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