oh me oh my...oh metro...

By Courtney

I was dead set against this thing they call the metro. I'd like to stay above ground puuhlease. None of this accidentally falling on the tracks, or feeling like moles nosing our way to the surface. No No, not for me. Well...this is hard for me to say, but; I was wrong. Morgen and I decided to brave the under world since everyone and their mother tells us that it's "the easiest thing in the world". So down we go to the 50 foot long escalator. Down below. A warning for anyone who is a. afraid of heights or b. get dizzy easily: DON'T DO IT. I'm not one to get a queasy stomach, or be afraid of heights really, but this was different. With the bright neon lights above, uber steep escalators, people running up behind you and others going the opposite direction, this is not even an escapade for the thrill seekers. Alas, we made it down safe and sound. I had to stop a moment and pick my stomach up from below my shoes...then we were off. A, B, or C? Red, Yellow, or Green? We had no idea. The only thing we knew is we were trying to get to school to see how long it would take us. We picked the right one! The yellow line was right, and we sped away to the stop at Narodni Trida. It only took us about ten minutes (which of course means I can sleep in!). We spent a couple of hours going back and forth to different places, and found that this whole 'subway' thing, really did have something to it. It was great...and now...I will never ride a tram again (like a trolley, but stinkier).

We met last night with all of our classmates minus one who was too tired from flying in, and another who won't arrive until tomorrow. So far we have myself, Morgen, Andrew from Ohio, Jana (pronounced Yenna) from Slovakia, Ashleigh from Brooklyn, accompanied by her awesome boyfriend Jiri (yuree). Morgen and I definitely hit it off with Ashleigh and Jiri, awesome awesome people. She's a photo retoucher and he a graphic artist. He has strong roots here in Prague and speaks a lot of Czech. I know we'll get along because one of the first things they asked was "When is Obama coming???". :)

They invited us out to hear a friend of his DJ'ing at a club called Lavka. This place was sensational. Four floors; all completely different. The floor we walked in was more of a lounge type, where dinner was served. Down one was the 'hip hop'? section. Take a couple steps down and you're underwater. Well not literally, but the walls are painted as ship boats, there are naked mermaids, and seashells everywhere. We decided to sit under the sea, where we could easily talk to each other, and easily see the different people coming and going. Actually, the word different is putting it lightly. There was a group of German male tourists, all wearing the same white shirt. Italian tourists, South Americans, Czech locals, and of course the go-go dancers. We had a blast, and died laughing when the Ghostbusters theme song came on, and every single person on the dance floor knew the words.

For anyone who comes to visit here, I strongly suggest a watch. Most clubs or bars here are open until around four in the morning. The first instance I asked for the time, I was horrified that it was already 3:30 am. Needless to say, we left. Made our way home and slept our tired and weary legs.


We have our first day of class tomorrow starting at noon thankfully. We're safely moved into our apartment (another blog in itself), went to the local Tesco and stocked up on the necessities (salt, sandwich meat, red bull), and now can relax for a moment. I hear a German soap opera and salami sandwich calling my name.

Miss you all, have a great day!
-CoCo

You've got to S-M-I-L-E...to be H-A double P-Y

By Courtney

That's true right? You have to smile at some point during your day to keep your happiness intact. At least I believe it to be true. If I notice myself feeling down...I notice that I'm also not smiling. So far, I have found one problem with Prague and it's citizens. It is very rare that someone you do not know, will smile at you, or say hello on the street, or in their case, Dobry den (good day). After Morgen and I had made it safely up our apartment stairs with our luggage in tow, we decided to step into the pub that is right outside our apartment entrance. Our landlady Marketa had mentioned to us that some of her previous students frequent it, and they LOVE English speakers. Well, they weren't there. In fact there only about five people inside, including the bartender. It was smoky and dimly lit, a mish mash of decorations, and wooden tables and chairs.

As we walked in, I immediately spotted her (the bartender) and exclaimed Dobry Den as a greeting. Expecting a greeting back though was not right. She said nothing, her face didn't crack, and she stared at Morgen and I as if we had just told her the worst joke in the history of jokes. So, I requested two small beers (mare pivo proseem) and we took a seat at a table. After leaving there we decided to find our school which we did with no trouble. And after walking around for another half an hour or so, we decided to stop and eat. We found a restaurant that seemed alright (Morgen was thankful it was non-smoking) and walked right in, picked a table and sat. The waitress approached us...Dobry den we say.......crickets I tell you. Nothing. Soo....two pivo proseem I say. The food was delicious, the service wasn't bad. And we were quite entertained the entire time by an Italian family that refused to sit at a table, they wanted to stand...and chit chat, I could tell that what they were saying was funny, I just wished that I could understand it! Darn. :)

So, I told Morgen at some point during the day that I just don't get it. Why don't they smile at people they don't know...or say hello or good day to people in the street? But I am now making it my mission (and i'll make Morgen join me) to smile and say good day to as many people as I can.

Two people can change things ya know?

Sweet relief...

We managed to get all our luggage up five flights of stairs without incident. It was rather interesting riding the tram with our suitcases. We took two trips in order to lighten the load a bit. The tram is actually pretty fun and easy to navigate. I can't believe that I, of all people, think navigating on public transportation is kind of easy. It's rather exciting! After we took our second set of luggage to the apartment, we decided to try to find our way by tram to Old Town where our class is. Luckily for us, it was only about two blocks away from the stop. We were pretty glad about that, mostly because it limited the distance we had to walk today. We had an early dinner before heading back to the hotel. I think tonight will be an early one, since we have to get up early. Tomorrow, we're meeting the girls from the plane in Old Town to go to the Easter Markets. It should be pretty fun. Then around three, we're meeting the other students from our class for a beer and a meet and greet type thing. It's going to be a good day!

Anyway, this is a rather short blog because I'm tired and ready for bed. One of us will write more tomorrow. Dobre vecer or goodnight!

Morgen

Oh legs...how thy do hurt

By Morgen

Why is there no effn' elevators in this damn city? Stairs, stairs everywhere. Our legs are in a state of pure agony. We took the tram today, to find our new apartment. By tram it's not too far away from where we are now. It's in an older building, which means that there is no elevator. The apartment is on the top floor of a four-story building, and the stairs are winding and narrow. I have no idea how we're going to get our luggage up there. Courtney and I opted to take on two other boarders (fellow classmates), which decreases our rent. Their names are Andrew and Yenna. Andrew is from Ohio, and Yenna is from Slovakia. They met in New Zealand, and have been dating for two years. They're really nice, and Andrew is extraordinarily sarcastic; I don't think I can handle that...

Later, we decided to walk to the building our class will be in. It's about a fifteen minute walk over the Charles Bridge and into the Old Town, and of course we got lost. We were exhausted by the time we found it, and then were not happy to find that the class is located on the top floor of a five-story building. That meant about ten flights of narrow stairs. I was pretty much in tears by the time I reached the top, and my calves were screaming at me. I was glad to find though, that our class is very small; only seven people are enrolled (six Americans and one Slovak). I think it'll go pretty well. Class starts at 9:00 a.m. every morning and ends at 8:30 every night. Lots of work, but I think we're up for the challenge.

After we left the school, we decided to kill time by wandering around back the way we came. We stumbled upon the original Pilsner Urquell restaurant. We sat at the bar and had an appetizer and good old-fashioned Czech beer. It was delicious! Around eight, we headed towards the cool astronomical clock in this huge square and met up with the girls I met on the plane from Frankfurt. We took a ghost walk around Prague. Our tour guide, Camilla, was very animated and lots of fun. The only part I wasn't too thrilled about was around almost every corner, someone in a mask would jump out and scare the shit out of us. I wisened up pretty quickly--I walked up front with Camilla and saw him coming every time except the last one when he creeped up behind us. All in all it was pretty cheesy, but entertaining. We're meeting up with the girls on Saturday morning for the Easter markets, which is kind of like Folklife festival meets Farmer's Market. It should be pretty fun. Also, we get to meet our other classmates for a beer later in the afternoon. I'm not sure if I'll be able to walk at all by that point. Courtney may have to push me in a wheelchair.

I guess I shouldn't complain; all this walking is good for me, and I'll be in such good shape.

Sigh...

Sleep? What is that?

So until we figure out how to create dual administrators on this high tech blog, we'll have to let you all know exactly who it is blogging. THIS IS COCO!!!!!

Okay now that we have that settled, we can get down to business. Business being, Jet-Lag. Does anyone know how to get rid of it? Is there some kind of magic potion or elixir, a puckish fairy I have to catch? Anything...tell me.

Other than the staying up until 5 am and making Morgen wait for me to wake up until 12 noon, things are unfolding splendidly. At 2pm today we are meeting our landlord for the first time whose name is Marketa. She'll be showing us our flat, giving us the keys, and leaving us to our own devices. According to her it's about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. We'll officially move in on Saturday, and make it our own for the next month. We'll each have our own room, which I'm sure MoMo is thankful for as apparently I'm a sleep talker and have some hellacious musical snores...

One of the things I've found most interesting so far is that the Czech cater to most nationalities...it really is amazing. On almost ever window sign, menu, bus info, things like that...there is a Czech, French, English, and Italian version. It's really...well great. Too bad we can't be that way in the US.

Last night we went to dinner at the pizzeria just outside of our hotel door. We got an appetizer, amazing. Overdone bread topped with sauteed mushrooms and prosciutto. Then, since we both figured...we can have pizza anytime in the US...we tried something a little different. Some tortellini and garlic pasta. Both delicious, but we couldn't quite finish. As we saw a server bring out to pizza pans overflowing with cheese and pepperoni, I couldn't help but tell Morgen, "I'm getting pizza next time!"

I still feel like I haven't left quite yet, I'm here but I'm not, I'm there but I'm not. I really do miss you all terribly, and hope SOME of you can make the trip to visit. Czech ya later hoooomes!

- COCO

Oh dear me...

Well, where to start? The flight over went very well (aside from the lack of sleep). We landed in Frankfurt about 40 minutes ahead of schedule. I was pretty glad because I was a bit stressed out about having to go through security and having enough time to make our connection. There was really no need to fear; the line going through security was short, and they had people there to tell you what to do. They were much nicer in Frankfurt than they were in Seattle, and we didn't have to remove our shoes! We had about an two hour layover, so we made perfect use of our time-- we drooled over the seemingly endless parade of hot men. I think that we were both content to stay in that airport for the rest of our lives!

Our trip from Germany to Prague was extraordinarily short; I don't think it took 30 minutes. On the airplane, I sat next to three American women who were on vacation. They asked for my email and phone number so we could all meet up this week. We decided to take a haunted pub tour, and I was thrilled to find an email this morning requesting our presence tomorrow evening. Our landing in Prague was less than wonderful. I was really afraid that we flew all that way to die in a crash landing. Alas, we survived. When we walked into the terminal, I was astounded to see the only people in the airport were from our flight; it was completely empty otherwise. We retrieved our luggage very quickly,and started for the security section. When we got there, they just kind of looked at us like, "What the hell do you want?" Apparently, there is no need to go through customs in Prague. So we walked outside to find our driver "Jerry" holding a sign with my name on it. He was very nice and helped us with our luggage, which I was thankful for, because Courtney not only had three bags, but they also weighed about 100 pounds each (kidding Coco!). As if our landing wasn't bad enough, the drive from the airport to the hotel was the scariest ride I've ever been on in my life. I thought cabbies in London were horrible drivers...I was wrong. Jerry drove like a bat out of hell, weaving through traffic, playing "chicken" on narrow streets with the on-coming traffic. I think my heart rate went through the roof.

The hotel is pretty cool. It's an old building, but it's decorated pretty nicely. The elevator can barely hold three people, let alone two women and five suitcases. Courtney had to go up first. Our room is pretty simple, but it's clean and comfortable. On the door key there's a card that we have to stick in a slot by the door. The card is how we turn on the power in the room. I've never seen anything like it before.

After we kind of settled in, we decided to wander around. We found the Embassy, but it was closed, so we decided to go to Murphy's Irish Pub just up the road. I instantly fell in love with the place. It's a true Irish pub, run by a true Irishman named Peter. I had the best Guinness (sorry Bob), and we met a British ex-patriot named Phil. He gave us the run down on Prague, where to go, what to see, etc. He even bought us a beer. It was great. When we finally left, it was snowing really hard and the wind was blowing. It even thundered. Weird combination of weather; I already miss spring in Yakima. Bedtime came early last night. I zonked out around six; Courtney lasted until around nine. I was up half the night listening to the drunks outside and the sounds around the hotel. If I knew how to work the thermostat, I would've turned it off because it was so damn hot in our room. I finally got up around seven and got ready for the day. Courtney slept in a bit, and then we were off to the Embassy. Someone suggested that we were going the wrong way, so we turned and really went the wrong way. We wandered around for about an hour and decided to get breakfast. Finding breakfast here is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. We finally decided just to eat lunch, and I was glad we did, for we found the greatest little restaurant not far from the hotel. We had a traditional Bohemian meal, which consisted of duck, beef, the best ham I've ever had, dumplings, and red cabbage. We had some great Czech wine too.

After lunch we walked back to the Embassy (which was down the road we started out on earlier, thank you very much) and registered our stay. We walked around for a while, went over Charles Bridge to the Old Town, and went to the Museum of Torture. That was rather interesting. By the time we were finished there, we headed back to the hotel for a nap, and ended up sleeping for about four hours. Now I'm sitting in the lobby typing this post, thinking about dinner, and missing everyone so very much. I hope to hear from people soon. Courtney and I both have Skype accounts, which allows us to video call computer to computer for free. If you already have Skype, my user name is morgen.pero, and Courtney's is courtney_crutcher. Peace out!