New Blog

I have moved on from this blog to another in order to preserve the Prague memories. That way, I can "Czech" them out later. hehe. Join me on the other side

Přišti Stanice: America!

"Přišti stanice" means "next stop." Well, it's all coming to an end. I'll give you the run-down from the last week.

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!

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.