29 November, Tuesday
23:30
I haven't written for a long time, but at least I posted some LONDON PICTURES! Also, I'm going to Oslo on Thursday. Wowza!14 November, Monday
22:45
I registered for my spring semester classes today. My schedule is marvelous, and I have no classes on Fridays. Furthermore, I have but ONE class on Thursdays, and on no day do my classes go past 1:45PM (I start at either 8:55 or 9:30 every day). What a lovely change from last semester, when I had all afternoon classes and a recitation on Fridays!
(I like morning classes.)
So spring looks like this for me:
8:55-10:50: Calculus 3
11:00-12:15: "Linguistic Perspectives" (requirement)
12:30-1:45: Russian 4
Evening: Orchestra
Tuesday
9:30-10:45: Linguistics recitation
11:00-12:15: Ethics
12:30-1:45: Russian 4
Evening: Scholars seminar (I think)
Wednesday
8:55-10:50: Calculus 3
11:00-12:15: Linguistics
12:30-1:45: Russian 4
Thursday
11:00-12:15: Ethics
Tomorrow I'm going to London! I can't wait to be in a place where I understand the things that people are saying around me, and I can buy tickets/talk to salespeople without screwing up my courage for ten minutes first.
And look what I put up — pictures from Friday!
12 November, Saturday
13:45
Berlin was great! Here, at last, are pictures. I also went to a Czech town called Český Krumlov yesterday, and I'll get pictures up soon. I don't want to fall behind with albums, because I will be leaving for London on Tuesday!4 November, Friday
15:30
Being in exotic locations must dramatically decrease one's writing productivity. Ah, well! My Western Bohemia trip last week was great. When we first arrived in Karlovy Vary, we took a city bus to the town center. I bravely began to speak to my RAs (who are Czech) in Czech, and they were amused and delighted. Then they talked back to me in Czech, and helped me say things, and lovely [albeit extremely simple] exchanges ensued. Like this:
| LINDSAY. Kam jdeme? RA HONZA. Nahoře do města. |
Or:
| LINDSAY. Bydlil jsi v Karlovich Varach? RA JORDAN. Ano, bydlím. LINDSAY. Kde bydlíš? RA JORDAN. Tam. |
(Translations: "Where are we going?" "Up to the city." and "Did you live in Karlovy Vary?" "Yes, I do now." "Where do you live?" "There.")
As the weekend progressed, I became braver and braver. I asked Honza where he lived in Mariánské Lázně, and when we were riding on another city bus I asked where we would be disembarking (well, I didn't say "disembark", I said "výstupujme"). The culmination of the trip was when we had a tour in the municipal museum in Mariánské Lázně, which locates itself in a building that used to be a hotel. Goethe stayed there from time to time, and the furniture he used is still there. We had a tour guide; she spoke in Czech and Honza translated. But here's the thing: I COULD UNDERSTAND HER. It was amazing.
And then I tried to ask the guide in Czech if I was allowed to take pictures of a really cool map (you can see the pictures I took in the photo album) — "muzů fotografovat?" I inquir'd — and I suspect that I didn't make any sense, because she didn't really answer me. Oh well.
Languages are fun. Yesterday I was to attend a chamber music concert with my Russian professor and all her students (she has two Russian classes), but it transpir'd that the only people who went were me and my professor! So we strolled to the church where the concert was to take place and we spoke exclusively in Russian, except for a few clarificatory words on her part. It was really cool.
The first part of the concert consisted of a ballet in the baroque style by Stravinsky (or "Stravinskij", if you're Czech), which was very beautiful and cool. The second part was a series of orchestral, baroque variations on — of all things! — Beatles songs. It was amusing, especially because the piece was technically a concerto grosso (for two violins and one cello).
Tomorrow I shall depart by autobus for Berlin. This means that tomorrow I will be speaking German. Horrors! This wouldn't be a "horror" except that I have already been mixing up Czech and Russian a lot lately, and the last thing I need is a third language thrown into that mix. For the last year or so I have successfully managed to stave off my memories of German-language, and for quite some time German words have not been popping up in my Russian speech (which is a very good thing). But I know what will happen this weekend.
This is what will happen this weekend:
I will initially be befuddled, unable to say even "Excuse me, how does one reach the Brandenburg Gate?" (Trust me. I even tried to say that to myself this morning, just for kicks, and I failed!) I will hear German being spoken all around me and I will begin to remember little bits of it. Then on Sunday, before I leave to go back to Praha, I will at last be able to order fried cheese or something auf Deutsch. I will even speak with passable grammar. It will be great! But then I will come back to Prague, and when I open my mouth in Czech or Russian class next week nothing but German words will come out.
This could be most certainly true. And this is my greatest fear about visiting Germany.
And happy November!
Tuesday, 25 October
23:10
I have posted an excellent set of photos from my Eastern Bohemia trip, and Budapest pictures are coming very soon! Budapest was a lovely city, and I was very happy to have been able to see it for 2.5 days. We left on Thursday night — the train ride was very pleasant, though I didn't sleep much. I have no excuse for not sleeping, though, because I had an entire row of seats to myself and my compartment was pleasantly silent! I did a lot of stuff in Budapest — the first day in particular was quite packed. We saw the castle and an interersting "labyrinth" attraction that allowed me to wander amidst blackened hallways with only a small burning lantern to light my way.We ate some nice meals and saw some beautiful sights. The Budapest castle grounds are magnificently attractive, and the bridges over the Danube were cool. Budapest feels far more metropolitan than Prague — in fact, it seems a little bit like New York and Prague at once. I liked it quite a lot.
I felt ignorant speaking no Hungarian whatsoever, but the currency (the forint) was pretty cool looking. There are approximately 212 forint per dollar, and so I was able to bring home a couple beautiful 200-forint bills as souveniers without losing too much money. I was also impressed with the 100-forint coins.
Now I am back in Prague, of course, gearing up for another trip. This time it'll be Western Bohemia, and I am really looking forward to it. Midterms are starting, though, and so I have a lot to do. I also have been putting in a few hours at the Forum 2000 office this week, which leaves me with a little less time than I'd otherwise have. But all is well.
Thursday, 20 October
16:15
Tonight I shall depart, with four friends in tow, for the magical Hungarian capital of Budapest. We are taking a train and it will take all night. Then we will reside in a guesthouse/hostel for two nights and head back to Prague by Sunday evening.
I have been doing well here — I am a trifle under the weather now, but I hope to get some sleep this evening before getting on the train tonight. I don't sleep well on vehicles and I don't want to pull an inadvertant all-nighter!
My Russian class has been very good. I was the only student in class on Tuesday, and so my professor took me to the Slavonic Library in Prague. She spoke to me for about an hour and a half, almost solely in Russian, about the history of the library. Much to my amazement, I could understand most of it when I concentrated really hard. Also, I got a little library card, so I can browse the stacks of Slavic tomes whenever I want!
Monday, 17 October
9:50
Time for my weekly update! Actually, I didn't realize that I hadn't updated since last Monday. If you are a loyal reader, I am sorry for my negligence. But if no one is actually reading these words, I suppose it does not matter too much!As far as recent events are concerned: last weekend I took a nice NYU-trip to Eastern Bohemia and the beautiful woods there. We visited the castle in the town of Nové Město nad Metují, hiked (strolled) through beautiful rock formations, spent the night in Nové Město and then saw the army fortress Hanička the next day. The castle was very cool and the nature was gorgeous. Apparently the colors of the trees are usually far more spectacular than they are this year — it was too hot last summer, or something — but I thought they were wonderful.
We ate at a Czech restaurant on Saturday for a late lunch/early supper. I ordered smažený sýr (fried cheese), which was apparently the only thing on the menu that didn't include slabs of ham, pork or chicken. It turned out to be a big chunk of fried Eidam cheese, and it was delectable. Cheese is great. The menus were in about six different languages, and some of the English translations were delightful! Listed among chicken dishes was "Horror from turkey-hen farm", which included tabasco, pepper, chilli, ham and eggs. Further down the list was "Greeting from the hell", consisting of pork, mushrooms, chilli and vegetables. I like that it said "from the hell", but then also "from turkey-hen farm". That is apparently what happens when you try to translate languages that do not have articles into languages that do!
This coming weekend I shall travel to Budapest by train. Hallelujah!
In other news, I booked my hostel bed in Oslo for December. Part of me suspects that I have no reason to worry about the hostel filling up for that weekend — who goes to Norway in December, anyway? — but I figured I might as well play it safe. So now I have plane tickets and a place to stay. In other words, I am pretty much set.
Monday, 10 October
19:50
Forum 2000 was yesterday and today, and it was really cool. I came thisclose to Václav Havel himself, and also to Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada. I worked as a reporter/intern, which meant that I took notes on the speeches and helped a nice woman named Kamila prepare the forum's English-language press report. Two other interns worked with me: one was also from NYU in Prague and one was from a different exchange program. Guess where this second student was from? Stillwater, Minnesota. I kid you not. She is a student at the U of Minn. I thought that was really awesome.The forum treated me very well: I got a nice breakfast during Kim Campbell's speech, and then I got some free food for lunch. The desserts were especially top-notch. I also got to schmooze with famous world leaders, which was the best part of all. Well, perhaps "schmooze" isn't the most accurate term, because I didn't actually talk to any of them — except for when a former Prime Minister of New Zealand asked Erin (the U of Minnesota student) and me where the men's room was and we sent him to the wrong floor (oops)!
Yesterday, in a fit of glee, I purchased tickets to Oslo, Norway, for early December. Huzzah! The tickets cost a little more than the ones I got for London and Paris, but I have longed to see Norway pretty much since birth and so this price is certainly worth paying. Norway will be very cold. Also, the days will be quite short (being, as it will be, just weeks from the winter solstice and at 59.9°N!).
Tonight I shall return to Tesco with Robin for our weekly post-class grocery shopping spree. I will purchase milk, bread, cheese, jogurt (I prefer this spelling now), müsli, orange juice and jam — but not Nutella. I have vowed to take a week off from Nutella. I don't want to get sick of the stuff!
Sunday, 9 October
10:45
Life has been quite nice lately. I had a good week of classes and a lovely, relaxing weekend. Friday consisted of hours of piano-playing in the deserted NYU Center, which was great. Today the Forum 2000 conference opens, which means that I get to see [former Czech president/national hero/genius] Vacláv Havel tonight. Yeah! I can't wait. Tomorrow I'll spend all day at the conference, madly taking notes like an English-speaking intern for a political-philosophical Czech organization.
I finally buckled down and made myself an awesome Excel spreadsheet to calculate my cumulative expenses this semester, and also average expenses per day. It has five columns, each of which is a currency (Czech crowns, Euros, GB pounds, Polish zloty, US dollars), and it converts them all into US dollars, adds them together, and then divides that figure by the number of days I've been here (I have to manually plug in that multiplier). It's a pretty neat little tool. According to it, I'm doing very well financially. Maybe even well enough to take a few cool trips...
...to Oslo and Budapest and Berlin or Vienna!
Here's the scoop so far: I haven't actually purchased any tickets yet. But I have decided to go to Oslo for three days in December (it will be cold!) and to Budapest one of these coming October weekends. As for Berlin and Vienna: they don't really require much advance planning, because I just have to hop on a cheap bus for about five hours to get to either of them. I will be hostelling-it-up at all these destinations, naturally. I might be traveling alone to Oslo, which would be interesting, but neighbor Robin and I are going to Budapest — perhaps with a couple other people, but we don't know yet. In order to get the best deal possible, I will purchase my Oslo tickets within the next day or so. Airline fares keep rising — yesterday, the tickets I had my eye on came to a 119-Euro roundtrip; today, they suddenly became 163 Euros! Blast.
Next weekend (a week from yesterday) I'm going on a little NYU trip to Eastern Bohemia for two days. We get to see rock formations and nifty underground tunnels. Best of all, transportation and lodging are paid for by NYU. Yeah!
Thursday, 6 October
13:40
Yesterday I joined a group of NYU in Prague kids for a devious game of Capture the Flag in Old Town Square. I was on Team Vaclav Havel (the other side was the Defenestrat[e/o]rs, of course — how would that be spelled, anyway?). We sprinted about the square, amidst tourists and horse-carriages. It was a right jolly time — unexpectedly so, actually, because I thought it might degenerate into chaos. I was going to go out to eat with suitemates Robin and Yin after the game, but they suggested that perhaps we should go out with the group instead. "Sure," I said, "as long as they aren't going to a meat house or something." "I'm sure they won't," replied Robin reassuringly. Then we all huddled to pick a restaurant, and the Defenestraters' team captain Mike instantly asked, "who really, really, really likes meat? There's this awesome place with chicken hearts!" But we went out for pizza instead. Mine had mushrooms.When I woke up this morning, my legs were exceedingly stiff and sore. It must have been all those mad sprints toward the Defenestrators' flag. I hobbled to my tram stop in mild pain!
Guess what? Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire drops into theaters on November 18. Guess where I will be on Nov. 18? London. That's right. I AM GOING TO SEE HARRY POTTER ON OPENING NIGHT IN LONDON. Is that awesome or what?
Wednesday, 5 October
13:30
My, so much has happened! I have returned from Poland, and 'twas a fantastic trip. I like my new passport stamps (four of them!) and I especially liked seeing street signs in Polish. Polish is very similar to Czech, except for some small spelling issues, and so I was able to order pizzas and ice cream cones without speaking English. I love ordering things without speaking English, especially when I say it accurately enough so that the person behind the counter knows what to give me! (I usually do.)
Krakow is a very beautiful small city. We were not able to stay there for long, though, which was a bit of a bummer. The bus ride was so long that we didn't arrive in Krakow until dinner time — we were inexplicably stopped at the Polish border for a long time — and so the sun had already set by the time we went out for dinner in a big group at a Jewish restaurant. My perogies were great, though, and so I didn't mind the lateness too much! It was also fun to walk around Krakow at night, because European cities (well, the three I've seen) tend to be quite nice looking in the late evening.
We spent the next day (Saturday) on a great tour of Krakow, during which we visited the castle and cathedral, and then walking around aimlessly. In the afternoon we saw the salt mines that lie under a nearby city — that was really cool. My evening consisted of free-time in Krakow, and I wandered around some more, enjoying the nearly-drizzly, cool (yet very pleasant!) weather and eating several cones of ice cream.
On Sunday we saw Auschwitz concentration/death camp. It was interesting. We also saw Birkenau, which is the place where most of the atrocities happened. Auschwitz is the camp with the huge sign reading "Arbeit Macht Frei".
And now I am here in Prague again, with Czech characters everywhere and tram schedules I understand and a language I can sort of read. It's funny how a place like Prague can seem a little more like "home" after visiting someplace even more different.
Shocking new development: I'm going to London and Paris in the middle of November. I just bought my three plane tickets today (in three currencies, none of which is the US dollar!). The trip is shaping up to be rather affordable, and I am happy about that.
Yesterday I was the only student in my Russian class. It was fun. I read my professor a little speech I'd made about Moscow, and then she told me to give her an impromptu one about Prague. Then she asked about my Krakow trip, and I tried to explain why we were late getting into that city (we were stopped at the border for a long time, and it is a long way away anyway) in Russian, but that was hard.
Thursday, 29 September
14:30
Yesterday I did not have any classes at all. No one at NYU in Prague did. NYU in Prague, you see, is very different from NYU in New York: in addition to being cute and small, with nice administrative people, NYU in Prague also observes national holidays! Yesterday was St. Wenceslas Day, which commemorates the day that Wenceslas died — I believe the year was AD 929. I only have one class on Wednesdays anyway (Czech language), so it wasn't that different.
Thus I spent the drizzly holiday of 28 September strolling through various Prague gardens, sitting on park benches, dicing vegetables, cooking red beans and rice, and being reprimanded by Czech law enforcement officials like usual.
Tomorrow I head to Krakow, Poland. Hurrah! I will be there till Sunday night, and I will take many pictures. I am a little concerned about food there (I think that perhaps the further east one heads in Europe, the more meat one finds in his or her dishes of food), and so I will bring a supply of bread, müsli and peanuts.
I tried to play piano just now (there's a Chopin nocturne that really, really wanted to be heard), but, just five minutes after I sat down at the piano, two people ambled into the practice room for some sort of voice lesson. Oh well.
We watched a movie about Moscow in my Russian class today. Naturally the film was in Russian, but the narrator spoke very slowly (it was clearly made for the classroom). I still can't understand spoken Russian, but I can pick up a word here and there. I hope I can understand it sometime. I think that when I get back to Anoka I will no longer be terrified to talk to the man behind the counter at the Russian Supermarket in Russian; after all, I have to talk to store workers in Czech here.
Monday, 26 September
13:30
New development: müsli is really good. It is not exactly granola — at least, the variety I bought isn't — but it is a scrumptious mixture of dried fruit, a cornflake-like material and an oat-like substance. It is especially good mixed in yogurt, but is also good with a little milk. If you know me well, you know that I do not ever eat my cereal with milk (a rare exception: Grape Nuts), and so the fact that I liked milk on my müsli is notable indeed. Anyway.
Yesterday's Moscow Symphony orchestra was awesome. My Russian professor gave us the tickets in class, and so I did not know what exactly the program was to be. I knew only that the music would be from Tchaikovsky, Glinka and Prokofiev. I had never heard Glinka's music before, and I liked the piece they played a lot (I don't know its title, seeing as how I didn't buy a program and it was in Czech anyways). Next was the Tchaikovksy piece: I waited on the edge of my chair, breathless with anticipation. What would they play???
And then the most amazing thing happened. A solo violinist walked out! I gasped — this could mean only one thing. The girl next to me leaned over and asked what the heck was wrong with me. "Oh my!" I exclaimed quietly. "He's going to play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto!"
And he did. It was amazing, absolutely superb. I am in awe whenever I hear a piece like that, but especially when it's played live. I'd only seen it performed once before, and that was a very special case (Joshua Bell with the Minnesota Orchestra). This guy was awesome. He ended up doing two encores, too.
The Prokofiev piece was none other than "War and Peace", which I had not heard before and which was also very cool. Then the orchestra did about five encores. It was a long, excellent concert. And it was the Moscow Symphony!
Then I went back to my apartment, snacked on bread and müsli, and learned Czech words.
Saturday, 24 September
9:15
My academic schedule has changed a bit. Instead of having my Charles University "American Literature from a European Perspective" class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 16:00-17:30, I will now take it on Mondays from 18:00-20:50 (6 PM to 8:50 PM). That is a very long class period, but 'tis just once per week, and it makes my Tuesdays infinitely more bearable. (Last Tuesday was a little rough, seeing as how I had classes or short-breaks-between-classes for about eleven hours.) It also frees up Thursday afternoons completely, which is a very nice thing.The other day (Thursday, I believe) I met with many Forum 2000 people to see the venues in which the aptly titled "Forum 2000 Conference" will transpire in just two weeks. It was fun. Everyone spoke Czech except for me and one other NYU intern, and the presentations were in Czech, so we each got our own personal translator. It was awesome. My translator was really nice, and as we walked about Prague (this was a walking tour of venues, because there are three — for various parts of the two-day conference — and there is a little space between them) she showed me where her former school and university are. She also told me about education in Prague, and about speaking with an eclectic group of her friends in a mix of German, Czech, English and French. Sometimes I wish I were Czech or Dutch: they all seem to know so many languages.
Yesterday I bought a box of müsli, which appears to be something very like granola. I hope it lives up to my stratospheric expectations! I love granola more than I can possibly say.
Oh, and my rice + "stir-fried" vegetables (I mostly just sauteed them in oil and my new soy sauce, which actually turned out to be a thick, delicious marinade-like sauce) dish from Thursday was marvelous.
Yesterday I went walking in the Wild Šarka Park, which locates itself on the northwestern edge of Prague. It is a very beautiful place; actually, it looked a lot like Minnesota in many parts. Apparently in Czech mythology there was a female warrior named Šarka who led an army of women against an army of men, fell in love with one of the men, and then leaped off a cliff in this park (hence its name)!
Also, Wednesday's concert was stupendous! The Elgar Enigma Variations was my favorite piece — I'd only heard it in its entirety once or twice before (never live). I have known one of these variations very well for a long time ("Nimrod", which is the one everyone seems to know best), but I really like the whole piece. The Gershwin and Stravinsky were very excellent as well. I can't wait to return to the Rudolfinum concert hall for my Russian-music concert tomorrow!
Wednesday, 21 September
9:45
I have not written since Saturday and much has transpired, so now I find myself in the difficult situation of having to recount many events and happenings at once! I'll try.I have been making scrumptious meals lately — really, they're top-notch. I know that someday I will tire of pasta+sauteéd veggies and grilled cheese or hard-boiled-egg+vegetable sandwiches, but I hope that day doesn't come soon. I bought rice and soy sauce a couple days ago, and tomorrow I shall attempt a dish of vegetables and eggs and rice. I hope it is tasty.
I have a cool internship: I'll be working with the Forum 2000 foundation and helping with their annual conference (it will transpire over the weekend of October 8-9). I am really looking forward to this position, and I'm happy to have it.
I have also been talking with Czech people more. Unfortunately, my first words in these conversations are always "nemluvim česky" ("I don't speak Czech"). I hope that someday I will be able to say something else — perhaps "I'm so happy you asked! I do happen to know when the next tram comes. It shall arrive at precisely 10:26, or a mere two minutes from now" or maybe "yes, you're right, my basket of groceries is heavy. I probably shouldn't buy three kilos of bread at once, along with other assorted jars and bags and boxes of stuff. But somehow it really hadn't occurred to me to place it on the floor, so thank you very kindly for suggesting it!" But alas, that day is probably pretty far away.
Planning my fall-break trip is fun, but that week of exploring Europe will probably cost me. Blah. Still, it might be about as expensive as a round-trip airfare from Minneapolis to New York, so I guess I can't complain too much. So far it looks like maybe it will be Munich - Paris - London, but nothing is concrete yet. But know that I am definitely going to London.
Tonight I get to see a cool orchestra concert — Gershwin's An American in Paris, Stravinsky's Rites of Spring (maybe excerpts) and Elgar's Enigma Variations (yeeeah!). On Sunday I will return to the same venue for an [arguably] even cooler experience: the MOSCOW SYMPHONY. Yes, indeed. My Russian professor got tickets for me and my fellow student (there are but two of us; maybe a third will be joining). They are playing assorted Russian music, naturally.
Even better news: I am no longer in a triple room. I am now officially in a double, with an extra set of furniture (bed, closet, desk, chair)! You might remember that my future-third-roommate, Yin, was not going to arrive in Prague until the eighteenth of September (she could get just a three-month visa, being a Chinese citizen, and so she couldn't come until two weeks into the semester). But then a girl in my apartment (in a different bedroom) moved out, and they decided to move Yin in to her former place (since that room was also originally supposed to be a triple, but had just two people in it). So now I am in a double, and Yin is in a double. I don't know if I explained that decently, or terribly confusingly.
My classes are good. I started my Charles University lit class yesterday, and I am rather looking forward to the readings. Tuesdays are really long days for me, though, and they wipe me out. Yesterday I was in classes for nearly 11 hours (with a three-hour break in the middle).
Saturday, 17 September
17:45
Things are good. Prague is great. I slept in this morning and then made myself scrambled eggs, and this afternoon I went walking around with neighbors Robin and Whitney until rain started to walk and we decided to part ways (they went out to eat; I went to the grocery store and then made myself a sandwich).
By the way, "rain walks" is pretty much how one says "it's raining" in Russian. I like that expression very much.
I bought a huge loaf of bread, a liter each of milk and orange juice, an eggplant, three tomatoes and 400g of pasta. It came to just about exactly $4. I love love love to grocery shop in Prague. I don't want to go back to New York and pay $1.00 for ten ounces of yogurt (one may easily purchase 500g of yogurt for approximately 60¢ here).
Most of the people in my apartment suite are off traveling through Europe. I have been thinking about going somewhere nearby next weekend, and then in two weeks I'll be in Krakow! After that, I have big dreams. Neighbor Robin is doing a bunch of travel this semester, and I will probably go on some of those trips too. So far it looks like Croatia, Norway/Sweden, Romania and Hungary are definite possibilities. Maybe Amsterdam too. Are there any European cities you have seen and loved? All I've ever seen besides Prague is Florence, Siena and Pisa in Italy, but I have a lot of time to play with this semester and there are cheap tickets to be found.
It looks like I will indeed have an internship position this semester, yay! I don't know exactly where yet, but there are several options at this point. I'll keep you posted.
I managed to play a little piano yesterday in the NYU Center, and it was delightful. I think I will spend every Friday in the NYU Center, plodding along on a Chopin nocturne (my latest project — thanks, Zach!) or some Bach inventions from last summer.
Wednesday, 14 September
10:00
The votes are in! Here are the suggestions I received via e-mail and LiveJournal:| Berlin: | XX |
| Krakow: | X |
| Vienna: | XX |
Then I went grocery shopping, which was delightful as always.
I had my first Russian class yesterday. Wow. I will learn a lot, but it will be difficult. My professor, who is very excellent, spoke mostly in Russian yesterday. My mood fluctuated between elation that I could understand! and despair that I could not. I kept mixing up tenses and cases with pronouns and noun endings, and I could not bring myself to say Russian numbers! (You see, I've been feverishly memorizing Czech numbers — they're very useful here, you see, this being the Czech land — and Czech and Russian numbers are similar-but-different and easy to confuse.)
Tuesdays will be long days, especially when my lit class begins next week, but I think they will be pretty nice.
Monday, 12 September
16:20
Classes started today, but on Mondays I have just one class (Czech language), so it was not a huge load for me. Tomorrow I have three, though — my politics class, Russian language, and 19th century music history. Every Tuesday after tomorrow I will have four classes, because my literature class does not meet this week.I think that I will get Czech and Russian terribly confused this semester, but I still can't wait to start Russian tomorrow. My class has just three students, and Russian is a really cool language. I hope I have not forgotten everything I learned last year!
I have been tired lately. Several of my neighbors assume that I have culture shock, becuse they all went to a lecture about culture shock during orientation week and apparently fatigue is a common symptom of this phenomenon. But really I just have a cold, I swear!
I have been cooking delicious meals lately in my kitchen, but they all involve some or all of the following: cheese, bread, pasta, mushrooms, green peppers, tomatoes. If any of you have interesting, relatively-quick recipes that don't require an oven (ours is, unfortunately, not functional just now), please send them to my attention at lerickson@nyu.edu.
My castle tour yesterday was really superb. Pictures are coming soon. There were beautiful views and gorgeous buildings. I saw my first-ever old Gothic cathedral! (Actually, the cathedral wasn't finished till 1929, which is even later than New York City's "Gothic" cathedral, but part of it dates from the Middle Ages.) I want to see other cathedrals in France, England and Germany, but I do not know exactly how much I will be traveling. Some, I hope!
Speaking of which, where should I go this semester with NYU? Our choices are Berlin, Krakow and Vienna. I need to decide by Wedensday. Suggestions?
Saturday, 10 September
21:10
I have now been in Prague for one week. To commemorate this occasion, I have posted a little album of pictures for your pleasure!I finally got my metro pass a couple days ago, and this is what it looks like: (to the right of it are a few of the individual passes you can use until you get a cool one like I did)
If you check out the photo album, you will see evidence of the awesome tour I took yesterday through Vyšehrad (the Czech "š" is pronounced like the English "sh"). It was great. Prague is an incredibly beautiful city, and I hope that my photos are showing that at least a little bit! For some reason I think Prague is harder to photograph than Florence was. My photos from Florence turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted them to, but I am not so sure about the Prague pictures so far. But they are nice.
I have been grocery shopping a lot, because I keep forgetting things. I bought a lot of vegetables two days ago (including a half-kilo of mushrooms for about a dollar), and then yesterday I bought a lot of fruit. Grocery shopping is fun here because everything is so cheap. Everything except peanut butter, that is!
Classes start on Monday, and I am looking forward to them with happiness and anticipation. But first I have a tour of Prague castles tomorrow, which should be superb. I will take pictures and I will post them!
Wednesday, 7 September
23:01
(Czech people always use 24-hour time, and I think it's cool.)
Today I got an e-mail from the Scholars program leaders at NYU: apparently I am heading to China for spring break! Yeah!
My "intensive Czech" class is great. I like Czech a lot, but I think it will be rather difficult for me to learn both Czech and Russian without getting terribly confused. Today, as I was heading out of the classroom with my fellow students for a short break, my professor stopped me. "Lindsay," she said, "do you speak Russian?" I had indeed been noticing myself speaking with Russian pronunciations. But I still think that my little knowledge of Russian will help me a lot.
I ordered a little spinach + cheese pizza today in Czech. It was kind of empowering, even though I had to point at the pizza I wanted (I don't know how to say "spinach").
I also went to see The Little Mermaid at the Czech national theater, the Narodni Divadlo. Well, the opera was actually called Rusalka, and it was by Dvořák, but I swear Disney lifted its first act, animated it, and named it The Little Mermaid. The music was beautiful, and I liked the show a lot.
It is late and I am tired. But apparently the wireless connections are working in my apartment building now, and so you can expect some pictures soon!!
Monday, 5 September
6:00 PM GMT+2
Today I began my five-day "intensive survival Czech" course. It was a right jolly time, and I learned that Czech and Russian are really similar. That said, I have a lot of difficulty pronouncing Czech words and sounds, and it will take me a while. I'm quite illiterate yet.I took a little tour of the Old Town area with one of the NYU in Prague professors, and it was very nice. This professor teaches a class on Czech art and architecture, and so he made sure to point out all the very interesting artistic and architectural quirks of Praha (there are many). Several of the Old Town buildings are built in layers — there is often a cellar that dates from the 1200s or so, and then a Gothic-looking first floor with pointed arches (my favorite look of all), topped by Renaissance and Baroque detailing on the upper stories. It's pretty cool. I love architecture, and I love that I am in a city with actually old buildings. New York is cool and all, but its "Gothic" cathedral was actually built in the late 1800s.
We stopped by an amazingly cool Gothic cathedral on our way to the theater where parts of Amadeus were filmed (where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni, which he wrote for his Prague audience). This church was darkly attractive — its art was rather weird and gruesome at times (there is an iron sculpture of a severed arm hanging over one of the doors!), but its colors were rich and dark and exactly as I'd kind of always mentally pictured a Central- or Eastern-European church. I haven't been inside many buildings besides that one, but I shall surely enter some at a later date.
The weather is beautiful here. On a completely unrelated note, I tried to apply for a three-month metro pass today, which would be good for unlimited use on the buses, subways and trams, but discovered that I needed to bring my passport or another good form of ID. The pass will cost me a mere 1260Kč, which I think is roughly equivalent to 50 or so dollars, and it is good for a full ninety days.
I have walked over the Charles Bridge twice (yesterday and today), and it is extremely beautiful. I'm pretty sure it is the bridge that Mr. Phelps topples off of in the Mission Impossible film, but I could be wrong. I haven't found the "aquarium" restaurant yet, though, or the NOC-list building where all the members of Ethan's team met their grisly ends.
Sunday, 4 September
4:50 PM (Prague time — seven hours ahead of Central Time)
Ahoj from Prague! I arrived yesterday via British Airways, and I am mostly settled in and caught up time-wise by now. I do not handle long easterly travels very well, but this was better than last time (my Florence trip in January).
New York
I stayed in New York for two days before heading to Prague. I was very generously hosted by my friends Dina, Ashley, Angana and Jessica in their dorm room. It was a lovely, relaxing two days, and I am very happy to have been able to be in New York again!
The Flights
My first flight was on a huge 747 out of JFK International in New York. I arrived without incident, checked my bag speedily, and made my way to Gate 4. I was there very early, but I didn't mind. I tried to read a little of Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting while I waited, but I couldn't concentrate, so I just sat there and observed people.
I got on the plane (row 45, aisle seat!) and ended up switching seats with the woman behind me, who wanted to sit next to her husband. Her family (her husband and two daughters) had had to get three seats together and then the one next to me, and she was hoping to get two in each row. I obliged, of course, and thus sat by two very nice young girls (maybe ages 10 and 14-ish), headed to London and then Madrid. I didn't chat much, though, because I was pretty tired. I didn't sleep either, though.
We ended up taking off from JFK about an hour late, which was annoying. The pilot, who spoke in a British accent like everyone affiliated with British Airways, apologized for being "a bit adrift of schedule" (pronounced "shejule"), and I was so amused that I instantly forgave him.
You might know that British Airways had a strike this summer. They are still in negotiations with their cooks, and so there weren't enough "supplies" to make special meals. So I didn't get the vegetarian meal I requested after all. Blast! But I had brought food, so it was not a big deal. The flight attendants told us we could get vouchers for free airline food, which would have been completely wonderful, but because I had a connecting flight I didn't have time to pick one up. Ah, well.
Switching flights in Heathrow was a bit of an ordeal. I needed to actually switch terminals, which took a little more time. I made it okay, though, and the flight into Prague was very short. There were a ton of NYU kids on my flight, but I wasn't sure if they were NYU-ers, so I didn't ask them. But then I saw them all later after customs (when NYU in Prague people met us to take us to the residences), and recognized them.
Prague
My room is awesome. It is in a building called Jaurisova (pronounced "yar-ee-so-va") Apartments in a nice, quiet residential part of Prague. The room has a huge, beautiful bay window — my desk is situated right in front of it! (I arrived first and had first pick of the desks. I also took the top bunk, though, and thus have no under-bed storage space, so I figured my roomies wouldn't mind too much.) I supposedly live in a triple, but only one roommate has arrived so far. Her name is Liz and she is very nice. All four rooms (eight people so far; nine if my other roommate comes) on my floor share one very nice kitchen and two bathrooms.
Prague is a pretty inexpensive city when compared to New York. I bought a half-kilo of pasta and a mango from a grocery store near Jaurisova yesterday for just 30.80Kč (Kč are Czech crowns — koruny česky — and a U.S. dollar is roughly equivalent to 24 of them). I haven't actually exchanged any cash or withdrawn any crowns from an ATM, but I used my Visa check card without an incident. I think I got the best exchange rate of the day, too, because that is how check cards and ATMs work with foreign currencies. Wheeee.
We went out to eat at a pizza place last night as a huge group, and it was a lot of fun. I like European restaurants. We took the tram to get there, and I was really impressed with the transportation. It is cheap, fast and apparently quite reliable. I will probably purchase myself a 90-day metro pass (it costs about $50), which is good on buses, trams and subway trains.
There is hardly any traffic in Prague. It is really cool.
Prague is very beautiful. I haven't seen much of it yet, but what I have seen I like a lot! Later this afternoon I am going to walk around and see the sights.
Later on I might have internet in my room after all (I had been sure that I wouldn't), and if I do I will update this far more frequently!
No updates on the sub-pages yet, sorry. But I will try to do that later, especially if I have internet in Jaurisova!
Important Notice: The map in the background might look a little odd — something seeems to have happened when I uploaded it. I shall try to fix it and have it nicely uniform in color!
— then again, maybe it's just my monitor settings. If it looks fine to you, disregard this important notice.
The Next Beginning
After my excellent freshman year at NYU, I arrived in Minnesota on May 11, 2005, borne into Minneapolis-Saint Paul by an Amtrak passenger train.I spent this summer reading, biking,
I ended up being quite busy, especially in August. All in all, it was a very nice summer.
On August 31 I will fly to New York City. On September 2 I will soar over the Atlantic Ocean and into the dawn of September 3, whenupon I will land in Praha, Czech Republic. I will probably not get much sleep that night, and I will probably be very tired.
My first few days in Prague will consist of an "intensive Czech course", and I am really looking forward to that. Classes begin on September 6, I believe. But I will probably have written on this site from Prague (or at least New York) by then!
Until later... this is Lindsay Erickson, signing off for a short time.
If you want to see last year's site, click here.