a mystery in josefov

as rhys mentioned, we live in the jewish quarter, which is also called josefov. it is a mysterious and sad area. last night, after i returned from moravia (which was great, and i would like to blog about if i have the time), rhys and i ate a pleasant meal and then i went to bed. right after i turned out the lights, i heard a sound like a woman moaning in either intense pleasure or intense pain. i just figured that it was a someone having the best sex of her life, but right after the moaning stopped, i heard loud stomping back and forth across the floor. then i heard someone coming down the stairs, and it sounded like he (or she, i guess) was dragging something. step step slide. like that. then i heard a door slam downstairs, and a few minutes later, someone ran up the steps. this morning, the thumping/stomping noise returned and there was also hammering upstairs. what happened?!?

i'm guessing one of a few things: i misinterpreted the noises, some people had good sex and then got angry at each other; there was a murder; or our complex is haunted.

in other news, i think rhys will start to have an awesome time soon enough. i'm still having an awesome time. i'm concerned about our ghosts though. i don't feel that stressed out either, just very very sleepy. i'm worried that rhys isn't as happy as me.

my class list is looking like this: from kafka to kundera (czech lit;, alternative literature, lifestyles, and music in the czech republic; contemporary central european politics; intro to jewish cultural studies in prague; and (maybe) art and architecture. i'm not taking the language course because it is too early and i don't really like the professor and i probably would never make it.

i fell in love this weekend. with our waiter in brno (a city in moravia, czech republic). he spoke no english. i fell out of love. (no no, i wasn't really in love; i just thought it'd be romantic to fall in love with a non-english speaking czech waiter.) when got back to the dorm, i checked my email from hannah's room. i had a nice email that made me very happy and included a song that was at least partly inspired by my voyage overseas. sigh.

the best part of the moravian trip was the underground cave complex. we rode little boats through a subterranean river. the bus ride to the caves was nice too. everything in moravia is brown and white right now, because there is snow, but not enough to completely cover the muddy ground. there are no leaves because it is so cold. one scene included a still brown lake with white mountains behind it and lots of leafless trees surrounding it. in the center of the lake was one swan, who matched the color of the snow. there were no other colors around.

another fun part of moravia was the wine tasting, but we were forced to drink six small glasses of wine. i've not been that intoxicated in a year at least. i slept well that night. we also went to austerlitz, which was certainly filled with ghosts.

one last observation is that the czech republic just seems very dark, cold, and mysterious. people complain here. hardly anyone smiles. but everyone seems very content to be discontented. the churches here, so far, are not that beautiful. and that makes me like them more. they are falling apart. they have things that don't match and mistakes in the architecture. our tour guides are all pissed off (except zdenek!). the language is incomprehensible. (no wonder everyone is pissed off! it's so hard to get out a few syllables!) seriously, there are words here with no vowels at all. and the word for something as common as wednesday can be as difficult to say as cvrtek. no joke. no typos. cvrtek. in short, i love it here.

i really need to figure out how to get my pictures online.