blogabroadI’m getting protective over Prague, very protective.
I stayed in town for the first time in 4 weekends and explored a lot of the city that I haven’t been able to see since classes started. The weather was awesome, the snow that had fallen the night before made the city beautiful, only problem was the people. People everywhere. Tourists everywhere.
Walking through Wenceslas Square and Old Town on the weekend as the weather gets warmer is frustrating to say the least. Of course, I was the tourist like them only five weeks ago, wandering slowly around town, not knowing where I was going, making it a mess for everyone to walk as I gazed at anything and everything. It seemed like over half the people I walked by spoke perfect English and were American or British. I wanted to stop and give directions and ask where they were all from and how their visit was, but it would have taken days to walk from my flat to lunch.
I started at noon and walked around until about 6 p.m., racking up about 10.5 miles before I met a friend of mine for dinner in Old Town. When we went out later that night, the American-tourist fest continued as all the bars were packed with study abroad students in from Barcelona, London, and Florence. It was great to see how much visitors loved the city, but I wanted Prague to be just mine. The attitude in the Czech Republic, and all of central and Eastern Europe, is different from other areas in Europe, especially other large cities. Everything is very relaxed and easy here. Like I have said before, pretentious is not part of the vocabulary around here, even in the nicest of restaurants and best of clubs. The word ‘cover charge’ is an odd term too. It has been great to be removed from any type of ‘scene’ that exists in the states; to just go out and not worry about anything has been one of the greatest parts of living in Prague. The vibe was definitely different this weekend around town, but I guess I need to see the city in both lights in order to appreciate the Prague I have lived for almost two months.
Two months. Crazy when I think about that. I still am fascinated each time I jump on the tram and dive into the metro that I live here and have the chance to travel around Europe and study with some great professors and incredible friends. When I aimlessly walk the city I still find new corners, another square, ten more parks, and hundreds more buildings with incredible architecture and colors.
On Friday, I turned in my first presentation for classes. It was for an economics course on European Union enlargement and my focus was Kaliningrad, an oblast of Russia. I’m presenting on Tuesday, so we’ll see how it goes, but I’m not too worried. It’ll be my first true assessment by a Czech professor, so I’m more curious about how grading works and what professors expect than anything else.
Coming up this week, I am going to see Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre. Don is Mozart’s most famous opera and the Estates Theatre is where the show premiered over 200 years ago. This year also marks Mozart’s 250th birthday (or would be), so there is a lot of added attention to his work, especially in Austria and Prague, where he lived and worked. I’m really excited to see a professional hockey game on Thursday night as well. There are two professional teams here and from what we understand, Thursday’s game is the annual inter-city match-up. I say ‘from what we understand’ because the tickets are in Czech and I can’t fully navigate the website or read most everything written online about the teams, the leagues, and the game.
So that’s about all, but I’m headed to Terezin on Sunday, a ghetto an hour northwest of Prague that served as a holding camp for many people in central Europe during the Holocaust. The Sunday trip is part of an academic program from a few of my courses and is hosted by my program here, CIEE. I’ll fill you in on that when I get back. Have fun and enjoy.
