Home Life and More

I’ve now been in Prague for 3 weeks and I consider myself officially settled in. I’m sleeping well, my classes have gotten geared up, and I have to do laundry. I find that there is so much going on here and so many things to try that I sleep a lot less than when I am at La Crosse. It’s like when I was in high school and had sports and homework and still had to be up at 6:30, I just make due with less. I live in the George Apartments and we’ve—my roommates: Jack, Lucas, and Eric, and the girls next door: Callie, Maggie, Lois, and Caitlin—have become pretty close. We hang out a lot and we have a lot of outings together. We also go out to eat a few times a week but I missed both times this week, once for practice and I forget why I missed the other one. It’s really nice that I live with such a solid group; I never have to do anything alone if I don’t want to. Grocery shopping here is pretty different, things are sold in smaller quantities and the small fridge and lack of zip-lock bags mean grocery shopping has to happen a few times a week. I can always find at least one of the other 7 to go with me though. We’ve also started making family dinners and all eating together a couple times a week. That is a lot of fun. We did chicken parmesan on Thursday and last night was fajitas. If anyone has any easy recipies—my cooking skills are not well honed—you should send them to me, I want to make something and right now the best I can think of is tuna melts. We also do outings together. The first weekend we went on a boat tour of the river, this week we went to the Museum of Torture Devices and St. Norbert’s Monastery. The Torture Museum was interesting if a bit morbid, they had some crazy stuff. The chopping block with axe groves and hack marks was interesting in that I stood next a block that actually was used in beheadings. We salvaged the afternoon by going to a coffee shop for dessert. On Saturday some of us went to the monastery, it was a really cool place. It was very beautiful inside and was so clean and fresh and peaceful we were all blown away. I don’t know why, it may be a hidden jewel of Prague, but we were pretty much the only people there. The only place we saw anyone else was the art gallery upstairs and it was still only a few people. Then we went to the restaurant and tried the beer. The monks are famous for their home brewed beer, understandably as it is very good. In addition to our trips to places we sometimes just go for adventure walks and see what we can find. The night life is really impressive here, tons of clubs, pubs, and hidden local bars. Each part to city—in the areas I’ve been to—is a bit different. There are very touristy places, ex-patriot places, and local places all of which have a different vibe. The Czech’s don’t like Americans very much, we’ve had some really rude service and some people have been flat turned down but if you find the right places people don’t mind at all. The clubs are a whole different animal, they can be pretty intense. I’m not really a big club fan but I will say that here they are way better than back home. Mostly I’m not all about the clubs because I’m not a big dancer but here it makes no difference. They play such intense, bass heavy music that as long as you can move with the beat you’re fine. I don’t really get Techno, but the house beats are pretty cool at some places. It’s also funny to see people on their own, just rocking out and dancing with themselves. We also play cards occasionally, Eric taught us Pinochle. I can’t believe how quickly this trip is going, it already seems like I don’t have enough time left. I’m buying a ticket to Dublin soon and I have to try to get to Madrid to visit a friend from school. There’s another friend in France who invited me to visit and I still want to ski. Plus I have the CEA trips to Krakow and Budapest and I’ll start to have my rugby games in March or April. And I want to travel around the Czech Republic some more, see some other towns. And there’s no way I’ve seen all of Prague, I’ve barely been to any one bar, restaurant, club, or coffee shop more than once. I’m having a great time and I’m sure I’ll have some more cool adventures soon.