BLOG POST 7

Considering I haven’t been to class since before Christmas, it’s amazing how quickly I’ve gotten back into the swing of academia. On Monday we started the 2-week intensive Czech course that all exchange students are required to take before the semester officially starts up on February 22, and so far I am LOVING it. I’m in a small, 12-person class taught by Lenka, this absurdly AMAZING Czech woman who’s all smiles and laughs, and probably one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, period. Class is held from 9am-1:45pm (or in Czech time, “9-13:45”) in a 5th floor classroom in an obscure building on Jindřišska Street, just off Wenceslas Square. This building is kinda sketch: the lights have a tendency to turn themselves on and off (not good when you’re halfway up the giant circular staircase and suddenly in pitch blackness) and the elevator can’t decide just how much weight it can carry – sometimes its “overload” button beeps when there are only 3 people aboard, and sometimes it carries 7 people without a sound. I’ve decided it’s not really about the weight of the load; the elevator’s just a bitch. (Too bad Jake’s not there to tell it off.)

The class absolutely rocks my socks. You’d think that spending 5 hours a day cooped up in a tiny classroom learning a difficult language with practically zero overlap with English would be frustrating and possibly even insanity-inducing, but somehow I love it. I blame 3 main factors. First, Sam (yes, you, big sister!). She’s always loved foreign languages, trying to learn everything from Swahili to ancient Egyptian at one point or another, and somehow, over time, her passion has rubbed off (if even just a little) on me. Second, my fellow Czech cronies, Kacy and Walt. These kids are absolute kooks – they keep me entertained and awake despite the early hours and long days. Finally, Lenka, our teacher. This lady is incredible, more like a friend than a professor. I could see her being an amazing Kindergarten teacher because of her personality – so sweet and patient – but she’s also hilarious. She likes to tell us stories about Czech traditions (for example, every Easter boys go to girls’ houses, sing a song, and then hit the girl with a switch, and in exchange she gives him a decorated egg… definitely one of their odder traditions) but she also likes to hear all about what things are like in America, so it’s like we’re sharing information rather than being lectured. It’s funny because I usually dislike hard classes based purely on the fact that they’re so hard, but I LOVE this Czech class. I’m gonna miss it when it ends.

The first day of class we learned very basic Czech phrases (including my perpetual favorite “ahoj” -- pronounced “ahoy” and meaning “hello”) and how to pronounce the words. I won’t go into detail here lest I bore you to tears with grammar rules and vocabulary drills, but I will say that Czech words have a tendency to have way too many letters and way too many syllables, and memorizing them is a real pill. At the end of class every day, my head feels vaguely like it’s ready to explode from such an overdose of information, but I’m surprised and pleased to report that I seem to be retaining quite a bit of what I’m learning.

Tuesday night marked a nice diversion from the daily grind. Kate, Adrian, Jessica, Walt, Kacy, and I saw a traditional black light theatre show at one of Rick Steves’ favorite theatres: Ta Fantastika. As Prague is practically the only place in the world where you can find this nonverbal, absurdist theatre style, Kate and I (theatre majors unite!) knew we’d have to see at least one black light show while we were here, and the others got dragged along for what would prove to be a downright WACKO evening. We knew going into it that it was supposed to be “weird” and “different” – what we didn’t realize was just HOW crazy it would be! The show tonight was called “Aspects of Alice,” a reinterpretation of the “Alice in Wonderland.” Now, “Alice” is wacky on its own – add the absurdist black light theatre elements and it’s downright ridiculous. I really can’t explain its lunacy in words; the whole show felt like one long acid trip. Take a look at this link to get a better idea, but keep in mind that the live show is WAY trippier than the video makes it out to be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElMrqam-WyY

CRAZY, right?! Anyway, that was quite the adventure. Also, we didn’t realize at the time, but there were 2 shows every night – the earlier “PG-13” show, and the later, let’s say… naughtier show. We went to the “calmer” of the two and even that was fairly raunchy… I can’t even imagine what the later show would be like.

On Wednesday we took our first class field trip, to the World Press Photo exhibit in the Old Town Hall. It was an absolutely breathtaking collection, a compilation of the best news photos from all of 2009. I loved the “photo of the year.” It was taken during President Obama’s most recent visit to Prague and places him and the Czech Republic’s first democratic leader, President Masaryk, side by side, with all of Prague traversing the space between them. It’s practically an inspirational poster, a reminder of the democracy that triumphed over communism in the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and a sign of its continued strength today.

Other photographs were a lot harder on the heart. Probably the set that affected me the most was pictures of women raped in the Hutu-Tutsi conflict. So many faces; so many innocent victims. One girl was only 11 when she was raped and disowned by her family, forced to fend for herself in the world. She barely escaped being sold into the sex trade, and today is still struggling to survive from day to day. I looked into her eyes and I saw such sadness, such pain – I’m at an absolute loss for words. I will never understand the evil in this world.

But I’ll try not to dwell. On Thursday my Czech class took yet another field trip, this one to the streets of Prague to practice our Czech. It was the first time we’d practiced speaking Czech to actual Czech people, and it was semi-terrifying. Lenka sent us off to ask for directions (“Kde je tramvaj?”), to check the prices of English newspapers (“Kolik stojí anglicky noviny?”), etc. It was so empowering! It was a major confidence-builder when the Czech people responded to me in Czech – it meant they actually understood what I asked! Of course, the majority of the time I had ZERO clue what they responded, but I smiled, said thank you (“Dĕkuji!”), and wandered off all proud of myself.

Later that night we had our second “family” dinner, and this time the family was even bigger. We barely fit at the table, but somehow there was enough pasta (and salad and bread and dessert and wine … okay, so it was more a feast than a dinner) for everyone. It was a loud, giggly, rowdy bunch and I loved absolutely every moment – except maybe when Diego did a shot through his nose. That was CRAZY, one of those “did he really just do that?! How is he not dead now?!” moments, but simultaneously crazy impressive because c’mon, who DOES that?! I didn’t want to leave, but alas, I had to study for my Czech midterm the next morning.

Friday was wonderful because not only did I kick the midterm’s ass but I also FINISHED class for the week! Our “field trip” that day was oddly entertaining. Lenka split us into groups and gave each group a shopping list. The catch was, the list was in all Czech, and we weren’t allowed to use English to decode it. At this point I had the Czech vocabulary of a toddler and the confused doe-eyes to match, and somehow I suspected that the few Czech phrases I DID know (“What’s your name? My name is Stephanie. I’m a student.”) weren’t going to be of much help. Soon my group found itself at a grocery store searching for what turned out to be a donut, an obscure ingredient used to make cheesecake, and onions. Our tactic was fairly simple – meander the aisles, find an approachable-looking clerk or customer, and ask for the location of an item. Kinda impressive, I know. :P

The mission was a success and just like that, it was the “vikend” (<-- yes, that’s Czech). Suddenly we had time to explore the city and explore we did. Following our resident hiking-expert Kacy, we crossed Charles Bridge and hit a famous American-themed restaurant called Bohemia Bagel. The food was only so-so but man-oh-man was the eye candy delectable. Our waiter was all muscle-y and gorgeous, a real Czech hunk, a fact that Kacy and I seemed to appreciate much more than our male dining mates.

I almost forgot! Just before eating, we detoured to see what may very well be the world’s ODDEST statue: two men peeing into a tiny pond, their mmhmmhmms swiveling to draw shapes (perhaps even write their names?) in the water. Of course I took a picture (how could I NOT?!). Why this statues isn’t more famous I have no idea.

Anyway, after a lunch of eye candy and bagel sandwiches, we continued our walking tour at Lennon Wall, a formerly ordinary wall that during the communist regime transformed into monument to free speech. Every night, students would flock to the wall and under the cover of night graffiti the wall with messages of peace (often in the form of John Lennon’s song lyrics, which praised freedom – a concept foreign to the Czech people under communist rule) and calls for change, and every morning, the Communist police would whitewash the wall. But to no avail – by the next day, the wall would be covered yet again. The Lennon Wall was one of the first acts of the peaceful Czech rebellion again communism that would culminate in the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Just a couple feet farther down the road we came to a bridge absolutely covered in padlocks. In Prague, lovers traditionally affix a padlock to this bridge as a concrete symbol of their love, and today the bridge is COVERED with locks. Some are huge, some are dingy, and one is a random bike lock – but they’re all beautiful because of what they symbolize.

Our last stop on this whirlwind tour was at Prague’s “Dancing House,” an odd piece of architecture along the Vltava River. Its other nickname is “Fred and Ginger”… perhaps in this picture you can see why.

After dinner at a pizzeria, it was time to get ready for our first Friday night out in Prague. Lucky for us, it was 80s/90s night at Lucerna, a crazy fun dance club/pub, so the decision as to where to go was easy. We caught literally the last metro of the night at midnight and arrived at the already bursting-at-the-seams club within minutes. Then came the most overwhelming part of the night: dealing with coat check! There were about 50 people pushing and shoving to get to the front of the line; all you could do was throw politeness to the wind and join in the madness. Luckily I had two great “blockers” (thanks, Adrian and Diego!) so I managed to escape the area bruise-free, but other kids weren’t so lucky.

The hard part done, it was time to have some fun. Some people got drinks but others – myself included – headed straight to the dance floor to get the party started. It was a ridiculously fun night, full of all those songs you know by heart but probably shouldn’t admit knowing if you want to maintain any semblance of being cool. We danced and sang along for hours and hours til long after we were sweaty and stinky and gross – it was glorious.

Towards the wee hours of the morning, things began to go a bit crazy. And while I admit that the drunk European boys whipping their pants off and jiggling onstage contributed to the “craziness” of which I speak, I’m referring more so to the part where Adrian was roofied. Somehow, Adrian ended up with a drink of unknown origin and downed the whole thing. Turns out that drink was drugged, and before long, so was Adrian. Kate was the first to notice that something was amuck, and she grabbed me to make sure her mind wasn’t making things up. Sure enough, she was right – the boy was acting downright GOOFY. And not normal, drunk goofy, but “eyes rolling into the back of his head, petting the wall, and abnormally engrossed in the poofiness of Jake’s luscious locks” goofy. GOOFY.

Kate and I tried to get him off the stage, but he kept insisting he was fine and as he’s rather larger than us ladies, we called over Walt and Jake to help us get him out of there. Adrian got angry that we were so worried about him and stomped off, at which point I got fed up and left with Chris, Ryan, and an extremely friendly (read: shwastey-faced) Jordan. After we left, Kate went to check on Adrian again and found that he’d completely forgotten the “I’m FINE” rant from just a few minutes earlier – probably not a good sign. She somehow wrangled him into his coat and out of the club all by herself. By this point he was acting even GOOFIER, fluctuating between multiple extreme personalities (starving, excitable, depressed, paranoid, etc.). Apparently the highlight of his insanity was his belief that everyone was trying to steal his sausage (purchased for him by the patient and wonderful – daresay angelic! – Kate). After fully consuming said sausage, he then became terrified someone would attempt to steal it from his stomach, a fear so overwhelming that he was reduced to full-fledged whimpering on the public tram. Jake’s attempts to make light of the situation (“what color do you feel like?”) convinced Adrian that the real Jake had been EATEN, and that this new Jake was a much meaner version of the original. Adrian then worried that upon entering the dorm, he too would be at risk of being eaten, and almost refused to go inside. Luckily he got back safe and sound, a little sick the next morning but otherwise just fine. It’s funny in retrospect but that boy was seriously drugged – it’s terrifying to think what might’ve happened had the drug reached its intended victim.

Saturday was incredibly chill, everyone exhausted from the night before. Originally, the plan was to do something calm and laid-back that night (perhaps hit a karaoke bar) but by 9:30pm I was in the mood for something a little more exciting. Even though it was early, Rebecca, Kristina, and I decided to head to the most famous nightclub in Prague: Karlovy Lazne. Apparently the largest club in Eastern Europe, Karlovy Lazne rocks my socks. It’s a 5-story club with uniquely themed music and bars on each floor. There’s the hip-hop floor (AKA the sweaty grinding floor), the European techno floor (oonsa-oonsa), the “chill” floor (so smoky it’s like someone turned on a fog machine!), the popular-music floor (oh Lady Gaga), and my absolute favorite: the oldies floor, which we ladies promptly dubbed the “show choir floor.” On this level, they played everything from “The Twist” to “Grease Lightning,” and to put it quite simply, we OWNED the dance floor. Earlier in the evening, we were literally the only ones out there, rocking out to “Thriller” and disco and “Footloose,” but too soon we were joined by swarms of dancers (obviously inspired by our immaculate footwork). It was an amazing night. :)

On Sunday, I dragged myself out of bed bright and early to be a good Notre Dame girl and venture over to church. Walt, Kacy, and I arrived at The Church of St. Mary the Victorious much too early, but that gave us time to act like tourists before Mass began. See, this Church is home to the famous Infant Jesus of Prague, the most religiously significant statue in the city. Since its arrival in Prague from Spain in 1556, the statue has been credited with granting thousands of miracles to the people who pray at its feet. Apparently people trek from all over Europe to pray beneath this statue, and sure enough throughout mass, tourists were filing through the church, stopping to take pictures of the famous Baby with hardly a second glance at the service going on behind them. The mass itself was a little different. It was in English, but hardly anyone in attendance spoke English as a first language, so the usual responses were practically silent. The priest sang almost everything besides the homily, and the acoustics were so terrible that half the time it was impossible to make out any of his words. I was surprised to find the church completely full – the Czech Republic is considered the least religious country in all of Europe, after all!

After mass, I decided to continue my religion-themed day by visiting Prague’s Jewish Quarter. For 200czk (~$10), we got admission to four synagogues, the Old Jewish Cemetery, and the Ceremonial Hall. Altogether, these buildings make up The Jewish Museum in Prague. Originally, the Museum was founded by the Jewish community in 1906 to house important religious artifacts, but with the arrival of the Nazis in Prague in 1939, it was closed and replaced with the Nazi-approved “Central Jewish Museum.” This museum’s intention was startlingly different than the original. In light of the impending “extinction” of the Jewish religion, this new museum’s sole aim was to keep a record of Judaism for the history books. When the war ended, the museum became part-memorial and part-museum under the direction of the Council of Jewish Communities in Czechoslovakia.

Our first stop was the Pinkas Synagogue, a touching memorial to the Czech Jews killed in the Holocaust. The walls of this synagogue-turned-memorial are covered floor to ceiling with the names of the victims – thousands of names, filling rooms and rooms with not an inch of blank wall space to be found. The list is horrifying – each name represents a person; a human being with a soul, a family, a purpose. Each name marks a life snuffed out by evil, a victim to the senseless annihilation of entire families and communities. The memorial continues upstairs where there is an exhibit dedicated to the children of Terezín Concentration Camp, the youngest victims in this horrific era. It’s appropriate that directly outside the Pinkas Synagogue is the Old Jewish Cemetery. Here there are over 12,000 tombstones crammed into a small, park-size area, the oldest dating all the way back to 1439. A narrow path winds through the cemetery and it is a somber, heart-heavying walk.

Leaving the cemetery we continued our tour of the Jewish Quarter next door at the Ceremonial Hall and the Klausen Synagogue (both filled with educational exhibits about the Jewish religion, beliefs, and practices) and a little farther away, at the beautiful Spanish Synagogue and Maisel Synagogue (both containing exhibits about the history of Judaism and Jews in Eastern Europe). All were impressive, but none could compare on the entertainment scale to my accidental suction-cuppage of Alex’s rear end. The boy was FALLING, ok? I saved his LIFE.

On Monday morning we returned to the ol’ grind, class and then a groceries run. Next on my list: LAUNDRY. It had been 3 full weeks since I first stepped foot onto European soil, and I was officially OUT of underwear. I crammed all my clothes into one ginormous backpack and set off to find the Laundromat. I had a hand-drawn map courtesy of Mr. Walt, but unfortunately my cursed inability to navigate reared its ugly head and I ended up about a mile PAST the Laundromat. Not to worry – before long, I was loading my clothes into the washer and learning that laundry is ridiculously expensive here. Before long, I was back at the dorm, clean clothes in hand, getting ready for a night of self-discovery. Okay, fine, so that was a BIT of an exaggeration -- it was more a night of PUB-discovery than SELF-discovery. But it was still a kick-ass night replete with a creepy dark bar with painfully loud karaoke, a tiny 5-table bar with heavenly hot chocolate, and a gypsy man and his toddler son calling for us to come inside and smoke with them. Yes, “them.” We also stumbled upon Prague’s Television Tower, voted the 2nd ugliest building in the world. Here’s a picture so you can judge for yourself:

On Tuesday, we spent the morning in class and the afternoon on a field trip to Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. This church is famous because its crypt served as a hideout for Reinhard Heydrich’s assassins – the heroic Czech paratroopers Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík – in 1942. Heydrich, you might know, was a high-ranking Nazi official, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and the appointed governor of Moravia and Bohemia. He was single-handedly responsible for launching the Nazi’s terror tactics in the Czech lands, including the widespread torture and execution of dissidents. In retaliation for this assassination, Hitler ordered the annihilation of Lidice, a small town just northwest of Prague with apparent “ties” to the group responsible for the killing. All men over the age of 16 were murdered on the spot, the women and children shipped off to death camps, and the town itself leveled. Meanwhile, the paratroopers were hiding out in the Cathedral’s crypt with 5 other resistance fighters until someone turned them in. 800 Nazi troops attacked the cathedral but failed to catch anyone alive – those who weren’t killed in the crossfire took their own lives with their last bullets rather than be captured.

From there we ventured off to a much happier venue: the festival at Old Town Square. Despite the cold and the snow there were dozens of booths set up, some selling crafts, others selling some of the most delectable food known to mankind. The sausages were as amazing as always, but what really blew everyone away were the crepes! Whoever thought of combining banana and Nutella and putting it in a pancake should be praised as a genius. Our stomachs full, we set out to explore some more of Prague. We breezed through a tiny theatre bookstore and soon found ourselves in the most amazing vintage clothing store. Now remember, I’m the girl who hates to shop – so if I say a shop is “amazing” it must be REALLY amazing! It was a one-room store but oh my goodness! The clothes were old and used, but so authentic, so genuinely old-timey, that I just fell in love. I saw 60s hippy sundresses; 40s news-reporter-esque pencil skirts; even an aviator jacket straight out of “Forever Young.” I didn’t buy anything but I could see myself going back there, if only just to explore.

Just a bit farther down the road was a marionette shop, so of course we had to stop. Let me say right now that marionettes are CREEPY. Some are supposed to be cute – little peasant girls with big eyes and long blonde braids and the like – but even the “cute” ones make me a little antsy. Dolls should NOT move that fluidly and look that lifelike, it’s downright disturbing. There were some funny marionettes – Harry Potter, Charlie Chaplin, even Gandalf – but the majority just plain ol’ creeped me out. I suppose I can cross “marionette show” off my to-do list!

That night and the next were a wee bit boring due in large part to the fact that the Czech final – worth 50% of the final grade – was on Thursday, and there was quite a bit to learn. I hunkered down to learn my nouns and verbs and conjugations, but by Wednesday night I was in desperate need of a study break. I met up with the gang in the basement pub and somehow decided it was a good idea to play darts for the first time ever. First of all, let me remind you that I am NOT a sports stud. I can’t aim for the life of me, and “the dud” (my useless left hand) certainly doesn’t help matters much. There was no way me-and-darts was going to end up well. Regardless, I gave it a shot… and as anticipated, I failed miserably. I assumed the stance, I aimed, I threw… and time after time I kept missing the dartboard altogether. Finally, I decided I’d just CLOSE MY EYES and chuck it. After all, I couldn’t get worse, right?

RIGHT! In fact, I got better! MUCH better! I took one shot with my eyes closed and I scored a DEAD-CENTER BULLSEYE. Yes, me, Stephanie Rice, sports-failure-extraordinaire. I scored a BULLSEYE. I started screaming and jumping, running in circles and giggling like a madman. It was by far the proudest sports-related moment of my life.

My luck continued. The next morning, I aced my Czech final and then ventured off on the coolest field trip of all time – to the pub to “practice our Czech.” That evening I saw a performance by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (supposedly the best orchestra in all of Europe) AND was able to sneak out at intermission after almost falling asleep through the first hour and a half of classical music. I made it back to the dorm just in time for “family dinner” and then STILL had time to Skype the amazing Miss Maria Kim before I fell asleep. Like I said, it was a lucky day.
Friday was the last day of our Czech class, and as the final was out of the way, it was time to have some fun. We played Czech hangman for a while and then ventured off to a small cinema to see a Czech movie called “Želarý” about 1940s Czech country life from the middle of the Nazi occupation to the time of the Soviet liberation. It was an INCREDIBLE movie. If you can find a copy of it with English subtitles, I’d highly recommend it!

The fun continued that evening as “the family” gathered in Walt and Alex’s room for some pre-clubbing merriment replete with terrible dancing, even worse singing, and a few more retellings of the now infamous Alex-ass-grabbing tale. Just before midnight we took the metro to Lucerna, the same club we’d hit last week, and hit the dance floor. Tonight’s music was even more incredible than last week’s if you can believe it, encompassing everything from “Grease Lightning” to the Dirty Dancing song to the Macarena and beyond. Just my kind of music! :)

Saturday morning came much too soon. I’d barely been asleep when my alarm went off, waking me up for the AIFS-sponsored Dobŕíš Castle tour. Turns out the “castle” was actually just a chateau, no turrets or princesses or knights in sight. It was a fairly disappointing tour because of that, but also an unusually entertaining one because of the chateaux’s odd collection of paintings. I doubt I was supposed to find the works funny, but how could I not? Two separate paintings featured baby cherubs in full-on fist fights, and another captured Lord Voldemort’s look-alike in a half smirk-half grimace. Also entertaining were the booties we were required to wear so as not to scratch the old floors. All were Bozo-sized with soles so soft that walking on carpet felt remarkably similar to ice-skating.

I continued my day of culture by visiting the Museum of Communism in the afternoon. As the Czech Republic was under communist rule from 1948 through 1989, this is a particularly relevant topic here, more so because of the impending elections. Right now, 12% of the Czech population identifies with the communist party. The two largest political parties each hold 20% of the population’s support, but with votes divided among multiple candidates in these parties, the communist candidate poses a real threat. The election will be just after I depart Prague for the States (May 28-29, 2010), so it’ll be intriguing to see how everything plays out.

The museum itself was small but informative, a good overview of the history of the Czech Republic. My favorite part of the day, though, was FINALLY catching Ian on Skype. Ian AND Maria within just a few days of each other – it doesn’t get much better than that. :) (You know what WOULD make it better though? YOU skyping me. Yes, YOU. I miss YOU… whoever “you” are. So get Skyping. :P)

Congratulations on making through this incredibly long post, and til next time – Miluju ty! :)

BLOG POST 6

Before I continue this adventure, it’s necessary I introduce you to even more characters. You already know Kate, Adrian, Kacy, Jake, Ryan, and Walt, but there are a couple more key players in this Prague adventure.

First – my roommates! Our room is set up as 2 bedrooms linked by a little hallway that holds the shower/sink room, the toilet/sink room, and a tiny kitchenette with two hot plates, yet another sink (I'm starting to sense a theme), a mini fridge, and a small kitchen table. I live with Rebecca, also known as the girl in the dark black glasses. This lady is a KOOK rivaling even me on the hyper scale and I love her. When she’s not busy being a ridiculously entertaining and kick-ass journalist/spam writer, she’s either skyping with her dancing boyfriend or hitting the town. Our suitemates are Becca (the “juvie” from Texas I mentioned before who’s surprisingly less like a convict than I expected) and Michelle (chef extraordinaire and future food critic). Together, we’re the ladies of S326 and S328, bound together by an overflowing shower, a critical shortage of toilet paper, and the woes of fitting four girls’ food in one small fridge.

As for the loonies outside my room, I start first and foremost with Alex (and not just because he promises to write my first comment… *wink wink*). This dude was either a comedian or a court jester in his last life because he’s literally ALWAYS making us crack up. He has a flair for the dramatic and a slyly goofy nature that comes out at the most random moments. He’s also quite the stud in his Waldo hat. Then there’s Ian, who I like to think of as the mysterious one. He’s all calm and cool, the traditional Marlboro Texas cowboy, but then he’s always surprising me – turns out he’s a killer dancer, a fishing expert, and a Sherlock-Holmes-with-a-pipe lookalike all in one. Who’da thunk?

Jordan is my polar opposite (at least on the music front). She’s a chain-smoking hotsy totsy little lady, and we all love her to death. Chris is more commonly known as the dude in the cowboy hat. An awesome writer and a ready laugher, he’s all-around pretty darn cool. Jessica and I are the resident non-beer-lovers of the group, but that lady’s even more awesome than me (a hard feat, I know) because she can pop-drop-and-lock like it’s her business. Sign me up to go dancing with this chick ANY day. Stephanie with the forever-forgotten last name is the traditional best friend type: sweet, kind, wholesome, and caring, I know that lady’s got my back no matter what. And finally, the infamous Diego (Adrian’s long-lost roomie from Venezuela): a sarcastic little smartass who somehow keeps me giggling 24/7. He sounds like Puss in Boots and acts like a 7-year-old looking for naughty fun. Dude ROCKS.

This is a lot of the “family” but I’m sure I’ll be introducing more and more characters in the future blogs. For now, though, we’re all set to continue the adventure.


Feb. 5, 2010

After a late night of dancing, I was so awake and full of energy that I stayed up til 6am, updating my blog and facebook photo albums. Perhaps not the wisest of decisions that I’ve made, but as Thursday’s first event was at 1:30pm, I was still able to get a full “night” of sleep.

First stop today was at the AIFS Office to pick up our official Charles University student ID cards. Turns out the ID cards weren’t actually at the office – they herded us there to stagger our arrivals at the actual ID office so as not to overwhelm the staff. I didn’t mind; I LOVE the AIFS Office. There’s free internet, free printing, free water, and free toilets, but even more wonderful is that to get to the 3rd floor office (4th floor for ye Americans who don’t call the ground floor “floor 0”) you can take the CONTINUOUS ELEVATORS! I’m totally taking a video of these contraptions the next time I’m there – they’re mad fun.

They took us on a long roundabout walk to get to the ID place and by the time we arrived we were all a little windswept and red-nosed, making for rather entertaining ID photos. From there we wandered to Wenceslas Square to find the classroom building on Jindrisska Street where the majority of us will have our Czech language courses. On the way we stopped for street sausages, the kind that brought me to foodgasm last time. I decided to be all adventurous and get a different type of sausage – the whiter #13 instead of my usual, redder #11. Worst decision of the day. It wasn’t disgusting but it just wasn’t #11. Boo.

By this time, we’d been walking outside for about an hour and holy crap, were we freezing! Next on the schedule was a walking tour of Prague with ECES but because of the cold about half the people opted out of it. The “ditchers” took off for a local pub and I have to admit, I was mighty tempted to join them. Instead I grabbed some tea and warmed up as best I could.

Before long the tour started and we found ourselves following the tour guide past the Jewish Quarter, over a bridge, and on the funicular for a ride up Petrín Hill. The whole time our tour guide spoke into a microphone about the sights we were passing while we listened via earpieces. I felt all secret agent walking around with an earpiece, like I was Sydney Bristow. Super cool.

We stopped at a bunch of landmarks, my favorite of which was a giant replica of the Eiffel Tower only 2 years younger than the original. The best part of the entire tour, though, was not even planned. There’s a long path down a steep hill that connects the Eiffel Tower to the Castle, and we planned to walk it. Little did we know that yesterday’s brief warm spell combined with today's plunging temperatures had created a new layer of thick, slick ice – so much ice in fact that the stairs on the path were no longer stairs, but just one long, sleek ice slide. We tried to walk down at first, but that just wasn’t gonna happen – one person and then another and another lost their footing and slid, unable to stop or even slow themselves the whole way down. Go and look at the video I posted just prior to this entry and watch closely. They’re sliding down a STAIRCASE! I kept trying to walk upright and each time, within seconds, found myself on my hiney sliding down the hill. Allie was in absolute heaven – somehow she made it back up the hill to slide down all over again! It was quite the adventure, and definitely the best laugh I’ve had in a while.

The remainder of the tour was anticlimactic. I kept bursting into giggles every time I remembered the accidental sledding experience. Everyone had wet bums – some from the snow, others from… well… you can figure it out.

After the tour ended we hit the grocery store to prepare for our first ever FAMILY DINNER! Tonight, Allie was the brave soul who volunteered to be head chef. She made chicken curry, Jake made wild rice, Kacy made fresh salad with cheese and apples, and I steered clear of the kitchen rather than risk setting something on fire. Everyone contributed: I brought dessert, Kate and Adrian brought wine, Diego brought champagne, Walt and Alex provided the kitchen and utensils, and we all took part in the glory known as family dinner. It reminded me of last August’s pre-going-abroad “family dinner” with Lucy, Sarah, TKaps, and Mikey. :)

The dinner was a brilliantly improvised success. We drank wine from beer mugs, mixed the salad in a shopping bag, and even shared plates (*cough cough Alex and Diego*). It was ridiculously delicious – Allie, you are a kick-ass cook! After dinner we cleaned up and randomly decided to watch the cave episode of “Planet Earth” on a laptop. All in all, it was a wonderful, happy, gloriously kooky night.


Friday, Feb. 6, 2010

Today I woke up bright and early to pack for the AIFS weekend trip to Moravia, a region in the southern part of the Czech Republic. By 10:30am, we were all loaded on the buses and on our way. It was a long drive with only one real stop, at the 13th century era church in the small town of Tišnov. The church itself was as grand and ornate as it seems all are in Europe, but what really made it stand out from the rest was its epically beautiful cloister. I can only imagine how beautiful it must be in the summer because even in the freezing cold with snow covering every surface it was still breathtaking. I could just imagine myself hundreds of years in the past, meandering serenely along it in a flowing gown. It was like I was on a movie set, but better because of course this was real life!

The only downside to Tišnov was the fact that we weren’t allowed to use the toilets there – apparently the pipes were frozen! Many of us ladies had to GO, so the final 30-minute ride to the hotel in Brno was a tense, sit-on-your-foot, don’t-you-dare-make-me-giggle adventure. We arrived, got our room keys, and dashed upstairs.

The meeting time for dinner was 6pm so we had about 2 hours to explore Brno on our own. A couple of us headed out for a walk only to discover that we were in the boondocks of the city. Our street had one grocery store and a bunch of shady-looking unmarked buildings. We walked for a while and found a whole slew of bars/casinos in a row, plus one random second-hand shop that seemed to specialize in 80s prom dresses. We eventually entered a bar and greeted the waitress in Czech. Ohh, was she pissed. Honestly, we said two words in Czech and her response was “****. English.” I actually don’t know WHAT word she said there, but it was short and harsh and could easily have been a Czech swear word.

We got a round of drinks and just hung out, biding our time til dinner, and at 6pm we were back on Bus #1 on the way to the restaurant. Turns out it was a full hour away, so to stay entertained we sang along to Kacy’s I-pod (“she’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers!” :P). Finally we arrived at the Templar Order Restaurant in the town of Ĉejkovice. This place was amazing. Back in the 12th century when the Templar Order was flourishing, it ordered the construction of hundreds of miles of underground, stone tunnels. Today, this branch of the tunnels is half restaurant-half wine cellar, where they store casks of aging wine alongside “archives” of the best wines from every year. First we ate, and man oh man was the food amazing. I had a pork/almond dish with the most hearty, delicious mashed potatoes I’ve ever tasted. Granted it was almost 8pm by the time the food arrived, so I was hungry enough to find even poop on a stick delicious, but it was nonetheless a great meal. We sat at 2 long tables arranged Hogwarts style and decked out with wine glasses and cloth napkins, the whole shebang.

We then went on a tour of the wine cellars, following a petite, grandmotherly Czech woman as she narrated in Czech and Jana translated in English. There is just so much wine down there! A couple of the casks are ridiculously large – one could hold an entire band with room to spare. The coolest thing of all, though, was how much the tour guide looked like Grandma Clem. The resemblance was just uncanny – it really made me wonder whether I have some Czech in my blood.

The tour ended and the wine tasting began. The waiters brought out bottles upon bottles of white and red wines, representing various vineyards and multiple years. I had a glass of white wine and stopped, but most people went to town. We were there for at least an hour and by the time we got back on the bus, people were DRUNK. I thought the bus ride here was crazy; the bus ride back was even CRAZIER.

We got to the hotel and while most people hurried off to the bar for more drinks, I called it a night and within minutes fell fast asleep.


Sat., Feb. 7, 2010

This morning started off on the right note with a killer breakfast buffet. The oranges were amazing and even Kristi (the official Rice carb-ivore) would have approved of the massive bread selection. I had some sort of shmere called “hazelnut cocoa cream” that just blew my mind. It looked like chocolate/vanilla pudding and tasted like heaven – I’ve got to see if I can get some in Prague!

At 10am we pulled out and drove about 40-min to the town of Slavkov where we toured the battlefield of Austerlitz. In 1805, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte fought his most famous battle here against the Austrian Emperor Francis and the Russian Tsar Alexander. Appropriately, it is known as “The Battle of Three Emperors.” Today, Austerlitz is just a long, rolling field with a large memorial (called the Memorial of Peace) on Prace Hill in the center of the battlefield. There’s a small but intriguing museum beside it that uses 80s-era audiovisuals to tell the story of the battle and Napoleon’s decisive victory. People seemed to especially love the gift shop here. Rebecca, for one, bought a dagger (a replica, not a sharp one), which I of course stole and ran off with to take silly pictures and terrify people.

The next stop was Gregor Mendel’s Garden and Museum, but after parking, unloading, and reaching the entrance, we discovered it was closed. Oops! We’d rushed to stay on schedule but now had way more time than anticipated, a full 2 hours to get lunch before meeting for a walking tour of Brno. My group grabbed 2 tables at a little café in the center of town and took our time eating.

One thing that I’ve noticed about the Czech Republic is that at pretty much every restaurant, you receive a bread basket and then get charged based on the number of pieces of bread you consume. A piece averages only about 25cents, but the “no free bread + no free refills” mentality made me an unhappy camper for a while. I’m getting used to it slowly but surely, but one thing I am NOT and will NEVER get used to is the dearth of toilets in Europe! It seems that “public restrooms” are a foreign concept, and even when you find toilets, you usually have to pay for them. It’s rarely more than 5kc (about 25cents) but it still feels unnatural to have to PAY to pee!

Another thing that’s different is that most buildings are barely (if at all) heated. I find that I’m chilly just about wherever I go, especially on tours where we spend most time either outside or in absolutely bone-chillingly cold churches, caves, passageways, etc. My dorm room tends to be chilly too, but thanks to a ridiculously warm comforter, that’s rarely a problem.

Anyway, back to Brno. At 3pm we met our tour guide in the main square and set off to see the town. Mom would’ve liked this lady – she was quick and to the point, and she didn’t wait around for stragglers (“slow people don’t get stuff”). At one point I stayed back with about 1/3 of the group to take pictures, and she and the rest of the group just disappeared. We searched for them for maybe 10 minutes before calling people still WITH her to get directions to rendezvous with them again. The lady also embraced another Rice family tradition: climbing. It seemed that any time we found stairs we went up them. We didn’t have time to go to the tip-top of Brno’s main cathedral, but I can bet that if we did, she would have led the charge up the stairs. All in all, it was a tiring but also great introduction to the town.

Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic (Prague is #1) but isn’t even close to being a bustling metropolis. It’s a quiet, kind of gloomy town with communist-era utilitarian buildings interspersed with beautiful, old-time buildings. There’s a constant layer of smog hovering over the city and a generally somber air about the people. While I was there, I found myself missing Prague.

The tour ended where it began, and at this point the group dispersed. A couple people headed off to find an ice-skating rink (an endeavor that ended with them far out of town and turned away from the rink because the ice was “bad”), but as today was my first day not wearing an ankle wrap since I sprained it, I decided it was better to be safe than sorry, and I didn’t go with them. Instead, Diego, Chris, and I returned to the Cathedral hoping to climb to the top of the spire but by the time we got there, it was already closed. We wandered around a bit before returning to the main square and beginning the long trek back to the hotel. In retrospect, trying to navigate an unfamiliar city in the dark was probably not a wise decision. What should have been a 15 minute walk turned into an hour-long adventure involving multiple pit stops to ask for directions, an illegal tram ride (we couldn’t find the ticket machine but we snuck on anyway), and aching feet all around. Thank god I had walked around the hotel area yesterday, because when we got to the right part of town I was able to lead us back. It felt so good to walk into the heat of the lobby!

We warmed up for a bit and then went to dinner at the hotel restaurant. I was absolutely exhausted from the day and I had a chill that I just couldn’t shake, so after dinner I went to my room to take a hot shower, write a bit, and then pass out.


Sunday, Feb. 8, 2010

I woke up this morning way too early, just not tired anymore. I wasted a bit of time but still got downstairs a full hour and a half before departure time. It actually worked out – there was no line for the internet AND I didn’t have to fight the AIFS hordes for breakfast. Morning success!

By 9:45 everyone was gathered in the lobby, packed and ready to go. Our first stop: Gregor Mendel’s garden and museum, which had been closed yesterday. The garden itself was unspectacular: just a snow-covered plot within the monastery’s walls. The museum, too, was a stretch, as it covered all of Mendel’s life rather than just his science-altering gardening hobby. I saw his original peas (they look oddly like kibble nowadays) and his spectacles, and I read a lot of signs about his contribution to genetics, but probably my favorite part of the museum was the gift shop where they had some hilarious shirts. I also loved the fact that I can now say with absolute sincerity that I’ve been to a “Pea Museum” (ha-ha!).

After another hour on the bus we arrived at the coolest part of Moravia so far: the Moravian Karst system, a series of underground caves replete with rivers, soaring holes that allow smidgeons of light to peek through from the far-distant surface, stalactites and stalagmites (some joining to form columns), and a multitude of other beautiful sights. It was about a 15-minute walk on a VERY ice path to get to the cave entrance, but at least THIS path was level!

Soon we were descending through narrow cave tunnels approaching the vaulted ceiling of the cave’s first chamber. From there we continued to walk, passing a vast underground lake and many rock formations that seemed to defy gravity before we finally emerged from the depths of the earth only to find ourselves at the bottom of a massive crater ringed by snowy trees far above. It was absolutely breathtaking.

We returned underground and within minutes found ourselves at a dock, a boat waiting to transport us along a narrow, winding, underground river. I boarded the first boat and off we went, so close to the rocks that from time to time I found myself leaning to get out of the way of rocks in our path. It felt like a ride at Disney World (Pirates of the Caribbean, perhaps) but 100x cooler because it was REAL. Eventually we emerged from the cave and docked in the sunlight, but the ride had been so amazing that I didn’t want it to be over.

The walk back to the main area was an adventure in and of itself. The icy path had somehow gotten icier, and a couple of us had fairly spectacular wipeouts. I pulled a “Cool Running” and took Adrian down with me when I toppled, but Alex’s fall was by far the most entertaining. I have no idea how this happened but he did a sort of sideways flip before landing, sending his inhaler skittering out of his pocket and away on its own. He looked up, his Waldo hat askew and his face is a state of absolute befuddlement about how he’d reached the ground, and it was possibly one of the most hilarious, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” moments I’ve ever witnessed.

Luckily we got back to the buses unscathed, and after a quick lunch we were off to our final stop in Moravia, the small town of Adamov. Here we visited a church to see a beautiful carved altar from the 16th century, but it was so cold in the church that I could barely appreciate it.

Finally we were back on the bus and heading “home” to Prague. It was an uneventful ride, and within hours we were back to the dorm, ready to unpack and hit the hay in anticipation of tomorrow’s first day of Czech class.

BLOG POST 5

February 3, 2010

Today I journeyed to Kutná Hora, home of the infamous Sedlec Bone Church and man! was it a boring day. Our tour guide was a total dud – he knew his facts but he presented them so bone-dry and in such a nonlinear fashion that in the end all that came out of his mouth was “blah blah blah.” I learned next to nothing… but at least the drive was beautiful, right?

Our first stop was an hour away from Prague at a castle called Ĉeský Ŝternberk. It was gorgeous from the outside, a large stone fortress surrounded by thick stone walls, all perched atop a hill bathed white in snow. When we first entered the courtyard we were greeted by the smell of grilling sausages and hot mulled wine (officially my favorite cold-weather alcoholic beverage of all time) and the beautiful view of a small village nestled in the valley below the hill.

The inside of the castle, however, was a letdown. The rooms, the art, and the furniture all showed their age, looking more beat-up than majestic. We explored from a bit and then continued our bus ride to the town of Kutná Hora, about 45-minutes away. Our tour guide took us on a walking tour of downtown but his confusing and circuitous speech pattern combined with his quiet voice and lack of microphone lulled the majority of us into a zoned-out (almost zombie-esque) stupor. He took us from one old building to another, but I couldn’t tell you anything he said.

Finally it was time for a lunch break. My group of 8 ended up at an absolutely empty pub where the language barrier was a definite issue. I thought I ordered one meal but ended up getting something unidentifiable. I recognized ham and cheese and what looked like uncooked chili but tasted like week-old sloppy joes. I ate because I was hungry, but it tasted downright funky.

The tour continued at St. Barbara’s Cathedral, famous for its flying buttresses and stained glass windows, and ended at the Sedlec Bone Church. This place is absolutely RIDICULOUS. All its decorations are made from the human bones collected from 40,000 plague victims. There are crosses, chandeliers, even pyramids of bones stacked artistically atop one another. I don’t think words alone can do justice to the mega-creepiness of this church, so I've attached some pictures to the top of this post. "Czech" them out!

WEIRD, right?! Anyway, after a long and somewhat tedious day, we drove back to Prague and arrived around 6pm. By then, I felt super nauseated. I’m not sure whether I was carsick or whether my stomach was rejecting the nasty ingredients in lunch, but I thought I was going to be sick. I went back to my room straightaway to take some Pepto and a short nap. I woke up hours later feeling MUCH better. By then it was already 11 o’clock, so I had to hurry to get ready for a night on the town. We ended up going to an awesome pub/dance club called Chapeau Rouge. Considering it was a Wednesday night, there were a TON of people there. Many of them were AIFS students, especially the ones on the dance floor, but there were also local Czechs and one creepy homeless man who just stood at the bar waiting for people to buy him drinks. I spent the whole night going bonkers on the dance floor grooving to the European techno beats, and it ended up being a crazy awesome night. Getting back to the dorm was a definite challenge because the metro was closed and none of us were all too familiar with the tram system, but tonight it was Jake to the rescue, single-handedly navigating four ladies home safe and sound. (That dude seriously rocks.)

I knew it’s only been one week since I left home, but already I can say with utter certainty that I LOVE Prague.

BLOG POST 4

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We went out at night to go to a black-light theatre show, but when we arrived at the box office, we found out that not only was it mega-expensive, but it was also sold out for the night. That made the decision pretty easy. With the night now totally open, we took our time meandering around Wenceslas Square, eventually branching away from it to find a good place to get dinner. We approached one place called “Cabaret” figuring “ooh a show!” Yeah, no… it was definitely a strip club. The dude at the entrance offered Kate and I free admission but in a superbly creepy “and if you want, you can audition to work here” kind of way, so we skedaddled out of there as fast as possible. I realized at that point that there were MANY “cabarets” on the street we were on. How we ended up in this district I have no idea, but we high-tailed it out of there.

We ended up having dinner at a pizza place and then heading straight back to the dorm for an early night.


Tuesday, February 02, 2010

When I got on the bus for the group trip to Terezín Concentration Camp today, I knew it would a somber field trip. What I grossly underestimated was just how much I would be affected by the experience.

We boarded the bus at 8:45am and made the hour-long journey outside Prague to the central containment camp. The ride itself was beautiful – I spent the whole time looking out the window, watching beautiful small villages and majestic snowy landscapes sweep by. It was just like any other bus trip – half the people were sleeping, and the other half were listening to the tour guide narrate the history of the Czech Republic as we rolled through it. I was in the latter, “awake” half. It was a fun bus ride thanks in large part to the lady’s interesting pronunciation of certain words: “faculty” became “fuck-ulty,” “success” became “sex-ess,” and “astronomers” became “astronoms.” Lord knows I’ll be messing up more than that when I attempt to speak Czech, but it was still a good giggle.

Around 10am we arrived, and the giggly mood vanished. Pulling into the parking lot we saw a long, snowy field covered with tombstones, and suddenly the reality of the situation set in. Here, thousands of people were killed while thousands of others awaited deportation to death camps further east, their futures almost certainly doomed. The high brick walls with barbed wire at the top are still there, the barracks still standing. The shower room is still accessible, the gallows still intact. And here I was, staring at a place of unimaginable horrors, about to pass through the gates that thousands had entered, never to exit, years ago.

Stepping off the bus, the first sight to reach my eyes was the cemetery grounds covered with hundreds of graves, a few marked but the majority anonymous. After the war, Christians and Jews worked together to construct the cemetery as a type of memorial, and today, the cemetery includes a giant cross and a giant Star of David, side by side. We passed the cemetery and walked through the gates into the camp.

First, let me give you the context. This particular camp was for political prisoners and captured resistance fighters, more a prison than a “death camp.” Hundreds lost their lives to torture, disease, execution, and malnutrition, but mass extermination was not this camp’s primary goal. In fact, the Nazis even brought Red Cross inspectors to this prison as “proof” of their ethical methods. The majority of what they showed the Red Cross though – for example, the “shaving” rooms, replete with mirrors and sinks – were no more than a sham. The prisoners had no access to these facilities; they were living in squalor and misery despite the fact that such facilities were there. That’s just beyond despicable.

We walked through one holding cell that used to hold 60 prisoners, but had no furniture, no toilet beyond a bucket, and could barely fit even the 40 students on the tour. Another room was the size of a classroom, but it held up to 90 people. This room had three levels of bunk beds cushioned only by wood, only one toilet, and a sink that spit out undrinkable water. I can’t even imagine what it was like back then; the living conditions are absolutely atrocious even now, and this is the cleaned-up, tourist-friendly version of history.

Our last stop was at the cinema to watch a film comprised entirely of material from a Nazi propaganda film. While the images of smiling, happy, “relocated” Jews played, the narrator quoted the figures so carefully kept by the Nazis: “Train A23. 1,000 people transported. 2 survived. Train A54. 1,000 people transported. None survived.” All in all, most of Terezín’s 155,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Once the film ended, we were given 15 minutes to explore on our own. There was only one thing I wanted to do. I exited the camp and returned to the cemetery where I choked back tears as I prayed for the victims and the survivors.

The bus was absolutely silent as we rode to our next stop, the Jewish ghetto in the town of Terezín where the Nazis imprisoned 60,000 Jews awaiting deportation to death camps. The prisoners’ sole “crime” was their religion. In spite of the Nazis’ attempts to weaken their spirits, the Jews thrived – at least artistically – while in the ghetto. Today there is a museum that houses an incredible number of paintings and literary works, all created by the Jews while imprisoned in the ghetto. The most touching and disturbing part of this collection is the many drawings done by imprisoned children, all but 100 of whom eventually perished in the Holocaust. Their drawings range from pictures of daily life in camp to images of happy memories from a time before the war, and all are accompanied with the artist’s name… and date of death. As I write this, tears are coming to my eyes again… I literally can’t find words to describe how much it hurts to think of the children and their fates.

The next stop was a bit less somber. We visited a secret Jewish prayer room hidden in a bakery and used throughout the duration of the war. Today, the walls are cracked and the paint is peeling, but you can still see prayers written in Hebrew on the walls. The room isn’t big – it’s a windowless, concrete room about the size of a small dorm room, but it was breathtaking nonetheless. The idea that in the face of all this evil people were able to hold onto their faith… that idea gave me the first glimpse of hope in the face of so much evil. That idea – not the appearance – was what made the room breathtaking.

We took a quick detour for lunch before continuing the tour at a museum documenting various contributions to the fine arts by the Terezín Jews. It was amazing the work they produced – plays, operas, musical compositions, epic poems, and especially drawings. My favorites were the drawings by Otto Ungar. He drew the people he saw in the ghetto – children playing with dolls, elderly couples holding hands, moms with babies, and a whole slew of faces. No names, no descriptions, just faces – some smiling, some somber, all absolutely beautiful in their own ways. Seeing these faces – these eyes staring into mine – and knowing their fates gives me the chills, even now.

Our final stop before heading home was at the crematorium. Here, I finally lost it. My god – the destruction of human life was so common, so blasé. Rampant death wasn't a tragedy but a hassle because it overwhelmed the crematorium’s ability to burn through the bodies. How is it possible to witness death and consider it normal? How could humans beings be such heartless beasts? I’ll never understand.

The bus back to the hotel was incredibly quiet, everyone busy processing the day’s sights. We arrived back at the dorm and tried to act normal, but of course you can’t just forget. A numb sort of feeling settled in, at least for me, and I just couldn’t keep the images of what I saw out of my mind. I distracted myself the rest of the day – I went on the internet, I went out to dinner at a pizzeria in town, and I hung out with my roomies – but by nighttime I was just exhausted. I fell asleep early hoping today’s images wouldn’t haunt my dreams.

BLOG POST 3

Before I continue my story, I better introduce another couple key characters. You’ve met Adrian, Kate, and Ryan, but that’s only a tiny portion of the gang. There’s Allie, the snow-loving South Carolinean whose biggest desire, it seems, is to go sledding. She can be found traversing Prague in an oversized poofy winter coat with little pigtails, and she’s the group’s appointed “mule” – by bringing a backpack, she won the honor of lugging around everyone’s random crap. An awesome little lady. Then there’s Kacy, my usual partner in crime when it comes to shenanigans. The girl’s got the most infectious giggle imaginable plus she likes Deerfield – she’s just an all-around winner in my book. Next up is Jake, the Murph look-alike. I’d say he has a kick-ass sense of humor, but as he voted me least likely to survive in jail, I’ll be holding back any compliments today. Take that, Jake. We can’t forget Walt, the boy who shares his name with Disney and his tolerance level with Ghandi. See, with a name like Walt, there are only too many puns: “Where’s Walt-o?” and “Wall-e!” are two of my favorites, yet the boy has yet to throttle me. Yay for tolerance. I suppose I’ll pause there for now lest you start mixing up the characters, but expect more introductions in my next post.


January 30, 2010 (continued)

Anyway, when I left off last, we had arrived at Old Town Square as a gawking clump o’ tourists. We stood mesmerized in the center of the square while some people exchanged American dollars for Czech crowns and accidentally caught the “on-the-hour, every hour” show at the Astronomical Clock. Rick Steves describes this old-fashioned (and honestly, quite lame) show really well: “At the top of the hour, Death tips his hourglass and pulls the cord, ringing the bell, then the windows open and the 12 apostles parade by acknowledging the crowd of onlookers; then the rooster crows; and then the hour is rung.”

After this famous but utterly forgettable ordeal, we began wandering the streets of Prague, keeping careful not to slip on the ice everywhere. We were looking for a place to eat dinner, but since lunch is the main meal of the day in the Czech Republic, a surprising number of restaurants were closed. The walk itself was beautiful what with the old buildings, the sweeping spires, and the snow gently falling, but I definitely appreciated when we walked into the heated restaurant and were able to rest our feet for a while. Only one waiter there spoke any English, so it was kind of a challenge to order. Somehow we ended up ordering 2 large baskets of bread for the table (some blamed Kate; I blamed the language barrier) but the meal itself was delicious and wonderfully filling. We left and within minutes were on a metro heading home to Masarykova Kolej ready to unpack and pass out after this long day.


January 31, 2010

Today started fairly slow and relaxed. Somehow I had ended up with all the leftover bread from last night’s dinner (at least a loaf’s worth) so Kate, Adrian, my suitemate Michelle, and I had a nice little lazy breakfast of bread and shmere in our kitchenette. At 11am, we met in the lobby of the dorm and split into 4 groups for a walking/orientation tour of Prague. First, we walked from the dorm to the metro and then rode to the main building of Charles University, where the majority of our classes will be held. From there it was only about a 5 minute walk to Old Town Square, and WOW – the square was even more beautiful in the daylight! Jana (our tour guide) led us all over town, from her favorite coffee shop to the AIFS office to Tesco (the main department/grocery store in town), and then back to Charles University. We had time to grab a quick lunch, so we hit a sandwich shop down the street and practiced our Czech. At this point, all I can say is please (“pro-seem”), thank you (“dyek-oo-ee”), and good day (“do-bree den”) but I was still fairly proud when I was understood.

Next up on the agenda was an orientation meeting in the main building with Marketa, the AIFS director. It was mostly an administrative meeting (fill out this form, yadda yadda) but she talked about a couple of interesting cultural differences. For one, the Czech people are more likely to be blunt (to an extent that might be considered “rude” by American standards). They are also less likely to be as open or outgoing as Americans, mainly because only a couple decades they were under a communist regime that forced them to censor their words or risk punishment. I’m sure I’ll discover more as I go.

The meeting ended by 4pm and my group was off yet again, trekking through the city to run errands. First stop was Vodaphone where we all got cheap pre-paid cell phones so that we’ll be able to communicate with one another while we’re here. I made sure to program in everyone’s phone numbers because more likely than not, I’ll be lost and in need of directions a LOT. Our next stop was Tesco, the giant, 5-story department store selling everything from milk to Barbies to camping supplies. I bought groceries, a hair straightener, and hand soap for the suite’s central bathroom – definitely wise investments. I was surprised by how cheap the groceries were compared to at home, but I guess it makes sense considering the great exchange rate. By now it was approaching 8pm and we had been on our feet almost all day. I was tired and hungry, a little grumpy because my ankle was feeling sore, and ready for food and a nap. I perked up after a delicious gyros dinner but I puttered out by about 11pm, exhausted from the walking and the overload of information we’d received throughout the day.


February 1, 2010

I woke up wonderfully refreshed and happy, ready to take on the new day. At 9am Marketa led the group from the main lobby to the metro station, with the intention of leading us to the ECES orientation in the Mirror Chapel from there. However, the group had to split to fit everyone on the metro, and I ended up in the first group. Rather than wait for Marketa, we decided to set off on our own, fairly confident we knew where we were going. A couple minutes later we were near Old Town Square -- definitely NOT where we were supposed to be. By now, I wasn’t even phased by the idea of getting lost – it’s happened so much this past week, it’s almost a GIVEN I won’t know where I am most of the time. We had to ask a few people on the streets for directions (note to self: learn how to say “do you speak English?”!!) and what should’ve been a 5 minute walk took more like 20 minutes. Turns out the Mirror Chapel was practically next door to the original metro stop… oh well. You live, you learn, I suppose! We entered the meeting about 10 minutes late, and nabbed the last seats in the very back of the chapel. Most of the speakers repeated what Marketa had told us yesterday, and I zoned out for quite a while. By the time they released us, I was bored out of my mind and ready to get moving.

We navigated our way through town to the AIFS office, one metro stop and a short walk away from the Mirror Chapel. Here we could use the computers to check email, print out our schedules for next week, etc. We also had to turn in a refundable 500kc (~$28) deposit for all the trips this semester, the idea being that if we misbehaved, we’d lose the deposit. We also had a chance to look through the list of cultural activities for January and sign up for those that looked especially appealing. Adrian, Allie, Kate, and I signed up for a lot of the same ones, including 3 shows: an opera, “Romeo and Juliet” the ballet, and the Philharmonic Orchestra. (And we’re seeing a black-light theatre show on our own tonight – man, I feel cultured!) All of the shows and activities are included in the semester’s tuition, so I’m going to try and do as many of the cultural activities offered as possible.

From the AIFS office we made stops at Tesco, Vodaphone, and an adaptor shop to load up on the miscellaneous items we’d forgotten to pack. Our last stop before heading back to the dorm was at a food stand on the street. These things are amazing: they’re like hot dog stands, but prettier and with more options. We all got traditional sausages on baguettes (the Czech version of hot dogs, I suppose) and they were DELICIOUS. I’ve never tried real sausage before in my life, and I absolutely LOVED the taste. I’ll definitely be trying more while I’m here this semester.

BLOG POST 2

"Ahoj" from Prague, everyone! I apologize for not updating this blog yet, I haven't had access to internet over the past couple of days as I've been traveling through London and Munich en route to Prague. I'm officially settled in the dorm, and I'll be transcribing my travel journal little by little, so bear with me. I promise it'll be up to date soon :). For now, here's entry #1!



Wednesday, January 26, 2010.
7:30pm, Chicago.

Well, America, it’s time I bid you farewell – for a little while, at least. I’m off to the land of loo’s, queues, and dashing blokes. That’s right, I’m off to merry ol’ England, my first stop on a roundabout trip to my new home in the Czech Republic. I’m sitting by the British Airways gate in O’Hare Airport, watching the snow pummel down outside as the GateGourmet food (wait -- food?! on a plane?! they’re gonna feed us!!) is loaded onto the plane. One gate over, Swiss Airlines is boarding for Zurich; on the other side, flight attendants are making the “final call” for Abu Dhabi.

I’m hunkered down at gate M 11, people-watching and practicing my cursive mirror-writing (thank you, al-trig sophomore year of high school) to waste time before boarding. At first I was puttering around staring aimlessly into space, but then I caught the attention of this tiny baby. He started staring at me, not blinking, monitoring my every move until I got so creeped out that I quit meandering and moved to my own little corner, in my own little chair, where I could be whatever I wanted to be.

Enough blabbering. Perhaps by my next post, I’ll actually have something interesting to report. Cheerio, chaps!


3am (Chicago time), 10am London time.

Bloody hell, that was NOT enough sleep. I’d say more, but we’re about to land. So bugger off, you.





Friday, January 28, 2010.
It has been an absolutely amazing 2 days in London. When I left off last, I hadn’t even landed yet. But here I am, alive and well, a master at navigation (or rather, a stud at choosing friends who can navigate while I scratch my head in wonder), and a seasoned Londoner.

When the plane touched down yesterday morning at 10am, I was jetlagged and grumpy, running on 2 hours of sleep and not even a sip of Mountain Dew to save me. I stumbled through an eerily empty customs and baggage claim and found the AIFS rep almost immediately. Within minutes, students from three separate flights had gathered and we were off to the hotel.

Before long we were all checked in. I plopped my bags in my room and headed out with 5 other ladies to explore. First, our group walked down the street to grab some lunch at a traditional British pub. Fish and chips + British beer = a perfect “welcome to London” meal! J My favorite part might’ve been ordering a beer and NOT getting carded. I love that I’m not underage here!
Just across from the pub was the entrance to Hyde Park, so we decided to walk over there next – the hard part, though, was crossing the street to get there. Thank goodness the Brits have idiot-proof directions painted on the ground (“look left” / “look right”) because I was utterly discombobulated by the whole driving-on-the-other-side-of-the-road thing. Plus, because the streets are so narrow, when the double-decker buses pass one another, they come within inches of touching. Seriously, from the top of one bus, I could high-five a person on a neighboring bus – they’re THAT close!

Hype Park was… well… a park. I was cold and jetlagged and super NOT into walking around aimlessly, so after a bit I broke from the group and headed back to the hotel by myself. BAD IDEA. We were only a couple of blocks away from the hotel, yet somehow I managed to get completely lost walking back to the hotel. I ended up in a residential area and what should have been a 10-minute walk turned into a 40-minute escapade but – thank god! – I eventually stumbled upon the hotel. Alleluia!

I got back to the room and even though I felt naughty after all the “don’t nap! You’ll only make the jetlag worse!” warnings, I konked out almost immediately and slept straight through until my alarm went off, waking me for the 6pm cocktail reception in the lobby. I got all purty-ed up and headed down to meet the 71 other AIFS-ers along on this semester-long adventure with me.
It was a cocktail reception and one glass of wine later, I already felt a little tipsy, so I figured it was best to sneak out a bit early and head to dinner. I met up with my friends in the lobby and we hit the town. First stop: FOOD. We hit the pub and downed some British beer – mine was a type of hard cider (surprisingly good!) – and incredible quantities of food. From there it was on to the tube station for a night on the town.

Before I continue, let me introduce a couple key characters you’ll be meeting in the next scene. First: Kate, a dramaturgy major (HOW COOL IS THAT?!) from Carnegie Mellon, super sweet and perhaps the most theatrically-knowledgeable person I’ve ever met. Nest: Adrian, charmer extraordinaire and the king of navigation. And finally: Ryan, the spitting image of BDavs (poofy hair and all).

Somehow the boys navigated the group through the tube system all the way to Trafalgar Square where we hit up Club Metra, a flashy dance club packed to the brim with Brits and foreigners alike. After a couple drinks, Kate and I hit the dance floor and found ourselves swarmed by boys from Denmark and Spain – and holy crap, could they dance! The Spanish boys especially, they were doing spins and dips, salsa-ing like it was their job, and even whipping out a couple dorky
disco moves from time to time. INCREDIBLE.

We stayed til about 12:50 am, and when we exited the club, the real adventure started. It was then that we learned that the tube closed at 1am (!!). We took off sprinting to the nearest station, but the gates were down by the time we got there – we were too late. We spotted another underground sign down the road and took off there, but nope, that was gated too. By this time, it was just Kate, Adrian, and me, and we ladies shared a bit of a freak-out moment. Thank god for Adrian – the man took control. He found an open pasty shop and got us directions to the bus stop, but of course we didn’t have the right change to buy tickets from the machine. Again it was Adrian to the rescue, asking randos to exchange coins, give us directions, etc. Seriously, that dude was on a roll.

Pretty quickly we realized that the people at the bus stop had no idea about the bus system, so we approached a man we thought was a police officer for directions. Turns out it was just a dude in a funny reflector jacket, but he was helpful enough and soon we found ourselves at a bus stop awaiting bus #6. When it arrived, we went to board but the driver said “no no – you want the bus behind me!” so we ran to that one. And THAT bus driver told us what we wanted was bus #6 – the one that had just sent us to THIS one! Well, screw it, we were staying on that bus. A little old lady (why she was out so late, I’ll never know) straightened us out – what we really wanted was an entirely different bus altogether, #94. One man who was the exiting the bus directed us to follow him, which seemed all well and good until he started to turn down an alley. That was mighty suspicious if you ask me, and we were all on guard – but luckily he got us to the bus stop safe and sound.

The wait here was about 20-minutes but at least we were next to a wedding cake shop so I could stay entertained oogling the cake-y creations. By this point, we were all ridiculously punch drunk just from the exhaustion and the crazy confusion, and we just couldn’t stop laughing. I’m sure the locals thought we were crazy!

Bus #94 finally arrived and soon we were back by Hyde Park, close to the hotel. I had decided by this point that my navigation skills were totally defunct, so I just followed them back to the hotel. And finally, after an evening of mayhem and navigational brilliance, we were back. BED TIME!!

On to the 28th. I woke up early enough to shower (so necessary after all that dancing last night) but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to work the shower! The handheld one, sure, but the overhead one – what in the world?! Eventually I gave up and resigned myself to showering with the handheld one. I proved utterly inept at it. After hitting myself with it for the 800th time, I threw in the towel, stuck it into its waist-high holder on the wall, and knelt in the tub, under its stream, to finish up. No wonder my roomie Sara took a bath yesterday – that shower was impossible!

By 8:45am we were on the buses ready to start the tour of London. As we drove around, our delightfully risqué middle-aged tour guide and her equally adorable partner Steve (the driver) pointed out the major sites: Big Ben, Westminster Abbey (“Wetht-minthter Abbey” for you, Mom), Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, etc. Definitely cool. We ended at Covent Garden and Adrian, Kate, and I headed over to the theatre district. Stop one was the National Theatre, which actually houses three separate theatres including the one where “His Dark Materials” premiered. We came in a side entrance and walked into a production meeting (oops!) but soon we were downstairs at the ticket office, checking out the play schedule. Our next stop was the Old Vic where we were able to buy amazing 5th row tickets for ₤12 while they were usually sold for ₤47. Our mission successful, we went down the street to the tube station, ate a delicious lunch of traditional English pasties (like turnovers, but with beef, potatoes, onions, and sauce inside the breading), and navigated back to the hotel.

I fell asleep still fully dressed and woke up just in time to get dressed up for at night at the theatre. That whole “yayyy dressy clothes” phase ended pretty quickly as Kate and I discovered that high-heels plus cobblestones is a dangerous combination. Rather than zip over to the theatre by tube, we went all London-y and boarded a double-decker bus, taking the entire back row of the upper deck. At one point, two British ladies turned around all excited to meet real live Americans, sounding JUST like they do in the movies. Who knew they liked our accents too!

The ride was pretty long, but not to worry – we got to the theatre, picked up our tickets, and arrived at a restaurant stuffed to the brim with locals with plenty of time to spare. This place was called “The Fire Station” and it was half crazy busy bar, half serene restaurant, separated by a velvet rope. Adrian worked his charm yet again and before long they had lifted the rope and ushered us to a beautiful mood-lit table with wineglasses and candles. We all ordered traditional Czech beer and the cheapest thing on the menu: home-baked break with the soup of the day, which turned out to be a spicy pumpkin-coconut concoction that was surprisingly addicting. The only thing greater than the food at dinner was our ridiculous feeling of surprise for scoring such mega-awesome seats.

Speaking of awesome seats, we had killer seats at the theatre, too. The show that evening at the Old Vic was “Six Degrees of Separation” by John Guare. Incredible, but also incredibly intense. It started off slow, almost to the point that I was nodding off, but then about 20 minutes in, the lights came up on FULL male frontal nudity! That was a “fwa-BANG! I’m awake!” moment, and sure enough I didn’t nod off even once the rest of the time. It was a real thinking-required but also spectacular play.

By the time it ended we were all fairly sombered. No crazy partying for us tonight, not with the 5:30am departure time tomorrow. So back to the hotel by tube, a quick good night, and off to bed.



January 29, 2010.
I guess I didn’t really realize quite how EARLY 4:15am was until my alarm went off at that time. I wanted nothing more than to chuck the clock across the room, but somehow I got up and got all packed and ready. By 5:30am we were on the bus on the way to the airport, and the rest of the morning passed in a half-asleep, semi-dazed blur. We must have been quite the sight: 72 American kids dragging exorbitant amounts of luggage through the airport, all of us a little lost and a lot tired. I lucked out yet again with the magical Mr. Adrian’s help. While I was checking in, he absolutely engrossed the flight attendant. He was charming, she was smitten, and before long, both my bags were tagged and loaded – without her ever charging me the ₤35 of the 2nd bag! This dude rocks!!

The adventure continued at security where they searched my bag and found 2 pairs of scissors (I forgot they were in my pencil case, I swear!) and a KNIFE in my tool kit (I knew putting that kit in my carry-on was a bad idea). I felt like quite the idiot, but they were totally nice – besides the whole “and WHY do you have these?!” faces and the confiscation.

But anyway, we plopped our bags in the main lounge and exchanged money for British pounds to buy lunch at Pret a Manger, a British sandwich shop. I went to the exchange bureau with Adrian and the dude canoodled the lady with his charm yet AGAIN! She took off the ₤3 commission fee, bringing the amount he’d saved me (just today!) up to ₤38!! That’s like $75!! Kacy and I suspected that this just a fluke, some sort of odd streak of luckiness. So we bet him that he couldn’t get the waitress’s number at Pret a Manger, and that if he COULD, we’d sing a duet in the center of the store. Thank god he failed! Just in case, we’d prepared a beautiful rendition of “Here’s the mail, it never fails” from Blue’s Clubs, but alas, his luck had run out. No show today!

The plane ride was uneventful as most people fell asleep, but after landing the excitement picked up. The bags took forever to come out and once the conveyor belt had stopped, one kid was still missing a bag (Alex, bff of my future suitemate Becca). By the time everything had been sorted out, the first two buses had left and only a handful of students plus the two AIFS directors(Marketa and “Z”) remained to take the 3rd and final bus to the Munich hotel.

By the time we arrived, we still had about an hour to spare before the bus tour of Munich. It was only at this point that it really struck me – we were in MUNICH! Germany, home of lederhosen and yodeling and Hitler… and we were actually HERE. We headed out almost immediately to walk around town and orient ourselves. We found the underground (“S-Bahn”) stop and exchanged money there, but other than that, there was nothing else to really report on this walk – we only went a couple blocks.

The bus tour that followed was hilariously awful. Our tour guide made next to no sense, saying things like “the nymphs frolic behind the castle” and “there is no water in Munich in the winter.” Actually, she pronounced it the German way: München (“moon-chen”). The tour got vastly better when we hopped off the bus because our tour guide finally changed. Now it was Z walking us around and describing the sights. First stop: the most famous Biergarten (beer garden) in all of Munich. Here was where Hitler and his cronies founded Nazism and laid out its goals, but the atmosphere today is a polar opposite of its grim history. Inside, beer wenches in full costume walked around serving beer and selling GIANT pretzels to an assortment of characters. Of course there were the usual German families and blatant tourists, but some tables were full of Germans in full-fledged traditional German costumes – funny hat, lederhosen, and all. SO COOL! They weren’t there for a costume party or a joke – this is legit what they chose to wore for a normal night out. Beyond that, the beer tankards were humongous. We later learned that the beer here was sold in only 2 sizes: 1 liter and 2 liter. That’s a LOT of beer.

From there, Z pointed out many buildings and listed their architectural merits, but the only one that really stuck out to me was this one, nonchalant looking building where the infamous Kristallnacht began. Today, the building looks so benign and peaceful – so ordinary, But then, it was home to one of the founding events of the Holocaust. Wow.

The tour ended and a lot of us ventured off to buy dinner. Adrian remembered a cheap Chinese place from last summer when he was in Munich, so we followed his lead and ventured off through the slushy streets. The place was tiny – our group of 10 pretty much filled it. By the time we arrived, I was angry-hungry, so when my sweet and sour chicken, rice, and vegetables arrived, I gobbled it up in mere minutes. Everyone else took their time, sipping their beers and chatting it up. Lots of laughter – super fun!

The walk back to the hotel was surprisingly long, maybe 25 minutes. It wasn’t too far, but the roads and sidewalks were all icy and slushy. The snow was coming down and there just weren’t enough plows to keep the streets clear, I guess. We detoured a bit to see an odd stature pair (a giant catfish and a boar – why, I’m not sure) and then we were back at the hotel.
We planned to meet up at 10:30pm to head out on the town, but by 8:30 I had passed out on my bed still fully dressed. I wanted to kick myself when I woke up a little after midnight and realized I’d missed so much of the night, but I guess that’s what going cold turkey off Mountain Dew will do to you. I was up just long enough to check the clock and take out my contacts, and then I was out til 8:30am. I didn’t even hear my roomie, Rebecca, coming back from the Biergarten at 2am.

I woke up after 12 hours of sleep and took a gloriously warm, hot shower before going to the breakfast buffet. I sat with the kids I meant to go out with last night and heard stories about their epic clubbing adventures. Apparently the old factory district has been turned into a kind of “club town,” with 18 clubs all within blocks of each other. Last night they bar-hopped from one to another, each with crazier names than the ones before. (My favorite was the one called “The Titty Twister”!!) Guess I’ll have to return to Munich someday. :)

We had been randomly assigned to one of three buses heading to Prague, so people left breakfast as their departure times arrived. I was on the 3rd and final bus so I had a leisurely morning, not even boarding the bus til 11am. I spent the ride updating this travel journal and napping (yes! I know! I blame the Mountain Dew). We took a rest break about 2 hours into the journey, while still in Germany. There was a turnstile contraption at the toilets, forcing you to insert 50cents to unlock a bathroom stall. Very odd. 2 hours after that we arrived for lunch in Plzen, a town in the south of the Czech Republic. The border passing had been oddly anticlimactic – we didn’t have to show our passports or even get off the bus. It was just like driving through the I-Pass lane on the highway, really.

In Plzen, we drove to a famous brewery/restaurant and dined on goulash and dumplings (“Brauereigulasch, Knödeivariation”). It was then that we learned that the 1st bus was now 2 hours behind ours, stuck in traffic caused by a bus accident. We had been warned in advance so we could detour around the traffic, but the poor kids on the first bus were still stuck there.
When we went back the bus to start the final leg of our journey, there was still no sign of them.

But we boarded and departed, on our way to the Masarykova Kolej, our new dorm in Prague. We arrived an uneventful 2 hours later around 6:30pm, and Rebecca and I moved into our new home, room S326. The dorm’s organization is beyond confusing. It’s laid out with no particular rhyme or reason, kind of how I imagine Hogwarts would be but minus the magical passageways. The hallways are pure white, oddly reminiscent of an old-time insane asylum, and they echo even the quietest of sounds. Kinda creepy.

Before I unpacked, I took my laptop down to the lobby where there was free wi-fi and reported home that I was alive and kicking. Luckily there were a bunch of people in the lobby from the 2nd and 3rd buses (the 1st was still far away) and we made plans to meet up in a bit to “get a lay of the land” (that’s for you, Dad :P). I then closed my laptop and embarked on the epic adventure known as finding my room by myself. I’m telling you, this place is crazy. There are elevators that lead to only certain sections, locked doors at the end of corridors that make dead ends, and the never-ceasing white walls that make every hallway look like all the others. Luckily, I made it back in one piece only having to u-turn maybe 3 or 4 times.

Before long, I met the group in the lobby and we headed down the street to the nearest metro station. Luckily the metro system here isn’t too confusing: there are only 3 lines, and all are color-coded. Some would call it idiot-proof; I would call it “learnable.” We exited 4 stops later and within minutes of walking up the stairs and entering the streets of Prague, found ourselves in the middle of Old Town Square, staring in wonder at the beauty around us. The most memorable moment of the night for me was rounding a bend and finding a castle maybe 100 meters away, the spires lit as though there were people up there (perhaps Rapunzel awaiting her Prince Charming). It was an absolutely magical moment that literally took my breath away. Over and over again, all I could say was “I can’t believe we actually live here!”