The City of a Thousand Spires

It has been about 2 weeks since I last wrote, I first did nothing exciting and then got busy and somehow I ended up not writing anything until now. This post is about Prague, the sights of Prague anyway. I figured it was a good time for this with Maude's Grandparents trip just past and my family arriving in just a few short days. So I suppose this post will just be a brief description of a few of the most famous sights in Prague that I have seen and will be taking any other visitors to see. First up is old town square. Old town square is really just a large square where all the tourists congregate and things are more expensive. However, it does have some good history, it contains some of the oldest buildings in Prague and is a world heritage site. It also contains the infamous Astronomical Clock, where every hour people gather to watch the chime (this is completely and utterly underwhelming, but I guess it can't hurt to see it). The building however is extremely old and is attached to what once was the municipal house for the city of Prague

Here is a shot of a portion of old town square and one of the astronomical clock. The statue in the picture is of Jan Hus, a man any good student of history knows. He was a religious dissenter and was the founder of the Hussite movement, one of the many movements opposed to the Catholic Church. He is sort of viewed as the founder of or the symbol for the "Czech nation".
After you see old town its just a short walk down the road to check out the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish Quarter isn't that exciting really, there are a few really old synagogues. One synagogue is actually called the "Old-New" Synagogue. The only really cool thing in the Jewish Quarter is this old cemetery where graves are literally stacked on top of one another and in some places look like they are about 15 feet high. The tombstones are just pushed together and jut in every direction on top of a massive pile of bodies.

At the moment I seem to be unable to locate a picture of the cemetery, though I have no good ones and plan on getting more when my parents arrive. So instead this is a picture of the Old-New Synagogue, its actually very old. Also, just a note, if your ever in Prague (or anywhere) don't go to the Jewish Quarter on Saturday...nothing will be open. You probably realize this, but when your showing people around you don't think of it and you might just show up with everything closed.
From the Jewish Quareter, its not such a long walk to the Charles bridge. This is an old bridge, only for walking, adorned with a number of statues and usually covered by tourists and street vendors. However, it really is the best and most scenic way to cross the Vltava river to get to Mala Strana or up to Prague Castle. Unfortunately, I have yet to take good pictures of the bridge itself, but below is a picture of the tower that you pass that is the end of the bridge.
On the other side of the bridge there are a few cool small things to see like the Lennon wall and some David Cerny statues, but the real attraction is Prague Castle. I'll spare you all the details of the castle, but just know that its less of a castle and more of a royal complex set up on a hill. The two most impressive things about it are the views it offers of Prague (though this is what Petrin Hill is for) and St. Vitus Cathedral. St. Vitus is an impressive church...
and this is a picture from the back of the church. Just a note, Maude's grandparents had hired a private tour guide to show them the city and tell them about everything and we thought we would go along to learn some things we didn't know. Well the first stop was here at the Cathedral and we were already forced to fire him, he sucked. Despite promises of excellent english, he was young and Russian and his command of the english language made me seem proficient in German (haven't even studied it for over a year). Also, he hardly ever talked and really didn't know much, Maude and I combined with a little help from a guide book knew more than he did. So don't ever hire a guide name Maxine (male) from Russia, he is just bad. But after ousting Maxine that day ended up being fine with Maude and I giving the tour.
If we now head back to the other side of the bridge, I'll name just a few other famous things worth seeing and maybe I'll add some others after my parents come to visit. Next is Wenceslas Square, it really is just a enormous square filled with people and some cars and a lot of shops. Nothing too historical on most of the square until you get to the end where you see the national museum and the statue of Wenceslas and the memorial to Jan Palach. Wenceslas was one of the most famous rulers of the Czech lands, I believe he actually united all of bohemia and maybe moravia under his rule. He is seen as the founder of the "Czech state". Jan Palach on the other hand was a student during the communist era who burned himself alive in protest of the Communist rule. I'd just like to say I think this is ridiculous, its obviously not going to accomplish anything and it would be really painful. Palach didn't even die while of fire also, he died 3 days later in a hospital...so he had to suffer for 3 days from that. Moral of the story, don't light yourself on fire its not effective and its painful.
Here we have the end of Wenceslas I was talking about and Carole (Maudes Grandmother) in Wenceslas enjoying a smazeny syr or fried cheese, a delicious snack you can find all over Wenceslas.
For now, I'm just going to mention two other things briefly that are worth seeing. The first is the "baby tower", the baby tower is an enormous radio tower built by the Soviets for jamming radio, radar, whatever. However, just after it was completed, the USSR fell and the tower was converted into an actual radio and television tower. David Cerny, the famous and controversial artist, was commissioned to redesign it somehow. His idea for this was to put giant statues of babies climbing up and down the tower, its sort of ridiculous really but interesting to see. The other thing worth seeing is Vysehrad. This is the neighborhood where my school is located. It was once a fortress (it sits high on a hill) and was actually the seat of the first Czech queen. Everything there is old and pretty and it offers another great view of all of Prague. However, I will write more about Vysehrad later and maybe some of the other things to see after my parents come.

This is the baby tower at night so you can't really see the babies but later I will get one during the day so you can see them
Right, I forgot to explain the title of this post in full. I said that The City of a Thousand Spires is Prague's nickname. This is because if you look out over Prague there are a lot of spires from various churches and buildings. However, the actual number of spires is somewhere around 100. Though I will say if Minarets counted, Istanbul would have an insane number of spires because of all the Mosques. That leads me to my next post, two days ago I got back from Istanbul. Within a few hours a post on Istanbul should be up as well. And I promise to do a better job so look for a post on Berlin on Monday or Tuesday.

Julius Meinl in Wien

So last week we were all still feeling a little skeptical about traveling after our experiences with food poisoning and hospitals in Budapest. However, we had already planned a trip to Vienna and Thursday we hopped on a train at 4:30 for the 4.5 hour train ride. The trip that was to ensue could not have been more different than our excursion to Budapest. Vienna was the best city I have seen so far and the weekend as a whole was incredibly fun. The great experience started off with our arrival to Vienna and then to the flat we were staying in (Max's place in Vienna). Not only was this not a hostel, but it could not have been in a better location. It was as downtown as you could get and at the end of the street was all the high end shopping and also the Hofburg Palace happened to be right there as well. Public transportation was not needed at all with the exception of getting to and from the train station.

Here are some pictures of the flat (Melinda happened to be in one of the better picture of the place). But this place was so much more comfortable than a hostel ever could be so this was already a great start to the trip. Thursday night by the time we went looking for food pretty much everything was closed so I just got a bratwurst on the street and we went and found some tasty gelato for dinner. Then we went back and went to sleep for a wonderful nights sleep in Vienna.
Friday morning we got up and simply started walking, we were so close to everything we could practically see it from the apartment and we just started going. We grabbed a quick lunch at a small italian cafe and then headed to the Hofburg Palace (about 3 minutes from us).
Here is the front of the palace, much of this post will be pictures taking you along the little walking tour we were on. If I forget the names of things I'll just describe them and you can ask me about them later or look them up. After the Hofburg palace we walked through the archway you see and headed up past the Spanish Riding School (horses) and to the National Library.
Here is the national library, we didn't actually go inside but the building from the outside was impressive and I imagine that the inside would be as well. After snapping some pictures of the library and some surrounding statues, etc. We kept walking straight ahead to the Museum Quarter. A large square of museums with everything from a Natural History museum to a modern art museum and the Leopold (the one we actually went to).
Inside the Leopold there was primarily Austrian art and the biggest exhibition was a famous Austrian named Egon Schiele. There was some interesting exhibitions in the museum but when we were done, we were ready to continue along and see a few more things. The next major landmark we hit was the Parliament building.

Yes the first picture is of Parliament, and yes there is a house on top of the Parliament building. We have no idea why it was there (maybe construction or something?) just that there was an entire small house on the top of the Parliament building. The second picture is the front of the Parliament building and the Athena statue. While the Parliament was very nic and somewhat impressive, it was nothing compared to our next stop, the Rathaus (town hall essentially).
Interestingly enough there was a little winter fest going on at the Rathaus with a large ice rink and some stands with hot chocalate, drinks, snacks, candies, etc. Regardless, this building was incredible and really steals the show from the Parliament building. After this we headed back in toward our flat to see a huge and famous church that was right down the street from us. I believe that roughly translated it is something along the lines of St. Stephans or Stephans Place Church. I can't really remember the exact name at the moment so thats why I forget what it is.
The church actually burned awhile back, not to the ground (and it was repaired) but that is why there are black char and burn marks on the outside. This church was beautiful both outside and inside, and it had a tower on the side that by paying 5 euro or so you could go up in and get a view of Vienna from above. As we left the church our sightseeing for the day was finished but it wasn't time to go back to the flat quite yet. First we headed over to Cafe Demel, a famous cafe often featured on the food network for their cakes and desserts, especially their Sachertort a treat invented in Vienna.

After we enjoyed our Sachertort we headed back to the flat to rest for a little bit before dinner. I actually headed out to a Starbucks for some internet so I could used skype for a phone interview while Maude, Jena and Melinda hung out for an hour or so. After hanging out we decided that we would get some real Austrian food for dinner aka Wiener Schnitzel. We found a nice little Austrian restaurant and had an enjoyable dinner. Later on we headed over to a bar called Zwölf Apostele Keller (Twelved Apostles Cellar) and enjoyed some quality Austrian beers while we were there. After a good and busy day we headed back to the apartment to get some sleep and get ready for Saturday.
Saturday we woke up with the intention of heading to the Naschmarkt (a big outdoor flea market of sorts) but it was raining in the morning so we decided to skip that and head to breakfast and then to the Albertina Museum. Breakfast was at a little cafe/restaurant called Coffee Day. Though this sounds very American, there are none of them in the United States and it actually orginated in India and is now also in Vienna and a few other West and Central European Cities. They did have some great breakfast foods and coffee and tea though and some comfy couches to sit on while we ate. It also happened to be right across the street from the Albertina so all we had to do was run across to the museum to wander around and see some more art.
In the Albertina we saw some famous artists like Picasso, Monet, Dürer, and Rembrant as we wondered through. We also got to see an interesting photography exhibit and some of the old rooms that former Monarchs lived in because the Albertina is in the palace. Finishing up with the Albertina we walked around the palace into another very small museum that held some of the old Hapsburg treasures.

Here we have 2 examples. First a crown of gold and all sorts of jewels (diamond, emerald, ruby, etc.) The second is some sort of stone that is 2680 karats, not sure what it was but impressive nonetheless. After leaving the Schatzkammer (museum with the jewels), we made the most important discovery of the weekend. While back near our apartment, right ont he corner of our street actually, we saw it. Julius Meinl. The best store ever. Its a gourmet grocery store the likes of which you have never seen. It was huge, 2 floors, with the its own bakery, deli, cheeses, the freshest fish I have seen in months, and the best and freshest fruits and vegetables. The food was so great and so much better than anything we have seen in Prague that we decided not to go out for dinner Saturday night and to just buy some food and cook dinner in the apartment. We ended up buying some fresh breads, meats, fruit and vegetables and made our own baguettes and had some fruit salad. We also picked up a few bottles of wine and somehow hours had passed before we knew it and we ended up spending all night in just hanging out on Saturday and drinking wine. For a picture of Julius Meinl see Maude's facebook, I'm pretty sure she put one up on there and I don't have them on my computer yet.
Overall, Vienna was an awesome city, perhaps my favorite. As a trip I don't know if it could live up to spending Valentine's Day and my 21st birthday in Paris with Maude, but it was certainly as close it possibly could be. It was a great trip and a city I will certainly return to in the future, if for nothing else then just for Julius Meinl.
The next two weekend I will be spending in Prague so I will try to do a post on the touristy things of Prague during that time and maybe another one on the visit of Maude's grandparents, cousin Connor and brother Ollie. They will be arriving a week from today. After that however keep an eye out for my post on Istanbul, Maude and I will be spending our spring break (6 days) in Istanbul at the end of March. Check back after this weekend for another post...

Budapest and Our 4am Trip to the Hospital

So when I left you last I had returned from an exciting 21st birthday in Paris with Maude. The weekend after that was spent bumming around Prague just hanging out and not doing anything terribly exciting so there is no reason to tell you about it. Last weekend however, the last weekend in February I traveled to Budapest, Hungary.
At 3:30pm on Thursday, I hopped a train along with Maude, Melinda, and Saadia for the 7 hour train ride to Budapest. The train ride was long but fine and we arrived to our hostel about 11pm. By the time we got in and went out to look for food pretty much everything was closed with the exception of some 24hour fast food places and some gyro places along the main street near us. So we went out wandering around a bit and found something to eat. Then we just took it easy, went back to the hostel and hung out for awhile so that we could wake up the next day at a decent hour to see the city.
We ended up getting up around 10am and slowly got on the move. We were right in the center of our things because I picked a hostel with a great location so fortunately we were able to walk pretty much everywhere. First, upon the recommendation of a friend, we went to this little place not too far from the hostel for brunch. It wasn't an american restaurant but it had pancakes and bagels and I had a tasty bagel sandwich of some sort. After that we set out to see the sites of Budapest. The four of us walked along, discovering a few things that were very cool along the way by accident (to see some of these check out my pictures on picasa http://picasaweb.google.com/nmiller214, they will be on there pretty soon). The first major highlight of our walk though was the Parliament building. The Parliament is an enormous neo-gothic building that holds Hungary's political body.
After checking Parliament and all of the monuments and statues surrounding it we walked toward the Danube River and followed the river up to the chain bridge. The chain bridge is a huge bridge that crosses from the Pest side of the city over the the Buda side.
As you can see, there are chain like supports that hold the bridge up and give it its name. Once you cross into Buda, the first thing you see is the Royal Palace. This building is much less impressive than Parliament, but its certainly worth going up to because it sits high above the city and offers a great view. It was pretty far up and we had already walked a lot so we hopped on the funicular and rode up to the top. From here you had a great view of the river and the Pest side of the city from above.

After checking out the views and the palace we walked around the Buda side of Budapest for a bit longer, saw a few other cool sites, churches, etc. and had a good late lunch. Finally we walked back down the big hill and decided to catch the metro back toward our hostel. We made it back at the perfect time to get a nap before heading out for dinner.
Once we all woke up, we got dressed and went to this place we had seen earlier, and heard was very "trendy" called Donatella's for dinner. Initially, we thought we were not going to be able to get a table because we had no reservation. Luckily it turned out that there was one large table (it could fit 8) that was available and that the 4 of us were able to sit at. This dinner was great and had amazing italian food, me might as well have been in Italy. I don't remember the pizza in Italy being any better than this when I was there. After Donatella's we took a friends recommendation and found this bar called Szimpla Kert. It was one of the coolest bars I have been to and it was huge. There were 5 bars inside and lots of different rooms to sit in, though we were lucky to find a table for all of us in an upstair room right after we got there. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera and the place is hard to describe, but it is definitely a place worth visiting when in Budapest. Upon leaving the bar, our night was over and we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep so we could check out a few more things on Saturday.
Saturday morning we all woke up feeling good and were ready to get out and see the other main sites Budapest had to offer. We were walking to the Terror Museum, a museum about nazi and communist occupation in Hungary, which we heard was very interesting and well done when we decided to stop for food. By the time we got close there wasn't much around except there was a TGI Friday's nearby. We had already planned a nice and authentic Hungarian dinner and after being in Central/Eastern Europe for 2 months its nice to have something that reminds you of home once in awhile. Or so we thought. Turns out that would be an awful decision. Only a little while later when we were in the Terror museum, food poisoning claimed its first victim. Melinda got sick while we were at the museum so we left and went back to the hostel because she was feeling awful. At this point we thought it was only her and that the rest of us would be fine. Saadia didn't feel like going out anymore at this point but Maude and I didn't want to waste the day so we continued to through Budapest to Heroes's Square, the Baths (giant hot spring bath houses) and the Castle.

The first picture above is one of the castle from afar. Unlike Prague Castle, this is exactly what you would imagine a castle to be. It was small but it has a large gate with a bridge leading up to it that crossed over what was left a moat. This was the first time I had ever seen an actualy moat. The second picture is the bath house, inside is a variet of hot spring baths of differeing temperatures. In this particular bath house, the pools are coed so bathing suits are required, but there is an extensive set of pools. After we walked around a bit more, we thought we should head back to the hostel before we got dinner. At this point, both Maude and Saadia began feeling sick, though I was still feeling alright. Since everyone was feeling badly, we didn't end up going out anywhere though I did hang out at the hostel with a British guy and an Australian girl who were travelling around as well. Later on that night, both Maude and Saadia ended up getting sick and Saadia was so dehyrated that she ended up fainting. At this point we tried to call an ambulance but to put it briefly that was a fail. Instead I called Worldwide SOS and found a good hospital then we got in a cab and were on our way. While there I only got a shot to help keep my stomach settled and Melinda was much better by this point, but both Saadia and Maude were sick and had low blood pressure so they were given ivs to help get them hydrated again. At this point everyone was a little soured on Budapest and our train back to Prague was in only 2 hours. Though I will say Budapest is a very cool city and is more metropolitan than Prague, somewhere I would certainly visit again. Just on this trip we were ready to get back and rest so we managed to make our 9am train after departing the hospital at 7am and we got back to Prague safe and sound. Another small sidenote is that I am pretty certain it was related but I actually did not get sick until Tuesday, not sure exactly what happened but I woke up early Tuesday morning feeling awful. However, everyone is feeling much better now and I enjoyed all of Budapest when we weren't sick so don't let this stop you from going.
I'm writing this post on Budapest now but I actually just got back from Vienna with Maude, her roommate Jena and Melinda. Vienna is my favorite city that I have seen so far, it was simply awesome so my next post will be on that...and hopefully soon because I already have the pictures up and ready to go on my computer!

21 in Paris

Ok so a little over a week ago I took my first trip outside of the Czech Republic. Maude and I packed our bags and hopped on a place to Paris on Thursday February 12. This meant that we would be spending both Valentines Day and my 21st birthday in Paris. Since we didn't get in till late on Thursday, we went straight to the hotel (my parents got me a hotel for my birthday so I wasn't in a hostel). After we got into the room we went to wander around a bit and find a late dinner.

We were staying right in Saint-Michel so there were lots of places really close by. Not too long after going out to look for somwhere to eat we came across this really cool street pictured above that had lots of small restaurants along it. We found a really good italian place, with an even better prix fix menu to eat at and we both really enjoyed our meals. Later on we also got a very good crepe breakfast in another little restaurant on this street. Sadly, I don't remember the name of the street.
Friday morning we woke up and the weather wasn't great, it actually misted pretty much all day, but we were determined not to let that stop us. We set off walking around to see some of the most famous things that Paris had to offer. Our first stops, both of which were right down the street from our hotel, were Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle. Notre Dame is an enormous gothic cathedral right in the heart of Paris and it actually sits on a sort of island along with Sainte Chapelle right in the middle of the Seine River.

Pictured here on the left is the front of Notre Dame and on the right is a portion of Saint-Chapelle. Both of these were incredible buildings and the inside of Notre Dame was enormous, it reminded me just a little bit of Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.
After we saw these we continued to walk, crossing to the other side of the Seine and following the water until we made it to the Louvre. We thought that we wouldn't really have time to walk through the Louvre because its so big but we went to see the famous glass pyramid anyway. I know we will be back to Paris, perhaps even before I come home from study abroad, so on my next trip one of my goals will be to actually walk through the Louvre and see the incredibly underwhelming Mona Lisa.

Here is a picture of me looking awkward in front of the glass Pyramids of the Louvre. The pyramids were extremely controversial when they were designed by I.M Pei and placed here at the front of the Louvre. The larger pyramid is actually the entrance and you walk into the pyramid before descending down into the first part of the museum. Continuing on our way after this, we walked through the Tuileries Garden, which I imagine is much more beautiful in the spring and summer. It's probably also a lot more crowded though so it was a nice walk. It led us right to the Champ de Elysee which we followed all the way up to the Arc de Triomphe.


After all that walking we were getting hungry so we hopped on the metro right here and took it down to the Bastille stop. We got off the stop right at the traffic cirlce where the Bastille once stood. There wasn't anything there now but I guess we can say we stood where the Bastille once did. At this point we found a cafe, Cafe Bastille, and went inside for a late lunch. This busy day had made us pretty tired so we went back over to the hotel for a quick nap before dinner. Dinner friday night was my main birthday present from Maude. It was an unbelievable dinner cruise down the Seine river that started and finished right by the Eiffel Tower. The dinner cruise was one of the highlights of the trip I'd have to say, it was a really nice time and we had a great waiter who spoke perfect enlish and got really excited about how much he loved the US when we told him we lived near Washington, DC. Not really what you would expect from a french waiter.
Here is a photo of me and Maude on top of the boat while we were passing the Eiffel Tower. This photo was taken by another friendly French man, we didn't really run into an American hating French people like sterotyped, in fact French people were a lot nicer to foreigners than Czech people generally are. After finished up this great dinner we headed back over toward our hotel and found a street that my roommate Brandon had told me about, he was abroad in Paris all last semester. We went to a really cool bar with lots of French people where all of the bartenders and waitresses were wearing masquerade masks and almost every shot you could order was a flaming shot. The drinks however were insanely expensive, about 11euros for a mix drink and 6 euros for a shot. But the place was really cool and I was about to turn 21 so we stayed for awhile and had a few drinks. This was the bar that I turned 21 in, and not too long after midnight Maude got me some sort of flaming shot that tasted a lot like liqurice. Finally, we went back to the hotel and went to bed after a long, but really great day.
Saturday was birthday and Valentines Day and we didn't really plan or want to do anything special but go up on the Eiffel Tower at night. We spent most of the day just wandering around the city and actually came across some famous places accidentally. But really the best part of Saturday was after dinner, which was at a slow but very tasty fondue restaurant, when we went to the Eiffel Tower and went up to look out at Paris.


This is a picture of Maude and I up on the Eiffel Tower, you can't really see much of the city in the picture but really we had a great view and it was really great despite the fact that it got pretty windy and cold up there. The video is also of the view from the Eiffel Tower. I don't have a video of it unfortunately, but we were also fortunate enough to see the lights on the Eiffel Tower go off and flash, I think this happens every hour or so until a certain time at night.
Sunday morning we woke up after a great weekend and went to have our last brunch in Paris, we wandered around and bought some postcards that I will eventually be sending home. Finally, we got a ride back to Orly, hopped on the plane, and it was a short flight before we were back in Prauge. All in all it was an incredible weekend and a story I will be able to tell about my 21st birthday forever.

This weekend Maude, Melinda, Saadia and I will be travelling to Budapest in Hungary, a city that people who have gone say is amazing so keep posted and I will try to get a post up about that a little faster than I did about Paris...

Some Observations

So I know my next post was supposed to be the one about Paris, but I haven't gotten those pictures uploaded yet so I thought I would do one about some interesting differences I've noticed between Czech and American society. Also, just a few things that I think are interesting parts of Czech culture. First is the language. Odds are you have never heard anyone speaking Czech because only 10 million people in the world speak Czech and almost all of them are in the Czech Republic. Learning the language has been a slow process, and a pretty difficult one as well. The sounds required for some words simply don't exist in english, so figuring out how to say them is tough. Also, a word can have a 5 consonants before it has a vowel. For example, ice cream is zmrzlina and the number 14 is ctyrnact. No matter how hard you try to pronounce ctyrnact, there is no way you will be able to do it unless you have heard it a thousand times; even then you can only sort of get it right if your not a native czech speaker. One other interesting thing is that names actually change depending on how it is used; my name could be Nick, Nicku, Nicka, and probably a few other things based on how it is being used. Needless to say at this point, czech is completely different from english and is a pretty difficult language to learn.
Another interesting thing I noticed was while I was at Red Bull Crashed Ice. People here love being Czech and are proud of their czech identity, however, the national anthem doesn't seem to hold nearly as much significance as it does in the United States. When the Czech national anthem was being played people just kept going about their business and chatting with one another for the most part. I'm sure this isn't really strange for them, but coming from the US where talking during the national anthem is sort of taboo it seemed odd.
One other interesting little quirk I have noticed is related to public transportation. There are trams that run throughout the city here, which are awesome and take you everywhere, but I've noticed a few interesting things while riding them. First of all, if an older person, especially a woman, boards the tram, it is expected that you will stand and give them your seat. While this might be true in the US as well, not to the same extent. Some old people here will actually yell at you or poke/hit you with their canes if you do not relinquish your seat to them. Another thing is that there are always lots of people on the trams. On a Tuesday afternoon at 11:30am some of the trams will be packed, Prague has a relatively low unemployment rate, but it really seems as if nobody has a job and everyone just rides the trams all day. Finally, when approaching a tram stop that they want to get off, Czech people will push and shove their way to the doors. This is true even if everyone standing there is also waiting to get off. It is as though there is a prize for getting as close to the doors as possible and being the very first person off the tram as soon as it stops.
One final observation that I'm going to make is the clear lingering effect of Communism on the older generation. Old people here are everywhere and none of them are friendly. In fact most of them are extremely rude and often still dress as though they live in a Communist territory. If you go into Tesco (the equivalent to something like Wal-Mart), most of the people working behind the counters are older and instead of being helpful like you would expect in the US, they constantly seem annoyed and just want you to get the away from them as soon as possible. Although the concept of customer service doesn't really exist the same way here as it does in the United States, the older people are particularly unfriendly. In fact, much of the younger generation, especially the university students are much more western. My Czech flat mate speaks perfect english, has seen 3 times as many american movies as me and loves to go out to bars and party with us; plus he is always willing to help us out. I have found that many of the university students here have that same attitude, possibly because many have been to the United States, and are much more friendly and outgoing.
Two other quick notes that I thought I would throw in: 1) There are dogs everywhere and most not on leashes. However, they are never strays and are extremely well behaved and walk with their owners. Note: Mom it is not acceptable here to just go up to someone elses dog that is walking around and start talking to it and petting it so be prepared to restrain yourself. 2) For everyone interested in the drinking situation I thought I'd share the price of beer. Generally at a bar, the price of beer ranges from 23 crowns to 40 crowns. 40 crowns is a lot for a beer here, we rarely pay that much, and that is the equivalent of just under $2 US dollars; we usually pay somwhere between 1.35 and 1.50 US dollars for a beer. When I say a beer I also mean half a litre of real, good, czech beer not a small 12 ounce bottle of cheap, light, american beer. Beer here literally is cheaper than water at most restaurants.
Check back soon because I'll be writing on my trip to Paris within the next few days...

Puccini's Tosca and Red Bull Crashed Ice

So another weekend has come and gone and I did a few interesting things this weekend so I thought it was time for another blog post. A good weekend started when we finished our last day of intensive Czech lessons on Friday. I am finally done with having 5 hours of Czech per day and as of today I actually started my normal classes. Friday night everyone in the CIEE program was given a ticket to attend Tosca, one of Puccini's operas being performed at the biggest opera house in Prague. I wasn't especially looking forward to the opera, mainly because it was an opera. But in the end the experience ended up being a pretty good one. The opera was entertaining, at least the second and third acts were, and the performers were good at what they were doing. Not only were the performers very good, the theatre we were in was beautiful.
This picture really doesn't do it any justice at all, but I forgot my camera and this one was on a friends facebook so it was easy to grab and put on here. The chandelier that is on top fit perfectly with the rest of the theatre, which was big and beautifully designed and decorated. The good performance and beautiful theatre combined with the fact that its always fun to dress up and go out with your friends made the opera a pretty good experience, despite the fact that I initially wasn't looking forward to it. We finished off the night after the opera by wandering around for awhile and then going to a really cool Czech bar called U Sudu, the only bar I have been to more than once since I've been in Prague. When you walk in it looks like a small restuarant but then you walk down a set of small steps and continue to walk underground until you reach a few big underground rooms that serve as a bar all night.
After a long night Friday night I was able to sleep in on Saturday as I had nothing planned for the morning. After laying around and relaxing for the morning and afternoon, at about 5pm I headed to the Red Bull Crashed Ice event that was conveniently taking place about 30 seconds from my school. I had never heard of Red Bull Crashed Ice until I saw advertisements about this event, but apparently it has been going on since 2005 in several locations all around the world. Essentially it is a downhill ice skating race on a track that is constructed just for this event and includes big hills, lots of turns and a few jumps. The competitors are dressed in hockey gear because inevitably there is some bumping and pushing and some crashing into the walls and ice. I had a great view of the part of the track I was near and was also very close to the big screen where I could watch the parts of the race I couldn't see. To give you an idea of exactly what I'm talking about I have included a video of one of the races (unfortunately I don't have any good crashes on camera).

This event was an cool experience and it was actually packed full of Czech people drinking red bull and jager so it was a fun time. As I was getting done with the crashed ice racing, Maude was returning from her overnight trip to Karlovy Vary, another town in the Czech Republic. To finish off Saturday night, we met up for dinner then went out to a club called Radost. Now Prague has very few minorities, but it was a rap/soultrain night at this club so I think that every black person in Prague was at the club tonight and combining this with the normal crowd and a large group of asian tourists made for an interesting mix of people. It was pretty fun though and apparently the upstairs of the club was a restaurant with a really good brunch.

Though you can't see a lot of the club, this is Maude and I in Radost.
This weekend is my 21st birthday and Valentine's Day, on Thursday Maude and I will be flying to Paris from Prague and spending the weekend there so look for an update next week on our trip to Paris.

Kutna Hora and the Superbowl

So this past Saturday my program forced everyone to meet down the street at the lovely hour of 9am, a time nobody wants to be up on Saturday morning. But we were all meeting to go to an important town in the Czech Republic about an hour outside of Prague called Kutna Hora. Kutna Hora is important and is a major tourist destination for a number of reasons. It was once a seat of power for Bohemia, part of the Czech Republic, and King Wenceslas was elected there. Wenceslas was probably the most famous Czech King and one of the largest squares in Prague is named after him. However, Kutna Hora is most famous as a silver mining town. Once silver was discovered, a number of mines were opened there and silver was mined and made into coins. This brought great wealth to the city, part of the reason it has been so important in Czech history. During the summer you can actually venture down into these mines to see exactly what it was like to work in one of them. But they are shut down during the winter so we didn't go into the silver mines.
Instead, we visited two main destinations: First, we went to the Church of Saint Barbara a massive gothic church that was built in the 14th century and is now under control of an order of jesuit priests. A jesuit college is actualy located right next door to this church.
After we finished walking through this church we made our way to lunch and then finally moved on to the main attraction. The thing we all really wanted to see was the Sedlec Ossuary aka "the bone church". This is a small roman catholic church, with a basement like nothing you have ever seen. The basement contains somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 bones all arranged artistically throughout the basement chapel. Though this may sound a bit disgusting, all of the bones are incredibly well maintained and the artwork is simply unbelievable. This made waking up in the morning worthwhile.

On the top you can see an extremely ornate chandelier that is an amazing work of art and is created from nothing but bones. When you look at it, it is hard to image that someone could have pictured something so intricate made entirely out of bones before it was actually completed; much of this chapel gives this same impression. On the bottom you can see Saadia, Melinda, Natalie, and myself (all of us here in Prague from Georgetown) in front of several towers adorned with skulls. Suprisingly, they aren't too creepy and when you walk around this basement you can't helped but be amazed at it, despite the fact that everything is made of bones. Or I guess you are amazed because its so artistic and everything is made of bone. All in all, seeing this church made the long day worthwhile and it is a must see for anyone in Prague that has time to make a pretty short trip outside of the city (Maude will be going to see it in a few weeks on an NYU trip).
To finish up this post I'm going to talk just a little bit about the superbowl last night. I went to Jama, the same bar that I watched the inauguration at, with about 20 other CIEE students. The game didn't actually start until 12:30am here so I only stayed for about half the game but it was still a good experience. There was a good mix of Steelers fans and not steelers fans. I don't say Cardinals fans because nobody really cared about Arizona, a lot of people just didn't want Pittsburgh to win. It was unfortunate that we had czech class at 9am the next morning so I couldn't watch the entire game but it was fun to be able to watch part of the game, despite being so far away from home; and to be able to enjoy some good beer and some good american burgers and wings. Below is a little video of the opening play of the game and a quick view of all the people that were there watching the game from CIEE.

At about half time I knew I had to go since I had to get up early the next morning. The public transportation in Prague is great, so I walked down the street, got the night tram, and rode home to the tram stop right in front of my flat. It was a good night even though I missed a pretty dramatic ending to the game and suprisingly wasn't too tired the next morning.