Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Bones, and the Cold, and the Bears. Oh My!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Na víno zemi!
After watching two songs by this handsome devil, I decided to turn back to the bus station and head to Mikulov to meet my friends. Once the bus arrived I got on and told the driver where I was trying to go. He said something in Czech to me and I just replied with "Anglicky" (meaning English) and so he shook his head, mumbled something to himself, and took my money. I grabbed my ticket from his machine and I went to find a seat. As I started to walk away he said to me, "Arrivederci!" I laughed, said thank you, and sat down. The ride to Mikulov went fairly quick and painless. It was when I arried in Mikulov that the problems began to arise. I didn't have a clue which stop I was supposed to get out on. So after debating with myself for quite some time I finally chose one and hopped off the bus. It's a good thing too because I think if I had stayed on much longer I might have ended up in Austria.
Once I got off the bus the search for my friends came. That was tricky but after some wandering around the tiny town I finally found them! We went and had some wine and dessert at one restaurant and then decided to go to the sports bar by our hostel. While we were there we watched Czech Slovakian Superstar. This is essentially the same as American Idol. After that the bar changed the channel to MTV which was showing the Beyonce-Justin Top 20 Countdown. It was really fun to watch that!
When we finished lunch we went on a hunt for some wine tasting. Unfortunately all the cellars in town were closed due to harvesting. But we still had some good wine throughout the weekend. And a few of us bought bottles to take home to Prague. And we all bought some burčák! Now, you may be wondering, what is burčák? Simply defined it is delicious! It is commonly referred to as the impatient person's wine. It is extremely young and not fully fermented. It is only left to sit for five to ten days and after it is pured you have about four to six hours to drink it before it goes bad. We all bought a liter, which was served to us in big plastic bottles, and we hit the road back to Brno. When we got back to Brno we had about 2 hours to kill so we went in search of Old Town Hall. We found it and this is where we saw the Brno Dragon and the Wagon Wheel. The Brno Dragon is really an alligator hanging from the ceiling that was given to the city by Archprince Matayás. And the wagon wheel was created by a carpenter that said he could cut down a tree, make a wheel, and roll it to Brno from Lednice (40km) all in one day. The townspeople didn't believe him so he set out to prove them wrong. He did it but after that the people of Lednice were convinced he had assistance from the devil so they never bought his work again. Sucks for him. The other crazy thing we saw in Brno- a McWalk. A walk through window for a McDonalds. It was amusing.
After we had wandered as much as we could we went to catch our bus back to Prague and got in late Saturday night. It was a very nice and relaxing weekend. I decided one day when I retire I will move to Mikulov and own a winery. I will sit around drinking wine all day. Any of you are welcome to join me!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Say hello to my new boyfriend!
Here is a little preview to my weekend. I was wandering the streets of Brno when I heard this man's sweet, melodic voice coming from a speaker. Thinking there was a karaoke stage set up I quickly went to watch the stage. It was not karaoke, it was just this man dancing and singing on stage to a small crowd in the middle of the town square. He was quite entertaining and amazing!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The King of All Fests...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Poland and The Pope
Friday, September 25, 2009
Art, Animals, and Fights.
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.
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
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Holka Modrooká
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.
Na shledanou!