As I type this, sitting in my full-size-over-the-top-comfortable-floral-comforter-ed bed, I am serenaded from below as the drunken citizens and/or tourists of Krakow, Poland occupy the club/bar beneath our beautiful apartment and sing John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in a key so off-tune, I would love for the singers to be taken home by a country road or by a flawlessly paved cement urban road or by any road really. 

^oops fell asleep without finishing after I started to post last time. I think that was like Wednesday. Idk people are karaoke-ing under us I think every night. Anywayyyyy I'm in Poland! Krakow is the bomb but that's for later. First I have to finish up my week in Prague because surprise (!?) I haven't posted in 8000 years. But first here are a few old Polish men and their dogs in the park whom I exploited for this adorable fall picture:
Last Wednesday (the 16th) was my mama's birthday so a big HBD to nee nee! I hope it was the happiest of birthdays and that all of your wishes came true because you deserve AT LEAST that. You're the best mom I've ever had.
Wednesday morning we had a lecture by Michaela Svatosova, who has worked at the Gender Studies center for 10 years. Her topic was Media and Advertisement: representation of women and men in the media. The lecture itself was rather basic and sort of things that we've all heard before. She talked about how misrepresented women are in mainstream media, which of course is terrible, but nothing really groundbreaking or revolutionary, and showed us some slides of examples of sexist or racist Czech advertisements. In the afternoon, Iveta gave a seminar on Judith Butler and the reading we had to do which was an excerpt from Butler's "Undoing Gender." We ended up just having a giant class discussion about gender and normativity and dehumanization and society in general. I absolutely lovvve these kinds of discussions with the people on this program because they all have such interesting and insightful things to say and I could listen to them go back and forth all day BUT I also feel bad because 1.) I never talk. I literally think I was the only person in the class who said nothing the whole time besides the occasional "mmm" or "yeah" or something like that. I think it's just because I'm taking in what everyone else says because a lot of it is stuff I've never thought of before and because the things that I think about to say seem to be kind of surface level or obvious and not really worth mentioning. I also seem to fall into this trap of having a thought or question that makes perfect sense in my head but then when I try to verbally articulate it there's just no chance. I babble and can't find the right words and then my face gets red and everyone just kinda moves on with the discussion so it's perfect! I'm pathetic. 2.) I feel reeeeally bad during these types of discussion because it just seems like there is no hope for society sometimes! Like every situation seems like a lose-lose for everyone and then I'm like ugh I don't want to think about it anymore because it's depressing but then I'm like no Eileen that's exactly the kind of ignorant unconscious "unexamined" mindset that has screwed everything up in the world to begin with! It's so easy to just be lazy and not think about the problems because I may not be directly immediately affected by them but that's terrible because there are so many people who are and because in the long run, it does affect me because I live in this society so obviously I'm going to feel its effects uggghughghughughggjkskjfsladjhf. But still. Judith Butler. Great stuff.
Wednesday night, Slavek took us to the theater he works/acts with!
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Prague's Estate Theater, where Slavo is an actor but unfortunately he's neither of those half naked men being advertised
He gave us a tour of the theater before giving us free tickets to see the opera playing that night, Figaro, from box seats where I think tech people usually sit because there were tv screens and controls and stuff back there. Such a cool opportunity. At one point, the four of us were on the elevator and I was already kind of chuckling to myself at the situation just because Slavek’s so great and Joy, Allie, and I were all kind of silent because Slavo’s English isn’t very good plus we didn’t really have anything to say plus I have a dad-crush on Slavek so idk the combination of factors made the situation awkward and uncomfortable but still precious and so funny to me so I was just kind of making eye contact with Joy/Allie all while quietly giggling mostly internally. But then of course one of the actors walked on the elevator all dressed in his Figaro garb, like powdered wig and makeup and all - I think he was going down to take a smoke BUT I COULDN'T CONTAIN MYSELF I started almost cracking up and had such trouble stifling my laughter I don’t even know why, it wasn’t like it was that hilarious of a costume, it was just some kind of a reaction to the composite of events and I couldn’t stop laughing I had to like bite my tongue which still didn’t work. It was like being in church. I felt so bad too because poor Slavek’s nice enough to take us around this fancy theater and I laugh in his face probably got him fired or something way to go eileen ya blew it again. :/ But then he just took us around and showed us backstage and under the stage and above the stage basically every angle of the stage one could think of. He even showed us the spot from where he fell a few months ago and had to get surgery. 
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being a tour guide.. what can't he do??
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this one's for Joy <333333333333 vanity <3
 At one point, Slavek returned from somewhere to our box seats and told each of us to pick a hand and he had different mini bottles of liquor in behind his back for us, as any good father would have for his host daughters. Mine was Absinthe don’t worry I’m bringing it home we can all try it. Ugh so funny I was cracking up yet again.
The play was cool, of course it was all in Italian but they had Czech and English subtitles for us! Suspended above the stage on a marquee thing. Convenient. We only stayed for the first act (don’t worry, Slav told us it would probably get boring for us, so we could leave whenever) but it was still super fun. Stopped in Wenceslas Square on our way home to have a sausage from a vendor and to have a gander at the statue of St. Wenceslas. Cutie.
Thursday (the 17th), we had a lecture in the morning by Ladislav Zikmund-Lender, a Czech art historian/curator. His topic was Framed Stories: Queer art in the past, present, and future. His lecture was interesting, but I think he had a different idea of what the word "queer" meant than we have. He was basically just showing us a timeline of Czech male artists and their possibly homoerotic art. I liked him though, he was a good lecturer. After class, I had a nice Vietnamese lunch with Ezra, Kris, and Lauren, and then went home because we didn't have an afternoon lecture. Went on another satisfying riverside run and then I can't really remember what I did Thursday night. Maybe had dinner with Marketa? I don't know. I know that was when Marketa offered us (mom/aunts/grandma/me) her flat to rent out for when we go back to Prague! So I get to spend another 5 days in that beautiful space as well as introduce my fave fam gals to my fave Prague gal/family and their annoying cat!! So nice of her she's seriously such a peach. 

Friday morning, I had a skype interview with one of our Berlin lecturers, Nita Prasad, who gave me some pretty dope info on her perception of feminism/ists in Germany. She's just a really sweet lady in general, too. One thing she said was referring to her identification as a feminist of color. She talked about how useful of a term it is because the term "feminist" by itself is so problematic because of the often racist and classist history/connotation of feminism and the negative stigmas attached to the term. She also acknowledged that it's difficult to have a distinguished term for feminists who don't want to identify with the racist and classist and otherwise discriminatory mainstream feminists, but who aren't people of color. Like I couldn't identify as a feminist of color, but I would still want some way to let people know that I try to be conscious of feminist issues of race and class and such. She suggested the term "intersectional feminist" which I think is perfect because it would still spark people's interest if I say I identify as that, so they would ask what I mean, and it would give me a chance to explain it to them and hopefully change their mindset of feminists for the better. After the interview, I went to class halfway through and joined in the discussion of recapitulation of the Czech Republic. In the afternoon, Ezra, Kris and I facilitated the class discussion on the readings by Anne Fausto-Sterling and Susan Stryker. Fausto-Sterling's article was basically an introduction/in-depth analysis of intersex people and the problematic determination of newborn infants' genders when the sexual organs/hormones/whatever else "determines" sex may not be clearly male or female. We watched a clip from the documentary "Sex Unknown" which everyone should watch. The Stryker article was an overview of Tans* and it was also really good and everyone should read it also. These two articles I think talk about issues that a lot of the general public misunderstand, and I think they are both really good intro readings for people to have a better understanding of them because it's important. It was a really great class discussion (yet again, frustrating because of how complicated society is and gender is and medicalization is politics are etc etc etc.).
Friday night, Valeria wanted to take Allie, Joy, and me out with Matthew and her to a light festival and a pub afterwards, but we had to politely turn down her invitation even though it sounded realllly cool and probably would have been super fun. We just had a lot of work to do like paper-writing and packing for Poland the next day and last minute souvenir shopping and all of that really fun non-stressful stuff (really completely preferable over ugly light festivals and beer honestly ew gag). Marketa made us a delicious dinner, and she and Slavek sat and ate and chatted with us for a lonnnng time. Really hilarious conversation though. Slavek is adorable in his attempts at English and dramatic animated hand gestures. I had no idea what our topic of conversation was for like 40% of the time. But I still laughed a lot. After dinner, they gave us a bunch of little candy bars as we still chatted and they told us we were their favorite group (which is saying a lot you guys, they've been hosting Antioch kids for 10 years) and told us stories about past groups they hosted. Then Marketa pulled out this giant candy bar that looked like it should have straps on the back to put on our shoulders and carry like a backpack because it was so huge. It was called Studentska, which made perfect sense for us students, according to Marketa. Ugh-dorable. 
Saturday was travel day woooooo!!!! Just kidding I hate the travel days. Matthew and Valeria came (despite their obvious excruciating hangovers) at 9:30 am to help us carry our luggage to the train station because guess what they're also sweethearts. We left Marketa and Slavek a nice pink bouquet and hand-made card that will never match up to their creative decor but still it was worth a shot/the thought that counts RIGHT??? Right.
Long travel day but actually not as treacherous as Iveta made it out to sound. Also, I got to leave a few items at Marketa's since I would be returning in a few weeks, so my luggage was significantly lighter. After many hours on different trains WE MADE IT TO KRAKOW!
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sunset view of the main square in Krakow, the land of churches
Poland is apparently super duper Catholic and it isn't hard to tell with all of the churches like seriously there's one on every corner at least. There are also a lottttt of young hetero/white parents with young kids, like a lot. I think there are more strollers in the streets than there are cars. Lots of tourists too, at least around the main square area, which is surprising because hi what's Krakow?
When we settled in our apartments (I'm in a super awesome super cozy super accommodating 6 person apartment with Valentina, Allie, Bethany, Kalena, and Sharon. Wonderful roomies), a bunch of us went to a restaurant down the street for some late night pierogies yeah I said it POLISH PIEROGIES omgomgomg. And then went for a jar (that's what they call pitchers here I guess) of beer with Michelle, Sharon, and Mayra and we had really awesome conversation about kinda everything and I just have been realizing how much I really am gonna miss these people and their conversation and their presence and their company and perspectives and SO MUCH MORE when we leave each other in a week. I like being around these folks a lot and I'm going to miss being around them because I'm not going to like not being around them. All of them.
Sunday, we had a tour of the city at 2pm so I got up and went for a run through the park that encompasses the main area of the city/our apartment but I still got lost trying to get back but again, it was a good lost. Beautiful city. I know I keep saying the cities we're in are beautiful but it's so true. They have so much history and are just super aesthetically pleasing but also Krakow seems really cool culturally like besides the aesthetics. I mean minus the whole over-involvement-of-the-church-in-government-creating-poor-quality-of-women's-rights aspect and like kinda not much of a feminist presence, it's a really great environment. I think the weather is playing a huge part in my affinity for this place too. It's been like between 60 and 70 degrees and sunny this whole week. Like what even is late October in Poland? I just want to dissolve in the Polish autumn sun. (notanoxymoron). Sunday night we had a big family dinner with everyone at our apartment with homemade chili and cornbread SO YUM and fun because like I said I love hanging out with these peeps. 
Monday we had our first lecture here by our Polish site coordinator, Beata (who's a gem and helped me and Sharon and Michelle figure out how to get to Budapest from Krakow). The place where we're having our lectures every day is a building with 3 organizations within it, one being TIK, a crisis foundation for I think women affected by domestic violence so that's pretty (really) cool and another is eFKa, which publishes the only feminist magazine in Poland, called Zaldra. Apparently Zaldra just had a scare a few months ago of not having enough funds to continue, but they told their subscribers/other supporters and everyone moved up to prevent it from ending so that's really awesome. Beata's lecture was about the Women's Movement in Poland. I guess the women's movement here has always been a step behind others. It didn't really start until the 80s with come feminist conferences in hotels and parks and stuff (apparently they weren't allowed to hold them in universities because talking about "sexuality" was considered too vulgar. In the 90s, they had their later 2nd wave feminism and Poland started some women's centers. Beata said that feminists were seen as man-haters, ugly, and lesbian, and that they had these certain characteristics "in their blood," but Polish feminists tried to avoid this stereotype by being more pro-women instead of anti-men, but Beata said that they didn't really succeed. She also talked about how the Poles don't really talk about "gender." They generally see gender framed as destroying families, and that the word "gender" itself sounds similarly to the word "danger." Anti-feminists view gender as an ideology, which apparently is negative here because of the harsh connotations with the word "ideology" connected with the political past (communist/totalitarian). Another interesting thing Beata pointed out was that despite how highly conservative Poland is, 3 members of parliament are a feminist woman, a transsexual woman, and a gay man. After class, Allie, Kalena, Bethany, Hannah, and I went to the Wawel Royal Castle, which is like right down the road from where we live and is really beautiful and looks out onto the river which is also really beautiful. 
And there's an adorable statue of pope JPII (we love you) who coincidentally is from a city just outside Krakow so he's beyond revered here. He's everywhere. So I admired:
We went inside the chapel there, which was really really gaudy but obviously pretty and had a bunch of saint relics which I think is weird. The church was full of tourists and I don't think mass is still held there, but I still had the sudden reaction to put my gum that I was chewing under my tongue and hide the fact that I was chewing it the minute we stepped in so that was funny. In the courtyard of the castle, supposedly the northwest corner is a chakra center, so I was super pumped to go and feel the spiritual energy emanation but it was pretty anti climactic because I felt nothing. Such a let down. I think I'm cursed or something. After we got home from the castle, I went on a run along the river and I don't even have to tell you how spectacular it was because I think you have an idea of my obsession with running along beautiful rivers by now. And it was during sunset let's just say my heart melted a little.
But I think my bones also melted a little because ever since that run my legs have been hurting like my shins and calves and bones every time I run or walk for a long time. Annoying. Still beautiful view so I'm prob not gonna stop. For dinner, some of us went to a place a few doors down from us called Pierogarnia but we call it Pierogi Narnia because it's fun to say and it is really a magical place full of surprises (like the two surprise spinach pierogies in my plate of mushroom/cabbage pierogies I ordered). The place is adorable and the woman literally turns around from the register and makes them on the little stove right behind her. It's like a home kitchen and we're in the dining room.
Tuesday we had a lecture in the morning by Dr. Bozena Jawien, a gynecologist/researcher, on the Reproductive/Procreative Rights in Poland. Basically there are none. She talked about how language plays a big part in this discourse, i.e. feminists say "reproductive" and Catholics say "Procreative," fetus vs. baby, etc. At all of the schools here, students are trained in Catholic discourse. Because the Church helped end communism, Dr. Jawien said Poland shows their gratitude by adopting Church positions for the government. For lunch, I went to an awesome restaurant with Kate and Kris and had a delicious/huge omelet and chatted about the "death drive" and the "universal child." Then we had an afternoon lecture facilitated by Kelsey and Patricia about the readings we had by Halberstam and Edelman about those two topics and oh so much more that was really interesting but also really confusing and I don't know if I'll be able to reiterate but feel free to gander at my notes. I'm also just really tired and don't feel like reiterating it. The class ended with someone saying that "everything is queer" so there's that. After class, the weather was so beautiful that I didn't want to go home, so I went and lied in the grass down by the river and read/slept which is also pretty high up on my list of favorite things to do so yeah it was a good time. Then I went on a run in the dark and it was really hard to see because there aren't that many lights and there are a lot of bikers/walkers so there were a few close calls but ya know I like to be kept on my toes so it was good (not doing that again). Tuesday night, a bunch of people came over and ate family dinner cooked by sharon again and then we all watched Schindler's List because Krakow is where Oskar Schindler's factory was/is and we wanted to watch the movie before we visited. Really good movie but also really heavy. I don't think I've ever cried harder during a movie. Oskar Schindler was a business owner during the Holocaust who basically hid Jews and saved them from Auschwitz by hiring them for his factory/"camp" and bribing Nazis to send him more Jews so he could keep them safe. Really really moving and is making me nervous for our visit to Auschwitz this week.
Wednesday, we had a lecture by Agata Teutsch about LGBT in PL and about facing homophobia. She said that in Poland, reality is much more progressive than law. For example, LG people will be married in another country, come back to live in Poland, not have their marriage recognized by law, but still live together/have a family/do everything else married-like. An interesting thing she said was that students here are much more conservative than the adults, which seems to be the opposite of most places. She said it's probably because now, the Church is so involved and is the biggest influence on Polish law and decision making, more so than when adults now were in school (when they were in school, religion was taught in Church, and everything else was taught in school). Now, education promotes homophobia. She said that textbooks tell of harmful effects of homosexuality and that there are no alternative textbooks. Since there is such a negative attitude towards homosexuality here, and since all feminists here are seen as lesbian, I'm assuming that the feminist identity is not taken to keenly either. After class, a few of us went to the museum at Schindler's factory. On the way, we stopped to get lunch and (surprise!) it was another gorgeous day so we did a little sitting/basking along the river while we waited for people to finish eating lunch.
So so so s o o o delightful. The factory was verrrry interesting and informative and also really sad and heavy as well. I really find the Holocaust so fascinating and extremely disheartening so it's hard for me to say I look forward to learning about it and visiting sites about it because it seems wrong to look forward to anything related to such a disgusting idea, but I'm increasingly intrigued by it the more I learn, so it that sense, I do look forward to such things. I think I spent about three hours in there and probably could have spent three more (mainly because I'm a slow reader but still). 
On Thursday, we had a seminar with Iveta about the linguistic turn and the three readings we had by de Sausssure, Austin, and Hird. Linguistics are also very fascinating to me, and I always thought I was pretty good at grasping the ideas presented in linguistics, but these readings were pretty confusing. Apparently the Linguistic Turn refers to theorists who argue that language constitutes reality/materiality. DeSaussure  argues that language is much more complex that naming (putting a word to a thing), rather it has to do with the process of linking a sound-image with a concept. In the afternoon, we had a film screening of a documentary filmed here called "Transgendering," and we got to sit and chat with the two filmmakers afterward which was awesome. One of them, Julie, was a student on the Antioch program like ten/eleven years ago but decided to move back to Poland because she liked it so much and according to Iveta, she fell in love here, which is absolutely adorable and awesome. Thursday night, Bethany and I went on a run together, which was really great because I could actually keep up with her when she's not keeping up with Iveta, and she provided nice conversation and company, which is not something I usually find in a running partner (I usually try to avoid running partners altogether), but Beth was great.
Another day another beautiful sunset along the river. There are also a lot of roller bladers here which 1. makes me really want to blade with them and 2. makes me really impressed what with all of the cobblestone here. Then a bunch of people came over for fam din again made by Mayra this time.
Friday morning we had a lecture at a Lutheran Diacony about Religion and Spirituality of women in Poland, by Agnieszka Godrejow-Tarnogorska, who is a Lutheran theologian and works in the Lutheran Parish. She is in the minority here because she said that 86% of Poles are Christian (however, this is simply on paper. Once Poles are in the book as Christians, they aren't taken out unless they actively choose to be and go through the processes to do so, otherwise, even if they don't practice or go to church anymore, they are still in the Christian count. On;y about half of Poles say they follow dogmatic Catholic principle). Since the church is so involved in society, it formulates norms of what is and isn't acceptable. For example, it polices sexuality/gender by saying that gender as an ideology is a violation of family and is against the church and that women have a particular role. Again, a lot of interesting information, but also a lot of information that a lot of us already knew and seemed somewhat basic. Friday afternoon we had a big discussion about our research projects and presentations. I'm getting pretty nervous because we present next week on the 5th and 6th (the day we leave), and I don't feel prepared enough at all. It's not that I just haven't prepared my presentation, it's that I still feel I have a lot of research to do. My surveys have been slacking hard core, as have my interviews, and ya know yeah my literature research hasn't been fantastic either so yeah I guess yep I'm scared. We also have group mini presentations this Friday which I also have to prepare for. My group is doing reproductive rights and my section is the Netherlands so I'm going to talk about Women on Waves, but I still just have to put together all of that too. AND we have Auschwitz on Wednesday, AND we're leaving next week. Idk I'm just getting stressed I guess you could say yeah that's prob accurate. Stressed. Friday night I did a river run and then some people came over and we watched a movie called Rewers which is apparently Reverse in English (who knew!) and was really strange but we are supposed to have it watched for class because I guess it shows what Poland was like post war. Creepy.
Saturday a bunch of us went to the mountains at Zakopane! We all thought we were going to be hiking up the mountain, but when we got there we found out you can only take a lift. Kinda bummed me out but we definitely got to go a lot higher than we would have gotten via hiking so that's cool. The view was absolutely breathtaking and I'm going to attempt to relay how astonishing it was with pics but there's no way it will give the full effect.
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kicking air
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Lauren, Kate, and Val got in the way of my pic of this beautiful scenery ugh annoying
Also, we found out that the mountains are the border between Poland and Slovakia so we were in Slovakia for a hot sec yesterday too! Unintentional country hopping is the best. I wish we would have gone earlier or not stopped as long for lunch or something because I don't feel like I was up there for as long as I wanted in order to truly take in the experience because we had to get back before the lift left us. I wanted to just sit and soak it all in for a long time but we didn't really get to do that. Still. It was absolutely remarkable and allowed us to literally see the world from a different perspective which I think is SO cool and I would do it every day if I could. There was also some snow up there too which was funny because some of us were in tank tops. Weather lol. When we got back, after napping on the two hour bus ride, Michelle, Mayra, Sharon, and I went out to a few different bars which was super fun because all of the bars here are awesome and huge and lead underground to cool dance floors and multiple lounges and we danced a lot and had loads of Polish fun. Or at least I did. I missed going out, it hadn't happened in a while.
Today (Sunday) I wandered around town for a little, semi looking for a flea market that I know exists but didn't know where, semi just going for a walk because again, the weather was phenomenal and I just wanted to be in it. Then Allie and I went to this awesome little book store/cafe that Lauren told us about and met Lauren, Kelsey, Patricia, and Joy there and did some work/drank some coffee. We had to move to a different room at one point because they had a scheduled speed dating session about to happen so that's cool. Then we came home and Sharon made us pasta with a yummy cheesy/roasted red peppery sauce and it was amaze. Then we watched another movie we have to watch for class called Ki, which I guess is a Polish feminist film, but it was also kind of hard to get. I mean I understood everything that happened, but the point of it all was a little ambiguous. I guess that's one reason it's feminist. Anywho. Now i'm gonna hit the hay. Hannah (Orlet Mueller) just told me the cardinals are up 1-0 so that's really awesome and fantastic and sporty!! Go birds! Gnight all.

xx
Mary Jo Comerford
10/28/2013 03:41:02 am

Eileen, words can't begin to express how wonderful these blogs have been. If your intended project doesn't come together (which it will, of course) you could write a fascinating paper on your personal impressions of this life-changing semester. I am soooo happy you made the decision to do this. Looking fwd to seeing you soon. I love you and am very proud of you. xoxo

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Mom
10/28/2013 10:57:39 pm

My sentiments exactly MJ! Thanks for taking the time to write Eileen. It is soooo enjoyable. Good luck with your project.....it will come together in the end :)

Reply
Ann
10/29/2013 11:03:43 am

Another great read. Gonna be a tough week. Breathe and dive in. Love u and so proud of u. Cards are trailing in the series. Xo

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