First Week in Praha

Ahoj! (Pronounced "Ahoy" and means "Hi")

I've made a goal for myself to post every week that I'm here, hopefully that will happen!

I got here on Saturday, September 3rd, and met the other 13 people in my group. All are girls except one and we get along famously, even with Joe, the boy.
 

When we first got here we walked around the cobblestone streets looking at the quaint architecture. It was really hot, but we went down a huge flight of stairs anyway. This, of course, necessitated a pub stop because in Prague "beer is water."

[Claire, from NY; Danielle/Dani, from NJ; Morgan, from Delaware but going to college in Chicago]

There was a very pretty view from where we were sitting as well.

[Yep, I'm actually in Prague!!]

Now I'm not going to give you a play-by-play narrative of the entire week, but some highlights are in order of course. 

The metro is a unique experience. You go down a steep set of escalators where the posters are hanging at an angle to match the architecture. It makes me a tad dizzy.

[This is where the metro drives up. Each station had a different design.]

On the metro, everyone is very quiet. This is the number one place to go if you want to feel like a rude American. It's hard for us not to talk the whole time, and sometimes old women glare at us. Unfortunately this just makes the experience funnier. We're getting better though. Most of the time we at least talk quietly.

On the first day we broke up into groups of four and went on a "scavenger hunt." Everyone in my group was bad at directions. Naturally, we started out the hunt by walking back and forth on a long, hot street. We kept changing our mind about what the right direction was. By the time we found this cool monastery with a massive library, we were not in the mood for a tour. We passed the next place, a tiny gallery, with the same overheated attitude and stopped to get iced coffee near the street you see above. Iced coffee is not common here, but we found it in the touristy area. ;)

Anyway, our next stop was the Perin Tower, Prague's version of the Eiffel or something. It was on top of a huge hill. Needless to say, we were sweaty and red-faced at the end of it... which was long overdue by the time we arrived at the top. 

[This picture of a staircase does not illustrate how long, hot & hard it was. That's what she said.]

 [View from almost the top]

It was a neat tower, and Natalie even got to use her Spanish skills on a tourist, but we were absolutely exhausted.

 

[Later, the four of us--Natalie, Naomi, me and Lee-- scowled at the tower from Old Town.]

Another night, we went to a concert in a coffee shop. It's funny because they also sell some beer and wine which is different from coffee shops in the US. I don't know what the band was called and they only spoke in Czech (except the line of one song "You may be Juliet but I'm not Romeo!" which we Americans got excited about), but the music was really good. It was a nice combination of modern and traditional.

Again, everyone in the concert was very quiet, even between songs, but we were good this time. 

At this same coffee house, we also had a sort of getting-to-know each other class on the first day, and during a break I took these pictures nearby.

I'm not sure about the name of either of these things, but the park was pretty and I loved the fountain. If you don't understand how cool the fountain is, just know that it looks better in person and is different from every angle. 

Anyway, I hope you like architecture pictures like this, because there are more ahead. We went to Old Town (the center of Prague and oldest part of the city, with a lot of Baroque architecture and other things) on a very rainy day. 

[One of those lucky spots that everyone is supposed to touch, don't ya know. That's Aiden, by the way.]

I close on this note: Comic Sans is everywhere.

So you will hear from me next week and maybe sooner if I have something short to say!