The Last Week.....

Sunday night Gennie, Jeremy and I ended up seeing Gran Torino at the Flora cinema. The movie was really good but a little bit lacking in dialogue and a little bit substituting with racial stereotyping…also fairly predictable but still a strong story. I really liked the song at the end.

Monday 4/20
Jeremy and I attempted to go to one of Prague’s better flea markets, but found it short on cool stuff and full of sunglasses, strange souvenirs and crappy clothes. Disappointing.. Off to studio after that. Last group meeting; I gave Dana my revised version of the handbook which she seemed impressed with, then some online job hunting for me while everyone else finished up their cocktail dresses. I went back to the hostel to study beekeeping after that.

Tuesday 4/21
Went for a morning run, then skyped mom and studied bees some more. We took our exam at 3:30, and Dalibor gave us our grades an hour later. I managed an A on the test which equals an A for the semester! Hooray. I fiddled around with some little fabric crafts after that then went back to the hostel to begin getting my things organized for home (holy crap!) Skyped dad there too.

Wednesday 4/22
We turned in our final fashion history papers then headed out to the castle for our cocktail dress photo shoot. We mostly just took pictures in little nooks of the town around the castle, but everywhere we went was really pretty and we had a nice (tad bit chilly) day so I think the pictures will turn out really well. Eleanor and I left together when we were done and hopped on the tram. We traveled about 50 feet before the tram stopped and kicked us out along with the passengers of 3 other stopped trams. We were not sure why this happened, but with all the confusion, scrambling, and misdirected people (including ourselves) it felt like the world was coming to an end. Eleanor and I thrust ourselves into the crowd of people moving rapidly down the hill hoping for the best. After a steady trek downhill and several crazed traffic sprints we made it to the metro station and normalcy and boarded the green line safely back to studio. I popped into the Landscape architecture open house, saw the cool stuff they have been slaving over for the last few weeks, snagged a free glass of wine and made my way back to the hostel.

Thursday 4/23
We slept in a little bit, then began preparations for our evening performance/final show. After some primping and final costume adjustments we made our way over to the small art gallery/our performance space. This was about 2pm. We ran through the play several times, began drinking, then ran through it some more. Eleanor and I took a break to go find a flower shop (for Nina) and searched the nearby streets, sketchily drinking beer out of our pockets. We were successful in our flower hunt (though we had some small communication troubles with the florist) then decided to pick up some liquor for Ladislav (he is always stealing sips of ours so we thought this would be appropriate.) We snuck successfully back into the space without being seen, and then Blakeley arrived about 15 minutes after us with another bundle of flowers for Nina (oooops!) small communication error but not a major problem. Our show went on around 5:30 in front a crowded little audience. It went pretty smoothly -only a few minor hiccups that mostly went unnoticed, then it was cocktail dress time. We did a little catwalk to Michael Jackson and we were done! Hooray! Time for wine and dinner. We lugged all of our stuff back to the studio then took a very scenic ride on Tram 22 to the Monastery where we had our first group dinner way back in January. I explored the pretty gardens and scenery outside for a bit with Fernando, Ben and John, (everything was so green and thick, and mystical feeling. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to run around like a little kid playing tag and hide and go seek till its too dark to see) then we returned inside with the others and began our evening of excellent beer and food. I had a half liter of the mixed (light and dark) beer and one of straight dark. Delicious Klaster. Also it’s worth mentioning that Lorna themed the night “Mustache Mayhem,” and so Martin (landscape professor) went around drawing exotic mustaches on everyone’s faces with Eleanor’s eyeliner (much to her dismay.) He gave me a pair of scary eyebrows, which I later wiped off in favor of a squiggly mustache. It was nice to end things where they began.

Friday 4/24
We slept in and after I did some organizing in the hostel, I made my way over to studio with Rima to clean our stuff out of there. Ladislav greeted us at the door offering champagne and shots of Beckerovka. (this was about 2pm mind you, though he had been offering them to others all morning) I cleaned up my stuff, turned in my key, then went down to the market to search for last minute souvenirs for a particular brother who has too many t shirts, for me to possibly bring him home another one. I settled on something appropriate for a graduating senior then loaded up my studio stuff and headed back to the hostel. After some more organizing and packing I got ready for the birthday dinner we had planned. I was Briand and Blakeley’s birthday with mine coming on Monday so we decided to go out to a Staropramen Restaurant with a small gang to celebrate. The restaurant was definitely on the slow side with delivering the food, but once it came the wait didn’t seem so bad. Delicious. Add in two beers and a funfetti cake from Katelyn and Jess, and I was happy (and stuffed) camper. Back To the hostel after dinner, where we decked ourselves out in our best 80’s fashions for a night of 80’s and 90’s music at the very popular Lucerna Music Bar. I rocked a side ponytail, big hoops and my newly acquired white rimmed shades. We ended the night on Billie Jean (which might as well be the theme song for the whole trip) around 2:40 am and caught the 51 tram outside just in time. Terry was proud to show us how he had sweated entirely through two layers of clothes (including a canary yellow hoodie with cut off sleeves. Viva the 80‘s!) Great last night in Prague.

Saturday 4/25
Today is a day of last minute picture taking, final packing, and final beer enjoyment. Nothing really panned other than that. Maybe one last trip to the French onion soup place around the corner (Ordinary People) for dinner. 9 am shuttle to the airport tomorrow.


Things I’ve failed to mention about Prague so far
PDA is everywhere and it’s out of control (dry humping and ear licking on public transit, On a daily basis!)
Bright colored tights are all the rage
Chips, popcorn etc. come in three main flavors: salted, paprika, bacon
They love their 80’s music here, and I love them for it :)

Lauren