Forearms and The Pope

I like Venice. I like Venice a lot.

First of all, the journey to get there was intense. Instead of dragging this out, I'm just going to list the types of transportation we took in the span of 7 hours: metro, bus, bus, plane, bus, bus, plane, bus, walking around aimlessly.

Let me start with the last mode of transportation. When we finally arrived to the island, it was around 7:30pm and we were starving. We only had a tiny, zoomed-out map of the area where our hostel was. This proved to be problematic. We began asking everyone how to get to Santa Croce. Unfortunately, the entire area was called Santa Croce. Great. After making several friends, one man finally offered to walk us to the street we needed to be on. He was amazing. Still, our hostel was only labeled with "555." It was a silly adventure. We dropped off our bags, met our 4 other hostel mates, and then went to dinner. We were going to go to a recommended restaurant, but it was trashy, so we skipped down a few and ended up at this glorious place. Let's call it "Donny's." Donny was our waiter who looked like Will Schuster from Glee, but Italian. I ordered gnocchi, Becca got lasagna. We shared a bottle of wine. We were so hungry from our journey though that we ended up ordering a pizza to share afterwards. That was the switch. As soon as we ordered it, Donny and his manager started to flirt with us-- his manager is old by the way. They end up giving us each a lemon cello shooter. Then, another. Then, cookies. However, they only charged us for the first dish and the wine. Not too shabby, eh?

We finally went back to the hostel after our 4-hour dinner and slept wonderfully. The weather the next day was horrendous. It was raining, windy, and coooold (brr, I'm shivering just thinking about it). This would have been fine if I had prepared for it, however, I didn't have rain boots or a poncho. I thought that this would just be an inconvenience, but about 20 minutes into our first walk around, we found that it was impossible to do. Parts of the city flooded because... well, let's face it; it's a city on water. So 15 Euros later, I had myself some mean galoshes. There were streets we walked down where the water was up to our mid-calves. It made for a really entertaining morning. We saw ... well, something of importance. This is awful that I can't remember what it was called, but I was tagging along with Becca on her whirlwind architecture Thanksgiving, so don't judge me. There were old columns with babies carved into them. We played "Posing with Friends" all morning and I got a gem of Becca in a special round of "Posing with Children."

We went to get lunch and got lured into a restaurant with the simplest of "Preggo"-s. "Preggo" means "please." The whole time, I kept thinking about a story that Jennie Cohen told me about her study abroad experience. She said that when her mom visited her in Italy, she told her to think of the tomato sauce, Preggo, whenever she needed to say "please." Well, Sherry Cohen kept getting a little confused and would say "Ragu," instead. I never forgot what preggo meant thanks to that story.

Anyway, we got ushered into a restaurant by a charming Italian man who sang to us. It's important that I mention what he was singing: Akon, Alicia Keys, etc. I'll come back to this later. The water right outside the restaurant was so high that it was flooding into the front room. This time, Becca ordered Gnocchi and I ordered spaghetti with seafood and of course, we shared another bottle of wine. Both were deemed as our favorite dishes we had eaten on the entire trip, despite creepy chefs that stared excessively.

We went to St. Mark's after that, which was flooded, yet beautiful. We strolled a bit and then we went to a church right on the corner of the island. It was completely dark because the sun sets at 4:30pm over here and it was already 5pm. I have never seen a church this dark before. It made it a lot cooler than the others since the only light used was candlelight.

Afterwards, we were so tired, yet so far from our hostel. We decided to just walk in the general direction of it and hope that we end up in a familiar area. An hour later, we were tired, cold, wet, and lost. Eventually, we found 555 and crashed for a little before dinner. I became mysteriously sick for a hot second (food poisoning?) but don’t worry, it didn’t slow me down. Becca and I went close by to get dinner. I only had soup though. I hated being so lame so we decided to gelato’s a few doors down- because you can’t go to Italy and not have gelato! Well, it was aiiight, but the man that was making the pizza behind the counter had these beautifully sculptured forearms. So, Becca and I ended up staying at this gelato-pizza place for about an hour and a half, watching forearms make pizza. Finally, we called it a night.

The next morning we woke to the wonderful surprise of SUNLIGHT! Becca and I headed out around what felt like 7am, but it was more like 9. The grounds were wet, but not flooded. It was so beautiful. The awesome architect that Becca is, we went to two churches on islands across from the city. It’s still Venice, but you have to take a water taxi to get there. Water taxis aren’t extremely expensive, but apparently, they work on honor code. By the end of the weekend, we had stopped buying tickets.

We floated over to see this one church and we were the first tourists of the day. I guess the ladies were excited to entertain us because they offered to take us to the sacracy that was in the convent. We said of course, but I honestly had no idea what a sacracy was (and I still don’t think I do). We walked into a dark room and the only things I could make out were HEADS. HEADS IN JARS. I looked at Becca in horror because I thought that this was going to be a scene straight out of Texas Chainsaw Murder. However, when homegirl turned on the lights, I realized that they were wax heads of bishops. Whewee, did it give me a fright. Basically, the only things back there were a variety of religious photos.

We left this jaunt and headed to another church. We had to take, yet another taxi. Oh, I remember! These churches are Palladio designs, for all you architects out there. So, the second one was a little busier than the first- probably because they had a tower where you could see quite the view of the city. Thank goodness we saved these for Saturday since the weather was beautiful. When we went to buy the ticket to go up, however, the guy that we paid was Russian and obviously very bored. He tried to pay us back in dollars because we were American. And then he whipped out this number, “Obama is your president? He gets a lot of sun, no?” Becca and I died laughing. This wasn’t the first racist remark we had heard on this trip, either. The first was when we were in St. Mark’s Square.

This very American man was waiting for walking traffic to die down beside Becca and I. After several minutes, he turns to me and says, “Well, that’s a lot of China’s.” I was speechless.

Back to the story. We were hungry after our morning adventures, so we went to a small restaurant in a tiny square. Best pizza from the whole weekend. It was so good. We shared another bottle of wine and then headed back out. For the record, our meals are not short here. I got the vibe that it was rude to dine and dash (with paying, of course). One waiter even told us to slow down.

Next stop was Murano, the glass-making island. It was a 30-minute water taxi ride. We didn’t really have a game plan for when we got there, but we figured it was worth a shot. I think we actually enjoyed the taxi ride more than the actual island because it was really peaceful. We walked around the island a little bit, did a little shopping, and then decided to spend sunset at Burano, the island next door that is known for vibrant colored buildings. It was another 30-minute taxi ride, so yet another deep thought, soul-searching trip and we were there. Oh gosh, we were on the water for sunset. So. Darn. Pretty.

Burano was my favorite place we visited all weekend. We arrived when all the tourists were leaving. Therefore, I believe that we had a genuine Italian experience here. We took some sweet pix yo of the homes. Then, we ended up on a pretty busy road. We were excited to see children running everywhere and Italians yelling enthusiastically at each other. We got a sweet shot of Becca posing with children. It took strategey and perseverance. We were almost ready for dinner, but since most of the shops were closing, we decided to go ahead and find somewhere to sit down.

We walked into one restaurant and homeboy looked confused as to why these strangers were walking into his restaurant. Even though there were other people eating, he told us it was closed. Rude boy. So, we went across the street to a place called “Galuppi’s.” When we walked in, there were 3 older men sitting around the door, as if they were waiting for something. We asked awkwardly if they were open and they enthusiastically ushered us into a table in the front corner of the restaurant. Becca and I had no idea of the events that were about to unfold.

Our waiter was the youngest one there (but, still about 30). He was charming as he gave us wine and cheese (from the market outside I think hahaha). He spilled the wine accidentally and told us it was good luck. Two minutes later, he was walking by and Becca spilled a lot all over her area. She was flustered, but homeboy came by and said, “that’s really good luck! Two kisses for me.” We didn’t really know what he meant because he left after he said that. So, we ate our bread until the waiter brought us more. Lots of carbs in this country, that’s for sure. We were finishing our second basket of bread when a group of about 15 old men walked in. They walked straight to the back of the restaurant to an area where they couldn’t see us. None of them noticed us. We assumed they came to watch the soccer game, however 5 minutes later we hear this deep-belly singing. And BAM! They are all harmonizing. This isn’t choir practice, either. This is genuine and passionate singing just for the heck of it. They were having such a good time back there. Becca and I were laughing so hard. This had to have been the coolest experience, yet. The bartender was giving them a ton of alcohol.

At one point, our waiter was finished his shift so he came over to us and gave us each two kisses on the cheek. It was so European of us. He was precious. After he left, the most ridiculous man I have ever met replaced him. He didn’t come over to us until the old men left, though. And when the old men left they finally noticed us. Unabashed, they stopped by the door and started to serenade us. I have never been so flattered in my life. They were calling us beautiful and something about the moon (we obviously didn’t know Italian). We responded by raising our wine glasses and yelling “Bravo! Bravo!” Good answer. They were singing another song on their way out the door.

Gahhh. I love Italy. But this story is not over yet, my friends. So, this old old old and gross-looking man scuttles towards our table. He is comparable to Darth Vader after he takes off his mask in the 6^th movie. He immediately asks us to marry him. He starts to brag that he’s the owner and that he’s met the Pope (he has, we saw the pictures). He goes on to ask us to take a picture with him… with our cameras. We get a few gems.

FINALLY, we order our pastas. My dish comes 20 minutes later with meat on it, so it became quite the task to scrape off (I refuse to be “that” American in a foreign country who can’t accept what they make for em). Of course, this man, who we assume is the Galuppi, returns to the table several times. I forgot to mention that in the photos, he was nuzzling Becca’s neck rather enthusiastically. When we finished our meals and were getting ready to leave, he gave us his card, which we then placed on the corkboard in the hostel. What a character. So, this meal was voted the best experience on the trip.

The taxi back to Venice was an hour long. Becca and I fell asleep. Something about these water taxis is so lulling. We got back to the hostel in hopes that we’d find hostel mates to play with, but apparently we missed the fun ones by 5 minutes. Disappointed, we decided to just get dessert and more wine somewhere. We went to the place below the hostel. After awhile, we finally called it a night.

The next morning, we had about an hour to kill before we needed to catch a bus to the airport. However, the weather returned to the horrible cold and rainy weather we had the first day. We were miserable trying to find a place to get coffee, so we eventually just waited for a bus. When it finally came, everyone stuffed into it- way past capacity. Windows were fogged and people’s personal spaces were invaded. Becca and I miraculously had seats. 30 minutes later, we arrived at the airport and repeated day one’s transportation cycle: bus, plane, bus, bus, plane, bus, bus, metro, walking.

We were surprised to find snow on the ground in Munich when we switched planes. We spent the entire flight to Prague hoping to see snow there, as well. And we did! It was a light dusting, but enough to get us giddy.

Looking back at that is a joke now. It has snowed approximately 10 more inches this week. Unlike Raleigh, however, the city keeps functioning. I had my last few classes this week and I only have 2 more to do work before I’m finished. The next week is freakin’ easy for me, but really hard for the architecture students. Ahhh, the easy life.

I am going to Kutna Hora tomorrow with a few of the usuals- Becca, Matt, BryBro, Rocio. However, after that, it’s the long stretch. I return to America on Dec. 12^th. Yikes… real life again.

Black Music & company

Last Thursday, a large group from the program went to a Ratatat concert. Holy crap, it was raging. Ratatat isn't a band that sings, so really it was just a bunch of jamming out. I have never danced so much at a concert before. The venue was in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea how to get back there if I had to. 

At one point during the moshing, Maggie and Rocio got feisty with the people behind us. I thought we were going to have to rap battle it out or something, but alas, the only casualty was Rocio's hair when someone spit gum into it. 

So, let's see. It was quite the adventure to get back that night. The next day, we didn't have school but most of the architecture students went to Brno for the day. I went with Matt, Henry, Ruby and Michelle to get strudel in this really obscure place in Prague. Basically, the back-story to this is that it takes about 25 minutes to get to by tram. I attempted to go with Matt once, but it was closed. Then, he tried to go earlier in the week with Henry and Ruby, and alas, it was closed again for a Czech holiday. This time, we went and it was closed! We were so bummed until Ruby saved the day with her Czech language skills and translated that they were closed for the hour for lunch.  We spent the next hour buying milk, attempting to play in a Czech sandpit, strolling around parks, and avoiding dog poop (did I mention before that there is dog poop EVERYWHERE in this city?). When we got back to the strudel place, appropriately named Strudl, there was a line of people anticipating their own 12in apple, curd, or poppyseed strudel. 

We decided to split the three flavors amongst the 5 of us. The poppyseed sucked, but the other two were delicious. We actually planned on finding a park to eat, but we didn't make it past the street corner beside the place. We looked ridiculous because the powdered sugar on top went everywhere. I have pictures of Michelle getting overstimulated by the experience. 

After this endeavor, we all split up. Matt and I went to Starbucks in Mala Strana because we heard a rumor that it had an awesome basement. Well, the basement was really warm and my internet wouldn't work. Therefore, we bebopped to another cafe around the corner. It was smaller and the guy was real friendly. My internet wouldn't work there either so Matt saved the day and fixed it for me.

Later, we went out to dinner with Jenny and Bryan at an Italian Restaurant next to Kri-Kri (a classic favorite). After dinner, we went back to the Pension and then over to NYU's dorm to prepare for a night out to the famous Karlovy Lazne- a five-story club right in the center of Prague. Each floor had a different type of music. I would usually go into more detail here, but I think it might be more entertaining if you read what someone wrote on wikipedia about it. 

How can I describe the night? Tourist Indulgence. Yeah. I met creepers from Ireland, Turkey, France, and of course, Prague! So much fun. When we got bored of the wonderfully named "Black Music" floor, we would run downstairs to the Oldies. The most intense floor was definitely the techno/electronic floor, but the dj sucked. Sacrifices made for lasers and heavy beats. 

We didn't stay out too late- I was exhausted. The next day I went to go see Harry Potter 7. Oh lawddddd. It was phenomenal. It was quite a cultural experience, too. You have to reserve specific seats when you buy tickets. We came about 10 minutes before it started, so we ended up in the front, but not bad. There was an intermission, as well. Needless to say, the movie was soooooooo gooooooood.

I didn't do much for the rest of the day, but that evening, we met up with the NYU kids again for dinner. Michelle and Henry's sisters came over to visit, so we had a mini-Thanksgiving meal. Okay, well there wasn't a turkey considering it's a vegetarian restaurant. And there was nothing Thanksgiving about it, but we did our cheers and that was good enough. Actually, it was a relatively large group of people. After dinner, we split up again. Half the group went to a random house party, while my half went to Puerto Rico for a more mellow evening. The only blog-worthy event that happened was Aari and her friend Sarah were taking flaming B52 shots and Aari almost singed her eyelashes off. 

There is an art exhibit called "Decadence Now!" I think I talked about it in my last blog- it's dirty and provoking art. On Sunday, Matt, Laura, and I went to it. I tell you what...it was raunchy! Each room we entered was a taboo subject, ie, sex, death, etc. 

After, the three of us went in different directions. I had nothing to do, so I hopped on the tram and just rode around all afternoon. I went with intentions to explore, but the weather was so awful that after an hour-ish, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and listen to music. 

When I got back home, I did just that until it was dinner time. I went to the institute to make it, then I ended up at McDonald's for dessert with Becca. We actually spent about 2 and half hours there just talking. Nothing more soothing than a bonding session in the upstairs section to McDonald's. 

Nothing too exciting from yesterday except a Philosophy Scavenger Hunt! I have to say that I have gotten more out of this single experience than any class we've had so far. We had to find as many buildings that philosophers lived in from a list of 10 in the immediate area as we could. Depending on how many we find, we would then be asked that many questions about the content written underneath the address. Does that make sense? So, my team found 6 buildings. We showed our teach those 6 pictures and he then quizzed us on any 6 philosopher's we wanted. We answered 5/6 questions correctly. The boys only found 4 buildings.. therefore, it wouldn't have mattered whether they answered them all correct or not. VICTORYYYYYY. Our prize is "I don't know, perhaps a small book?" I'll let you know what he ends up bringing us. 

This week is dying down because Thanksgiving break starts tomorrow. Some people have already left for great adventures. I am not leaving until Thursday morning, however. So, I will be attending Movie Night and on Wednesday, Becca and I plan on doing a laundry adventure among other things.

Until after Venice then...

"So-Dium" Long

Krakow. Oh wow.

So, about a week and a half ago, I committed myself to go to Poland this past weekend. Talk about a whimsical adventure. I went with Matt and then three people we met through the NYU program in Cesky Krumlov; Henry, Michelle, and Stephanie.

We found our hostel relatively easily and it was superb.

It was only $11 per night and they gave us breakfast, a polish salad (more about that later), homemade lemon vodka, and one of the girls that worked there took us out (throughout the trip, of course). Also, they had the radio on at most hours. It was amazing. If you ever go to Krakow, stay at Zodiakus. Best hostel I've stayed at yet.

First of all, we took the night train. It costed us only about 95kc for a roundtrip ticket. That's crazy talk in this continent. We spent half of the ride bouncing off the walls with excitement for the trip and the fact that we were sitting in our own cabin with 6 shelves as beds. It was the first time that I truly felt like I was back-packing around Europe on a college-student-budget.

Amazing.

We finally felt exhausted enough to sleep around 1:30am. Therefore, I climbed up to the highest bed and cozied myself up to the cheap blankets. A few hours later, we heard a tapping on the door. We were 20 minutes away. The train sort of lulls you to sleep. It was peaceful... well, except for when we sat at a train station for an hour or so. Actually, at one point, we were wating for at least 30 minutes, but when we started moving again, we were moving in the opposite direction. I don't understand but we made it to Krakow with perfect timing.

Anyways, we got there around 7am, ate breakfast, then napped in the common room until our room was ready (around 9am). We settled in and headed out around the city. We decided to hop onto a free tour of Krakow but I don't think we stayed for even 1/4 of it because we ditched it about an hour in. Three hours later, we ran into the tour group at the castle. It was silly. We hid from the tour guide so that he wouldn't judge us.

So after we saw beautiful views of the river and the city, we decided to indulge in Polish treats. This wasn’t actually a decision we had planned. We were walking past a treat shop when we discovered it and without discussion, we all walked it. Each of us ordered something different and then shared with the rest. The Polish women that worked there were real nasty. They refused to give me forks so I forced Henry to use his charm and wit to get them. He came back with only 2. Despite Matt being on antibiotics for tonsillitis, we all dug in feverishly.

When we ditched the tour, we got lunch at a Thai restaurant. Overall, it was unimpressive but we weren't hungry afterward. We continued on our own tour around Poland. We went up to the castle and walked around. Great views and better opportunities to take pictures. You see, Henry and Michelle have been playing this game all over Europe where they take pictures in the exact same pose as another tourist. They call it "posing with friends," and I got to join in, too.

We continued our adventure around the Jewish Quarter. Actually, we had intended to see Schindler’s Factory [Schindler’s List], however we arrived 5 minutes after the last tour started. Don’t worry, that didn’t slow us down.

Next stop was back to the hostel for Traditional Polish Salad night! Sounds delicious right? Err, wrong. Well, if I’m being honest, I didn’t mind it. I owe my adventurous taste-testing to my mother’s adventurous cooking (Thanks Mom). Everyone else, however, were left unsatisfied. Henry took one bite and then started to bribe us to eat it for him. I know it’s considered rude if you don’t eat someone’s food in America, but for some reason I feel like it’s 10x more extreme here. Anyway, we ended up splitting up the leftover salad on all of our plates to make it look like we each tried some and then went to go get a substantial dinner close by.

The restaurant we chose apparently had the best pierogies, but that didn’t really matter because OUR HOST WORE WHITE GLOVES. Isn’t that cool? The food was, overall, nothing special. Well, except Matt’s. He got salmon pasta and it tasted like barbeque and death. That's pretty special.

After dinner, we wondered around looking for a place to hang out. We ended up at a place that the hostel recommended called Alchemia (I think). The environment was awesome. There were basically two candle sticks as the only light and all the booths were wooden. Combined with the rooms filled with people and the cheap beer, we were enjoying ourselves. We were real tired after only a few drinks, so we headed back to the hostel and called it a night.

On Saturday, we went back to Schindler’s Factory. I’m really glad we went back because I really – I don’t want to say “enjoyed” because no one enjoys the Holocaust, but I benefitted from the experience. The museum was extremely well done and effective. It was structured in a timeline format and each room had a completely different environment. So, when the Nazi’s invaded Poland with their propaganda, we walked through a room that was everything-swastika, even the floors. When the city was destroyed, we walked through a cave with a soft ground. It opened up to a gravel room. In a display, there were items in the gravel like eyeglasses and buttons. The whole museum was such an experience.

Afterward, we went to a bagel shop called Bagel Mama. Apparently, Henry, Michelle, and Stephanie read about it in wiz-air magazine on the airplane. It was owned by an American. I enjoyed my first tuna melt since I left the states. Mmm, tuna melts.

The next stop was a market area we found. It was cooler than any markets I have been to in Prague because the items were legit. I mean old jewelry, nazi badges, vintage clothing. You had to bargain prices, too. I wanted to get something but couldn’t bring myself to pay 11 zloties for a necklace.

Which brings me to the topic of sluts. The money that Poland uses is called “zloty.” Therefore, a ticket on the bus, let’s say, would be 3 zloties. To make things easier for us, we chose to just say 3 sluts. Everything became slutty real quick. We were passing sluts around all weekend.

Okay, I’m finished being immature. We took the public bus to the famous salt mine about 20 minutes away in Wieliczka. I love public transportation. We got there and paid about 50 sluts to see it. That would be about $17. For a two-hour tour really far below the surface of the Earth (I can’t be specific because I couldn’t convert the measure they use here to something I could understand), it was pretty cheap. Apparently, we only saw 1% of the salt mine, too. These miners were something else though. They’ve been digging in this mine for centuries. They carved statues to prove it. Also, there were salt chapels. We had a really good time here. The highlight of this place, though, was when we spent a solid 20 minutes making salt puns such as “carpe so-dium” or “I’m bitter about that experience.”

We bebopped back to Krakow with time to spare before dinner. Everyone split up at one point. Stephanie had a skype-date, Michelle and I went back to the hostel for a power nap, while the boys went on a bro-walk. That’s code for bonding. Eventually we met back up and the boys took us to a Latin restaurant they discovered during bonding. Michelle wasn’t feeling well, so we had to leave her behind.

Sucks, cause dinner was delectable. I had a massive child-sized burrito. Everyone else had fruit-stuff meat, which apparently tasted like 5 stars and was priced at 3. It was so great that we decided to return again the next night before the meal was over. We shared crème brulee and chocolate mousse. Also, this was my first experience with chili chocolate. Chili chocolate, for those who don’t know, is spicy. I do not recommend anyone to try this unless you have a stuffy nose. It’s not worth it.

I forgot to mention that this was vodka-night at the hostel and they were going to take everyone out to different clubs around Krakow. We all took lemon vodka shots before we left. Actually, we took two because Alicja (the girl that worked there) claims that it is tradition to take a shot whenever someone leaves. It was delicious.

After dinner, we found everyone still at the hostel even though it was past the time that they were going to go out. Alicja insisted to take us to her favorite café/pub. Im glad she came with us because we had a great time in this hidden place. In Poland, people drink their beers with syrup and straws. Punks. While we were hanging out with Alicja, her sister showed up with her boyfriend. Her TWIN sister. Twins freak me out. They were wearing the exact same thing, too. It was funny because when I pointed that out to them, they looked at each and as if on cue, they both laughed at the exact same moment, at the exact same pitch.

We spent most of the time there playing “True or False,” but it was the Polish version and Alicja couldn’t figure out how to translate all of them into Englis. We talked a lot about the differences between Poland and America, Poland and Prague. Poland is actually very, very similar to Prague. I was talking to Ladislav about this today and he said that they have almost identical histories, even with the same king at one point. However, Poland is a lot more religious for some reason.

We didn’t stay out very late because as Henry said, “I don’t want to be hungover for Auschwitz.”

We were picked up the next morning for Auschwitz. It is about an hour drive outside of Krakow, but there was a tour that organized the whole thing for us. I was bonding with a girl from Leeds on the way. When we finally got there, the mood suddenly changed. Everyone became very tense. We walked around the main Auschwitz area for two hours. We saw the famous gate that says, “Work Will Set You Free.” We also saw the torture chambers and a gas chamber. Most of the main camp became an exhibit. I didn’t realize this until I took a tour, but there were a lot of different parts to Auschwitz.

After a short break, we went to Auschwitz-Birkenou, which is the main death camp. It was a bus-trip away, though. This part of the camp was completely preserved the way it was after the war. Most of the buildings collapsed, but there were a few that we could walk in. We saw the bathroom and the building that they slept in. There were two parts, though, where I was really moved: when we were standing on the platform where they decided the fate of each person (fit or not fit), and when we were standing beside the gas chamber ruins. When the Nazis realized they were about to lose the war, they destroyed the gas chambers in hopes of covering up the plot.

Overall, the whole experience was really powerful. I needed to recoup afterwards. We got back to Krakow and were starving. As promised, we went back to Manzana. We thought we could get away with going a second night, but our waitress recognized us (even though she wasn’t our waitress the first night). Henry kept talking about these street sandwiches you can buy and how badly he wanted one before we left. I told him I would split one with him so we did “for dessert.” When we got back to the hostel, Henry tried some Polish sour soup, too. That kid had to have been stuffed afterwards.

I forgot to mention that on our walk back, we met another American. This guy seemed so normal and legit and then he slips it in that he's an opera singer. He sang for us... in the middle of Poland. At 10PM. So funny.

We left Krakow around 10:30PM on Sunday via the night train again. This time, we shared our cabin with a man named Steve from Manchester. He was real friendly, but he went to bed right away, so the rest of us felt obligated to do the same. By 11:30PM, I was out. However, I kept waking up and looking out the window because it was beautiful.

The guy on the returning train wasn’t as nice as the first one because he unlocked our door, turned on our lights and said, “GET UP!” Oy. We got back to Prague and that was it- the end of our Krakow trip!

Not too shabby, eh? I know it took me forever to get this blog up, but I’ve been a busy bee with the beekeeping class making wax candles and a cooking class. I made a Czech meal from scratch last night. More specifically, I made bread, cheese and carrot spread to go with the bread, a soup that starts with the letter K, and Moravian pie. Yup.

Oh and today I went to a provocative museum. The art is called Decadent Art, which Ladislav informed me meant debauched or disgusting art. Techincally, we went to see a textile exhibit, but a part of the provocative exhibit was on the main floor so we convinced Ladi and Nina to let us go see it. It was… well, provocative. For example, you know those plastic doll sets where you break off the different body parts and put together a doll with accessories? There was a giant one of Jesus on the cross. There was a whole wall of pictures of naked people with piercings in inappropriate places, looking like they are getting tortured and fashion bags over their heads. The display was called “fashion victims.”

The building across the street had the rest of the exhibit. I might have to go see just because it was so interesting.

Okay, okay, I’m done writing my novel.

Gestapo Diary Entry

Dear Gestapo,

I am leaving to go to Poland right now. I will be visiting Auschwitz. Prepare yourself.

In other news, I would like to blog about some events that have occurred in the past few days. However, I do not have time.

Therefore here are the highlights that I will elaborate on further in the future:

-Part Dva Club Night with NYU kids and crazy fun falling up stairs to the bro pad.

-Sketching a 68 year old overweight woman.

-American Movie Night

-Czech Movie Night

etc, etc. I'll talk to you later Gestapo.

Shalom,

Iris

Moshed Potatoes

I participated in a sick pot-luck dinner Friday night.

Everyone made dishes and somehow I ended up in a program with a whole bunch of top chefs. Becca and I made spinach-stuffed mushrooms (yeah, I hope your mouth is watering right now). I wish I could describe how awesome everything was. The highlights include beer-battered bread, mac and cheese gnocchi (way to go Matt), and veggie pasta. It was great, though. We rearranged the tables in the main hut to accommodate everyone. I felt kind of mature because at one point, someone made a toast. How adult of us.

Afterwards, a few of the Czech students who take classes with the architecture students took us out to a pub called popo-cafe-petl. It was a music bar and let's just say, we are big fans of music bars. Eva, one of the Czech girls, made a large reservation so we sat at tables and everything. When everyone eventually arrived (we came in waves), everyone was secretly stuffed from dinner and avoiding drinking heavily. As soon as we started to dance off the calories, though, the party started hopping. And let me just say, the DJ was legit. Homeboy was playing every range of music you could imagine. At one point, we even started raging so hardcore that we were moshing. When I say "we," I am not actually meaning me. I took pictures from the side:

So yeah. This night will definitely end up in the Top 5 Nights Abroad category. It was really fun. I think it may have been the people we met this night, too. I met the British guys in the red and blue shirts in the picture above at the bar. One of them slapped Becca's tush, and let me tell you- she didn't enjoy their company anymore. However, don't worry because her mood got better when the DJ came out of nowhere and whispered into her ear, "you are so fucking beautiful." Hahah. Another highlight would be when Peter, one of the guys from State who was visiting someone here whips out fluent Czech. He asked this group of people to move from the table we reserved. It was so funny for some reason because this boy, with a legit southern accent, can speak fluent Czech. Also, we were not even an hour into the night when one girl who were dancing with just stops dancing, looks at us and says, "I'm tired now. Bye." And she just left! What the?!

We started this party around 9pm, so by the time it was 12:30, I was exhausted and ready for bed. We made the tram before it switched over to the night tram schedule. Pret-ty impressive.

I spent all of Friday and Saturday roaming around the city. I actually sat down and leisurely sketched on Friday. Marketa, the drawing teacher, would be proud. Although, the outcome was not pretty. It was absolutely beautiful that day though. I got a few pictures because who could resist a scenery like this:

Did I mention that my camera broke so I take pictures blindly? It's actually pretty fun now that I've gotten over being bitter about it. I upload my photos quickly too because I can't resist looking at what I captured.

Anyway, today I returned to a cafe I found while exploring on Friday. It's called Cafe Ebel and it has bagels. BAGELS. I miss genuine Jewish bagels, but this was a pretty good substitute. I brought my computer and did a lot of work today. It's been nice being surrounded by smart people because they help me edit my essays.

In other news, I moved rooms. I am now living in a single all the way upstairs. I realize I've been a little spoiled living on the main floor with my bathroom just around the corner. You see, there is only a "gentleman's" bathroom on this floor. I have to hike naked to the floor below when I shower. I've been sneaking into the boys room to go to the bathroom, though. This proved problematic today when I snuck in without realizing there was already an old man in there. He starts hacking up a lung. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't stop giggling. But have you ever tried to suppress laughter? You end up laughing harder. I snorted by accident and homeboy stopped hacking, but he didn't leave. I ended up staying in there for approximately 20 minutes because I didn't want to reveal I was female to him. Let's just say, I haven't used it since.

I went to Radost for dinner tonight. Angels sang. It's a vegetarian restaurant with too much good food to be safe. I got pesto potatoes. Just imagine that for a little while. Afterwards, I watched "Bright Star" with Bryan, Maggie, and Jenny. That movie is a guilty pleasure cry if I've ever experienced one. So, hopefully after a mellow night, I'll have an adventure tomorrow.

Welp, I've got nothin' else good for now, but next time I have a wild endeavor, I'll keep you in the loop, blog.

Goat-herding, etc.

The past few days have been "su-per (that's how my Czech teacher pronounces it)."

Thursday was a Czech holiday so a lot of businesses were closed, schools were closed, the city was dead really. We still had classes, though. We convinced our Czech teacher to have a party this day so we arrived with snacks and she arrived with stories. It was awesome. We ate these wafer waffles, lots of cookies, and Zack even brought good ole American candy corn. Everyone brought drinks, too. It was a little weird drinking beer and wine in a language class, but weird is what living in another country is! We spent the entire class learning about the Czech government, stories about movements in the country, and the differences that Lenka noticed between America and the Czech Republic. It was really fun. I was actually pretty bummed out when it was time to end class.

We went drawing in St. Nicholas Church afterwards. My drawing teacher keeps calling me by my roommate's name, Laura. I correct her, but apparently I mumble and she doesn't realize I'm trying to correct her. Anyways, today was the first day that she called my(Iris') drawing "very nice." BOOYAHHHH SUCKAAAAAS. I may be an artist after this. Watch out.

Yesterday, we went on an eco-friendly adventure. The best part of this whole day was getting out of the city. We went to a reeeally tiny town called "Jindřichovice pod smrkem." Yeah, try saying that bad boy four times fast. Anyways, the town is powered by these two windmills. We went to go see them and even got to go into the bottom part of them. It was on the hillside and my god- combined with the fall colors, this place was beeeeautiful! Afterwards, we went to the other side of town (a 5-minute drive) and went to go see a Superadobe, which is a house created by an Iranian architect. He died two years ago, but his daughter continues his work. I tell you this because I heard this story four times. The superadobe sort of looks like an igloo, but its bags of earth coiled around. We saw one in the making and also met the mayor, Petr Pavek!

The mayor looked like a mountain man to me. He was in charge of the construction on this hill. Actually, it looked more like he was the only one doing construction on the hill. The only thing cool about him though was that he lived in a tee-pee. He was boring. I was distracted, once again, by the sweet view.

We adventured around for awhile and I found the perfect gloves for my construction worker outfit. We walked back down the hill and went to a- well, I don't know how best to describe it. It's kind of a like an Amish cottage. It was called the Skanzen and it was precious. Everything was hand-made without modern technology. I've got some good pictures of some of the machines. Upstairs, they had a collection of old items like sleds or bears or books. It was a really great place- unless you had to go to the bathroom. It was an outhouse indoors essentially, with only a candle lighting the room. I felt so hardcore. We ate lunch here. It was handmade vegetarian goulash and it was delicious. They had dumplings and cabbage and soy meat, etc. There was delicious tea as well. I really enjoyed it.

We finished lunch and then traveled an hour to a superadobe house that was completed. Oddly enough, it was owned by a famous Czech actor named Jaroslav Dusek. He wasn't there, but the people that were there were probably a whole heck of a lot cooler. One guy whips out a didgeridoo and starts playing it inside the superadobe. As I mentioned before, this place is practically an igloo so it echoed and homeboy knew his circular breathing. Mr. Frazier, my high school band teacher, would have been proud to know this man. I wanted to start folk-dancing or stepping or something. There was another man with a mean rattail. We had a good time here. A couple people discovered that our bus driver was selling beer for 20 kc (that's about a dollar) so a few people were drinking at this point.

We left this place and stopped at a castle for a hot second. I have no idea why we stopped there because for one thing, it was closed, and another, our two tour guides had no idea why it was significant. We only stayed for 20 minutes before we made our last stop at a Permaculture farm owned by a Czech-American couple. For being farmers, they were extremely well-educated. Their house was in the middle of Srbsko. Never heard of it? Me neither. It was almost tinier than the first town we went to, but their home was beautiful and remodeled. To put it mildly, this couple was loaded and intelligent. They gave us a presentation about food and stuff (literally, it was called "The Science of Stuff"), which was interesting enough. I enjoyed listening to it, but I enjoyed their daughters more. Oh and the tea! It was organic herbal tea. So freaking good.

Actually, let me just say that the entire day seemed involve small children- they were everywhere! One of the professor's granddaughters was with us all day, the other professor's children rode the bus with us, and the mayor's son was about to his us all with a Finding Nemo dodgeball. Well, we ended the day meeting this couple's daughters, who were the only children that could speak English, therefore they were the cutest cause we knew what they were saying.

There were even more animals. There were cows, horses, goats, chickens, a turkey that is too friendly to be used for Thanksgiving, more horses, a cow mounting a horse (I have a picture, don't worry), bees, and yeah- I think that's it. I had a really great time galloping in the fields with goats.

Oh gosh you'll never believe who I ran into at this place! M. GOAT! We took a picture for the friends and family back home.

By the end of the evening, I was exhausted. However, we left the couple's house and saw so many stars. I haven't seen stars in forever because the city is too darn bright. Bryan and I took a romantic walk behind the house to star-gaze. That was the whole day in a nutshell.

I woke up this morning with the intentions of writing a paper all day so that I would feel better about celebrating Halloween tonight, however I got distracted by Becca inviting me to go visit a cemetery nearby. I went with her to find WiFi, but the places we found didn't open for another hour, therefore, I walked with her. The cemetery was beautiful. I know that sounds a bit odd because usually people don't just go walk around cemetery's, but it really was a beautiful place. We decided that we should talk about our futures in the cemetery. It's scary that mine is a semester and a half away, but talking about it around tombstones make me feel better.

We went back to a restaurant with WiFi afterwards, but unfortunately I needed this letter in the password: Á. I know what you're thinking, "Iris you got it in this blog, why couldn't you get it in the password?" Well, cyber friend, I have no freaking idea. It took my almost 25 minutes to figure out how to get an international keyboard on this computer and even though I now have a cool American flag in the corner of my macbook, I still have no idea why I couldn't spell out the word prasátka (pigs). So I gave up trying and came back to the pension.

SO, I procrastinated in posting this and now I have more updates. Saturday night was the mega-Halloween celebration. We went to Radost FX (Rhianna made a music video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd8jh9QYfEs) and let's just say that I had the exact same experience as Rhianna. It was real fun. We got in fo' free because we were dressed up, too. I was a construction worker. One of the perks of hanging out with design kids is that they can draw me some sweet tattoos. Zack drew a moose on my neck, while James drew a naked lady on my forearm. I didn't take any pictures, unfortunately, but it was professional quality (good thing, too, because it didn't come off for days). The coolest costumes from our group was the blue man group.

The next day and a half was spent working on my Philosophy paper, which I BEASTED. Monday night was movie night this week and it was the best movie we've seen yet. We watched "Lemonade Joe" and it was a spoof of an American Western film. Oh my god. I was dying the entire time because it was so corny and old and perfect. Basically, it was about a guy who was promoting drinking lemonade instead of whiskey. I can't do the movie justice by describing it, but if you ever find yourself in a foreign language film shop and stumble across it, invest in it.

In other news, we went to the Opera Tuesday night. We watched "Rasalka." The only way to summarize it is "Little Mermaid on crack." It was about a mermaid who was trippin' over some prince so she got a witch to turn her human. Homegirl ended up sabotaging the whole relationship herself with good looks and charm (sort of like me all the time), and therefore, Ariel(/Rasalka) was doomed and instead of the happy marriage at the end, everyone dies. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but the prince definitely didn't live. It was really fun, despite the whole show being in Czech. They had English subtitles at the top of the stage, though.

I haven't really done anything cool since then. Mostly applying for internships and real-life jobs... bahhhhhh

Chlupaty Chlab

^ That means "hairy man."

I apologize whole-heartedly for my lack of blogging. I don't even have an excuse for it, so I'll just accept that our relationship has been one-sided and move on.

Here are the highlights from the past week-ish:

I no longer have pneumonia!!! It's going to take awhile to get back into the swing of things. I have been out of the social game for quite some time.

I woke up early on Friday to go on an Architecture Tour around Prague with the Architecture students. It was fun... at least for me, who doesn't look at this stuff every day. By the end of it, I

was cold, hungry, and sleepy, however it was nice to do something different.

Afterwards, I got lunch with Matt and then we went on a hunt for a legit windbreaker for our 80's themed night. It was unsuccessful, but we did find a store called Second Hand, which was conveniently placed to the right of Erotic Shop. So when you weren't really paying attention, it looks like one store called Erotic Shop Second Hand. When we parted ways, I found another good vintage shop that had leopard print gloves. Yes, please. It only cost me $1.

That night, a group of us decided to go to Lucerna, which is an 80's/90's music club. We got dressed up really hardcore. I was wearing my yellow baseball cap, my new leopard print gloves, tights with shorts, and one of Devanne's jackets (because apparently, they are all from the 80s). Heavy makeup and hair-teasing ensued. We got to the club around 10:30-11pm and didn't leave until 2:45am. Yes, it was that good. I kept feeling waves of fatigue, but as soon as your favorite childhood song would end, another would come on and you couldn't resist getting into it. We spent most of the night on the stage, where we got a full view of all the Sketchy Mcsketchersons. We finally headed out and got on the tram towards the pension. However, after a few stops in, this large group of Czechs around my age came on and just started to

vandalize the tram. It was really scary actually. One guy reached over my head to draw on the window above me. I thought he was aiming for my hat. Another guy called me a Hammerhead. I don't know the significance of that, but it could be because I was wearing my hat the only was one should wear a baseball cap.

Well, alas they got off, and a few stops later, so did we. I slept well that night. The next day, I went to Petrin Hill with Matt. This was the first time I've been there since the trees started

changing colors. For all of you southerners back home who are chillin' in 80 degree weather, I am walking to class in 45 degree weather. Think about that. Anyways, we've had some beautifully sunny days recently and this was one of them. We were exploring Petrin Hill when we found ... well, not Petrin Hill. So, we turned around and decided to find the mirror maze that someone told us was at the top. We found it right beside the mini-eiffel tower, but unfortunately, it was really tiny and not as exciting as we expected. However, we didn't pay 50kc for nothing because while we were walking through it, we saw this little 3 year old run straight into a mirror. I mean, head first. And then he fell over. Hahaha.

Okay anyways, later that evening, we met up with Becca M., Bryan Brooks, and Becca H. (that's a lot of B's) for dinner. We decided to explore and ended up near Namesti Miru (the metro stop beside ours). We found an Italian restaurace called Matylda's. It was so good. Everyone was drinking barrel wine, which I don't really know what makes barrel wine good, but I couldn't join in yet due to antibiotics. Afterwards, everyone got their American fix with a McFlurry. We were all pretty exhausted from the adventures from the night before, therefore, we watched a movie in Bryan and Matt's room. We watched Heath Ledger's last movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). Not bad, my friends. It's a little weird and mini-me was an awful awful actor in it, but I did enjoy it.

Let's see, the next day.. Ah yes, the next day I wanted to go exploring alone. I grabbed a baguette from the grocery store and walked to a park nearby. This park was so legit. It had a zip line! This really skinny boy was sitting on it, about to go down, when his overweight friend said something and climbed on top of the skinny boy- now straddling him- and they went down together. I was dying. I had to leave the park after that because I couldn't control myself.

I walked back toward the pension, but kept going further. I haven't ventured this way at all since I've been here. It was really nice. There were a lot of paths and small walkways. I ended up in a different part of town and decided to do a little tram-hopping. I tell you what, if you are ever bored in another country, I recommend tram-hopping. I saw the funniest people. It was nice too because I was getting a little tour of the city in areas I haven't been to yet. I found some great places, but I don't think I could navigate back there again. I wasn't paying attention to

which trams I would catch.

That evening was relatively boring from what I recall.

Monday, I went into school earlier than usual so that I could meet up with the fashion girls to discuss the big fashion show! Haha. This is going to be great, I just know it. The girls are designing clothes and the architecture students are going to be modeling for them. Somehow, I received the role as director. Ladislav, who is quickly becoming my favorite person in Prague, suggested that I make a dress for myself. I admire his optimism, however, I can barely sketch a dress, let alone sew one. Well, we decided that the Romeo and Juliet theme of their project will be depicted through a Gossip Girl genre. This means that I, the narrator, am Gossip Girl.

SUCKAS. Prepare yourself for details.

Philosophy class was kind of fun this afternoon, too. The teacher told me at the beginning that he was lacking sleep, so that might be why he was funnier than he usually is. He asked us if we wanted to go on a Philosophical Scavenger Hunt around Prague after one of our classes (is that even a question?). When we all agreed to this philosophical adventure, he said passively, "well then, if you get lost in a difficult question or a dark neighborhood, you cannot blame me." Well- played, sir, well-played.

Monday night was uneventful. In Czech class on Tuesday, man oh man did I learn how to say something good.

Byl tak oskly va, ze bych o neho kolo neoprela.

That means "he was so ugly that I would not lean my bike against him." It's going to be handy, I just know it. After class, I went to the Jewish Museum. It was awesome. There were drawings all over the walls made by Jewish children in the ghettoes. It was the way that the Jews kept the kids occupied and optimistic during the Holocaust. In one building, there were engravings of all the Jewish people from Prague who perished. We also went to the cemetery. The Jews were only allotted this small area in the city to bury their people, so they would pile dirt above other graves. Therefore, there are approximately 12 layers of a whole chunk of Jews. The tombstones are all leaning against each other.

On the way back, Matt and I picked up a bottle of wine each in preparation for anti-antibiotic night and movie night. The movie we watched was about Czech pilots who fought for Britain during WWII. It was a lot like Pearl Harbor and the best movie I've seen during movie night yet. After movie night, we stuck around the institute until it closed and then headed out to a bar called "Los v Oslu," but we just called it the Moose bar because there is a giant moose head inside. It was the first time we went there as a group and it was pretty fun. It closed around 1am, so we spent one more hour at Puerto Rico, our beloved bar close to the pension, before we called it a night.

This morning, I went to the Prague Castle with the Fashion History class. We go to a museum every other week. We went to a museum near the castle. I didn't ever check which it was, but it was everything Baroque. We saw Baroque Fashion (appropriately) in the basement, then Baroque paintings and statues. We followed a path into a cellar with Baroque artifacts that were brand new. That didn't come out right. We found a brand new exhibit with Baroque artifacts. That was a pretty sweet find.

When we left the museum, we went around the castle courtyard and ended up taking a different route back to the institute. It was so beautiful and Ladislav was narrating the whole time about how it used to look before Communism lifted and what certain doors were used for (ie, one door led directly to the King's room and he used for his secret affairs). We walked through the vineyards, back across the river, and right into Old Town Square. It was gorgeous today, too. I took awesome pictures and promise to post them ASAP.

Well that's the abbreviated version of the weekend/week/past. This weekend will include an excursion and bob-sleighing perhaps, so stay tuned kids!