referring to the title... just trying my hand at some alliteration.
-Madonna- played eveywhere. It's amazing the amount of American music you hear. I was listening to someone listening to tik tok on their ipod on the tram the other morning. But along with that is the constant playing of old songs... I have heard like a prayer over 5 times. Madonna is very popular on the radio here. This is going to NOT help my goal of bringing new CZ bands back to America. Must try harder.
-Milka Bars- amazing chocolate bars ever. 19CZK aka 1 american dollar. TOday I was eating chocolate with strawberry yogurt inside. downside to these. they are cheap and I cant read the nutritional information. This really leads me to the next one....
-Mad cheap food- I became sick of only having peanut butter sandwiches and rice with nothing on it. So we went hardcore grocery shopping today. downside: its kinda a far commute to the good store. BUT everything is SO FREAKIN CHEAP. I bought a ton of food including veggies and different breakfast bars to try and it was about maybe 20 dollas. In NYC I would spend 20 dollas on milk eggs and a loaf of bread. add this to the 3 years off for a kid and this place is better than anything.
note on food shopping- it is very different here. first off, people in the CZ have a very different culture and never say excuse me. they will walk right into you or in front of you and it is not considered rude. I am still adjusting to this. secondly, I can't figure out what a lot of the food is. Places that speak italian or spanish or even french, you can figure a lot of this out since many of the words look similar and there is a ton of these kinds of food in america. Of course I pick to live in the country where they have no words that look a bit like the american word and no english on the packages at all. I opened my yogurt the other day to find it was fruit on the bottom, and I bought some kind of snack which I am hoping is crackers but not quite sure. It s definitely an experience.
So... Friday I skipped Czech class. And yes, I felt really bad about this but stupid NYU has us sign up for limited space trips at 8am and then class isn't until 10am and there is only so long you can sit in a cafe after sleeping 4 hours. So we went home and I slept for 3 beautiful hours. I totally lucked out in the roommate department this semester... we both like our sleep!
Then we went to Pragu Castle. GORGEOUS. We walked across the Charles Bridge, which I wasn't aware it was so close to NYU (and I wasn't aware we were so close to Charles university either) The bridge is beautiful and the river and the views... just about everything is beautiful. Even though it was freezing and I couldn't feel my limbs 10 minutes into the 2 hour tour, it was still worth it. We went through Malá Strana, and saw the church where Mozart's funeral was... and i was the only one who found that to be cool. We then walked uphill for a while to the castle, which produced the most amazing view ever of the entire city of Praha and the biggest castle I have ever seen... and I am pretty sure it is the biggest castle in the world. We were able to go into Katedrála svatého Víta, Václava a Vojtěcha (St. Vitus Cathedral), which was breath-taking ( that sounds stupid but I feel like I have used beautiful and amazing too much in this post). We were shown around the area and walked through the Golden lane, which included a house that Kafka lived in for a few years. We were told to go back in spring to see the gardens, which I will be doing, along with going back to the Mozart church (that one probably by myself)
That night we went to the state opera and saw Rigoletto. I loved it. But then again I'm a music nerd so I think I enjoyed it more. I wont go on about the opera it would take too many pages.
Afterward we went to Baang... this resturace near our apartment buildig that I think is a russian vodlka bar or used to be. Whatever it is the food is really great, the service is great and they explain anything on the menu to you in english, and drinks are cheap. Hear hear for Baang. ( plus te creepy Czech music videos to American music were the best!)
Some things I have notcied about Prague:
1. people do not walk down the streets smiling, and if you do they know you are not from around here.
2. they don't talk loud on the metro or tram/ don't talk at all
3. J-walking is huge here... but you have to watch out because the traffic laws here make no sense to me. Its nice because in smaller areas cars will stop for people to cross, but you never know what way traffic is headed.
4. the atm gives out 1000CZK bills but you never really need that much money at one time. and they hate when you hand them one.
5. good coffee does not exist. its all espreso or something. they drink beer not coffee...
6. not much is in english. usually in like paris or italy there is a lot of engish below the first lanuage... not really so here. makes little things harder. Especially when the tram stops and everyone gets off and you have to guess that its broken or on fire or sinking or something. Same with the emergency signs. knowing Czech is very imporatant.
7. my Czech gym boyfriend is beyond gorgeous.
classes start monday... excited? yes and no. its nice having free time to explore but it will be nice to be on a schedule too. I'm ready for anything!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment