Booze, Art, and More Booze

I only had one class today so now I'm sitting here at home thinking, "What the hell do I do the rest of the day?"

I decided to go grab lunch and then finally buy one of those expandable file folders so I can keep all my classes separated and organized. Right now all my stuff is all piled up in one spot and although I have a pretty good hold on what's what, I foresee it getting messy. 

So I guess I should be organizing my stuff. Then I suppose I could plan my lessons for the rest of the week... That's ambitious.

Instead, I'll tell you about my lovely weekend. 

Friday, I came home, ate a pizza while standing up in the kitchen and then drank wine while I watched one of my roommates make potato soup. (Yay, now I can make potato soup too!) 

I had made plans to go have drinks with a friend but while I was waiting for her to take a run and get ready, I fell asleep. Whoops. I'm going to blame it on the wine — and waking up at 7 a.m.

Saturday I was having trouble making myself get out and about, but it was sunny and gorgeous outside and I knew I couldn't waste it. So I met up with a friend and we went in search of art. 

We went to Kampa Island which I had done before. (Remember the Barcode-face babies?) Lauren also took me to the Lennon Wall, which I had trouble finding on my own before.

It's pretty amazing.

I know I've mentioned before that graffiti seems to be a fairly acceptable form of expression and art here and people generally don't seem to get their panties in a wad. I find this interesting because they make you sign and paper and/or get a stamp for every little other thing. I'm surprised they don't force you to buy a permit to draw on the walls. 

During the communist era (when this was still Czechoslovakia and not two separate republics) dissidents really loved rock musicians like John Lennon. After his death in 1980, the wall became a graffiti memorial. Someone painted a picture of him on it and then there were tons of messages and Beatles song lyrics written all over it.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited, Imagination encyrcles [sic] the world." - Albert Einstein, according to the Lennon Wall

The secret police apparently white-washed it several times, but a day later the wall would be covered again. There are layers and layers of graffiti and, as Lauren told me, every time you go it's different. I guess after communism fell they stopped painting over it.

"In Tyler We Trust."

While it is still very Lennon/Beatles-centric, not every thing keeps with the theme. The general idea seems to be youth ideals according to some. (But maybe just pop culture and such.)

After the Lennon Wall and the Kampa Museum, we met up with some other folks to go look at the Futura Gallery where we got to shove our heads inside some of David Černý's art. His stuff is always a little bizarre and Futura Gallery as a whole was pretty disorienting/uncomfortable. 

Learn more about "Brownnosers" on Saturday's Eyes of a Traveling Texan post.

After we finally managed to pull our heads out of Černý's ass, we decided to spend the rest of the night drinking with friends and celebrating birthdays. I finally got to meet up with some of the people I had met when I was here before and I met some new folks. 


So overall, it was a great Saturday. Now for a light week.