Official Website of the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic has an official website that is extremely well-done and user friendly. I enjoy having their weekly newsletter sent to me. It's a great way to get a feel for the country prior to arrival. Link to the site via my title.

Prague screensaver

The good people at TEFL Worldwide in Prague have created a very nice Prague screensaver for anyone's use. The link to download it is via my title. I have received one or two email solicitations in five months. I'm sure they'll curb that if you ask after downloading.

The Best and the Worst

This year I had an incredibly thought-provoking experience when I facilitated a group discussion among a bunch of ESL students. It reinforced to me how fun it could be to teach English for a living overseas. There were kids from Ukraine, "Turkish" people from Russia (they had never actually been to Turkey - yet they made a point of noting they were not Russian), Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, Karon people from Burma (they made a point of noting they were not Burmese even though they grew up there), Yemen, Palestine, and China.

My first question I asked them was "if you could bring anything to America from your home country, it could be a belief, some sort of infrastructure, a food, a game, anything, what would it be? What is something we could adopt from your country that would make America better?"

Oh my, the floodgates opened.

To a person, the number one thing they felt would make America better that they admired from their home country was....







guess....can you guess it?







The number one thing they felt would make America better is respect for authority, teachers, and parents. It literally hurt them to see classroom minutes chewed up in attitude and disrespect. These students didn't understand the point of it. In class, here is someone trying to give you an education, and frequently what they see is American students not appreciating it or stepping up to the plate studiously to take advantage of it. They felt most American kids did not think past 'who is dating who and what shall we do this weekend?'

They also viewed Americans as remiss in taking care of their parents. They were appalled by the idea of nursing homes. I shared with them that I once had a Ukrainian exchange student in my house who described one of her friends as afraid he was going mentally ill because the toll of caring for him mother was so burdensome. Her point was that in the Ukraine, he may go crazy caring for her, but he did it because it was his duty. All of the students nodded in agreement and respect with this thinking. You can be darn sure I called my mother that night and effusively thanked her for raising me!

Of course it is easy to guess the next thing they feel would improve America. Soccer. They wish, wish, wish, Americans loved soccer. I told them, "there is, only one person in the entire world who could probably get America interested in soccer." Who? Who? Who? They wanted to know. Who could make this magical thing happen? "David Beckham." They laughed.

The third thing was scooters. Why do Americans have to drive cars EVERYWHERE? They felt Americans were obsessed with having their own car and these students felt most in-town driving was completely unnecessary. "You Americans drive to McDonald's! Why can't you walk or ride a bike?"

One student from China said one thing that would improve America is high-speed trains. He said there is a high-speed train in Shanghai that travels 300 mph and gets people from downtown to the airport in five minutes. "Could you imagine?" he said, "we could all be in downtown Chicago in five minutes?"

I explained that if there was anything the people in my town lusted after, it was a train of any sort to downtown Chicago, even one going 50 mph! Currently it takes around 1.5-2 hours to drive into downtown Chicago depending on traffic. Mass transit has just not been a priority in America but I believe that will change with increasing gas prices.

The other thing they didn't understand is why Americans insist their children are "grown" and adults at 18? Why can't kids live with their parents for a lot more years? And why don't Americans lend money to each other and help each other out? Why must everyone be so independent?

The Africans students, conversant in two or three languages each, asked "why do the black students here refuse to speak English properly? They always call us 'whitey' when we use proper English." One of the Liberian students asked "why did white people start slavery?" Wow. That's a lot to answer for!

When I asked what is the one thing you wish your home country had or could benefit from that you see here in America?

The answers varied less. Can you guess what they said?






Got your answer? See if it matches:








The first was education, especially higher education. They were blown away by the quality of American higher education. They loved that everyone in America had access to education and that anyone could go on to college. Being accepted to college (of some sort) didn't depend on smarts, connections, or being the right age.

The second thing they admired was that the education and the diploma involved was real. To a person, they all said, in my country, if you didn't do well on the right high school test, one would just pay off the teacher with a bribe and he would fix the grade. They found the lack of corruption in America surrounding education and life in general, astounding. Kind of makes me want to always have an American dentist, surgeon and pilot!

I asked them to take this discussion to American teenagers which they did not want to do. Americans rarely hear this stuff because so few of us ever leave our country. I cited some research that said 14 million people come to the States every year from all over the world to study at our universities, yet only 250,000 Americans go abroad to study each year. Most Americans are never put in a position to compare their culture with someone else's. I'm grateful to have experienced this comparison. They remind me to say:

Thanks Mom.

If I haven't told you this yet today, Mom let me say it now -- you rock.

Zombie Alert

How cool can a city be?

Prague held it's first-ever zombie walk last month. Zombies are everywhere. Max Brooks, showing off some humor DNA that passed unchanged from his movie-making father Mel, has prepared the populace with his "Ultimate Zombie Survival Guide." Max also wrote "World War Z" which is an oral history of the zombie war. Then there is that British movie with that endearing top-notch police officer "Shaun of the Dead." Link to the whole story about Prague's zombie walk via the title.

America's Favorite Architecture

What is your favorite American building of all time? What architecture lifts your spirit and takes you to a new place? Is there some perfect expression of a church? Or a ball park? Or an airport terminal? What inspires awe in you?




Now there is the fun way to share your rabid opinions on the subject and help others find what you consider beloved. Vote for your “favorite five” of American architecture here. The American Institute of Architects polled their members and developed a list of all-time professional’s favorites. The projects that received six votes by members went on for further refinement to create an even more select list of America’s 150 favorite buildings.

It’s our turn to vote. It is a very hard choice. It’s like asking who among the many personalities that you know would you invite to a cocktail party. Why not everyone? Must I have a favorite? The beauty is in the mix.

Lists like this help us know what to go see. I thought I would have visited more of them than I have. I have been inside 64 of them. Here’s my top five:

1) Milwaukee Museum of Art designed by Santiago Calatrava – I have felt myself in the presence of genius expressed at this current moment twice in my life. Once was at the debut of Wynton Marsalis’ "Blood on the Fields" jazz opera, the other was when I entered this building. It is a masterpiece. Milwaukee residents should be proud to have commissioned the first example of Calatrava’s architecture in North America. If you go see it, don’t forget to watch the movie about the construction of the building. Like the construction movie for the Gateway Arch, it’s awe-inspiring!



2) Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel – this building looks exactly like what it is. A church for pilots. The seventeen spires are said to resemble a squadron of fighter jets shooting into the air. I took my children to hear the cadets sing Handel’s Messiah one Christmas in this exquisite building.




3) Lincoln Memorial – looking up at that big guy in the Lincoln Memorial…well… I can’t put it all into words. Probably because it gives me a lump in my throat. I guess it just makes me proud to be American. And great architecture inspires and becomes a backdrop for even more greatness… Marian Anderson singing there because she had been blackballed for being black and Martin Luther King declaring “I Have a Dream."





4) Jefferson Memorial – I don't know if someone from another country would be as moved by this one. Are they? The ideas are universal. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This memorial causes me to go silent. It brings out awe and wonder.




5) Golden Gate Bridge – Drop-dead, twelve-car-pile-up gorgeous. It’s so gorgeous, I think we know the bridge better than we know the bay. What was the visual shorthand for California before Hollywood and the Golden Gate?

It was hard to leave out the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial for creating a unifying monument out of a polarizing event, the United Terminal at O’Hare International Airport for communicating the romance of air travel, the Denver International Airport for the playful public art plus sheer speed and functionality (I can go from the park-and-go to the gate in 21 minutes), and Wrigley Field, which is just as mystical a place as everyone says it is.

I noticed so many of these projects were developed by architects who have been chosen as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects by their peers. Out of 80,000 practicing architects, only about 80 are selected to use the designation ‘FAIA’ after their name each year.

I went to see a friend be inducted as a Fellow. The ceremony was held in the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago. While waiting for his name to be called I started to calculate the percentage of ‘fellows’ who had beards. 12%! Surely, that’s a higher percentage of beards than in the regular population. I think it helps an architect’s project list to be older and bearded. Pity the ladies then. Architects have it pretty good. How many professions are there where you get to do your best work after sixty?

One suggestion I have to improve the site is to make the list sortable by state so it’s easy to know what there is to see where you are. After voting, you can see how many votes your favorites received vs. everyone else favorites. What did you pick?

Rock the Nest

The second realized pleasure of being an empty nester is turning my music up full blast. All week I've had the radio (yes, I know, how old fashioned) up while I clean and sort, getting my house ready for sale.

It makes me feel like I'm 20 again to hear it this loud. Then I realized 20-year-olds today probably don't even blast their music. They all have IPods.

When I move to Prague, I will probably be living in a glorious 4th floor walk-up from another century which will cause me to remember why people move out of apartments and buy houses to begin with. So they can turn their music up!

So it's another reminder to enjoy each moment before it passes. The DJ just put on Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice Baby," with it's fabulous baseline. Full blast. Love it.

A Clean House

The first realized pleasure of being an empty nester is that the house stays picked up. Someday I'll take that for granted and ache to have my children back in the house but that's not today.