Week 3: 1st Clinic Visit and a trip to Kutná Hora

Ahoj!

Before I get into my adventures this week, I just want to say thanks. You know, for actually taking the time to read this blog (or look at the pictures ;). I've received so many positive messages about how enjoyable this blog is to read, how this is their new favorite blog, or how they just can't wait for the next update. Seriously, thank you so much. As long as people are interested in what's been going on with me, I'm totally willing to continue updating this blog. In fact, your words of encouragement motivate me to leave my sketchy apartment building and just explore this place, even if it's just for me to add more stories to my repertoire. 

That being said, I want to start with Friday. Last week, I teased about our first visit to a psychiatric clinic here in Prague. We went to see Doctor Krch, who gave a lecture on eating disorders before bringing in one of his patients to talk to us. This visit was so uncomfortable. Dr. Krch created this massive amount of tension in the room when he awkwardly asked if any of us suffered from eating disorders. He waited patiently while we sat in silence, struggling to digest his persistence in the matter.

"There are 19 of you. One of you is bound to have an eating disorder, or know someone who has one."

A few heads nodded slowly, followed by an uncomfortable giggle made by someone on the other side of the room, probably hoping that he was just being humorous. Everything was pretty cut and dry with him though. It was interesting to see the dynamic between him and his patient, the only one who could speak English and/or was interested in talking to a group of college students. He would often probe her for more information while she was giving her story, most likely because he wanted her to open up more for us. I don't think it was beneficial though. I don't recall any of us being comfortable with asking her questions. At least, I know I wasn't because she had only been there for a week and she was acting as a representative for the patients of the clinic.

Saturday, we traveled to Kutná Hora for the day. Kutná Hora is like the first runner up for the capital of the Czech Republic (behind Prague, of course) and is known for it's silver mines. It's frequently visited by tourists from all over because it has many interesting sites, most, if not all of which we were able to see while we were there.

The first is the Kutná Hora Ossuary, or the Bone Church.

 The outside wasn't so bad...

Inside, however, it was a little too creepy for me. This place contained the skeletons of over 40,000 people who died from the plague. They were originally buried, but were unearthed and used to furnish the chapel. 

They even had "do not touch" signs, which I don't know why anyone in their right state of mind would touch these diseased bones. Also, it doesn't quite sit right with me knowing that all these people were dug up and disturbed from their original resting places.

They put bones everywhere.

Even a chandelier made of bones.

Creepy decoration.

Schwarzenberg coat of arms made of bones.

Next, we stopped at the Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady. This was a beautiful cathedral with a simple design.

Painted on the ceiling

View from the balcony outside of the attic

Then, we had a tour of the silver mining museum. They took us into the silver mines, which if I'm being honest, weren't as bad as they made them out to be. It was being hyped up as something we had to "prepare for" if we were claustrophobic or disliked narrow, small, and dark rooms. I'll admit, I had no idea what to expect since I wasn't sure if I was claustrophobic or not (I have never put myself in a situation to test it), but I was fine. The rooms weren't small enough that I had to crawl and they weren't too narrow for me to navigate. I didn't take any pictures from inside the mines, but here I am all geared up as we walked to the mines from the museum.

People were snapping pictures of us as we walked past. After the mines, we went to take a look at the Church of St. Barbara and the Jesuit College, which had very interesting art galleries inside.

Church of St. Barbara

Jesuit College

We made it back to Prague later that evening and the rest of my weekend was fairly uneventful. Apparently it was St. Wenceslas Day on Sunday and I saw a little bit of a sword fight happening on the street as I was coming home from the grocery store.

Speaking of grocery shopping, I've gotten so much better at it. Most of it is just a result of practice, but the Czech language class is proving to be useful as well. Czech is a difficult language to learn. As a synthetic language, it takes longer words or phrases and condenses them, changing their endings as it's called for. I think my favorite word so far is the czech word for ice cream, zmrzlina (yea, the Czechs are kind of stingy with their vowels). I think its fun to pronounce, but you also receive some satisfaction in ordering food correctly at food establishments ("Dám si vanilkovou zmrzlinu") instead of just pointing and grunting.

I went to my first hockey game today, and it was a lot of fun. Rooting for Slavia Praha to win and cheering every time they scored was exciting.

GÓÓÓL!

The best part was observing the fan club at work. Ice hockey is the second most popular sport here (behind soccer or "fotbal") and the home team had a lot of support compared to the guests. And we won!

Well, that's all for now. Next week, I'll talk about our upcoming trip to Český Krumlov. Thanks for reading!

Čau!

-Brandon

Week 2: A Search for tacos and a Trip to Slovakia

Ahoj!

Last time, I finished just before talking about the weekend. Friday, one of the Czech roommates in our apartment building invited us to go with her to a wine festival. It was really nice. I didn't get to have any wine, but there were enough people there for me to assume that it's generally a pretty popular event. I grabbed a grilled klobása (sausage) and hung out with the rest of the group in front of the stage where a live band was playing.

The music was interesting. I couldn't understand a thing they were saying, but it wasn't unpleasant to listen to. Saturday was quite a day as well. If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I love Mexican cuisine, more specifically tacos. If you were to ask my parents what I eat at home the most, they'd probably say tacos. I knew that if I could find one good Mexican restaurant here in Prague, I'd feel more at home. So, the night before, I searched for Mexican restaurants in Praha (Prague)  and the results were few, but seemed promising for the most part. One place, Tacos El Paisa, caught my attention right away (obviously because it has the taco in its name) and I immediately put a plan into place to track this place down, and grab some of their grub. So Saturday afternoon, one of my roommates and I set off on a journey across town to find this Mexican eatery. Almost an hour and a half later, we arrive at the address where the restaurant was supposed to be...and nothing was there. Well, something was there, but it didn't look like tacos were coming out of there. I thought we had traveled halfway across town for nothing, but we were able to see the Vyšerad Cemetery and the Church of St. Peter and Paul.

I returned to the apartment feeling a little defeated because I didn't find the restaurant I wanted, but I put that aside to prepare for the ballet performance that the group was going to see at Národní Divadlo (National Theater). It was Krabat, some kind of fantasy story about a boy who becomes a sorcerer's apprentice, but must defeat him when he realizes there is black magic involved, or something like that. I'm not entirely sure to be honest. It kinda creeped me out in the first act and it got a little confusing from there. I wasn't able to take pictures during the show, but the theater was beautiful.

Photo cred: Allie Dulles '16

Because I was not satisfied with how my search for tacos on Saturday ended, I decided I would try another place, Las Adelitas, near the Astronomical Clock tower in Old Town. I went alone this time, and after almost getting lost (twice), I found the place. Las Adelitas is a restaurant and tequila bar owned by actual Spanish-speaking Mexicans in Prague. As someone who is more familiar with Spanish than Czech language, it was so refreshing to be in a place where I can understand most of what's happening without a Czech language overload. I ordered tacos de carne asada and a mango margarita, and just like that, Las Adelitas became my new favorite restaurant in Prague. They serve nopales (prickly pear cactus) with just about every dinner item on the menu, which I wasn't too excited about at first, but I actually grew to enjoy it.

Next, we began our 2nd week of classes. On Tuesdays, our professor typically invites us over to his apartment in a different part of the city for movie night. This particular Tuesday however, I had promised my Czech roommate that I would go with him to this restaurant that he really wanted us to go to because he said they had the best roasted duck in town.

It was alright I guess. I don't think I'll be going way across town just for this. I'm really not a fan of the whole cabbage/sauerkraut thing that they have going on here with just about every traditional Czech dish.

Wednesday night, we left on a sleeper train for Slovakia, probably the most uncomfortable sleep I've ever had in my entire life. The beds were essentially on top of one another and the actual room we shared wasn't really big enough for all three of us to stand in at once. I'm not used to sleeping in such a restricted space because I'm a relatively tall guy.

Photo Cred: Joshua Kwan '17

We get to Slovakia, walked to what seemed to be some random hotel and enjoyed a hot breakfast buffet before heading back out for our first excursion of the day because who needs sleep, right?
Spiš Castle or Spisšký hrad:

This place was pretty cool. I feel like I didn't learn much about the actual history of the place though because I'm sure I'd be putting that here instead of babbling about nothing. There was this torture chamber inside. I took pictures of some of the things in there, but most of them came out too dark, so I won't bother posting them. There was this blurry, little gem though:

I found it hanging on a wall above some contraption (a torture device probably)

As we were leaving the castle, the group opted to go explore the Medieval town of Levoča. I thought this place was nice. I did not appreciate all of the staring though. I was stared at so much here that it made me incredibly uncomfortable to walk around.

Church of St. James

Cage of Shame

The Cage of Shame was a little underwhelming. I'm not entirely sure why, but I suppose that I was expecting it to be situated over a pit of sorts. Back in the 16th century, they used the Cage of Shame to punish minor delinquencies. Part of me wanted to take a picture from inside of the cage, but it was unfortunately locked. We left Levoča for Novy Smokovec, where our hotel was stationed not far from the base of the mountains that we essentially came to Slovakia for. The next day, the group geared up for the hike up the mountain. Except me, of course, because the idea of struggling up and over a mountain for 7 hours didn't sound very appealing to me. However, if you want, you can read more about their treacherous journey here. I had a different plan for that day. I wanted to do a little exploration around the area. I took a tram down the mountain for a gorgeous view of the greenery.

Afterwards, I took the tram all the way to the other end of the line to take a cable car up a different mountain. Unfortunately, tickets were sold out, so I just kinda walked around for a bit before heading back the the hotel for some rest. I thought I would be able to try again the next day, but we had a different plan: cave exploration. So, we took a bus to the base of a tatra mountain and hiked almost 900m up to the Belianska Cave entrance. I took a picture of the view I had when I stopped to catch my breath and was almost at the top. One person was paid for to take pictures inside the cave, so some of these are his pictures. Also, it was pretty cold in there.

Credit: Joshua Kwan '17

Credit: Joshua Kwan '17

Credit: Joshua Kwan '17

Credit: Joshua Kwan '17

Credit: Joshua Kwan '17

Our final day group activity in Slovakia was rafting down a river bordering Slovakia and Poland (one on each side of the river).

  

It was a great experience, until it started pouring rain 20 minutes in. We returned to Prague on another night train the following morning in time for class that afternoon. Like I said before, who needs sleep, right? Okay, well that's all for now. Next time, I'll talk about our first clinic visit (because sometimes I forget I'm here to study psychology) and our next trip, to Kutna Hora.

Thanks for reading!

Čau!

-Brandon

Prague!

Ahoj!

So it has been 7 days since I've left the country for the first time and so much has happened. Let me start off by saying that the picture(s) you see above are all from Google images. I originally created it to be the background for this blog when I first launched it. Well, obviously that didn't work out. It's okay though, because now I get to add my own pictures of Prague to these posts. Okay, so the day I arrived in Prague, I felt so bad. Jet lag was actually ruining my life, so much so that I was confused as to what day it was. I was also incredibly tired, but our residential director discouraged us from falling asleep or else we'd stay on our normal sleep routines. Worst news ever.

Here I am though, completely adjusted to a lifestyle that is 7 hours ahead of what I'm used to. We arrived at the apartments and I was kind of surprised. They look really sketchy from the outside, but they are decently furnished and roomy on the inside. I think I really only complained about the lack of desks/reasonable workspaces because it gets pretty dark at night.

 Saturday morning, I woke up early enough to go and see the sun rise at the Charles Bridge. It was nice because the bridge was relatively empty, or at least emptier than it would be during the day. When it isn't 5 o'clock in the morning, you can definitely expect to see tourists flooding the bridge, taking pictures with loved ones and purchasing souvenirs from vendors with portable shops.

 We've done several tours in the city since our arrival and on Sunday, we participated in a Scavenger Hunt. My team came in last place, but mostly because we got lost at the very end and had points deducted for arriving last. I had a great time that day though. I saw a great deal of the city that I might not have seen otherwise, I was able to practice my czech by speaking to some of the locals, and we went to this delicious restaurant for lunch by the bridge. When the waiter brought the check, he also dropped off a round of shots as a gift from the restaurant. In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have drunk the mysterious pink liquor without knowing what it was, but we figured that since the alcohol in it wasn't strong enough to immediately smell, it was safe. Monday, we had a tour of the Prague Castle area. The main attraction here is the St. Vitus Cathedral. Prague Castle is actually a collection of buildings, including the Cathedral. Check out the beautiful stained glass!

We had our first day of our Nationalism and Minorities class that evening. For the first hour of class, the professor gave us a tour of the area surrounding our academic building. I do not have pictures to show you at the moment, but we saw the former Gestapo headquarters, which is situated right across the street, and the communist party building down the street. I'm not sure how I feel about this class yet. It's a 3.5 hours long history class (not my best subject), but it's only once a week.

Tuesday, we woke up early again for our first X-Cultural Psychopathology class, followed by a trip to the local gym for a tour, and then by our first Czech Language class. I learned how to have a basic conversation in Czech (Greetings, Nice-to-meet-you's, where-are-you-from?, what-do-you-do? etc.) Wednesday, we took a final exam for 2-credit directed readings course, and then another tour of Wenceslas Square and Old town. I got a closer look at the oldest astronomical clock in the world.

After class on Thursday, my professor invited a small group of students out for lunch. The deal was that we would collectively decide on a direction to go in, take the metro at least 3 stops away, and find a place to eat where there are bound to be no tourists or English speaking Czechs. We chose a stop that was 5 or 6 stops away from where we started because it had the least amount of vowels and was the most difficult to pronounce (Střížkov, I think). The meal I had there was amazing. And yes, there is a straw in my beer (it was a Radler). 

Okay, two side notes and then I must go. One, I bought this strawberry juice from the grocery store, once I got over my anxiety of going out by myself (because I'm clearly not Czech and therefore a target), and it is so nasty. NopeNopeNope! Never again!

Second, there's a Hooters down the street from our apartment that I really want to go to, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get caught and end up on the Hall of Shame (Link to our Hall of Shame here; Past years Halls of Shame here and here).

It might be worth it though...

Okay, that's all for now. We're heading to Slovakia next week! Thanks for reading!

Čau!

-Brandon