Advertisement
Published: July 29th 2006
Edit Blog Post
us with marketa at the restaurant
this restaurant was so cool- and this wine cellar that we took a picture in is actually from the 11th century!
from the left: dionne, marketa, rachel, me, sarah and katie so i'm postdating this entry, because last night we stayed out kinda late and i didn't feel like writing before going to sleep- since we're leaving in a few minutes to visit terezin. so i'll start working on yesterday's now...
we didn't have class until 11:15, so we slept in a little bit which was very nice. we listened to marketa lecture about the "normalization period" in the czech republic. this was so interesting- and i really learned a lot. basically, the communist part was thriving in the czech republic during the 50s and 60s, but it was basically a totalitarian regime. finally during "prague spring" (the first half of 1968) the czech republic was finally in a good place, until august when the soviet troops invaded. they said they were only going to stay for a little while- which somehow turned into over 20 years. but, communism of the 70s and 80s turned out to be very different than the communism of the 50s and 60s, because it was during this time that people sort of "played along" with the regime, simply because it was easiest. everyone knew that they didn't really believe in it, but it was easiest
to just say that they did. very interesting-- it might sound awful and uninformed of me, but i thought that the soviet troops had invaded czechoslovakia much earlier than 1968. marketa gives really great lectures- she's interesting and engaging, and talks with us rather than lecturing to us.
then malvina lectured...she's a little less interesting to listen to. yesterday she talked about government systems in the czech republic, slovakia, poland and hungary-- which could have been interesting, but she just kind of read off of her papers, so we were just kind of itching to get out. we finally did, and so then we dashed off to mustek for some lunch. (gyros again-- mmmmm!!! they are absolutely fantastic)
after a quick lunch, we had about an hour before we were expected back at school because we were going to watch a czech movie. so dionne, rachel and sarah went off to H&M to search for outfits to wear that night-- and katie and i decided to do a little more gift shopping. we by chance chose one of the cheesy souvenir shops (we've been in about a million of them) but this one was actually nice--- plus the
people working there were helpful, yet not pushy and they didn't follow you around the store like you were going to steal something. so i ended up buying about 4 gifts, spending less than $50! love this place...
so then we headed back to watch this movie, pelisky (http://imdb.com/title/tt0167331/) it was a really good movie- kind of funny, kind of sad- and it went along perfectly with marketa's lecture since it was about the prague spring (the end of the movie is when the soviet troops invade). it was pretty good, and i felt it was a pretty nice cultural experience.
it was about 5:30 by the time we got home, and we decided to get pretty and go find this party we had been invited to by marketa. (she has been teaching another class, and it was their last night together so they had a little goodbye wine party at this cute restaurant). because she specifically invited us we felt it would be nice to go---- and it ended up being so much fun!!!
when we first got there, we were a little weirded out because everyone just kind of stared at us when we walked in the door. (marketa wasn't there yet, and the party had started an hour earlier so everyone else was there) but mike, the guy in charge of their study abroad program and who looks like mr. big from sex and the city, made us feel welcome- we had some wine and awesome appetizers and started to talk with some of the other students and the czech friends they had made over the past 2 months. it was really nice and fun!! we thought we might do the courtesy stay of about an hour, but ended up staying for almost 3! first it was just my group of 5 who came, but then the other group of 4 came- so it was pretty nice that we were all there to represent.
so at around 11:00 we decided to go back to our favorite restaurant, klub architektu, for some food and drinks before they closed at midnight. katie and i had nachos (soooo yummy!!!) and i shared wine with dionne and sarah. it was all 9 of us, and it was a lot of fun just sitting and talking. we got home at around 1, uploaded our pictures from the evening and then went to sleep.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.042s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0246s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
mom/rosanne
non-member comment
yummy day!
what a great day-you look exceptionally nice maxine! sounds like a very fun evening was had! class also sounds awesome! have a great day off tomorrow- talk to you then! <3 mom