Study Abroad Fall 2013: One Month Gone By

Yesterday marked the start of my journey, but as of today I have been in Prague for one month! It is amazing to think how quickly the time has flown. The two weeks of orientation into two weeks of class all gone. This past week was eventful to say the least. It started with the second week of classes flying by, not surprising since I've only 3 days of class in a week. The excitement therefore tends to lie on the weekends. Thursday night we had a quiet night at home and the Friday I woke up early and met up with my friend Dani and we adventured off to our Professor's town just outside of Prague. It was such a lovely diversion. He toured us around the lower parts and took us onto one street to show the transformation of the nation over the 20th century. He walked us through fields and farmland and had us climb some rocks to see a beautiful panoramic view of Prague from outside the city. Afterwards we went to a restaurant that served delicious Yugoslavian food. It's very meat based, but their bread was also amazing. I couldn't tell you how to pronounce what I ordered, but it was essentially meat an cheese mixed together and cooked. All I can say is that is was delicious. Then we all went home. Afterwards, all the girls who were on the trip went out for coffee. It was one of the coolest experiences to me because only Dani and I were american and we were also the only ones from the same country. The rest of the girls were from different countries in Europe and one was from New Zealand. The fact that studying brought us all together was really intriguing to me. Studying abroad has opened the door not to just meeting students from the Czech Republic or other schools in the United States, but students from all over the globe. I have the opportunity to make friends from all over because of my choice to come to Prague!

That night my friends from America and I went out to this club in town called Lucerna. It was a lot of fun. Every friday and saturday night they play 80s themed music so we had the chance to dance and sing along to music we wouldn't generally be able to in a club. It was a really late night so Saturday was very laid back. Although I got far less sleep than I had planned to I spent the morning working on some assignments for the week ahead before DJ and I finally wandered over to the park less than a block away from us. It was beautiful. Within it there are lakes and so many paths and trees and playgrounds. It was an extremely peaceful walk and I even climbed a tree at one point! Then I took a nap before we met up with our friends for some dinner. We had some of the best tapas and paella I've ever had at this restaurant that is underground a couple up blocks away from our apartment. Of course we also ordered some sangria which was also delicious! Afterwards DJ and I went to a bar called Jazz Dock to see some live blues. Both bands we saw were really good, but the second one had a man who was fantastic on the harmonica and I found that to be extremely impressive.

Sunday morning we got up early to travel off to a town in the Czech Republic with some of our friends. Karlovy Vary is a spa town famous for it's mineral water with healing properties. The water tastes disgusting. It's warm when it comes out of the ground and it tastes so strongly of iron you're reminded of blood. However, we did get the chance to ride to the top of a hill and get some amazing views of the Czech Republic hills. We could see so far out and got some great photos. It was the prefect weekend to be there as the leaves here are starting to change and we saw all of it from above the countryside. It was so peaceful. We then hiked back down and enjoyed the changing leaves up close and afterwards went to one of the famous "bath houses" which was more like a YMCA pool before we headed home.

Last night DJ and I had a bunch of people over for dinner. He made sauce from scratch and we had pasta. Dani and James bought us a pepper plant. It's cute, but since we killed our basil plant I am worried for it. UPCES sponsored Quizzo night which was a lot like a pub quiz where you form teams and answer trivia. My friend group of guys and girls ended up divided between the sexes. My team was named Miley and the Teddy Bears. In the end we didn't win the grand prize, but we did beat the boys by one whole point!!!

Tomorrow we are off to Munich to see Billy and Gerard and I am very excited! I can't wait to see what this weekend brings :)

Me after hiking by Roztoky