Just "Czeching" In: So much to see and do

I cannot believe how fast my time here is already going. Week two is already complete. I have really been enjoying my classes. A class is a 3 hour block here so I only have each class once a week. They are very interesting and the professors have interesting perspectives on subjects that I have learned about previously but taking notes for three hours at time is a lot of writing. It will take some getting used to. It is also somewhat sad that I have to go to class and do homework when all I want to do is explore the city.

Last week Val, Katie, and I went into the church at the Prague castle. It was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. The church was huge. There were like 12 to 14 enormous stained glass windows that were probably 15 feet high. The view from the castle grounds were amazing.

Last weekend we also went to the communism museum. The museum had interesting artifacts of the communist era. It also had a video detailing the fight of the Czech people to end communism. They had real footage of the demonstrators being attacked in squares all over the city in the last year of the communist era in Prague. They also had some footage of the Velvet Revolution. For those of you out there who do not know about the Velvet Revolution and wonder why this country is not called Czechoslovakia anymore let me tell you. After the wall fell in 1989 and the country once again was capitalist there was a divide between the people about how they wanted the country to be run. The people of the East and the people of the west decided to split up the country based on their differing views in a non-violent revolution. There were also ethnic reasons for the split because it the east there were more people of Slovak decent and in the west there were more of Czech decent.

We also happened to come upon a street celebration in honor of Carnivale. This almost like a week long Mardi Gras celebration in Europe. In some countries it is a bigger deal than others. At the street fair there were booths set up with all different kinds of sausages and breads. There were also booths with amazing pastries. Ground where the fair was just happened to be pure ice so everyone was slipping and falling all over the place. We also met this Czech old man who was a riot and told us we would become the ambassadors to the Czech Republic.

On Monday some of my roommates and I decided to go to get actual Czech food because we haven't really had that much. The food was not the best and very salty but the place we ate at was really neat because it was built in the 1380s.