I know that's it been forever since I actually did an update on this thing, but I'm going to work on getting better about that. Right now, I'm sitting in the laundry mat and I'm going to be here for a few hours, so I might as well write something here. For the past month, I have really been getting used to everyday life in Prague. It no longer seems weird to me that I see a castle whenever I leave my building for classes. Cobblestone everywhere seems like the way everything's always been.
Since my last update, so much has happened. I had two full weeks of Czech intensive. One day, after class, we went to the Cubism Museum, which was pretty cool. During those weeks, most of the time, I would wake up at some late morning time and then go wander the city for a while. It was so cool to see the different parts of the city and get to know the areas near the school. After classes, some of the days, we went to see interesting things around the city. One day after class, we went on a walk to a cafe and on the way, we stopped by the Kafka Museum. We didn't go inside, but we looked at the statues outside, which are done by this very offensive artist who has controversial statues all over Prague. They are so interesting to see his different statues.
One morning, a couple of my friends and I woke up super early to see the sunrise on Charles Bridge. We were so excited to see how amazing it was going to be, but we forgot that Prague doesn't have pretty sunrises yet. It was still too cold and gross out for the sun to be pretty. We waited and all we saw was the sky going from dark to somewhat lighter grays. When we gave up on it being pretty, we went to take the metro to some place to explore, but the metro was not working. Apparently, two of the cars had disconnected while they were driving. I don't know if anyone got hurt or anything, but the whole metro closed, all three lines. It was so weird to see. The nice thing about that was that it forced us to actually figure out how to use the trams in order to get back home to the dorm.
The other big thing that I have done recently is going to the Prague Zoo. According to Forbes Magazine when they ranked the zoos in the world, Prague Zoo was in the top 10 best zoos. It was an amazing zoo with animals that I had never seen before, but I couldn't read what they were because all the signs were just in Czech. There was a part where they had bats that could fly out at people, which freaked some people out a lot. There weren't any signs or anything, so no one knew that the bats could fly out until they were just a few inches away from your face in the dark room.
After Czech class ended, it was time for the normal semester classes to start up. This semester, I'm taking four classes. On Mondays, I have Alternative Culture: Literature, Music, and Lifestyles. This class is pretty awesome, we're learning about the history of the Underground movement in the Czech Republic and how it's political influence helped bring down the communist regime. Most Monday mornings, I have also been going up to this local high school to volunteer. They have us going to the English classes so that the students can get better at their English by talking to a native speaker. On Tuesdays, I have to wake up super early for my class starting at 9:00 am. My days start off with Language, Culture, and Social Cognition. The class is a mixture of anthropology, linguistics, and psychology and there are Czech students and other international students from the United States, Canada, and from all over Europe. From that class, I have a nice long break, so I wander around for a while and get lunch somewhere. In the afternoon, I have Recent Economic Developments, which is a class about the economic developments of the Czech Republic and the transition from communism to the current system. On Wednesdays, I have Utopia East and West: the Sixties to the present, which is kind of an interesting class. Personally, I don't think I really like most of the stuff that we have been reading, but hopefully I'll start liking more of the stuff as the semester goes on. And there's the whole issue that most of the earlier Utopian readings we're doing from the East are basically Soviet propaganda, which I just find annoying. I don't agree with communism, I don't believe it's ever a good idea, and no amount of literature is going to change that. After that class ends, which is around noon, my weekend starts. Every week, I have a four day weekend, so I can spend lots of time exploring the city and traveling.
The one thing that I have started getting involved with is this program called Tandem. It's a language exchange program. I put my name and email address up on this board and have been getting emails from a bunch of local Czech people who want to talk to a native English speaker to improve their English and in return, they help me learn a little more Czech. Most of the time, the people I meet with have been in Prague longer than I have, so they show me interesting places that I wouldn't have probably found on my own during my time here.
I'm sure that there are other things that I should be writing about, but at the moment, this is all I can think about to write. Since it's lent, I'm going to make myself update this at least every other day, at least for the times that I can. When I go away on weekend trips, I'm probably not going to be bringing my computer, so I can't update then. Next weekend, I'm going to be on a trip to Istanbul, which I am super excited about and then I have trips every other week for the next few weeks.
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