Getting Here

It feels like days ago that I said goodbye to my family, went to the airport with my dad, promptly realized that my bag was overweight, moved 4.5 lbs of stuff from my checked bag to my already-stuffed carry-on backpack, said goodbye to my dad, briefly thought my flight was cancelled until the nice lady at the check-in counter advised I read the list of departures instead of the arrivals, waited in the security line, and boarded a flight to Dallas. From Dallas, I flew to London.

As soon as I saw London outside the window, I was struck by the notion that this whole other city goes on living and working and breathing while I'm living and working and breathing somewhere else. I realize, it's not the most profound realization. But it reminded why I love traveling. It is at once humbling and gratifying. It forces me to realize that billions of people have lives that are almost completely independent of my own. They operate in their own language and with their own customs. My lifestyle is only one of many. Everything that I know is such a small part of the knowledge present in the world, and that humbles and excites me.

In London, I was apparently a very sketchy person. I was patted down at security (perhaps I was hiding something in my sinister knee brace?) and my absurdly full backpack was halfway emptied by a TSA agent, which took about 5 minutes of earnest shoving to rectify. And I learned later that my checked bag was also checked. As I said, sketchy person. Also I was stopped twice by TSA agents asking how old I was, in a tone that clearly indicated they thought I wasn't old enough to be flying alone. Both of them looked rather shocked when I said twenty, and one muttered, "I was going to guess 13" under her breath. Such high compliments they give...

Once I made it to Prague, the program that I'm studying with provided a ride to my apartment, where I met 3 of my 4 roommates. While unpacking, I tried plugging the power strip that I'd brought into my converter. I figured I'd be really smart and turn my one converter into a bunch of American-style plugs. NOT A GOOD IDEA. All the electricity in my apartment immediately went out, and flipping the fuses in our apartment did nothing to fix the problem. We eventually ended up finding a receptionist who found the main fuse box and flipped the master fuse for our apartment. Luckily that worked. Lesson number one: do not plug an American power strip into a European plug. After getting minimally setup, we ventured out to a nearby supermarket. I braved the checkout with my new travel credit card and attempted to non-verbally communicate that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Luckily, the poor checkout woman took pity on me and helped me out. My fourth roommate showed up as I ate dinner in the apartment before falling asleep.

This morning was our first of two orientation days. We got to go on a historical tour of the Jewish Quarter before lunch at a cute restaurant directly across the street from the main school building where I'll have classes. I ordered mushroom soup and arugula salad and mint tea, and it was all delicious. Afterwards, we got to see where our classes will be and then we visited library (predictably, this was my favorite part). Then my roommates and I had fun getting lost in the city and randomly stopping to buy things we needed. Eventually we got cold and tired of walking in circles though, so I convinced them to let me use the map I had, and we found our way back to our apartment. Tomorrow we have more orientation activities and then classes start on Tuesday!

Picture time!

 This is a cemetery in the Jewish Quarter where an estimated 100,000 people are buried in up to 7 layers, due to limited space in the city.

Here I am standing in front of a gate where couples can put locks to ensure good luck in their relationship. I'm thinking I'll bring David back here...

Here I'm standing in front of a graffiti wall dedicated to John Lennon. As we were walking by, a man dressed as a hippie walked by playing a guitar and singing "Imagine" while another man filmed him. The song has been stuck in my head ever since.

 Here is an upside-down picture of my mint tea in my own individual tea pot. It came with an adorable little pitcher of honey! And with a high of 35 degrees today, I very much enjoyed the warm drink.

I posted more pictures on Facebook and I think this link should take you there: https://www.facebook.com/katie.fullerton.9/media_set?set=a.10203178783933402.1073741833.1321921951&type=1. If not, they're in my photo album labelled "Prague." 

I'll try to post again tomorrow, but for now na shledanou ("goodbye", pronounced "nah skle-da-no"! (Hopefully, in a few days, I won't have to look up how to spell that anymore.)