Day 29: Late to Church

Sunday, June 10, 2012 

I got up early this morning (not quite early enough, as it turned out) to go to a mass at the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn (or Tyn Church for short). After seeing the outside and hearing their choir rehearsing, not to mention finding out that Tycho Brahe is buried there (with or without his pet moose), I was determined to go to at least one mass there while in Prague. 

The inside is just as beautiful, if you can believe that, though it's somewhat less understated than the outside. I don't think I've ever seen so much gilt in a single building. 

I remembered the opening time wrong, so I ended up getting there after the gates were shut, but they still let visitors stand in the narthex and watch the mass from there. I did get there in time for the last reading; it was in Czech, of course, so I could only understand a word here and there. The same was true for the following prayers, though I'm familiar enough with the Catholic mass that I could usually identify the prayer by its length, cadence, and position in the mass. 

Unlike the Catholic churches I've been to in the US, they seemed to actually sing all the verses of the hymns. I didn't recognize either of the ones I heard, but they were beautiful. I hummed along with the bass parts anyway. 

After a somewhat less exciting trip to the laundromat, I took the Metro back to the Institute, where I wrote and drew comics all day. It was a good afternoon. 

Day 22: Týnská Ulička

Sunday, June 3, 2012 

For the fibers class, our next assignment was to choose a single place in our area and spend at least 45 minutes observing it (using photographs, sketches, and so on). I spent the afternoon photographing and sketching the little square behind the magnificent Church of Our Lady before Tyn.

Judging by the street sign, the square might be called Týnská Ulička; I'm not sure. Perhaps that's just a street name. Týnská is one of the streets that leads into it.

The fact that this square is where the crepe stand sets up every day had absolutely nothing to do with my decision.

Well, it wasn't the only reason, anyway. 

After lunch (a ham-and-cheese crepe, since they were so conveniently nearby), I took a few dozen photographs of the square. 

This is one of the things I love about Prague. It's easy to find gorgeous, elaborate buildings wedged into tiny little squares and back alleys, where you can barely even get across the street to look at them. I don't know if the city has grown up around buildings like this, or if there's just such an abundance of decoration in the city that they don't have to constrain it to the highly visible areas. Either way, I love being able to walk down the narrow streets and see lovely architecture like this stretching up four times as high as the street is wide.

It was hard to get even a single building into a photograph, though, so I eventually turned to sketching in an attempt to get a feel for the entire square. I still had most of my 45 minutes left, so I found a good vantage point - up on one of the ledges between the buttresses of the church - and took my time. People stopped occasionally to watch me. One even asked to take a picture of the half-finished sketch.

A little while later, I finished the sketch, checked my watch, and found that I had been drawing nonstop for three hours. Part of that was under an umbrella, because I wasn't going to stop for a silly thing like rain. I'd been back and forth across the square more times than I could count, trying to get a good view of every part of every building.

I'm fairly satisfied with the result.

Having become familiar with practically every meter of the square by then (there's no better way to observe something than to sketch it), I packed up my sketchbook and got another crepe for dessert. (They were nearby, after all.)

When I ordered the second crepe, in Czech again, the woman at the stand asked where I was from. She seemed surprised that I was from America, saying that my accent sounded Polish. I think that's a good sign.

On the way back, I stopped to watch the man blowing giant bubbles in the Old Town Square. I'd seen this type of performance once before - at night, in the square in front of the Museum, where the bubbles reflected the myriad lights of the city around them - but this time, it was light enough to get photographs.

Day 15/16/17: His Only Desire

Monday, May 28, 2012 

Today, I ate breakfast before going to the studio to start work on my lace project. I'd finished the sketch yesterday but hadn't had time to start weaving. The project was due Tuesday morning. 

I took a half-hour break to use the restroom and get a sandwich for dinner at the closest affordable place I could find. 

I skipped lunch. 

I had to stop for perhaps another half-hour to ride the Metro back to the Penzion. 

That was all. Other than that, I worked on my lace project all day and all night. I worked in the studio until the Institute closed. I worked in the hotel room until my roommates came back and needed to sleep. I worked on a chair in the hallway outside, clicking away as the late-night wanderers among the students gradually trickled back into their own rooms, expressing surprise and occasionally concern to find me still working at such a late hour. 

I like to listen to music while I work, to occupy the part of my (left) brain that's in charge of distractions. I've found that, after a certain point, it becomes easier to keep focused on a project if I simply listen to the same song over and over again. The song for this project was one by the incomparable Kirsty MacColl (repeated 61 times, according to my laptop). It worked quite well. 

I finished just before dawn (not as late as you might think, since we're quite far north here and the days are a few hours longer than they are back home) and climbed quietly into bed for several hours of deep sleep. I felt like I'd earned it at that point. 

There is a certain fierce joy that comes only from this kind of stubborn, sustained effort. If I tried to do it routinely - or even twice in the same week - I suspect it would kill me; but every once in a while, it becomes necessary to throw all the time and energy I have into a project, casting everything else aside for one unceasing burst of creative work. I love it when it happens. There is nothing quite like it. 

And the result was this: 

So I'm satisfied. 

Day 15: Rest

Sunday, May 27, 2012 

Everyone is exhausted from the excursion. I went to the Institute, looked through my hundreds of photographs, and finished a sketch for my upcoming lace project - but even that small amount of work was exhausting. 

Another one of my roommates returned from the glass studio's excursion with what turned out to be a sprained knee. 

More than perhaps any other day on this trip, I think this is a day to rest. 

Day 8: Moving and Baking

Sunday, May 20, 2012 

We moved out of hotel number one this morning. Everyone loaded their suitcases into a van and walked over to hotel number two, where we'll be staying for the rest of the semester. Somehow, we got there before our luggage did. I'm sharing a room with four other students here, but I managed to get the top of the bunk bed, which is a little more secluded. This hotel also has multiple showers - though they're shared, not in the rooms - and some actual storage space, as well as some beautiful views from the downstairs balcony. 

I unpacked, walked over to the Institute - it's actually within walking distance, though it takes a little while - and sat out on the balcony while working on writing and lace projects. This is the most beautiful weather we've had since we arrived. After that, I helped one of the other fibers students make cookies in the downstairs kitchen; she had ingredients and was looking for a recipe, so I provided the one we usually use at home (the single recipe, not the double one we use, which would have taken all night). We decided that making individual cookies was too much work and baked them all into a blondie/pie instead, which turned out to be a good thing, as it barely finished baking before closing time as it was. She got a bag of the little gummy dolphins that you can find everywhere in the Czech republic and put them on top; they melted, but were delicious anyway. 

Day 1-2: by Bus and Airplane

May 13-14, 2012

Arrival in Prague. Two days on airplanes.

British Airways was the fanciest and had the most cheerful service. American Airlines was the one that served dinner and breakfast, though, and it was delicious - lasagna and rolls and croissants with jam. Unless this was unusual, I don't know why people complain about airplane food.

Then again, I do tend to like nearly everything.

I was unable to sleep during the night, on the long AA flight over the ocean; instead, I kept falling asleep over Europe, when I actually wanted to be awake. The result was that I got very little sleep at any time. That's all right; I've done it before.

I have never been outside the United States before, and it shows. All the way into London-Heathrow Airport, I kept looking out the window and thinking, those are English people! Doing English things in England! The land of Shakespeare, of Gaiman and Pratchett and Miéville and Monty Python and Diana Wynne Jones! I am actually setting foot on this incredible island!

Granted, I was in an airport the whole time and never actually touched the ground except through layers of concrete and asphalt, but still. It was so exciting it was silly.

I ended up going through security three times today. Once at the beginning of the trip; once at Dallas, because I didn't realize that the baggage claim area was outside security or that I would pick my one suitcase up later, in Prague; and once in London, because everyone apparently has to go through security in London no matter what. Fortunately, it's much less draconian than US security. Customs in Prague was completely uneventful.

It's a little disturbing how many airports are basically shopping malls with gates around the outside. Sketching people in them is still fun, though, as long as I avoid people who look my way often. A lot of people get stiff and unnatural if they know they're being watched.

I realized in the London-Heathrow airport that I was largely choosing people to sketch based on the number of wrinkles they had. I tried to include some younger faces too, but they never turned out as well. Older faces are just more interesting.

On the way into London, we were treated to beautiful views of the English countryside's cloud formations. They were thick and white and completely opaque. Anything could have been underneath them. On the way out of London, though, the clouds cleared halfway to France, and I got to enjoy tea and biscuits 30,000 feet over the English Channel.

My favorite part of the flights was going over the mountains of Germany, with little white-cottage villages sprinkled like sugar into every valley - until we got to Prague, which was like flying over the most beautiful parts of the 16th century. All these gorgeous little towns, whitewash and red roof tiles over twisting little hillside streets…

The Czech Republic has beautiful coins. Much heavier than American. Bicolored metal and ornate heraldic lions. (I'll try to post photos later.) I got about 1080 koruna (crowns) for 60 dollars, so the exchange rate seems to be about 18/1.

Everything looks different in Prague. Everything. The signs and caution fences are different; the street signs are attached to buildings rather than poles; half the streets are cobblestone; there are what I assume are magpies instead of crows, as well as rosy gray doves with white rings around their necks; the buildings in the area around the airport are mostly a sort of eclectic, slightly shabby Bauhaus style, lots of rectangles and bright colors and cement, a look I don't always care for but which looks beautiful when a whole part of a city is done that way; the buses seem to use the streets and the tram tracks interchangeably; even the plants are all unfamiliar - some just have textures that are subtly different from anything in America, while others are quite alien, like the ones with black bark that flakes off sycamore-style halfway up their white trunks.

Not to mention the language. I don't understand a single word anyone is saying, with the exception of other students from the US. I have no reason to believe that anyone would understand anything I said. It's a rather humbling experience. I'd started studying my Czech phrasebook on the plane, but I'd had time to look over the pronunciation guide, nothing more. All I could do was watch the signs go by outside the bus from the airport, able to pronounce but not understand them, and hope that the name of my destination would show up somewhere prominent when I reached it.

I must learn the language as soon as possible. I can already pronounce the letters (fortunately, they are phonetic and logical, however unfamiliar some of the sounds are); next, I move on to words. That will take somewhat longer.

My two roommates were already at the hotel, so we got to introduce ourselves before collapsing from exhaustion. We all wear retainers, sleep heavily, and are fans of Pokemon.

The hotel apparently has wi-fi ("vee-fee," as it's pronounced here), but it only actually works in certain parts of the building. With at least five stories, I'm not surprised. The rooms are tall and full of pleasantly mismatched fabrics, with bathrooms a little larger than my closet at home. Taking a shower is a bit like one of those puzzle games where you must move things around using only a limited number of places to stack them. We shall see if this remains fun or becomes annoying with repetition. We'll be in a different hotel next week (this one is a last-minute one-week emergency relocation for about half the students), at which point everything is likely to change anyway. No way to tell yet.