Silver is Sweet Too

I don't really have an excuse for not posting earlier in the week, other than the fact that things seem to be settling into a rhythm finally in Prague.  We just came from watching the USA vs. Canada hockey match, so I'm a little disappointed at the moment, but more on that later.

After returning to Prague from Berlin, it really felt like coming home.  I got back to the gym, cooked dinner for myself a couple of nights, things you do when you adjust to living in any new place.  It's been kind of a quiet week (needed that), so this blog post will not be nearly as interesting as the last, sorry.  Classes are finally underway as well, and proving to be an interesting mix of subjects and difficulty.

Many study abroad programs have the reputation for being "less than academic," where classes are more or less a joke.  One of the reasons I picked this program, through Michigan, was because it was pretty legit as far as abroad programs go, and all the grades transferred.  That started to show a bit this week, as my economics classes actually involved some math and, well, economics.  I'm very glad I took Econ 402 before I came, which is a more advanced macroeconomics, because my Central and Eastern European (CEE) Growth and Development class is not looking so easy.

My other classes are going well.  Czech language and Prague as a Living History (walking tours) really interest me.  I never thought I would want to learn Czech so much.  Environmental Policy in the EU is going to be an interesting mix of policy and economics, and European Integration is going to teach me all I want to know (and probably more) about the European Union.  So, my classes actually relate to the place I'm living, which is kind of cool.

Friday to Saturday, my program went on a trip to Cesky Krumlov, a castle-town in the southern Czech Republic, almost at the Austrian border.  With a population of about 15,000, Cesky Krumlov really is a town/village, but it was beautiful and almost like a mini Prague.  On the way, we stopped to visit a communist concentration camp where they held political prisoners.  It was pretty bad, with solitary confinement cells and brainwashing and pictures of Stalin everywhere.  The tour we got was pretty interesting, although the video we had to watch for 45 minutes to start the visit put everyone to sleep.

We had lunch upon arrival in Cesky Krumlov at a medieval restaurant, got a tour of the city, and checked into our hostel for the night.  The challenge of the evening was finding a place to watch USA vs. Finland, but we found an extremely local bar that had satellite tv and they allowed us to watch.

 Me, Ahbra, Sophie, and Sophie's boyfriend Mike (visiting from USA) in Cesky Krumlov

A word about this bar:  while they had menus in English, I'm pretty sure no one spoke English, and there was the most intense match of darts going on in the room.  Many places in the U.S. have bowling leagues, but this place obviously has some sort of dart league.  With such a small town, it was fun to watch these Czechs compete with each other and get so emotional (something I hadn't seen yet from them).  The bartender/waiter was also funny, and luckily we knew just enough Czech to take the edge off and allow ourselves to have a great experience.  It was also nice to see that Czech is spoken somewhere outside of Prague, even if it is a small town.

The next day, we toured another castle on the way back to Prague.  It was beautiful, and looked like something out of a book with the beautiful weather we had as well.  On the walls inside the castle hung hundreds and hundreds of antlers and prizes from hunting.  The castle, which, like the one in Cesky Krumlov, once belonged to the famous Schwartzenberg family of southern Bohemia and Austria, was pretty much in the middle of nowhere but very cool to see.  We stopped at a nearby McDonald's (yes, McDonald's, but by far the fastest one I've ever been to) and made our way back to Prague.

 Our second castle of the trip

Saturday night (last night) we celebrated my flatmate Doug's 21st birthday by picking up some dinner, cake, and going out to Karlozy Lazne, the five story club.  It was a lot of fun, and I ran into a bunch of Michigan students, who didn't go abroad due to our 'wonderful' business school, who were traveling through Europe over spring break.  What a small world, and really, when I saw one of them was my friend, I was pretty much speechless.

Today was pretty slow up to the game.  We went to brunch, I figured out some spring break plans with my friend Jake who is studying here also, and then I hung out with some of the Michigan kids visiting for a while.  We went to a really authentic Czech pub called By the Golden Tiger (they had to see something really Czech while they were here). Then, it got a little more interesting.

I made a reservation for everyone to watch the hockey game at a local sports bar, and it turned out that half the restaurant was for USA and the other half for Canada.  Right before overtime, chants of U-S-A competed with Go-Canada-Go (doesn't quite have the same ring to it does it?).  It will be a great memory, would've been even better had we won, but it was cool to experience all these people coming together halfway around the world.

That's about all I got at this point.  My family comes to visit on Friday, and I'm so excited to share this experience with them.  Dobry noc!

Berlin: A Tale of Two Cities in One (but I still love Praha)

I’m really not sure where to begin writing about Berlin.  As I sit here on the train back to Prague, I am only beginning to digest Germany (but I don’t want to forget any details, so I’m going to start writing about it now anyway).  Thus, if this blog entry is a little bit different or more confusing (or longer) than the previous ones, I apologize in advance

Above:  the Brandenberg Gate, the symbol of Berlin

Below:  my friends and I outside the Reichstag

Berlin to me was a city of great highs and lows, and as a result pretty confusing.  For example, it seems to me that Berlin is the newest old city in the world; the city itself is extremely old, but everything in it is new almost to the point of futuristic at times because so much of the city was destroyed during World War II (from what our tour guide would later call “bombage” for short).  There is so much construction that Berlin is about 50 million Euro in debt, and thus is not able to afford salt for the sidewalks, at all.  During the day, there is a ton of tourism and history and places to see, but at night I found the scene to be a lot more intense than Prague, somewhat darker, and a little creepy on the U-Bahn ride back to the hostel.  But, Berlin is a big city, and Prague ultimately is not, so that could be a much simpler explanation.

Did I enjoy Berlin?  Well, no.  Enjoy is really not the right word.  Germany still felt a bit uncomfortable, not for the people living there today but for the fact that the history is overwhelming.  I'm glad I went, but not eager to go back.

Contradictions were everywhere, and at times a little bit disconcerting because most of these centered around WWII and the Holocaust.  Take the Holocaust Memorial as another example.  It was built right in the heart of Berlin, around the corner from Parliament, and on prime real estate.  Clearly, Germans want to remember this event and so put the memorial so close to Unter den Linden, a main street, right?  But it’s not so clear, and even this memorial was controversial.

 

The Holocaust Memorial in the center of Berlin

It is 2,711 stone pillars of different sizes, basically rectangular in shape.  Towards the middle the ground slopes down the and the pillars get taller, and it gets extremely eerie.  Probably, the artist’s intention was to make the monument look like a graveyard. The number of stones doesn’t make sense, because the Holocaust didn’t make sense.  But there is no informative part of the memorial, nothing to say exactly what happened and emphasize that it must never happen again.

This theme continued when we visited the Jewish Museum (which, clearly, was geared towards non-Jewish people and had a lot of theological explanations).  The museum has a spectacular display of German Jewish history 1000 years ago, and 500 years ago, but NOT within the last 100 years.  There was a whole huge museum, and with the exception of a memorial in the basement floor and a few rooms about the 20^th century Jews and the Holocaust, there was not very much information.  Was it openly anti-semitic?  No, I don’t think so, even though I’ve heard others have gotten that impression.  But is it enough?  In my opinion, not even close (the others I visited with, also Jewish students, also agreed). 

There is a timeline of events, some facts surrounding the event and the rise of the Nazis (usually referred to as ‘National Socialists,’ not Nazis), but nothing about who was to blame, NOTHING about bystanders, and virtually no specific details about the types of atrocities that occurred in the camps such as torture, medical experiments, and the systematic and precise execution of the Final Solution.

Granted, if I were the German people, I would not be sure how to address the problem of remembering.  And some might say that the museum’s goal was not to be about the Holocaust, but about general German Jewry.  But really, German Jewry (and World Jewry) has been DEFINED by the Holocaust, more so than even the Crusades or the creation of Israel.  If the bystanders hadn’t been bystanders, there wouldn’t have BEEN a Holocaust (I say this as we sit in our little 6 person compartment on the train with us four students from Prague and an older German couple who was definitely alive when Hitler was in power).  The history is very removed from the people, very ‘third-person’ if that makes sense.

The real question I have after all this is what do German students learn in high school/ grade school about their history in the last 77 years (since 1933)?  If it is up to museums like this to teach the students, I think they are failing.  I hope they go into more depth in the schools, because this museum barely grazed the surface of an atrocity grandparents of Germans my age were around to see.  My flat mate Ahbra just made a good point…made shame has something to do with it.

Probably, I should’ve started with what I actually did in Berlin, and I won’t be offended if you stop reading now, but this stuff was on my mind and is most likely the takeaway points from the city.  Anyway, we left Prague early Thursday morning and got on the train at Hlavni Nadrazi, Prague’s main station, headed for Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin’s new station which was opened in 2006 for the World Cup and is absolutely beautiful.  The train ride was pretty uneventful, as we slept, went to the dining car, chatted a little bit with a Brazilian couple in our car, and did trainy things.  When we got to Berlin, we spent about an hour in the station trying to find an ATM and get a transportation pass, got a little bit lost on the way to our hostel, but made it in safely about 4 pm.  The hostel was called CityStay, and is right in the Mitte of Berlin (former East Berlin, heart of city).

Berlin was so much easier to figure out direction-wise than Prague, as there is at least some order to the streets.  Mass transit here is also great, and at times almost too much it seems.  There is a subway system (U-Bahn), a surface train system (S-Bahn), buses, some trams, and regular trains.  The metro map is crazy to read at first, but it is a pretty nice system overall and even the subway train stations are basically real, legit train stations, not your typical DC hole in the ground where you wait for your train (not that the DC metro is bad).  We walked around the main stretch for a while, found some Italian place our hostel staff-person recommended, and called it a night as we were all exhausted and wanted to get up early the next day.

Friday, we took a free walking tour of Berlin through a company that gives tours all over Europe and only works on tips.  Our guide’s named was Barry, he was Irish, and he was absolutely fantastic.  The tour lasted about 5 hours included a lunch break, and covered so much ground.  Quite frankly, we never would’ve been able to organize our trip this way so that we would get a great sense of history while seeing all the sights.  By the end of the tour, Barry had me convinced that Berlin was probably the most important city of the last 100 years.  It’s definitely at least top 4, with New York, Washington, and Jerusalem the only other contenders I can think of.

 

What is left of the Berlin Wall, which is not very much.  Ironically, the Germans have to put up a fence to protect the Berlin Wall from getting taken apart anymore but people looking for souvenirs or things to sell...do you smile for a picture like this?

We saw everything from the remainder of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie to the U.S. Embassy, Holocaust Memorial, Brandenberg Gate, and museums.  We also had lunch at Aroma, a café chain owned by an Israeli couple.  There is an unbelievable amount of history associated with Berlin, far more than Prague.  So, I am happy we went.  After the tour, a few of us checked out the Pergoman Museum (after getting harassed by Gypsies), Berlin’s best museum and a place described by Barry as a storage for lots of big stuff Germans had stolen over the years.  It was really cool, with entire edifices from Roman and Greek cities transported to Berlin, the Pergoman Alter being the most famous, and the Ishtar Gate from Babylon (which was beautiful and so old and extremely historical).

Everyone was exhausted, so instead of going on the pub crawl associated with the free tour Friday night (we saved it for Saturday), we used a guidebook recommendation to a good, cheap, authentic German restaurant called Henne.  This was the best meal I’ve had in Europe (up to that point anyway).  The atmosphere was extremely real and German, there were families there and old friends, the menu had very few items because everyone either ordered the house specialty half-chicken or sausages with an awesome potato or cabbage salad, and the beer choices were really fun.

 

 Hannah, Sophie, and I at Henne...for you fellow Erieites, the "Oakwood" of Berlin

I’m not quite sure how we managed to move after eating so much, but we did end up checking out a nightclub called Watergate afterwards.  My cousin Julie studied in Berlin for 6 months a few years ago, and she had told me about it as one place they went a few times.  The actual club was cool and beautiful, located right on the river.  But it was a little bit too techno/ intense/ dark for me.  I’m not a huge club guy in the U.S., so this was just not really my scene, plus the people who worked there were really rude.

Saturday morning to early afternoon we went to the Jewish museum, which I already covered.  Afterwards, Sophie, Hannah, and I went to a huge department store named KaDeWe (also recommended by Julie…THANK YOU for that one).  For any readers who know London’s Harrod’s Department Store, it was exactly like it.  Although I believe it is technically the second biggest store in Europe to Harrod’s, it was every bit as gourmet and fancy and amazing.  Like, really amazing.

 Is this heaven?  No, it's (Iowa) KaDeWe

We spent an hour and a half just on the top two floors, which was where the gourmet food cafeteria area was and the “grocery” area.  This was probably the best meal I’ve had in such a long time; the couscous was insane, the vegetable salad tasted like candy, and the meats were so good.  The different salads and cheeses and everything we tried were so delicious, but the chocolate mousse was possibly the best chocolate thing I’ve ever eaten.  The Food Network show ‘The Best Thing I’ve Ever Eaten’ needs to come there.  We walked around the grocery area, salivating like crazy I’m sure at the amazing selection of meats and fish and cheeses and pastries and more.  If you know my family, you know that we like to try new foods and experience markets and such wherever we vacation.  This would be towards the top of our list.  Yes dad, you could buy tails, pork knuckle, brains, liver, and other assorted body parts at the butcher area.

Not needing dinner because we were so stuffed, we went back to the hostel, met up with the rest of our group, and departed for the pub-crawl.  It was actually pretty interesting, with people of all different ages from many different countries.  Had some great conversations through the night, even though some of the bars were not really full except for the pub-crawl.  We finished up at a club called Matrix, which was much more my style of American music and not so dark.  By that point, however, I was too tired to really appreciate it.  I headed back with part of the group relatively early (2 am in Berlin is early), and of course stopped to eat some more at a Doner stand, which is basically like a gyro but even better.

This morning, we went to Einstein’s Café for a nice breakfast (even though our waitress got really mad at us for trying to pay with coins…just another reason to hate the Euro I guess) and then went to the top of the Reichstag, Germany’s Parliament building.  I will admit, I’m partial to the U.S. Capitol, and going up in the Capitol Dome this past summer was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  But the Reichstag was very interesting as well, and the views of Berlin were awesome.  Again, the history in the building was presented in a very factual way, with “Nazis” hardly being mentioned.  But, it was a good place to go.

 

The top of the Reichstag, promoting German "transparency"

After stopping for some chocolate on the way back at Germany’s best chocolatier (apparently, hopefully mom will like the chocolate I got her), which had huge chocolate sculptures in the shape of Berlin’s famous monuments and the biggest selection of truffles ever, and the stopping again for a pretzel with baked cheese on it (I couldn’t resist the soft pretzels on the streets, something Germany really does well), we made our way back to the train station, which brings me to where I am right now, somewhere around Dresden on the way home (yes, I already feel like Prague is home and am SO happy with my decision to study there; it’s already more comfortable than I expected).  The German couple just got off, and since it is only four of us in our train cabin, we are starting a dance party via my laptop.

Aside from the Euro (which sucks compared to the Czech crowns, and makes things more expensive), Germans were different from Czechs.  They spoke a lot more English on the whole, were at times more open to talking and friendlier, but were also darker at night and more big-city (we were in Berlin after all, a huge European capital).  We met some great people here, from the random stranger on the train who offered her thoughts on the places we were visiting to the people who ran the hostel.  And it is true, German’s are extremely ‘efficient’ with everything they do.

I think I will remember this city through Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.  Okay, not really, but what I got out of Berlin in my short time there was that it is at least two cities overlapped together.  It is important for people to come here, this I firmly believe, even if it was a bit uncomfortable at times.  Anyone majoring in history should come here before they graduate for sure.  And the food was awesome.

Sorry this entry was so long, but I do want to use this blog as a journal after all, and no one said you had to read the whole thing.  Probably the only entries that will be this long are the ones after I visit places, but I’ll try to limit it in the future.  Berlin was just so much, and I am happy to be studying in Prague.  Time to go watch the Czech hockey game…down 3-1 against the Russians, not looking good.  I’m debating watching USA vs. Canada at 1:40 am, with an 8:20 Czech class.

My First Obstacle: Bread Crumbs

So far, what do I miss most about America?  Is it the ability to read street signs?  No.  Is it watching ESPN and the Olympics in English?  Close, but no.  So far, the thing I miss most about home without a doubt is Wegman's (for all those not lucky enough to live near Wegman's, it is a grocery store).

To recap the early part of the weekend, my friends from Florence had a great time, or so it seemed.  Fri-Sat we did the highlights tour during the day, and found some interesting places to go at night.  Saturday was especially interesting at Karlozy Lazne, a pretty famous 5-story club next to the Charles Bridge.  Each floor had a different type of music (of course there was the 80s floor, but also rap/American music that was the most popular dancing floor), and it was a great time.  We stayed out really late of course.

Sunday, my friends and I went to Bohemia Bagel in the morning (for the second time that weekend, because it was the most American meal they've had in Europe).  The weather was gorgeous, really clear blue skies for the first time.  Then, the day got frustrating

It was Valentine's Day yesterday, so I wanted to cook dinner for my flat (or attempt to).  I wanted something good, but fairly easy, and settled on chicken and eggplant parmesan with pasta.  Sophie volunteered to make a salad and get wine, and Doug and Ahbra picked up a dort (cake).  Seth, he mostly played moral support.

**Important note:  Dort is a fantastic word, and my flat's favorite Czech word.  Our motto has quickly become "Dort Nap Pivo," which translates to "Cake Nap Beer."  Good way of life.

Seth and I hopped on the tram to Tesco to go grocery shopping.  Chicken, no problem.  Tomato sauce, got it.  Cheese, they had mozzarella and parmesan.  But, where to find some bread crumbs for the crust?  This was difficult.  We literally walked across the entire store multiple times, tried to ask people if they had bread crumbs and were not understood at all, talked to people in Czech and English, and still no bread crumbs.

After a half hour of searching, I finally looked for some crackers to use instead, to try and make my own bread crumbs.  And I made sure to ask how to say bread crumbs in Czech class this morning, an extremely underrated word.  They didn't work perfectly, in fact they burned quite a bit when I tried to brown the chicken.  But I guess with enough olive oil and spices and good sauce and cheese, anything can taste good, because my parmesan came out excellent actually!

It was a great Valentine's Day dinner, completely with rose on the table and candlelight (seriously, that's because we live with two girls).  Right now, I'm killing time waiting for my Central and Eastern European Growth and Development class to start.  I finally joined a gym this morning 5 minutes from school, so we are all definitely settling into a routine here in Praha.

Berlin is coming up quickly this weekend...if I don't post before then, I'm sure there will be a HUGE post on Sunday or Monday after we get back.  We are all hoping to watch the Czech hockey team in bars while we are here as well (maybe in a language we can understand, unlike our cable tv at home).

Cao!

Mluvim Cesky! (Well, Sort of)

I am officially done with my orientation period for CERGE-UPCES.  Hard to believe, yes.  Does it feel like I've been here longer than just 10 days?  Absolutely.  They really did a good job preparing us for this semester, and compared to a lot of other study abroad kids in Prague (or Europe), I feel much more confident communicating in my country's native language, and I know how to get around.

Wednesday we had, of course, morning Czech, and then had a lecture about Jewish heritage in Prague for a short time.  There are only 1500-1700 identified Jews living in Prague today, a city of 1.2 million.  The Jews here are still nervous about revealing their identity, as a result from the previous years of hardship.  After the lecture, we toured the Jewish Quarter in Prague, which was actually a much smaller space than I expected.  The main sites were the Maisel Synagogue, the Old New Synagogue, the Spanish Synagogue, a touching monument and temple with 50,000 names of Holocaust victims written on the walls, and the famous Jewish Cemetery, which has graves that stack on top of each other as high as 12!  They ran out of room, and had no more land for graves.  I met another cool Czech student, Klara, who was walking around with us for the tour and is partnered up with my friend Hannah from Michigan.

I didn't go out Wednesday night for once, because I needed a recovery day.  Yes, that does happen in Prague.  More than staying out late, the smoke in bars absolutely kills me, because everyone in Europe seems to smoke cigarrettes.

Thursday, we had classes in the morning, and my flatmates showed me this amazing little bakery called Rembrandt near school.  I think it is a small chain in Prague, but the food is so good, the pastries smell delicious, and it is so cheap.  Thursday afternoon we visited the Prague Castle.  It was huge, and beautiful, and all the things you see from the pictures.  It was also extremely cold, so I want to go back again when it is warmer.  The views of the city are stunning.  Our tour guide took us through the castle, its many churches (they were all old, and famous, and started to blend together after a while in the cold), and a few halls of the castle.

View from the Prague Castle

That night, through flight delays and unpredictable weather, my friend Joe and his roommate arrived from Florence to visit for the weekend!  They pretty much were instantly hooked on Prague.  We went to a nice little lounge/club named Radost FX, extremely popular with Americans and even some Czechs.  It is doubly convenient because the tram drops us right at Radost's corner from our corner.

Now we come to today, our last day of intensive Czech language!  Honestly though, I have really appreciated it, and it is SO easy to learn a new language when you are using it constantly and living in the culture.  We were able to order coffee and pastries from our flat's favorite bakery entirely in Czech, and even got the people there to teach us some new words!  Nonverbal communication is so powerful, and I can see they really appreciate the fact that we are trying to learn Czech.  For our final assignment today, we had to go to the post office and order, in Czech, an envelope and postage stamp to America.  Kind of cool.

This afternoon, we had a welcome reception from UPCES to mark our "graduation" from orientation.  It was at a nice little place called Cafe Lourve, which is a good place to come back for dinner or nightlife.  Afterwards, I showed my friends around a little bit.  Playing tour guide is a lot of fun.

We are all about to take a nap now so we can survive tonight.  About 12 of us have a reservation at this semi-famous place called Beer Factory, which has good food but is known for having beer taps in the middle of every table with kegs underneath, and special knobs for keeping track of how much you drink (i.e. apparently competitions often take place).  It should be a lot of fun (Czechs really do love beer, it's just part of the culture) and we'll go out after that to continue our night.

Until next post, Na Schledanou!

Cold Cold Cold, But Settling In

As you may have guessed from this post's title, cold has settled in to the Czech Republic.  But, of course we aren't letting that hold us back.

The weekend was a lot of fun, and I really feel like I'm getting the hang of the city and public transportation now.  By far, the best place I think we've gone at night was Lucerna Friday night.  Right off one of the main shopping areas in Prague (Wenceslas Square, like the Times Square of Prague, for another NY reference), Lucerna is just like a club you would find in the U.S., but with people from 50 different countries all speaking different languages.  Friday nights at Lucerna are 80s nights (again, the obsession with the 80s music), and attracts a huge and diverse crowd of foreigners and Czechs alike.

Saturday, our new flat went to Tesco together, which is like an upscale Target in downtown Prague.  I'm pretty sure Tesco is somehow related to Costco, but on a slightly smaller scale.  We stocked up on some food, laundry detergent, and some basic house supplies.

Sunday night we watched the Super Bowl of course.  It started at 6:30 ET, which was 12:30 am on Monday our time.  But, we could never miss out on an American holiday.  Somehow, the majority of people on my program and a TON of other Americans all ended up at the same Irish sports bar to watch the game.  When I say that there were probably 40 people from Michigan there (mostly sorority girls of various sorts), I'm not exaggerating.  Not exactly what I expected from Prague, but it was the Super Bowl, so being around Americans was great.  Obviously, we all sang the national anthem as loud as we could as they sang it to start the game.  We left at halftime, but luckily the game was on tv at our flat...well, it was German tv, but watching the second half of the Super Bowl in Prague, in German language, is surely a memory I'll have for a while.

Sophie and Andrew, two of my new friends from Tulane who obviously are happy with the Super Bowl result.  I had to sport a football shirt of sorts, and Michigan is always classy.

Monday morning, we (tiredly) started Czech language classes.  The hardest part of Czech language for me so far has been pronouncing the different sounds that Czechs use, that we do not have in English.  There is a lot of teeth clenching involved and your tongue gets tired quickly.  I'm sure this will improve as time goes on.  After morning Czech, we had a couple lectures about communism and culture shock, one at the main building at CERGE and another a decent metro ride away in the CERGE Humanities building at Jinondice, towards the outskirts of Prague.  Highlights of the culture shock lecture include the fact that adjusting to a new place is like a roller coaster, so apparently in a few weeks I should expect to hit a low and be frustrated that I'm not in America (but then get over it), and that if a Czech girl looks at me for an extended period of time, that is like an open invitation (I guess like America?), so be careful.

The coolest thing to happen since my last post was on Monday afternoon.  A while back, I got an e-mail saying that if we wanted to be paired up with a Czech student, we could.  I thought this was a great opportunity, so replied that I want to have a Czech partner.  Well, Monday afternoon I met Tereza, a Czech university student my age who was also interested in meeting an American.

We walked for a little bit and ended up at one of her favorite cafe places in Old Town near the Charles Bridge.  After staying there for a couple hours, we walked a little bit more towards my flat across the river and had a glass of wine at another small place near home, where she said a lot of Czech students hang out.

The experience was awesome.  I'm pretty sure I was the only non-Czech in both places for starters, and all along the way she pointed out some fun places to go, none of which I had ever heard of from Americans who had been to Prague before.  These includes Jazz clubs with live music, cool coffee shops, and a hugely traditional Czech bar that we poked our head into, which was filled with smoke, long benches with chairs, and older Czech men drinking and gossiping.

The bottom line is this:  American and Czech 20-year olds are not all that different.  She likes to go out to get drinks, or dance, or hang out with friends.  Her family lives in a suburb of Prague, and her dad, like most Czechs, enjoys typical Czech food and beer.  She actually studied in American during high school, in Las Vegas of all places.  We basically talked about everything, from my university life to her interests and interests of typical Czechs.  I really want to continue learning about Czechs my age, and maybe make some new friends in the process.

 

Ahbra, Doug (Dougie), Sophie, and Me with the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle in the background.

That brings us to today (because after we got together yesterday, I basically passed out and caught up on sleep).  We continued our attempt at learning Czech language, focusing on some verbs and some basic phrases.  Hopefully I can impress some people back in Ann Arbor next year.  We then had the coldest of the coldest tours I've ever gone on.  Our tour guide was awesome, and it was really the first time we were taken through Old Town from a historical perspective.  But it was so cold I even bought a scarf (I swore I would never wear one, but everyone here does).  I have plenty of new places to explore in Old Town alone.  It is so easy to get lost among the streets and find something spectacular.

Tomorrow is Jewish Day of our general orientation period, after morning Czech of course.  We are having a lecture about Jewish legacy in Prague and the Czech Republic, and then getting a guided tour of the Jewish Quarter in Prague.  I'm extremely excited to see this part of town, which I haven't ventured into at all yet.  So much history and beauty here...this semester is going to be gone before I know it.

The Flat at Ujezd, Praha 1

 

Me and Seth at Wenceslas Square (photo taken by policeman, via "Pardon, Foto Prosim?")

I'm writing this post from my new flat in Prague!  This process has not been easy, but in the end I think it should be worth it.  Due to popular demand (mostly from mom), this will be a longer post.  In the beginning, I don't want to cut things short, just to set the scene for later stories.

First of all, here is a recap of the last couple of days.  Yesterday, we started out in the morning with some administrative details for orientation.  We filled out a lot of information to have our visas registered.  Apparently, it is not pleasant to have to go to the Foreign Police (Immigration) to register your visa, as they aren't very nice and tend to be rough, so the program staff take care of validating our visas for us by using a contact in the office.  I guess one time Anna or Pavlina or Henrieta was waiting in line, and a man threatened her with a knife unless she gave him her spot in line.  Seriously.  This is not Western Europe style.  Unfortunately, our passports will be gone for the last weekend in February, so I can't travel, but this is necessary.

Also, while they do allow drinking in streets and carrying stuff around (so weird), Czechs don't like absurd drunkenness.  We were warned that one time, a student got too out of control and was taken to the drunk tank in Prague 8, and ended up getting roughed up by the police, with a concussion.  So, that's not something I hope to do.

I'm definitely not in the U.S. or a Western country.  Some of the things I thought about Prague beforehand are proving to be true, but others not so much.  I thought Prague would be a huge party city.  This is somewhat true, but often it is the foreigners, including Americans, that are the ones that really go all night and don't stop.  Czechs are a really reserved people, and tend to enjoy hanging out in a bar with friends over a few drinks (not getting drunk), but not necessarily spending so much money like so many foreigners do.  The clubs are often filled with foreigners (more about this to follow in this post).

I thought there would be more English spoken than I've seen so far.  But seriously, if you just try to speak a little Czech, the people appreciate the humility so much and suddenly learn how to speak English a lot better.  We are so spoiled at home, we don't even know it.  Imagine if people from Prague came to visit the U.S. and expected us to speak Czech.  There are many other ways to communicate, however.  Body language, pointing, eye movement, and tone all can say a lot.

But yesterday, Doug (one of my flatmates) and I were in an interesting situation.  We were riding the trams to look at the flat we are currently in, and wanted to make sure we changed at the right place.  So, we walked into a coffee shop, and asked (in Czech) if anyone spoke English.  The first guy said no, but his co-worker came over and shook his head no and said, "Espanol?"  Aha, this was something that could work, as we both knew a little bit of Spanish.  So, with broken Spanish (his was probably worse than ours), a Czech guy gave two English speakers directions.  Little things like this that happen all the time continue to amaze me.

Last night, my friends (some new, some old) and I went to a small pub called the Red Room.  It was a really nice environment (minus the smoke of course), with some light live music, cheap drinks, and good company.  We ended up walking to another club later, but decided to get some KFC instead because it was late, we were tired, and would rather pay for a snack than some other place.  Turns out that there is a definite order to the club scene here, especially for Americans or foreigners.

Every night there is one of two clubs that are known for being popular.  You know,  Friday is when to go here (Lucerna), free entry to this place on Wednesday (Mecca), try to stay here all night Saturday because they serve an awesome brunch starting at 4 am Sunday (Radost).  But a ton of these places are filled with Americans studying abroad.  It can be good or bad, but I'd like to try and find more authentic places.  It's sort of a Catch-22, because how else would I hear about fun places to go except from past people who have visited, but walking into a random place is never bad.

Now, on to today.  We started with orientation in the morning for a small tour, but skipped out early in search of a well-known place called Bohemia Bagel.  It's extremely good, and American style food (kind of like a Zingerman's style place).  Some comfort food in the form of an omelet and bagel was nice to find, and I will definitely be going back.  Finally, we put our security down for our lease (YES!) and got the keys.  We moved out of the Hotel Propokpa, and are settling in nicely.

One funny story...as we walked through the Old Town area today on our way from Bohemia Bagel, there were a bunch of girls (clearly tourists) who were wandering lost, and were a bit too excited for the moment.  They were screaming and being a bit obnoxious and way too obviously American.  Come on people, you gotta try here.  Not only that, they were dressed (every single one the same) in huge sunglasses, North Face long coats, leggings, and Ugg boots.  I said to someone near me that it looked like Michigan Theta transplanted to Prague, and, unbelievably, Doug said he actually recognized one of the girls as a Michigan Theta...oops.  Come on people, you gotta try to blend in here.

When we started searching for apartments, I didn't think it would be quite so hectic.  UPCES is great, but they don't give us a lot of realtors to work with.  We finally settled on a place on the border of Prague 1 and Prague 5, right next to a huge park.  It's on a street called Ujezd (hard to pronounce, but it's OO-YAYST).  I like to think we live on the Park Ave of Prague.  Up the street one way is the Prague Castle, and two minutes the other way is a few main tram lines.  The apartment itself has three bedrooms, a full kitchen, full living room area with tv, laundry, bathroom, shower, entry hallway...it's really everything we were looking for.

I am living with four other people from Michigan actually (go figure, I know, but this is a small program and lots of the other people had already paired up with people from their schools).  But, we all get along so well, and it turns out I either knew or had connections with close friends to every single person in our flat.  Maize and Blue has gone rouge to Prague.  For reference, their names are Seth, Doug, Ahbra, and Sophie.  The rules are a little different here, for instance a 10 pm quiet rule that is strictly enforced because the Czech work day begins and ends earlier.

I can't possibly tell everything that has happened (so you'll have to visit), and am already regretting such a long post.  I'll take more pictures tomorrow and put them on here or facebook.  Bye for now!

The First Day and a Half (The Randomness of Prague)

So I can finally settle down for a couple of minutes and talk about the first 36 hours I've been here, which has been a little bit of a shock, a little frustrating, but really promising.

To wrap up what I've been up to in a paragraph:  yesterday, I arrived in Prague with my friend Hannah (also from Michigan) and we checked into the Hotel Propokopa in Prague 3.  We dropped our stuff off, grabbed a quick breakfast, and went for a little walk around the block with other people from UPCES.  At 4, we went to our school in the city center to see where it was.  Then afterwards, we wandered around for the evening between restaurants, bars, and a club that I later learned was a big international student bar, and also not the safest place.  We took the Tram #9 a lot, so learning public transportation has been ongoing.  With how tired I was, I can't believe I didn't get lost.

Today, we started orientation in the morning, got our more permanent transportation passes, and after lunch, started the process of finding a place to live.  For our program, realtors come in and give presentations and help us find places to live.  Imagine Ann Arbor in September, with the housing rush, and cram that into two days with people you barely know.  That's what this situation is like.  Hopefully soon I can report success with a new flat.  Some of the places we saw were amazing.

Prague is a modern European city, but it is such a random blend of different parts stemming back from Communism.  Most Czechs don't like to talk about that part of their history actually, but Anna, one of our program managers, shared a little bit today as we were walking around looking at flats.  At one point, we passed the main radio station, and she told us how important radio is because the first thing the Nazis would do when they invaded was to take over the radio station.  She pointed out that our school is on the same street where the Communist headquarters was, and where the Gestapo was during WWII.  These are not the sorts of things Americans think about.

I haven't had much experience with Czech food yet, except that today for lunch we went into a smallish Czech cafeteria place, where no one spoke English, and somehow came away with Chicken Schniztel and potatoes.  I successfully got a marmelade pastry of some sort later by saying "Prosim," or please, the most important word you can know.  Some other random facts:  people here are quieter or "less confident" than Americans on the streets and metros; apparently smoking indoors is not allowed, but clearly not enforced; everyone in Europe smokes, or so it seems; dogs don't really wear leashes in Prague, but they don't bother you at all except to use the sidewalks as bathrooms, constantly; things don't really work the same here, for instance there are hardly any driers, and you better go to an ATM early in the week because by Friday it may be out of money until Monday.

This was all pretty boring, and sorry no pictures yet (forgot my camera, plus nothing too grand so far).  I'll get better at being shorter, but so far it's been a blur, but a good blur.