Catching Up... For real this time.

OK! I have decided to do a hard core Readers Digest version of the past month or so...

-Leah came to Prague! We had a superb time! We did a free walking tour of the city which ended up being really entertaining. We went to the Zoo. We did a Pub Crawl. We went to the castle and all the other big sites. We had a fantastic time hanging out together!

-Leah and I went to Vienna with my friend Kate! That was a good weekend. Vienna was a nice city. The highlights from that trip would definately be seeing Schonbrun Palace and eating weinerschnitzel!

-Leah went home. That part was sad. It was very fun to have her come out and visit me!

- I went to the Jewish Quarter of Prague! I had been in the Jewish Quarter before, it isn't like it is closed off to the world anymore, but I hadn't been inside any of the sites. I went to the Pinkas Synagogue which is very cool. On all the walls of this synagogue are the names of all the Jews in Prague that were taken to Terezin Concentration Camp which is nearby to Prague. Also, in the upstairs of the synagogue is artwork by kids from the same camp that was done as art therapy and later found when the camp was liberated. It was very cool.

-I went to ITALY! I spent just under a week in Italy with my friends Kate and Mikaela. We flew into Milan and spent an hour or so there before hopping on a train to Venice. We spent about two days in Venice. We rode a gondala. Ate some pasta and seafood. Saw the sights. Went to a big fish market. The depressing thing about Venice? The Bridge of Sighs (which I consider to be semi famous) was under some sort of construction! It kind of killed it for me. Construction has been plaguing my European experience. After Venice we got on a train to Florence. We got in there pretty late and met up with some couchsurfers that were hosting us for the two nights we were in Florence. They didn't have a place for us to sleep that night however, so they offered to stay out with us all night. After a drink at one bar, they took us to a secret pastry shop. Then after our pastries, they took us to a place with a pretty view of the city at night. Then realizing how tired we all were, it was decided that we would sleep in their car which was named "The Car of the Dreams." And folks, it really was! It was tiny too! The five of us squeezed into the little car and slept inside the car when it was parked in a random parking lot in Fiesole. It wasn't as shady as it all sounds though. I promise! The next day we toured Florence and saw The David! As well as some other sites. The David was pretty amazing though. That night they hosted us at their "House Near the Sea" for dinner and drinks. We slept there and the next morning they were nice enough to drive us and drop us off in Pisa where we spent about an hour. Just enough time to take some cheesy tourist shots with the Leaning Tower and then get to the train station! From Pisa we headed to Cinque Terre. This is a set of 5 small towns built into cliffs right along the sea. They are all connected to each other by some intense hiking trails and a train track. They are all gorgeous as well! We hopped around from town to town. Ate some delicious pesto for lunch and some fantastic seafood pasta for dinner. Also sipped the local wine. At the end of this long day we got on a train headed for Rome. It was an overnighter that got us into Rome at about 5am. We arrived and since nothing was really open yet we decided to take a nap on the floor of the station. At about 8 or 9am we woke up and headed to the Colleseum and Roman Forum. Those were both very cool to see. It was one of those moments where you are standing there and realize that you are staring at the Colleseum. Something you have seen many times in books and in movies, but never really thought you would get the chance to see in person. It was awesome. After those sights we went in search of a place to sleep. We found a hostel, dropped our bags, and headed to see more of Rome. We went to the Spanish Steps where we sat and felt cool chillin' on some steps. We went to the Trevi Fountain where we each tossed three coins in and drank some of the water. It is said that if you toss three coins in or if you drink the water it ensures you will one day return. We did both. Better safe than sorry. We went to the Pantheon which was pretty freaking sweet as well. After all this we went back to the hostel, showered (which we hadn't done in a while) and then hung out. Our hostel was having a bruschetta and sangria night so we stayed in and had a great time meeting people from all over the world. That is probably one of my favorite things about hostels. You can literally meet people from all over. I have friends from 5 continents now! We are still working on meeting someone from Africa. The next day we got up early and headed to The Vatican! I was very excited for this part of our trip. We went on a guided tour of the Vatican Museum which was very benefical as there were no signs up to tell us what we were looking at. We went into the Sistine Chapel which was GORGEOUS. And in case you were curious Kim, no one needed to trash their bag afterwards. We then went to St. Peter's Basillica. First stop was to the grottoes where we wandered among the tombs of past popes. Then we went into the actual basillica part and wandered around. It was very big and very pretty. After we had our fill of The Vatican we went for more pasta and then went to our hostel to get our stuff and then headed to the airport. Italy was pretty sweet. I liked it there alot.

So that portion of this post ended up being alot longer that I had planned.

-After I got back from Italy I enjoyed being back in Prague. As you have now seen, I was running like crazy all over the place. So it was definatelly nice to be back home and sleeping in my own bed for a while.
Enjoying Prague consisted of hanging out with people from my program, going to a Slavia-Praha vs Brno soccer game, and Thanksgiving! It was very hard to not be home for Thanksgiving, but luckily I was surrounded with other people that have become like family and who also were having a hard time being away. Along with 4 girls from my program, a Czech girl who is friends with one of those girls, and one mom, I celebrated a Czech Thanksgiving! I was in charge of dessert and people wanted somthing chocolatey. So I made French Silk Pie, one of my favorites. Then I found out there was going to be no stuffing. Thanksgiving without stuffing? Not ok. So I decided to be ambitious and make stuffing. Fun fact: The Czech Republic does not have any kind of premade stuffing like StoveTop. So I truly was ambitious and made stuffing, for the first time in my life, from scratch. It ended up being quite delicious. And the pie turned out great too. We also had salad, rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, and chicken. No turkey, it isn't common here in Prague and when you find it, it is really over priced because the stores know only the Americans will be buying it. But Thanksgiving was still pretty good, different but good.

-The other exciting thing that happened was April's parents Sandy and Gary coming to Prague! April is my brother's girlfriend and I had the chance to see her mom a few times while she was visiting. We went on a ghost tour and a boat tour or Prague. Both were pretty neat and it was fun to get the chance to know Sandy.

Well that just about sums it all up! I have caught up! However, I will have a great post about my last weekend coming soon. I promise! Now that I am close to caught up I refuse to get that far behind again!

Mid Term Break!

Hello world. It's Anna. Do you remember me? I know it has been quite a long time...
Sorry for the lack of posting. The past month has kept me so busy it is crazy. So get ready for a series of mega posts to inform you all (or whoever still cares) about my adventures. We are going to break these up into probably 4 seperate posts so none of us are sitting here staring at a computer screen wanting to stab our eyes out.

Round One: Mid Term Break
First off let me say that midterm break is a genius idea. Whoever thought it was a good idea to give you a week off in the middle of term is just amazing. WOU should introduce one of those. So being in Europe and without classes for a week just screams opportunity to travel to somewhere. And somewhere that deserves more than just a weekend. So where did I go? I went to 3 countries (4 if you count the Czech) and 9 cities (10 if you count Prague) in that week! Ok, now some of those cities probably shouldn't really count since it was just an airport and then got on a bus to another place, but still- that is some serious travel right there.

AMSTERDAM: The Land of Legal Marijuana
Friday afternoon Katie and I got on a plane and flew to Eindhoven where we then got on a train and went to Amsterdam! I really liked Amsterdam. I already want to go back. I wanted to go back about two hours after we left. It was just so pretty! It was full of canals and boats and bikes and alot of character. Here are the highlights from that leg of our journey...
-Hot waffles with hot chocolate poured over them are amazing.
-The Anne Frank House and The Van Gogh Museum are both very amazing.
This is the actual annex that Anne Frank and her family hid out in during WWII. It was very cool to see it. Anne's father, Otto Frank, was the only one of the family to survive and after the war he agreed to work towards turning the annex into a museum for people to see but said he didn't want any of it to be furnished again. So what we saw was how it was left after the family had been taken and after most of the annex was cleared out. So it was really like a few empty rooms but the pictures and magazine clippings that Anne had glued to her walls were still there and parts of the kitchen were still there. It was very interesting. We also saw her original diary as well as some of the added pages she had written. After the Anne Frank House we went to the Van Gogh Museum. This is the largest collection of Van Gogh's work in one place. The museum houses over 200 paintings as well as many letters he wrote to family and friends. It was very cool. There was so much to look at! If you ever make it out to Amsterdam these are two things that are definately worth seeing.
-There are bikes EVERYWHERE in Amsterdam. It was crazy and I thought I might get hit by one!
-We slept homeless the second night. That was an experience. Don't worry mom- We were perfectly safe the whole time!
-Wooden shoes are seen around every corner and you can find them in every color with every kind of design! I was slightly obsessed with them.

After two nights in Amsterdam we got on a bus and rode down to...

BRUSSELS: The Capitol of Europe
Brussels was a nice city. We arrived Sunday morning and immediately found our hostel. Then we went to wander the city.
-The best gelato in all of Europe that I have tasted thus far was in Brussels. I don't know that it has been mentioned but I am on a mission. To get gelato in every city I go to. Krakow was holding the top rank with their disaronno and their tiramisu. Amsterdam had some really good homemade chocolate. But Brussels had an amazing butter pecan and some kind of amazing vanilla with chocolate swirls and chocolate cookie, crispy, gooey, goodness. So if you go to Brussels, go the the Austrailian Home Made Ice Cream shop and get the one I just described. You won't regret it.
-Belgian waffles are AMAZING! The ones that have the sugar baked into them are like a little piece of heaven! Gooey, sweet, goodness is what they are...
-The Mannekin Pis is a cute little statue that is very tiny but attracts alot of attention. I completely forgot about wooden shoes and got hooked on that little guy in Brussels!

We only stayed one night in Brussels. We got up on Monday and went to the train station to figure out our best option as to where to go next. We decided to buy something called a "Go Pass" that allows you to make 10 train trips within Belgium and you can share it with as many people as you want. So we split one and hopped on a train to...

BRUGES: The City of Romance
Bruges, the place for lovers and the place the Collin Farrel movie "In Bruges" was filmed. I've never actually seen this movie and I had never heard of it before going to this town, but Katie had heard of it. Bruges is a tiny town that was very cute. It was easy to walk around and we saw all of the town in about a day.
-We met some Austrailians the first night that were travelling and we had a good time hanging out with them.
-I had a 57 year old man by the name of Stefan approach me the first night. He said, "You have beautiful eyes." Then it became, "You have a beautiful heart," which quickly became, "You have a beautiful personality and I just don't want to see you give it away to just anyone." Yah. That was really said. He also told me that he had been waiting 30 minutes to come tell me that he thought I was beautiful. That's right folks, 57 year old (older than my father) was sitting a few tables away watching me for 3o minutes! Not creepy at all!
-There is a chocolate shop on every corner in Bruges.
-With our "Go Pass" we also went to Antwerp and Ghent which were pretty neat cities as well.
-Katie and I were going to stay up all night so that I could catch a train at 4am to get to a bus to Frankfurt but we didn't want to spend money drinking all night. When the bartender at our hostel saw us sitting in a corner he came and gave us a free beer. Then when he got sick of listening to the drunken locals he begged us to come sit at the bar. He kept giving us free beer all night. That is my favorite kind of drink. Eventually I missed my train so we just went to sleep but I was able to stay up all night the next night and actually made my train and made it to Frankfurt!

Frankfurt is where I met up with Leah and Jessica! But That will have to be saved for another blog post. It was a pretty epic weekend.

There are no pictures to show of Amsterdam/Belgium because I didn't have a camera with me. But Katie did take alot of pictures which I do plan on stealing from her. I will post some once I do!

The Bones, and the Cold, and the Bears. Oh My!

Well it has been quite the week here in Praha! Here are some of the major happeneings...

-Alana had her 21st birthday so we went out and celebrated on Sunday. It included a tasty dinner, a disgusting shot (which I intend to bring back to the US), and finally alot of dancing!

-I went to coffee with a random Czech connection. Ready for the tree here? My friend Kaitlyn, her stepdad Jerry, his friend Lin, his stepdaughter Draza. Did everyone follow that? I met Draza last week for coffee. She is 33 and lives here in Prague with her 4 year old daughter and her husband. I was put in contact with her through Jerry and his friend Lin. She is very nice and agreed to meet with me. She brought along her mother and daughter. She was pretty adorable. Her husband came and met us later. They were all very nice and it was fun to meet with some local people. They also asked me if I would be interested in a weekend in the countryside with them!

-I had my first midterm on Friday. I think it went pretty well. I have another one tomorrow and then I have a paper due on Thursday. Fun times lie ahead! But midterms means its almost midterm break. And midterm break means time for TRAVELLING!!!

-The heat in our apartment was finally turned on! On Wednesday at noon it was 39 degrees farenheit here in Prague. At that same time it was 3am in Seattle and it was 48 degrees farenheit. I have the weather on my desktop so I know I'm not exaggerating! It was cold last week! It also sleeted a little bit. Everyone was calling it snow, but being a true Seattleite I know the difference between snow, sleet, rain mixed with snow, and snow mixed with rain. It was a decent sleet or a snow mixed with rain. But we survived are in the high 40's and low 50's this week.

The other events of this weekend are a little bit bigger...

On Friday (after my midterm) I hopped on a train and headed out to Kuntá Hora. This is a small town 72km east of Prague. What is Kutná Hora's claim to fame? The Bone Church. What the heck is a 'bone church'? It is a small church that is completely decorated with bones. Human bones in fact! It was incredible! There were bones everywhere and all of them were incorporated into statues of some kind. And the focal point of the whole place was the chandelier that hung from the center of the room. It was stunning in a weird, morbid, creepy sort of way. The town itself was not that amazing. It was very cold outside and we could not figure out the public transportation. But we were able to wander towards town and then find a small restaurant to eat dinner in. Then, even in the cold, we stuck to my goal of having zmrzlina (ice cream) in every city I go to. I have to test them all out and see who has the best! So far I think Krakow is the winner, but the journey is far from over. There is still much ice cream to be had! After our ice creams we headed back to the train station and got back into Prague.

On Saturday our program took us to Český Krumlov. This is a small town in southern Bohemia. It was a very cute town. They took us on a tour of the castle which was nice. The coolest part about the tour? In about every room there was at least one, if not more, bear rugs. Full bears. I really wanted to bring one home, and they kind of reminded me of the animal skins that Grandma and Grandpa used to have down at the beach house. But bigger and bears and still had their heads. And their eyes which was a little creepy, but cool. Little did I know that it is likely these bear rugs came from the bear pits on the castle grounds! In the 16th century the Rožmberk family decided to put a family of European brown bears on the castle grounds and today you can still see the bears in their bear pit! I was not lucky enough to see these bears, but rest assured I did try! The rest of the day in Český Krumlov was spent having lunch and wandering the small town. It was gorgeous and full of very cute little shops. We played at some playground. We took alot of pictures of random things. We just had a fun time wandering aimlessly. Definately a fun trip.

That essentially covers this past week in a nutshell. I am very excited for the upcoming week. My roommate Katie and I have some exciting travel plans. Want to know where? What fun is it if I just tell you? You can guess, but here is a hint- we are heading west. Oooh the possibilities! I am even more excited because a week from Thursday I will be hanging out with my sister and cousin in Germany! Stay tuned for Three Fraine's taking on Europe! Watch out!

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

T-Minus 15 Days.

My departure to Europe is rapidly approaching! I could not be more excited or nervous! All the stress is starting to sink in but I am having no second thoughts or anything of the sorts.

I decided to make a blog that I will (hopefully) update soewhat regularly while I am gone. That way all you people will know what I am up to! I think, if I did this right, it is set up that anyone can leave comments. But I am also going to be checking emails and facebook and everything else as much as possible. From what my program has told me I have internet at my housing but it is really slow dialup. So I shouldn't count on it too much. We will see what is up with that when I get over there.

Here are some other funfacts about my program...
-I am going to be attending the Anglo American University in Prague.
-I am living in an apartment with other people from my program. No host family or anything like that.
-I will be there from the end of August until mid-December.

I think that is all I have for now. I really just wanted to get this started and let people know that this will be here while I am gone to keep you all informed! I will hopefully fill out the sidebar to the right with useful links for you people to get a taste of what I am experiencing over here!

Bye for now!
Anna