One Week Down

Kolej Komenského Dormitory
Friday, 5:07pm

I have now completed my first week of school in a foreign country. It was a very exciting and tiring and it definitely does not feel like I have only been here a week. I have a couple hours before I am supposed to go out for dinner so it seems like a good time to relax and do a little updating. I also just uploaded all the pictures I've taken so far and there are a few good ones but most are a little dark because we've been having some gray (and cold!) weather, but I will add the best onto this post!
I suppose I will start with Sunday where  I left off with our tour from Professor Cilek. We met in the lobby of our building at 7pm and found that some girls had just arrived from the airport so we gave them some time to put there bags upstairs and check out their rooms. By this point pretty much everyone had arrived except for one girl who's flight got canceled. Professor Cilek seemed a little serious at first but we have since learned he has a pretty good sense of humour. He really is an amazing tour guide though, as he seems to know everything. The walking tour began with a monastery that is about 2 minutes away and then we were lead down to a view point on Petrin Hill. Cilek was able to point to and describe  the major buildings that were nestled in the skyline. He then lead us up a cool little alley of stairs towards the castle area, which is also about a 5-10 minute walk from my dorm. He gave us a good tip, which is to watch out for dark pubs and restaurants because that is were the locals go and you will find good cheap food there. We were then lead down some really neat side streets and past the surrealist gallery where Jan Švankmajer supposedly lives and works. Cilek then lead us down and showed us a wall and began describing the water system built in behind, but more interestingly that there was supposedly a secret chamber back in that area where satanic meetings were held. We also saw one of the most expensive hotels in Prague, apparently the hotel brochure skims over the fact that the place was once a slaughter house. We wound our way back up to the castle area where the president lives and official business goes on. The most impressive part is St. Vitus church which is this Gothic monstrosity surrounded by the castle building. Cilek suggested we grab a bottle of wine one night and hang out around the church to observe and perhaps sing Canadian folk songs. There was another church he pointed out that has two towers, one slightly larger then the other, supposedly symbolizing Adam and Eve, and the tower of Adam stands in the east so that he can shade Eve, which I thought was sweet. The tour ended with another view point from which Cilek pointed out Charles University where we are taking classes, it was so exciting to realize that we would be studying in a building that looks fancier and more historic then anything in Vancouver. After the tour a bunch of us went looking for a place to eat and eventually found something to everyone's satisfaction where I had some very tasty sausages and more deliciously cheap beer.

We had the next day free and Frances and I felt fairly ambitious so we hit the town. I felt pretty good starting out in the morning since I had finished my reading for class by waking up at 6:00am from jet lag. We began our day by heading towards the castle area that we had just seen the previous night, it was interesting to see in the day with all the big tourist crowds around. It was fun to be walking around the little cobbled streets by ourselves and not really care if we got a little lost. We went into a little garden area of the castle, which looks like something cool to explore later, and we also saw a changing of the guards which happens hourly. We then made our way down to Neruda Street to the area called Lesser Town. We stopped in some puppet shops which are extremely popular here. We decided to go into St. Nicholas Church which is a Baroque cathedral. I had been in to the church last time I was in Prague but it was definitely worth it to see again. There so much crazy gold ornamentation and impressive white marble statues its quite something to see. There's also a massive pipe organ, which I have since seen many of in the other churches I've visited. After going through Lesser Town we went across the Charles bridge which had an awesome bluegrass band with one man playing a washboard and another singing through a horn. We then began our search for food and eventually found a pub called "O Che" as in Che Guevara, but they had really good cheap goulash and more yummy beer. It was nice to sit down for a while and get away from the crowds. After our bellies were nice and full we continued on into the Old Town Square. We say the astronomical clock as well as a blacksmith, and some pork on spit! It kind of feels like Disneyland in that area though. We decided to check out the Dali and Mucha museum since we were in the area and it was very cool. They were putting up a new Dali statue when we were inside and it was exciting to watch the two curators and young American guy they had coerced into helping them attempt to get a glass case over top of this statue with a very pointy glass pyramid on top (the American looked very relieved once they had completed the task). The Mucha stuff was also very neat and I ended up buying a little book with some of his pictures but also with blank pages to use as a sketch book. At this point my energy was beginning to fade but we managed to persevere and succeeded in finding a jacket for Frances in a huge mall, like I said the weather has been very cold and grey so this was a very necessary task. By this point we had been wandering around for six hours straight and I was about ready to pass out but we managed to find our way through the metro and onto the tram home before I crashed.
The next morning was our first day of school and it was pretty exciting to be heading out to such a different school experience. We all trammed over together and found our room which had unfortunately had a bunch of windows left open so it was freeezing!! We had a little tour of the building we would have our classes in, which is only a small part of the University. We then had class with our professor from SFU were we just spent a lot of time talking about our experience in Prague so far. For our lunch break we went down to the little cafeteria a floor below which seems like it will be a great place to eat since it is so cheap ( a good hearty soup is only a dollar). I warmed myself up with some hot tea and eventually we all made our way back to the room for our first Czech language class. The professor seems really good but he goes pretty fast and it is a very different language so you have to pay close attention in order to follow along. My favourite words so far are zmrzlinova which means ice cream as well as skřiň which means cabinet and is pronounce "skrijean". We had a short break and then had our final class for the day which was Czech film history. It was pretty hard to understand the film professor's accent and we were all freezing and tired so it was a little excruciating sitting through 3 hours of early Czech black and white film. I am hoping that the film class will get better as we get into more modern films. Over all it looks like Tuesdays will pretty exhausting as we are in class from 9:00am to 6:00pm. After we finished class a bunch of wanted to try and catch the end of the Canada vs. Czech hockey game but we only managed to get into a restaurant for the last five minutes of the game, it was still exciting though since we scored in that time but still ended up losing 3-2. We were at a Cuban place but it was kind of pricey and it turned out to be a touristy spot with pictures of Elijah wood and other celebrities who had eaten there posted out front. I ended up having some soup once I got home instead. It was a tough night because after such a long day I still had to go home and read about 50 pages of Kafka and then write a journal for class. I manage to do it but didn't get to sleep until two since I had drifted in and out during reading and it had taken forever.
The next morning I was pretty tired but I got up for breakfast and then Frances and I took the tram down to the university by ourselves in order to get there for 10am. We got our official Charles University student cards this day and then went back to have another class with our SFU professor. We have only two classes on Wednesday, which is nice. The other class we have is Czech Politics and Society. The professor was really good and it seems like I will learn alot form that class. Our homework assignments is to read The Prague Post every week, which is an English newspaper, and eventually we will have to write a paper as well. At the end of class Professor Holub took us to an English bookstore where he says we can find a book to use as research for our essays eventually. We were then dismissed and we ended up finding our SFU Professor, Christine, in her "Office Hours" in a place called Coffee Lovers. A bunch of us began planning a meal for the next day that we intended to cook for the whole group at Chris's apartment, since we have some SFU funds to use. Frances and I then grabbed some sausages from a butcher for dinner, Frances expertly ordered them in Czech! We then went home for a relaxing evening of sausages, rice and Glee! We squealed a little when we saw Neil Patrick Harris made a cameo in the most recent episode.
The next day began very promising when Jason gave me the news that he got plane tickets to meet us in London in July!! Skype is also one of my new favourite things, its amazing that I can talk to my boyfriend halfway across the world when I'm getting ready in the morning and he's getting ready for bed. Thursday is our day for doing trips outside of the city center with Professor Cilek and so we went down and had breakfast and then went up to get on the bus (which is covered in Pilsner advertising) for 8:30. I am not sure if I have described the breakfasts yet but they are delicious!! So much cheese and meat and delicious breads and so many flavours of yogurt!! They also have the perfect stuff for sneaking out for lunches. Anyways, So for our day trip we went 80km east of Prague to a town called Kutna Hora. On our way we stopped at a little town called Tismice where we looked at a simple Romanesque church and Cilek described the different set up of towns and other such things which luckily I took some notes on can I can hardly remember already! The cool thing about that church is that it was being restored and stabilized for which they had dug a moat and within the moat around the church there were human bones just lying around! Cilek even picked up a skull to show us, it was very weird.

From this town we went into Kutna Hora and first saw the big Cathedral of St. Barbara. It is in the Gothic style is really cool with a whole bunch of flying buttresses. It is so nice to have our own guide, but especially one giving us such interesting information, not your typical guided tour. We then made our way down towards the main square and split up for lunch from there. I went with Frances and the boys on the trip, there are only three, to a little restaurant. I ordered Russian Borscht, spicy potato pancakes and beer all for under $5. I have finally learned to order beer instead of asking for water because it is literally cheaper. After lunch we stayed as a group and went across a little bridge into a nice wooded area. It was nice to see a little nature after being in the busy city for a  few days. We wandered around the town aimlessly and eventually made our way back to the bus for the meet up time. I attempted to draw the Cathedral of St. Barbara as we were waiting but I only had 15 minutes so it didn't work that well. We only had to go a short ways before our next stop which was the Kostnice Ossuary Beinhaus, or as we had been calling it, the Bone Church. Basically it was a little cemetery in which there was a church entering into a deeper room which had massive organized piles of bones and had been decorated with all the other ones.

They had a bone chandelier as well as a crest made our of bones. It was a little surreal at first so it didn't seem to bug many people but as we all felt the sort of dry dusty air entering our lungs most of us, or at least I felt the needed to get out into the open air. After the bone church we went down to the street to The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin. It was also huge and gothic but it was very simple and a nice yellow colour inside, it supposed to be one of the most beautifully designed church's. The best part was being able to walk through an attic area where you could see some hints of hidden stairs and passages. We then all piled back into the bus and headed back to Prague; I think pretty much everyone fell asleep on the ride. The plan for the evening was to eat at Chris's apartment so we got dropped off around 6pm and had to rush to Tesco to buy food. I was very proud when I knew how to get to Chris's house from the Tesco when she wasn't sure. For dinner we had seafood soup, garlic bread, salad, spaghetti and we were meant to have fondu for dessert but we were all full and tired so decided to save it for next time. It worked out really well with about 5 of us cooking and then many volunteers to chop and do other tasks. It was really nice to have a big comfy place for all of us just to hang out in,  it feels like we are missing that kind of common area in the dormitory set up. About half of us walked home from the apartment which really doesn't take to long but is mostly uphill. It was fun and I am hoping that if I walk most places it will counteract all the beer and delicious food I am eating.
This morning we walked to school by going over the Charles Bridge, which was nice to see when it wasn't completely crowded with tourists. We started the day with Language bright and early at 8:30am. The professor kept up his grueling pace again but it was still a good class, we finally learned some numbers today. "Ja jsem dvacet jedna = I am 21". After language we meet our Literature teacher. He seems very nice and I was very happy to learn that he intends to take us out to specific sights around town for about half of the 4hour class every week. This afternoon we got a lecture on the history of Prague and the Czech people to help us with our readings of some Czech legends for next week and then we got taken up to a Citadel where we had a good view of many parts of the city and also got to see a cemetery where the large majority of important Czech figures in the arts are buried or at least have a memorial. It is finally beginning to become sunny and warmer here! As I look out my window right now it is pretty beautiful. After our tour we were brought back to the school and then dismissed for the day around 3pm. I decided to walk home with a couple other people and it was so nice walking up the hill towards the castle in only my t-shirt for once. As we went past St. Vitus  Church it didn't have any line to get in so we decided to check it out. It is much bigger then the one we say in Kutna Hora but almost slightly less impressive because of the larger amounts of tourists inside. It did have some amazing stained glass windows though! We also discovered that once it gets really hot here we can simply stop into a church to cool off, they are always pretty chilly inside. At this point I came home and started writing this blog entry but could only finish up to about the last sentence before having to run downstairs and meet up with some people as we had plans to go out for dinner. About 8 of us wandered around in attempts to find food and it was really fun! We went down and over the Charles bridge and I got some good pictures again. We then found a cool little restaurant who's name translates into hairy ghosts in English. It seems that the best places to eat are always tucked away down some stairs and in a cellar. We lucked out with this one which seemed to have mostly Czech speakers in it. The walls and vaulted ceilings where covered in cool mosaics depicting the Prague stories of Hairy ghosts or ghouls who come to steal loose women. The food was great too. I had delicious chicken risotto with pear and blue cheese and sesame seeds. After dinner we decided to wander a little and see what Prague was like on a Friday night. We went to a corner store and bought beers to walk around with, just for the novelty of it, and then we made our way to the river were we took some pretty night shots of the Charles bridge and caste area all lit up. We also went to see the astronomical clock but it doesn't seem to have the same skeleton pop out later at night. The streets were busy and exciting and we took our time wandering home.
Today is now Saturday and the plan is to maybe find a beer garden later as it is the Czech beer festival this weekend. And perhaps even get some homework done too!

- Gee