The Dodge Retort

Dobry Den friends and family! Its been two weeks since my last email update, so I thought now would be a good time to send out another. I promise I’ll try to make this one a bit shorter than the last one, but I make no guarantees (update: I failed in this regard)! Again, please don’t reply all to this email and if you know of anyone else who might want to get these updates, let me know!

Last week I finally started my normal classes for the semester, well over a month after most of my friends were back in school. Its actually been extremely nice getting back into a routine and having academic work to occupy my time and keep my mind sharp (or what passes for sharp anyways…). I’m still taking the Czech language course, but now only twice a week, rather than five times a week. My other classes are all in English. My courses fit in very well for my major and are very SFS-y (Non-Gtowners: this means very similar to the types of courses I’d be taking at the school of foreign service at Gtown). I’m taking Central European Politics, Central European History, EU Politics and Economics, and A History of Transatlantic relations. So far I’ve enjoyed nearly all the courses. The professors are all very talented, but the European method of teaching university courses is decidedly different from the American method.

Lectures are very disjointed with professors mostly spouting odd facts that seem to jump into their minds while covering a certain subject. This has been a bit frustrating, as its very difficult taking notes, looking at patterns/themes, etc. without the sort of firm course outlines that American professors usually have. The Czech professors usually start on a very broad concept or idea and then speak about it for a few minutes before moving onto something that is only tangentially related. Despite the professor being a Reagan/Thatcher fanatic, the Transatlantic course is probably my favorite so far.

Work is extraordinarily easy compared to Georgetown. Indeed, European teaching methods don’t really seem to emphasize constant work production so much as large amounts of reading over long periods of time and then taking a single test or writing a single paper at the end of the semester. I have slightly less reading than at Georgetown, but because I’m not expected to really display any knowledge until March, my motivation for reading it all right now is pretty minimal. This attitude is pretty pervasive among my fellow Americans here and I actually probably do slightly more work than the average student (which is honestly saying very little). That said, I really like all my professors and they’re very eager to teach American students, who to them seem far more motivated than their Czech students (which I think says a lot about the state of European youth).

Also, every course I’m in takes a field trip every couple weeks or so, so I’ll be able to travel within the Czech Republic for free with my professors, which I’m excited about. The dorm has started to grow on me a bit over the last couple weeks. There’s always something going on, so I always have the option of going out to do things or staying in and taking it easy. My roommate and I are continuing to get along well, despite our drastically different lifestyles. I tend to pass on most of the super late night excursions to various clubs (especially during the week), but there is nearly always a group of people who are up for a movie or going to a pub, having a few beers, and playing fussball.

I’ve been playing fussball nearly every other day and am surprisingly good at it. Last week the guys in the dorm had a round robin tournament one night and my partner and I came in 2nd out of 8. Weekday afternoons, however, tend to be pretty boring and when I’m most prone to the occasional bout of homesickness. While there are plenty of people here who I like doing things with, I’d be hard pressed to actually call anyone here a “friend” (granted, its only been 3 weeks).

Exeter and Georgetown were both perfect environments for me socially, but the broad range of schools and students here has made finding people similar to me slightly more difficult. I haven’t had a good in-person argument about politics since I’ve left the States! I often take long one or two hour walks throughout Prague when I’m bored, usually to places off the beaten path. During one of my strolls last week I happened upon a really picturesque cafe, called Cafe Idoskop, with cheap Turkish coffee, Czech hot chocolate (nothing like American hot chocolate, its basically just a melted bar of chocolate that you eat with a spoon), and good jazz music.

I’m starting to go here frequently to read or do work. I’ve been very busy the past couple weekends, with my friend and sophomore year apartment mate, Brendan, visiting from Oxford two weekends ago. We had a really outstanding time and it was very enjoyable to do all the touristy things in Prague with a good friend, rather than with the causal acquaintances I’ve made over the past few weeks. We did all the quintessential Prague activities: the castle, Wenceslas Square, Charles Bridge, etc, but also managed to do some pretty unique things I might not have done otherwise. Brendan got in on Friday afternoon.

We were going to the opera that night (for free!), so he arrived in the airport in a tie and vest, which I found very comical and Oxfordian. He had his first plate of goulash and then we saw Tosca by Puccinni at the State Opera. The State opera is very gorgeous and the performance was very good. A few choice pictures of us here, here, here, and here. Afterwards we went out to my favorite bar in the city (so far), called Usudu. At first glance it seems like an inoccent pub until you descend down a few flights of stairs and find yourself in, essentially, an underground cave. The bar is a bit pricey (by Prague standards, meaning cheap, rather than EXTREMELY cheap, by American standards) but well worth it for the atmosphere. Brendan had his first shot of absinthe and I had my first flaming B-52. We ran into a couple other Georgetown students on the program, including a girl who was visiting from Florence, and had a pretty good time chatting with them. It was a very fun night out.

The next morning we got up early and I showed him around Vysehrad (meaning High Castle), the area where I go to school. The area was hosting a competitive downhill ice skating tournament at the time, so we looked at the course. Frankly, I think the people doing it were completely insane, but it looked pretty cool (no pun intended). Next we went to the really famous cemetery in the castle where many wealthy and/or important Czechs are buried. Most notably, we saw Dvorak’s grave. After that we went to try and find Bohemia Bagel, a hang out for American ex-pats and great place for brunch, in Mala Strana (little quarter) at the base of Prague Castle. For the first time ever, a Lonely Planet guide book completely failed me and we were left wandering the area for several hours. We eventually gave up and walked halfway across the city to a different Bohemia Bagel.

During this trek I snapped what has become my new desktop background. I also discovered Red Sox and John Kerry martyoshka dolls, which basically made my day. They have them for every major American and European sports team, so if anyone would really love a martyoshka doll of their favorite club or politician, let me know and I’ll get it for you. First Album of Brendan’s Visit: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017576&id=1326120856#/album.php?aid=2017576&id=1326120856&page=3 We did some more tourist stuff, like the National Museum, the Kafka Museum, the Castle, etc. The Kafka museum was really wonderful. What was most enjoyable was that the various placards describing Kafka’s life were very Kafka-esque in nature, which amused us both. The first line of one was “Franz Kafka was born into a myth called Prague”, a line we found particulary amusing. Pictures of all this here:

The next day we went to the Museum of Communism, which was probably the most vitriolic museum I’ve ever been in and really displayed a deep hatred of communism. It was actually very interesting and had some great exhibits and videos about Prague Spring, Dubcek, the Velvet Revolution, life under the communists, etc. Probably the best part were the posters they had around the city to try and attract visitors. The posters had a picture of Santa Claus holding a sickle and then also boasted about the fact that they were located next to a McDonalds. After taking a few silly pictures in front of statues of Lenin and Stalin at the Communist Museum, we spent a while hunting for Prague’s infamous Lennon Wall, which was somewhat difficult to find.

After John Lennon was killed, young Czechs (among whom Lennon was extremely popular in the 70s and 80s) created a monument in his honor at a rather obscure wall in Prague. In the dead of night they would sneak to this wall and graffiti pictures of Lennon, slogans about peace, slogans against the Communists, etc. onto the wall. Despite the best efforts of the government to clean the wall, it has endured to this day. Its actually said that even today if you go back to the wall every two weeks you’ll barely recognize parts of it because it changes so frequently due to continued graffiti. Pictures of the Commie Museum, Lennon Wall, and obscure (but very pretty) Synagogue here:

The week between Brendan’s visit and my trip to Budapest was relatively mundane, but pleasant. I found the above mentioned cafe and partook in the fussball tournament. Thursday night I set out with a group of 8 people to visit Budapest, a city I’ve long wanted to go to and probably the city I was second most anxious to visit on this trip (after Vienna). We left Prague at 10:30 pm by bus and arrived in Budapest around 5am in the morning. Luckily I was able to sleep a bit on the bus, so I wasn’t a complete zombie the first day in Budapest. On the bus ride I had a very quintessential Eastern European experience. During the bus ride we were woken up at 3am at a rest stop. I wanted to get some water and stretch to my legs, so I decided to get off the bus. However, as I had been asleep and had taken out on my contacts, I had absolutely no idea where we were. I wandered into the store, found some water, but then realized that I had no idea what currency I would need to buy it. If we were still in the Czech Republic, I’d need Czech Crowns. If we were in Slovakia, I’d have needed Euros (Slovakia was the first, and so far only, eastern european country to switch to Euros), and if we were in Hungary, I’d have needed Forints, of which I had none. We WERE in Hungary, but luckily they accepted Euros, of which I had a few, and I was able to get my water.

As I said, we arrived in Budapest around 5am. We had to wait until 6am to purchase metro tickets and then we went to our hostel, located right in the heart of Pest, which is larger and more commercial than Buda. We rested a couple hours and then headed out in the city. We wandered for awhile and found the Soviet Army Memorial, 1956 Uprising Memorial and the Imre Nagry Memorial. After that we went to Budapest’s very famous Parliament building, which is modeled on the British parliament. It sits right on the Danube river and is one of the most truly gorgeous buildings I’ve ever seen. We took a tour of the building, which was as beautiful inside as it was out. My favorite building in Washington, DC has always been the Capitol Building, but I think the Hungarians might actually have us beat on this one. Here are some shots of the parliament, including a couple I took the next day when I could see it from across the Danube in Buda: here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

After the tour of Parliament the others went to rest, while I decided to wander a bit. I happened upon a very gorgeous synagogue that had very unique, Arabic style of architecture (I was later told it was neo-Moorish). I thought the synagogue was interesting, but rather unimportant until I was informed earlier today by Ms. Hannah Lomax-Vogt that that same synagogue is in fact the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world after one in New York. It also had a very interesting Holocaust memorial shaped like a weeping willow. Pictures here, here, here and here. After that, we walked up Budapest’s main boulevard, Androssy Utca. It quickly became apparent to me why Budapest is known as The Paris of the East.

We passed the State Opera and Heroes Square (another shot here). Heroes Square commemorates Hungarian heroes throughout their history (Hungarians are extremely patriotic and have A LOT of heroes). Most prominently it displays King Arpad on horseback leading the Magyars out of Asia and into the Carpathian Basin in 897, thus establishing Hungary. The Hungarians love horses and there are statues of them everywhere. They are also very proud of the fact that they are the only non-Slavic people in East-Central Europe. Their language bears no similarity to any of the surrounding languages (Czech, Serbian, Ukrainian, etc), all of which are somewhat similar. It isn’t even in the Indo-European Language family as seen by the gray blotch in the middle of Europe on this map displaying Indo-European languages. Hungarians still have a very Asiatic quality about them. They look very distinct from Czechs and other Slavs, with much darker hair and slightly wider eyes. Also, they use the Asian method of displaying names, with the surname coming before the individual name (i.e. I’d be Dodge Chris in Hungarian). This creates a very unique sense of identity among Hungarians which they display very openly and which I found very fascinating.

On our walk up the main boulevard we stopped in a, seemingly, authentic Hungarian hat store (Hungarians have great hats). Still regretting not buying an Irish peddler’s cap last March in Galway, I decided a Hungarian equivalent would suffice, so I indulged myself. While Budapest is called the Paris of the East, its also called the City of Spas and has the best themral spas in Europe. This is a result of Turkish occupation of Budapest for a long period of time during the peak of the Ottomon Empire. For a little under 10 dollars we were able to go the original spa created by the Turks over 300 years ago. This was one of, if not the, highlight of the trip. First of all, the thermal spas are outdoors and kept at a temperature of just under 100 degrees. Going in the spas while it was snowing was extremely cool. Second, the building that surrounds the spas was beautiful. Third, and best of all, old, fat Hungarian men play chess in the spa.

We were in the spas for nearly two hours, so I watched a few games. Playing chess in an outdoor thermal spa is definitely something I’d like to do in retirement. Pictures of the spa: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. After dinner and some rest, we went out to probably the second strange bar/club I’ve ever been in (ask me about the first sometime). It was in a sort of abandoned warehouse down some side street that was completley covered in graffiti. Inside, there was a fake whale’s skeleton hanging from the ceiling and a DJ working out of an old Trabant. Budapest, like Prague, was very cheap. The only thing more expensive in Budapest than Prague, unsurprisingly, is beer (Hungary is famous for its wine actually). Beer cost about 400 forints (or about $1.50), a total ripoff by Czech standards. Somewhat frustrated by the slow pace of our group of 8, I decided to set out on my own early the next day to do my own exploring. This turned out to be a wise decision, as I did nearly 2x as much as the others (who broke into smaller groups) and who spent most of Sunday doing what I had already done Saturday. I started by going to Roosevelt Square and crossing the mighty Danube river, which was frightning.

Washingtonians, if you ever think crossing the Key Bridge over the Potomac is bad, try crossing the Danube. Being a lazy American I decided to take the furnicular up Castle Hill, rather than walk. I explored the hill for a while and saw the old palace, the Roman ruins that predated the arrival of the Magyars, and got my first look at the Hills of Buda. I like to consider myself a pretty smart and experienced traveler. Ever since I studied abroad in Germany, I’ve done a lot of traveling across Europe. However, in Budapest I fell into probably the biggest tourist trap east of the Alps: the labyrinths of Castle Hill. While the signs leading to the labyrinths screamed TOURISTS, PLEASE WASTE YOUR MONEY HERE, I figured for just a few bucks it would be worth it. The labyrinths were marginally interesting, but the owners had decided to cover them in very obviously fake cave paintings and statues. In the final segment, they put in a hyper-kitschy section that made you pretend you were an alien discovering earth years after humans (or Homo Consumer as they called us) had become extinct. The exhibits included fossilized Converse Sneakers footprints, a keyboard, and a giant coke bottle. I was laughing so hard by the end that it was probably worth the three or four lost dollars.

After this I saw my 10,000th statue of a horse, this time with St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary and patron Saint of the Magyars, on it. I then went to the Fisherman’s Bastion, a sort of walled building on the edge of the castle’s fortifications that let you look across the river and provides an amazing view of the Danube and Parliament. I found this name strangely inappropriate for a landlocked country with no major bodies of water, but go figure. Fisheran’s Bastion and view: here, here, here, here, and here. I wandered around Buda for a bit and then went to the Terror House, a museum located in a building that used to house the Arrow Cross Party, the Hungarian equivalent of the Nazis and which allied Hungary with Germany for most of WWII, and also the AVH, the secret police of Communist Hungary. The museum documented atrocities committed against Hungarians under German and Soviet occupation. They had an actual Soviet tank from the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 along with a wall dedicated to those persecuted by the AVH. I bought the first of several outstanding gifts here, a candle shaped like Stalin.

The other great gifts were my hat, a Hungarian Football Scarf with Magyaraszog written on it, and a communist propaganda poster from the 1950s. Devon has laid claim to the candle, but if anyone would else would like the scarf or poster, let me know. Gifts that I will NOT be getting any of you include this extremely offensive Osama Bin Laden matryoshka doll I found. It kinda pissed me off. After the Terror House I went to Budapest’s famous Great Market Hall, somewhat like Boston’s Quincy Market or Philly’s Reading Terminal Market. I got lunch here for about three dollars. It was a perfect mixture of authentic Hungarian and touristy shops. It was very cool seeing old Hungarian ladies bantering with butchers and merchants. After that I went to the National Hungarian Museum, which, along with the spas and parliament, was probably the highlight of the trip. Never have I been so surprised by a museum. Sadly you had to pay for to take photos, something I refuse to do, but which is relatively common in Eastern Europe.

The museum had the complete history of Hungary from 900 to 1990 and it was really outstanding. It had great exhibits on the wars against the Ottoman Turks, the 1848 uprising against the Austrians, Hungarian involvement in the World Wars and the ‘56 Uprising (as you can see, I snuck a few shots when the guards weren’t looking). (Skip this paragraph if you’re tired and have absolutely no interest in Hungarian history, identity, or Hungarian Jews). Probably the most fascinating thing I learned in the museum was how much WWI shapes modern Hungarian identity. As part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Hungary was punished after its loss in WWI. The Treaty or Trianon (1920) stripped Hungary of nearly 2/3s of its historial lands and left nearly 1/3 of ethnic Hungarians outside of Hungary.

Many patriotic Hungarians still display maps that show the broader Hungarian lands, often a point of contention with their neighbors, especially Slovakia and Romania, where most Hungarians outside of Hungary live. Anyways, frustration with this situation led to a radicalization of Hungarian politics in the interwar years. Hungary basically wanted to ally with any countries that would help them gain back their lost lands. These countries happened to be Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Arrow Cross Party, a right wing party, came to power and allied Hungary with Germany before the launch of WWII. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Hungary’s Jews. While the Arrow Cross party was anti-Semitic and passed laws persecuting Jews, they stopped far short of anything similar to Hitler’s final solution. As a result of the alliance, Germany wouldn’t occupy Hungary until 1944 when they became desperate for resources. Once they did, Hungary’s Jewish population was subjected to the same treatment as Poland’s Jewish population. However, because Poland had been occupied for 7 years vs. Hungary’s 1.5, the survival rate of Hungarian Jews is astronomically larger than that of Polish Jews.

The situation of nearly 4 million Hungarians in Romania is still a major problem in the region, though most Hungarians seem to have accepted their diminished borders. After this I visited the Music Academy where Franz Liszt, widely considered the greatest pianist in history, was trained. After meeting up with the others and having dinner, I went to see an opera in Budapest’s beautiful Opera House. The Barber of Seville (of Looney Toons fame) was premiering and cost about 500 forints ($2.20) for students. It was the third opera I’d seen in 2.5 weeks (2 of which cost about 2 dollars and one of which was free). There were some downsides to my cheapness, namely my seat was behind a column, reminding me of Fenway’s infamous Obstructed View Seats. Also, the opera was in Italian with Hungarian supertitles only. Still, the music was wonderful. Shots of the opera house: here, here, here.

After this I wandered through Budapest’s beautiful St. Stephen’s Cathedral. During all my travels in Europe, I’ve seen a lot of cathedrals and quite frankly they all start to look the same after a while, but this one really stood out. Shots here, here, here, here, here. Exhausted, I took it easy that night. About half of our group went out to some bizarre club in an abandoned communist apartment building, while the rest of us went to a cafe and took it easy. At 4am, when our friends were coming home, a bunch of very drunk Germans started harassing them and calling them dirty German words that I could understand. Half asleep and thoroughly pissed at being woken up at 4am, I got up, went into the hall and yelled “ficken Sie, du verdammte deutsche scheisse!” I’ll let you all do your own translation, but let me assure you that this did not please the drunken Germans (who were otherwise impressed with my knowledge of German vulgarity).

They tried barging into our room a couple times before the hostel staff finally dragged them to their rooms. The next day was relatively brief, as we had to get ready for our 7 hour bus ride back to Prague. We went to the Hungarian Military History Museum, which unsurprisingly pleased the men in our group far more than the women. We wandered around Buda for a bit and then indulged by going to a nice restaurant on the Castle Hill. My meal cost 12 dollars, the most I’ve spent on a single meal since coming to Europe. All my Budapest Albums: 1, 2, 3, 4. While, I’ve utterly failed in keeping this shorter than the last email. It’s also taken me about 2.5 hours to write (4 hours if you include uploading the pictures), so I hope you’ve read and enjoyed most of it! Budapest was a truly fantastic city that I recommend to all of you.

It was my second choice for studying abroad after Prague and a small part of me thinks I might have actually liked it better because its slightly larger and more cosmopolitan. That said, on the bus ride back we had a vote on which city we liked better and I voted for Prague. The vote was a tie, 4:4. Prague is still my favorite city on earth and that fact that I loved Budapest nearly as much is a testament to how amazing it is, I really recommend it to all of you. The next couple weeks are going to be somewhat relaxed before the huge event that is March (Stockholm, Vienna, and Munich all in a row over the first 3 weeks). This weekend I’m going to Bozejov, a town of 600 in southern Bohemia. The town is of absolutely no significance besides the fact that 1/8th of my ancestry comes from there. I’m going to go check out the cemetery and hopefully find some locals who speak English and can possibly tell me if anyone sharing a name still lives in the town. I’m very excited to go and stand in the same small little village where 150 years ago one of my ancestors decided to move to America, thus giving me the fabulous life I have today. On Saturday evening I’m going to the Czech Philharmonic, often considered the best non-German/Austrian orchestra in Europe, with a friend to see Dvorak’s 7th Symphony, one of my all time favorite pieces of music (I recommend listening to the 1st and 4th movements if you like classical music at all, though the version I linked to isn’t that great).

The following weekend I’ll either be going to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, or Terezin, a concentration camp infamous for being the one the Nazis showed to the Red Cross, complete with fake villages, schools, etc. The first weekend of March I’ll be going to Stockholm to visit Mr. Markus Berrenson, a friend I made this summer in DC, who goes to the University of Uppsala outside Stockholm. Alright, thats all for now. I’m loving my time here, though I certainly miss you all dearly. I’m glad to have finished my inaugural weekend trip. I’ve set a goal for myself of not spending two consecutive weekends in Prague for the next 3 months. I’ve mapped out a pretty good plan to accomplish this, so I’m very excited! Stay in touch, I love talking with you all and getting updates from the States. Best Regards and Much Love, Chris