So here we go.  It has taken a little while, but I’m up and running in Prague and am excited to share it all with you.  I’ll start with an explanation before I tell you all about this amazing city and the absolutely unreal time I have been having roaming the Czech Republic.  For one, I’m without internet in my new apartment and I was without a computer for the first few days as the adaptor situation seems to always go wrong while traveling abroad.  When I finally got that settled after two days, my computer looked like it wanted to explode each time it took the European voltage, but that’s the past.  So welcome to Prague.

I arrived a few days ago as the snow was just finishing to fall and the views from the airplane were out of this world.  The city was covered in fresh snow and the red roofs of the city were peaking out from beneath.  CIEE, the program with which I am studying here at Charles University, meet the group of 20 students that rushed off my plane at the airport and we were off to the city.  Our van of guys riding to our apartments were so pumped to be studying here.  None of us had been to Prague and we were soaking it all up as we traveled through all the Prague towns leading to Prague 1 and 2, the center of the city and were I was going to live.

I’m living with two guys from the states and a ‘Czech Buddy’ (my CB for the rest of my blogs).  It is really great to be living with a Charles University student who is from Prague and knows the area.  So anyway, our apartment is unbelievable.  We are right on the river, I’m taking inches.  Prague 2 is about a four minute walk to the center of the city, the area is loaded with pubs and restaurants, and my school is a ten minute walk, or 1 tram stop, south.  When I have been telling locals were we live they have been shocked to say the least.  We were randomly assigned here my the school, paying next to nothing, but it is in the hottest area, just one block from the Dancing Building, a famous new building by Frank Gehry.

So we spent the first day just touring around the city with the CB and checking everything out.  We must have looked hilarious walking around in a complete daze, soaking everything in.  The city is rich with buildings hundreds of years old lined everywhere.  No building rises much higher than six or seven stories, so the views are great even if you get just thirty of forty feet up when you’re walking up a hill.

After a quick nap, because we were knocked dead by jet-lag, we headed for some authentic Czech dinner – read: meat, potatoes, sauce, sauce, sauce, smothered in sauce.  It’s tasty but rich.  We tried some fried cheese, meat and potatoes, and some awesome soap.  My roommates and I roamed the city that night, having NO clue were we were headed, but managed to find a great local pub.  I should note here that beer is the staple of the Czech Republic.  Lunch, after work, dinner, after dinner, and when you go out, great Czech beer is always involved.  Czechs definitely aren’t getting trashed at every moment of the day, but beer is always around.

The next day started our little orientation that we are just finishing up after three intense days.  The mornings were full of walking tours with our CBs (the program has about 97 students and 25 CBs, which makes it really nice for taking small tours with local university students) and our afternoons were full of instruction in the classroom about the program, housing, and all the basic survival tools.  The people in the program are an absolute blast.  Everyone is totally excited to be studying abroad and especially Prague.  It is a smaller study abroad community here, maybe six or seven programs throughout the city, so everyone seems really committed to Prague and living here.  It is not loaded with students like Italy or London, so there is a very local and native feel.  Since our flat, yeah that’s right, my using that word now, is in a building of just ten flats and we are the only American flat in the place, it really feels like I’m a native Praguer.

So I’ll spare you the details on the three days of orientation because I can’t really remember every place we went.  Most of the walking tours were spent finding the right metro stations and tram stops so we can get around solo and then finding the major points, American emergency medical stations, cell phone stores, and major points like the National Museum and Wenceslas Square.  We headed out each day after orientation and just roamed the city until dinner and had some more local Czech food and pivo (beer).  The nights were filled chilling in great local pubs with all the new students we were meeting on the program.  Some great conversation, some excellent Czech dark beer, and great music made for some amazing nights the last few days.

I’ve got some pictures for you I’ll throw up too.  Enjoy it, give me some feedback.  Have fun.