Brno, Day 2.

Had to change hostels yesterday because the one I was currently at is actually a school and since the term was starting today they kicked all the travellers out.

Which was great because as I mentioned in the movie from yesterday I ended up staying in this dorm for university music students (it just slightly pricier than the Youth Hostel, but not by much) across the street, and which is so luxurious: you get a suite with two rooms housing 2 people per room, with shower and bathroom shared between only the 4 people in the suite, it comes with ironing board and closets, and each 2-person room has a fridge and a TV! Had I only known this sooner....would've saved myself the two nights I had to sleep in the benches of an empty room at the YH due to the cacophonies of snores inevitable product of housing 12 people per dorm room (I have a very light sleep and as you know sounds of any kind tend to occupy my full attention--to the point of distraction---when awake).

Anyway, caught "Das Perfekte Dinner" on German TV this morning (oh, did I forget to mention? In this dorm the TV is no ordinary TV, it is cable, so you get channels from all over Europe, including CNN, plus the usual popular American shows like "Crossing Jordan" and the like. Again, had I known this sooner...{sigh}). It is a type of reality show kind of like "blind date". Basically, you have these 6 strangers and each week one of them prepares dinner for the 5 others, and at the end of 6 weeks someone votes on which the best dinner host was.

Today was the first episode and we got to see this 43 year-old guy prepare dinner for the 5 unknown guests (after that, the guests are known to each other and obviously the audience---the cast doesn't change week-to-week). He took his job very seriously and we got to see how he went shopping for quality ingredients, how he planned the menu, then cut to what the guests thought they could imagine the cook to be like based on the menu choices, etc, then cut back to the cook to be doing more cooking, etc. blah blah blah.

But anyway, in-between the food preparing, the "table decorator" arrived. That's right. If this sounds odd, keep in mind this is for a TV show so it is a bit understandable if our German cook calls up some sophisticated guns to prettify the flower arrangements and make a good impression on these unknown guests, for they could be pretty much anyone (he doesn't get any information a-priori on the guests, and funnily enough, one of the women happens to be a hippie vegetarian type, which of course forshadows some interesting scenes when the lamb chops arrive, but I digress), right?

But what I found uncanny, very...."German", if you will, was when the cook guy protagonist pops out the tablecloth and lays it on the table, puts his hand to his chin as he ponders which way to orient it, then leaves the dining room for a minute and returns with....can you believe this? An iron.

The guy was ironing the freaking tablecloth!!!

I nearly fell off my chair, laughing at that one! :D

Anyway, ran errands today. My silly picture hosting company did a stupid forced "upgrade" (you couldn't opt out) so the internet uploading of pictures was excruciatingly, torturously slow and frustrating. Again, folks, think twice about using streamload/mediamax for your file storage needs.

Afterwards I headed over to the Villa Tugendhat, which is what makes Brno a UNESCO World Heritage site, but it was closed (it is only open Wed through Sun), which was a pity, because it is one of the few UNESCO WHS that are modern. But here's a linky to their website. Oh well. At least I got to see a bit of the Brno suburbs, which look rather like the poorer villages of Mexico, except near the villa, where it looked just slightly more affluent, as it was cleaner, had more flowers, and they had houses instead of concrete ugly-collored apartments.