"'Cause once upon a time the line followed the river..."

Here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
Let us vow to get off of this sauce
Shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
And find that train ticket we lost
'Cause once upon a time the line followed the river
And peeked into all the backyards
And the laundry was waving
The graffiti was teasing us
From brick walls and bridges
We were rolling over ridges
Through valleys
Under stars
I dream of touring like Duke Ellington
In my own railroad car
I dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
In a grand station aglow with grace
And then standing out on the platform
And feeling the air on my face
Somehow Ani Difranco still says it best. If I had to choose one thing to describe my weekend, this would be it. It's funny that a picture of me in motion describes a moment where I actually begin to feel settled, but it seems that's often the way with me. Ah well.

Friday night was "Klit" at Friends, a gay club that holds a monthly Ladies Night. It was a good night overall, not too eventuful for me, though I must say the pillow fight theme was quite enjoyable. When else do you get to drunkenly rip pillows apart in a club, bashing them into random strangers?

Saturday my friend Gina and I took a train adventure to Kolín where my other friend Colleen lives. Yes, Colleen lives in a city pronounced exactly the same as her name, a fact which I find endlessly amusing, much, I'm sure, to her dismay. I hadn't been out of Prague since I got here, so it was nice to head out to the "country" (more like the suburbs, but pretty ones!). We walked around in the forest, climbed things and broke into a really cool looking semi-abandoned building by climbing up the brick wall into a window, then up a shaky looking ladder leading up to another mostly bricked-up window.





Another noteworthy event, I bought my cheapest beer yet in the Czech Republic (not counting 7 kč half-pints at Bukowski's on Sundays) at a little pub down the road from Colleen's flat in Kolín. Only 20 kč for a pint of Gambrinus! That's only a dollar for you Americans (approx. 18kč = $1 depending on the exchange rate). Average price for beer usually ranges between 30-45 kč for a pint in Prague. At the pub, Colleen thought up an ingenious drinking game where we had to drink every time we said "like". It was traumatizing, to say the least. I've been wanting to eliminate "like" from my speech for awhile, except for when it actually should be used for comparisons, but boy is it hard!

That's pretty much it for now. Finally getting settled, thinking up some pretty great lesson plans and such. Sunday was spent in Starbucks for a lesson planning date with my friend Jess, then to a free screening of Lolita at The Globe. I even have a lesson in the works using a section of The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It's funny, as I was just being taught from that book in my Food, Health and Law class at Hampshire my last semester and now I'm teaching it! More for reading comprehension, conversation practice and vocabulary than for an understanding of the history of food policy in America, but still! Sometimes I don't hate teaching, though it's still really hard dragging my more awkward, shy students out of their shells sometimes for a 90 minute lesson.

Note: I stole all these photos from Gina, thanks Gina! Camera battery charger still MIA.