Part of the City in the Rain
Classes started on Monday with "Business and Central and Eastern Europe." Professor Halik, our one Czech professor, is definitely a character. He's really funny, and on the first day of class (we have class 9am-1pm Monday-Thursday), we pretty much just watched Youtube videos the whole time. He also has all of these really cool stories because he lived in the Czech Republic when it was controlled by the Soviet Union, so we've been learning a lot about the consequences of communism. We also have finance class on Tuesday and Thursday, and I've learned that I actually really enjoy finance, which is great since it will probably be my major.
However, the really exciting part of this week was all of the sightseeing and just getting to experience Prague. On Monday after class, I walked with a bunch of girls down to Wenceslas Square, one of Prague's central plazas, where we went shopping! That night, a few of us decided to go to a famous jazz club that Halik recommended. The jazz music was great, but we had to be quiet, which is not something 10 college students are very good at. The trumpet player kept making these really subtle passive aggressive hints at us, saying things like "Thank you all for listening and enjoying...and for being really quiet." We all thought she was really talented for being able to play the trumpet and glare at us simultaneously.
On Tuesday after class we took a 3 hour walking tour of the city, and it was very cold and rainy, so we were all even more thrilled about walking around for so long. We did get to see all of Prague's famous sights, though, and it gave us a great idea about what we want to go back and see in detail. We also had this great tour guide who looked like a Czech Julie Andrews.
On Wednesday, Courtney, Micah and I decided that if it was going to continue to be cold and rainy, we needed to go buy some warmer clothes. After shopping, we went back to the dorms to relax and do some homework (it's quite unfortunate that we have school haha). Shopping is great here because most things are cheaper than they would be in the US!
Thursday was the best day this week. After class we went to grab lunch and and then some of us went to the Communist tower, the most unique/ugliest building in the Old Prague skyline but from which we had the best view. The Soviets built it a few decades ago, but it is still used today to provide TV for the city.
The communist tower...Look closely at the things climbing up the sides...
They are indeed babies...how creepy is that?!
Micah and I at the top of the tower
Catholic Corpus Christi mass at the beautiful St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague castle. The ceremony was so different from anything I had ever seen because it was led by Archbishop Dominik Duka, and it was all in Czech, so we couldn't understand a word. The few Catholic people in our group that came knew a tiny fraction of what was going on, but other than that we were completely lost. It was fine, though, because I was happy just looking at the inside of the beautiful church! After mass was the "procession," also led by the archbishop, intended to rededicate the city of Prague to Christ.
The inside of the cathedral from where we were sitting...it's also where all of the coronations were held in the past in the Czech Republic (before it was actually the Czech Republic)
The procession: The archbishop is under the tent.
After that ended we went to get crepes for dinner, and then it was time to rest before going out at night. Basically the whole group went to supposedly the "number 8 best club in the world" (it was really fun, but I probably wouldn't say it was the number 8 best). It was a great time though; we definitely showed the Europeans how to dance ;) hahaha.
With Morgan and Holland
On the way home, at around 3am, we couldn't figure out the tram situation, so we ended up walking most of the way back to the dorms. By this point I was just really tired and irritated. However, then someone had the idea to start singing Disney songs, so we ended up parading through the streets of Prague singing Mulan ("Let's Get Down to Business"...classic) and other super awesome songs. By the time we got back to the dorms I was exhausted, so I hurried to bed, only to be woken up at 7:30 a.m. to board the buses to South Bohemia (another region of the Czech Republic). Sleep isn't really an option here; there's too much to do! More stories to come later. Missing everyone back in the States! Also, I'm impressed that you made it all the way to the bottom of this super long post, so thank you so much for taking the time to read this! I'll post better pictures soon. My camera broke on Wednesday so I lost all my pictures from the beginning of the week!
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