Ughh...Never thought I'd lag this bad

Hello everyone. Reporting now from the other side of the world: The home-base side. Why no posts in so long? I've not felt very energized since I came back becase my decision was not made for positive reasons. Necessary, yes. Positive, no. As a result, I've not felt like sharing lately. I've had two huge lifestyle changes in the past few years. First, returning home from living on my own at college, and second, returning home from living on my own in Prague. From these changes, I've made one general observation about myself. Changes in routine kick the crap out of my mood and general sense of optimism. It's hard to describe without using a thousand words, but I'd describe is as emotional jet-lag. The big difference from actual jet-lag is this takes a lot longer to work through. It's a subtle, but powerful drain on my energy to completely change routines, and I do mean completely. Where sleeping at the right times is the normal jet-lag challenge, getting in the right mindset for my enviroment is the my biggest challeng lately. So anyway, I'm going to try and stay current as a way of reviving myself and moving myself in the right direction.

To pick things up again, I'll keep it simple with a few Prague/San Francisco comparisons.

Prague: Have international American cache with anyone I meet. Extra conversation point
SF: I never tried to rest my coolness on the American thing while in Prague (cause I'm amazing all by myself), but it was nice having it as a conversation starter at least. A WASP in America ain't exactly out of the ordinary, ya know?

Prague: Beer with any/every meal at restaurants. Always the cheapest drink on the menu. Usually the best drink on the menu. Basically a no brainer.
SF: Beer as an exception. Typically on of the most expensive drinks on the menu. As for the quality: Kind of expensive for middling quality, outright extortionary pricing for the good stuff. I like to think I'm at least healthier without it, but with Jenny's last entry, I'm not so sure. I miss beer :(

Prague: New acquaintences (travelers especially) are interested in your stories and where you've been.
SF: People start to get annoyed and even think you're bragging if you mention your travels too much. I will admit though to making some very "band camp" like comments in the past months.

Prague: With a little effort, photo opportunities pop out at you all the time.
SF: It's harder to capture the beauty of my home by camera. I think it has to do with the expansiveness of everything around here and the close-in feel of central Prague. I love the beauty of both areas equally, but they're completely different.

That's it for now. Anymore would start to sound bitchy. Following are a few photos from my "travels around the Bay Area". Enjoy.







Peace out playa's

My Time is up, Goodbye and Hello

This will come as a surprise to most of you. I have decided to return home, immediately. I'll be flying back to good old San Francisco on Friday. Thanks to everyone who made this time so special and so memorable for me. I won't go into the details of why I'm returning home, I'll just say that I didn't want to waste any more time taking care of my financial responsibilities.



As a nice goodbye, the sun decided to come out for the past few days. Even though it's been bitterly cold, the sun always lightens my mood. These pictures were all taken today or yesterday.



I will miss this place so much. The good times, the conversations, meeting crazy travelers and crazy expatriates, working hard for my own survival and sanity, and learning to appreciate another culture. These things and so many more I will take home with me. I will miss this city, of course, but I will miss so much more the great people I have met here. Andel flat is truly a crazy place and I'm grateful for the experience, even if I did complain at times. Anyway, I could keep going, but I would just keep repeating myself. You will all be in my heart. I wish you all, and especially my Andel crew, the very best in life. I hope to meet some of you in the future if our geographical paths cross. You can find me here or by email (jercasey@gmail.com). For sure I will visit Europe again and if any of you want to leave your heart in San Francisco, just let me know and I'll be right there to show you why I love my home.



So thats it, fare thee well fellow travelers and look out Bay Area, 'cause here I come!

Later,

Jeremy (Jezza)

Happy New Year / My Little Holiday

I didn't know how badly I needed a break until the third or fourth day of this one. Thankfully, my office has been closed since Friday the 23rd which affords me a nice little holiday. Nevermind the fact that it was more or less forced on me, I needed it. The daily stress of sticking to a tight budget, being energetic at work, dealing with a foreign culture and living in the middle of a big city have all been small, but pervasive drains on my mood.



Having little travel experience so far in my life, any trip has a sense of adventure to it. My friends and flatmates here still chuckle at my excitement for taking a train to another country. In short, Berlin was amazing. I only got to see a little of it, but I loved it. We saw in equal measure, beautiful weather and awful weather (depening on your opinion of snow). We walked to AlexanderPlatz and Brandenburg Gate on a brilliantly sunny day even if it was a bit cold. In contrast, it was abolutely dumping snow as we walked to the train station two days later to return to Prague.



To me, German language is oddly refreshing. My impressions of listening to Czech speakers is that all the words run together. It's hard for me to pick out the few words that I do know. I know as much German as I do Czech...meaning none, but German sounds well ordered and more understandable to me. With that said, I'm going to bite the bullet and begin to learn Czech in the next couple weeks, wish me luck.





New Year's in Prague was great. Me and my flatmates went up on Petrin Hill, with students from the local Aiesec committee to get a veiw of the city and the fireworks displays. At midnight, it looked like the whole city was exploding. Afterward, I had my first snowball fight ever. I think we should have more of this in the States. Why have fireworks displays only once a year?

I hope everyone had a great holiday and if you missed me, know that even though I had a great time, I missed you even more. Until next time, have fun living down your New Year's hangovers and living up to your New Year's resolutions.

Later,

Jeremy

Snow, beautiful snow

Hey everyone, it's snowing!!

I know I'm the only one who gets really excited about it, but look its snowing! I've seen the stuff in person only a few times in my life. Living in it is kind of surreal. I think in about a week living in it will feel kind of infuriating. The native Czechs tell me Prague snow is nothing like country snow. They kind of scoff at Prague snow. I guess all the polution and people, and my hot piece of ass have a melting effect on the snow. The ground is really only blanketed in the early morning and it soon turns to slush. At least the parks stay nice and white and really cold. I had every intention of walking around the city to get these pictures, but 15 minutes were all it took to make me realize, snow sucks when you have to get around. Thank you to Prague's excellent public transit for transporting me to these photo opportunities. If any of you are paying attention, you may be able to identify the pictures I took in the summer and their snowy twins posted here.

For Christmas, I get to go see Berlin. Thanks to Mom and Dad, Chris and Donna, Grandma and Grandpa, and anyone else who may have been in on my Christmas gift for affording me this opportunity. I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures and only show you about 4 or 5 of them. Remember you can always check out other pictures that haven't made it to the blog at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jercasey/

I would love to write more, but the cafe is shutting down. So farewell and I'll be back with pictures of Berlin.

Later,

Jeremy

Christmas Time in the City

Alright everyone,

So I promised a post and it's been a long time coming, but here you go. The Czechs go crazy for Christmas. They're also mostly agnostics and atheists. Sorry to dissapoint the idealists out there, but this is further proof that we like Christmas because we get cool stuff. But enough of that. It really is strange to see this city transform into Christmas mode. The same squares and streets look very different. Even though there are fewer tourists, moving through the tourist districs is even slower becasue now even the native Czechs are crowding in to buy their presents.

After my last update about the sucessful Halloween party, I'm sad to report that I did absolutely nothing for Thanksgiving except eat cold pasta and watch the snow from my office window. That's right, it's been snowing here. It's not enought to stick around and give you that winter wonderland feeling, it's just enough to remind me that it's freezing cold outside and why oh why did I leave California? Just kidding. I'm glad I'm here, but the measly 7 hours of cold, grey, low-angle daylight can get you kind of down.

Even thought I won't be coming home for Christmas, I will at least get to spend it with somone. I've been invited by a few Czech natives and one Slovak to spend Christmas with them. I'm kind of touched, but in a good way. Work is going well, I learn more and more everyday. Specifically, I learn to get pissed at CEO's who don't want to give me the time of day, oh well. A big bonus of my job is they really don't mind me making personal international calls, so long as I do it on my own time. So everyone who wants me to call them, send me your phone numbers now. Or if you want to wake me and my roomate up in the middle of the night, you can call the land line at my flat at + 420 257 329 885. Remember I'm 9 hours ahead of the west coast, be reasonable on time requests!

I love all you guys and hope to talk to you soon.

Untill then,

Jeremy

The good and bad news

For those of you who haven't heard and for those who still care...

I have decided to stay in Prague for another year or so. I'm not sure on the exact timeframe yet, but it depends on how much money I can make at my new job, how long I can strongarm Citibank into extending my student loan forbearance, and how much I miss home as time goes on. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this has been the hardest decision of my life. It would have been so easy to go home. I have family and friends who all miss me, and a home in one of the most beautiful areas in the world (OK, so maybe I'm a little biased). I had made up my mind a couple of times to fly home, my return ticket was already purchased and I could hear it taunting me with promises of warm weather if I would only decide to go home. I have taken the harder, but ultimately the more fulfilling road. There is something about making scary, daring decisions that keeps me on my toes and seems to give life a little more clarity. And that's as far as I'm going to go on that subject since I'm waxing melodramatic.


If you don't want to know the boring details about my decision, skip this paragraph. I have rescheduled my return flight for the 7th of June with the intention of visiting home earlier if my income allows it. The only reason I don't know for sure is because my income is variable. I have taken a sales job with a company called MarcusEvans. My base pay is absolutely horrible at 11,000 Czech Crowns gross per month. That comes out to around 9,000 after taxes. You can all have a little fun and do the currency conversion on the net to find out that it's paltry. Prague may be cheap, but it's expensive if you're earning Czech wages. For the folks back home, just imagine trying to live and work in San Francisco proper on near minimum wage and you'll get an idea. The good news is with even some moderate effort/success my income can jump to around 50,000 crowns, definitely comfortable by Prague standards. In a big sales month, my income could be 100,000 crowns or more, but this is exceptional. I have to talk on the phone all day so I've become kind of an old man and I go to bed at 10 every weeknight so I can get up at 6 in the morning and exercise so my voice will be stronger. It's stressful work, but I can't tell you how gratifying it is to feel like I've actually worked hard. I haven't felt like that for three months now since my last job was a joke. I'm staying in my current run-down flat until the end of January when a room opens up in a really nice flat across the river. You're all encouraged to come and visit if you can make the flight. Prague is cheap for US vacationers and you could have a free place to stay. I'm serious, come visit me, really.


In lighter news, the Halloween party two weekends ago was a hit. Congratulations to me and my friend Kristen for brining a little USA to Prague. Props go out also to the native Czechs and other non-Halloween celebrators who put on their game faces and showed up in costumes. I'm sure they thought it all a little silly at first, but they all had fun and found out why we love this holiday. Actually, I never celebrate it at home, I just needed to show some national pride. I apologize that the pictures aren't from beautiful Prague, but hey, there are at least some beautiful people in them (unfortunately for you, I'm not in them).

Next update, I should have some pictures of Christmas lights and decorations. Yeah, it seems like the Czechs go crazy for Christmas. Big light displays are already up at the major department stores. The cafe I'm posting from is playing Stevie Ray Vaughn, too good. Until next time, I remain your faithful local traveler.

Later,

Jeremy

Trying to read a T-shirt, thinks that I'm a pervert...

There's a flurry of drivel coming from me lately. Why? I have more free time (kind of), I'm nearing the end of my traineeship and waxing philosophic more often, things are getting more emotional day by day.

I'm currently sitting in an overpriced coffee shop below my flat listening to Ben Folds and thinking about life. I'm really not getting any culture sitting here, this is an expat hangout. Still, the atmosphere is nice and I can connect to the wireless internet for cheap (have to practice nursing my beer a little bit better). I'm really just killing as much time as possible, hoping the folks back home wake up in time for me to Skype them.

I go out to the clubs/discos nearly every weekend night just to have something to do. Being single can be a bitch. Yeah, I don't have to be super-responsible to anyone, but the club/disco just makes me fear for my love life. I only go for the music and to be with friends anymore. I have to be selective too. American style hip-hop is only featured one night of the week at any given club. I really can't hang at any disco for a prolonged period with European techno blasting in my ears. Sorry, I'm claiming cultural superiority in club music. Deal with it. There was live rap and a break dancing demonstration during last nights festivities. Tonight I go to the national theater (Narodni Divadlo) to see a special Czech opera performed only on holidays, and yes, today is a national holiday. I am paying only 40 Czech crowns for my ticket (less than $2 US). The theatre and symphony are one of the industries subsidized by the Czech government, beer is another one. Did I tell you already that beer is almost always the cheapest drink at any establishment?

Maybe I'll go out to the club again tonight. Tomorrow I'm putting on an American stylHalloweenen party. It's only American because we're forcing everyone to wear costumes. Other than that, it's gonna be a huge, multi-cultural, alcohol-fueled good time for everyone. Alright, I have to go, the waitress just asked me to pay, code for get the heck out of here! Service in Czech restaurants and cafes is horrible. More on that another time.

Until then!

J

(click on the title of this entry to understand the meaning, maybe)