowhere the mountains came into view. There seemed to be maybe four to six feet of snow already on the ground and throughout the weekend there was a constant sprinkling of flurries. Sometimes these flurries turned into a down pour of massive snow flakes, creating a fresh few inches of powder on top of the already massive amounts of snow. On Friday we were equipped with skis and let loose on the hillside for the “night ski” session. I, having never skied before, opted not to risk my life trying to learn how to ski in the dark. On Saturday morning we suited up after breakfast and headed off to the slopes. I soon found my self on the ski lift being carried over the heads of skilled skiers below. At this point I asked myself “What in God’s name have you gotten yourself into this time?!” With panic in my heart and in my mind I decided it was do or die trying. After exiting the lift I made my way to the first blue run available. My skis slid over the snow with ease and my legs quickly became aware of the motions they would have to master if I wanted to steer my body away from any obstacles, like trees or small children. On that first run I fell, I’m not going to lie; I fell more than a few times. As I would be hurtling down the mountain I would just bail out, for fear that I would loose control and possibly get hurt even worse. All in all I don’t think I did too bad even a few people I was with, who had been skiing quite a bit before, said that I was doing great for a first timer. Apparently I had my turning down pretty quickly. This reassurance gave me some confidence and the mental strength to go again down a longer, maybe more complicated run. I gained more confidence with each run I took; even if%2

Ok so here we go...

went skiing this weekend, important thing is..... I am still alive and have little physical damage to my body, just kidding... I had a blast and soon will have full update and pictures soon!

just a quick shout out to my uncle Lou, Thanks! I thought the card was hilarious! I got it this Sunday when I came back from the frozen tundra of who knows where.

More Pictures!
hahaha

the home team fan zone

high sticking

birthday Czech Hot Dog. No game is complete without one,

sorry guys no chicken basket here in the CZ

March 5th, 2006
warm-ups

hey i'm 22!!

Today was an awesome day! It stated of with me turning off my alarm clack and continued to sleep for another 30 min, great! After realizing that I had already committed to not missing church again I decided it was a good time as any to pull myself from my warm bed and get myself ready for the day. After pulling myself together I soon found myself sitting in the hard wooden pews at St. Thomas, this time it was right behind a class coffin, holding a real-live dead body of some guy dressed in old rotting clothes. I think the sign said that he was “buried” in the 15th century. I’ll read the sign next Sunday and let you know. But anyway I received my ashes, because I missed Ash Wednesday [woops]. However this ashes Wednesday had a little Czech surprise element to it; I guess here the European style of receiving ashes is to get them sprinkled on top of your head, not smeared on your forehead. After that we sat and listened to the priest read the reading and talk his talk. The reading today was probably my favorite, just because I think it is neat, it explains the rainbow as God’s promise to Moses not to flood the earth again. I don’t know why I think it’s kinda neat, I just do.
Anyway the rest of the day was filled with warm birthday wishes, a huge bottle of cherry vodka (thanks to the brits), Hello! Magazine, and yummy cookies! After a small nap [i.e. me=passed out while trying to read new Hello! Magazine, not from drinking] we headed to the hockey arena to watch Praha take on Pardubice. It was awesome to be able to watch a real hockey game on my birthday! It’s something that I have wanted to do since forever and it always works out that I am at school, and can’t see a proper hockey game. But since I had no idea who to cheer for, it didn’t really matter. Mack and I did our best to choose but looking at the roster for each team and picking our favorite based on who had the best good looking guy on the team. It was a wash. So we rooted for the home team and turns out it was a tie game, so no hurt feelings on either end. I t was interesting to see their jersey in comparison to the ones I am used to seeing at home. Here every square inch is covered with a logo for a company, a miniature advertisement, and the ice is just the same. Everyone had scarves with the teams name and logo embroidered on it. At a drop of a hat members of the audience would take the scarf from their neck clasp the two fringed ends together and twirl the fabric in the air, as if they were trying to take off. The fans were so into this game is was great, even way up in the nosebleed seats, you could feel the beat of the drums bellow in your chest. You could see and feel the energy in the air. All in all it was a great day. And I just wanted to thank everyone who sent me a Facebook message, sent me and e-mail, or e-card, or just told me happy birthday. It really made me feel quite special and loved. It also was good to be able to speak and see my family on the computer via video cams and microphones. I miss you guys and thanks again, you really made my day.

KSU group standing proudly with out $1 beers
flat mates: Mack, Me, Kate, Laura

this morning about 10:00 lastnight (20:15) looking out my window on to the beautiful parking lot below, I think mack's exact words were, don't fall out the window, because i don't know how to say "i need to ship a dead body to the states" in Czech.
Well the weekend has finally made it here, it’s about noon here in Prague and only about 5 am in the states so I guess it has made it there too. The week started off a bit shaky but as the week progressed it got better. So in short finding classes are getting easier, my ipod still only has 387 songs on it and my throat feels normal again. I guess everyone is bound to have a bad day now and again, but as they say life goes on.
So I think I have made my final decisions which classes to take! It has been hard picking and choosing between all the different art courses they offer here but I think the ones I have committed to will be a lot of fun and help me to become a better visual communicator, [right]. But so far they include: Studio, History of Architecture II a study of 14th and 15th century architecture, Art in Architecture, Czech culture, Computer Graphics, Sculpture and possibly Photography. So it will be a busy semester full of different and exciting projects.
Today I think some of the girls and I will venture out into the snow and get some of our laundry done at “Laundry King.” I know I am ready to have a pair of jeans that isn’t caked in mud from the ankle to the knee. For some reason I have mud smeared on the inside pant leg starting at the ankle that goes all the way to where my knee is, how I have no idea. And it’s not one pair of jeans its all of my jeans all four pairs. So long story short it’s time to clean those suckers. According to the map it isn’t too far, only two train stops and a switch...maybe we will have to look again just to make sure.Also many of us are preparing our slides for our presentation to the entire International Student Club about the United States. Last week the Czech Students game a 30 minute presentation about the Czech Republic, and now it is our turn to share all the wonder and splendor that is the United States. We plan on even distributing some American goodies, like Mac and Cheese, s’mores, jell-o, Pb and J and some other stuff. It was difficult to think of classic American foods that foreigners might not know or didn’t come from other cultures, not to mention the availability of the ingredients…so that is the best we could come up with. Hopefully it will run smoothly and won’t put people to sleep