Czech @ MindSay 
ciee
For the past few days, they have been showing us American students around the city with little assignments to remind us that we are in fact STUDYING abroad but I could care less because, lets get real, its Prague! We visited Vyshrad, a beautiful setting with an old castle, a small park to walk around and a huge hill that I practically keeled over and died while climbing. After that we trekked along to Wenceslas square which is the area that contains the infamous astronomical clock. I was surprised to see that it wasn’t as large or tall as I had imagined in the photos I’d seen. More castles were to be seen in our walk to Wenceslas square at night which was an incredible sight because of all the city lights. Let me pause to say that for the past few days, we have been walking all over, which I don’t mind but my feet and ankles are screaming at me because Prague is covered with cobble stone which are not for the flat footed or faint hearted.
So moving on, besides the sightseeing which I could bore you with details that would not do them justice, we have been eating out at authentic Czech restaurants which I can tell you is not good for your stomach, especially to those who are used to eating rice, kimchi and chicken. The Czechs like their food heavy, hearty and fattening which I love but not for two days straight. I think the eating out is just for our introduction to Czech cuisine but from now on we’ll be cooking our own light, healthy meals (which the Czechs do most of the week; they don’t eat this artery clogging food every day). Another thing that I noticed is that the beverage of choice at most meals is, can anyone guess? Yes, beer. Beer galore. Dark beers, light beers, beers in big mugs, beers in slim glasses, beers of all shapes and sizes and colors and tastes. I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to Bud Light when I return home. It’s a wonder that not all Czechs don’t have the American beer belly but then again, the ones I see are in the city and walk every where, so they get their fair share of exercise.
Our Czech flat buddies, as we call them (there are four of them in the four flats), have been slowly trying to nudge the Czech language in to our heads and that is no easy feat. The sound of the words is strange because they put together sounds that are not put together in English.
Regarding pictures, internet is hard to come by here as of now but supposedly we will be getting internet in our flats so if that happens then i will be able to put up pictures more often but now we have to pay for internet so i'll be holding off on that at the moment.
So Na shledano for now (good bye) but I will try to write as often as I can. Hope everyone is doing well in the States.
xoxox Jennifer
A rural dance tradition in twilight
By Ben Ratliff
Thursday, November 29, 2007
OMAHA: It was a Sunday afternoon at the South Omaha Eagles Hall, a Czech stronghold in an increasingly Hispanic neighborhood here. Under a low ceiling and fluorescent lights, Lila Dvorak, 74, danced a two-step polka to the music of a three-piece combo.
Dvorak is Czech-American, and a child of the Great Depression, like almost all of the 150 or so people present. She is a regular at the dances and wore a fancy magenta dress for the occasion. "Polka people are happier people," she said. "I don't think you see anyone around here with a long face."
All over the United States, where there are Eastern Europeans, there is polka. In the isolated farmland counties of eastern Nebraska, where it is not uncommon to drive 30 miles for groceries, polka helps tie people together. The dances and the radio shows devoted to the music keep old friends in touch and circulate local news.
Brought to the United States by Central European immigrants in the mid-19th century, polka is now part of American vernacular culture, a music with little commercial viability but a strong social function. From state to state, its details and dance steps carry codes of Old World origin and New World region.
This evening Mark Vyhlidal was calling the tunes, with a reduced version of his usual ensemble, the Mark Vyhlidal Orchestra. Vyhlidal, 45, is a central figure in the polka scene of eastern Nebraska. At the Eagles Hall his band topped the bill, playing in two-song sets: polka, waltzes and what he calls "modern," which mostly means Nashville-style country music. Earlier that day he had been busy promoting the gig on the radio. Starting at 9 a.m. every Sunday for the last 19 years, he has broadcast from KJSK in Columbus, Nebraska, as host of "All-Star Polka Show," a kind of weekly newspaper for the older generations here.
Polka reflects their lives: their sense of humor and romance, and what they remember of Czech family ritual. And Vyhlidal's listenership, spanning a 200-mile radius, including parts of South Dakota and Kansas, wants to hear about itself.
In between songs by famous local Czech-American bandleaders like Al Grebnick and Ernie Kucera, Vyhlidal makes room for callers and their family news: deaths, births, deployments, knee replacements. He stays unfailingly crisp and upbeat, except when he reads a funeral home advertisement; then his voice takes on deep, sympathetic tones. At 11:15, it's time to turn up the volume, as Vyhlidal announces the week's polka dances at the bars and veterans' halls.
He is a naturally gifted musician. In his band he plays accordion, valve trombone, trumpet and keyboards, all of which he taught himself. He writes his arrangements at his kitchen table, without a piano. His son Jacob, 8, plays button accordion, and his version of the polka war horse "Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie" has become a popular feature at the band's shows.
A Labor of Love
At dances, the audience gathers near the stage, where the cornmeal on the floor eases the glide, to cheer on the rare sight of a polka fan from the next generation. Vyhlidal has kept his current band intact since the early 1990s, and its players are among the younger and more versatile polka musicians around. But they have to schedule the gigs around other employment.
In Vyhlidal's case, he almost never plays during the cold months, since a function of his day job — superintendent of public services for the city of Fremont, 40 miles northwest of Omaha — involves driving a snowplow. Playing polka isn't a living, although it could have been in the 1970s, when dances were much more plentiful.
"It's a getaway from normal life," said Mike Helgesen, 60, the Vyhlidal band's tenor saxophonist.
Vyhlidal added: "A lot of it is about the heritage. Keeping it going. There are songs we know that have been around for a hundred years, and they're still being played."
Styles for States
Polka came to Nebraska in the 1850s, when Czechs fled worsening economic conditions in Bohemia and Moravia, drawn by the promise of large tracts of American farmland. In the beginning polka meant just one thing: a specific, two-beat couples dance. But now it describes a range of dances and rhythms usually achieved with an accordion, a tuba and sentimental lyrics about family, food, love and rural memories.
There are plenty of stylistic differences. Polish polka, for instance, is a different animal from Czech. It is faster and more staccato, with every instrument playing more fills; it sounds urban, and it swings. Czech polka is simpler, more legato and emotional. In a small combo it can sound heavy and sad, even at a medium tempo.
Polka took off in the United States with the advent of radio and records, just like the rest of American popular music; by the 1940s, a popular polka bandleader like Frankie Yankovic was selling millions of records. For Czech polka, the significant name around here was that of Kucera, a drummer from Abie, Nebraska.
At one time or another, Kucera, who started his band in the early '40s, seemingly employed nearly every polka musician in the area. He was all farmer, pure Czech, a great soul. "The older he got, the more sublime he got," said Bud Comte, the proprietor of Renee Sound Studio, a polka recording studio with an attached feed store in David City, Nebraska. Kucera retired from performing in 2000; he died in July at 87.
Nebraska's leading Czech polka bands have always had to play in several styles. Touring all over the Midwest and down into Texas, they are at pains to replicate the polka style of each area's ethnic group: German in parts of upper Wisconsin and Minnesota, Slovenian in lower Wisconsin, Czech in Texas. (Polish polka is usually beyond the call of Czech bands.)
But even within Czech polka there are differences. In the '60s Ron Nadherny, 73, a drummer and bandleader based in Omaha, used to tour with John Wilfahrt, better known as Whoopee John, one of the country's most famous polka bandleaders. "We found out that in Iowa the tempo was a little slower than it is here," Nadherny said. "In Minnesota it was a little faster than it is here. Wisconsin, it went like a bat out of you-know-what. And they all danced to it with different steps."
In Nebraska polka is farmers' music, and since the farm crisis of the 1980s, the farming population here has shrunk to a fraction of what it used to be. As a result, most of the rural counties have been thinning slowly and steadily, some losing more than 10 percent of their populations since 2000. At the same time, non-Czech immigrant populations have greatly increased; since 1990, entry-level jobs at meatpacking plants across Nebraska have nearly quadrupled the state's Hispanic population, mostly in its cities, to more than 130,000.
Sometimes it seems as if Vyhlidal is propping up the music as the polka scene slips away. Most of the great bandleaders have retired or died; many of the orchestras and eight-piece bands have shrunk to three-piece combos. There are fewer places to play, and the surviving ballrooms are drawing much smaller crowds. Even the tighter police presence on the small roads around Omaha has played a role in polka's demise: it discourages the time-honored practice of drinking plenty of Busch Light at a dance.
And it's possible that Dvorak might lose her Sunday party soon: the Fraternal Order of Eagles building in South Omaha is for
sale.
Spinning at the Starlite
On a Sunday evening at the Starlite Ballroom — the area's largest polka palace and the only one with a wooden dance floor — Lenny Blecha, 42, leaned against the bar, watching his wife dance with a succession of old men. It was the annual birthday dance for his distant cousins Bob and Greg Blecha, father-and-son farmers and jacks-of-all-trades from Pawnee City, Nebraska. Their band, the Bouncing Czechs, split the bill with the Mark Vyhlidal combo. The crowd looked sparse, maybe 200 people; it was an unusually warm day, and many farmers had been out harvesting.
The Starlite Ballroom opened in Wahoo in 1964. On a rural highway set against alfalfa and corn fields, about 25 minutes west of Omaha, it routinely drew 800 people for Saturday night polka dances in the '60s and '70s. Some of the booths are stenciled with a "reserved" sign, but now you can sit where you please.
Lenny Blecha runs an auto-body shop in Table Rock, Nebraska, and also buys and sells polka records on eBay. Television, he says, has hurt live music in general, and all of his friends listen to rock and country. But he's still incredulous that even the older folks in the rural counties aren't doing more to keep the polka bands working and the dances running.
"Most of these people here are senior citizens, and if something says 'Free,' they're going to show up," Blecha said. "If it's a dollar donation, the dance hall is full. If they charge you five dollars, half the crowd won't be there."
He ordered a beer. "I'm one of the youngest here, and we get a lot of compliments," he added. "People wish there were more of us. And the younger generation I visit with, they don't understand. I say: 'Why don't you go visit with your parents and grandparents and find out what they listened to? This brings you back to your roots.'"
But older locals seem to have a more philosophical view of the decline of their polka traditions, citing the same reason over and over, in much the same way. It is one of the binding narratives for a highly sentimental music.
"It's our generation's fault," said Darlene Kliment, 68, who owns the Starlite with her husband, Ron. "When we were growing up, our parents would take us to the dances. We'd fall asleep on the side of the stage, or in the booths.
"But then when our generation grew up, we got baby sitters."
http://www.iht. com/articles/ 2007/11/29/ arts/29polka. php
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
Oct. 23, 2007 - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters after meeting today with Czech leaders he's confident negotiations to place a radar here for a missile defense system are on track and likely to wrap up within the next few months. The proposed X-band radar dominated Gates' meetings today with Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Defense Minister Vlasta Parkanova and Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, Gates told reporters during a news conference following the sessions.
"I believe we have made and continue to make good progress," Gates said, expressing confidence that the negotiations will wrap up within the next few months.
A sticking point -- but one Gates said won't stop the forward momentum – is Russian opposition to the proposed system that would include 10 interceptor missiles in Poland as well as the radar here.
Gates told reporters today he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "made quite clear" during their recent visit to Russia "that we will continue our negotiations with the Czech Republic and Poland, and assuming those negotiations are successfully concluded, we will begin the deploying of these sites."
The secretary and other U.S. officials have emphasized that the proposed system would be designed to protect Europe and the United States from ballistic missile attacks launched from the Middle East.
Gates said he told Czech leaders today about his and Rice's efforts during their Moscow visit to reassure the Russians the system wouldn't threat them. "We continue to encourage the Russians to partner with us in missile defense and continue our efforts to reassure them that these facilities are not aimed at Russia and could benefit Russia," he said.
As part of that effort, Gates said, he and Rice offered two possible ways to "encourage transparency and greater information on the part of Russia as to what is going on at these sites."
One option might be to allow Russian observers at the sites, he said, but Gates said the Czech Republic has to agree to the measure. "Let me repeat for emphasis: Nothing will be done in this regard without the consent of the Czech government," he said.
Topolanek declined to comment when asked by a reporter if his government would consider such a measure.
Another way to increase transparency about the system might be to tie its activation in to "definitive proof of the threat," including Iranian missile tests, Gates said. "The idea was that we would go forward with the negotiations, ... complete the negotiations, ... develop the sites (and) build the sites, but perhaps delay activating them until there was concrete proof of the threat from Iran," he said.
That proposal isn't yet fully developed, he said.
The United States asked the Czech government in January to begin negotiations about the proposed radar, conceivably to be built at a military base between Prague and Pilsen. The first round of negotiations with the Czechs took place in May, and the second in September.
Discussions are expected to resume later this month, initially focusing on a status-of-forces agreement to govern up to 200 U.S. troops who would operate and secure the system here. Those talks would lead up to the next round of negotiations about the missile defense site early next month.
The goal is for the system to reach initial operating capability in 2011 and to become fully operational by mid-2013, a senior defense official traveling with Gates told reporters.
Although Russia objects to missile defenses in Eastern Europe, the official said, it acknowledges that Iran is pursing a ballistic missile program. "The difference is over timelines, how soon the ballistic missiles with the range that could reach the United States or greater parts of Europe can be achieved," he said. "The Russians say later rather than sooner. We say sooner rather than later."
Iran may be the most troubling, but not the only threat in the region, the official said. Intelligence indicates that "about 20 countries or actors are pursing ballistic missile technology," he said. Of these, Iran is the most advanced in its pursuit of this weaponry. "But even if Iran was to turn in all its missiles (and) all its technology, there would still be concerns and threats emanating from the Middle East region," he said.
Gates said today he ultimately hopes the proposed missile defense system becomes part of a larger effort that addresses the full range of potential threats. He said he told Czech leaders he'll bring up the issue at the NATO informal ministerial conference that begins tomorrow in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, and hopes NATO will take formal action on the concept during its 2008 summit in Bucharest, Hungary.
"It is our hope that one of the outcomes of the Bucharest Summit next year will be a resolution to go forward and develop short- and medium-range missile defenses for NATO that would go together with the American longer-range protection," he said. "Our goal is an integrated system that would protect all the members of the alliance against threats such as from Iranian ballistic missile."
Gates said he's confident that both foreign and defense ministers within NATO support the approach.
Tomas Pojar, the Czech Republic's deputy foreign minister, told reporters today negotiations are expected to continue without a hitch, but that getting passage of the measure by the Czech parliament "will not be easy."
Any resistance to the measure comes from politicians and the media, not the Czech people, he said. "The public is not interested in the issue," he said.
Pojar cited three reasons the Czech Republic agreed to enter negotiations over the radar: its historical ties to the United States, its recognition of the ballistic missile threat, and its desire for a U.S. and NATO presence in Central Europe.
The Czech Republic has a "historic, moral reason," for supporting the United States and hasn't forgotten that "the U.S. has saved us several times in the past century," Pojar said.
Another factor is the increasing likelihood that a weapon of mass destruction could be launched from the Middle East. Pojar said there's a "30 to 50 percent chance" such a weapon could be ready for a potential attack on Europe as soon as 2015. "We should be ready for that scenario," he said.
Pojar said there's also a geopolitical reason for a U.S. presence in Central Europe, and said the Czech Republic welcomes other countries, too.
The Czechs joined NATO in 1999 and have been seeking to expand their participation in NATO and European Union activities. Failing to move forward with a missile defense system would weaken NATO and leave Europe vulnerable, he said.
"Our future depends on a strong NATO and strong trans-Atlantic ties," he said.
Gates praised Czech support for the missile defense system effort as another step in a longstanding relationship between the two allies.
"For a number of years, the U.S. and the Czech Republic have cooperated on a wide variety of security issues," Gates said. "And today, facing new challenges, our relationship is as strong as it has ever been."
well yesterday i got my acceptance letter to CIEE in Prague to my amazement 
i would have done anything to get to go and i was so happy to get it. i wanted to share the experience with everyone. i decided to do this after spending the last hour reading posts by a CIEE student that is in Prague this semester. it was wonderful to read how he had adjusted and what his experience is going. i my self have a lot of apprehension now that it is actually going to happen i am suddenly scared and excited. also motivated to make sure they don’t' regret accepting me. i down loaded all the paper work and it is daunting 
all the paper work i still have to get done and finals are coming and i need to get a visa. tomorrow i will go and tell my international office ( at my school) that i got in. it's stressful especially because now i will be leaving my boy friend of 2 years 
which makes it' harder but i cant help but read as much as i can about the experience i want it to be amazing no matter what. ok well back to raising that GPA it's all so scary but so exciting.
till next time
here i come prague!!
julz
Gunnar Larson, who has done some amazing reporting for BlogAbroad this season stopped by and interviewed our BlogAbroader Jeff, who has been studying in the Czech Republic. Click below and enjoy the video.
This is Study Abroad, and this is why BlogAbroad exists.
Thank you for your support everyone.
- Drew
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