Tickets to Austria and Krakow, Meditating in a Cathedral, and Masopust

The past few days have been decently uneventful and relaxing. David and I bought Eurail tickets to Austria for the week of my Spring Break (first week of April). We'll have 10 days total and so far, we're thinking we want to go to Innsbruck and Salzburg. David is going to Vienna as an excursion with his program, so we're not sure if we'll go there over Spring Break. While researching train tickets and hostels and tourist activities and public transportation, I have developed a much deeper appreciation for my mom's amazing trip-organization abilities. By the time David and I decided on Eurail tickets, I'd been researching train tickets for a couple days and I immediately got a headache whenever I began thinking about the whole thing. We're just now beginning to try to decide on dates and cities, so that we can start thinking about where to stay and for how long and what type of accommodation we'll need and what we can afford and OH MY GOSH THERE IS SO MUCH TO FIGURE OUT. Basically, I am amazed that I have just been able to go along on trips organized by other people for so long. I definitely did not grasp how amazing that arrangement was.

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:

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."

Adorable selfie at the theater

Just Czech-ing In

I'm loving essentially having Wednesday-Sunday free to wander the city with David. It's pretty much perfection.

Here's a picture of us on the bridge just south of Charles Bridge on the Charles River.

On Friday, we went to the farmers market that my roommates and I walked to the week before. We bought goulash, potato dumplings, and potatoes with sausage from a woman tending incredibly large cast-iron skillets. We sat on a bench in the park next to the market and marveled at how outstandingly fantastic the potatoes tasted. Then we tried the goulash and we died a little bit from the delicious-ness. Immediately, we deemed goulash at the market a Friday afternoon tradition. Though my stomach later made me severely question that decision, we'll definitely be going back next week.

Goulash on the left in the back and potatoes with sausage on the right in the back. The front two dishes are meat of some sort, but I'm not sure exactly.

 Saturday was David's 20th birthday! We met up in the afternoon and went to the mall near my house because I wanted to show him this giant Darth Vader made of LEGOs that was just hanging out in the toy section.

LEGO Darth Vader at Tesco

Afterwards, we wandered over to explore a LEGO store that I had spotted on my way to school. It's an unassuming storefront, and I assumed that it would simply be filled with a lot of cool LEGO sets that David would enjoy coveting. As soon as we walked in, our senses were overwhelmed. To get inside the store, we passed under a LEGO arch and to our right there was an entire wall made of LEGOs depicting a mock photograph, with a running LEGO train at the base. Just below the LEGO wall we noticed a set of stairs accessible through a turnstile. Ahead of us there were hundreds of LEGO sets and thousands of loose LEGO pieces that you could buy by the gram. David's approximate reaction was this:

David in awe of the LEGOs

David looking down the staircase in front of the LEGO wall/snapshot

LEGO truck running up the wall above the staircase

After David has preliminarily absorbed the store, we went and asked the cashier what was down the stairs. He informed us that they led to a three-story LEGO museum. He also told us approximately how many models and blocks the museum contained but David was already drooling so we decided quite easily that his birthday present would be admission to the museum. We spent about two hours marveling at the countless models and displays, which included many trains that visitors could control, as well as the release dates and block counts on each model. I chronicled the experience with David's camera, which his parents had, appropriately enough, given to him for his birthday. One of the models on the basement floor was of a Star Wars ship (David would know the name). There was a sign on the display that read something to the effect of, "For the full Star Wars exhibit, see the 3rd floor." David's eyes widened upon reading it and it took a moment to convince him not to bolt up the stairs immediately.

When we did reach the third floor, it did not disappoint. As soon as he walked in, the Star Wars theme started playing. The room was practically overflowing with Star Wars models. I think we spent about 30 minutes in those two adjoining rooms alone, and I was taking pictures pretty much the whole time. (David is currently having a difficult time sifting through those pictures to choose which ones to post on Facebook.) After looking at all the models, we headed back down to the basement to play with LEGOs they had sitting out at little stations throughout the exhibit. I built David a birthday cake (note the Napolean Dynamite reference), and he built a house that quickly turned into a mansion.

LEGO birthday cake (with 20 LEGO candles)

When we left the museum, it was 6:30 and we realized that our plan to shop for and make dinner was no longer viable. Instead, we decided to go to the Indian restaurant I had found the previous week. David got fried cheese, a mushroom and pea dish in tomato sauce, and garlic naan, while I got vegetable soup, spinach with homemade cheese, and jasmine rice. Everything was absolutely delicious (again). I'm thinking that we'll need to take my family there when they come, even if my mom and Grace claim they aren't big fans of Indian food. If any place could win them over, it would be this one.

David's mushroom and pea dish, served over a candle to keep it warm

My spinach and cheese dish with jasmine rice

 On Sunday, I met David at his apartment and we ate breakfast before taking a bus to a park by his house that he had discovered. It was a brisk, sunny day and the park was absolutely lovely. We sat in the grass to meditate and write in our journals for awhile. It was so wonderful to soak up the sun and be in nature. We stopped back by his apartment before heading to the Olympic Park. We had both heard a lot about the park and, since the Olympics ended Sunday, it was our last chance to go. For a minimal fee, we got to wander around this enormous park devoted to the winter Olympic events. There was a huge ice skating rink/maze, a cross-country skiing/biathlon arena, a curling sheet, and a snowboarding hill where youth snowboarders were showing off their skills. All the snow was fake, of course, since it hasn't been nearly cold enough for the real stuff, but it was great to see nonetheless. David and I tried a "trdlnik," which is a common Czech pastry. Long strips of dough are wrapped around a metal pole and dunked in sugar before being slowing rotated over a charcoal fire. Once browned, they are dunked in cinnamon and sugar again, and are then served warm. Unsurprisingly, it was absolutely delicious.

Curling sheet (I learned that term while writing this post)

Part of the ice skating rink/maze

Trdlnik just beginning to cook

David trying his trdlnik (it looks like too many consonants, right?)

 After the Olympic Park, we caught public transit back to his apartment, stopping at the grocery store along the way. We made lentils and cabbage and tomato soup for dinner. It was all delicious. We also tried a bottle of white wine we had bought for David's birthday dinner that we didn't end up cooking. David hadn't tried wine before and was pretty excited to try it. I was almost positive I wouldn't like it, but figured it was worth a shot. One of David's roommates (who are all much more experienced in the realm of wine-bottle-opening than either of us) helped him with the bottle opener and he poured two glasses. While we were eating, we decided to try it at the same time. We smelled it and agreed that we didn't particularly like the scent before each taking a sip. Immediately we both grimaced and decided we were not wine people. Luckily, his roommates were happy to have the free bottle of wine.

I'm realizing that the next few weeks are going to be quite busy compared to the last few. This Friday I'm hoping to be able to tag along with David's study abroad program on their trip to Terezin, the Czech Republic's most infamous World War II concentration camp. Then the next Thursday I leave for my program's 4-day excursion to Krakow, hopefully with David tagging along, though that's yet to be fully worked out. When I return, my family will already have been here for a day (woohoo!) and they'll be here all week. And David and I have been talking about independent travel we want to do soon. We're thinking trips to the Alps and to Copenhagen on different weekends before we activate our Eurail passes at the beginning of May, with which we'll go to France, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, and Belgium (we hope) before ending Greece. I can't even believe I can write that sentence. Life is just outstanding sometimes.

Lots of love to the Austin and Greensboro and Savannah (and wherever else you may be reading this from, perhaps Wisconsin?)!

Update on the Prague Life

Alrighty, I need a break from my homework so it's time for an update. I'm currently halfway through my second reading about eugenics pre-WWII, and it's not exactly the most light-hearted topic. So let's talk about something else!

On Monday, I went on an excursion to a monastery and brewery organized by my study abroad program, CEA. What they didn't mention when describing the event was that, in order to get there, we would be hiking up this huge hill. The experience would have been lovely had my knee been healthy, but as it turned out, I was honestly quite miserable. In hindsight, I really just should have turn around when I started feeling my knee twinge while we were walking. But I had seen these beautiful pictures of the library in this monastery, and I'm just so used to being physically able, and I'm exceptionally stubborn.

I'm sure that the monastery was even prettier than the pictures, but I just sat down as soon as I got to the top of the hill and tried not to cry, because I couldn't really do anything else. (I know that sounds melodramatic, but it's totally true.) I managed to compose myself in the monastery, and then we headed over to the brewery across the street. Apparently it's a really old microbrewery and they make really good beer. We got a free beer to taste, which I used to discover that I really truly don't like beer at all. (Luckily, one of my roommates shouldered the burden for me.) Afterwards, we got a tour of the brewery. They said stuff about wheat and hops and fermentation and temperatures and dark versus light beers, and I pretty much had no idea what they were talking about the whole time.

When we were done, I ventured down the hill slowly and my knee hurt. At the bottom of the hill, there was a conveniently-placed Starbucks.* I sat in the Starbucks and rested for awhile before I got my over-priced-but-so-worth-it Americano. Armed with caffeine, I caught the tram to the library where I had my evening class. In the library, I sat and sipped coffee and ate snacks and read "The Hiding Place" (kudos to Brittany for giving me this excellent book before I left). Of course, after my fairly hellish day, I was to give a 30-45 minute presentation in my Holocaust Seminar. I was nervous, but the presentation went well and I managed to make it through Monday.

Tuesday, thankfully, was a much calmer day. I had Czech language class in the morning, in which we learned a new Czech song. After class, I took the tram home and made some lunch before I got to talk to my awesome dad, who woke up at 6am his time to talk to me about my knee. I explained what was going on and he recommended I see an English-speaking physical therapist while I'm here. I did some research later that day (during my Anthropology of Religion class) and found two places I could go. After emailing both and getting price estimates, I am going with the one that has a student discount, which makes each appointment about $25 (go lower health care costs). The only problem is that they don't have an appointment until March 3rd, which feels quite a long ways away at the moment, given that walking is really becoming not fun at all.

On Tuesdays, I have class from 2:45-9:15pm, which passed fairly uneventfully. I did realize that I'm currently spending $8 per week on Starbucks though, so I'll need to figure out a different way to stay awake during my evening class.

Tuesday night we got an email saying that bedbugs had been found in parts of our building and that people would be coming to inspect our apartment the next morning. We were told that we would either need to be out of the apartment for one hour (for preventative spraying if they found no bedbugs) or for six hours (for fumigation if they found bedbugs).

With the way the week had been going, I should have expected them to find bedbugs. When they told us the next morning, though, I was rather unprepared. I packed a bag for the day and headed to the gym. After the gym, I went to the mall and wandered around for awhile, stalling to make sure that David would be at his apartment when I got there. After taking a tram and a bus, I made it to David's apartment, where I finally got to shower before we headed to the grocery store. We made beans (they didn't turn out as well as we'd hoped), and sauteed veggies. David swore he hated cabbage, but we decided to try it because I wanted to. He braved a taste of it raw while we were cooking and the look on his face was hilarious. He was trying to convince himself it tasted terrible, but as the seconds ticked past, it became clear that he actually liked it. It was fun to watch.

I should probably give David some credit here. He is having to deal with a rather unpleasant version of myself right now. Not being able to run/elliptical/bike was difficult. Not being to walk very well is just compounding the problem. I am basically a big ball of stress and issues, ready to unleash on him at any time. It's just so disheartening to feel like I'm being blocked from this part of myself. I identify deeply as someone who is active, and to not be able to pursue that in the ways that I want is extremely frustrating. (I can't help but notice the rather cruel irony of this in relation to my last post.)

On a related note, I feel like I've been getting an itsy-bitsy peephole view into how disabled people are treated. When I'm walking with a group, I inevitably fall behind and it's easy to feel socially excluded and awkward. When I'm getting in and out of the trams, I can feel the rush of people behind me and I feel pressured to go faster than I know is good for me. It is clear to me that people look at me differently in the gym than when I was healthy. Just to be clear, I am totally not saying this to equate my knee injury with a long-term disability. I'm just trying to say that I had no idea what people with disabilities were dealing with on a day-to-day basis. I can't say that I have any constructive suggestions on how to solve this problem; the extent of the problem is just astounding.

*Normally, I avoid American companies while traveling abroad, but this particular Starbucks is also close to my school and I'm afraid if I go to a local place, I won't be able to get a big enough coffee to sustain me through my evening classes. So I am consistently breaking my own rule.**

**I am shamelessly stealing this technique from Becca Kempe.

There I Am

One of the things that people warned me about as I was preparing to go abroad was a tendency for students to confuse their sense of identity. They told me I would likely question what it really means to be American, female, short, a student, etc. In sum, that I would begin to wonder what really defines Katie Fullerton in this new, foreign landscape and culture. I'm essentially experiencing the opposite of this.

Displacement to a different city along with a couple hundred other college students from various parts of America has drawn into stark relief what exactly defines me. I feel independent and unique among peers. Those essential characteristics that distinguish me remain the same as I navigate these new situations. I still love to exercise, cook and eat healthy food, sleep late, and read. I'm still not a fan of crowded places. I still can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke or alcohol. I still draw comfort from music, walking, and yoga. I still value integrity and the ability to listen, to others and to oneself, most in people. I still love the same people that I loved when I was in Austin and Greensboro.

It is deeply affirming to realize that I am a constant in this new climate. Living in a foreign city tests my values and priorities by placing me in new situations. My familiar reactions in these unfamiliar circumstances point to the definitive aspects of my self. Some of these characteristics I was already aware of. I knew that I wasn't into partying and that I liked to workout, for example. Other characteristics, however, I have been pleased to discover. I've been surprised by my sense of comfort, ease, and independence here when exploring the city on my own. I've been happy to find that when my roommates go out for the evening and I stay at the apartment, I am not doing so out of judgement or social anxiety, but out of a genuine desire to stay in.

It is such a pleasant experience to find myself at home in my own skin, my own decisions, and my own life. I wonder at myself in awe, the way that a child might repeatedly try to squish an ice cube they saw first as water. How did that amorphous blob that was running every which way and filling every crevice turn into this, a solid object with defined edges and dimensions?

It is usually fairly obvious when people have a firm concept of themselves. They carry themselves with more confidence and seem to view others as they view themselves: non-threatening, interesting, and important. But, from within, I can't say that it was obvious to me that I was becoming more of a solid concept. It is still a surprise to me when I feel my feet touch solid ground beneath this abyss of a world I am treading in. Each time, I am awed, thinking, "Aha, there I am." And I filled with relief and gratitude for this ground on which I am to wander.

David's Arrival: An Adorable Puppy, An Unfortunate Shopkeeper, and Wheel-less Luggage

Well, David's first foray into international travel was quite a doozy. His flight from London to Prague was delayed because the pilot apparently didn't show up, so he arrived an hour and a half later than he'd expected. We didn't particularly mind though. I just did homework at the airport and he lost a few more hours of sleep. Also, someone had brought an unbelievably adorable Beagle puppy to the airport so I had entertainment. What we didn't know at the time was that this delay was merely the foreboding sign of more to come.

When David stepped through the arrival door separating the baggage claim from the waiting area, he was talking with a woman from London and her son, who were making sure his party was there to pick him up. (I learned later that David made friends on pretty much every flight on the way here. Why am I not surprised?) We excitedly exchanged hugs and kisses, before I began regaling my master plan of how to get us back to his apartment. I had two 90-minute public transit tickets, one for each of us. First, retraced part of my route back to the middle of the city. We took Bus 119 from the airport to the green metro line, which we took to meet up with the yellow metro line. We got off at the closest metro stop to his apartment, which is called Florenc. After that, it would be easy, I had thought. We could only be a few blocks from his apartment and we had a few maps, though I had forgotten my favorite one in my coat pocket at my apartment (I had purposely left my coat out of a over-developed sense of confidence in cold weather and a masochistic drive to freeze my fingers).

As you can probably guess, we had absolutely no idea where we were when we got out of the metro. No idea which way was North or South, let alone which direction his apartment was in. Suddenly a few blocks felt like quite a long way to walk, especially with me carrying both mine and David's backpacks and him carrying his 45 lb wheel-less luggage over one shoulder. (Why wheel-less luggage? I asked that very same question.) We ended up just picking a direction and walking until we realized we were wrong, twice. We stopped into a convenience store once to ask for directions and a very well-intentioned Vietnamese man who spoke a little English tried exceptionally hard to help us but only left us more confused.

Finally we walked far enough in the wrong direction to hit a major street marked on our map. By this time we were cold and tired and pretty discouraged. We just set the luggage down and I told David about Grandmother and Papa and I trying to find our hotel in Fiesole over the summer, and how we basically spent a whole day caught up in things like this. It was helpful that one of us hadn't just gotten off an overnight flight, so we were both completely and totally brain-dead. Once we had regathered our strength we started trekking back the way we had come in hopes that we'd finally found the right direction. David had called his study abroad company and someone there had told us to catch a bus from the metro stop to his apartment,, but he wasn't too clear on where, not to mention that our transportation tickets had expired (and mine had fallen out of my pocket). After deciding to just walk the rest of the way, we found that we were following the buses we were supposed to be on, so we knew we were going in the right direction. When we finally found his street, we got very excited for about 5 seconds before we realized that the street numbers on opposite sides of the street didn't match up and we didn't know which way to walk. Even numbers are one side and odds on the other, but on side would be in the 40s and the other would be in the 70s. All very convenient. After calling David's study abroad company 3 more times, we found ourselves walking alongside increasingly odd numbers until we got to Husitska 65, where a college-aged guy was poking his head out of the doorway. I think we were briefly in danger of hugging him and regaling our long, arduous, and rather boring story to him right there on the sidewalk, but the desire to set our bags down overtook us.

Once we made it up to his apartment, we met two of his three roommates and collapsed on the couch in their living room. After we had regained our senses of space and time, we noticed that his apartment was actually quite nice. The couch was pretty comfy, the kitchen is much nicer than mine, and there is even a TV. His roommates went out after we got acquainted a little, and I headed out a few minutes later. In order to leave his apartment building, I had to go through two doors. The first opened with no problem and then locked behind me. The second, I needed a key to open. I promptly realized that my phone and computer were both dead, and that I had no way to get out of this tiny hallway. Panic gradually wracked my body. I resorted to pressing every button in the hallway and got the attention of two guys standing outside by knocking on the door. They tried to open the door for me, but it was locked from the outside too. Then they resorted to laughing and periodically looking through the window. I was very much on the verge of crying in this little hallway. My last ditch effort was to pull as hard as I could on both doors. The door to the outside showed no sign of movement. Then I resorted to yanking the door back into the apartment building and to my utter shock, it opened. I had no energy left to question it, and I just started sprinting up the stairs to David's apartment. I think I completely freaked David out standing in the doorway panting and on the verge of tears. After I caught my breath, I explained what happened. David sat me down and volunteered to come with me back to my apartment once I'd calmed down. We took the metro to my apartment and David dropped me off around 1AM. I climbed the stairs, scarfed down food, and fell asleep. I learned this morning that the metro closed before David got back to the station, and he ended up walking all the way back to his apartment.

Honestly, I couldn't believe how well David handled all this, having never been in another country. I had experienced things like this on trips before and I know that they do not ruin the experience, and even turn out to be good stories. David, on the other hand, just had to take my word for it. He did such a great job staying calm and composed. I'm so excited to have him as my travel buddy for the next few months!

//

In other news, I made an excellent pot of beans yesterday afternoon. They're better than canned ones and I am absurdly proud of them. The last few days before David got here have kind of blended together, quite honestly. They have been filled with exercise (finally), working on rehabing my knee (accidentally over-stressing it, and now trying to take it easy), finishing "Book Thief," grocery shopping, steamed cabbage, roasted potatoes and beets, and whole lot of reading about the Holocaust.

Roasted potatoes, beets, mushrooms, and spinach. It just too beautiful to eat...without taking a picture first.

View of the famous "Dancing House" on my way back from the gym. The lot stayed vacant for decades after the US accidentally bombed it 1945 (whoops). After the lot was cleared, Vaclav Havel (the man who Prague's airport is named after) lived there for most of his life. The Dancing House was built between 1992 and 1996.

I also spent a few hours at this coffee shop called Globe that is just a couple blocks from my apartment. I met a classmate there to work on a presentation we have on Tuesday. It definitely caters to Americans. The waiters speak English and multiple menu items contain the word "American." Independent of that though, I can't help but love it. The front window is filled with books, and when you walk in there's a little bookshop to your right. If you manage to pass the bookshelves, you come to a wood-dominated room full of tables and chairs. Once you fully enter the room and turn around, a huge projection of the Olympics appears on one wall. It's an excellent study place and I imagine myself spending a lot of time there, if I can manage to get over the smell of smoke (see Addendum of my last post).

This sign outside Globe reads "Books, Coffee, Internet." What more do you need in life?

Learning to be a Follower

Pedestrian behave differently everywhere. In Austin, cars most definitely have the right of way. Pedestrians are cautious and make absolutely sure drivers see them before they begin crossing (and, if they fail to do so, they are yelled at or worse). In Manhattan, cars are second-class citizens on the road. Drivers try to assert their dominance by speeding between traffic lights but it's clear that pedestrians rule the streets.

Prague, I am learning, is somewhere in between. Pedestrians technically have the right of way on the ubiquitous black-and-white striped "zebra crossings," as the English-speakers here call them. However, tourists tend to be hesitant to assert their right to cross and end up waiting for all the cars to pass. Locals, on the other hand, pay almost no attention to the zebra crossings. They pretty much cross wherever they want, even stopping halfway across two-way streets to wait for oncoming traffic to fly by.

I'm beginning to master the art of crossing the street here, but I still have to remind myself to look around and see what others are doing. I often find myself standing at a crosswalk waiting for the little red standing person to turn to the little walking green person, only to notice that everyone else has crossed already, or that they never bothered walking to the crosswalk in the first place. This is where I am learning the value of being a follower.

Although I know this will shock anyone who knows me well, I am actually quite stubborn and fixed in my ways. I'm used to waiting at crosswalks, so I just assume that's what everyone does here too. Looking around me, though, it becomes clear that standing there watching for the little lighted person to change makes me stand out like a sore thumb. In the slow process of assimilating ever-so-slightly into this culture, it is vital for me to look to locals for guidance. As soon as I open my mouth, it is clear that I am not a local here. But, up to that point, I'd like to blend in as much as I can.

Hence, I'm trying to be more assertive about crossing the street. I'm trying to speak as much Czech as I can, and I'm trying not to inadvertently over-tip. At the end of the movie I saw last week, I sat in the dark and watched the credits roll like everyone else. It's not that these changes take a lot of effort on their own, but that remembering these small things is the most difficult and most important part of immersing myself in this new place.

(Addendum: I have definitely not become assimilated to the smoking inside thing yet. I'm not sure I will, but I suppose I'll have to keep trying if I want to go to any restaurants or cafes while I'm here.)

Let the Business Commence

Well, suddenly I got busy. The bulk of my classes are on Monday and Tuesday, so I've been reeling in the mini-sea of homework today.

Monday I had two classes. First, Folklore & Mythology, which was great. I have a total nerd-crush on my teacher. He's won two Fulbright scholarships and has taught in something like 4 or 5 countries. (Also, he was born in Bridgeport, CT, the location of one of the naturopathic medical schools I'm considering. And he now lives in Portland, OR, the location of the other one. Weird, right?)

The view while walking to class Monday morning.

It's hard to believe this sight will be on my to school for the next 3 months.

Between the main class building and the library there is this gorgeous park, just sitting here like no big deal.

Between classes I had a four hour break, during which I roamed the streets. I got caught in a tourist trap of a cafe, where I ended up paying 70 Kc/$3.50 for a cup of tea. I took both my unused sugar packets in a vain attempt to make myself feel better about getting ripped off. I also stuck around and watched the Olympics while using their wifi to find a distinctly non-touristy restaurant. I ended up eating a late lunch/early dinner at Golden Tikka, an Indian restaurant just far enough off the beaten path to keep tourists from stumbling upon it.

Front of the restaurant

I stepped into the heaven-scented restaurant at 4:15, and was greeted by a waiter who was somewhat confused by my timing. After being seated, I asked my waiter, who spoke minimal English, how to say something in Czech, to which he replied, "I don't speak Czech. Only Indian." He told me the dialect too but I've forgotten now which it was. I imagined that must be a pretty isolating experience, living in the Czech Republic and only speaking Indian. He explained there there is a small but meaningful Indian community, and I was reminded that a Kazak student who is in two of my classes and said that Prague contains a lot of foreign communities. It's cool to be studying abroad in such a diverse place. I primarily took two things from our conversation though. First, that if my waiter permanently lives and works in Prague without speaking Czech, I will be fine for one semester. Second, the food was probably going to be excellent.

I was right. My cauliflower and potatoes arrived doused in a mild red sauce with fresh grated ginger resting on top. Jasmine rice came alongside, and each dish was served in a steel bowl that matched the pitcher of tap water the waiter had brought me. It was fabulous, and I ate every last morsel. Luckily, the restaurant was mostly empty at the time so I am fairly certain no one noticed me scrape the leftovers from the inside of the bowl and lick them off my finger. When the waiter returned to take my dishes, I attempted to explain how delicious it was, but I think my empty plate was a clear enough message. I'll definitely be going back there again, although I decided the sentence, "I will come back here" contained too many iffy verb tenses for my waiter's English level. I'll just prove it to him in the coming weeks.

I only remembered to take a picture as I was leaving. Whoops.

After my meal, I trekked uptown to the library, where my Seminar on the Holocaust takes place. I hadn't realized that one of my roommates would be in that class with me so I had the pleasant surprise of a familiar face. It looks like this will be my hardest class by far, with lots of reading and student-led classes. I took a leap of faith (or stupidity) when I volunteered to go first and lead class next week, meaning that I actually have to do the 481 (count 'em) pages of reading. Luckily, my roommate volunteered to go the same week so we can split the bulk of it. The second half of class was spent watching a BBC documentary called "The Final Solution" that left me deflated. Monday nights are going to be a challenging time for me this semester.

Tuesday, I had three classes. First, Czech language in the morning, which I also had last Thursday. We spent about 30 minutes of our class learning to sing a Czech song with two other classes, which was way more fun (and catchy) than I was expecting. After class, I came back to the apartment and ate some lunch. While there, a different roommate realized that we had both of our evening classes together that day. First, we had Anthropology of Religion, which felt huge at about 40 people, and is all female, which just feels weird. But the teacher is so energetic and happy to be teaching, you can't help but get excited with her. It looks like we'll be covering some stuff I've done before (we'll be focusing on gender and religion one week and shamanism another), but that's not a problem for me. I was feeling ambitious and volunteered to present next week in this class too. Yay for getting work out of the way early!

Anthro of Religion ended early, so my roommate and I walked to the nearby Starbucks. About an hour later, armed with a Grande Americano, I walked back to school with her and we went to our first Literature of Prague class. The teacher was interesting and intelligent. Our main textbook is an anthology of Prague prose and poetry, which he edited (and translated a fair amount of too). I'm looking forward to immersing myself in this city's culture and history through its literature...which I realize must sound like a cheesy, nerdy, fake sentiment but it's entirely true.

Once we got back to the apartment, I make mashed potatoes, made some significant progress on "The Book Thief," and fell asleep.

I woke up this morning at 11 because I don't have classes on Wednesday. Afterwards, one of my roommates and I walked to a gym to explore. There's a certain brand of gyms that CEA recommends but they're pretty expensive and I figured there had to be cheaper options, so we went to scope out this one. I ended up purchasing a 3 month membership for 2300Kc/$115, and I'm really excited about it. There are tram and metro stops nearby so I can easily use public transportation to get there from my apartment and from school. It's simple but they have everything I need. It was just so nice to get back to a real workout today. (I even tried the elliptical a little and my knee didn't completely freak out. Dad, you'll be happy to know that I stopped as soon as it twinged, even though I'd only been going for like 7 minutes. We'll see how it feels tomorrow!)

Happy selfie at the gym. Glad to be back in my element.

Rowing sculls on the Charles River!

Afterwards I came back to the apartment and made some linner of lentils and steamed cauliflower greens. I completely burned the bottom layer of lentils but the rest turned out okay, so no harm done. And the cauliflower greens are good! I remembered being in Swaziland and having my Grandmother explain to me that Africans eat the green parts and not the white parts of cauliflower. I thought it was weird at the time, but now that I'm paying for groceries, it seems even weirder to throw away perfectly good veggies.

I also got to talk to Sam and Eleanor today, which was awesome, even though they were a little sleepy since it was 10am their time. Also, apparently it's snowing in Greensboro. I think that I just bring warmth with me wherever I go. Locals here keep telling me this is the warmest winter they've had in years. I guess I should start telling them they've got me to thank for that.

I'm off to sleep now. Na shledanou!