Well hello there

My oh my it has been a while since I posted. In my defense, my schedule has been pretty, um, packed? Hardly: fall break, midterms week, and lazy week. What can I say, I'm on a freakin roll. But I'm sorry it's taken me so long to actually get back into blogging, and I hope this post makes up for my absence.

So fall break. 4 countries in 11 days. There's no point in giving a you a detailed summary of what happened every day, because while exciting things did indeed happen on a daily basis, who the fuck wants to read through that. So instead, here's a general list of what fall break was like:

• London: I was only in London for 18 hours, but in that time I managed to get fish and chips, Indian food on Brick Lane, get drunk, and spend a surprising amount of money. I mean, the Brits must travel in style because their money is worth twice as much as everyone elses. It's a little out of control.
  

• Istanbul: There's really not enough I can say about how goddamn cool Istanbul is. It is so different from anywhere I've ever been before- it's a Muslim country, there are these beautiful old mosques EVERYWHERE, there are so many ruins just scattered around the city, and it's still a little rough around the edges. So much hookah, it was ridiculous. The food is out of control delicious, and cheap! I could eat a dinner of amazing street food for like two dollars. Roasted chestnuts, baklava, sesame donuts, rice pilaf, grilled corn, and all sorts of other things. My favorite was the fish bread- you could go down to an area right on the river where fishermen would bring their catches, pan fry them on these giant griddles floating on boats moored to the dock, and serve it to you in an amazing sandwich with onion, salt, and lemon juice. Did I mention the hookah? One night Lisa and I got a little turned around in the slums going back to our hostel and stumbled upon a traditional Turkish wedding in the street. It was also right underneath the train tracks, so every ten minutes or so this massive train would roar by, separated from the wedding by a single chain link fence. It was very Slumdog Millionaire. Now I'm determined to keep heading east until I hit India. Graduation? Hmmm....

• Athens: I was only in Athens for a day and a half, so I didn't see everything, but it has to be one of the dirtiest cities I've seen. Not like piles of trash on the streets or anything like that, but it just felt really grimy. I got a little turned around heading to the hostel from the airport and before I knew what was going on I was standing in the middle of a huge drug deal. People were literally standing next to me on the sidewalk and shooting up heroin. The Acropolis was cool, the food was great, blah blah blah. Moving on.

• Rome: The overeating began even before we left for Rome. It turned out that we were on the first Easyjet flight from Athens to Rome, and so the airline gave us free hats and a catered lunch while we were waiting to board. Good stuff. Rome is a beautiful city, and it's like walking through a giant museum. We saw everything you're supposed to see (except the Forum, which mysteriously closed early on Saturday) and ate way more pasta than anyone should. It's our hostel that's worth mentioning, though. THAT shit was crazy. You may have seen my facebook status where I quoted the receptionist saying "If you need anything, ask me now, because I'll be drunk by 9." The place was run by this Italian midgit (not a real one) named Salvatore who was a little too old for this and spoke no English and his Irish sidekick, Jeff. It was just one long hallway with a bunch of rooms coming off of it, and every night, it turned into a raging party that usually ended with Salvatore standing on the table and pouring champagne into people's mouths. This, um, theme made a lot of people in the group uncomfortable, but I thought it was kinda fun. Inappropriate, of course, but oh so entertaining. I met many new friends and I could not tell you any of their names or where they're from (I have a vague memory of a fellow Red Sox fan). Free drinks will do this to you. You could write a movie about this place; in fact, Alex rightly compared it to a European version of Old School. Dead on.

So that was my little eurotrip. Totally worth the money. I came back and wrote papers last week for midterms, which is why I didn't get around to posting. I love how much the professors here seem to hate the American style of grading- it seems like in every class I have, the professor has made some surprised/annoyed announcement that they has to provide NYU with midterm grades, which is so stupid, but they have to do it. I have a feeling they just give everyone A's. My Reporting the Arts professor still refuses to actually give us letter grades on our papers, as did Jan Urban, so its anyone's guess.

Last weekend, lots of people went to Berlin, so Kush, Melody, Sean, Max, and their friend from Vienna did lots of wandering and drinking and, um, other fun things too. I had no work because the previous week was midterms, so it was a nice way to decompress after traveling so much over fall break. This week was more of the same, with work not really picking back up yet. I think all the Czechs are looking forward to the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution (next Tuesday. It'll be ridiculous, I am so joining in the re-enactment of the student march and partying in Wenceslas Square) so they can't focus on much else right now. I'm OK with that.

In other news, like many other NYU students, I'm currently mapping out my schedule because I have to register on Tuesday. My schedule for next semester, in a word, blows. I have a class, one class, on Mondays from 8:30-12:10. That sucks because Tom Beidelman is teaching a class called Anthropology of Death, but its MW 9:30-10:45. DAMNIT. Then I have a lecture Monday nights from 6:20-8:50. On top of that, I have to take Con West, and the only one I'm interested in taking has Friday recitations. UGH. I know bitching about a Friday class is probably really annoying to all you people who don't go to NYU, but I don't care. Going two and a half years with a four day week (three days last semester) will do that to you.

I also need to start applying for internships, but when you're living in a magical place like Prague, that shit all feels so distant. I'm thinking the Daily News as of now. It would be so great if I got an internship because then I would use that as my fourth class and continue to put off my anthropology major. Plus my resume is pretty bare. OK sorry I'm done talking like a grown up now.

Before I go, I'd like to point out that I'm really starting to hate other groups of Americans in Prague. They just suck. Chapeau was so full of them last night that I might have well as been back in New York. They're loud, obnoxious, rude, apallingly stupid; in other words, they fit right into the stereotype that Americans suffer abroad. Maybe it's because I've lived here for almost three months and I'm starting to feel like attached to Prague, but I'm sure that when I see them my face contorts into the classic Czech scowl. I'm sorry, but there are other bars in the city besides Chapeau and other restaurants besides Bohemia Bagel (although it is really good). Have you ever gotten yelled at by a Czech person in a grocery store? Do you know how to use the trams? Have you ever gone out for a beer before an evening class? Have you gone to Mecca on Wednesdays because even though it's so far, it's free? Do you know the joy of Radost brunch and sleeping beauties? Do you know how to get around Old Town without a map? No. You don't because you don't live here. Us NYU kids, we do. For these four months, this is our city. Remember that next time you head out on one of those idiotic pub crawls.

The Life and Times of the Machova 12

Note: Wow, it has been a while since I last posted, and again, to all those who enjoy this blog as a means of procrastination, I'm sorry. Tons o' stuff has happened over these three weeks, and I'll fill you in on all if it as soon as I can. In the meantime, enjoy a guest post by Rebecca Smith about how the Machova 12 got from Amsterdam to Copenhagen.

The collective goal of the Machova 12 was to get as fucked up as possible and still make our flights, trains, or buses. On our last day in Amsterdam, I began to worry that this goal was unrealistic. High people miss trains; it happens. When I’m high the only place I can successfully get to is Bohemia Bagel. As the afternoon hours passed I made a to-do list hoping it would make our departure more successful-

1. Finish all the weed incase of dogs on the train
2. Get some edibles
3. Find E
4. DON’T MISS THE FUCKING TRAIN. We took a taxi to Amstel Station to assure that I could put a check next to #4 on my list. We bee-lined it for the Eurolines counter and with a great feeling of success I asked the woman behind the counter where we could find our train.

“Train?” She said, with more humor than confusion.
“Yes, the train to Copenhagen.” I said, showing her my ticket.
“You on a bus.” She said, laughing and pointing to the bus in view outside the window behind me.

FAIL.

5. To-do list addition #5- Survive a 14 hour bus ride to Copenhagen.

In all honesty, the first 8 hours weren’t that bad. We had all had a decent helping on hash cake, and I was optimistic about the entire situation. I think Melody and Natalie PTFOed before we even left the station. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for Robert, who was my bus buddy, hash makes me a little giddy. Therefore I sang every song from Capital Gold Love Legends, rapped in entirety “The Bad Touch”, “The Touch it Remix”, “Blueberry Yum Yum”, and every Missy Eliot song I know. I like to think that this was only audible to Robert and me; however the reality is that it might have been a bit of a show for everyone within a few seats of us. Now Robert must have been really intimidated by my rap skills, because at this point things got competitive. But, obviously, I am better than Robert at everything.

Except the dot game. And rock paper scissors. But you see, I just had to find my element -which turns out to be listing items on the McDonalds menu. Watch out for that salad menu. And don’t you dare forget Chicken Selects. Bitch. After I had redeemed myself- if you can call listing everything on a McDonalds menu redeeming- I decided to make some art. A blatantly hash cake-induced Van Gough recreation to be exact.

Something I forgot to mention was our fellow companions on the torture bus. I couldn’t quite figure them out, but if I had to make a painfully specific guess based on stereotypes and a mediocre knowledge on European immigration, I would say that they were northern African Muslim immigrants trying to make a new start in a Scandinavian welfare state. Now I have to admit, that the sheer number of them was mildly terrifying. It was somewhat like when you accidently get on the A train going express when you want to go to the Museum of Natural History but you end up in Harlem. You don’t need to get to 106^th street to realize you have made a mistake. Take one look around and based on demographics alone, you know you’re the only one going to Harlem on accident.

I have learned that the cheapest mode of travel is often the sketchiest. Take the Chinatown bus for example. I know when I get on that bus that it’s going to be sketchy. It will be full of Chinese people, transporting live chickens and drugs to Boston. That’s fine, because I expect it. But did we unknowingly board the Chinatown bus of Europe? I soon began to wonder –we were on a 14 hour bus on accident, what type of people do this willingly? Refugees from Darfur? I can only assume.

Apparently illegal immigrants have very shady passports –meaning that they had little booklets with pictures gluesticked-in with hand-written information scribbled on the side. Our American passports barely touched the fingers of the border control officers before the handed them back with the utmost satisfaction. I could have shown then a passport saying I was Elian Gonzales and they wouldn’t have cared. Only one man was escorted off the bus by the immigration officers.

We arrived in Hamburg around 11pm. Ironically one of the few things I saw in Hamburg was hamburgers –a McDonalds in fact. At this point I thought my bladder might actually explode, which was also ironic because I had been bragging to Robert that I had the bladder of a trucker –because what’s a bigger turn-on than a girl with a bladder of steel? And although the bus driver had stopped every two hours, which I found pointless, by the time we stopped in Hamburg I was at a point of desperation, but too afraid to run in for the bathroom in case the bus left. At this point I made the grave mistake of wondering how the situation could get any worse.

1:00am. Still in Hamburg. Still about to piss myself. A second bus pulled in and I realized we have been waiting two hours for connecting passengers. A terrifying man who looks like Abu Hamza al-Masri stormed off the bus and started furiously unloading numerous things from the underneath baggage compartments. He put his new-born child, no older than 2 months, in its little carrier on the ground in the middle of the ten foot space between the busses. His wife fussed around with their toddler and he continued to toss things from under the bus toward the space where the newborn is sitting. A diaper bag, small back pack, and blanket go flying towards the little guy, missing him by less than a foot. Dazed, I watched as he grabbed the folded stroller from under the bus and chucked it haphazardly behind him. Almost in slow motion I watched it glide through the air and brutally land –stroller wheel to the face, full impact to the soft infant skull- on his newborn baby.

Now, I hate babies. Newborns specifically. They are terrifyingly fragile, mushy, and high-maintenance. And I don’t have a great track record either. Once while I was babysitting I left a baby, he couldn’t have been more than a few months old, on the couch while I went to get some goldfish crackers. I heard I thud from the kitchen and ran back into the living room only to find the baby face-up on the ground, wailing. Not only that, but he also managed to land directly on top of the remote, just for kicks. He was fine, I think. I can’t guarantee that he’s going to get great SAT scores one day, or even grow into a normal shaped skull, but they never reported me for child abuse, so I figure there wasn’t even a bruise the next day. This summer I was also watching a two year-old when he managed to break his femur. But I wasn’t getting a snack when it happened so I feel far less responsible.

But no human on earth could watch something like that and not feel a little queasy. And unfortunately for this guy, although he didn’t see what he had done, two bus-loads of people had. The bus-driver started screaming at him in German, pointing out that he had almost crippled his own child. And what makes the whole situation worse is that Abu Hamza didn’t even care. He just kept unloading his shit. Then I realized that this terrifying man was getting on our bus. Our driver got into a yelling match with the guy for about 15 minutes, and from what I could understand it was something about having too much luggage. Or no ticket. Or almost killing his child. Whatever it was, I agreed –don’t let that man on our bus. But Abu Hamza got on our bus. Despite all obstacles we made it to Copenhagen and successfully made it to every plane, train, and torture bus of the trip.

It was predicted that one of the Machova 12 would die by the end of fall break, and it was on that bus I thought it was going to be me. As I sat there with a baby-killing terrorist mere seats away from me, I just prayed that from where I was sitting I would survive the blast of his shoe bomb.