Without further ado I have decided (and by decided, I mean Heidi has persuaded me) to post my very first post on Born to Be Alive. Even though I feel my writing abilities are far inferior to certain other contributors to this blog, I feel it’s necessary to contribute something, if for Patrick, if nothing else.
In exactly 38 days I will be departing Reno and leaving the country for the second time ever (the first being an awful trip across the border into the great city of Tijuana). If I survive my flight to Prague, I am excited to be greeted by a the characteristically non-hugging , frowning Czechs. Although I have never been big into hugging myself, I wonder whether I will miss the awkwardness of feeling obligated to give hugs to people I don’t particularly like when put into an environment where it doesn’t exist.
My recent attempts to become familiar with the Czech culture have brought to the novel I Served the King of England. If anyone else is considering future reading material – I don’t recommend this satire. Not only did I not become acquainted with the culture, I was forced into the mind of an annoying little Czech waiter who marries a German gym teacher during WW2 as his countrymen are being ruthlessly murdered and then abandons his mentally disabled child after his gym teacher wife is decapitated in a bombing.
I have two goals for my time studying abroad at the oldest university in Europe. 1. *There are two regions of the Czech Republic Moravia and Bohemia. Apparently in Bohemia they drink beer and in Moravia they drink wine.* Therefore my goal is to drink wine in Bohemia and drink beer in Moravia.
Goal #2: Visit Mendel’s Pea Garden. You have got to love good old Gregor Mendel and what he did for the field of genetics. Although I don’t particularly enjoy peas or Punnett Squares, I have always had a thing for dead German monks-scientists.
Alrighty, I hope this answers some questions that everyone had, but was too afraid to ask.
