Wine Festival!

So this weekend was absolutely fabulous.  I'm finally feeling better, though still a little bit tired, but I think that's just normal school/external stress now.  So yay! 

Friday we had Czech class, of course.  All last week was intensive Czech.  Which was.. definitely intensive.  We have learned basically everything we need to navigate around Prague (ie we can now order food in Czech, say hello/goodbye, ask how much something is in a shop, etc.) although we have yet to learn how to as "Where is the bathroom?"... hmm.  Counting is hard.  The numbers 3 and 4 are literally unpronouncable for anyone who grew up not making the sounds that Czechs do.. so we can come close, but it's kind of hilarious sometimes hearing us try to say them.  Last Friday on the tram we were quickly running through the words for 'who' 'what' 'where' 'when' etc. and we kept getting confused, and there was a lady on the tram who was watching/laughing at us lightly, and then she would step in every once and a while to affirm a decision we made.  At the time, it felt super awkward, but thinking back, if I were on a train in the US and a bunch of college girls were standing there, saying 'who...what...where...when...why?' I'd laugh too! 

Fun fact: one way to say hello informally is to say "Ahoj"-- pronounced "Ahoy!" which just makes me happy.

Anyway, so yesterday was a fabulous day.  We went in the morning to the opera house in Prague, and bought tickets for La Traviata!  So we're going to see that tomorrow night!  I'm so excited.  And then Martha and I wandered around for a bit, went to Wenceslas square, saw a rap battle/demonstration going on with a banner saying "9/11 was an inside job" (This, I just found fascinating... like, I'm not offended, because it's clearly wrong, they legitimately think the US Gov blew up the 2 towers, but.. it's just not their country. Why do they care?  This fascinated me.) And we went to possibly the most amazing book store I have been in in my entire life.  It was literally 4 stories tall, and absolutely massive.  I'm a little bit in love, even if most of the books are in Czech.

After, we went to a wine festival up at Troja Chateau, which is freaking gorgeous.  The wine festival was beyond incredible.  There were so many people there, but it was great because they were all native Czechs, and it wasn't a touristy event.  There were so many people just hanging out, of all ages, and their dogs too, drinking some absolutely fabulous wine.  They have this thing here called Burcak, which is young wine, meaning it hasn't been fermented very long.  It is super sweet, and tastes almost like fruit juice.  But I quite enjoy it.  We walked around and took pictures for a bit, and then just pulled up a piece of grass in a nice little group and hung out in the shade all afternoon.

And then, last night Maya (our Czech flatmate-- who is actually Slovakian) cooked us dinner!  She made Cous-cous, and taught me what to do as she went along, which was very helpful.  We invited our neighbor over, as well.  He's originally from Indiana, but he's been living in Prague for 19 years today.  It was really fun.  We just had dinner, drank more fabulous wine, and talked about Czech customs all night.   He even lent us a book called The Czechs in a Nutshell which had Maya in fits of giggles. 

Okay, I'm making a promise now to start updating much more regularly so I don't forget things/ make such long entries.
Much love <3