raise your hands

raise your hands if you took a boat to work this week.

nobody?

well, guess who did. twice.

for the last two months the tram lines near our house had been undergoing major construction so we had to take a bus a for those few stops to get into the city. for the most part this wasn't a problem except during rush hour when what usually took 2 minutes took 15, which was increadibly frustrating.

this morning i noticed that the trams were running again so i got on the tram and thought 'yippie, i can ride all the way into town again'. though wouldn't you know there was an announcement saying that due to further construction up ahead we would have to get of and take the 'X21' which i assumed was a bus.

when i got off the tram i couldn't figure out why there was no bus and why everybody was crossing the road and walking down to the river. but then i saw the boat! i wasn't the only one who was surprised; everybody was laughing and smiling and taking pictures. apparently the tunel through which the tram passes (which is under the vysehrad cliff) hadn't been closed off for 20 years. so this was a very special boat trip indeed.

in all my time in prague i never even thought of taking a boat ride or anything because it just seemed to touresty. but i actually really enjoyed it. prague is a great city because it very hilly so it can be looked at from all kinds of different angles. the view from the boat was new to me though. i finally saw the cliff at vysehrad from the bottom (see april's post 'in my lovely city' for a view from the top).

i also got a good (though foggy) look at the cubist buildings!

so the boat trip, same as the bus did, can also make 15 minutes out of what are usually just 2. but any lost time is made up by the fact that you are travelling in style. you just can't complain about that.

pins and noodles

i have decided to keep a list of amusing things that sue has either said or done. i will up date this list anytime something new happens so please come back and see how she is getting along.

( i have to say that a list concerning my actions would be quite extensive as well, however keeping such a list is not up to me.)

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6. S:"I have pins and noodles in my butt." (of course she meant 'pins and needles'. but she caught her mistake right away!)

5. S:"Oh, great. Wallbrains!" (she couldn't think of the word 'wallnut' but remembered me saying that they look like brains.

4. S: I'm ugly.

C: What? No you're not.

S:Yes, I'm ugly with you. ( I agree with you. the old L/R conflict)

3. this morning morning i saw her take out a roll of baking paper so i though she was going to bake some cookies or something. instead she wrapped her sandwiches in it. apparently she saw the picture of bread on the roll and assumed that it was wrapping bread.

2. for my last birthday sue took me out to a really nice colombian restaurant. she also gave me a nice leather wallet, the nicest i have ever had. she also gave me a czech birthday card. i looked at it a long time but couldnt find the word for birthday which i was quite sure i know. later when i had it translated it turned out that the card actually said "Congratulations on your Wedding. May you be happy with each other forever..."

1. this next one is little more subtle. it probably depends on your silverware drawer, but i'd say that most people, when they organize their silverware into one of these plastic trays, do something like this:

forks, knives and big spoons at the top in the middle (in some particular order) and the little spoons at the bottom. well, one month ago she decided to clean the tray because it was dirty. however, when she returned everything to the tray it looked like this:

chopsticks at the bottom! (the blurriness is due to the camera wobbling, not anything that sue did). i though that was so great; she subconsciously gave preference to the chopsticks.

now a couple of days ago i found this:

i'd be interested in knowing what you make of it. was it subconscious behavior on part of our other flatmates or is it some kind of backlash? a struggle to reclaim what once was?

more soon.

white wall of laser

as you might remember i am very lucky when it comes to finding coins. though there was another dry spell which lasted about two months i have started finding coins again. mostly 50 heller coins (worth half a koruna - something like 2 cent). sadly, these coins have gone out of circulation! so now i'm stuck with about 30 or so coins which i can't use. i think the banks won't even accept them anymore. but then again i haven't tried returning them.



there was a funny moment yesterday. i was changing trains at florenc metro station when i found a 50 heller coin in the middle of the busy crowd. i stopped to pick it up aggravating the people behind me who had to swerve to avoid hitting me. i held the coin up to look at it (and here you can imagine a scene from a film where the camera first focuses on the close object and then on the background) and then became aware of a young woman sitting in a wheelchair, wrapped in a blanket with a little dog on her lap, holding out a squished coca cola cup for coins. i probably hesitated longer than i should have, focusing on the coin again and then back on the lady. then i raised my eyebrows as if to say 'do you want this?' and she gave me this pitiful look. then i raised my eyebrows again as if to say ' you do know that these are 50 hellers, don't you? these have gone out of circulation...'. but she insisted so i put the coin in her cup.



now of course i feel like a creep so if i see her at the same place next week i will go and find a place where i can buy some dog food.



one curious development is that i have also started finding coins in my dreams. last night i found a 50 heller coin as well as a 20 heller coin (those went out of circulation even longer ago although i have actually found one in real life on vaclavske namesti). last week i had a dream where i was trying to escape from this massive building before the security system would switch on sending a wall of white laser sweeping through the whole building destroying anything in its way. naturally, just as i was nearing the exit which was at the top of a steep slope i spotted a coin on the ground. when i ran to get it the white laser wall appeared and started coming quickly towards me. i was faced with a dilemma: grab the coin or get killed by the white laser wall? i decided to grab the coin. but then i started slipping because the ground was like polished stone and i couldn't get enough grip to get moving up the slope again so i had to run to the bottom of the slope and start running from there. anyway to make a long story even longer...i got to the exit just as the laser passed behind me. that's when i woke up panting thinking ' ahhh, i didn't get the coin!'



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this connection i have to coins has a long history which i had forgotten about until i rediscovered this photograph:

i must have been two or three here. as you can see i am counting COINS! on the plastic cup there is a sticker which reads DM (the old german currency). oh nostalgia...

happy halloween!

oh, i see. so another month has passed without me posting anything. well, i will use the remaining moments of october to bring you this:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

there were some really scary ones but sue thought they were too scary so i had to delete them. but she had the whole 'ring' thing going.

on a lighter note:

now, much has happened in the last two months but i will just breeze through it.

first, sue moved in with me at the beginning of september, which has been great.

her sister ji young also came to visit us for a month:

her trip was meant to be in cellebration of her third wedding anniversary but her husband's boss wouldn't let him leave his job (he was only going to come for a week and had already bought the ticket) - how creepy is that! so they spent the whole time seperated and loney...

the three of us also went to visit my parents in munich and also got to have a few beers at the oktoberfest:

one month ago i played a really kickin' concert with my band 'ism'. (not my my band but i'm part of the band - i play bass guitar). no pictures now though : (

what else? my job has finally started picking up again. i thought i wouldn't make enough money to feed myself - seriously!

and that's basically it. so stay tuned. and remember:

my brain is a rat, and it can fly.

september's post

random, slightly amusing moments from my not-all-too-distant past:

1. maltese cops.

2. midnight at mcdonald's (with odd swede) - enlarge picture for greater shock effect.

3. a walk in the woods near my house - ???

4. japanese spring festival in prague. notice the similar poses...

5. sue with two dutch campers that natalie found in town (and brought home). there names were something like ' hanz and franz'. i'll have to try and find out.

6. the view from my old flat in hostivar. just looking at this makes me very nostalgic.

a farting sun - wham!

a farting sun - wham?

hangman saw fruit?

wanting mush afar???

fun with anagrams!!!

i just discovered wordsmith.org. type in any name or phrase and it will generate all possible anagrams.

here are some of the more interesting things i came up with:

christoph?

porch shit

christoph schoenbeck?

phobic choker's stench

sue park?

pure ska

jihye park? (her korean name)

a jerky hip

my brain is a rat and it can fly?

maniacal rat brandy is nifty

james wittervrongel?

everlasting jet worm

and finally, mom, just in case you ever think of changing your name:

emily wittervrongel??

't will vomit greenery!

have fun and let me know if you come up with anything good! caution:things get obscene quickly!

mini adventures

ACT 1.

in which christoph and sue go to malta with emily and jim.

i never though i would be happy to see dark clouds and be rained on but after two weeks of unrelenting sunshine i was glad to come back to a cool and dreary prague. growing up in munich i am used to hot summer days being followed by showers in the evening. in malta and rome this is not a given.

emily and jim own a flat share apartment in a 4 star hotel in qwara, malta, and kindly invited sue and me to stay there with them for a week. though it was a 4 star hotel it sometimes felt like living in an old factory; the air conditioners would stop working in the night so you would wake up to a room pumped full of warm, stale air. the elevators didn't work properly so we often resorted to using the staircase (our apartment was on the 7th floor). one elevator in particular deserves to be mentioned as every time it moved it made a noise so loud that our rooms would shake. it sounded like an elephant rubbing it's skin against a wet bathtub.

while we were there we met up with ann, whom i met in prague almost one year ago. she was the first maltese person i ever met and so helped create the image in my mind of maltese people being super friendly and having a great sense of humor. indeed, the maltese that i met while i was there were always helpful and never wasted an opportunity to fit in a small joke.

sue, emily and jim in the souther fishing village of m..... (i can't remember!)




ann driving us in her car.



sue opening a bottle of water with a cork screw. these bottles were impossible to open by any other method.

ACT 2.

in which sue and christoph fly on to rome.

in rome we stayed at the 'metro hotel', which was a little bit outside the city center but was super cheap and very nice. if you ever go to rome, we recommend it. also, just down the street from there was this really nice restaurant with huge portions of really good food for little money! actually, apart from my two years in japan, these past two weeks were filled with the most good food (especially sea food) that i have ever eaten.

my favorite place in rome (and this is a HUGE place) is the forum/palatino complex. among other things, this is where the government of ancient rome was seated. if you ever have a chance to see it, do! it will take your breath away.

the next four pictures are a panorama.




notice the coliseum in the last picture.

one funny thing that happened to us was that when we asked people to take pictures of us in front of famous landmarks the pictures would turn out like this (the first is in the palatnio, the second in front of the vatican):


it never occurred to me to ask ' excuse me, could you take a picture of us WITH THE WHOLE BUILDING IN THE BACKGROUND, please? but i guess not everyone has a brain.

one final picture. as we were walking around, sue found this truck.


notice the camel on top!


that's it.