Art, Animals, and Fights.

Dobry den!

Here are a few of the highlights from my past week here in Prague...

Last Thursday I went to DOX The Centre for Contemporary Art. It was a really cool modern art museum that had some really interesting pieces. All over the walls were little phrases and what not in both English and Czech. Those were neat. There was also a room with three giant projector screens that were showing different things. One of them was showing the movie Psycho but had it slowed down to where the entire movie played in 24 hours. It was creepy and cool. There was also a giant sculpture outside that showed all the countries in the EU with their stereotypes. It was fun to sit with the descriptions and figure out each one.

On Friday I went to the Prague Zoo! It was so cool. It was pretty big and had alot of animals full of character. There were few animals that were just lying there, they were all very active. They had about 15 giraffes too that were all inside eating when we saw them so we got to be really close. It was very cool. I made friends with a small monkey who I named Harold. He let me take his picture and then I turned the camera to show him and he stared at it for a while and pressed himself up on the glass. He was adorable.

Saturday I went to Ladronka Fest. We thought this was going to be similar to JoyRide with some extreme sports and stuff like that. It was more alot of booths set up, some of which you could do an activity at, and then a big stage that seemed to be having some sort of talent show. Sort of... We saw some middle/high school girls do some dancing in some very creative costumes, some ballet, and some rock bands. It was still very fun.

On Tuesday our program took us to the Slavia-Praha vs Pilsen hockey game. It was very exciting! We were sitting right in the middle of the Slavia cheering section where there was a man standing with a megaphone leading the crowd in cheers. And we were about 6 rows up from the ice so very close to the game. We all had alot of fun and Slavia won 4-3! One of the most exciting moments came when a group of rowdy teenage boys fell into a man probably in his mid-20's and knocked him over. The 20-something mad got obviously upset and started yelling at one of the boys in Czech and soon fists were flying and other fans were pulling them off each other! The younger boy ended up with a bloody nose. And all of this happened in the seat directly in front of me! If I had taken a step forward I might have gotten hit myself. It was intense.

In other exciting news, our router got replaced on Monday! We had been having internet issues since we got here so we are all pretty happy that those are gone. Now I should be able to talk to people back home without getting kicked off the internet! Woohoo!

I think that about wraps it all up for now. I am very excited because I am leaving for my first trip away from Prauge this evening. Our program is taking us to Poland to go to Krakow and Auschwitz! I am looking forward to it! I will definately let you all know how it goes!

Hope you are all well!
čau!
Anna

Holka Modrooká

It has been a while since I have really sat down and updated you all on my happenings in Praha... So here goes. Forgive me if this gets beefy, I am going to try to keep it exciting.

I talked to my student services advisor (Radka) a while ago about getting involved in some way with the Deaf community here or taking some Czech sign classes. She is awesome at her job and quickly found a community center for the Deaf here in Prague. They offered classes and when she talked to the woman on the phone she said that me taking classes shouldn't be a problem even though I don't know much Czech. Well that lady lied. After taking the tram and the bus out to Prague 4 we arrived at the center and met the teacher. He knows no ASL and no English so us communicating would be extremely difficult. But he did give us the contact information of another place in Prague that does the same work that they do but are focused more on youth. Radka emailed them and is waiting for a response...

Last Wednesday we had a CEA activity where we could sign up to go bowling. So of course since I didn't have anything else going on I took advantage of the free opportunity! We had three lanes and about half way though our first game Radka came and told us all that the top two bowlers of each lane would get to move on to the championship round. Well I made my parents proud and got first in my lane! With a score of 103 I think. I was bowling with a lane full of girls who didn't know what they were doing and asked me repeatedly, "Have you done this before?" Bowled? Who has never bowled in your life? I think it just is not a big event for midwest and east coast kids. What a shame. Well after finishing that first game I went on to the final round where the goal was to finish quickly because we wanted to go home. Well I ended up doing pretty well in this round too. I finished second with a score of 120-something. Somebody get me a Bowl-A-Rama-Mama's shirt!

Friday I went to the Petřín Tower with Hailey, Kelsey, and Hayley. This is also known as the Mini Eiffel as it is a replica of the real Eiffel tower. It is one fifth the size but stands at the same elevation as the Eiffel tower due to the fact it is on top of a hill (Thank you Rick Steves). We climbed the 299 steps to the top and had a nice view of the city. At the base of the tower there is a mirror maze that we wandered through and a rose garden that we looked at. Hayley and I decided to walk back down and go see the Monument to Victims of Communism Who Survived.

Saturday Hayley and I wanted to go to the Jewish Ghetto. We didn't think we would have any problems but upon arriving at the Old-New Synagogue we found that it was closed. Then we realized it was Saturday so of course it was going to be closed. So since we were nearby we decided to go see the astronomical clock chime and then wander towards Wenceslas Square. We didn't make it to Wenceslas Square but we did do some wandering around the city a little bit and went in to The Powder Tower which was just a small tower that used to store gun powder and was used as a lookout point in the medieval times. It was a nice afternoon. That evening we had some people from our program come over to our area of Prague and we cooked them dinner. It was nice to have people out here for a change.

Last night we had another free CEA activity that I was excited to partake in. Bobsledding. I was excited and was thinking it was going to be Cool Runnings style. I heard it wasn't on snow or ice but I still thought it was going to be a four person sled type of a thing. Once we got there we quickly learned it was not Cool Runnings style and it was one person sitting on a scooter/toboggan type of thing. It was still really fun and we all had a good time. It was definately something I would consider doing again. After bobsledding we went to Wenceslas Square for dinner where they had about a dozen little booths of different foods set up. It was delicious.

In other news, my Czech is very slowly improving! I use little words here and there but outside of class I don't speak it too much. However we did learn an old Czech folk song in class last week and another new one today. So that is fun!

So I think that has caught you all up on the last week or so of me being here. Look forward to my next blog when I will tell you about my upcoming trip this weekend!

Miss you all!
Na shledanou!

Rugby Boys, Burgers, and Torture

It has been a busy few days in Praha. I spent Friday and Saturday afternoon at Joyride, an extreme sports and music festival in Prague. There was rugby going on but don't worry mom, I didn't play. I wanted to, I brought clothes to play in, but I didn't play. It was just some men playing beach rugby, which meant they were barefoot on the sand. And they weren't really playing a game, it looked like my team when we practice. It was a little weird but still fun to watch. They also had a cool ropes course that I did. I kind of got stuck at the end though and had to be lowered down on a rope by the man running it. That was awkward but still fun! I also went back to Prague Castle on Saturday morning with two of my roommates, it was still gorgeous and we decided pictures just don't capture the beauty that is there. After this we went to the Medieval Torture Museum that is by the Charles Bridge. That was disturbing but well worth checking out. I am glad we went but I am even more glad that none of those things are used today! Saturday night on our way back from Joyride my roommate Hayley and I decided to stop for dinner and we found this small pub near school that advertised for "Seriously Huge Burgers" so we decided to give it a shot. It was delicious! The whole place was kind of an American style place and played American music so it was like a little slice of home! It was a very fun weekend just wandering around and exploring Prague!

Some people have asked for my address while I am here. Letters and postcards (which I would LOVE to get!) you can send to my apartment. That address is...
CEA
Anna Fraine
čsl. armady 34
Praha 6
160 00
Czech Republic

Packages or anything that won't fit in our small mailbox have to go to the CEA office at school and I don't know that address.

I love it here. The food is good (Goulash soup in a bread bowl- amazing!), the people are nice (for the most part at least!), and the beer is cheap! Where can you go wrong? Maybe I just won't come home. Hmm...

Where There's a Will...

I successfully made Muddy Buddies. Or, Bahnitý Kamaráde as I am now calling them. The Czech cousin to Muddy Buddies. Or Puppy Chow or Monkey Munch or whatever you choose to call it. They are a pretty good alternative. They don't appear to sell chocolate chips in this city so I used a chocolate bar. I also couldn't find Chex cereal so I used some other cereal that was close enough. It is a little different but it is still chocolate and sugar so it works for me. And for you East Coasters, I found some big jars of Marshmallow Fluff in the American secion of the international food secion of the grocery store. It weirded me out a little bit that we had a section there at all, but it does make sense. But they had the same Marshmallow Fluff that I had when I was in Boston in 2003, complete with the Fluffernutter that my dad made me eat promptly upon my return from that same trip. For those of you who don't know, the Fluffernutter is "America's Sandwich" or something like that. It is peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on bread. Mmmm...

I just got back to my apartment from wandering around looking at little shops in my neighborhood. As I was approaching my building the wind started to pick up pretty hard. I had dirt flying into my eye, people were about to start blowing away, it was some serious wind. By the time I got up into my apartment it was pouring down rain. Serious rain. It actually made my day. I have missed the rain. So after closing all the windows in the apartment I sat at my window and watched the rain. It was pleasantly surprised to see that people didn't freak out over rain here. They all carried about their day like the weather hadn't changed a bit. Some pulled out umbrellas but most people just kept walking and continued with their lives. I think I like it here...

My First Week In Prague!

Ahoj!

It has been an eventful few days here in Prague and I have almost been here for a whole week! That just doesn't seem right. Saturday we had a historical city tour that led us from Wenceslas Square and ended near the Prague Castle. Our tour guide, Dagmar, led us along and shared little bits of information along the way. We stopped at the astronomical clock which was so cool. We didn't see it chime but I do plan on going back at some point to see it.

After the clock, we went on to the Charles Bridge. The bridge was crowded and busy with other tours, tourists, street performers, and little booths of things to buy. We didn't really stop on the bridge much until the end where there was a little more space. But it is definately a very cool piece of the city that I have already been back to multiple times. On the other side of the bridge we took a quick break to grab coffee or a snack. I went to use the restroom but had to pay 5crowns to get in and there was a black light in the stall. So bizzare. After the break we went by the most narrow point at Prague. Mom, you would go crazy in here. Dagmar told us that you have to be sure to go through when the light is green. Otherwise you could end up like some large German woman who got stuck in the middle and had to be rubbed down in soap so they could slide her out. Then we went to see the peeing statue. That was an interesting piece of art. Apparently you can text some number and they will write you message in the water.

After this stop we wandered through town and heard some small facts as we worked our way towards Prague Castle. This was gorgeous! There were some awesome views of the city. We went into the castle courtyard and were right outside the cathedral which was incredible! It costs money to go anywhere in the castle so we couldn't do that as part of our tour, but to go in the cathedral was free so we did that. It was so amazing in there. After the castle we wandered back down towards where our school is and we ended our tour there.

That night my roommates and I all went to another apartment of people from our program. There ended up being quite the crowd there and we had a great time mingling and getting to know people.

On Sunday, I decided to make myself some dinner. If you haven't already heard the embarrasing story from my mother, here it is. I have a new rule for shopping in Europe. If you plan on buying some sort of item for cooking such as sugar, flour, or baking soda, you must look up what that word is before going to buy it. Why did I create this rule for myself? Because otherwise you may end up using powdered sugar in place of flour. And let me tell ya folks, mac and cheese just doesn't taste quite the same when you try to make the cheese sauce with powdered sugar. Grandma, please don't kick me out of the family for this one. So that was one of my "Oh, I guess I'm not in the states anymore" moments. It just means I know have a bag of powdered sugar to make an abundance of muddy buddies and frosting with. Any other suggestions?

Yesterday was my first day of school. I had my Exiles and Expatriate literature course. The nice thing about school here is each class, except for my Czech class, meets only one day a week. And the nice thing about my schedule is I only have one class a day. Katie and I went early to get our books and get other things at the school set up. It was a very busy afternoon. Class was good. My teacher has lived in many different parts of the states but was in Seattle for the last 8 or so years before moving to Prague. He and I had a nice chat about Seattle, and Greenlake, and Wallingford, and Magnolia. After class got out I came home to meet my other three roommates and we went to the CEA Welcome Dinner. It was very fun to get to relax and see people again and meet more people. Today was my second day of class and I had Czech. It is a pretty small class but I seem to like the teacher. He was shocked to hear that I had never learned a second spoken language. But I am excited to try to learn this one!

That has pretty much summed up my last few days here. I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all!

Na zdravi!

Anna