Czech-centricities - the funny and interesting times with my Czechmates (courtesy of uncle kerry)

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My Flatmates

I feel blessed that I came across some really great flatmates that I can also call my friends. So this blog will be made for them. So my flatmates consist of Karel, Monika, and Milan.

Karel is my roommate and we get on really well. He's 25, from Prague, is a waiter at a fancy restaurant called the Church, is into hiphop, enjoys doing street art (aka. graffitti), and is an all around nice guy but more serious at times. It is as though he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. But don't get me wrong he will joke around and have fun with us but he seems to be always worried about something in the back of his mind. Karel is hoping to head on to Canada, Vancouver, to work for a year and travel. He loves snowboarding so he would rather the mountains of BC over Toronto. He is thinking about making the big move to 'our home and native land' in September/October. ** the nickname/short form for Karel in Czech is Ky-o**

Monika is 26, from a small village in Czech, works at a bakery/restaurant called Ann's, is literally cute as a button, super funny, loves to dance and joke around, and a kind hearted person. Monika makes me laugh all day long. Sometimes it will be the things that she says or she will just get up and start dancing around like a spider with her arms and legs flying all over... we affectionately call this the 'spider dance'. Monika, having grown up in a small town, has lived on her own since she was 16 years old when she had to move on her own into the larger city to go to school. Her parents still live in the small town and she often worries about their financial situation as Czech is very poor and there is not much work. Monika plans on going home to Czech for two weeks in August to surprise her mother so that she can take her out shopping and buy new furniture for their house. Monika's brother is in the Czech army he just came off his last deployment to Iraq so he is now stationed back in Czech. Monika went to school for both business as well as she is a trained hair dresser. ** The nickname/short form for Monika in Czech is Mony**

Milan is 27, Monika's boyfriend, works at Insomnia, from a small town in Czech, has travelled all over Europe with Monika, loves Bob Marley, is a very relaxed and humble person, used to have dreads, plays the guitar and often can be heard singing from his bedroom, and can be a bit of a hermit at times. I think that his hermitness comes from being from such a small town so he doesn't really enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city and definitely does not enjoy crowds. I would best describe Milan as a deep thinker. ** The nickname/short form for Milan in Czech is Milly**

Now there is also Joseph (aka Pepa) who is Karel's best friend and visits our apartment often. Pepa is 23, also from Prague, into the hiphop and graffitti scene, very artistic and enjoys taking photos. He is a very fun loving type of guy that enjoys to joke around, have fun, and is always smiling. Pepa's english is not as strong as Monika, Milan, and Karel's as he has not been in Ireland as long as they have been. But he does try to speak English when I am around so that I can be involved in the conversations. Pepa also hopes to go to Vancouver as he is into snowboarding.


My flatmates and I often hangout together and our usual day tends to go like this... When we all return home from our work/adventures/whatever we do on our own time we recount our days to each other. Usually, Milan and Monika will have a few words that they have heard throughout the day that they are uncertain about so they will give me the list of words and I will explain it to them. Milan usually gets his note book out and will write down these new words. Next we will pick out a movie to watch that night and either watch it together in the TV room or we will all pile into Karel's King size bed and watch it there.

Its getting late so I will need to finish this later... to be continued

Continued... So watching movies is one of our favourite things to do. Some of them will be typical american movies, some irish films, and some czech films. When we watch movies that are in English we get the subtitles for my czechies as sometimes the english goes to quickly for them to process it. The funny thing is as soon as the subtitles come on I automatically connect subtitles with being deaf so some part of my brain starts to think that they can't hear anything... so my mind starts to wander and I wonder if they can decipher which subtitles match which character speaking... then I usually stop and laugh at my self for being so ridiculous and have to tell my self that they can also hear what is going on. Is that weird or what?

And some times we will watch Czech films and they will get English subtitles for me so that I can understand what is going on and the same damn thing happens... I start reading the subtitles while I watch the film and my brain automatically wants to shut off my sound. So when there are two men or two women on the screen I begin to wonder who said what subtitle.. then I have to stop myself and say "umm katie u do have ears" so I find this phenom pretty funny. Thankfully I am starting to catch on to the fact that because I am reading subtitles does not mean that I am deaf...lol... The Czech movie we watched the other day was really good. It was called Empties, as in the beer bottle return program. It was really funny and I enjoyed it immensely. My Czechies were worried that I wouldn't understand the humour as they thought that it would not translate correctly... but the great thing is that somethings are just funny no matter where in the world you are from. I definitely recommend this Czech film to everyone as it was a very lighthearted movie about life and relationships that everyone can understand and relate to. It is a story of an older couple who seem to have drifted apart over the many years of their relationship.

A really good movie that we watched the other day was an Irish film called Hunger. It is a retelling of the true story of a man from Northern Ireland named Bobby Sands who was inprisoned during the IRA uprisings in the 80's. Those that were arrested in NI were being treated very poorly in the British Prisons and they felt that they shouldn't be treated as regular prisoners as they felt they were political prisoners. Margaret Thatcher at that time did not agree that they should be treated any different from other prisoners and so Bobby Sands began a hunger strike in the prison . He began the hunger strike and was followed by 10 other IRA prisoners. Bobby Sands died while on this hunger strike for his belief that Ireland should be one united and free country. I believe that 7 men in total died on the hunger strikes. Eventually Margaret Thatcher and the British Government agreed to treat these prisoners differently and released many of the prisoners who had been given life sentences or other extremely long sentences. It is a very very very good movie. But difficult to watch since you know that these things actually happened. The interesting thing is that the one mural that had intrigued me the most, while on our bus tour of Belfast, ended up being a quote by Bobby Sands. The quote says

"All things must come to pass as one
So hope should never die
There is no height or bloody might
That a freeman can't defy
There is no source or foreign force
Can break one man who knows
That his free will no thing can kill
And from that freedom grows."

Other than movies we also have gone out together to the beach and the parks so that the boys can play football (soccer). The last time we went to the beach we all piled into Milan's car (RIP) as the sky was blue and the sun was shining. Somewhere between getting into the car and arriving at the beach a huge fog rolled in and it got bitterly cold. So we didn't stay at the beach very long. We then headed to St.Ann's Park so the boys could play as Monika and I chatted. I really want to head back to St.Ann's in June/July as it has a huge rose garden, which would be gorgeous to see once in full bloom.

So here are some random things:

In Czech everyone has a name day. A name day is kind of like a birthday but not as big as a birhday. Each day of the calendar year celebrates a person's name or a couple names. So a couple weeks back was Pepa's name day so he came over and Monika gave him a chocolate bar as a present and then they all had a drink to celebrate Pepa on his name day. When cheersing with drinks in czech it is "na zdravi' which means 'to good health'. Since Katie is not a name in Czech the next closest name is Katerina (same for you mom) and that name day is November 25. Papa Charles' name day is November 4 as his name in Czech is actually Karel. Kristie, your names equivalent is Kristyna falling on July 24. Kylee and dad, there is no name in the czech language that even comes close to your name. Grandma, the name day for Ruth is March 14 so happy belated name day. I think the name day concept is really neat but it does mean that if you want to have a name day in Czech you have to pick a name from the list of Czech names as there are only 365 days in a year and only a few days have more than 1 name listed. But it is still cool and when you buy Czech calendars it lists the name days in the calendar. I think I shall try to get a Czech calendar so that I can keep this neat tradition.

The happy birthday song in Czech has the exact same tune as our happy birthday song but the translation is more "go health to you' rather than our 'happy birthay to you'. The song in Czech is as follows "Hodně štěstí zdraví, hodně štěstí zdraví, hodně štěstí milá/milý (female/male) (Insert name here), hodně štěstí zdraví". We celebrated both Monika and Milan's birthdays in March/April. We got cakes and candles and had nice evenings in together.

I have come to realize that many sayings are the same around the world. Many times one of my roommates will tell me a saying they use in Czech and we both are quickly surprised to realize that we have the exact same saying.. for example the other day Milan said to me in Czech "its better than a kick in the pants". He said it was a very common saying in Czech and translated it for me and I laughed and said "we say the same thing." Another time Milan said to Monika in Czech "the night is still young" and then translated it for me... and I quickly laughed and said "we say the same thing".

Czech Holidays/Celebrations:

In Czech they celebrate May Day, which begins April 30. From what I understand this is based on the old traditions of the small villages having to do with the beginning of spring and celebrating the fertility of the crops and females. Each village will build a May Pole and gather around it throughout the night to protect it from other villages. Apparently, it is common that people from neighouring villages will try to sneak into other villages to ruin each others May Pole. They will have a bonfire during the night and will also burn effigies of witches.. which I don't really understand how that fits in so I will pick my czechmates minds about the witch part as May Day gets closer. Now the actual May 1 is May Day and it is a public holiday in Czech (and Ireland too). May Day has different ways of celebrating depending on where in Czech you are from. Since Monika and Milan are from small towns they celebrate with the witch effigy and protecting the May Pole through the night. But karel who is from Prague celebrates it differently. In Prague May Day is considered the Day of Lovers. Apparently it is a day to celebrate a famous Czech poet, Karel Hynek Macha, who wrote a poem about a great love between a guy and a girl that goes unfulfilled as the girl dies. The poem is called Maj (translated to May). So people celebrate Karel Macha and the poem every May 1 by going to his statue and kissing infront of it or kissing below a blossoming tree, preferably a cherry blossom tree. By getting kissed under a blooming tree the girl is guaranteed beauty for another year. If only it was that easy!lol I shall look for this poem online and add it on May 1.

I think that is it for this blog entry.

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Photos

me and my flatpuppies 002
Napping together just like back home

Football
Karel and Milan

Comments

[Kristie]

flatpuppies
hahahaha it took me a second to figure out that you had used my pics I gave you of the dogs!! thats awesome!

[Cathie Lutes]

your room mates are great!
I'm still smiling - you and your flatpuppies, I can't believe how real they looked tucked up in your bed. Your room mates and Pepa, all seem so nice - you attract good people. It feels like I have already met them your descriptions of character are great. When your Aunt Kim and I get to Ireland we will have to take a road trip to St Ann's park. I can hardly wait for our visit.