What? I'm back... WHAT!?

So yeah.... I've been back for right at a year now. The blog pretty much fell apart due to a lack of internet access. Sorry all. Even though America phase of the David blog may not be nearly as interesting as the European phase, I will do my best to regain the trust and interest of my overwhelmingly massive blog following. Here it goes.

Obviously I have a lot of events to catch you up on since the last blog post a year ago.... you will not be getting this recap today. Sorry. Instead you will simply pick up with one story that is both compelling and awe inspiring. It should be enough to jumpstart your reading interest and leave you wanting more. I'm not going to overwhelm you with words as much as I am just going to overwhelm you with awesome. Pure awesome.

I mean really, what more do i have to say? Its been an interesting year.

(ps the mustache is now gone)

OK so speed update to today.

Things i have Done lol

Watched Tereza's boyfriend compete in the governor's cup rowing competition. His 9 man boat won the amateur  devision and I think placed 4th/5 in the last race against all the professional teams. 

Slept for a Full Day due to my complete lack of sleep at sensation white. 

Went into prague and ran around with tereza as she did some school errands.

Celebrated her mom's "name day" its like a birthday but everybody with your name celebrates it on that day. (from what i understand, for a while there were 365 guy names and girl names to choose from.) When i get back to the US i'm starting a David Day.

Ate a meal consisting of raw beef (specially cut and prepared to be served raw so its apparently safe lol), egg, spices, onions, sauces and spread on a piece of toast. Think of it of like a really awesome way to make a burger patty... just not cooked.. and better safer meat than ground beef)

Funny story about the beef though. Tereza was talking to me on the bus about the meal and how good it was. In trying to describe to me what it was she asked. "Have you ever had raped cow?"......I was  a little to shocked to say anything but "um... no"..... "You have never had raped cow?".... "lol no.... i don't think your wording it right... i hope your not wording it right." She says "uncooked cow?" ..... lol with lots of relief i say "OH RAW COW"...."WHEW" and we still laugh about that and probably will laugh about it for quite some time.

Went to a concert of a band called Hamleti. They were a group that brought up different singers to perform different songs from the 70s and 80s in costume and everything. Sounds cheezy but it really was pretty awesome. I was a little lost on the euro songs... and I had to explain that I don't know any David Hasselhof songs... But it was a pretty typical bar concert setting... maybe a bit bigger and a bit more proffessionaly handled. But the show was legit. And when I say they brought up people to sing. It was everything from friends of theirs, people from the bar, one famous czech singer guy that showed up so they brought him up on stage and made him sing something, and different contestants from seasons of Czech Idol. It really was an experience. 

Went to the gym a few times. Watched a few "design research" movies at school. Got sick. Got little better. Got sicker. Got better. 

The day before yesterday I found an add in the paper looking for a ghost tour guide! So yesterday I went to a meeting/demo tour they were giving. It was cold and rainy but i didn't want to miss the opportunity. It was a great time and even if i don't get the gig... i got a free tour of old town out of it =).  One of the actual tourists on the tour was from Fayetteville so that was fun to talk to an arky. What i thought was a bad thing was that the tour ended and I stayed and talked for a while and missed the last train of the night into Usti Nad Labem... Next train 3:40 am! Good times. So my first thought was "no big deal i can roam the touristy parts of the city which are still fun on a friday night till then but then i remembered that the station the train left from wassn't the one near the tourist area and public transportation shuts down at 12:30... So instead i went to the station and found a McDondalds. I can honestly say.. they have the best bigmac i've ever tasted! It was there that I also got my first real taste of ... "oh this is why people dont like americans" (wait second... there were some really loud texans at the tram stop after the concert) But this guy was with two czech and a canadian girl... but for lack of a better explanation, he was just plain obnoxious. He wouldn't shut up, he was rude, he kept eating their food and talking with his mouth full... I mean he wasn't being a typical "american" but he was the american that everyone notices because of his behavior so that is what they think of when the think of an american. So sad so sad. Kinda makes you wish you had some sort of power to disown someone from your country and send them to another country... but i think people already tried that with australia back in the day. The McD's closed at around 12:30ish so i headed to the train station... I see a cofee machine and see that it has hot chocolate...Excitedly I realise i have just enough change left from mcdonald's to get a cup! So i put in my money and watch as the machine fails to dispense a cup and just shoots the potentialy delicious stream of hot chocolate down the drain. Then to make things a lot more fun a cop approaches me and speaks check and points to the door... Guessing that he thought I was just a homeless person or a tourist trying to get out of paying for lodging and was shooing me out the door, I show him my ticket for the 3:40 train.... he walks off. Thinking everything is ok I settle down for my long wait... Just as i get comfy on my wooden bench he returns with an "english speaking" officer. "Train station finished for tonight. Open 3am"....... . . ... . So just an FYI to anyone traveling... prague train stations close from 12:30 to 3am for no apparent reason. (not to jump ahead but when i got back to the station after it re-opened, it was the same employees working and no cleaning or anything had been done).  On my way out I see the officers trying to explain to another man the crappy situation but the other guy was russian and spoke some english but not good enough english to understand the police officers bad english. So i step in to explain. So thats how i met my friend Alexander from Russia lol. (more to the story but I have to go for now) (dont worry i make it home safely lol) 

Here is a picture of the sensation white event i mentioned earlier.. just to give you an idea!

I am somewhere in here and you cant even see the other two or three levels of people in the stands or all the people in the levels of hallways!

LOL from home sick to real sick =(

So I currently have some kind of cold or something =/. I thought it was just bad allergies but last night i started getting a fever =(. I am only typing for a bit so that way i can go back home and go to bed. I will leave you with this bit of "questions to an american"

"Why do Americans wear their shoes in the house? Walking around getting your shoes covered in dirt then track it through your house."

I thought for a minute and replied

"Because in America the only walking we really do is from the house to the car/car to building/building to car/car to house. We really only take like 25 steps outside of a  building a day. I don't think our shoes have a chance to get dirty." 

=)

But I think taking your shoes off at the door is a great idea and I encourage everyone to start doing it from now on. 

Ok so the next post took a bit longer to find time to write than i had thought. I will update soon. I was sad to find out that currently my first choice in studios "stillking" is currently without available jobs or internships =/. But there are many more places to see and talk to. Tonight I am meeting some of Tereza's friends at a concert that are a group of film/tv actors. Maybe something will come of it. At least I am meeting a lot of the right people. Its only been two weeks. Thats nothing. Lots more time =). I hope that eventually  something will turn up.... i'm trying =/

Ok I'm back! it was a good lunch of noodles sauce and sausages =). If you took a break as well, welcome back and I hope everything came out ok, if you decided not to take a break because the suspense of me telling you that "this is where it gets good" caused you keep reading... I hope i don't disappoint you and i hope you don't pee your pants or die of starvation. (i really am confused at how "don't" doesn't  show up in the spell check list of when i type "dont" instead i get words like do, daunt, wont, font, and donut. If that doesn't warrant confusion according to your standards... perhaps i shall add the tidbit of information that when i type "doesnt" guess what my option to change it is? "doesn't" why spell check why!) I am not responsible for any harm that comes to you by reading of this blog. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK! Do not send me any dry cleaning bills of pants do to laughter induced pants peeing or peeing caused by simple neglect to pee. Should I start adding sound effects of waterfalls/rain/rivers to my blog then I may take a partial responsibility for your micturating. Haha spellcheck didn't even have that one! I win. I beat spellcheck. For those that doubt me http://www.thefreedictionary.com/micturate .

I David Plummer the worst speller in the world just had to tell my spell check to "learn" a word... and by using that link i somehow changed my fonts?

Haha fixed it. OK well i guess I'll get back to typing about here. Feel free to micturate at your own discretion. So I make it to the train station and look at the times on the board and knowing that i cant speak time in czech I write down the trains information and then iphone translate the word for train ticket "cesta vlakem cedulka" I am still not sure if it was right because thinking i had it all taken care of I walk to to the lady at the booth an show here my paper with a smile and she looks at it and looks at me and shakes her head no and says "ne." ....Crap. So i'm like I KNOW i'll call Tereza and have her tell the lady over the phone... my phone had run out of credits from calling and talking to my bank trying to figure out an international charges situation (which btw after all of that I haven't (spellcheck does change havn't to haven't btw) noticed any extra charges from using an atm on my online banking system. SO yay for that. So I couldn't call her! BAH! So here it goes... david making it work.. I sit back and listen to people buying tickets... several just went up to her and said "praha" (prague) and hands her money and she gives them a ticket. So i go up and say "praha" and hand her my discount card and she shows me how much and i pay for it. We then go on talking to each other in our individual languages only understanding numbers that are written down on paper we are able to figure out that the train I was asking for no longer ran at that time and that it leaves in 5 minutes... so upon realizing that i run to the tracks and get on the train with about 2 minutes to spare lol. I just want to say that I am SO mad at myself for sleeping on the train into Usti. Because I was just in awe at how beautiful the landscape was on this train ride. I hope i never miss it again! I don't care how tired i am. I wanted to say how beautiful it was to the people on the train (as if they didn't already know) but i couldn't i was speechless... and it wouldn't have mattered... they didn't speak english. The train gets to Prague at one of the stations i wasn't familiar with but thats ok because the trains go to the other stations I am familiar with before they leave the city. Then the voice on the intercom says "This will be this trains only stop in prague".... oh good. And so I quickly get off the train and then David goes exploring! LOL it wasn't that bad because i had already planned on going exploring that day but I would have preferred to start from a location I am familiar with. Oh well its not like I had a choice. (Just want to point out that i still didn't have  a phone i could use to call anyone, but i could still receive calls... at that point my mindset was, if i get lost and i cant find a place to recharge the phone by a day or so... someone will call me eventually. so i felt much better) So I went exploring all around the station but nothing really exciting to see but then i saw the metro station and I was ok at that point. I am learning my way around the metro pretty well. To further enhance my knowledge of the transportation system I began my exploring process that i carefully planned out the night before... I go down one of the three metro rails getting off at each stop and going up top to look around for a few blocks and getting back in. Some places i walked to the point of finding the next metro stop on my own. (this was pretty helpful as far as trying to learn which areas are worth just walking to and which ones its better to take the subway. The process was a lot of fun but a whole lot of walking. I only finished one of the three lines before I decided to just go walk around and explore the main tourist area (well i assume it is) its winceslas square (i know i butchered the spelling on that.) OH MY. So much shopping and so many tourists. I have decided that whatever it is I end up doing in the long run... i hope it earns a lot of money so I can come to prague and actually go shopping here lol. I really wish I could have afforded some clothes from  a store called Peitro Filipe (the website is pretty lame because it doesn't really show you anythinghttp://www.pietro-filipi.com) It is a czech brand that seems to be about a half a step up from banana republic, but with more of a euro look. I didn't even go inside to look at the prices so maybe its not that bad =/. But without a doubt it is out of my current budget's price range lol. (and by that i mean they charge money for the clothes) But to make up for the total bumming me out feeling of only being able to look and not touch in all the shops, were all the people! Tons of people from who knows how many countries. It was the weekend so you can pretty much bet that most of the people there were tourists. I got to hear a lot of english and strike up a few conversations and even help some college students find the McDonald's lol. That was a nice experience to be able to understand and be understood perfectly. Tereza speaks english extremely well but she is so busy with her finals that i don't want to stress her out anymore by making her speak english all the time =/.  One thing I couldn't help but notice were all the people wearing all white outfits. I remember seeing them the last time i was here but this just seemed unusual. It started off with just a couple people here and there but then there were groups of three or four people.. then groups of 10 then it got to the point that you could look in any direction and see that like 1/10 (maybe more) of the people you see were wearing all white outfits. It was crazy! So I find a vodafone place and recharge my card (because apparently the fear of getting lost wasn't enough concern to recharge my phone but figuring out why everyone around me had on all white outfits was) and i call tereza. She was like white outfits are normal or something like that and then i was like no they are everywhere! but she didn't know what was going on. So I looked for someone in white who spoke english seeing if it was some sort of holiday or what. Suddenly the percentage of english speakers dropped to %0. So failing to figure out the white mystery I get on the metro back to tereza's parents house. On the subway i once again notice the huge numbers of white outfits... at this point 70% of the train was in all white. But they were all going the opposite way as me.. and refusing to be out of the loop I turn to the person beside me and just ask "do you speak english" amazingly they did. They explained to me that tonight is "sensation white." One of the worlds largest techno/dj dance parties! But in order to get in you must be wearing all white. I instantly started trying to remember what clothes i had brought with me and how much of it was white... Sadly i was without white shorts.. BUM BUM BUM. But being the amazing shopper that I am, I remembered seeing a pair of white shorts at an H&M store (kinda like a GAP) for 50% off. So I hop off the subway, at the next stop of coarse..not while it was moving... i wasn't THAT excited. And run to the H&M store and get there 15 minutes before it was going to close! And get the shorts for about $18 (i know it wasn't in my budget but this is like a once in a lifetime thing (the concert. not the shorts) and they just dont have them in the US i've looked for them!) OOOoooHH the icing on the cake was that the shorts weren't shorts... they were man capri's! I wanted to get a pair so badly and now i have one! LOL. I make it to Tereza's parents house and change and make it to the show about an hour late... a little bummed because i didn't know how long it would last. It was at the O2 Arena which is quite a huge arena and it was literally packed wall to wall on the floor, the first level, second level, and even the third level of seating, with thousands of people dressed all in white outfits dancing to some of the best techno/house djs in the world. I can not begin to describe how much fun this was. Think of a scenario that you have been in that was so full of energy and just really fun people and really loud exciting music (if you have ever been in something like that) then multiply it by like 10,000 lol. They had a huge elaborate stage in the middle with these two bridges that you could walk under going to it. I say you could only walk under the bridges because they would have these big water fountains and pyrotechnics and dancers going across them all the time. I really could write about the event for a day and not do it justice! I will try to post some picutres of it soon but they still cant put you there. Oh and that little bit of worry that I had about missing an hour of it.. it lasted till 5:30am so i wasn't too mad about loosing that hour! and when i talk about it going untill 5:30 you might think thats when the party started to die out.... NOPE I would have to say that 80% of the people and maybe more were there till the very end! Knowing that tereza wouldn't be up at that point to let me in I went to mcdonald's (a, it was the only place open and b, I think my day of exploring and all night euro dance party concert was enough of a European experience to allow for an american meal. And i found out that one of the creators of mcdonald's or something was czech so that was good enough for me)  for breakfast... but they didn't sever breakfast so i got 2 double cheeseburgers and some fries and a water. They tasted SOOOO GOOOD. But after all the healthy food i've been eating it made me kinda sick later =/. But i got back to her parent's house and went to sleep for a few hours and got up at 11:00 I will tell you about why i only slept so little later but for now I have to go with tereza to see if i can get my business cards printed... I told you this was going to be a long day of posting (about 5 minutes ago her dad asked me if i was writing a book LOL I guess i have been typing a while)

OK so I have a lot to write about so here we go. Might want to use the bathroom or grab some popcorn. I can try to make it short but we'll see what I can do. 

Thursday

Thursday will be pretty easy to write about because I didn't really do much =/. It was kinda a homesick day. I miss everyone a lot. The question is " did i not do much because i was home sick, or was i home sick because i didn't do much?" I went to the gym that morning. I wasn't going to worry too much about working out but two things made me decide to go. One reason is because when I am in good shape and exercise I feel better, it cheers me up and gives me more energy. The other equally important reason is that I cant let michael get in better shape than me... I just cant let it happen. I really like this gym. It is pretty old but has a lot of equipment. The equipment is probably best described as a 1980s high-school gym equipment. But it all works and they have plenty of free weights so I'll be just fine there. They also have a HUGE pool (haha i first typed "poop" and that would be really funny if the gym also had a HUGE poop) which is like a $1 and you can swim for an hour. That will be fun to do once or twice week but I wish that i could pay for less than an hour because with the shape i'm in I'll be lucky to go 30 minutes without drowning.  Then I went to grocery store because it actualy is one of my favorite places to eat now lol. They have these little personal pizza things (not anything like our pizza) that are really good and are $1.50 or they have these good sandwhiches made out of some big thick slice of i'm guessing a ham product.. I would best describe it as luxury spam for $1. So good with czech mustard =). After that I went back to the computer lab and went through facebooks and talked to people and missed people. But i'll be ok. After a while Adam (one of the student and i would consider a new friend) put on another movie. Movies are fun because they show them at school and they are just pirated off the internet but there are some ok computer speakers and the schools projector. My favorite part though is that they call it "product design research." Then I went back home and read in my "film makers handbook" which is pretty much 4 years of film-school in like 600 pages. Not quite as in depth as film school and no hands on experience. But its a great "refresh my knowledge" book. 

Friday

Friday was a bit more fun. I did some walking around with Tereza and with Adam as they got ready to go back into prague. I stayed in Usti because I was planning on going to one of the roomate's art exhibits on saturday then going to Prague, but those plans fell through because they were going to have to be there all day long and we thought monday would be a better day to go (which those plans fell through as well so I am just going to see pictures of it lol). I then almost fell to my McDonalds temptations so I can remember being home a bit better =). Unfortunately when i went in and saw that bigmacs are so expensive I decided best to go back to my grocery store for my mystery sandwich or pizza and to do some grocery shopping.  YES this time i went for it and got the bread from the bins. All is well with the bin bread... No sickness that i am aware of was caused by consumption. I also added a bit of flare to my diet with nutella! It is so good on that bread and it has a lot of calories in it! yay for those! I went home and ate and read some more then went up to school and sent out some emails to some more job contacts. I will be going to visit some studios with my new cards and resume hopefully next week (the end of this week i mean... i guess when i was typing this i got a bit too far into character and thought it was friday) . My search for affordable Czech classes in Usti has come up empty so I will have to settle for english only jobs which aren't hard to find in prague... but hard to find in film. I also have the info for a couple casting agency's, so I am going to see if i can get one of the photography students at the school to take a head shot of me to send in. Friday night was less that exciting with more reading and eating and sleeping. 

Saturday!

Ok this is where it gets good i think. Saturday I woke up and ate and went to the gym again. Then had my protein shake and bread with nutella =) and packed up a lunch of a couple sandwiches and 2 pieces of bread and my jar of nutella and a bottle of water and started my adventure to prague! by myself! BUM BUM BUM! Well here i am all packed up with my new well earned rain coat over my bag because it was raining again. walking down the streets of prague. Saturdays are really slow days in smaller towns like Usti anyway then throw in the rain and I pretty much felt like I was in "i am legend." (you know with will smith all by himself in the city?) It made me wish I had a dog though.... and the mustang that he raced through the empty streets in.... ok i'm posting this so i dont loose it but i'm going to go eat lol.. you can take a break here and use the bathroom or something.