PragueBlog

Today was a very low-key day. I slept in (wonderful), woke up, goofed off on the internet, went back to bed, and then embraced the day at about noon. The four of us went to a pizza place that took Euros (we still had some leftover from yesterday). Next we went to an open-air market in Old Town. I loved it there. There was so much stuff to look at and buy, I definitely did some impulse buying there. After shopping we went back to the dorms. I took an inventory of all the souvenirs I bought. Let's just say I bought a whole lot of stuff. We actually took a picture of everything spread out on my bed. (I'd post it but I don't want to ruin anyone's Christmas presents!) After I figured out exactly ... read more

Today we took a day trip to Dresden. We left really early so we could get the most of our day. We boarded the train at about 7:30 a.m. It was the nicest train we had been in so far, and the four of us had our own compartment so we were able to stretch out and sleep and all that. We arrived at about 10:00. Rachel was so excited to get there, Germany was one of the places she wanted to go to before she dies. Also, we got our passports stamped, so now we look like quite the world travellers. At the end of the trip, I will have 10 stamps on my passport (of course, 6 of them are from the Czech Republic, but whatever). Anyway, when we got there we walked through ... read more

Today was the official last day of classes. We went to a cafe to eat and just chill for a while. We learned that everyone would be getting A's. (A big joke on the trip is that we "bought our A's," that is, we spent all the money to go on the trip to get auntomatic A's). We said good-bye to our teacher Malvina. Marketa will be taking us to the airport on Tuesday morning. We bought both of them flowers as a goodbye present. After the cafe, we went shopping. I finally finished all of my souvenir shopping, which made me really happy. I was happy to realize this afternoon that all of my souvenirs fit in my other suitcase, not that space is going to be an issue, but weight will be. Maxine was ... read more

Today was our last "real" day of class. We have to go to class tomorrow but it is more an informal get together and discussion. We had two lectures today, one on the Roma (Gypsy) minority in the Czech Republic and one on Gender Issues. They were OK. We also had a visit to the National Museum in the afternoon. The Museum itself was a beautiful building, the stuff in it was not so great. They had all these animals and rocks and fossils, so it was not so interesting and not very Czech. We did get to see some diamonds, though, so that was cool. After the museum, Maxine, Sarah and I went to do a little more shopping. I was looking for three more things. I was able to find one, the hardest thing ... read more

One week from now we will be in the air to go back to the States. I can't believe this trip has gone by so fast. Today we had a record-setting three lectures in class. Two were about the Czech media, which was pretty interesting. In the afternoon, we went to the Museum of Communism, something I had been looking forward to since we arrived in Prague. They have the coolest ads: traditional Russian toys and knick knacks looking all evil and communist. Anyway, the museum was very interesting, but unfortunately it required a lot of reading and it was pretty busy, so we moved around very slowly. For dinner tonight we caved in to our cravings for Mexican food. We went to Buffalo Bill's, a Tex-Mex/American West themed restaurant in New Town. The restaurant was ... read more

Today was another typical day of class. We had a rather boring lecture in the morning about civil society (whatever that is...) and a guest lecture in the afternoon about marketing and consumers in the Czech Republic. The second lecture was especially interesting to me. In between lectures we went shopping. I did a little more souvenier shopping and some of the other girls bought clothes. We hung out this afternoon and took naps. Dinner was KFC on the go (my first American fast food here). I swear there are more KFCs here than in the US. After dinner we watched Mean Girls in the room, which was good times. Tomorrow will begin our last full week in the Czech Republic. In some ways, it seems like we just got here, but in other ways it ... read more

Today we got to sleep in before making our way to the Jewish Quarter. First we went to lunch in Old Town...pizza again (we have a hard time deciding what we want to eat). We wandered around Old Town Square again. We finally got to the Jewish Quarter. We bought a ticket that got us into four synagogues, a cemetery, and another building. Maxine served as a wonderful tour guide through the museums in the Synagogues, letting us know what everything was and saving us the trouble of reading the displays (luckily, there was some English). The first synagogue was the Pinkas Synagogue. It had the names of every Czech person who died in the Holocaust. The names had to be written three times, re-written once because of the Communists and once because of flooding. There ... read more

Today we got to sleep in, we didn't have class until 11:15. It was wonderful! In class we had two lectures, one good, one completely boring. We had an hour-long break, at which time the five of us went to eat dinner and Maxine and I went souveneir shopping (again). I bought a lot of stuff (including stuff for me), so I'm actually almost done. After our break, we went back to class to watch a Czech film called Pelisky. It was about three families living in the same apartment complex during the 60's, so under communism. It was really interesting. We went back to the dorms for a few hours and then got ready to go out. yesterday we met up with some students that Marketa had taught earlier this summer, who were from University ... read more