Just a disclaimer before I get too far into this post:
This isn't going to be a very interesting one. I am mostly just going to cut and paste from a Facebook message I sent my parents.
You have been warned.
Czech lessons are going fine. Today I learned how to count up to 199. Success! So, as I've been telling people, it feels really good knowing that I can pay for a meal, even if I don't know what I ordered. I've learned some other practical things that should help me along the way--like "How are you doing?" Unfortunately, I can't seem to remember what the responses are supposed to be, so even if someone responds, I'll still have no idea how they're doing or how I'd respond if someone asked me.
I've found that I am unable to break out of my Spanish rut, though, when in my Czech class. It is as though my mind can only hold one foreign language at once, so I have to purge all knowledge of Spanish from my brain before I have the ability to pick up Czech. Yesterday in Czech, the teacher (Jana) went around the room asking for people's names. When she got to me, I told her my name was Emily Rose and she said, "Emily Rose?" Instead of responding to her with the Czech "yes" (ano), I responded with the very Spanish and very incorrect "sí ." I can only hope that when I get out of here, I still have a decent amount of Spanish left in me--it's a considerably more practical language to remember/know than Czech.
On Saturday I go to Kutna Hora--the place where they have that bone church. That should be fun and pleasantly morbid.
Yesterday I went to a student bar with some of the more hippied out people from the CIEE group. The bar is called Hany Bany (pronounced Honey Bunny) and I had a really good Hany Bany Hamburger with a Pilsner. Whenever I go to bars I only order Pilsner for two reasons: 1) I don't know how to order anything else, and 2) I don't know what I else I would order even if I understood the menu. This is also partly how I ended up with my Hany Bany burger--I had two seconds to look at the menu and order, and I decided it would be too risky to order blind in a country where it seems entirely likely that what I am ordering could end up being some kind of organ (heart, liver, kidney, maybe even brain).
For dinner tonight I had two sausages and some bread and a beer brewed in Brno. Yesterday I had lasagna and a beer from Prague.
Here are some pictures from Prague so far. I haven't even begun to really see all the sights that Prague has, but these are some pictures from the "Welcome Dinner Boat Cruise" on the Vltava River last Friday. There are also some pictures from Petrin Hill, the hill that my house is on. Petrin Hill is also home to Prague's Eiffel Tower, Charles IV's Hunger Wall (they were in the middle of a depression and in an act that predates FDR by some five or six hundred years, Charles IV created his own version of the New Deal and hired people to build this useless wall so they could feed their families), as well as some gardens, a labyrinth, and a Mirror Maze (completely not worth the 50 CZK).
This is a view of the city from the Hunger Wall. I think when I took it I liked the red of the berries and the red of the rooftops.
Prague Castle at night. I am going to tour it tomorrow.
This is a picture from the boat cruise (hence the water). The two towers that you see are from a church that is right next to the study center in Vyšehrad where I have my classes. The study center actually shares a building with a nunnery, so there's always a flurry of excitement whenever we see a nun walking around. They're always dressed in their habits (is that what they're called?) and it makes me think of Owen Meany and his "penguins."
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