Electives: The Other White Meat

This was our first week with elective courses. Exciting stuff! Basically, with our core programs, we have 9 credits to start. I have to take a minimum of 15 total and with AU Abroad, we can take up to 17 credits. The electives are either one and a half hour classes or three hour classes, so you end up with 3 credits for a 3 hour course and 1.5 credits for an hour and a half course. Easy, right? The most aggravating aspect of choosing electives is twofold. First, our core classes are in Studio FAMU, a building in the Northern part of the Jewish Quarter while Main FAMU is in Old Town. You might be able to get from one building to the other within 15 minutes, but it's unlikely. Most the classes also end and begin within five minutes of one another, so if you're in a core class and want to go to an elective, you probably won't make it in time.

Anyway, the first day, (Monday/Pondeli in Czech) pretty much everyone in my program decided to check out Practical Analysis: Directing. Alli and I actually arrived late, because we had lunch with Jesse at Bohemian Bagel and lost track of time. Anyhow, after arriving fashionably late to class (we were exactly 15 minutes late) we waited to find out what everyone was doing. The teacher had asked everyone to recreate the scene from Blade Runner in which Harrison Ford (Decker) tries to find the snake maker and to recreate this scene with just eight shots. After giving everyone adaquate time to finish, she asked someone to draw their scenes on the whiteboard. The guy she picked turned out to be a guy from USC by the name of Cesar, who I ended up meeting the next day before another elective. Anyway, this one guy from Estonia (sp?) who can barely speak English, got extremely vocal about how wrong Cesar's rendition of the scene was. It got fairly ridiculous, most of us were snickering behind his back because he was taking this exercise so seriously. I was half tempted to tell him to "Chill out, it's not like any of us are going out and remaking Blade Runner for our FAMU finals." With the exception of Antwon's outburst, the class was informative. The teacher, Blazevic, asked excellent questions to really get us to consider why scenes are shot a certain way and how the audience subconcious interprets specific shots.

Tuesday or Utery in Czech, almost all of us attended History of American Avantgarde, one of the few 3 hour courses that fits into our schedule. As interesting as the class could be, the teacher is a complete baffoon, and really has no place at the front of a classroom. Given the class is 3 hours straight and the content, it is almost unbearable to sit through since the teacher doesn't really give any context to what we're watching. He doesn't point out anything, he basically just says, okay, let's watch! Which is horrible, because the class could be SO INTERESTING! For instance, the first day we watched one of Warhol's films called "Blow Job." I had heard of this film through a friend, Matt Agnello, who had to watch it for his cinematography class, because of the lighting. The funniest part of the class was the stirring of anticipation for this film. Once everyone heard "Blow Job" they thought that's exactly what they were going to see. I couldn't help but chuck to myself, because it's a static shot of the guy on the recieving end, meaning, you aren't going to see anything good. Aside from Warhol, we watched films made by Thomas Edison and a series of films made in NYC in the twenties. Again, all would have been far more interesting if the dude "teaching" the class would provide some context. Given the class is on a Tuesday, and it's 3 credits, I may end up taking it, just because it's on a day where I can handle 3 hour classes and we only have to keep a journal in response to what we see. Simple, yes?

Wednesday or Streda in Czech, most of decided to attend Pavel Jech's class: Script Analysis. Pavel essentially reconted the basic three act structure of a story which he had covered in his screenwriting classes. Once again, the Estonian held up class with a series of questions he took too seriously. After about an hour, Pavel screened a film called: Kolya. This film was essentially Big Daddy minus Adam Sandler. An older bachelor winds up with a five year old boy, who he gets stuck with and grows to care for. The conflict is the boy is Russian and the man is Czech and it was supposed to represent tension between the two nations. One of the more interesting conversations between the boy and the man has to do with the Czech flag and the Russian flag. Kolya (the boy) proclaims the Russian flag to be more beautiful than the Czech flag. His caregiver argues the point, but the boy is persistant. This film is usually refered to as Coca Kolya (Kolya sounds like Cola) because of how "American" the storytelling is.

Aside from the elective on Wednesday, we also had Henry Hill's Directing and Editing for the first time. He's the dude that teaches American Avantgarde, so you can imagine how enthusiastic I was for his class. Basically, we watched an 11 minute long scene from an Eisenstein film without any music. Then, he played it again where he "brilliantly" added 2 seconds of black between each cut within this scene. Seriously, isn't that just fucking BRILLIANT!?! I want to get out my thesaurus just to see how many different ways I can convey the notion of brilliance...I wanted to kill somebody. Then, in an even more brilliant selection on his "reel" he sped up Citizen Kane to 10 times the speed. So, we then watched Citizen Kane (on speed) in about 12 minutes. Seriously though, why doesn't this guy have his own tv show, he's so smaaart? Like I said, his biggest problem is that he doesn't provide any context. He doesn't fully explain why he put 2 seconds of black between each cut or why he put Kane on speed. He just shows it and expects us to come to our own hairbrained conclusions. Mine is that Hill's still does drugs and has half a brain.

That's the long and short of it, because I missed visual theory on Thursday. Next time!

The Castle Bears

I apologize for the delay in entries, but I like to be detailed and I get busy or tired, but I do what I can. Anyway, last Saturday was a day trip with Rudolph to Cesky Krumlov. We had to meet Rudolph and our bus at 7.45. Everyone had planned on napping, given the drive was going to take a couple hours, but my habit of keeping a deck of cards on me led to an insanely spirited game of "Asshole." It was one of the few games 7-9 of us could play, and surprisingly, everyone loves this game. That was all we played on the entire 4-5 hours we were on the bus. This game made possible by the conference table in the back of the bus.

We didn't go straight to our destination, we had two stops. First was a small town called Pisek that has a bridge even older than the Charles Bridge. It had to be restored after heavy flooding. We stopped to check out a museum. We also caught two separate wedding parties while in town. The other stop we made was for lunch. We ended up all ordering the same lunch, I assume it was a popular Czech dish. There were potato and bread dumplings, a ham steak, a pork steak, and saurkraut.

When we got to Cesky Krumlov, we walked up the windy, and significantly smaller, cobblestone streets to get to the castle gate. After passing through the castle gate, you have to walk up another considerable hill to get to the entrance. On either side of the entrance are two bear habitats. While I didn't get the history, I'm guessing the castle used to be guarded by bears? I assume they continue to keep bears due to tradition. Once we reached the first courtyard, Rudolph informed us that the tour wouldn't begin for a half hour. While everyone went to get coffee or a beer, I decided to write. Given my ability to become lost in thought, I missed the castle tour. I was told there were a lot of taxodermied (sp?) bears throughout the castle where they had the tour. I was also told the guides had to keep locking doors behind them as they pressed on, because tourists have gotten lost in the castle overnight.

While I missed the tour, I did get to see the castle gardens. On the walkway to the gardens, one can see more of Cesky Krumlov to the side of the castle. Had we had more time, I would have definitely liked to have explored the rest of the town. Anyhow, the gardens were lovely and luckily it was a beautiful day.

Day Trippin'

Hard Core

I realize it's been a while since I've written. I did that mainly because classes started this week and I knew I'd prefer to write one entry about the first week of classes, otherwise known as "Core Classes." I will have to add another entry when I have more energy about the weekends events, but for now, Z CLASSES!

Firstly, we have Basic Czech Language twice a week with Ilona Koranova. She's really nice and a good teacher. I think she's a great sport considering none of us really want to know Czech fluently, just enough to get around without getting death stares. Her last name is different than her husbands because women's names end differently in the Czech language.

Secondly, there is Master Class with Rudolph and other instructors. This class includes the NYU students as well. Basically it's screenings of Czech films. The first day of this class we watched "The Devine Ema" [Bozska Ema] made in 1979. We then had a Q&A with the director, Jiri Krejcik. He's about 90 years old and still making films today. "The Devine Ema" was based off of the life of a Czech opera singer. Speaking of Czech films, our program was also required to take Czech Film Screening for 3 days the first week with Pavel Jech. It was essentially a crash course in Czech film history, my guess is to give us some background to the country's rich film history, particulary New Wave Cinema styles. Pavel also mentioned the strong presense of FAMU in the New Wave Cinema Era, which could be another reason for these 3 sessions.
During the class, we watched a total of 6 films, 3 narrative, 3 experimental. First day, we watched "The Shop of Main Street" [Obchod Na Korze] filmed in 1965. Then we watched "Diamonds in the Night" [Demanty Noci] made in 1964 with director Jan Nemecs. These two focused on Czech's in relation to WWII. "The Shop on Main Street" was a narrative about an "Aryan" Czech man who has to keep tabs on an elderly "Jewess" and her shop. The movie culminates when the Nazi's begin rounding up the Jews, it gets, well, dramatic. The second day we watched Closely Watched Trains made in 1966 then Daisies also made in 1966. The third day we watched Loves of a Blonde and The Joke. {I will go into detail about the plots and what not later, I'm currently exhausted}

Thirdly is Pavel Jech for screenwriting. Pavel is the director of FAMU international and I really enjoy his classes. He's easy to talk to and is extremely knowledgeable about Czech film history and writing screenplays. He's also lived in Pennsylvania for an extended period of his life. We talked about basic story structures in his class and pitched a few ideas. We also watched shorts called "Postcards" that were created for the European Film Awards in 2003 and 2004.

Fourthly is Camera Works with Michael Gahut. He has ADD or something, I can barely follow him. He keeps describing very technical things without providing any background. I can tell he's passionate and knowledgeable, now it's just a matter of absorbing some of that knowledge and passion...

Fifthly is Script and Directing with Pavel Marek. No one really liked him because he was fairly harsh in his criticisms. We watched a FAMU film then had to pitch ideas. He would analyze each idea and provide feedback. He appears really knowledgeable as well. I think he has a lot to offer.

Sixthly (is that even a word? Has anyone gotten to "sixthly" before?) is Acting Studio with Dasa Blahova. We did a LOT of warm up exercises and then some acting exercises. A lot of memories from acting classes and workshops flooded back to me. We did an exercise where one person can only say the word "No" and the conflict was the "No" person was a parent and their partner was trying to get the keys to the car.

Seventhly, there is Film Language with Marek Jicha. I could barely understand him as well. I look forward to another class with him to see I get more information the second time around.

Eigthly there is Editing and Directing with Henry Hills. While we did not have his class the first week, I did meet him at a dinner held for the AU program and the teachers for the core program.

{As mentioned before, I'll be adding on in great detail, but I'm exhausted. Also, when I have the energy, I can add all the accent marks...if I'm really bored anyway}
MORE PICS SOON

Pears, Paddleboats, and Don Giovanni

Over the past few days, I did manage to recreate the tour that Rudolph took us on last Tuesday. I'll try and add any information I remember from his tour. However, don't expect it to be terribly accurate...I don't remember what he said about this statue, except about it being new. If you enlarge the picture, you will see it is depecting Franz Kafka, Rudolph said it was clearly his face. This other picture is of a sculpture of a college student who burnt himself to death in protest of an occupation in 1969 (I believe that was a Russian occupation?). His death was silenced for a long time, now the square this hangs in is named after him. We then walked over a bridge near one of the concert halls and Rudolph pointed out the metrodome (spelling?) in the following picture. The metrodome was built in place of where a statue of Stalin used to stand. I'm not sure when it was built, but it's meant to represent the passing of control of the Czech Republic in the past century. This small country has gone back and forth (back and forth, back and forth) between independence and occupation.

Once we passed over the bridge, we passed the above statue as well. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it was built for, but I think it's very pretty. After that, we wandered up a path to the castle, rather than take a tram. We ended up visiting a villa built for a Queen some years ago. Once again, I'm really unsure as to which Queen it was, but apparently she died before it's completion after having many children with her husband. There's a really beautiful fountain in the front and the roof is designed to look like the bottom bow of a ship. The park this sits on the edge of is separated from the castle by a valley. Once you make your way through the park, you reach a bridge connecting you to a back entrance to one of the castle courtyards. On the way to the castle, we passed an old tennis court. The exterior artwork was restored in the fifties and the artist left a little Communist symbol in the artwork.
At each entrance to the castle are guards that get changed hourly throughout the day. I don't know what they're exact responsibilities are, but I wonder if they get tired of standing statuesquely (right word?) while tons of people take pictures and do whatever else they do. Anyway, once you enter the castle through this back entrance, you go through a corridor and immediately reach the church. While I cannot really appreciate the value of these places as much as someone who is practicing, it is amazing how intricate these places are. Given you can see this church from almost any place in Prague, you know it's immense. Once again, the pictures don't do justice to what you actually see. Beyond the church, if you continue into the courtyard, you would see a balcony lining a purple colored building. This balcony is where the president conducts speeches. Again, I could have misheard this, but it's still interesting that their political leaders get to spend so much time in that place. It honestly doesn't really look like a castle because it must have been continually added onto. That's pretty much it for what we saw on the tour with Rudolph. Here's one more picture of the stained glass, luckily, it was sunny when I went to take pictures, so the glass is more luminous than it would be a gray day.

Saturday turned out to be fairly eventful. It's been in the seventies and we're having wonderful weather for the tail end of summer. Most of us ended up going paddleboating near the National Theater. The lovely Naomi Kaye (also from SLC, but in a different school in Prague) met up with me earlier, so we all tagged along. Turns out some friends from AU joined other AUers in my program. Josh, who is on the left, and Dan, who is on the right, were the designated paddlers of our paddleboat. Clearly, they enjoyed one aspect of the experience.

Later that night, we just barely made it into the opera, if you get there too late, they're supposed to close you out. We had tickets for Don Giovanni. I'd never been to the opera before, and while I valued the subtitles provided, which made it possible to follow the story, I wonder what it would have been like to experience the opera without any context of the situation. It really was a spectacular show. And who would have guessed it, the interior is very pretty as well. The main chandelier is pictured here. The demise of Don Giovanni did not go as I had expected it to. It was nice to go out with everyone and have to dress up for something. Only a few people left after the first act because they weren't feeling well. Luckily, not everyone has gotten sick since being here.

Sunday, I walked back up to the castle, mainly to take pictures, but also because I really enjoy the park across the valley from the castle. I sat to read and write for a while before heading back to fall asleep for a few hours. When I woke up, everyone from across the hall had come back from picking pears. Jason ended up making pear dumplings, which were really delicious, especially considering I don't really like pears.

Praha LP.2

The Name Game

Today was yet another Czech lesson. Today, after class, Ilona took us to a tea house nearby. We all had tea, hummus and hookah. I must say, I'm not really into the hookah, it made me feel a little sick, though it was interesting to try smoking something that tasted fruity. Once that was done, we all went back to FAMU to meet up with Amy to have a discussion about culture shock and how to avoid or overcome it. We also discussed how unlikely it would be any of us would actually experience it given the length of our stay and the connections to home and to one another. Amy also gave us our schedules for the next week. It contains all our normal classes for the semester, but the times are subject to change. Electives will be chosen and assigned sometime during the next week as well.

After the culture shock meeting, I walked around for about 2 hours. I took some pictures along the route from our first walking tour, but until I have more, I'm not going to post them, because I'd like to keep things somewhat organized.

One of the adjustments I've had to make is responding to a group of people I barely know calling me "Meg" on a regular basis. I know it's petty and it sounds very silly, but it's really strange to me to be called Meg by people I've just met. Even some of my closest friends don't call me Meg, and when I hear it, I think of it as a sign of affection, although to everyone here, it's just my name. I feel like an a*hole correcting them at this point.

Everything Else Since Then

After moving into my new place, we had our first day of orientation. I met everyone in the program, there are eleven of us. Three from Sarah Lawrence: myself, Cristian, and Jason. Six are from American: Alli, Drew, Steve, Zach, Josh, and Jesse. Then two from Brown: Daniel and Abe. In the northern most apartments, Drew, Steve and Zach share a huge flat. Jesse, Cristian and Allie live in Salmovska, which is about a 10 minute walk from my apartment on Na Belidele. Anyway, Amy ran us through all the rules, ideas on what to do in the city, activities offered by FAMU, etc. We also got our cell phones, which are free on our end for incoming calls, a calling card or coupon is needed to make outgoing calls. Country code for Czech Republic or Ceske Republiky is 420, my number is 606 834 202. I'll mostly be using Skype, but I'm making a habit to have the phone with me at all times.

The next day, we met for a walking tour. For whatever reason, I didn't have my camera, so I'll probably re-walk it later just to get the pictures. Here's a picture that includes a view of the castle, in which the church steeples are visible, it was taken during a different walking tour. Our tour leader was Rudolph, a former teacher at FAMU and a filmmaker. We walked to the castle, which can be seen in almost every picture of the Prague skyline. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day, so the tour was relatively fun. By the end, we were all exhausted and Rudolph took us out for lunch. I didn't notice, but most of the guys were really blown away by his drinking abilities.

On a side note about how unbelievably weak the US Dollar is, Rudolph said the dollar hasn't fallen beneath 20 Kc since the Great Depression. How f*d up is that??? It literally fell to 19.xx Kc to the dollar this week (20 Kc/crowns is roughly 1 dollar).

After lunch, I tagged along with Steve and Zach to try and catch an Eagles game (Steve and Zach are from the Philadelphia area), Drew and Alli came as well. We ended up at a sports bar called Legends near Old Town Square. Unfortunately, we only had access to the Jets, Miami, Cowboys, and Washington. Afterwards, we met up with everyone else to bowl, I didn't stay long, though I was very thankful the alley had internet.

Czech Language lessons began Monday, they go from 9am to 1pm. Our instructor is Ilona, she's very nice and the class is enjoyable. I'm surprised at how well I'm doing, though I know I'll forget most of what I learned once I leave in December. The language isn't terribly difficult once you break down the sounds. I'm still having trouble pronoucing a few of the sounds not used in other languages. Anyway, after the first lesson, we went to a screening of Rudolph's film about the Russian occupation of Prague in the sixties, it felt like a newsreel and was really interesting to watch. The next day was another walking tour. Unfortunately, it rained unexpectedly, and only Alli had an umbrella. The photos here are of Alli and Drew. Needless to say, it was not a fun trip for te first hour, having gotten soaked through my coat and shoes. Once the rain left and we dried off to a slight damp, it turned out to be a fairly enjoyable tour. We took a tram to the top of one of the hills on the west side where the faux Eiffel tower is located. We didn't get to the top because it would have been difficult with our group and we didn't have time. We also saw part of the original wall that was built around the city or the castle (I can't remember).


After walking around the base of the faux Eiffel, we began the long trek down the city center. On the way down, we picked a few pears and apples from the trees in the park. It was fairly slippery, so I trailed behind by a fair amount, I'm prone to tripping as it is, I really didn't want to fall down. The road down was fairly windy and lined by walls about a storey high. Here are a few pictures of the walk down. Once we got to the bottom, we were a few blocks from the Charles Bridge and we paid 60Kc to get into the St. Nicholas (I think...) church. Entering the church was one of my few "wow" moments. While I'm usually unreactive to the beauty of this city, I couldn't help but gawk at how extensive the interior of this church is. It's fairly overwhelming, given it's been painted six ways to Sunday. Our guide said the paintings were used in place of the marble because it was too expensive. I could be wrong, I slipped in and out of attention. The pictures really don't do the space justice, I'm going to try and walk around and take video when I can.

Exterior of St. Nicholas













Interior shots, the one to the left is the front of the interior. The one to the right is the ceiling.


Different sculptures decorating the interior. The pictures may be slightly out of focus because I didn't use the flash and that affects the shutter speed, so if I move the tiniest bit, the picture's focus is compromised.



These candles were burning towards the back, where the entrance is.
I just like this picture.

After the walking tours were finished, eight of us decided to meet up for dinner and drinks. We learned it the hard way NEVER to eat in a tourist hot spot for dinner. We had grown acustomed to meals being fairly cheap, a few hundred crowns, maybe a thousand, maybe. Dinner turned out to be close to 3000 Kc! That's about $150 for all 8 of us, not bad from a US standpoint, but really steep in Prague, especially considering how casual the restaurant was. I think we're all making a point to stay away from tourist hot stops, especially when it comes to food. The rest of the night, the guys drank beer after beer, while Alli and I "cut a rug" on the dance floor for about 2 hours. The guys would periodically join us, but it was mostly just Alli and I. The guys made fun of us throughout Czech class the next day, needless to say, those of us that went out were not on our A game during class.

Praha LP.1

FINALLY!

Well, after many attempts, internet has finally been set up in my studio apartment. I've also added a video bar which is connected to my YouTube page, so my films are available for viewing as well. Since it's been close to a week, I'm going to break this entry down into multiples, because otherwise, this would be too long.

Anyway, the day after Cristian and I went out with the Latinos/as from the hostel, we decided to spend the day wandering the city again. Just as we were leaving, another student from our program arrived, Jesse. We waited for Amy to answer his questions and helped bring his suitcases upstairs before the three of us headed out. We all had sesame chicken at a Chinese place, the chicken is cooked in bread then dipped into sesame sauce, different, but still tasty. We essentially ended up walking the same way I did the day before. Once I got tired, I went home, turns out Jesse and Cristian got tired shortly after I did, because they were home about twenty minutes later. Jesse fell asleep pretty quickly, and so did Cristian and I.

The next day was slightly more eventful. Friday was really fantastic, and the three of us ended up walking around until early afternoon. We ended up at the Charles Bridge, which is a walking bridge decorated with statues and crowded with merchants and tourists. There are towers on either end of the bridge and $2/40Kc get you access to them. Now that I've been a few more places, let me tell you, there are so many places to get an amazing view. These towers, though they're not terribly high, give an excellent perspective on the city. Cristian and I took a lot of pictures, here's one of Jesse as well. While on the Charles Bridge, we browsed the art and the crafts of the different vendors. We found a few that offered excellent drawings and etchings of the city. I'm going to have to start posting the pictures in other places, I've already taken a few hundred. I'm not sure how many of them are well done or do the actual sites justice, but it's better than nothing.

Anyway, I had to get back from the walk first, because Amy was going to help me move to my apartment for the semester. I'll post a video of it shortly, now that I'm unpacked. I'm living in a studio, it's small, but very cozy. I have almost everything I need, and four guys from my program live across the hall with a kitchen and washer. We're about a block and a half from trams and the metro, another block from a major shopping center with a bowling alley and movie theater. The building is very nice, we're on the top floor and a block and a half from the river, another block from one of the southern bridges. FAMU is about a half hour walk to the furthest Northern Building, fifteen to twenty minutes from the building across from the National Theater. Anyway, once I finished moving in, the guys and I went out for dinner together. I pretty much crashed after that.

Praha LP.1

Internet Problems

I do not have internet until Tues. And working these keyboards is difficult. I promise to update soon. I also will update with pictures and better descriptions.

I miss you all.

Walking Around [Day 1 Cont.]

Cristian did finally show up. Turns out he had met some people and fallen asleep at their hostel. We met up with them later after he got back and took a nap. The bulk of the people he had met were Latino/a, so I did more listening than speaking (I'm trying to pick up whatever Spanish I can). It was nice to get to meet people who were traveling, as well as people who actually live in Prague.

Anyway, everyone's been asking for descriptions. Honestly, I didn't label anything because I didn't know what I was looking at, I just wanted to give an idea of the scenery.


This was just one of the better pictures I took of buildings along the river.


This is the National Theater. It's one of my favorite buildings in the city.
We're going to the opera on Saturday night in one of the newer sections of the theater. This is the original building, it's just breathtaking.


I took this in a park just off the river.


This was taken from the same park.


This was a church I passed on the way back to Salmovska.

Walking Around [Day 1]

Okay, clearly it's going to be difficult to re-edit these now...all the blogspot settings (such as edit, sign-in, etc.) show up in Czech! So I basically have to back-click a lot. Oh well.

Anyway, I've already gotten sick twice - both times because of reactions to parts of the airplane meals, yay! The first flight went fine. I saw my history teacher from high school in a section of the airport I couldn't get to, it was surreal to remember how long it had been since I had been in his class. It was Dr. Barnett for those of you from AIS who may read this thing. The experience in Frankfurt was horrific...oi. I'm attempting to block it. I did bump into a girl a few times, we started chatting, she's from outside Prague and she just finished being an Au Pair in the states for 2 years, so her English is pretty decent. Her name in Simona, it was nice to bounce my horrible Czech off of someone.

I didn't have to wait long once I got to the apartments. Cristian (a friend from SLC who is also in the same film program) showed up within ten minutes of my being dropped in front of the building. He helped me carry all 3 of my suitcases up 3 huge flights of stairs. I'm staying with him until Friday when I move to my apartment about a mile away. His apartment is in the center of Prague, walking distance from the main river, probably a mile from the place I'm moving to on the other side of town. I haven't seen Cristian since I went to sleep, and I woke up a lot last night...I'm a bit concerned. I took some pictures of the view from the room I stayed in, pretty. Getting in and out of the place is a nightmare, I'm awful with keys. Also, the doorknobs don't turn on one side of the door, they're more like stationary handles. Apparently children in the building like to block the keyholes with matches. Fun right? I actually need matches for the stove...

I spent a couple hours walking around a section of Prague, just to take it in. Here are some pictures that I took to give you an idea of the environment. Once I get super hungry, I'm going to go walk around and what not. I felt like an idiot at the gorcery store. I bought more than one meal's worth of food, and they don't have plastic bags. I stuffed most of it in my purse and had to carry the rest. I also almost got hit by a car and a tram...I'm already standing out to passerbyers. YAY! I'm really looking forward to orientation starting Saturday. It's really hard not to unpack. It's also weird not having any idea what my schedule is and having a few days to do whatever in a city that's so foreign. Oi! That's all for now, until I have something more interesting to report. But here's a picture of a sign in Czech, oooooh! And a picture of a statue near a pretty building, aaahhhhh! By the way, if you click the picture, it links you to the actual size, which is rather large. I'll post more pictures soon!