We also induced many headaches while trying to figure out how David could tag along on my program's trip to Krakow this weekend. After a lot of research and abandoned plans, we've decided that David will take a one-way bus from Prague to Krakow, and then we will both buy return train tickets in the station once we get there (having the tickets mailed here is almost as expensive as buying the tickets themselves, because that makes sense). I could just ride the group bus with my program back on Sunday morning, but my family is landing in Prague on Saturday and I want to see them as soon as possible. This way, David and I will (hopefully) ride an overnight train from Krakow to Prague and get back to our apartments crazy early on Sunday. While in Krakow, we'll definitely be seeing Auschwitz, but I haven't even really gotten around to figuring out what else we'll do. I suppose that's what we'll be doing this week, in addition to researching Austrian cities and train schedules.
Besides planning travel, David and I have been cooking, working out, roaming the city, and doing a little homework occasionally. David went to Terezin on Friday, but I didn't end up getting to tag along because of insurance issues with his company's group bus. Unsurprisingly, he deemed it depressing. It looks like I'll either be able to go with my family, my roommates, or as a field trip for my seminar on the Holocaust. After doing so much reading about the Holocaust lately, I can't say that David's descriptions were all that depressing. The picture he took, though, made the readings I had been doing disturbingly concrete. I'm looking forward to seeing concentration camps for their historical significance and as a small act of remembering those who lived and died there, but my excitement is tempered by the difficult emotional work that I know will go along with walking through them.
This weekend has been excellent. Yesterday, David and I worked out, then attempted to find St. Vitus Cathedral and ended up walking around for awhile before we kind of stumbled upon a different cathedral (I think St. Nicholas). While we walked, we had a long overdue check in about our spiritual lives, and it was just excellent to catch up with someone who I spend so much time with about something that we don't talk about enough. David had never been to a cathedral like this one, so once we were inside, we spent awhile wandering around the edges and taking in all the intricate art. Afterwards, we each picked a spot in the pews and settled into a time of meditation. Growing up, my mom instilled me with an awe of cathedrals, and I still find them to be especially sacred places. It was wonderfully restorative to sit in that quiet place, and pray and write. I have been realizing how much I miss QLSP and its accompanying built-in weekly spiritual experiences. Being in a community where it is normal to discuss my spirituality and my emotional state is such a blessing, and I am feeling its absence. I'm realizing how important it will be for me to intentionally create time for spirituality this semester, and that I'll need to set aside much more than one hour once a week. It is wonderful to find, though, that this responsibility does not feel like one more thing to add to my to-do list. Rather, I am finding myself excited and grateful at the opportunity to enrich my life in this way.
After our meditation at the cathedral (which David found a little more oppressive than enriching), we came back to his apartment and relaxed for awhile before cooking dinner. I was also able to talk with my family, which was excellent and very much overdue. It was so exciting to get to talk about specifics for their trip!
Today, after the gym, David and I went grocery shopping and then went on a quest to find this meat festival thing called Masopust. My Czech teacher had told me about it and we had seen posters all over town. Apparently, it's a festival to celebrate either the end of the winter or hog-killing, or both. It's held at this bar on a side street very close to his apartment, and it took us a good half an hour to find it. When we got there, we were acutely aware that we had found a local's event. It was the epitome of Czech culture. The bar and the area outside were extremely crowded with people holding impossibly large mugs of beer, who were waiting in line for sausage and soup being cooked in a make-shift kitchen outside. From inside, we could hear an accordion's song, and the air was heavy with cigarette smoke. I think my favorite image was a little girl learning how to clink glasses when toasting. She held out her sippy cup towards an adult holding a beer about twice the size of her head, and was quite pleased with herself when she had successfully toasted. Pretty quickly, we became overwhelmed by the line, the crowd, the cigarette smoke, the hunger in our stomachs, and the imminent danger of being drenched in beer. We ended up heading back to David's apartment and making lunch for ourselves.
This evening, I'm planning on dragging David to a concert that is also part of the Masopust festival. I have been listening to the band that will be playing (United Gypsy Crew) and they sound kind of like a Czech One Direction/Justin Beiber except that they rap a fair amount. It's kind of a weird mix, but I got really excited when I could a word or two of the lyrics. I'm hoping that David won't completely and totally hate it, but I'm making him no promises. ;)
Tomorrow and Tuesday are my class days, and I have Wednesday off to chill. Then on Thursday morning I get on a bus to go to Krakow! So much research to do before then. Yay!
Hope all is well where you are!
Picture time:
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| Turns out the concert was in a movie theater. We had fun listening to them rap in Czech, and afterwards we stayed for a screening of "Gravity." |
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| Adorable selfie at the theater |
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