Saturday, January 20, 2007

Greetings from the new Windy City

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/world/europe/18cnd-europe.html?ex=1326776400&en=c5dad3a3fd3b5703&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

We didn't get a lot of the rain but the winds from this did hit the Czech Republic, and they were really intense - I kept thinking our kitchen window was going to blow in, and I almost got blown up against a building a few times when we ventured outside to go to the grocery store, but everything is a lot calmer now.

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Prague Castle area, but we didn't get to see the actual castle since it was closed, as was the cathedral that was attched to it, although that was gorgeous from the outside. The castle is up on a hill on the other side of the river, which made it even more windy and cold up in that area, although it was absolutely gorgeous, and we got a beautiful view of the other side of the city of Prague (the part where classes are, and where we live):

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


That view was easily one of my favorite parts of Prague so far.

After the tour, we went to a hockey game - it was our "cultural event" for the week (as opposed to going to the opera or the philharmonic) and it was a lot of fun as well. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but the stadium was really nice - definitely nicer than where the Islanders are. Everything seemed really new. Slavia, the Prague team, lost, mostly because they didn't play well at all, but the game was still fun to watch. There was much less fighting than American hockey (I think I saw two fights total) and a lot more advertisitng. At first, I kept trying to figure out why both the icea nd the players' jerseys looked different than in the NHL, until I realized that there was a ton of advertising on both. Even the referees' jerseys and the cheerleaders had ads (both were sponsored by O2 and yes, there were cheerleaders/dancers, and they performed during the break between the first and second periods - I was shocked that they could stunt on the ice, even if it wasn't that complicated.)

Everyone wanted to go out after the game, since it was only 9:30 or so by the time we got out of there, a group of 20 or so of us headed up to Holešovice, the neighborhood where one of the other dorms is. After a brief detour in which we accidentally left one of the guys we were with on the train when we had to switch lines, we went this bar/club, Crossbar, that a lot of the kids who live there (and some people who live in our dorm) had recommended, but we were all thoroughly sketched out by it, and left about 5 minutes after we got there. It was full of all these crazy scupltures, and a lot of people who seemed much more at home there than we ever would have, and it wasn't because we were American. Emily said something about it being a place where they'd film a horror movie, and she was definitely right. It was like something I would have had a nightmare about. I'm not sure what those Osadni kids were talking about, but we couldn't get out of there fast enough.

We got back on the metro, which was thankfully right there, and headed back towards our side of town. Everyone decided to go to a club, so Emily and I just headed back to the dorm, since that's not really our kind of thing. We hung out in the suite with a few people, and I learned how to use Skype, which was really awesome, and it's free, which was cool in itself. Needless to say, if you want to talk to me, that's probably one of the best ways to do it.

We're going bowling tonight. Let's see if I'm as bad as it in Europe as I am in the U.S.

No comments: