The whole program was supposed to go to a small Czech town named Kutna Hora last Friday, but it was snowing a lot, so it was cancelled. However, 6 of us decided it was worth visiting because there's a church made out of bones there! We rolled up to the train station around 9:45, bought a $5 (100kc) ticket for Kutna Hora, and by 10:00am, we were on our way. It was only an hour train ride but since it's been snowing a lot, the fields we rode past were picturesque. Gahhhhhh.
We expected to walk around the entire city because it is relatively small.
However, when we arrived and started our journey, we realized that the cold weather was reeeeeeally cold. There were only 2 churches that we had planned on seeing. But, we jumped into the first one we saw to get warm. The problem with sight-seeing churches, though, is that they don't have heat either. I have been using rain boots as snow boots-- aka no insulation for the toesies. By the end of the day, I had to defrost them. Luckily, we got a bargain for one of the churches we really wanted to see. We saw these shrines for saints with bones glued to the clothes. It was kind of cool because the skull had a plastic mold as a face. We enjoyed it, but decided that the saint's feet were too small to be real feet bones. We left this church when we could feel our fingers again and headed to the Ossuary.
An Ossuary is a church made of bones... human bones. Granted, the entire church was not made out of 'em, but they had quite the set-up. There was a coat of arms made of bones, a chandelier, I don't know... a lot of skulls and shit. The church was much smaller than expected, though. We found a tourist bus that was almost $2 per person and it would take us to the other church we wanted to see. The guy was awesome. He couldn't leave right away, though. We took the opportunity to eat our packed lunches in a tiny "sweet" shop across the street. Twenty minutes later, we were in a van skidding and sliding into the heart of Kutna Hora. When we finally arrived, he dropped us off at the best possible location: smack in the middle of a snowball fight.
Matt and I were the only ones to accept the challenge before us. We immediately ran to join the fight, but our method was problematic. You see, our snowballs were more like snow dust.
The 10-year-old boys had a system or something, but as soon as they saw our futile attempts, they zoned in on us. It would be sufficient to say we lost.
Before we made it into the St. Barbara church, Becca, Echo, and Bryan found the most beautiful view of the city. We took countless family photos and then decided our toes were frostbitten. We went into the church and I gotta say, it was one heck of a church. Honestly, I have found churches to be a rather dull visit because they all blend together in my mind. I know that all the architects reading this would have a word or two to say about that to me, but St. Barbara was pretty legit. Matt and I ended up in an awkward situation of "posing FOR friends." This chick was taking a picture of the corridor we were in and so we both reflexively smiled for her. When she saw that we were photo-bombing, she moved her scarf so that we could properly see her mean-muggin' us. We struggled to keep a straight face as we walked past her.
We didn't have to walk too far for the driver to meet us. He offered to take us back to the train station. However, we had quite some time to kill. We weren't hungry, but we were cold. Needs had to be met. We went into the first restaurant we found and got side dishes/drinks. I ordered hot chocolate and corn on the cob. What I received was corn on the celebratory pom-poms.
We walked around for a bit until we found the van man. As soon as he saw us, he drove closer.
He was a sweet, sweet man. Again, we slid and skidded back to the train station. We expected to return to Prague later that evening, but it was about 3:00pm when we headed back. On the way there, we had to split up into different cars. The way back, we got lucky to have most of us in one. We played MASH and bonded. Overall, it was a really good adventure. The ability to just hop on a train and roll up to a new city for $5 is exciting. I'm definitely going to miss that in America.
We went to Cross Club that night. I expected this to be a raging club. Oh no. It was more like a techno pub. The design of the club was awesome. There were a bunch of parts to machines used as decoration. However, the whole night was just...off. I really didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed getting there more than I did when I finally got there. We were having snowball fights and people kept falling. I wasn't the only one ready to go though because about 45 minutes after we arrived, we left. We pit-stopped at our favorite bar, Puerto Rico, for a beer, then headed back to our humble abode.
The holiday season in Prague has been amazing and beautiful. I can't get enough of Old Town Square's giant tree and stage events. There is even a petting zoo. When they were setting up, Becca and I noticed the hay, but assumed it would be a nativity scene-- surprise! Horses! The Christmas markets are known for hot wine and of course, Trdlo. I had roasted nuts one night. It's really wonderful to just walk around and take it all in.
On Dec. 5th, Czech's celebrate a holiday that sort of mixes Halloween and Christmas. It's called St. Nicholas Day. People dress up in three's as an angel, a devil and St. Nicholas (essentially, Santa). There's a big costume competition in Old Town Square, but it turns into a bunch of drunk saints, angels, and devils mixed with small children with light-up horns. If you didn't know what the holiday was, you'd be very perplexed. The celebration, though, is that the group of three go up to small children and ask them to perform something they've prepared for it. If it's good, they are given candy. They threaten to give you coal if it's bad, though. Apparently, kids freak out over this. Lots of tears are shed. However, this is nothing compared to the Easter celebration here, where it's tradition for girls to be smacked with sticks by boys and then throw eggs at them. Lenka told us that it is common for parents to go house to house for both Easter and St. Nicholas Day, but it becomes quite the social scene because they receive a drink at each house they visit.
Anyways, the point of that whole schpiel is that I rolled up to Old Town Square after the competition was finished and it was great. It was snowing and there were drunk people everywhere. There were people taking pictures with the winners and when I looked over at them, I realized that the winner dressed as St. Nicholas was Michael, the guy we met at Hard Rock Cafe! Small world, eh?
There was one night, I can't remember when now, that we (Becca, Matt, Bryan, and I) met up with the NYU kids to see their music recital. This was the peak of the snowfall. We were walking and tramming through a foot and a half of snow to get to some place we hadn't been before. We got lost, but eventually ended up at the music hall. The concert was very long (3hours!) but great. I tell you what, those NYU students are talented. We saw Lauren, one of our friends from Cesky Krumlov, perform. When the show finally ended, we had the daunting task of getting home. The snow was so bad that it backed up the trams. We were distracted by creating snow angels for a little while, but when we finally realized that we could take the metro instead, we only had 15 minutes to make it to a station before it closed. We started to sprint to a station, but on the way, saw the tram we needed only a stop away. Therefore, we ran back to the stop. It was silly. When we got off to switch trams, Matt and Bryan admitted they were hungry so we stopped in the KFC. So American, I know. After delightful conversation and social eating, we caught the tram we needed to get back home. Finally, I climbed into bed at 1am, but it was worth it cause I had a great time.
Let's see. Since then, I've had a variety of great dinners with friends and long chats reflecting on the trip. One afternoon, while the architects were in their final reviews, Beth (the wife of one of the architecture students) and I went to the tea place below our institute. We ended up talking for about 4 hours about life, while drinking exotic tea. I say it's exotic because I couldn't pronounce the name. I got to watch a review for myself to see what all this building business was about and I would not choose to sit through two days of that. Instead, Beth and I made cookies for the people that HAD to.
So, this past Friday marked the beginning of people leaving. We had a fashion show/final banquet with our teachers and the program directors the night before. I know I mentioned I was in the fashion show...
Before I describe the show, allow me to share an anecdote. We decided to take cabs to the location because we had quite a lot of stuff. We split up into two cabs. I went with Ladislav, my favorite person in Prague and we took the heavy stuff. As soon as the cab showed up, Ladislav became best friends with the driver. I'm not kidding. They were joking and laughing and crying with joy. It was phenomenal. I was even afraid that we were going to drive off the road at one point. It was all in Czech, though. Therefore, I pretended to understand by chuckling at particularly loud laughter as if I found what they were saying amusing. Granted, I couldn't stop laughing anyways. How does Ladislav do it? When we finally got there, the driver handed me my bags and said something with this face of "I just said something charming, no?" I couldn't understand him so I just smiled, thanked him in Czech, then waited for Ladislav to pay him. When we started hiking up the hill to get to the restaurant, I asked him what they were talking about. He said, "you. He asked me if he could marry my daughter the second we got in." HOW PRECIOUS. The daughter part... not the marriage part. Although I am flattered, this man was not "the one."
Okay, well we set up for the show and got our make-up "did" professionally. Ladislav and Nina were having a ball the entire time. As soon as we got there, Ladis ordered a beer. But that doesn't include our celebratory champagne shots before we left the institute. That man is a drinker and I like his style. The show went off without a hitch and we had a great time. Everyone from the program was in a private room with a stage so the set-up was great. We had good food, great beer, and even better company. Dana brought sparklers for some reason, so things got a little crazy at one point. After several group photos, we all paid and went off in different directions.
Our final big night out involved Karlovy Lazne, the 5 story club, of course. Several people hadn't experienced it yet, so it was worth a trip back. The original plan was to spend most of the night there and then go to the Charles Bridge for sunrise. However, upon further research, we discovered that sunrise was not until 7:51am. WHAT THE?! Therefore, we sacrificed for a night without sunrise. So, we left in waves to get there. The first group of us was Becca, James, Zach, Anna, and I. Zach and James were already very intoxicated, so the walk there consisted of us holding them up most of the way. James slipped and fell. The last time we all went out, Zach slipped and fell. Oy.
We lost Zach and James as soon as we got to the club, but that was okay. We figured we'd find them again eventually. We bebopped between "oldies" and "black music" a lot. About an hour after we got there, we ran into the rest of the group and stuck together most of the night. Oh gosh it was great! We kept cheering and group hugging on the light-up dance floor. I think we were all feeling the alcohol, for one thing, but also feeling the sentiment of the end of the semester. We stayed until about 3am. At that point, a large group (but not all) left to go walk on Charles Bridge. Right when we got there, it started to snow and furthermore, it turned into a sing-a-long. Everyone was having a great time. Jonas and Becca started to race to the end of the bridge. Did I mention it was iced over? At one point, Jonas picked up Becca and flipped her upside down. Then... he slipped. Did you see that coming? He dropped Becca right on her head so it was kind of a mood killer. Haha, more importantly, Becca was hurt pretty badly. It took a hike to get to the tram stop and at that point, a 15 minute wait for the first tram we needed and another 30 minute wait for the other one. We finally got back to the pension around 4:30am. Grandpa was working! He said, in his amazing sing-song Czech voice, "Dobry rano!" Dobry rano means good morning. hehe. Maggie and I realized this was the last time we'd see him, so we asked for a picture. It's a rock solid picture, but unfortunately, it has not been posted yet. I'll share when it is, though.
After a group dinner at Maly Buddha and lots of hugs goodbye, I'm preparing to head home. I leave tomorrow at 12:30pm from Praha and arrive in NY at 3:35pm. Don't be fooled. It's actually a 9 hour flight. Thankfully, I just found out that Zach and James are on it with me, so it shouldn't be too bad.
See you soon America!
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