praha!
Monday
What a long day; we arrived at 9:30am local time (about 2 in the morning to me) and our advisors wouldn't let us go to sleep. Apparently if we stay up and go to bed at a normal hour then it will help with the jet lag. They had a full day planned for us: checking in at our hotel, lunch, then loads of orientation and paperwork, including some questions to help place us with an appropriate host family. Apparently all but one of the families have hosted american students before, which should be really helpful in getting familiar with the city. We move in with them on saturday. After that i took a quick nap, which helped a lot because i was really, really tired and starting to get a bit overwhelmed. Then i went to dinner with a couple of the girls, which boosted my energy quite a bit, and then we took a walk down to the vltava, the river that runs through the middle of the city. The view from the bridges is amazing; ornate apartment buildings line the streets, old towers and spires are all over the place, and there's an amazing view of Prague Castle, the historic seat of the government. It looks like this: http://www.neystadt.org/john/album/yllas-copenhagen-prague/prague-castle.jpg. Crazy, huh?
The rest of the city is almost as beautiful and i can't wait to explore it more. The language thing is not too bad, but it's going to be a challenge. Most people speak basic english and most menus are in both languages, but it's still difficult to communicate. We start intensive czech classes on wednesday--three hours a day, five days a week, for two weeks. I'm excited, as things will get a lot easier once I know Czech better.
Tuesday
Today we had more orientation stuff to help us learn the basics of what we need to do to get by in Prague. Part of this was the 'drop off,' sending us out in pairs to various parts of the city where we had two assignments: first we had to discover as much as we could about the location we were sent to, and how it related to "Arts and Social Change," (which is the theme of the program for those who don't know). My partner Nisha and I were sent to Jungomannovo namestí, which is named after the scholar Josef Jungmann, who was one of the people responsible for reviving the Czech language during the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs. There's a big statue of him in the square, but we didn't find out who he was until later when the Academic Directors told us.
All we were told was the name of the square; everything else we had to find out on our own, which was difficult because the only people we could find were older Czechs who didn't speak much English, and German tourists. Directly behind the statue is a church. They were having a concert that night, so we figured this was what we were supposed to discover. The church has an interesting history; in the 14th century it was a center of radical Hussitism (Jan Huss was a Protestant reformer, sort of like Martin Luther except Huss actually preceded Luther). Over the years the church was partially destroyed, and restored in the 16th century, I think. Emperor Rudolph II handed it over to the Franciscans, and it's been a church and monastary ever since, although this was interrupted during the Communist era, from 1950-1990. One of our ADs, who is Czech, said it was interesting to hear what us Americans assumed about the church, because we were asking the employees when the church had been turned into a cultural center (there was an exhibition of pre-WW2 photographs in one of the smaller rooms in addition to the concert). Turns out that Czech churches have always been associated with the arts, holding concerts and various other activities.
And this wasn't even the building we were supposed to find! Turns out there's also a piece of prominent Cubist architecture from the early 1920s in the square as well. Prague, along with Paris, was a center for Cubist and Surrealist art back when it was the hot new thing to do. It definitely says something about Prague that there are two interesting (and relevant to our topic) buildings in one location.
The second assignment was to find out as much as we could about a theme; other people got things like Food or Transportation. We got Entertainment, and decided to walk around to as many cinemas as we could find and see what they were like. There's a decent range, from smaller art-house places to big multiplexes. They were showing a lot of American movies, but a few Czech ones too. One place had an especially interesting slogan: "Popcorn Free Culture 100%" surrounding a piece of popcorn with a red circle and slash over it (think the Ghostbusters logo). They show a lot of international films (with Czech subtitles unfortunately), American and English films (like Fahrenheit 9/11 right now), and at least one Czech film a week, subtitled in English. I'm sure I'll be back there a couple of times; I haven't been able to find out much about what current Czech film is like and I'm dying to find out.
After all this we had a group dinner at Radost FX, which is a very trendy place right across the street from the office where all our classes are, serving exclusively vegetarian food. Having Thai vegetables over rice was a welcome respite from typical Czech food I'd been eating. Although there are usually vegetarian options on the menus, they usually involved super creamy pasta concoctions or egregious cheese slatherings.
Wednesday
Our first Czech class. Fortunately, pronounciation in Czech is relatively uniform and clearly evident in the writing (whereas English is a disaster with all its silent letters and dipthongs and words like live or read which are written the same but entirely change meaning when you pronounce them differently). Grammar, which we haven't gotten to yet, is much more challenging. Despite the difficulty, I'm really glad we're spending a lot of time on learning Czech. Only young people here really know any English; if you need help from an older person you're usually out of luck. And although restaurants are usually pretty good about printing menus in Czech and English, that's about it as far as businesses go.
After class, we took a trip over to the Staropramen Brewery for a tour. Beer is pretty important to Czech life; it costs about the same as bottled water (which usually works out to about a dollar for a half liter of beer that's at least decent if not excellent). It was pretty interesting to see the inside of a major brewery; the scale these guys produce on is amazing. Big vats and tanks and whatnot.
Afterwards we went to the brewery's restaurant, which is the only place in Prague where you can get their unfiltered beer, which was pretty excellent. Most of the group left, but Roya and I stuck around to chat with the two Academic Directors, Eva and Luke (a really interesting married couple whom I'll talk about later) as well as another Eva, who coordinates our homestays as well as various other tasks for the program (I'll call her Eva K. for now).
This is exactly what I was hoping that being in Prague would be like; leisurely chats with incredibly smart and interesting people. Turns out that Eva K. is really into all the Czech films that inspired me to do this program, as well as various kinds of music I'm into (She really, really, really wants me to burn her a copy of the new Bjork album). Her boyfriend, who hopefully I'll get to meet sometime soon, is into the same stuff as well. After that, both Evas, Roya, and I had a long talk about the differences between American and European education which Eva and Luke's 8 year old daughter did her homework (this is in a bar, mind you--I love Prague!). Roya herself is a pretty damn interesting person--she studies essentially the same things I do, with more of a focus on the art side of things instead of film, but essentially encompassing all those geeky academic things I love so much (gender studies, theory, etc).
I have so much more to talk about, including my first stroll over Charles Bridge and through the really touristy part of Prague, but I'm getting tired and I have Czech to study and I've been on the internet in this cafe for almost and hour and a half so I'll leave it at that for now. Hopefully I can post again tomorrow night, because on Saturday I move in with my family and I'll have even more to write about. Whew. So freaking busy! But in the best possible way.
Dobrou noc!
(good night)
What a long day; we arrived at 9:30am local time (about 2 in the morning to me) and our advisors wouldn't let us go to sleep. Apparently if we stay up and go to bed at a normal hour then it will help with the jet lag. They had a full day planned for us: checking in at our hotel, lunch, then loads of orientation and paperwork, including some questions to help place us with an appropriate host family. Apparently all but one of the families have hosted american students before, which should be really helpful in getting familiar with the city. We move in with them on saturday. After that i took a quick nap, which helped a lot because i was really, really tired and starting to get a bit overwhelmed. Then i went to dinner with a couple of the girls, which boosted my energy quite a bit, and then we took a walk down to the vltava, the river that runs through the middle of the city. The view from the bridges is amazing; ornate apartment buildings line the streets, old towers and spires are all over the place, and there's an amazing view of Prague Castle, the historic seat of the government. It looks like this: http://www.neystadt.org/john/album/yllas-copenhagen-prague/prague-castle.jpg. Crazy, huh?
The rest of the city is almost as beautiful and i can't wait to explore it more. The language thing is not too bad, but it's going to be a challenge. Most people speak basic english and most menus are in both languages, but it's still difficult to communicate. We start intensive czech classes on wednesday--three hours a day, five days a week, for two weeks. I'm excited, as things will get a lot easier once I know Czech better.
Tuesday
Today we had more orientation stuff to help us learn the basics of what we need to do to get by in Prague. Part of this was the 'drop off,' sending us out in pairs to various parts of the city where we had two assignments: first we had to discover as much as we could about the location we were sent to, and how it related to "Arts and Social Change," (which is the theme of the program for those who don't know). My partner Nisha and I were sent to Jungomannovo namestí, which is named after the scholar Josef Jungmann, who was one of the people responsible for reviving the Czech language during the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs. There's a big statue of him in the square, but we didn't find out who he was until later when the Academic Directors told us.
All we were told was the name of the square; everything else we had to find out on our own, which was difficult because the only people we could find were older Czechs who didn't speak much English, and German tourists. Directly behind the statue is a church. They were having a concert that night, so we figured this was what we were supposed to discover. The church has an interesting history; in the 14th century it was a center of radical Hussitism (Jan Huss was a Protestant reformer, sort of like Martin Luther except Huss actually preceded Luther). Over the years the church was partially destroyed, and restored in the 16th century, I think. Emperor Rudolph II handed it over to the Franciscans, and it's been a church and monastary ever since, although this was interrupted during the Communist era, from 1950-1990. One of our ADs, who is Czech, said it was interesting to hear what us Americans assumed about the church, because we were asking the employees when the church had been turned into a cultural center (there was an exhibition of pre-WW2 photographs in one of the smaller rooms in addition to the concert). Turns out that Czech churches have always been associated with the arts, holding concerts and various other activities.
And this wasn't even the building we were supposed to find! Turns out there's also a piece of prominent Cubist architecture from the early 1920s in the square as well. Prague, along with Paris, was a center for Cubist and Surrealist art back when it was the hot new thing to do. It definitely says something about Prague that there are two interesting (and relevant to our topic) buildings in one location.
The second assignment was to find out as much as we could about a theme; other people got things like Food or Transportation. We got Entertainment, and decided to walk around to as many cinemas as we could find and see what they were like. There's a decent range, from smaller art-house places to big multiplexes. They were showing a lot of American movies, but a few Czech ones too. One place had an especially interesting slogan: "Popcorn Free Culture 100%" surrounding a piece of popcorn with a red circle and slash over it (think the Ghostbusters logo). They show a lot of international films (with Czech subtitles unfortunately), American and English films (like Fahrenheit 9/11 right now), and at least one Czech film a week, subtitled in English. I'm sure I'll be back there a couple of times; I haven't been able to find out much about what current Czech film is like and I'm dying to find out.
After all this we had a group dinner at Radost FX, which is a very trendy place right across the street from the office where all our classes are, serving exclusively vegetarian food. Having Thai vegetables over rice was a welcome respite from typical Czech food I'd been eating. Although there are usually vegetarian options on the menus, they usually involved super creamy pasta concoctions or egregious cheese slatherings.
Wednesday
Our first Czech class. Fortunately, pronounciation in Czech is relatively uniform and clearly evident in the writing (whereas English is a disaster with all its silent letters and dipthongs and words like live or read which are written the same but entirely change meaning when you pronounce them differently). Grammar, which we haven't gotten to yet, is much more challenging. Despite the difficulty, I'm really glad we're spending a lot of time on learning Czech. Only young people here really know any English; if you need help from an older person you're usually out of luck. And although restaurants are usually pretty good about printing menus in Czech and English, that's about it as far as businesses go.
After class, we took a trip over to the Staropramen Brewery for a tour. Beer is pretty important to Czech life; it costs about the same as bottled water (which usually works out to about a dollar for a half liter of beer that's at least decent if not excellent). It was pretty interesting to see the inside of a major brewery; the scale these guys produce on is amazing. Big vats and tanks and whatnot.
Afterwards we went to the brewery's restaurant, which is the only place in Prague where you can get their unfiltered beer, which was pretty excellent. Most of the group left, but Roya and I stuck around to chat with the two Academic Directors, Eva and Luke (a really interesting married couple whom I'll talk about later) as well as another Eva, who coordinates our homestays as well as various other tasks for the program (I'll call her Eva K. for now).
This is exactly what I was hoping that being in Prague would be like; leisurely chats with incredibly smart and interesting people. Turns out that Eva K. is really into all the Czech films that inspired me to do this program, as well as various kinds of music I'm into (She really, really, really wants me to burn her a copy of the new Bjork album). Her boyfriend, who hopefully I'll get to meet sometime soon, is into the same stuff as well. After that, both Evas, Roya, and I had a long talk about the differences between American and European education which Eva and Luke's 8 year old daughter did her homework (this is in a bar, mind you--I love Prague!). Roya herself is a pretty damn interesting person--she studies essentially the same things I do, with more of a focus on the art side of things instead of film, but essentially encompassing all those geeky academic things I love so much (gender studies, theory, etc).
I have so much more to talk about, including my first stroll over Charles Bridge and through the really touristy part of Prague, but I'm getting tired and I have Czech to study and I've been on the internet in this cafe for almost and hour and a half so I'll leave it at that for now. Hopefully I can post again tomorrow night, because on Saturday I move in with my family and I'll have even more to write about. Whew. So freaking busy! But in the best possible way.
Dobrou noc!
(good night)
posted by anonymous listener at 2:02 PM
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Okay.. I totally didn't mean to delete my comment there.. I'm a moron. Here it is again hehe
Not that you need more to do.. but you if you get a chance.. Ales Vesely is a pretty interesting artists. He was a sculptor but focuses on land art now. I think they were showing some of the photos and sketches of his projects in the desert at the Jewish museum. Glad you're doing well over there! We all miss you here in Boston and are totally freakin jealous :-)
~nicole
you must take me to the 100% popcorn free cinema when i come! i miss you so much!
katie
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