Czech beer... Friend or foe?

Definitely friend, unless you drink too much and then your head hates you the next day. You can drink two and be hungover the next day. The beer here is really great, but sadly I'm still very loyal to Guinness; I can't help it. It's just so good! Last night, Courtney and I went out with a few of our classmates to J. J. Murphy's (the Irish pub we found on our first day here). We had dinner and a few beers, and met an ex-pat named Christina who's here on a work exchange program for the year. After we left Murphy's, we went to Lavka (literally means little lava), and danced and danced and danced. We met a bunch of English gents and hung out all night. It was fantastic. We got home around 6:30 this morning, and as usual I only slept for about four hours. I'm wide awake now and being domestic. I washed all the dishes, have been doing laundry, and am about to sweep the floors. Who knew I'd be such a neat freak? I like the place to be clean. It makes me feel better, which is really weird because my bedroom back home was always a total disaster. Of course it was an organized mess; I could tell you exactly where everything was.

Anyway, tomorrow the President is giving a speech and my classmates (save one from Texas) and I are all excited to go. The speech is at 10, but we're leaving the apartment around 7. Courtney doesn't know that yet, but I figured a 6 a.m. wake up call would be good for her! It's going to be amazing!

It's quite lovely outside today. It's supposed to be almost 70 degrees. I can't wait for the trees to bloom. It's still pretty dreary here, especially when the sun doesn't shine. I miss spring in Yakima (although I don't really miss the allergies). I haven't had too bad of a problem here even though everywhere you go there's a hundred people smoking. Even the mall let's you smoke in the restaurants, which are little open-air places located in the center of each floor. I pretty much always smell like smoke; I'm not overly fond of that, but what can you do?

I am so proud of myself...I haven't gone into the men's restroom for two days! Yeah!! It's a miracle! Funny thing is, every time I go into the men's room, they don't seem particularly surprised to see a woman while they're doing their business. Europeans = laid back.

That's pretty much all I have for now. I have to go shut the windows; there's an army of pigeons sitting across the street giving me the eye. Creepy...

The picture is of Christina (the ex-pat), Courtney, Eric, and Sheila (our classmates), and Iain (English gent) and I.