Praha je hezky

Prague is fun. That is the title of this post. See? I'm learning-slowly but surely. I spent last weekend in Prague being a bum and am planning on being in town this weekend as well. But I plan on being less bummy. Here are the week's highlights.
On Monday I had quite a treat in my Architecture class. After over 10 visits to Prague castle the class was wowed by a unique experience. I may have told some of you already that my professor has his own keys to the castle. He is the National Architecture Historian. All of our professors are quite high up. Jiri Pehe was the political advisor to Vaclav Havel. They are bff. Jan Urban, a czech dissident, was one of the signators of charter 77 and was in line to be president but turned down the honor, ever the rebel. But back to the castle. We went up to St. Vitus cathedral but instead of heading in the main entrance we turned and came to the base of one of the tower. There, Lukes (lukesh), my professor, whipped out his keys, glanced over his shoulder, and opened a tiny tiny door at the base of the tower. "Ok. Let's go," he said. We climbed the staircase, which was tightly wound and quite steep, until we got to the third landing. He opened another door and we found ourselves looking down on the floor of the cathedral. We wound our way around the galleries of the empty church, got a close up view of the gianr rose window, the treasury staircase, the rennaissance organ, the portraits of the architects and contributors. We saw, up close, all the areas of the church. I could have spit out the window onto the flying buttresses (ps, how cool are flying buttresses? GENIUS). In short, it was amazing. I don't have pictures, but my suitemates do and I will add them as soon as they return from Karlovy Vary.
Last night I went to a concert for the hip hop group Pharcyde. They were popular in the 90s. Many of you will remember their song "She keeps on passing me by." You'll know it when you hear it, trust me. I went with Megan and my building manager Martina. Martina is one cool czech lady. She's not too much older than me and has lived in four countries. We met up with some of her friends at a pub and proceeded to the giant warehouse cum concert hall. The show was great-not too packed but full of energy. Pharcyde put on an amazing show and flattered the crowd, praised the cesky beer, and proceeded to pass out cups of Remy Martin to anyone standing near enough to reach. After the show we hung around for a while discussing our respective musical tastes. Megan's friend, Joe, and I got into a deep discussion about 50s pop music. Then Martina pops back up with the Pharcyde dj and tells me and Megan to get our butts moving 'cause we're hitching a ride. We piled into the van with the band and drove and drove. Pharcyde were all really cool, really chill. The one DJ had spent some time in Atlanta-used to live on Peachtree and 26th, so we chatted about that a bit. Martina asked the driver to drop us at Wenceslas square. But she, assuming he was czech, asked him in czech. He did not understand and replied "Why is she talking to me in czech?! I am not f***ing czech! I don't stop for anybody!!" Hilarious. Apparently he was Slovinian. Or something. So we rode all the way to Prague 8 and jumped out at the hotel. We decided to stay and hang out for a bit. We chatted some more about music, silk screened t-shirts, race relations, blahblahblah. Apparently Romeye thinks I'm hilarious. So now there's 2 people in the world who think I'm funny. Megan and I started to get sleepy so we said our goodbyes, traded business cards, were asked to myspace everyone (I hate myspace. how does one use it? I am useless with technology) and hailed a cab. Note to fellow praguers: hailing a cab is much cheaper than calling one.Romeye is the guy on the left. On the right is Imani. There are 3 other members of the band-2 djs and a drummer. I couldn't find pics of them, sorry.
So I got to chill with a rap group. Saweeeeeeeeeeeet.
But now more about Prague:
A while back in my American Literature class (I know-am lit in prague? Don't worry-it's more of a let's compare postwar am lit and postwar czech lit class) we read an excerpt from Jaroslav Hasek's (pronounced Carl Hashek) famous novel The Good Soldier Svejk (pronounced Shveyk). This is often held up as the typical czech novel, typical of czech humor. My professor, and my class, don't agree with this assertion. But the book is quite witty and worth czeching out. Sorry, couldn't help myself. Anyways, the professor shared some biographical information about Hasek with us which I found funny. Apparently, Czechs are quite ironic people. They may not smile a whole lot, but they certainly have a sense of humor. There are several instances in Czech history of fake political parties. Or, rather, real political parties with silly names and agendas. Hasek, in 1911, decided to estabilish his own party called "The party of Moderate Progress within the Limits Set by the Law." They held their meetings in a cabaret/pub and failed miserably in their campaign. Since the fall of communism the tradition of silly political parties has been revived. Two parties which popped up in 1989 were "The Poetic Party" and "The Independent Erotic Initiative." The poetic party ran surrealist campaign commercials and the IEI, well, you can imagine their campaign.
Speaking of which...I recently found out that one of the popular expat nightspots, Nebe, which spins 80s and alternative music and has become an NYU favorite during the week, films hardcore pornography during the day. In the same space. One the club couches. Good thing I love dancing so much-otherwise I might have sat down on said couches. How did I find out about this? One of the students stumbled upon film clips on the internet. Gotta love the web.
So that's what's happened recently. Tomorrow Ryan and her boy come to town. I plan to impress them with my extensive knowledge of Prague Castle.