 |
| My view from my balcony at Hotel Thermal in Karlovy Vary.
Ahoj!
My apologies for being absent the last couple of weeks. The weekend following my birthday, I didn't do anything exciting. The day of, I went out to dinner with some of my friends here on the program. We went to my favorite restaurant in all of Prague, Las Adelitas. They were lovely enough to pay for my meal, and even convinced this mariachi band to serenade me with Felíz Cumpleaños. The moment was captured on film, where I awkwardly alternated between smiling at the band and smiling at the camera whenever it was pointed at me.
That was a great night. The first weekend of November, we took our last group trip out of town. We traveled to Karlovy Vary, a spa town west of Prague. We stayed at Hotel Thermal, which was one of the nicer places (I think) that we've stayed in on an excursion, but there were some grievances. First, that hotel is ugly as sin. It is probably the ugliest building in all of Central Europe. That being said, because we lived there, it didn't obstruct our view of the town, and I was able to get some beautiful pictures like the one above and below.
|
 |
| View from Hotel Thermal |
Also, they put a toilet in a room by itself, and put the bidet, shower, and sink a couple of feet away in another room. In what world does that make sense? The bidet and the toilet are usually put together (for good reason) in one room. I don't really understand how they thought people would use them effectively if they aren't right next to each other.
And there was the whole deal with eating breakfast at certain tables. The woman who was setting up the tables in the dining room told each of us when we trickled in that only the tables with yellow napkins were able to be sat at for breakfast. All the tables with red napkins were off limits because they were reserved for lunch. What I don't understand is why things weren't sectioned off a little better than they were. It seemed like the tables with the yellow napkins were scattered about unnecessarily. Also, lunch wasn't for like another 2 hours, so she was making a fuss about nothing.
The first day we were in Karlovy Vary, we stopped at a glass production factory. We got a look behind the scenes at glassblowing, which looked really cool.
The outside of the factory had beautiful glass pieces to admire.
That night, we went to a karaoke bar. It would have been a better time if more of us had gone, and if the other singers' song selections were better. Almost every other song that was sung was done so in Russian, with a sad tune to it, and the screen with the lyrics screened with spliced images from what seemed to be a cross between the History Channel and a Lifetime movie.
The next day, our professor took us on a light hike (what he called a "stroll through the woods") up and down the hills you can see in the background of the first picture I posted. He said it would be easy, but I knew better than that. The difficulty of the hike is always harder (and longer) than what he initially says it will be. And that, my friends, is how people end up with trust issues.
We walked to several sights along the hike and I got some really nice photos.
 |
| Statue of Karl Marx |
 |
It was really nice to be out in nature for a few hours (can't believe I'm saying that) because we don't get to see a lot of greenery in Prague. We live near the city center, so we are surrounded by buildings. Sometimes we would be led away from the path while going up the hill, and I'm pretty sure we were going almost vertically at one point because I kept slipping on wet leaves. I had to spider crawl up eventually because I was afraid of falling to my death down the side of the hill.
We came to a resting stop for tourists where there was a small petting zoo with goats, pigs, and ponies in the back of a restaurant. There were also these two peacocks, Frosty and Romulus. I had never seen a white peacock before.
   |
 |
| The Grandhotel Pupp, from Last Holiday with Queen Latifah and Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. |
We arrived back in Prague later that evening to prepare for our final week of classes before final exams. Wednesday, we threw a halloween party for a group of Czech disadvantaged youth. It was a lot of fun and I know they had a great time, even though I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying to us. They were supposed to be using us to practice their English, but I don't think any of them did their homework beforehand.
Friday, we went to see an opera at the National Theater and for the rest of the weekend, I worked on completing my final papers.
Tuesday, we had a little bit of a celebration in Czech class because we took our Czech final the day before. We played this game that we did with the kids at the halloween party. We strung up a donut for each person, and we had to race to finish the donut off of the string without using our hands. I finished first, mostly because I had a lot of time to develop a strategy when I ran it with the kids the week before. It was as much fun as it looked.
Wednesday, our professor invited us for a game of laser tag. I love laser tag. I get weirdly competitive with it though. I don't have the opportunity to play it a lot, but I think it's a lot of fun.
We had our final program dinner that night, and it was kind of sad because it was the last night that most of us were together. All in all, this has been an amazing program and I would 10/10 recommend it for future prospective students.
That said, there are a number of things I'll miss, like:
- The feeling of living in another country
- Traveling to new places
- Waking up to know that everyday could be a new adventure
- The familiarity of a 2-month routine
- Kingswood Apple Cider
- Gyros from this amazing place a couple of blocks away
- Free transportation
- Cheap beer
There are also a few things I won't miss, like:
- 0 customer service
- Not having a library
- Not having a desk/Having to do homework at the dinner table
- The entire Czech language
- "Meat and potato" dishes
- French fries with tartar sauce (yuck!)
- Expensive water
I have so enjoyed getting to know the people on this program. I've had my share of ups and downs, but the good definitely outweighs the bad. I'm so thankful for this opportunity, especially because I know that I wouldn't have been exposed to this part of the world any other way.
I feel like I've made so many new friends and I can't wait for our reunion on campus in the new year.
Thank you for following me on this journey! I really appreciate of the support that I have received along the way. I'm on my way home!
Čau!
-Brandon
