This week's calendar

Monday: Mamka’s birthday. We gave her this orchid as she didn’t want anything else. She had to work in the afternoon so A and I drove to the cottage in Svatoslav to hunt more mushrooms in the woods. We filled a basket of these hríbků. We arrived back in Prague late in the evening.

Tuesday: Cleaning the flat, washing zillions of clothes, ironing zillions more. Doctor’s appointment in the afternoon to check if I still had the allergies from wheat, barley, rye, etc,etc. A summer thing, it seems. Nobody else in the waiting room except moi. The nurse opened the door and called my name and just assumed I wasn’t the one she was calling for and closed the door again before I could react. Of course, my Asian looks and my Czech name didn’t connect for her. She had to send the doctor to the waiting room to ask what I wanted. Thank God my doctor speaks English. I'm reminded I have to learn Czech.

Wednesday: Back to work. Holiday’s over. The days of getting up at 10am are so faraway now, like a tiny dot in the horizon. No kids yet. Just planning and lots of cleaning. Talk about multi-tasking. Met Mrs. Consul at Palac Flora while killing time. Very friendly one. Yoga with Monica and Lara in the evening.

Thursday: Got a raise. Just a bit but delighted for it. Better than nothing. Finally met Lillian at Eva’s in the afternoon. The darleng prepared meatballs, cakes and pancit for us. Stomachs aching after laughing so much about the myterious and hilarious Enday. Checked-out a flat at Prague 4 in the evening. Nice, relatively spacious—A and I were thinking of taking it.

Friday: Neverending cleaning and rearranging of everything at school. Another flat to see in the evening, this time at Chodov. Much better than the previous but still undecided, as usual.

Saturday: Up early for the picnic at Lillian’s weekend house. Beautiful place, beautiful people (she and husband Jiři). Eating galore. A playing football with Bait. Hiked up to the next town with matching picture-taking with Lillian, Eva, Angie and her daughter Leah all the way and back. A and me falling in love with the place with its river and hills, dreaming of owning a cottage there someday which will probably remain just a dream. Met Sir Felix, another Filipino, a diplomat. A blast of a day.

Sunday: That’s tomorrow. I guess I’ll just stay home the whole day and cuddle with A *wink* in between him meeting his deadline to translate 11 pages 'til Monday and me, well, I don’t exactly know what I will do tomorrow. Maybe laundry or cleaning again. Maybe nothing. We’ll just see.

Vídeň, Wien, Vienna!

My obssession to visit Vienna started a decade ago after watching the movie Before Sunrise. Maybe it was the movie's plot which heightened the romance emitting from every corner of the city onscreen but whatever it was, it made a 21-year-old girl dream of ferris wheel rides, cobblestone walks, museum visits and hopefully finding Mr. Right. Less than a decade later I did meet my Mr. Right but not in Vienna. Sometimes the reality is far better than the dream, though sometimes it's the other way around. Such is my Vienna experience.

I found it too crowded, too busy, too big. I guess one of the reasons why I didn't like it much is because I had a splitting headache the whole time A and I were there. What a bummer! Blame it to Central Europe's menopausal weather. Its mood swings are terrible-- 34C today, 15C tomorrow. Still Vienna is undeniably beautiful. Here are the sights we saw:

The Schönbrunn is one of the places we visited that I really like. It has a zoo, a botanical garden, a palace, a garden with flowers of multitude colors with the view of the Gloriette sitting magnificiently on top of the hill. The climb to the Gloriette is worth it. The view speaks it all. There are also parks where you can relax after a long walk. We saw several squirrels not in the least shy of people.

Stephansplatz is probably the most crowded part of Vienna. Tourists, clowns, shoppers are all mixed together in this square. St. Stephen's Cathedral (above pic) is the main tourist spot here. People also come here for its shopping centres.

We spent hours just walking along Mariahilferstrase. If you’re a shopaholic or have the tendency to be, beware of this part of Vienna. It’s a long street with all the shopping centres of the brands of everything you could ever imagine buying.

The best place for us is the Aqua Terra Zoo. It's actually very near Mariahilferstrase. So many animals there and with different kinds of fish that I haven't seen before. Then there's this little monkey that loves to be around with people. The turtles, too, are not at all shy. I don't know why none of the buildings, palaces, museums or gardens impressed me more than the animals we saw in this zoo did. :)

Of course, who could miss Prater (above pic) where the giant ferris wheel is? We didn't ride it though. It's not my kind of fun anymore. This is the lola in me talking. :)

For more pictures of our trip, please click here. Maybe next time my experience in Vienna will be different. Maybe next time it will live up to my decade-long dreams.

The empty streets of Č.R.

There is one thing in the Czech Republic that is glaringly different from the Philippines-- its quiet streets, some completely devoid of people. I call them "ghost streets" because coming from the chaotic city of Cebu where every corner is spilling of people, walking on an empty street is like a scene straight from Twilight Zone.

Mala Strana (above photo) is a part of Prague flocked by tourists all year round, most especially in summer. I took this photo two months ago when A and I were going downhill from Petřin Hill. It was 4pm, the time of the day when its streets should be crowded with awestruck tourists...

The town of Tišnov is home to 8,000 people. This is A's hometown. His parents still live here so we come for a visit quite often. This photo was taken at 11am when we went for a walk up to its neighboring town. Not a single one out of those 8,000 people was on sight...

Aside from Tišnov, another place in the Czech Republic we frequently visit is Svatoslav. It is a small village where my in-laws have their cottage or weekend house. It is also home to A's grandparents. This photo was taken at 3pm. I have been to the Philippines' smallest barrios and none of their streets were as empty as this one.

After more than a year of living here, I have grown accustomed to this difference from back home. Empty streets, no blaring TVs or radios, these are just some of the few things I'm getting used to. I wonder how it will be like to experience the chaos in P.I. again. Well, as the Czechs say, Uvidime. We'll see...

Mistaken

Maybe it’s my fair skin, or maybe my big dark eyes have a hint of a slant. Maybe it’s the way I dress, or maybe these are the new generic names for Asians. Whatever it is, I often get mistaken as somebody from the Philippines' neighboring countries....

While about to disembark from the Supercat in Cebu, a voice from the middle of what must have been a hundred of Japanese tourists asked: " Excuse me, excuse me, are you Japanese?" It took me seconds to realize he was asking me. " No, I’m not." Unbelievably, a voice from the Chinese group behind the Japanese flock rose on a rebound. "Are you Chinese?" I turned to several hopeful (or helpful, they must have thought I got lost from my pack) faces. Their expressions told me they completely forgot they were in the Philippines and that there might be a chance that I’m a Filipina traveling alone....

Sitting on a bench inside Andel mall in Prague next to two elderly Czech men, one of them suddenly said, "Japanese?" Oh Lord, here we go again. No, I said while rearranging my grocery in a plastic bag. "Chinese?," the other one asked. Wait a minute, I probably look like Lucy Liu ha-ha! Wait, is Lucy Liu Chinese? No, I said to them, snapping out of my Charlie’s Angels dreaming. I’m a Filipina.

"Ah, Filipiny!," they chorused. "Nice!," they chorused again. "Do you live here?," one of them asked with his index finger pointing to the floor. Yes, I do, my husband is Czech. "Nice!" That word in a chorus again. I wonder what they meant by that. Did they like my new Zara white shirt?

Going around a Vietnamese store in Tisnov in the South of Czech Rep.;

Vietnamese man to me: "Ayshukmjshgltughglhyhsothayg.dhtehsg!"
Me: "Pardon? Oh no, sorry, I don’t understand. I’m not Vietnamese."
Vietnamese man: " Thglsthgphggpowugytpsabter. Hflgpitgaoght!"

Ladies and Gentlemen reading my blog, forgive my very poor knowledge of Vietnamese language. But I think you got the point.

In Andel again while sitting on a bench and happily examining my new purchase, a business-looking man came to sit on the opposite side. "You must speak English,"he said. Thank you, Lord, no Japanese or Chinese line this time. Yes, I do, I answered. "Are you Chinese?" Not again!

And since we are on this topic, last summer A and I were in the woods near his parents' cottage (weekend house) to pick mushrooms when out of nowhere this huge golden retriever came charging towards me. He immediately started pumping his hotdog on my leg, his paws pinning my arms close to my body immobilizing me almost completely . Mind you, he was drooling. A tried to shoo him away to no avail. He only let me go after his master’s voice came calling for him from the other side of the woods.

A year later, just a month ago, A and I went back to the woods. We wanted to pick wild strawberries this time. On our way to the clearing I saw this golden retriever several meters away walking with a family. Oh no, I hope it’s not the same dog, I said to A. But it was. He came charging towards me again the moment he saw me. The pumping of the hotdog, A trying to shoo him, everything was a repeat of what happened a year go.

This time I wasn't just mistaken for a Japanese or a Chinese or a Vietnamese, I was mistaken for a dog.

Flat-tired but happy

I had a bit of a culture shock when I first arrived in Prague. For one, I couldn’t imagine how most people here could live in flats, or apartments as what we call them back home. There are no backyards, no gardens; just rows and rows of buildings where a small space inside one of them is what you can call your home. The yard where you could sit to enjoy the vast sky above is replaced with balconies. Inside the flats are potted plants and flowers to make up for the lack of a garden.

Getting Czeched means accepting the fact that buying a house with a garden for me and A is a far-fetched idea. A small house in Prague or nearby means several millions of crowns, something we just cannot afford. This means having no choice but to "settle" for a flat, though that is an understatement. Flats are also expensive and looking for one requires energy, patience, lots of patience, before you can find the one you like and which is within your budget. The craziest thing is, they get sold-out even before they are built.

To give you an idea how expensive flats are in Prague:

studio-type, 40sqm = 1.8 to 2.1 million kč (x 2 or 3 in pesos)
1 bedroom, 50sqm including the balcony= 2.2 to 2.5million kč

Take note that when you buy a unit, you wont own a piece of land where the building stands.

A and I have been scouring the city for a two-room flat (it will probably take us a lifetime to pay the mortgage) for four months now. Last weekend we went to see some newly-built units in Prague 9. Similar ones will be built soon to be finished in Autumn of next year. We decided not to get one for the reason that we want to spend money for something that is more than just a blueprint. So we are back to square one.

On to the highlight of our weekend: We had dinner with other Filipinos for the first time last Sunday. It was organized by my friend Eva in barely three days. (Bilib talaga ako sa power. :) At first it felt strange talking in Bisaya (to Jeanette who is from Negros Oriental) and in Tagalog after more than a year of talking only in English and in my few broken Czech sentences. It turned out to be a lovely evening. A and I had a blast. We are looking forward for more gatherings to come. I wasn't able to take pictures that night but Eva has some in her blog.

Today we have another appointment with a real estate agent to see this flat in Troja. Yes, sometimes I get so flat-tired. Nonetheless I'm happy for these things in my life--- having new friends and hopefully finding a flat of our own at last.

(Un)like Carrie Bradshaw

Remember Carrie Bradshaw? Fashionista, New Yorker, owner of who knows how many pairs of Manolo Blahnik? We’ve seen her with her equally chic friends in episodes of the much followed HBO series Sex and the City. She and I have nothing in common except maybe my wishing to have at least a pair of Blahniks which will probably come true in, say....never. But this is not about hoping M.B. will stumble on my blog and will eventually send me a pair as a thank-you-for-writing-about-my-shoes-in-your-blog gift.(Though God, that could be possible, right? Lol) This is about how often I remember Carrie Bradshaw in that episode when she moved to Paris with her boyfriend. She was often walking alone along the cobbled streets of Paris, sometimes unsuccessfully avoiding stepping on a mound of dog’s poop. She was so homesick. Once or twice she found herself staring enviously at a group of friends happily dining together while she was miles away from her own.

Phew, this is not supposed to be a melodramatic entry! What I‘m trying to tell you here is that after over a year of living in Prague, I still find myself in a Carrie Bradshaw-like situation. I still feel a pang of envy everytime I see girls laughing together clearly at ease with each other. I still find myself walking along the streets of Prague wishing Flora or Mellicent or a bunch of my other crazy friends were here with me. I still yearn for the sense of belongingness in this picturesque city.

Yes, I do have a couple of friends here. We go for dinner or coffee together. I go to a yoga class with one of them. They are fun to be with and I think we are getting along really well. Just that there’s something about being a Filipina that can only be felt and understood by another Filipina. The warmth, the humor, the friendliness, the hospitality, and of course, the culture in general; these are things you can only find and share with somebody who was raised in the same environment as you were. I do appreciate and embrace the uniqueness of European culture, but I also long for the familiarity of a Filipino smile.

Yesterday made it all different for me. I have been reading the blog of this Filipina, who is also living in Prague, for sometime now. She sounds like she’s having real fun with her family and new-found friends here. She goes out with other Filipinos, even cooking and sharing recipes with them. I’m somehow updated with the ins and outs of the Filipino community here through reading her site. After months of being her silent reader, I finally left her a message. Like she said in her blog post yesterday, we clicked rigt after our first emails and phone conversations together. These eventually brought us to having lunch together yesterday and her giving my blog a new look. My sidebar now looks more interesting than before and I owe it all to her.

Eva is "a proud mom and wife." I also met her adorable son Koolit, who lives up to his nick and more. :) I’m grateful for this new friendship with her. For once in a long while I didn’t feel like Carrie Bradshaw as I rode the tram yesterday for home.