Weekends are awesome.

So during the week last week, my life was pretty low key.  Hung out at the apartment, tried to get some sleep because I thought I was getting sick again (as far as I can tell, I think it's allergies... which is just a whole new thing unto itself).  Made it through my first week of classes in one piece though, and they all seem promising.

Friday, we went to Anděl, a shopping center, to get some groceries.  And we got off the tram and there was a farmers market in the square!  So we wandered around, looked at some cool crafts, really fresh beautiful vegetables, and other local foods.  It was really great.  

Then Saturday morning we woke up to hearing the thumpa-thumpa of a bass, and I look out our window, and there's a DJ in the middle of our square, and a few tents set up and a bunch of people mingling around.  All of

Amerícka street was closed down, and a huge street market was setting up for the day.  We wandered down a couple blocks in the opposite direction from the metro, and there was a Mexican festival going on!  There was a band there from Mexico and everything!

The Mexican festival

Then, Maja's friend came to meet us and we went to this park that's just down the street from us to play frisbee.  The park is absolutely gorgeous.

There's a vineyard attached to the park, with a beautiful view of Prague

This wooden structure was just beautiful

Stairs.  They were pretty, what can I say?

Then yesterday we went to Karlštejn Castle, which was a short train ride outside of Prague, and then a 2k walk up the hillside to get there.  They were having a wine festival (what else?), but it was kind of a renaissance faire as well.  It was really great.  There were people in costume, some really great food (Trdelník, a great Czech sweet which is kind of like a doughnut but crunchy and delicious; Sausages; Potato pancakes with sauerkraut; etc.) a really great renaissance band that played, some renaissance/traditional Czech dancing, and a stunning setting.

It was such a beautiful day!

Karlštejn Castle!

King Charles IV-- they had a whole procession/parade thingy, and then he addressed his 'subjects'. :)

Anyway, I will it there for now!

Much love! <3 

I wrote this on 9.19.11 ... not sure why I didn't post it? Zoo, Italian, and the start of classes

Friday night we went to the opera again!  It was absolutely fantastic.  It was by Mozart, which meant that it was slightly less eventful than your average opera (Mozart is known to have boring operas) but I absolutely loved it.  First, it was in German.  Which, as someone who watches German soap operas, and absolutely loves German, was very exciting for me.  Second, the music was just absolutely fantastic.  And the set.  Considering the opera we saw last Tuesday was pretty tame on the set/costume front, it was nice to see an opera which embraced more of the tech side of things.  The seats we had, however, were ridiculous.  Opera houses were built for accoustics, so they go straight up, and we got tickets free through CIEE, so naturally we were as high as you could get.  And we could see literally nothing unless we leaned waaayyy forward.  But it was worth it.

And Saturday we went to a really beautiful Italian restaurant on the Vltava River.  It was actually on a boat.  It was really beautiful.  And I had delicious salmon ravioli.  It was fabulous.  

And on Sunday we went to Prague Zoo!!  It was possibly the best zoo I've ever been to, no joke.  They had so many baby animals, it was so amazing.  And they were all so cute!!  It started raining on us, which sucked a bit, but despite being a bit (okay, more than a bit) damp, we made it through in one piece, and with cute pictures of animals!  So have some pictures:

Their ears!!

This reminded me of Frank.  Lauren, I'm looking at you.

This zoo had so many turtles, I want one so badly.

Giraffes are such beautiful animals, and I swear there was a pair of them just standing there staring at us with these patient eyes like they'd seen it all.  They are so expressive.

Another baby.

Such gorgeous animals.  These two nuzzled each other, and it was so sweet.

In any case, it was a good day.  Other than that, classes started today!  I'm really excited.  I'm still taking Czech language, and then I'm taking a class called Czech National Identity, which I'm so excited for.  We had this really interesting conversation about being a foreigner, and what it meant to be an American (how we identified as a whole/unified nation, how it is so incredibly different than how it works here in the Czech Republic/a lot of Central Europe).  It was great.  I'm also taking a class called The History of Jews in Bohemia, which should be really really cool.  It's taught by 1 of only 3 official Rabbis in the entire CR.  It's amazing.  And he's from Chicago, so the congregation that he works with is all in English, which means I'll probably be attending some events this coming week.  I'm really excited.  And we have a couple day trips planned, and a lot of outings around Prague as well, so it should be really great.

The last class that I had today was a gender course, which I am probably most excited for (after the National Identity course).  I'm just so excited to learn about how they identify gender here, considering the construction of the language is so gender based (actually, like all romantic languages, as well) where you have to use the correct endings to your verbs in accordance to your gender, or the gender of the person you are speaking to/about.  I can only imagine, considering how difficult it is in the US for people who don't identify as the gender people perceive them as, that it must be even more difficult here considering the very basis of their language resists change, or rather gender fluidity.

In any case, that's about all I have at the moment.
Much love!