Czech It Out!

I was away in the southern Czech Republic from Friday afternoon until yesterday evening.
Me,

and Alex and Ilona (on the right),

crash at Ilona's friend, Radka's, place for the weekend

in Prachatice, Czech Republic.

Ilona and Radka speak in Czech to each other for much of the weekend, and we also visit a good handful of Czech bars in the evenings,

which translates to Alex (who is German) and I having noooo idea what is being said. Alex learned "thank you" and "please/you're welcome" during the trip. The only thing conversational I knew how to say before hand was, "Hey, darling! How's it going? Good! And you? Doing well too, thanks. I am a parrot." Which is amusing but understandably limited.

Fortunately, this didn't at all get in the way of a good trip.

Good times to be had in the Czech Republic. Czech out the photo album for more. Ahoj!

The Draaaawwwwl

Over the course of the year so far, I've introduced myself to other American students, of course. Typically, both parties always ask where the other is from at some point.

I must admit that I groan inwardly to myself every time I tell an American the state that I'm from in the southern US, and they immediately react with shock that I don't have any trace of a southern accent. Really, now. And I always thought I was the one who lived under a rock. I suppose I never realized before that it was a phenomenon to be born and raised in "redneck country" and come out speaking newscaster English despite the fact.

To the rest of America's population: YES, it happens. NO, I'm not the only one.

Swiss Freutsch

Switzerland, as you might know, is bordered by several countries - France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, Italy. The linguistic result of this is that the languages from all these countries come together and swirl around in a party mix of grammar and lexicons.

As we headed westward on our trip and finally hit Zürich, there was significantly more French influence (much to the delight of Kristen, who was more or less beat over the head with Deutsch all week from all around after coming in to German country). On the map above, Zürich is still right in the middle of German-speaking area, but by no means does this say that there is no influence from the other languages there. (The map is also a few years old now).

Not only is the Swiss accent in German hugely different here (oh my god... now I was brutally beat over the head by a language I know but can't fully understand), but there are sometimes seamless infiltrations of French words into otherwise German conversations.

For example, a lady passing us on the street who was ending her phone conversation:

"Danke, merci, tschau!

(And even the last word could just as easily been "ciao!": The Germans did pick that one up from the Italians already.)

And on the train ride back from Zürich into Germany, the concessions man:

"Danke, Monsieur."

Mmm, linguistic soup. Now everything could be delightful again if the Swiss accent would stop twisting my brain into contorted and uncomfortable positions.

Herbivore

Kristen is a vegetarian, so naturally, this was a concern of ours on this trip - especially because in this region (southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.), sausage and other meats are prevalent, traditional favorites. (I love being omnivorous. And completely unpicky. Marvelous traveling advantage.) Many before us have also warned that it is difficult to find strictly vegetarian food, and that it is uncommon in the area.

But much to our pleasant surprise, we had virtually no problems finding vegetarian options throughout the trip. To boot, it wasn't even "fake vegetarian," as some vegetarian travelers have found in other countries where the meat is simply hidden more subtly in the exact same dish.

From Whirlwind Alpine Tour

Delicious, vegetarian Indian food in Salzburg
Here are shots from the somewhat upscale vegetarian restaurant Hiltl (restaurant website) in Zürich, Switzerland. The set-up is a long selbstbedienung ("self-service") bar with a huge variety of international vegetarian dishes, ranging from Thai to Greek to Indian and beyond. You schlock whatever you'd like on to your plate, weigh it and pay for it at the register, and sit yourself down.

From Whirlwind Alpine Tour

Being on the constant look-out for veggie-friendly places, I found this place in on of our city guides and suggested that we have a look. It was a bit pricey, but we decided to take it on with reckless abandon. Everything is pricey in Switzerland, why not just get a good meal out of it.

We notice there is a long bar, and hesitantly assume that it's buffet-style. I ask a waiter and find out that you pay by the plate. To make a long story short, we both end up dishing out a pretty pricey amount for our respective plates (think CHF 30-50 -- and the Swiss Franc is currently equal to the American dollar), because we discover (too late) that it's priced by weight.

From Whirlwind Alpine Tour

But Whoa. Who cares. It was superb food, and in my opinion, completely worth the one-time splurge. And every bit was vegetarian-friendly, to boot.

In conclusion, if you're an herbivore like Kristen, you'll probably be surprised to find that there are plenty of vegetarian options around, so long as your friends don't mind eating at the same places. We believe the reason people say that veggie places are few and far between is that they aren't looking for them. (Click here for a hilarious and dead-on example of how you miss what you're not looking for). But as globalization as well as vegetarianism spreads, we think you'll find that there are tons of restaurants who take their vegetarian customers into consideration as well.

The Sound of Music

Most of the pictures are already explained in the photo album, so instead of describing every detail of the trip in long, boring, drawn-out detail that you probably won't have the patience to read, I'll just elaborate on a few trip stories here and there that are too long for the picture captions. Speaking of long stories, that was a long sentence.

From Whirlwind Alpine Tour

In Salzburg, we came across this marvelous music shop called Klanghaus Gandharva Loka (Klanghaus means "House of Sounds," which was extremely appropriate). This store was smaller than my bedroom, but had virtually hundreds of different instruments. The picture above is a mere portion of the woodwind collection alone. I couldn't believe how much they could fit in there.

I was particularly drawn to a few certain instruments:

Sansula - First, the Sansula (Sansula video). It's basically a variation of the Kalimba (Kalimba video), which in turn is a variation of the Mbira, an originally African instrument. (Isn't instrument evolution fascinating). The Sansula has the extra drum skin stretched around it, which you can than use on flat surfaces to bend the beautiful little notes and make "waa-waa" effects. At one point, he said, You can play with a wide spectrum of sounds using objects as well, whereupon he scattered three paper clips on the drum skin and played the instrument with yet another surprising timbre. I adored it and wish I had the €85 to spend for it.

Waterphone - The shopkeeper happily demonstrated any instruments we asked about, and the Waterphone (video) is the first instrument in the store that caught my eye. I'd never seen anything like it. I thought it was a percussion type of instrument, but surprisingly, he picked up a bow and started drawing it across the rods. WHOA! This heavy instrument filled the room like a cave. It produced something I thought was only available in cinematic sound effects :P . If you watch the video, be sure to see the whole thing for both methods of playing.

Singing bowls - Last but not least, I've now been motivated by this trip to get myself a Tibetan/Nepalese/etc. singing bowl (video). We even saw them a second time from a street vendor in Zürich, from whom Kristen actually bought a small one. I must get one! They really made an impression on me, and I love the deceptively small size for a sound you could probably hear from half a mile around. Also, they are often beautifully ornamented. I am smitten with this little, round, metal bowl.

We also got to sit in the "harp-chair" :

From Whirlwind Alpine Tour

Someone plays the long strings on the side of the (rocking)chair while you sit in it. It's sort of a series of low, eerie twangs. When it starts building louder and louder, you feel all the vibrations going through your body.

Oh, everything we touched in that little store made a sound, and not just any sound, but a beautiful sound. Kristen and I easily spent over an hour and a half in that shoebox-sized store. A definite highlight of our time in Salzburg.

Seuchen

("Epidemics")


Today at the library, I picked up an Eyewitness book (I loved these books when I was a kid!) in German about Epidemics (book cover).

I am fascinated by how much I understand without the dictionary. To be practical, it's probably in part because it's such a specific topic, and many of the words are simply used almost universally in the field (i.e. "Backterien"). But even so, there has still been a surprising amount of vocabulary that I've had no need to look up. Read: "environmental pollution," "contains" (as in material in the virus head), "anchored" (as in the small legs that a virus uses), "spreads" (as in, what mosquitoes do with disease), "nucleus," "culture/nutrient medium," "single-cell," "outbreak," etc.

Good news! Progress in German is, verily, taking place somewhere in my skull.

Vienna, Street Artists

Kristen and I mapped out the trip shortly before departure, and we agreed to meet in Vienna on Saturday. We would then gradually work our way eastward and hopefully closer to Aix by the end of the trip. I would get to Vienna in the early afternoon and Kristen in the evening.

Unfortunately, the poor girl missed one of the trains on her first major experience with the European train systems. But she made it there early the next morning.

So I took Saturday to explore Vienna on my own. Along with all the areas I visited, I came across many a street artist, mostly all located throughout points in the Altstadt ("Old City"). This included several musicians, a diabolo (what's a diabolo?) artist, stunning break dancers, and ethereal spray paint landscape artists.

Oh, but pictures say 1000 words. And a video is like a really, really big sequence of pictures!

Back from the Alpine Excursion

Haha, I see Marcin has been keeping diligent blog-watch for the end of the week. At any rate, yes, I'm back in Regensburg now, and it's been a great week of travel. I've got a few posts in queue, but I've also uploaded all the pictures now, with the exception of some that Kristen will give me from her camera (eventually).

From Whirlwind Alpine Tour

Some background info. Kristen is a friend of mine from high school who is studying in Aix-en-Provence, France, this semester. We haven't seen each other in a long time, and we already had plans for a while to meet up sometime while we're both here to do some traveling together. As it were, we chose to go through some countries that were somewhat in between both of our locations: Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. The locations I've marked on this map are Vienna, Salzburg, Liechtenstein (Feldkirch), and Zürich.

From Whirlwind Alpine Tour

The Alps are Aliiiiive...

I'm packing at the moment for a trip that begins tomorrow. A friend from high school is studying in Aix-en-Provence, France, this semester, and we've agreed to hook up for a mini whirl-wind traipse through some (3) Alpen countries. After debating it for a while, I've decided not to bring my laptop after all. (Heavy traveling is a drag. HAH! Fail.) Hence, I'll be absent for the time being. Don't be devastated, meine kleine Entchen.

If you don't hear from me after exactly a week from tomorrow, you may send reinforcements.

Will bring stories and pictures upon return. Have a good week, chummies!!!111one

Language Globalization

Chinese and Spanish get high rankings out of sheer numbers, but otherwise, English is arguably the most influential language used in the modern world.

You've undoubtedly heard of English-speakers going overseas and finding that a remarkable number of those that they encounter abroad can already speak a respectable amount of English.

I grew up in the States, or in other words, a country where a dominant world language like English is the primary/dominant language. Lately, I've been thinking about what it's like to grow up in a country where there is a very big influence in your own country's language from a a language like English. For example, Germans here use "PC" (Personal Computer) and "SMS" (Short Message Service, or in other words, an SMS is a text message) in their everyday language.

But wait, scratch this entire post. I guess English has plenty of external influences that are now used completely subconsciously. I mean, virtually anything in English ending with "-ble" probably has more or less an exact counterpart in at least Spanish, or French, or both, just as an example. Don't even start me on "Schadenfreude" and "kaputt". Every pasta you eat that doesn't specifically come from Asia has some form of Italian ending on it. And kudzu is a transliterated derivative from the corresponding Japanese word.

Okay, so my argument turns out to be moot. Or maybe I'm really wondering more about growing up in a country where you actually start learning a second language early on (*ahem*, America, the late onset of your language learning system is bizarre), and you also grow up actually using it to some degree. (Note how many students in America have supposedly studied a language for ump-teen number of years, yet can barely speak it in conversation. This is not necessarily their fault, but the point here is about growing up with a much more functioning second language that you've learned in school that isn't just a letter on a report card).

Anyway, this is probably because English is a bastard language, who mugs other languages in dark alleyways and steals their vocabulary.