End of April, Beginning of May

I knew I was not doing a great job updating my blog, but I just realized that I haven't posted in over a month. So...here is a brief recap of the last month:

1. We went to Poland with our program. Excluding the long bus rides there and back, I really liked Krakow. A lot of the people on our program let the poor planning of the bus times get them down, but I really don't see why that should spoil the trip. We got a tour of the city, which was great. I really liked out tour guide and Krakow is a much more beautiful city than I thought it would be. We went to Auschwitz, which I will not describe as I am unable to do the experience justice. I will say, rather, that if you have the opportunity I would recommend going. It is an invaluable experience. We also went to see the salt mines. A lot of our group did not like them...I think they were expecting something cooler...but lets face it...its a salt mine, not a gold mine :) I liked it. There is a beautiful chapel inside with chandeliers made of rock salt (well, everything is made of rock salt, but the chandeliers are beautiful). You can rent the chapel to get married. Destination wedding anyone?? My friend Justin said he would not marry me in the salt mines...sad I know (and no, Mom, this is not someone I would actually marry). I took a pretty cool video in the mines, although most of it had to be on night vision so its a bit funky. The below is a group of us at a restaurant in Poland.


2.) Lauren from Willamette visited with her friend Jessamyn. They are studying in Germany outside of Stuttgart. We had a lot of fun showing them around Prague. The weather was beautiful and we walked in the park as well as showing them the Castle, the Bridge, the Clock, the Squares etc. It was really fun to see someone from WU and her friend was great as well. The below is Kelsey, Lauren, and me.





3.) The people we stayed with in Dublin visited. We had 5 extra people sleeping in our apartment at one point :) We also showed them around, although they were here during the week so we had classes through some of it. I really enjoy having people come stay with us. Its really fun.

4.) I went to Cannes to visit Annie. She is studying in Rennes and was staying with a friend (Maryann) in Cannes who she met at Taize. Maryann is an English teaching assistant in Le Cannet, which is sort of like a suburb of Cannes. She lives with two friend girls who were nice, but not overly friendly. Her housemates brother and his friend were staying there as well (good to know we are not the only people who cram visitors in!). Her brother and his friend are studying to be shepherds, which is pretty cool. Most of Maryann's friends are other English assistants. We met a Canadian guy, a Scottish girl, another American, and another girl who was possibly also Scottish but she did not really talk all that much. The Scottish girl Maria was really nice - and reminded me of someone I might meet at GV - she told the shepherd guy she would try to find him work in Scott land :) Even though he speaks neither English nor Gaelic. The weather in Cannes was beautiful. Luckily I did not get sunburned. We spent a lot of time on the beach and it was very relaxing.

This is our last week of classes, next week is "finals" although I only have papers. The picture below is from our last Prague as a living history class. We hiked up this hill outside of Prague (we took a 1 car train out there...it was quite odd) and it was a really beautiful day.

Pics

There are some very belated Ireland photos on my photo page. They took a really long time to upload...so I'm sorry, but I am gonna take another break before I try to upload any others.

Update

I guess its been awhile since I wrote anything. So here's the update.
Being back in Prague after break was fun. Kelsey and I went out to a true European dinner (got to the restaurant around 7:30, got home around 11:00). We ordered way more than we would usually, but figured since we weren't spending money traveling we could treat ourselves. It was wonderful. Then on Friday we unfortunately had a fire in the courtyard of our building. It was a bit scary, as it was a fairly large fire, but it was confined to the courtard and only burned a the outside walls. Luckily everything was fine. We went to our assistant program director's house to get a little sleep (the fire was a 4:30am) and when we came back everything was back to normal.
Leah came to visit!! It was awesome. We showed her all of the touristy places...and tried to recount what we have learned in our Prague as a Living History Class (I'm afraid we didn't do a very good job). It was very nice to have Kelsey's and my other third. We have missed her - and miss her still :) I was also very excited last weekend that the movie 27 dresses was released in Prague. Corny, I know, but it was really cute. And anything in English (even if it has Czech subtitles) is very relaxing.
My mother will be happy to know that we have found a house to live in next year at school. Kelsey, Leah, Alyssa and myself will be roommates! It looks nice from the pictures, although it has some ugly 1970's wood paneling. A group of senior girls live there right now and are moving out. Its a little bit away from campus, probably about a 15 minute walk (so I might want to get a bike...although I'm dreadful at bike riding).
Tonight Kira, Kelsey, and I are going to see Aida. I think Kira and I are also going to see a chamber music concert on Saturday or Sunday. So this week should be a good cultural week.
We are also going to the town Cesky Krumlov on a class trip tomorrow. I am excited (excpet for the fact that we are meeting in front of school at 7am, which means I have to get up around 6am :( It should be interesting though. I have heard good things about Cesky Krumlov. Also, I think it will be fun to have a class trip...I haven't had one since...8th grade?

Spring Break

Budapest-
Kelsey and I really enjoyed our stay in Budapest. Dylan was very nice to let us stay with him, especially considering his parents were in town. He also had two other extra friends staying...so he is clearly an amazing person. He stayed in his parents hotel room and let us have the room (and his keys...need i say "nice" again?) We got there pretty late, and it took awhile for Dylan to figure out where we were which kind of sucked a little, but Kelsey and I are very positive people so we were not phased by that. The next day we did what we always do in every european city...walk. Unfortunately a lot of stuff was closed because it was Sunday and also the weekend of their independence day (we saw some sort of demonstration and a lot of cops in riot gear on the bus in). We walked all the way up to the Citadel and the hungarian statue of liberty (which is a long way up). The picture is from the St. Gellert Monument on the side of the hill that the Citadel is on.

That night Dylan's friend Mathias took us (and Dylan's other friends Alex and Danny) out to a fusball and billiards place. We played both games rather badly. We saw Dylan for a very short time when he got back from spending the day with his parents.
The next day Kesley and I walked some more, went shopping, and went to the baths. The baths were interesting, not something I would partake in regularly (lots of hairy old men), but interesting nonetheless. That night we went out to a place called Morrison's with Dylan's roommate Ryan (yet another amazing gentleman). We hung out with him, his Turkish girlfriend, their other roommate Andy and some more of Dyland and their friends. It was very fun.
All in all, Budapest was enjoyable. The city is fairly run down and their are homeless people around (something you don't really see in Prague at all - we have beggars, but no one actually visibly sleeping on the street). We did not like the Budapest train station at all. It is extremely confusing and rather unpleasant. We were not at all sure we were on the right train when we left for Bratislava. We met some fun British guys on the train, who also were not sure if they were on the right train (the train said it was going to Prague, so we were hoping it was stopping in Bratislava. The two guys (Jeremy and Nick) were, like most of the people we met, visiting Budapest, Bratislava, and Prague for their vacation.

Bratislava -
Bratislava is a nice town. It is similar in feel to Prague, but much smaller. When we got there we just got some food and then took a nap. When we woke up we met the other people staying in our room (who had also been napping). Four of them were students from Georgetown studying in Madrid, and the other guy was just on vacation traveling around. They were all really nice and we met up with them later that night in what is apparently the former largest beer hall in Europe. It had been recommended to them by someone who had not mentioned that Tuesday was country western night! It was pretty hilarious to see a bunch of Slovaks two-stepping to a live country band that was playing translated country music. Not exactly the first thing you expect to find in Slovakia. After that we wandered around a bit and ended up at a strange little slovakian Karaoke bar. The guys sang some Slovakian music for awhile, it was amazing :) Then we went back and hung out in the basement of our hostel, where we met Paul, a British guy who apparently works outside of Eugene for several months each year, and is a frequent visitor to Salem. He was very drunk and proceeded to call someone in Salem so that he could tell them he met girls from Salem in Bratislava. That was not the only weird connection of the night though. Peter (the blond in the picture) is from Hudson and went to Hawken for Kindergarden. Cavan (with the beard) filmed a movie in southern oregon near where Kelsey lives. Sean (next to Cavan) grew up in Northern California where Kelsey has a lot of family. Jonas (the one in the middle) did not have any interesting connection to our lives, but he is Swedish (though he's lived in the U.S. for abut ten years) and speaks about 5 languages, so he's an interesting person all on his own.

Though we enjoyed our travels Kelsey and I were very glad to come home. We ran into the British guys again on the way home which was fun, and we may see some of the other people we met who are coming to Prague. We had planned to go to Olomouc and try to hike later in the week, but the weather has turned quite cold (it was snowing when we arrived in Prague) and so we have decided to just take some time to enjoy Prague. We figure we can take a few days and spend a bit more than we usually would taking in the city since we are not paying for travel or accommodation.
Thats it for now.

Flowers are not enough

Prague is a beautiful and wonderful place, and an easy place to help you forget other things. A family friend passed away earlier this week and I am torn between the two worlds in which I seem to be living. One holds everything new and shiny and draws my attention like a moth to a flame, and the other is caught in a moment of grief that I share and yet am separated from. I am not accustomed to death. Of the things I have experienced in my short life, it is not one that has come up very often. I find it difficult to fathom that someone I have known all my life, who I have seen almost every holiday that I can remember, whose son I apparently had my first "co-ed" sleep-over with (when we were toddlers), who is one of "the dads" as I have always thought of them, is gone. His family is part of my family. He was dearly loved, and he will be sorely missed.
As I leave for spring break today, I know that all of this will leave my mind. I will remember from time to time, but push it away. I wish I knew a way to hold him in my memory without tears and without such a sense of loss. I wish I could be there with our family of friends, if only for a moment, to truly acknowledge that loss. But I don't know a way to do that, and I can't be there with them, so I will focus on all of the new and shiny things that Europe has to offer me. Kelsey and I leave for Budapest this afternoon, and will meet up with Dylan who we met in Paris and went to Versailles with. After that we plan to go to Bratislava and Vienna. We may also travel around the Czech Republic, either in southern Bohemia or central Moravia.

For Ed:
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Class?

There is something about having classes for 3 hours 1 day a week that makes you feel as if you never have class. Yes, it is the same amount of class as if you had it for 1 hour 3 days a week, but it doesn't feel the same. Especially when your classes are clustered on 3 days a week (and one of those days you only have 1 class). Of course, now that we have some reading and homework to do, I feel a bit more like I am going to school. On the other hand, my weekends are longer than my week...

I am enjoying my classes with the exception of my class on cultural perspectives. The professor, who I am sure (based on his name dropping habit) is very well read and has had the benefit of an excellent education, has some very bad habits. One: the name dropping. He cannot go more than 5 seconds without referencing a philosopher he has read, a well known academic he has studied under, or a friend who is "an expert" in some field. It often feels as if he feels the need to list these people because he is afraid that without them we will not trust what he says. Truthfully it just makes him look insecure, especially when he feels the need to use Kant as support for his attendance policy. Two: isn't it? aren't they? He tends to finish any statement with one of those two phrases (again making him seem very insecure). Three: making up words. He ads the endings "-ality" and "-ization" to words that they should not be added to. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that "disciplinarizations," "fascinatingness," or "valuality" are in fact words. He tends to use words with -ality or -ization endings so much, that even the words that are real start to feel fake because he uses the endings too much. Okay. thats enough venting.

In the interest of not having class, spring break starts this weekend! Kelsey and I are going to Budapest, where we plan to meet up with Dylan who we met in the hostel in Paris. Then we also plan to make out way down to Croatia if possible. I am very excited. I am also really glad that we are not going to countries that use the euro :)

Kelsey's computer is broken so I can't upload pictures to picasa for a little while. Here is a picture of us at St. Patrick's Cathedral. ( Left to Right: Alyssa, Me, Kelsey, Alison, Kate).

Ireland

We came to Ireland on Thursday and it has been wonderful. On the flight to Dublin Kelsey and I met a Canadian guy who is teaching in Prague right now. We were very pleased to make a friend on the plane (I think it makes it feel like you did not waste those two hours of your life). We had a hostel for Thursday, but we did not know where we were staying the rest of the weekend. Luckily we met up with Hannah's friend Kelly and his friends and they have graciously allowed us to stay with them in exchange for buying electricity cards (apparently you have to buy electricity cards if you want to have electricity in your dorm room).
Thursday night we went out to a couple pubs with Kelly and company for Alison's birthday. We had a lot of fun. Yesterday we did the hop on hop off bus tour of Dublin. We saw Dublin Castle, Trinity College, Christchurch, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Guinness Storehouse and probably some things I don't recall. All the grass is super green, its amazing. Then we went out to Indian food which was really good. After that we went to Kelly's. We hung out with his friends for the evening, it was really nice. His friend Shane was incredibly helpful and sweet. I didn't get to see the girls we stayed with very much, but they are also wonderful.
Today we went on a bus tour of the Irish countryside. We went to Glendalough (I am not sure I spelled that correctly) and Avoca. It was a beautiful day (a bit cold and windy though). Ireland looks exactly how you imagine it, we even saw a rainbow! There were plenty of sheep, and some shaggy ponies, and cows. We did not see any wild goats, but they apparently have those too. Glendalough apparently means glen of two lakes; they are both beautiful. The remains of a 6th century monastery are also located in Glendalough. They look very typical of what you would expect to find in Ireland and are very cool. I took some pictures of Celtic crosses in the graveyard, because I know my mom will like them ;)
We are going out tonight for Kelsey's birthday, which should be great. Unfortunately I am still feeling sick and cannot shake my cough. I know that everyone will tell me to see the doctor and I will soon if it does not get better. I would stay in tonight, but its Kelsey's 21, so I don't think thats really an option. I plan on sleeping late tomorrow though.

Dublin!

I am in Dublin!!!! Yay. Not too much to tell right now, but I am very excited.

Beer Country

To start off with, in case you were wondering, I have a horrible horrible cough. Excluding my horrible cough, it has been a good week. My classes do not seem too difficult (and with any luck will seem more interesting in future weeks). The weather is beautiful. I actually went out without my coat today, which is a first for Prague. Not including the time I have spent sleeping or reading in hopes that rest will cure my cough, everything since my last post has been very fun and we have had some amusing little experiences that are a wonderful part of the abroad experience.
Amusing experience #1: Kelsey and I are attempting to get on an exceptionally full metro. I decide (since we have just discussed in our Czech and American Culture class how Europeans have a much smaller concept of personal space and tend to bump into one another far more often) that I will just sort of push my way onto the train. I turn around to see that Kelsey is standing outside with a somewhat worried expression on her face. A man next to me looks at Kelsey, then at me (as I say her name), then back at Kelsey and promptly reaches out of the train, puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her forcefully on the train, pushing a bunch of people farther onto the train in the process, right before the doors shut. I said "dekuju" (thank you) and promptly started to laugh.
Amusing Experience #2: Kelsey and I are checking out at the grocery store (Albert). The food costs 335 crowns, Kelsey gives the woman a 1000 and then 35 in coins so that she doesn't have to give her a bunch of coins. We both turn to put the groceries in bags (there is not such thing as a bag boy in the Czech Republic) and then Kelsey turns back, expecting her change. The woman has already started checking another person out behind us, and has not give Kelsey her change. Kelsey gets her attention and there ensues a fabulous Czech-American conversation in which no one understands anyone else. We unfortunately have not learned the word for 1,000 and so have no idea how to communicate to her what happened. She repeats the same question over and over (either how much did we give her or how much do we need back) apparently expecting us to spontaneously learn Czech. The result of this problem is that a manager comes over and they have to take out the till and count ALL of the money, to find out how much over they are and give Kelsey her money. So Kelsey and I stand awkwardly waiting while these two women talk back in forth in Czech (and I get the feeling that this has happened to this particular cashier on more than one occasion). When all is said and done, Kelsey gets her money back and we leave.

Amusing Experience #3: We went to Pilsn yesterday, home of Pilsner Urquell beer, and took a tour of the brewery. The tour itself was quite amusing, as they did not really show us any of the current brewery, but rather a lot of the out of use things. My favorite part was their exhibit of the three ingredients of beer (malt, water, and hops). In the malt room they had a bunch of malt on the floor and some fake waving grain (and by fake I mean posters of grain that waved back and forth). The water room was basically a fake wall of rock with water running down it. And the hops room has some hops in it (it looks like the alfalfa pellets we used to feed to our guinea pig). At the end of the tour they do a tasting. Now, apparently they require that you be the legal drinking age of your home country to taste the beer, so we told them we were from Canada (shame on us, I know). When we were down in the cellar for the tasting this group of Chinese men asked us where we were from (we said Canada) and responded excitedly "We are from China!" and then asked to take a picture with us.
So those are my amusing tidbits for now.
xxx

Sleepy

This week has been interesting, though some of it has been rather boring. I am enjoying learning Czech and feel a little bit better about it, though not much. it is frustrating to know that you are never pronouncing anything 100% correctly. I really enjoyed the lecture from Professor Shanahan this week, he is an American who has lived abroad for the last 15 years or so, primarily in Paris and Prague. He seems to think we will not be here long enough to experience extreme culture shock, but the end of May seems pretty far away to me. Luckily I have not found anything to be all that scary or different. There are a lot of little things though. For example, in the movie theater they actually assign seats (and it is kind of hard to find your seat in the dark -- i suppose if you go earlier they probably have the lights on while people are coming in). We have finally figured out how you are supposed to tip, and approximately how much (between 5 and 10%). When you give them the money for the check (let's say its 130 czk) then you tell them how much you are actually giving them (for example 140czk) and then they will give you the rest of the change. You are not supposed to leave it on the table.

On Friday we had a reception at CERGE with some Czech students. It was nice to actually speak with some Czech people. I know we will meet more Czech students when classes start, but it is a little strange to be living in a country and have only the briefest interaction with the people who actually live there. We met a couple of really nice girls at the reception and I hope that we will see more of them.

I am currently feeling a little sick, sore throat and all, but its not too bad. I stayed in bed most of the day in an attempt to fight it off, but I am still tired. Kelsey and I went out to dinner with the other Kelsey and Emily who live downstairs. We had chinese food which was really good. I like the neighborhood we live in. It seems like there are a lot of nice places to eat, and I really like having the Church and its little park outside (except when the Church bells ring incessantly).

I start real classes on tuesday!!! I am guessing that it will be really hard to be in class all day, since I haven't really done that in a long time, but its only two days a week that I have to be there all day. On Wednesday we are planning to go to the opera. We can apparently get tickets in the very back for just a couple of dollars. Also, on the 28th we are planning a trip to Dublin for Kelsey and our friend Alison's birthdays. Alison's birthday is the 28th and Kelsey's is March 1st). We are really excited. We are going to "couch surf." There is apparently this website that is a network of people who basically let people stay in their homes for free, and then in return they can stay in other people's homes for free. Our friend Julia is on the website, and Alison, Julia, and Hannah couch surfed when they went to Vienna and they said it was really fun.

First Classes

Dobrý den!
So we started learning Czech yesterday, it is just as difficult to pronounce as I thought it would be. My current issue is the number four (spelled čtyři). It is pronounced something like schtearzji. I like the professor though. I think we will learn a lot pretty fast with her. Although the numbers are really difficult to understand. Its not so hard to pronounce them, but when I hear them half of them sound the same. We also had a very boring lecture on Czech history today. Perhaps it would not have been so bad if it had not been 3 hours long. Admittedly it was more interesting than the visit to the National Library, which was decidedly dull. The professor who took us there was really nice, I cannot recall his name. I may or may not have him for one of my classes. He was very earnest about his love of the library (which made me feel a bit bad about being bored).

On Friday afternoon I walked up to Prague castle. Its extremely difficult to take a good picture of because it is surrounded by another building and you cannot see the whole thing until you are about 30 feet from the entrance (not a good place to take a picture of a tall building). It was really beautiful out, and I wish my camera took better dusk pictures. I really do love this city.
The weekend was pretty relaxed. We went to an Irish pub in Old Town square on Saturday. It was nice, but there were too many of us to fit comfortably at a table. We briefly went to a bar called Bombay, but it was really crowded and no one really wanted to stay, so we walked home. Its a pretty long walk back to our apartment. Luckily it was a nice night out, and walking with people is usually fun regardless of how far you have to walk.
I am still looking forward to real classes starting, but I am glad to have something to do during the day besides sight seeing. I am a little worried about how our three hour long classes will be. If they are much like the lecture today I will definitely struggle to pay attention. My attention wanes after about an hour and half. I guess we will see. Hopefully they will be interesting enough classes to keep my attention.

xxx

Having Fun

This week in Praha....

The construction guys relaxed a little and are no longer being excessively loud. We figured out the washing machine, although we are not exactly sure how to use the fabric softener in the washing machine. This means that our towels are rather crispy when they dry. I am sure we will get the hang of it eventually. Kelsey and I are having fun making dinner for ourselves. We haven't screwed up anything yet, but we aren't exactly amazing cooks.
I took a long walk by myself the other day, which was really nice. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed being around people all day every day and it was nice to just be alone and listen to music. Also, its nice to walk around with no destination because then you don't feel lost even when you don't know where you are or where you are going. Prague is good that way because there are so many towers that you can always walk towards one and figure out where you are when you get there because all of the churches are in pretty well known spots and by the metro and all that.
We have gone out a lot to some different clubs. Klub Cross was really interesting because the decor is all old electronics and different industrial parts and it looks like a giant robot. There are all sorts of weird levels and rooms and its kinda confusing, but really cool. The music was also a bit bizarre, Kelsey describes it as "techno music with heavy metal, adding in video game sounds and really deep base." Thats pretty much the best description of it. It goes with the crazy decor. We had a lot of fun on Monday when we went to "Pirate Kareoke" at BlindEye. There was nothing about Pirates, but it was still fun. Kira and I sang "Fly Me to the Moon" :). The picture is of Hannah, Kelsey and me at the BlindEye.
Today Kira and I met the other two girls who are working with Cafe Abroad, which is this internet study abroad guide and travel magazine. Its a pretty cool concept. You can check it out at CafeAbroad.com. We have to review restaurants, concerts, attractions and such. Also we are supposed to write articles that they may use in the in print version of the magazine. From what I gather they have a bunch of people write articles so that they have a good base from which to choose them. We'll see how well we do with it. The girls are really nice and its interesting to hear about the other programs. One of them, Molly, is doing a homestay through the CIEE program. She says she really enjoys it. She lives out in Prague four, which I think is pretty far from the center, but I guess the school where she is taking classes is out there as well. She has had two weeks of intensive Czech already, and I am jealous because she can order food in Czech and I definitely can't. Lauren, the other girl, is staying in a dorm which she says looks like and old communist building. It doesn't seem like she likes that situation too well, and she does not have a kitchen so she is spending a lot of money on eating out. We have also met some people from other programs through some of the members of our program or just randomly when we are out. There seem to be a lot of American students around. I guess that is good and bad.
Still can't wait for classes to start, even if we are enjoying ourselves. :)
xxx

Living in Prague

I am very glad that we are getting a good price on our apartment, because I had no idea that under renovation meant that there would be hammering on saturday morning. Perhaps the Czech work ethic is better than the american one, because I am pretty sure construction workers in the United States do not work on the weekends (or really ever). I am holding out hope that they are simply trying to complete a specific project quickly and will relax in a week or two. Its not really that bad, because they don't start too early, but its still not the most pleasant thing to wake up to.
Other complaints? I killed some of my clothes in the Czech Washing machine... who knew that you had to put it on a different setting for synthetics??? I am crossing my fingers that I can turn my now grey white clothes back with a bottle of bleach. Our shower has a tendency to flood because the drain is clogged (thats nice). Also, the internet is still not working, and we can no longer pirate the internet from other people (they seem to have caught on and password protected their signals).
I am currently writing from a school computer.

On a happier note...
Tesco, which is like the European equivalent of Wal-Mart is insane. It is five stories and somewhere in between a grocery store and a department store. Basically we can buy anything there. We may get a DVD player, if we ever get up the courage to test out the Czech video rental by the apartment.
Everyone in our program is wonderful. I am really enjoying getting to know people. We also have a few new people trickling in slowly (as they get their visas) and I am excited to meet them.
We apparently have this entire week to do nothing (I am not sure why they planned it this way, it seems a bit silly)...so I am not sure what we are going to do. Some people are traveling, but as Kelsey and I just did that, we will probably just spend this time trying to get to know Prague. It really is a beautiful city. I haven't taken any photos yet, but there are a million places I want to photograph. I really wish that the US had places this interesting. Kelsey and I have discussed how there is plenty of natural beauty in the States, but less architectural beauty than you find in Europe.
Yesterday we completely vegged out. It was wonderful. I think all four of us feel completely at home in our apartment already. After so much traveling and walking and general nomadic lifestyle it felt really good to have a place to relax. Czech TV is interesting. We have a few English channels: CNN, CNBC, EuroSport2, MTV, VH1, some sort of outdoor channel amd maybe one other. There is also a french channel which I can kind of understand, and a classical music channel that you don't need to understand. Other than that everything is in Czech and thus impossible to understand. I think its kind of fun to watch anyways.
I can't believe we have a whole week before we start classes!! I am already really impatient. Sigh.

xxx

Okay, I got a couple more Paris Pictures up and a few England ones as well. Doing my best to please my momma :)

Again they can be found at
http://picasaweb.google.com/marissa.carol/

Sigh

So our internet is currently malfunctioning... I am stealing someone's wireless at the moment. My attempt to upload photos has been slow and minimally successful. I only got 17 of the Paris photos up and the apartment photos. You will have to bear with me. Its going to take awhile, unless we get our internet fixed tomorrow. I will try to be patient and upload more photos tonight if I can. The picture in this post is of the square where we live. Our building is the yellow one on the very left edge (I will take a picture of it later - right now its too dark out, so I'm taking this one from another website). The Paris pictures are in no particular order because they uploaded weird and I do not have the patience at the moment to reorganize them. We are still having fun - spent today enjoying the fact that we can just laze around...because we actually have a place to do it in.

So you can look at the photos I have managed to upload at
http://picasaweb.google.com/mariss.carol

Thats all for now
xxx

Moved In!

We have officially moved into our apartment!! I have a home!

It is awesome, and I cannot wait to go shopping....which we are doing shortly. We had a bit of a work out getting our bags up to the fourth floor without an elevator (Kelsey and I did better than Kira and Emily cause we're so used to it by now). I am sharing a big bed with Kelsey because they couldn't move in two twins -- but its big and technically has two mattresses, so its all good. We need some decorations..its pretty cause its very bright, but the walls are very bare.

Orientation was fairly useless and they were really unorganized, but we got transportation passes and met everyone, so I guess its okay. I really like everyone in our program. A bunch of other people from the program are living in the same building as us, so that should be great. Today we walked around Prague and tried to get a little more oriented to the city. Then we moved and unpacked and all that. It is so nice to have an apartment. I will take pictures, and maybe tonight or tomorrow night I will try to put all of the ones we've taken so far on the computer and then upload them to an album online. Its going to be a project, so I appologize if it takes a long time. I am sure everyone wants to see pictures :)

I need to go wake Kelsey up to go shopping.

xxx Marissa

Apartment Search

So Prague is extremely fun, still confusing, but fun. We have found an apartment that looks amazing. The 3rd floor of the building is under construction, so the apartments are really cheap right now. I also don't think they would do short term leases except for the fact that the renovations are not finished. Its really modern and pretty spacious and we will be living there with two other girls (Kira and Emily) who are both from U Michigan. I wish the realtor didn't charge such a high commission, but I guess there's nothing you can do when you don't speak Czech 

Last night was fun, we went to this little pub called Dump Pub (apparently dump means house in Czech and is pronounced "doom," but that didn't really take away our enjoyment of the Dump :) It was a very relaxing evening just hanging out. Unfortunately I think the bar tender didn't like us very much because none of us had small change. She was particularly perturbed by Alison paying for her drink with a 500 (the drink was about 35). We think we are going to a club called Mecca tonight. Apparently Wednesdays are supposed to be fun there. 

I am soooo excited about our apartment!!!! Hopefully the internet there will let me post photos on the blog - I haven't been able to make it work in this hotel (as you can see) and then everyone can see the apartment! 

Prague!

Well, we finally made it! We were very exhausted (and Kelsey was not feeling well), but we arrived okay and promptly went to sleep. Now we feel much better! Our room is interesting. We have a suite with two bedrooms, Kelsey and I in one and a Williams student (Hannah) and eventually two other girls in the other.  

We went out to lunch at a restaurant down the street. It was really good and very cheap! Such a relief after England and Paris. Luckily they had a menu written in English. Hannah speaks German which was helpful because they waiter did not speak much English. Its a bit scary to realize that I can't read anything and can't speak to anyone who does not speak English. Obviously I expected it, but its a whole different experience in reality. I'm not too worried about it yet. I'm sure in a couple of weeks it will hit me that I have no idea what is going on. 

After lunch we spent the afternoon looking at apartments with another girl (Kira) and may be rooming with her and another girl Emily (they are both from U Michigan). We've met some of the other students, everyone seems really nice. Of course, friend groups are already forming, which is a bit intimidating, but hopefully everyone will get along. We don't have anything orientation-wise tomorrow, so we may go apartment hunting. Orientation begins at 9:15 on Wednesday...I can't wait! :) 

FUN FUN FUN

xxx 

Almost time for Prague!

Yay, I got the one computer with an English keyboard (its pretty close to the american one, and thus makes me very happy)!

Last night was pretty fun at the hostel, we met several guys from all over the U.S. (South Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania). With Kelsey, me, and Dylan who we met the other day (he's from Minnesota) we had a good portion of the U.S. represented. Its funny how you meet people from your own country who you would never encounter at home when you are abroad. We had a really nice night in...after our long day of walking.

Today we had a very relaxed day and avoided the major tourist attractions. We wandered around and bought food for lunch, then we went to the aquarium (which is a very long metro ride away) and walked around a big park. The park was really fun. There were loads of french families with their little kids. I have never seen so many people in a park! Especially not in the winter. They had pony rides for the little kids - why don't we have parks like that??

Tomorrow we begin our journey to the Czech Republic via bus. We start at 2:00 in the afternoon and we will get in at 6:30 in the morning! According to our program director we should be able to check into the hotel even though its so early. I can't wait!!!

xxx

Paris (continued)

Continuing adventures in Paris...
On Thursday we were originally going to go to a bunch of museums, but we met two guys from our hostel who zere going to Versailles and and decided to go with them. We did not decide this until after we had gotten on the metro, so we hoped off the metro randomly and waited for them. It wa a fantastic spontaneous decision and we had a lot of fun.
Today we went to Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle, Centre Pompidou, the Picasso Museum, and the Louvre (we walked too much!). We also booked our 16 hour bus trip to Prague!!!! Excited about Prague, but not about that. We had an amazing but tiring day. I can't stand the French keyboard so that's all for now.

xxxx marissa

Paris

Paris is beautiful, but I think I prefer the places we visited in England. The atmospheres are very different. Our hostel is lovely. Its a bit cold at night, but clean and has an amazing view. The other girls in our room are nice as well. We met a girl named Katie from Linfield - small small world. We went out and had a very nice dinner before taking a look at the light show on the Eiffel Tower. Its really interesting to see the tower sparkling with lights. We did a relatively early night in to prepare for the next day.
Today we slept in because it was the first day we didn't have to travel. We bought half a baguette for breakfast (we missed the hostel breakfast); it was delicious. Then we went up to Sacre Coeur. The view was amazing. The inside of the church is beautiful as well, unfortunately they do not allow photography or videography inside. We walked around Montmartre (sort of following the Rick Steves guide book) and got some crepes and saq Moulin Rouge. Then we went to the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Champs Elysees. I think we are going to go back down there tonight to see it all lit up.
Thats all for now. I will add pictures to these posts when I'm able.

England

Well, despite some struggles with our luggage and exaustion on the first day, England was amazing (largely due to the chivalry of English gentlemen). I cannot thank the guys who carried our luggage up the stairs in the tube enough. I also cannot thank Denny enough for lugging it all over the English country side. First night (in London) was nothing special, we were too tired to do more than walk around. On Saturday we took in all the typical tourist sights (Big Ben, Pariliament, Buckingham Palace) and then headed off to Bournemouth. In Bournemouth we got decked out in some UV paint and went dancing. We met some lovely people and thouroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Oxford was beautiful; neither Kelsey or I can believe people actually go to school there. Denny was an excellent tour guide and we had a nice day. We went out and saw P.S. I Love You that night (wow movies are expensive in England!). It was a cute movie and nice and relaxing after all of our traveling. On Monday we went to Stratford upon Avon and saw Shakespeare's house and the Tudor Theater. Unfortunately it rained and we got quite wet. We met up with Rich from GV that night in a pub and just chatted and hung out in British fashion.
Today we took the Eurostar through the Chunnel to Paris and we are very happy that we are staying for a couple days. I am about to run out of internet time, so that's all for now.
x0x0
marissa