Retracing my steps...

Here's the full account of my experience in Europe.

The First Two Weeks
The Film Festival
The Immortal Bitch
Vienna, Budapest, and Prague
My departure from Prague
London, Paris, Switzerland, Germany, Amsterdam, Dublin, Barcelona, and Madrid
A discussion of art while in Madrid
Barcelona, Madrid, Copenhagen, Istanbul, and Athens
Cape Sounion, Rome, Florence, Venice, Salzburg, Munich
Dachau
The Return to Bohemia, and a trip to Slovakia
Kutna Hora and Moravia
Friends in Europe Part 1
Friends in Europe, Part 2
The Czech Republic with Meredith
Berlin
Paris
Heidelberg
A Farewell to Prague


I also have a few entries discussing random topics:
Graffiti
Family in Europe
The Best of Europe...ish

Also, there were two entries regarding my film work in Pisek:
Screen Shots from A Dinner Party
A Dinner Party and a Lighting Exercise

A Farewell to Prague

Leaving Prague was not easy. After everywhere that I went, it had become a second home in nine months. Luckily, I was able to share it with some people.

I made lifetime friends with incredible people. I shot a pretty decent film. I lived alone for nine months without going insane. I went that long without driving and survived.
I learned a lot.


Pisek was a nice little town to live in. Close enough to Prague to make weekend trips affordable and entertaining, but isolated enough to avoid complete urban chaos. I learned a little bit of Czech, and learned a good bit about the real Bohemian life.

I had good classes, bad classes, and absolutely terrifying classes. I learned inside and out of the classroom.


But the highlight of it all was Prague. Walking on the Charles Bridge at night (or better, sunset), after a long day exploring the threshold city, it felt like a dream.

On our last night in Europe, Meredith and I went to dinner with Daniel, Jeremy, and Dale. The food was excellent. Dale and Jeremy took us to their apartment near Karlovo Namesti, and from their balcony we could see an incredible view of the Charles Square tower.

It's hard to explain how much I'm going to miss that place.

Heidelberg...

We made our way to Heidelberg after Paris. Meredith's father had been stationed there back in the 1960s, and my father had been there in the 1990s. It's a place that we had planned on going if it was ever possible. Geographically, it's nowhere near Prague, but it's close enough to Paris that we could stop on the way back for a day.

It's a beautiful little university town. We checked into our hotel room and went exploring. There was a market in the main square, which we checked out.


We also checked out the lovely castle, when it started raining.

There's an odd sort of charm about little towns like Heidelberg or Cesky Krumlov or even Pisek, where you can take things as slowly as you want to without feeling like you're missing everything. We tried the Heidelberg Kiss, an infamous chocolate treat.

One of the main reasons we had decided to go to Heidelberg was to try the place called the Red Ox, a bar/restaurant that both of our fathers had enjoyed at entirely different times. We found it almost immediately upon arrival to the town.
It took us forever to find a door inside, and we sat down and it looked quite nice and old. We ate quite a bit. We bought T-shirts. We then realized that this was not the Red Ox. We were next door. Apparently the Rex Ox was closed on Sundays.


Oh well, it was still delicious.

Paris...

My continuing adventure from June 2009...


Taking a night train through Europe, as I learned when I went to Budapest, is not exactly fun. Our car from Berlin to Paris was full (six people, at least five languages) and it was about twelve hours long. Oh, and I was the only guy. I spent most of the time sleeping and practicing what's left of my Spanish (I need to get back on that) and reading. In Krumlov I had picked up a copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and I must say it was a fantastic read.

We arrived around 9:30 AM at Paris Est. Having been there previously with my father for Christmas, I was looking forward to returning to this enchanting city. Meredith, having studied a bit of French in high school and college, was looking forward to finding out just how much she could remember. When we checked in to our budget hotel, we discovered how useful her skills would be. The people working did not speak any English. It made sense, in the same way that many people in the Czech Republic didn't, but it was unexpected. We got it all figured out pretty quickly and we were off to explore Paris.

First we went to lunch near the Bastille monument... there's nothing there now. We headed to the Notre Dame cathedral and crossed over to the Latin Quarter. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we found a park and just sat down and relaxed. Meredith even took a nap.




Later on, we took a boat ride to see all the sites. When I went there in December 2008, France held the rotating title of EU Presidency (which, as of last week, is all changing). They held it for six months straight, and then it moved to the Czech Republic. So the Eiffel Tower was lit up like a giant EU flag. This time I got to see it in all its normal colored glory.


Incidentally, when France was EU president, they spent more than any other country in history on the temporary displays.

We wandered up to Montmarte and had dinner. Paris is a lovely place for a date.

The entire trip revolved around going to the Louvre museum. Meredith wanted to go, I wanted to go, and it was the one thing I wish I had done on Christmas, if I had had the time. So we got up and went to the museum the following day.

To start with, I was surprised by the size of the place. Duh, it's the biggest museum in the world, it's a palace, etc etc etc. But it's hard to imagine that until you actually see it. The first thing we went to was the Egyptian section. Meredith's really into Egyptian mythology, which is cool and all, but I got plenty of that in the Vatican. The Louvre has a lot more than the Vatican in that department, although both have plenty.

I even found my favorite dog deity, Anubis.


And Meredith has her cats.


After several hours looking at the Book of the Dead, mummies, tombs, statues, etc, we decided that we needed to see some art. We stumbled upon the Venus de Milo, although we came towards it in the wrong direction.


We went to a few halls full of statues, including Psyche Waking Cupid, Meredith's favorite. We saw two of Michaelangelo's captives (the others are in the hallways of Accademia in Florence, near David).

We went looking for some paintings. We found plenty that are famous and plenty that aren't.


And yeah, we saw the Mona Lisa, but it's behind a huge pane of glass, so what's to say about it?


The Louvre was totally worth it. I want to go to Orsay sometime.


We decided to walk to the Champs-Elysees from the Louvre, so that we could see the Arc de Triomphe and all the shops. We came across this lovely statue, which we decided was the most embarrassed statue in the world:


Poor guy.

Once we got closer to the Avenue, we noticed a HUGE crowd. We thought it was either Sarkozy or a protest, so we came a little closer. We noticed some American flags, so we assumed it was a protest, but it wasn't an angry protest like I've seen. Then a big motorcade full of cars came through with American flags on them, and people were running towards it. It was like seeing Elvis or something. We stopped and asked a security guard in front of a restaurant what was going on. His reply? "American President."


So yeah, I've seen Obama twice now, and neither time was in the USA.

Paris was lovely. We saw what we wanted to see, and I'd go back in a heartbeat. We had one more stop to go before heading back to Prague and heading back to home...

Willkommen to Berlin

Leaving Pisek was strange. It ended up being a quick departure after a lot of packing and a trip out of town after settling it all with my landlady and the school. I hope to go back there. I had a good time.

We headed to Prague and dropped off some of our stuff at Daniel's place, because he's awesome and we're eternally grateful for his help and friendship. We headed to the train station, got our tickets, and waited for the train.

While waiting for the train we met an American family who had heard of West Virginia, telling us how much they loved the white water rafting. They didn't seem to really get Prague, though. They were only there for twenty-four hours, only saw a few touristy spots, ate right in the middle of Wenceslas Square, and didn't really understand the castle. We didn't run into them again.

The train ride was about four hours long. Berlin has an amazing public transit system, much like the rest of Europe.

The first thing we did was go to the zoo. Berlin's zoo is the most species-diverse zoo in the world. It's right in the middle of the city, with some interesting architecture and statues around it.

We started out near the birds, which was fascinating in its own way but eventually we got tired of all of them. We then turned to see this statue:
Now, while the statue is already quite magnificent, we should say that when we first gazed upon it, there was a German little person on top of it. We then took this picture. It inspired us to photograph ourselves with as many statues as we could find.
We spent the whole day there, but I'll just give the highlights. The white wolves were situated right next to the bears, and they were both vying for attention from us.
Honestly, the wolf didn't stand a chance. That bear was amazing. He knew it, too.

There was a petting zoo, but they had some of the least friendly animals to pet. They had goats, which were fighting, lambs, which were skittish, and geese, which were just plain mean.

We also went into the cat house, where I got stared down by a few hungry lions. The tigers, leopards, and panthers were all pretty tired.
We also stopped in the aquarium which was there. We saw a starfish that looked exactly like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants. We also found a shark to match Meredith's shirt.
We finished the day off by getting completely lost in Berlin. We had dinner at a mall. It was a wondrous day.

The following day, we figured out our Eurail passes to get cheaper railway fare for where we wanted to go. We spent the day sightseeing around Berlin.
We saw much of historic downtown Berlin. That's me at the Berlin Dome.

We walked all over the place, which wore Meredith and me out. We eventually made it to the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate before we had to head to the train station for our night train to Paris.

The train in itself was an adventure. Berlin and Paris are not close. We left at 8, and arrived at 9 AM. AND we had a full car, with four languages present. We were all about to communicate though. More on that later.

Meredith and I, together again, in the Czech Republic

Before leaving Europe, I had to see my girlfriend again. I had to show her Prague. I had to take her around the continent that had more or less defined me for almost a year. She was, after all, the one who talked me into going abroad in the first place.

I've already gone over her arrival, with Chandler, Bex, and Jessie in Prague. After they all left, Meredith and I had a few adventures on our own. Given her Jewish ancestry, she was about as interested as a person could be in Prague's famous Jewish quarter, Josefov. It dates back to the 1200s, with the oldest still-used synagogue in Europe. We went through a few of the synagogues (I believe there are seven) in the area, which has been set up as a museum of Jewish history. The most incredible thing in there is either the Terezin Holocaust memorial in the Pinkas synagogue, or the Jewish cemetery outside, seven layers deep.


Another spot we went to was the town of Česky Krumlov, in South Bohemia. Not far from my adopted home of Pisek, this enchanting little place is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage sites. The downtown area is like being transported into a fairy tale, with the beautiful castle towering over the city.


Krumlov has a personality on its own, and while it's been used in films before, it hasn't really been portrayed or promoted as the hideaway it really felt like. The castle, guarded by its bears, has a nice tower, plenty of galleries (we saw some interesting artwork in that place), an old restored Baroque theater (complete with original-era sound effects machines and sets, and a prima donna tour guide speaking brilliantly broken English... highly recommended), a revolving outdoor theater, a huge garden, and a lake.

Do not feed the bears.

The food there was delicious and varied. Meredith's a vegetarian, which isn't exactly in a normal Czech diet. But they had a vegetarian restaurant there!

One night we went pub crawling. This place has some fantastic places to drink. Whether it's the creepily-styled Horor Bar (not anything particularly amazing other than the design), the absinthe-themed Van Gogh Cafe (stylistically, my favorite), the ancient U Baby (truly Czech), or the glorious Gorila Bar, where we played Foosball with a guy who barely spoke any English at all. He won.


Before leaving Krumlov, we decided that we had to take a canoe down the Vltava (aka Moldau) river, which also flows through Prague. Despite being an eagle scout, I have never been on a canoe before in my life. Meredith seemed to recall quite a bit from her youth, and thus we set out down the river one morning.

It's a lovely river, out in the middle of the Czech countryside. The woods and hills are great, and there are a few stops you can make to get refreshments if you wish. There are a few rocks, but no serious rapids on the route that we went on. I think our ride was supposed to last 3 hours, and it more or less did. About 2 hours and 15 minutes in, we turned the canoe to avoid a rapid, not noticing the rock. It hit the broad side of the boat, which led to it turning and filling up.

This was not the type of canoe most people use, where you can just pick it up and the water flows out. This was one that fills up and starts to sink, because it's built so strong that it won't normally tip. Thus I entered a state of inexplicable panic, freaking out over sinking in probably 3 feet of water. That said, I looked like a cat taking a bath. I hated it and wanted out.

Unfortunately, there was nothing around that area that we could simply drag the boat over and try to empty it properly. Meredith ended up getting nettled like crazy. A few kids from Arizona who were also canoeing pulled over to help us, and if they hadn't done it I never would have left my state of panic.

Fifteen minutes down the river, we reached the end of our path and the agency picked us up and took us back downtown.

Shortly after, I left Pisek for good. I miss it like crazy.

In the next blog, I'll tell about my adventures with Meredith before we left the continent. We ended up two countries away.

If you haven't yet, watch my movie.

Work from Film School

While in the Czech Republic, I did plenty of work on a couple of projects. We made a music video, which I haven't posted online yet, several photography exercises, and in the second semester, I wrote, cast, and shot a short film.

One of my instructors, Antonio Riestra, did several photography exercises dealing with objects in light. I compiled one of our studio exercises into a video, with some music. I really like the way the photos look this way, semi-animated.

Studio Lighting Exercise - FAMO IFS 2008 from Coleman Richardson on Vimeo.

The main undertaking I had at FAMO was my main film project, A Dinner Party. This took quite a while, and with the way it ended up coming together, it conflicted with a lot of my end-of-school visits.

I wrote a short treatment in December, outlining my basic plot and premise. While I traveled around, I made a few notes. When I returned in early February, I wrote the first version of the script. After showing it to Otakar Fuka, one of the main instructors, I revised it. I showed it to Jeremy Willis, the scriptwriting instructor, and revised it again based on his notes.

After a bit of revisions, I got a production manager, Martin "Saphyr" Rubin, and a cinematographer, Klara Fantova. Klara and I especially discussed how the project would be shot.

Finding English speaking actors in a very non-English oriented country is not easy, to say the least. I interviewed a few candidates (mostly for the female role, Victoria), and found a few people interested. Iain, a good friend from the school and a technical advisor for the project, volunteered his help to play the role of Martin. Daniel Munter, Jeremy's nephew and a good friend, played the role of Tom.

Finding a location was the biggest challenge. Saphyr and I went all over Pisek and Prague looking for possible spots. We eventually found one in Pisek, a bit on the outskirts of town. It was small but easy to shape to our needs. We rented a dolly, which was amazing.

We shot it all in one weekend. We had originally planned for two days, and ended up shooting for three. Other than that, things went fairly smooth. The postproduction process took longer than usual, but now, it's done.

So, without further ado, A Dinner Party:

A Dinner Party from Coleman Richardson on Vimeo.

Friends in Europe, Part 2...

I still can't tell you how many friends I made while I was in Europe from various countries, including the United States. I made a ton.

But it's always nice to see old friends, especially when you've been cut off from them for almost a year.

I was lucky enough to see my father, brother, uncle, aunt, and cousins while I was over there. It meant the world to me then. But it was as amazing to see a couple of my old Charleston friends in Prague as well.

West Virginia State University, my alma mater, does a trip every year through the Communications Department to Prague. They do the usual stuff in Prague, but they were able to explore a good bit on their own. One of my best friends, Devon, came on that trip this year. I showed him what I knew of Prague, which (at this point) is a lot.

I took him to the usual spots: Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square, Charles Square, and Kutna Hora. He saw the castle and the Jewish section on his own. I tried to take him to other places beyond the usual stuff. We went out to Holosevice, Vinohrady/Žižkov, and even Andĕl. I must have cut his food budget in half. Prague has plenty of good and affordable food, but you have to get out of the main crowds to find it.

During the time Devon was in Prague, a guy named Steve from Southern California made friends with us at the place I was staying. He ended up being a pretty good part of the group, just a random traveler making his way around the continent. I took them to Žižkov and Vyšehrad, which is the other (older) castle area in Prague. It's essentially a really beautiful park nowadays.

We walked back to town from Vyšehrad after seeing a topless woman eating a banana (I couldn't make that up if I tried, it's Europe) and while we were walking along the river, a Czech man got our attention and somehow got Steve to pick up his net. We watched Steve and this random guy catch a huge fish out of the Vltava (aka Moldau) River. It was borderline magical.

After that weekend, I stayed in Prague through Monday and picked up two other great friends from the airport. Devon joined me, since he was leaving a few days later and knew these two quite well. The ride to the airport through public transportation is not too difficult, but it's kind of out there. But it was totally worth it to see Meredith again.

I've been dating Meredith since New Years of 2002. It's been a fairly defining relationship, and we've been able to maintain it by having fully independent lives of one another while still being a close couple. My time in Europe was the biggest burden for our relationship, and it was anything but easy for both of us. Seeing her again after missing so much (anniversary, graduation, etc) was amazing.

To top this off, my good friend Chandler arrived after a week in Dublin. He's a really close friend, and we've been around a bit of the Eastern US together, as well as Costa Rica. It just isn't travel without Chandler. He was around for a little over a week, and she came home with me.

Chandler and Devon hung out with Steve in Prague, and Meredith and I headed back to Pisek (that was, in and of itself, an adventure worth writing about, but I don't feel like divulging in that right now). Chandler met us in Pisek the next day.

One of the nice things about Pisek was being able to walk across the street to get food or drink usually. The grocery store and the bus station were bigger excursions than anything else. Meredith and Chandler hung out at the apartment a good portion of the daytime while I was working on what I could work on with my film, and we were able to head out in the evening. There are several really good places to eat there, so I tried to give them a taste of Pisek. They seemed to really enjoy it.

Two of the Kiwi girls that hung out with Dad and me on our tour in January, Bex and Jessie, had made arrangements to come to Prague for a weekend. It just so happened to be the weekend when Chandler and Meredith were in. It also happened to be when Don Giovanni was playing at the Estates Theater, which is where Mozart himself debuted it. Things worked out quite well for that weekend.

I got opera tickets and an apartment in Mala Strana for all of us for the weekend. The opera tickets were about 250 Kc each, I believe, which is about $12.50. Splitting the apartment between the five of us made it out to about $20 or $30 a night, which was wonderful. The Kiwis live in London, so I think they were pretty surprised at how cost-effective Prague was.

We stopped by the John Lennon wall on our way out on Friday. I took them to a good diner near Narodni for dinner, and we had dessert at the Cafe Louvre, an old hangout of Kafka and Einstein. It has the best hot chocolate in the universe. We went over to the Chapeau Rouge, a three-floored bar and club with a strange but cool local band playing. The evening as a whole was pretty epic.

On Saturday, we went through Wenceslas Square, where they did a bit of shopping. We went to a matinee of the opera, which was quite spectacular. If the place looks familiar, it's probably because of the movie Amadeus, which was shot in Prague.

I took them to the Žižkov area that night. Fun was had by all.

On Sunday, we hit up the castle. Meredith decided to scare the crap out of me and re-enact the St. George slaying the dragon statue nearby.

Meredith and I went to the toy museum there, while the others explored the main grounds a good bit. We met up a few minutes later, and found a birds of prey exhibition going on. For a 100 Kc donation (about $5), you could hold a bird.

Chandler and the owl got along quite well.

The one who really liked it was Meredith. She held an owl and a falcon hybrid. I tried my luck with the falcon, which scared me to death.

I shouldn't go into falconry, that's for sure.

I took them to the singing fountain, where we got this amazing picture:

This was one of the best weekends I had over there. After the castle, we went around a few different places separately. Prague's such a fun place, it's hard to fit it all into one weekend. But we crammed into it what we could.

A few more blog entries left here before I'm done exploring the Czech Republic. And in what I'm hoping to be the next two weeks, the online premiere of A Dinner Party.

A few quick shots...

Just to let folks know...

My project, A Dinner Party, is almost complete. Here are a few images for you.

More to follow soon...