DON'T STOP

So Monday night, Ali, Kelly, David, Chris and I went to the movie theatre where I bought a poster earlier to see a Czech film with English subtitles. It’s not something tourists normally do, so the theatre was mostly empty, but everyone else who was there was Czech. There don’t appear to be concessions like there are at movie theatres in America.

I was going to link the IMDB for this film, but it doesn’t really seem to be there…in fact there is very little on the internet about it at all. I guess it might be too new (as of this year) so it might be under the US radar.

http://twitchfilm.com/news/2012/06/punk-rock-behind-the-iron-curtain-in-czech-effort-dont-stop.php

This movie is about 2 teenage guys who are part of the punk movement in the 80s in Prague. It’s really cool because most of the locations are places we’ve been. The trams and everything are as familiar as if I was watching a movie filmed in Phoenix or Scottsdale. The movie was funny but still dramatic and had an open ending like most Czech film. The main character was adorable and the story was told through his eyes. He and his best friend try to form a punk band while the main character struggles with his parents and girlfriend who want him to stay in school. The Clash was the band that the main character and his friend enjoyed most. In the 80s under Communism, music like this was illegal and the movie did a good job of showing the subversiveness of the punk movement. After the movie was over, I asked myself, “How am I going to go back to watching American movies?”

We went to Boom after the movie to get ice cream and when we were walking there, we passed a guy playing this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caisa_(instrument). It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard. It was surprisingly loud even in a busy square, and it made many notes at once. It sounded like the kind of music I imagine faeries to play. 

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

I've missed a few days, I'll update when I get home, or perhaps if I have a long lay over in London.
Briefly, I missed:
Monday Night: Don't Stop
Tuesday: Ledice, Good-bye Dinner Cruise
Wednesday: Fireman's Ball, packing, music at Jazz Dock
I leave Thursday morning at 8:25am and I gain 9 hours to get back in Phoenix sometime at night! (Hope I lose this cough by the time I fly).

More Tea

Last night for dinner I tried to make my Czech spaghettios. But it was more like dehydrated pasta...so red sauce and pasta in shapes of planes, trains, and cars; the picture looked good but the directions were in Czech, so I decided to use Google translate just to be sure (I have made dehydrated food before and it's usually not too difficult).
This is what is translated to:


Instructions for preparation
topping the dustbag to 0.75 liters of cold water and stir well.
Soup Clearly, stirring occasionally to the boil and simmer for 12 minutes.

Well. Seems simple enough, so I did what it said and it was terrible. The noodles weren't even cooked. So I fail at life and ate a bowl of cereal.
Everyone left when Ali and I were pretending to go to sleep. It took me a while to finally get to sleep because of my congestion, but I was able to sleep through the night.
Fast forward to this morning, I woke up and my throat felt even worse. But that's how it always is in the mornings. I made breakfast and took a shower, still blowing my nose every 5 seconds and feeling overall messed up. I had another cup of Earl Grey with no sugar or honey. Meh.
The lecture was good, but I kept having to get up to blow my nose or cough my lungs out. It was delightful.
One cool thing we learned was that in most of Europe, the term "liberal" means slightly right of center, whereas in America it means leftist. It's part of a neoliberalism movement, according to Dr. Pehe:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
After the lecture, Ali, Kelly, another guy from class, and I went to a tea house called Dobre that Kelly loves. I had a pot of Earl Grey (surprise) and pita with cinnamon sugar. The pita was amazing.
After that we walked to a movie theatre where they sell posters and shirts, I bought a poster for my boyfriend. We then walked across the street to this tiny record store called Happy Feet. I love records, but I usually buy them used so I think I must be spoiled with prices (Hospice of the Valley donation center, for example, sells 10 records for $1). The records in this store all seemed to be new, and they were all between 5 and 10 USD. I was thinking about getting some kind of Czech jazz record but I don't want to risk carrying it on the plane, and I don't know if I want to spend the money. It was also crowded so I might try to go back later and ask the lady who was working if she has any recommendations.
Tonight I am going to a Czech movie subtitled in English with Ali and Kelly so that should be fun!

Tea and Sleep

My plan was to sleep in today. For some reason I woke up at 8 and couldn't fall back asleep, so I got up and had some Honey Rings cereal that I bought at Tesco on Saturday. It was really cheap, so I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was kind of like eating cardboard with some honey flavor. I also had some tea with no sugar, because all we have is powdered sugar and sugar is bad for soar throats or something. Earl Grey tea with no sugar is ridiculously bitter. I drank it anyway and went back to bed.
I woke up sometime later and made real breakfast for lunch; eggs, potatoes, bacon, bread with hazelnut/white chocolate spread. While I was eating one of the girls who I know to have honey was in our kitchen, so I asked to borrow it. Earl Grey with honey is much better. After eating and talking to some people I tried to go back to sleep.
At some point today everyone decided my and Ali's room would be the best place to hang out. So here I am, sounding like a frog and blowing my nose every 5 seconds laying in bed and like 6 people are just chillin.  I fell back asleep eventually.
I realize I should probably have real food for dinner, but that seems like too much work. I assume all I am dealing with is allergies since I tried not to take my allergy meds for a few days. I am just hoping I can sleep through the night and feel better for the last several days I am here! I am really bummed, too, because I was hoping to visit a lot of the places on the back of my map today.

White Fields of Poppies Forever

Saturday a group of 8 of us got up a bit early to leave for Ostra at 10am. Ostra is this tiny town about 45 minutes outside of Prague. We wanted to go there because when we were in Cesky Krumlov there was a store that sold soaps and candles and lotions and such, and everything that they sell is made in Ostra. The train ride was nice and only cost $3! Once we got to Ostra, there was a giant field of white poppies to the side of the train tracks, but I will talk more about that later. Once we got off the train we walked about a kilometer to Botanicus Obchod Otevren...or something: http://czechunderscope.com/travel-guide/botanicus-ostra/lng/en/
I thought we were just going to see a place where they make the candles and soaps, but it was so much better. To get into this old town was 100 kcz for students, and then you could exchange crowns to get the currency of the little town, the grosch. It was 10 grosch for 100 kcz. The tiny town is like a minature Renaissance faire, only it is there all year round. The people working there were dressed up and you could do activities like wood carving for 3 grosch, gold panning for 3, rope winding, weaving, and candle making. There were also a lot of different pastries. I got a bread thing with cream inside and powdered sugar on top for 1 grosch. Later I got a doughy twisty thing with sugar for another grosch. There were real food items like lamb and dumplings that you could get on wooden slabs in this dining hall with candle chandeliers.
During the coarse of the day, there was a juggling act, a musical performance, and a falconry show. The falconry was fun, not as exciting as the AZ Ren Faire show, and it was also warm to sit in the sun. The musical show, however, was my favorite. It was 2 guys and a girl, and the first song was drums and 2 bagpipes. For those of you who don't know, I love bagpipes. In subsequent songs, they set down the bagpipes and one guy played a lute and sang, and the girl was like a master piper. I think over the 30 minutes they were playing she played...at least 5 different flute/recorder things. Here is an example of them:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg9R7dpe4tM Unfortunately I didn't have enough money for a CD :/
I saw the main guy later and tried to tell him how much I enjoyed the playing, it was really awkward since he did not speak English and I didn't know what to say. Oh well!
The little old town had beautiful gardens and was overall just amazing. I got a woven wire ring for 2 grosch, I love it.
We stayed in the town til 3:15 and then went to the train station and the poppy field. At this point my nose has been stuffy all day, so it was probably not the best idea for my to run through a field of flowers. I had to though. It was huge. Like, when I say there was a huge poppy field I know I cannot adequately explain what I mean. I took pictures and video which I will post, but for now I'll try to explain it. We walked to the top of the hill to see how big the field really was. When you looked ahead you could see the end, and to the right you could see the end, but behind you the train tracks disappeared behind the hill, and to the left the field had no visible end. They were all white poppies with a few red/pink ones mixed in. It was incredibly beautiful.
Our train showed up at 4:15 and I slept the entire way back. At this point I am really not feeling too well. We got back to the dorms and I think I laid down while Ali and Kelly went out to eat. I took a bubble bath which was amazing and then I laid down again.
I really do have the best roommate and co-roommate, because Kelly and Ali brought me back nachos. Like, real nachos. My mood was immediately increased even though the salt was probably not good for me. Feeling a bit better, I went with 3 other people to the Tesco Extra for breakfast things, and tea. So much tea. I decided to buy one of the nice reusable shopping bags as well. We all hung out in the kitchen for a while and when I finally got to sleep there were people outside being really loud, but I felt so congested and gross I couldn't think to close our windows. That night I had really strange dreams of fighting off my congestion. There may or may not have been a dragon involved.

Zoo!...behind schedule

Sorry I am a few days late posting, I have been a bit under the weather.
On Friday I went to the zoo with 3 other people from class. We took the metro then hopped on a bus and ended up at the zoo around 10am. The tickets were 150 kcz for students, so $7.50. Not too shabby!
There were a lot of different kinds of birds that I have never seen in American zoos, so that was pretty cool. There were also hippos and zebras and reptile enclosures like all zoos. My favorite part was the nocturnal area that had bush babies and these amazing animals called spring hares. http://library.thinkquest.org/5053/Africa/springhare.jpg 
They were like bunny/kangaroo/tyrannosaurus rex/jackrabbits. My camera is amazing so I was able to get pictures even though the enclosure was really dark. I think this is my new favorite animal. Ever.
The weather was mostly good all day, but it did get hot at some points. There were two major sections to the zoo, and the upper section could be accessed by a gondola thing, or by walking up a really big hill. None of us wanted to pay for the gondola, so we all got a pretty good workout for the day.
We stopped for lunch/snacks at one point and I saw that the menu offered nachos. Now, I have been craving nachos for a while now so I got really excited. I ordered them; turns out, it was just a bag of chips. Barbecue chips of all things. I got ice cream to make myself feel better.
After the zoo we grabbed pizza on the way back. There is this amazing pizza place near our dorms, they make the pizzas fresh so it is always warm and delicious. It's just over $5 for a 42cm pizza.
Anyway, when we got back Ali, Kelly, and I decided we wanted to go to the Old Town Square and listen to a Brazilian music concert before the Euro Cup game, and then go to a jazz club/festival thing. While we were getting ready we got a call from another student about a dinner that was being made by a previous student who is planning on moving to Prague to open a restaurant. Ali wanted to go so our group of 6 went by the teacher dorms on the way to the Old Town Square. 3 decided to stay for the dinner and the rest of us went to the concert, Ali, Kelly, and I were going to meet up later for the jazz thing. Unfortunately the guy did the dinner in a really fancy way, so he timed out the courses and the time in between, so they were there for over 2 hours. When they didn't show up to Old Town Square the 3 of us that went to the concert just got ice cream and headed back to the dorms.
I walked around for a bit that night because a lot of the town is really pretty with all of the lights. The Charles Bridge is probably my favorite place at night because of how the light reflects in the water.
Friday night is when I went to bed with a runny nose; stupid allergies.

Victory and Failure

My breakfast today was more of a success than yesterday! I cooked my bacon appropriately, but there was just so much fat it was still chewy. It seems better to buy bacon in a hunk and cut it oneself than buy in in pre-cut squares because the squares have so much more fat.
On a side note, I am absolutely loving my shampoo and conditioner. It's just Garnier so I am going to see if I can buy the same kind at home, but my hair is amazingly soft and not greasy. It's possible the weather here also has something to do with that...
We had class at noon and did not watch The Fireman's Ball because the disk cannot be found (I had borrowed the binder of DVDs last week so one student freaked out and insinuated that I lost/stole it). My teacher does not blame me for it, thankfully, and I know I didn't lose it. Instead, we watched Zelary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0288330/. It was set during WWII and it followed a woman who acted against the Third Reich and had to hide in the small town of Zelary. It was really good and I loved the music that was incorporated. It had a sad and rather open ending, like most Czech film.
We were done with class around 4pm and I had an apple with Nusica...which is a chocolate/cream spread, and bread. Ali, Kelly, and I went to a thrift store that Ali found last week. I got a flowy grey shirt with a bedazzled neck line and a pink maxi dress for 270 kcz together...so just under $15. I have been searching for this exact kind of maxi dress for the longest time, they are usually upwards of $50. The store was this tiny adorable store with a bunch of clothes separated on racks of shirts, pants, skirts, etc. There were also some purses and shoes. I tried on several things and decided against buying this cool shirt that was covered in newsprint/newspaper pictures. If the writing was in Czech I probably would have bought it, but it was in English. Kelly got a dress and a shirt, and Ali got a bunch of stuff. 
We then went to Old Town Square where the Czech Republic vs. Portugal game was playing. We got our faces painted with the Czech flag and grabbed pizza. We then got ice cream from this place called Boom, and I decided to walk on the wild side and get 3 scoops; coffee, cookies, and stracciatella. Kelly didn't want all of her ice cream, and we passed a guy who was sitting on the sidewalk asking for money, and she wanted to give it to him. She wasn't sure if that would be insulting or something so I gave it to him. Warm fuzzies. Portugal scored 80 minutes in unfortunately, so the Czech Republic wont be advancing in the Euro Cup :(
Tomorrow I am going to the zoo!
Our cute thrift store outfits:

 Old Town Square where the Euro Cup was watched:

 Random cute Czech guy painting my face:

 Boom Ice Cream:

Theater!

The name of this blog is to be said in a British accent, as in "thhe-aeh-ter", just like at 1:42 in this song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGoLJZaNnyE
Anywho, today I got up to make a delicious breakfast; my potatoes cooked wonderfully, my egg was unfrozen like normal and scrambled delectably, but I burnt my bacon just stupidly. Like, I knew it was crispy, but when I tried it, it was inedible. I have no idea how I was able to mess up bacon that badly. I am hoping for better luck tomorrow.
We all met at the NYU classrooms toward Old Town Square at 11 to watch Lidice. It's a movie that just came out, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1754123/, even though the event took place during WWII, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice. I loved the music and the cinematography and toward the end when all the men are being shot I was just sobbing. Later, when talking to other students about the film, many did not like it as much as I did. I enjoyed the story and the characters, but one guy felt there was really shallow characterization, and he felt the director made all of the intended emotions too obvious. It think it's important to realize that most of the time audiences are stupid and have to be handed things, especially when we are just expecting entertainment, and not expecting to use our brains. Regardless, I thought the movie was very well done and it will be interesting when we visit Lidice next Tuesday.
We were supposed to hurry as soon as the movie was over to get to Prague College for a tour, but I made a pit stop to the bathroom and as I was leaving this guy (looked like he could be a student) carrying a box of cloth-animal pens started talking to me in Czech. I looked at him and said "English?" and he did his best to describe what he was doing. He was selling pens and fridge magnets for a charity for 50 kcz. There was a pink bunny pen, so of course I donated, (after dropping money all over the floor because I can't carry more than 2 things at once apparently). I got outside the building and was waiting with my teacher and the same guy walks out and comes over to me, he is pointing to a card with a website on it, he thanks me for donating and says I can learn more at the website, http://www.c4c.cz/en/index.php. I asked what his name was because my teacher keeps encouraging us to talk to people here; he said his name was Thomas something-something, and he shook my hand and I told him my name. We were in a hurry to leave, but I have finally mildly spoke to someone who lives here! Achievement unlocked.
A small group of us stragglers made our way over to Prague College and we all sat in a room while one of the co-founders (founded in 2004) talked to us about the school. I don't think I would transfer, especially since it doesn't have a film school, but they do offer a 1 year masters program that would run you around 10,000 USD, which is much better than most anything you could get here. Prague College is a part of Teesside College which is in the UK. They were voted #1 College in the UK in 2009 and 2010 or something like that.

After, me and some of the guys got some pizza. I just got cheese (margarita) like always, but it was just out of the oven and it was amazing! And only 25 kcz, so just over $1. I chilled out for a bit after eating and then called to reserve a ticket for A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of the Prague Shakespeare Festival. This guy and his mom were going to come as well, but his mom wasn't feeling well so he tagged along with me. The tickets were 200 kcz for students, so $10. It was so worth it. It took me a while to find the venue, but it was an outside theatre with benches for seating, and we sat on stage. The set was much different than I have seen in other performances, and the costuming was very...modern...kind of. I've seen this play at least 4 times, and I love it, but this performance had the best Titania and Oberon. I did not care as much for the Puck, but oh well. The sound design mostly utilized techno music, which worked in a weird sort of way.

After the play we made our way back through the park toward the metro, and we see a performance going on in a large grassy area. At first I thought it was some kind of interpretive dance thing, but as I watched I got the feeling it was more of a progressive alternative-type play. The brief amounts of dialogue were in Czech but I got ideas of the basic themes. It went on for a little over an hour when we started watching, and at the end I asked one of the actors what it was called, she said "Mens". I thanked her and said it was great, she seemed very happy for the praise. Unfortunately I cannot find anything online about the work, I am just glad I was able to record some of it. I got a really intense monologue (which seemed to only happen the 1 time in the entire play) on film and I am hoping to find someone to translate it.

It started raining at the very end of the play, and even though the metro was dry, it was a long cold walk back to the dorms. It was pouring. It still is, actually. Lots of thunder and lightning, but at least it's cooling down the dorm room.
Tomorrow we are watching The Fireman's Ball, which is supposed to be great.

"Štěstí"

Today our class met an hour later because of the late night getting back from Vienna. My teacher couldn't fine Fireman's Ball so we watched Štěstí instead. The title translates to Something Like Happiness and would probably be considered a drama even though I thought it had a lot of lightheartedness.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406098/
It's from 2005 and based in the 90s, so it is the most contemporary of the movies we have watched. It is also my favorite so far. There were 3 main characters who all represented aspects of the new democracy brought to the Czech Republic. It also illustrates the feeling of a generational gap and how the youth are wanting to distance themselves from their parent's views and traditions. One of the characters is a symbol for the negative effects of democracy and capitalism, and the concept of "going to America" is presented in a bad light as well. I appreciated the villainizing of America because I feel like that is a rather global mindset, but several students in my class seemed to think it was uncalled for. I also enjoyed how some of the characters found it really important to keep their traditions and their classic beliefs, while others in my class thought those were backward, or that those characters were not progressive. I think I just appreciate the overall feelings I am getting from the Czech Republic. I love the tradition that is inherent everywhere here; the old buildings, the music that is everywhere, the tendencies to be more reserved in public. These values are very reflective in the film-making, and almost all Czech film has an open-ending. It's incredible because the democracy is so new, almost in my lifetime. My teacher points out, the things that are occurring now will not happen again. If I visit the Czech Republic later in life, it will be completely different. That's crazy to think about.
Welp, let me get off this philosophical tirade... and I'll talk about my breakfast. When I woke up I poured a bowl of cereal and went to get my milk from the fridge. It was frozen solid. And no, I did not put it in the freezer. Ali let me borrow some of her milk, and I went to get an egg to scramble. There was a crack in the side and it looked like it expanded. I cracked it open. Sure enough, my egg had frozen as well. I took a picture because I have never seen a slushy looking egg before.
After class Ali, Kelly, and I went to Tesco to get some food. I needed more eggs and some bread and yogurt. I also found sliced bacon (sliced, but shaped in squares) and the bread seemed to be fresh. I also got frozen cauliflower because I feel like my vegetable intake is suffering.
After Tesco I made an early dinner of pasta and garlic bread. A small group of us then made our way to a tea place (as recommended by Kelly). I am typing this at the tea place right now! I got some kind of chocolate cake and earl grey (of course) tea. The guy working here is adorable, Kelly says he was here last year and is in high school. He speaks good English, thankfully, because I had no idea what kind of cakes were in the display.
Also, Ali and Kelly have decided my name is Bon Bon.
The tea has made me very tired so I think I'll relax and read tonight. Tomorrow we all go to the NYU classrooms to watch Lidice and then take a tour of Prague College.

Monday Funday

We got up rather late on Monday before meeting with one of the guys to go to the Danube. Once we got there, it was lunch time and my roommate decided she needed lunch. I had looked up pizza places on google maps earlier so I thought I knew where one was. The problem is, things on maps seem much closer together than they are in real life. We walked for a while and found this food stand with an adorable older couple working. They had pizza and gyros and such. I got a margarita pizza and a cool-aid looking warm pink lemonade drink for 3 euros. (Such a good deal I bought it again for dinner).

We sat in a park and ate; there was a giant beautiful church, I need to try and find what church it was. There were also some people yelling at each other really awkwardly and a really cool drinking fountain. I'll post pictures later... of the fountain and the church, not the people yelling.

We made our way back to the "beach" of the Danube and ran into another guy from our group. The guys decided they were going to go swimming. I told them it was freezing (based on when I jumped in on Saturday). Of course they were swimming around saying it was no big deal. After a while of laying around Ali and I decided to get in. We were going in step by step freaking out about how cold it was and these random people were laughing at us. Truth be told, it got better after a while...until it started getting worse. The guys joined us and decided we should play chicken. I couldn't stop laughing so Ali and I just started dancing and the guys told us we were doing it wrong, but neither of us wanted to be pushed in because we didn't want to get our heads wet because it was cold enough. Another guy from our group walked by when we were all laughing and hung around for a while. I didn't want to swim back to the steps so I decided to try and pull myself up the retaining wall, which didn't work very well. The other guy helped me up and it worked on the 2nd try. I'll post a picture of the "beach" because I don't think my description is making much sense.
Ali and I in the Danube:

 The "beach" and a rainbow:

Anyway, we laid around for a bit longer then walked back to the pizza place and had an early dinner. We met back at our hotel at 4:45pm to leave for the bus station. I spent my remaining 6 euros (I had 50 for the weekend) on pastries at the metro station.
On the bus Ali was freaking out because "Flipped" was available to watch on the TV screens on the back of the seats so I watched it. It was an adorable movie, I highly recommend it. Little side note about these buses, they are part of this company called Student Agency and their tagline is "Fun & Relax", which seems like it is a bad translation and they meant to say "fun & relaxing". Oh well. Also, using the bathroom on the bus is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do (I didn't use it on the way back from Vienna, but I used it on the way back from Cesky Krumlov I think).
We got back after 11pm and I took a cold shower when I realized how badly I got sunburned. Yikes.

Singing

After I rested my feet, everyone met up to go out to dinner again. We went to the Salm Brau, which called itself the only "real" brewery in Austria or something like that. I got chocolate cake for dinner because I had a larger lunch and didn't feel very hungry.

So we were just minding our business, eating in this cool tavern-esque restaurant where all the waiters were wearing lederhosen and all the waitresses were in dirndls, and the effervescent sound of male voices permeates the air and begins to titillate mine ears. 4 giant tables of men were singing together with great tone! But wait, what's this? A beautiful melancholic chord is struck that would pull on the heartstrings of even the worst criminal. So here were these men (who ended up being a choir from Sweeden) going about their menu-reading and drinking while singing this amazing song. Everyone was too much in shock to really clap when they were done. And then, thinking it was over, they begin again! This time, everyone clapped, and I got the entire song on video. Unfortunately that eats up my memory card so I cut it down, but I got the gist of it recorded. Later, someone must have said something because they started singing "happy birthday" to one of the guys in our group. It was fabulous. I think I could have stayed their all night even though the restaurant was hot and the seat was a hard wooden bench.
We were there for probably 2 hours before my roommate and I left with a couple other people. We relaxed by the reflecting pool, watching the people ballroom dance and talking about random stuff.
Overall, great night.

Closed on Sundays

Today I wanted to buy leggings so I could wear my long tunic without pants and not die from the heat. Unfortunately, everything is closed on Sundays. Seriously, all clothing or retails stores, apart from souvenir shops, have been closed all day. According to one of the women with us, that's just how Vienna is. Leggings aside, I did make it through the day with jeans so all is well.
Ali and I went down to the complementary breakfast around 9:30 this morning, it was delicious. I got a hard boiled egg, bread (with nutella and honey), croissant, cheese, black olives, earl grey tea, and cookie crisp cereal. It was delicious.

Before and after breakfast I spent stupid amounts of time trying to get my hair to stay in some kind of bun with only 2 hair ties and 4 bobby pins. My hair is too long to do most anything, but I ended up with a braided-bun that stayed (for the most part).
At 10:30 we made our way as a group to the Museum of Art History in Marie Teresa Square. We all got audio tour devices and had several hours to wander.

One of my favorite pieces was "Allegorie der Vergänglichkeit" by Antonio de Pereda, http://images.zeno.org/Kunstwerke/I/big/sch085.jpg
I also liked "Paulussturz" by Parmigianio because the man in the painting reminded me of my favorite author, Patrick Rothfuss:
(painting:) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Parmigianino_012.jpg
(Rothfuss:) http://stroskie.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/patrothfuss-web.jpg
There was also a room devoted to Dionysus (or Bacchus), including goblets and other drinking/party related relics.
(Update 7/15, I cannot for the life of me remember exactly what this was, but the chair was involved in an old drinking game and whoever passed got to sign their name in the book. It was incredibly famous and many important historical figures have signed their names in the book):

The entire museum was incredible and there was just room after room filled with amazing paintings. There was also a wing with sculptures and jewelry, as well as quite a bit of Eqyptian sarcophagus, papyrus, and etchings.
After that, the big group split up and I went with a small group to walk around and get food.

We also visited the reflecting pool again, just to see it during the day. It's in the middle of a park, so it's very pretty. There was also a group of Austrian guys playing basketball. Shirtless. No big deal.
Anywho, I am resting my feet before going to dinner tonight with the group of teachers and students. Tomorrow we don't leave until 5pm so some of us are thinking about going to the zoo, which is apparently the oldest zoo in the world!

Backing Up

Ok so I missed a bit between Friday afternoon and now. I talked about Loves of a Blonde but after that I stayed in the dorms to do laundry and get ready to leave Saturday morning for Vienna. I tried to watch The Unbearable Lightness of Being which is an American film based on a book by the same name by a Czech author, and filmed in Prague. It features a young Daniel Day Lewis which I thought was weird. I was watching down in the basement with a couple of the guys and it was a slower-paced kind of romantic drama so we were making fun of it the entire time. The film runs 2 hours 44 minutes, so we stopped it early and decided to watch Pink Flamingo. That is a really strange movie. Two words, John Waters.
Anyway, I got to bed a bit late on Friday night then woke up at 5 on Saturday morning. I miscalculated my time and after showering and eating breakfast I decided to sleep for another hour. We got to the bus for a 5 hour ride to Vienna.
Part way there we made a stop and I went with my roommate and 2 other guys to find a quick lunch. Unfortunately the only things near the bus terminals were casinos and bars, so we popped into a Tesco Express. I got an ice cream bar and a chocolate croissant. Healthiest lunch ever.
When we got off the bus in Vienna I realized I made a terrible miscalculation. It was really hot. I forgot to look up the weather, and when some other students mentioned it was going to be warm, I didn't really believe them. Luckily I packed a flowing kind of tank top, but my pants are super warm. Granted, it's probably only in the 80s, but compared to Prague it's really hot.

 Our hotel (it was split up into 2 sections across the street from each other):

Once we got to our hotel, Ali and I decided it was too warm for clothes so we got in our swim suits and decided to take our teacher's advice and go to the Danube. It is only 3 metro stops away, and it's like a long island in the middle of the river with sitting areas and ice cream vendors and such. There were so many people out sunbathing and swimming in the river. Our group of 4 was just sitting by the river for a while, I had dunked my feet in but it seemed really cold. Eventually I decided I needed to jump in. I didn't want to run and jump, or dive, so I kind of hung off this ledge and dropped in. I scratched my forearms and elbow on the way down. As soon as I hit the water I think my body went into shock because I couldn't take a full breath. It was freezing. I got back to land quickly enough and I don't understand how there were people swimming.

The "Vienna City Beach Club" is a small area of sand that they brought in with some chairs and a bar:

 The Danube:

After a few hours we made it back to the hotels and then met for dinner at 7. All the teachers and students met at 7 Stern Brau (a restaurant the teachers really like). I had kasespatzle. It was like a thick pasta shell with cheese and bacon bits. It was hearty to say the least.

After that a small group of us went walking around. We went to a reflecting pool. It was beautiful in the dark. There was also a dance floor set up and what looked like a dancing class with a bunch of couples doing ballroom dancing with different kinds of music playing from speakers by the floor. I got some great video. We all headed back to the hotels and I was so happy to fall asleep.

It's Hot

Vienna is really warm and sunny.
Also, my blog buttons are now all in German.

"Loves of a Blonde"

Loves of a Blonde was made in 1965 and directed by super-famous Czech director, Milos Forman (director of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Hair, and Amadeus).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059415/
This movie was about a young girl recounting some of her experiences to another girl in her dormitory. The movie is really about the approach of communism to the Czech people and how those who were more progressive wanted to experience different types of governments before settling on just one.
I enjoyed this movie, I understood the metaphors/symbols more than I did in Closely Observed (Watched) Trains. The story itself was really fun, and the more we are learning details about Czech history, the more the characterization as a form of symbolism makes sense. There were representations of repressive military male figures, as well as symbols of the Czech people who did not want to fight back. The protagonist represented the progressive Czech people, although I saw her as a possibly fickle female character; my teacher says the character possible reflected the director's opinion of women as well.

Rocky Horror and Dinner Waffles

So yesterday (Thursday) night we chilled out for a while and Ali tried to start some laundry. I decided I wanted nachos, and there is a really good (apparently) Mexican food place near our dorms. We went with 2 other guys and unfortunately all the tables were taken so we wandered a bit until we got to Zanzabar's! I had a waffle with ice cream for 79 kcz, it was amazing. I don't think I've ever eaten anything that fast in my life.
When we got back to the dorms we decided to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show on my laptop (which was sparked by early conversations when Ali and I realized one guy in our group had never seen it), and brought it down to the TV room so we could sit on couches. We picked up 2 more students on the way. One of the guys knew almost all the things you yell at the movie during the live performances, it was hilarious.

Today I need to do laundry because we leave for Vienna on Saturday morning. I forget the name of the film we are watching today, but I'll blog about it after class.

Wet Feet

It was not my best idea to wear my new cloth shoes to Karlstejn Castle today. Though they are lovely, and comfortable, in the rain they get soaked. So we got up today at 8am or so, left the dorms by 9:15 and took a train at 10:12. The train station was so cool, it looked like a fancy airport terminal and had food places and a giant bookstore and a Sephora.

It was raining the entire walk to the train station, and it was raining from the train station to the castle. I was in a group of 4, and on the way to the castle (we had a while until our tour, from about 11am til 1pm) we stopped at 2 different places to eat. First, we went to a tiny bakery that smelled amazing; the lady working spoke enough English for us to understand when she was pointing out the different pastries, I got a "Karlstejn" gingerbread cookie that was fantastic, and an espresso with milk. While we were eating our snacks, the lady brought out 2 new things that just came out of the oven and asked if we were interested; 2 croissants, one with ham and cheese baked in, the other with ham and cabbage. Ham and cheese = yum.

We then walked a bit and I got some video of a parrot singing in the rain. Then we stopped at another place and I got a hot chocolate in a fancy glass with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. Ohmygoodnessamazing.
We walked the rest of the way to the castle and waited around a bit to start our tour. This place was beautiful and super green with all the rain. My feet are icicles at this point, and I'm just trying to ignore them. We start the tour, and go through the castle, it's super cool and old. It was finished in 1365, took around 17 years to build although there aren't records of exactly when it started. Charles IV (the guy I talked about earlier) wanted the castle so he could be his stuff somewhere, like jewels and things like that. He only visited the castle several times.

The castle was then reconstructed, and then later there was a purist movement to bring the castle back to what was thought the original design (even though it was wrong). The coolest part was the Chapel of Holy Cross; I got a post card of it because we couldn't take any pictures. The ceiling was gold and arched and there were 120 pictures of Saints on wood boards on the walls. One was missing though, so there were only 119.
This is the key ring of our tour guide:

After, we got more hot chocolate. My feet are still really cold, and my roommate and I decided there should be a hot tub in the back yard. Not sure what we are doing this afternoon, but tonight I think I want to go around and take pictures.

Jewish Quarters and Mirrored Chambers

Wednesday I slept in and made breakfast for lunch. Scrambled egg, potato, and roll with strawberry jam. We all met in front of the NYU classrooms for a tour of the Jewish Quarter.

We broke up in to two groups, our group had a short lady with a thick accent, she spoke a lot and I learned quite a bit, but I felt there was too much standing and not enough walking around on the tour. We saw the "old new" synagogue, all the guys had to wear kippah to show respect while in the synagogues. Next we went to a synagogue that had been converted into a memorial with the walls covered in the names of all the Jews who died during WWII, it was intense. After that we walked through the old Jewish graveyard. It was sprawling. I tried to capture it with pictures but they couldn't achieve the depth of the place, so I grabbed some video. It was filled at one point so they covered it all with dirt in order to bury more people on top. There are hills and the gravestones are all falling apart and at odd angles. (In Jewish cemeteries the gravestone is put at the feet, not the head of the body). The cemetery hasn't been altered since the 1700s!

After that we went into a synagogue that had been turned into a museum; we saw a Torah scroll and the coolest thing was the spice boxes the Jewish families used. Finally we went to the Spanish Synagogue which was very ornate and amazing. Unfortunately I couldn't take pictures in most of the places, but I'll have the memories. 

After that, one of the other teachers convinced me to go to the chamber music concert in the Chapel of Mirrors. It was 450 kcz, which is 22.5 USD, which is more than I wanted to spend on anything, but I decided it was kind of a once in a lifetime experience. The place was beautiful, there was a string quartet and an organ player, and they played Vivaldi's The Four Seasons along with Smetana, Mozart, Bach, and Dvorak. There was a lady who sat in front of us and she seemed bored out of her mind. She was looking at a map for a while, then other papers. She then took out a teddy bear that was dressed in like...a German beer garden classic serving girl outfit, and the lady was making it dance with the music. It was hilarious. After that we got ice cream, the flavor I got was "cookies", it was delicious. 

Also, one of the other girls here is making up dances for everything, so we had our "going to a chamber music concert" dance, and our "going on the metro" and "leaving the metro" dances. We have decided to create a full-length interpretive dance show. Once we were all back and after chilling for a while, the dances-girl (Kelly) and my roommate (Ali) and myself were having girlish sleepover discussions and decided to draw on our door sign that has our names. I wrote "no boyz allowed" (the z was backward), and Ali drew all three of us, and we signed our names on the bottom. Hilarious.

Today we go to Karlstejn Castle, I'm hoping I can take pictures! 

Reggae and Football

Ohmygoodness! So we all went to the Tesco Extra and I bought milk, shoes, and earrings that were on sale for half-price. I was also able to break my 2000 kcz bill. The shoes are adorable, and actually fit and were less expensive than the other ones.
We all got back to the dorms and made a big pasta/chicken Alfredo dinner. And by we I mean two other people who slaved over the stove because I can't cook. I did rub the garlic on the bread we had, though. And I cleaned the dishes after everyone was done. It was delicious.
After dinner we went to the Old Town Square because they have a giant screen set up for the Euro Cup games, and tonight was the Czech Republic vs. Greece. We were all in a group going toward the metro and I heard live music so I darted off. It was a Czech band (I know because they spoke Czech between their songs), but they sung in English. One of the songs was about how the guy was glad he broke up with his girlfriend, and he doesn't miss her, but he is mad because she stole his blue jeans. I only stayed for 3 songs. I also saw a lady with an Irish Wolfhound. <3
I took the metro 2 stops to the town square, and as I was walking I saw a guy with a violin and a guy with an accordion standing, not playing music, with the violin case open. I decided to wait for them to play. They were amazing. I grabbed a card from the violin case that seems to be a list of concerts, and I put a few crowns in the case. The violin player seemed happy that I stayed for their whole song and clapped at the end, while most people can't be bothered to stop along the street.
I then go to the town square and easily found the rest of my group; we all got our faces painted with the Czech flag. We caught the very end of the game, but the Czech Republic won!!! http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/index.html
Right after there was a reggae concert. My roommate and I bought a CD.

We walked around for a bit feeling like we needed to do something, but ended up taking the tram back to the dorms. It rained rather heavily for the few block walk to the dorms, which is unfortunate because I was wearing my new cloth shoes. My feet got really wet.
Tomorrow we tour the Jewish Quarter!

Jiri Pehe

Jiri Pehe was our lecturer for today, and it was amazing. It was a two hour lecture on the history of Prague from 929 and the death of St. Wenceslas until 1989 and the Velvet Revolution. Next week he will lecture on 1989 to present. I'm not sure if you will be able to translate this article to English, because it appears to be in Czech, but it gives a brief overview of who he is (I didn't know how he was until now), and it's quite fascinating. Apart from participating in the revolution against the communists, he is also the reason we are able to stay in New York University dorms and use the NYU classrooms.  http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji%C5%99%C3%AD_Pehe
If you cannot read the link, he is a renowned political analyst, and was the political adviser to the 1st Present elected after the Velvet Revolution, Vaclav Havel. He is also NYU's academic director!

So there are just a few neat things to know about the history of Prague (I took several pages of notes, so I'm being brief) :
The Czech part of Czechoslovakia was made up of Bohemia and Moravia, and the Czech people often consider the Slovaks a sub-set of Czech (this applies to the language as well, Czechs believe Slovakian to be like a different dialect of Czech).
The most important leader of Czechoslovakia was Charles IV, he created the Charles University and the Charles Bridge, this was in the mid 1300s.
The Czech Republic is often called "Bohemia" because of the ancient Celtic tribes called "Boii" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boii
WWII led to the Communist occupation of Czechoslovakia, when Khrushchev publicly condemned Stalin in 1956 cultural changes began to occur among the Czech people.
The political changes in Czechoslovakia always came about because of the artists, the writers, the film makers, etc.
In 1968 was the Prague Spring, too much dissent was going on and the Soviets responded with an occupation of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968.
The Helskinki Accord in 1975 was another impetus for cultural change because it acknowledged Soviet land but also called for the commitment to respect human rights. Many brave Czechs used the concept of human rights to push forward. This, combined with the new pope in 1979 and the Solidarity movement in Poland in 1980, as well as the election of Mikhail Gorbachev and his concepts (inspired by Prague Spring) for glasnost and peristroika led to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the Velvet Revolution.
On December 29, 1989 Vaclav Havel was elected president, he was a playwright and a dissident who was arrested several times for subversive-type things.
How cool is that? If we ever elect a playwright in the US I'll be amazed.

So yeah, tomorrow we have a tour of the Jewish Quarter and this afternoon my roommate and I are going to the Tesco EXTRA! It's our favorite store. I also saw shoes for 150 kcz, so I may just need another pair of shoes.

Also, this morning I was planning on making eggs and potatoes, but when I opened the fridge I noticed it was more packed than usual. I tired very carefully to take out my things (that had been pushed to the back) and I knocked over a giant squeeze-bottle of mustard. The cap broke off and the bottom cracked. Mustard does not come off walls very well. Needless to say, that took me 15 minutes to clean up and I did not make my potatoes. I don't know why people are buying such...big food here, it's really not necessary. Oh well! I have no idea whose mustard it is, but I cleaned the bottle and wrapped in in plastic wrap. Good enough.

Food!

Just got back from the Tesco EXTRA, I was trying to find safety pins so I could hem my sassy Czech pants, to no avail. I bought:

• cereal
• a chocolate croissant
• a normal croissant
• 2 criss-cross rolls
• 4 eggs 
• 2 tiny potatoes
• and what I thought was milk

for 113 kcz, which is just over 5 USD. Crazy! I love this place.
Also, the thing I thought was milk is actually "kefir" milk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir . So in Czech, milk is "mleko", and I was searching the store for regular "mleko", but all I saw was "Kefirov Mleko", so I picked a tiny, cheap carton and went with it. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds really gross. It only cost 10 kcz though, so 50 cents. No big deal!

Terezin

Today was just so tiring. I only got probably 5 hours of sleep and we woke up bright and early to take the metro to take the bus to get to Terezin. It was about a 1 hour drive and when we got there the weather was lovely. We got to the museum and listened to a short presentation and then watched a propaganda video from the time that was filmed in Terezin. Unfortunately I was still really tired and kept drifting off during it. After the presentation we went with a different tour guide, Petra, and she took us through part of the museum.
Just a brief rundown of Terezin: it's an itty bitty town that, before the war, had about 7000 inhabitants. It was built as a fortress town and there are only 4 entrance/exit roads. The whole place is surrounded by a moat (not filled with water, it's just grassy), and there are thick walls with little places where guards can be around the whole town. During WWII the Germans decided that it was going to become a Jewish ghetto, it was never a concentration camp and there was never any mass extermination of Jews in Terezin.
At the most, there were 155,000 Jews. Over 30,000 died from the poor conditions in the ghetto, i.e. disease, lack of food. Over 80,000 were sent to other concentration camps, and to their ultimate demise.
http://praguevisit.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/terezin-aerial-view.jpg
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/czechrepublic/TerezinPhotos/TerezinMap.JPG
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt3KOJWhyk7QvOdVHXiezTXhCQC0FO9ctrbtMFQqDzxBp-wnUUTgA3W3yztPO3EbQYfYKXl4QWB6olrnDcXCTQfTnqNXeU9vnkDWNvHWq8AsbclePLnaMKwmXjaXCCRmEJ-P1_6k5lgoK7/s1600/DSCN1885.JPG
The top picture shows the actual town, and the second picture shows the layout of the town. The bottom picture shows how the town is situated compared to the Vltava. Across the river, to the right in the picture, is the "small fortress" where political prisoners were held. We walked around there and then through a really long, dark, tunnel. It took probably 5 minutes to walk through the entire thing.

There was a small place of prayer that remained hidden when Terezin was a Jewish ghetto, and was not destroyed:

 These 3 pictures show an example of life in the ghetto (it was a lot worse for most people):

 Jewish Cemetery:

 Entrance to the Small Fortress intended for political prisoners:

 Inside the Small Fortress:

 The moat:

The tour lasted from roughly 10am until 4pm. We were walking that entire time, save a 30 minute lunch. With yesterday and today, my feet are yelling at me.
Tomorrow we are going to the NYU classrooms and listening to Jiri Pehe who is going to lecture on old Czech history (next week he will lecture on more modern history). He is apparently really well-known and participated as a dissident during the communist occupation in the 1980s. It should be really exciting!

Rain

So I woke up on Sunday a little more abruptly than I planned, I didn't sleep for a while because there was so much noise outside our window. I originally set my alarm for 10am so I would have an hour of breakfast buffet at the hotel, but my another girl knocked on our door around 9:30 asking if we were going to breakfast. I guess it worked because I had time to take a leisurely shower. The breakfast was a spread of meets and cheeses, cereals, breads and teas. As well as coffee and water. I tried a cereal that looked like oats with bits of chocolate. Oh my goodness. That was the chalkiest cereal I have ever had in my life. In retrospect I should have gone with the things that looked like Coco Puffs. I also had bread with honey and Earl Grey tea. We talked for a bit, and the program-leader, Susan, said she was getting a group together for horse back riding, I was debating it because it was over 300 kcz, but really that's only like $15. We set a meeting time for about an hour and a half later. In the meantime my roommate and two or three other people walked around for a bit looking at some of the shops. We wanted to buy scarves and find where they were the cheapest. We found some for 120 kcz, which is just over $5, and I also saw really cute kind of baggy jean cutoffs with a belt, which I henceforth referred to as my sassy Czech pants.
I left that group and went back to the hotel with one of the guys to see if horseback riding was on because it was raining pretty consistently at that point. Susan decided it was raining too much and we would give it 2 hours and meet back if it cleared up at all. At this point the two of us combined groups with this other guy and his mom (who went on the trip last year and is technically a student this year but also acting like and R.A.). I also asked Susan where she said she got pants for really cheap, because my sassy Czech pants were 500 kcz and I really did not want to spend that much. She took me to the store and showed me the pants. I tried them on. It's true. I found them. I found the ever-elusive make-believe female-video-game-character low-rise tight-yet-baggy full-of-pocket pants. And how much were they? 199 kcz. 10 dollars. Oh my gosh. I had an internal struggle whether or not I wanted them. I came to the obvious conclusion. And, while I checkout, I mentioned on the the grommets on a belt loop had pulled through and asked if I could get it cheaper. 150 kcz. Seven dollars, and fifty cents. Yeah.
So we walked around some more stores with the teachers for a bit, including this soap store that had lovely pouches of lavender, then my little group of 4 broke off and decided to go to the gardens at the castle because I didn't make it on Saturday. It was really raining at this point. After a while I thought "forget it" and took my glasses off and dealt with the rain. I think I got some really great pictures, and my camera appears to be unaffected by the water. It was still pouring by the time the next horseback riding checkpoint came, so in the end I saved money and still bought pants. (I got a scarf later, more expensive than the pants but still cheap, and "Made in the Czech Republic").
We went back after a while to that place where I had the crepe on Saturday, I had another crepe, but this time one filled with cocoa. It was only 42 kcz. Delicious, I may have even liked it better than the one with ice cream. We all met back at the hotel at 6pm, I learned I missed a free gypsy concert with singing and dancing the night before when I was at my concert. I still liked the one I went to but...gypsies! We all walked to the bus stop and I am so glad to be off my feet. They feel...throbbing. And now I am dry, but during the day I was just soaked. My socks were completely soaked through my shoes, my hair was wet, I was just very...not dry. But now it's fine, my feet just hurt. Hopefully tomorrow they are fine because we go to Terezin and there will be a lot of walking. Welp! Should still be fun, the cinema class wasn't originally going to Terezin, but we weaseled our way in and are basically following the Holocaust studies class. It should be intriguing.

Our hotel room:

 The bathroom:

 Cesky Krumlov:

 Castle Gardens:

 Fountain in the Gardens:

 No guns, no drugs, no ties, no Communists: