Spring Break Europe - Part 1

so I guess a crazy week has to begin somewhere

Sunday
We flew out of Prague around 10:40 Sunday night on a little discount airline called BMI Baby. It was small and cute and has a little baby mascot named Tiny. We arrived in Manchester around Midnight local time and caught the 12:30 shuttle to Picadilly station just in time. (next shuttle at 3:20) we arrived about 20 minutes later at our hotel, just across the street from the station, Hotel International. It was old and creaky but colorful and charming. Our room was not much bigger than the sunken in beds and the view out our window was a brick wall and some wooden planks. Amazingly enough I was ecstatic about the place- so much crust and character, proof that it was going to be an adventure from the start.

Monday- Manchester
We got an early start to our day and went downstairs to eat our free breakfast. We made our way over to the little food spread in the dining room and as I was choosing a cereal to go along with my croissant (quite surprised and pleased at the selection) Jeremy and I were approached by the cook/dining man and asked if we wanted a “court” breakfast. Well, we gaped at each other and gaped at him, frightened by not knowing what he was saying or what it was he was offering us, so we politely declined and sat down to eat our cereal, croissants and orange juice. Halfway through breakfast we saw several other people come in and accept the mysterious “court” breakfast. Still hypothesizing on what strange British delicacy this might be, we watched as the cook man brought out plates of hot eggs beans and sausage to the newcomers, and we quickly realized that we had actually declined the “cooked” breakfast. Sneaky Brits. The same cook man asked us for our room number when we sat down as well, and when we told him 101 he said “ah room with a view”

After breakfast we went to the train station to print out our tickets for London the next day. We did this successfully then decided, why not get a day metro pass for Manchester while we’re here? Well the reason why not is that we couldn’t figure out how. We found the ticket machine just fine, but ended up staring at it, poking it like apes for 20 minutes, until we just decided maybe some exercise would do us good. The rest of the day was spent exploring Manchester on foot. This ended up being the perfect decision because the city centre of Manchester, which is where we were ,was actually the perfect size for walking everywhere we wanted to go. We wandered around map-less the whole morning and saw the Manchester cathedral, the Manchester wheel (too expensive to ride), town hall, print works, the theatre, and China Town and it’s fancy arch. We stopped in for a much needed lunch break at Hog’s Head (in a fit of nerdy Harry Potter excitement) where we ravenously gulped down a giant plate of fish and chips and a Guinness each. One of the most satisfying and filling meals I have ever eaten.

We slowly dragged our heavy stomachs out of there and hit up the John Rylands Library. This library is part of Manchester University but has a crazy amount of historical literature. We saw the oldest dated writing fragment of the new testament, which was a fragment of St. John’s Gospel (2nd century AD) along with personal papers of John Wesley, ancient collections of Shakespeare’s plays and lots on the history of printing and fonts. There was even a special corner on the St. Christopher woodcarving I learned about in art history last year, and an example of the “Chancery” font. After the library, Jeremy and I walked along canal street for a little while, played pooh sticks on one of the bridges, yelled at the aggressive ducks who drowned our pooh sticks, went to a place called KRO for some cake, and realized that we were standing in the Picadilly Gardens that we had been searching for all day (I had been expecting more flowers.)

After all the walking we went back the hotel for a nap, then out to the Old Wellington Inn for Dinner. This restaurant had a very medieval England feel to it, small ,creaky, wooden, sticky tables, hearty laughs, warm atmosphere (we liked it a lot). Jeremy had the Timothy Taylor Cask Ale, which I continue to hear about to this day, with bangers and mash, and I had the house wine which was Cancha y Torro Merlot- Delicious!- and a salad with chicken. We walked home in the rain, which added some more glory to my already beaten ballet flats. (they may need to write a book after this)

Tuesday-London
Tuesday morning we declined the cooked breakfast again and the cook man once again reminded us we had the “room with a view.” We took the 9:30 train to London, but before boarding enjoyed a long-winded conversation with an old English chap named Paul Dymond about printing on synthetics, sublimation, and his old business in Greensboro. He even drew Jeremy a picture of some fabric printing machine (that looked more like a bug to me) on the back of his business card. He told us he was on his way to a wind energy convention type thing in London, then we said cheers and parted.

Our train was a little late to arrive due to what the conductor called “ a bit of a fatality on the tracks” (eek!) But we were on our way shortly, and we spent the next two hours enjoying the views from the train window of the English countryside and the many sheep grazing in it. We arrived in London Euston a little before noon and made our way via metro towards King’s Cross Station. Here we found out that Harry Potter is a liar. The entrance to platform 9 ¾ (cute stone wall with 9 on one side and 10 on the other) does not exist in King‘s Cross Station, nor is platform 9a (the closest thing we could find to it) as pretty and stone wall-ish as they make it look in the movie. Sigh, you’ve let me down little wizard. Moving on from that earth shattering disappointment, we took the metro to Victoria station, and saw Buckingham Palace, complete with marching troop of guards. We then walk alongside of St John’s Park which smelled deliciously of fresh flowers, on to Westminster Abbey, St Margaret’s Cathedral, and big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. We ducked into the metro station after this to evade the rain and popped up near a row of little restaurants, which was convenient because as Jeremy noted I was getting to the very grumpy stages of hungry. At Pompadour Patisserie we each had a Panini and shared a pot of tea. For dessert we shared an English style cream tea (recommended to me by Sandy from work) which consisted of a pot of tea, a scone, and butter, jam, and cream butter to spread on it. It was delicious, and melted away all the grumpiness.

We hiked back out into the rain after that and began another afternoon of wandering. We headed across a foot bridge for a look over the Thames River and continued across. We walked along the river for awhile on the other side and discovered a little turn off with mostly closed shops and a large spread of really cool wooden carvings/sculptures in the middle of it all. I took a picture with a duck carving and Jeremy with a lion, and we pressed on. We crossed the Millennium bridge back to the other side where we saw St Paul’s Cathedral, we walked forward a bit more then took the London Bridge back to the other side once again. This bridge was not falling down as the childhood song would have us all believe, however Jeremy and I almost fell down several times trying to cross it against the fierce Thames winds. Mystery revealed…sneaky Brits.

On the other side we saw the egg-shaped town hall, the tower bridge (way cooler looking than London bridge), and hoped about in the little bubbly foot fountains. We ventured on and saw Sir Francis Drake’s Famous Galleon (pretty pirate ship), Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and the London Eye (ferris wheel thing- again to expensive to ride.) we continued walking toward what we hoped would be warm and tasty restaurants but ended up being an endless, rainy, cold pathway to nowhere. We re-routed across a bridge though and finally (as Jeremy noted I was getting to the death stages of hungry and tired) found our way to a restaurant/pub called the Old Monk Exchange, where we enjoyed the “2 meals for 8 Lb” special with a cask ale and a hard cider. Ahhh. After dinner we reluctantly made our way back out into the cold rain toward Victoria station. There we bought 4 “Millie’s Cookies,” took the metro to Euston, and enjoyed our cookies with a hot chocolate while we waited for our train. Jeremy also bought one last cask ale at the Brittania in the station, while I stole some snacks from the free first-class table (if they’re not going to take them then someone should.) Our train platform was announced 4 minutes before it was supposed to leave so we dashed over there and it surprisingly left right on time (too bad for the suckers in the bathroom) we had a confusing layover in Crewe, then made it home to Piccadilly around midnight. Whew, a long two days.

British Terminology
Right Spiffing! = Awesome!
Chips = Fries
Crisps = Chips
Advice Slip = Receipt from ATM (contains no actual advice)
Lifts = Elevators
Queue = Line
Way Out = Exit (public signage)
Cheers = Hello/Goodbye
Bobbies = Police

Lauren

Spring Break Countdown

Mardi Gras (Carnival) in Prague was fun. Our whole group went out together to a club event thing that was organized by some other Americans and had a fun time dancing. I didn't drink anything all night because my stomach was acting up (There has been a miniature plague being passed around our group since day one, that i want to have no part of) so i found it a little harder than usual to strike my groove on the dance floor, (alarmingly harder!) but i still had fun going out and wearing my headdress.

Wednesday was 9am studio as usual (a hungover one for the rest) followed by a Fashion History field trip to Klementinum- a museum with an historical fashion exhibit- and then the Chocolate Museum. We learned all about the history of chocolate, and I am now very grateful to the Mayans and Aztecs for their integral contribution to my life. This museum also featured posters toward the end with “FAQ’s about Chocolate” claiming that eating chocolate actually helps lower cholesterol and prevent cavities….the museum was also sponsored by Belcolade… but I think I might adopt their mentality for a while. Viva Chocolate!

Thursday was more sketching and designing for our midsummer night’s dream costumes in studio and in fashion illustration we drew self-portraits. I haven’t finished mine yet but I like the way its coming.

Friday was a glorious day. I awoke around 10:30 and began my day with a run. I was running towards the big scary TV tower thinking to myself …mmmm its fairly mild out today, how nice, I hope it doesn’t snow later. Then miraculously out of nowhere the sun appeared. . .(cue choruses of hallelujah)… this is its first sighting for a couple of weeks now and I was so bewildered and elated at its spontaneous appearance I almost tripped over my own feet and fell into a little old lady. Lucky for her I was able to catch myself, but i continued running blindly toward the brilliant beacon of sweet spring weather in the sky… ahhhh delicious vitamin D. It was a fickle beacon though and played peek -a-boo with me a few times before I reluctantly returned to the hostel in fatigue. I caught another glimpse of the elusive light on my way into studio, but it was once again fleeting. In studio I made a pair of Capri pants for my trip to Spain this week.- This week is spring break so Jeremy and I have a trip planned for Manchester & London, England and Alicante, Spain! I’m so excited I can hardly sit still and wait, while everyone else is leaving.

Saturday I had another lovely run and then Jeremy and I did laundry all day at the American friendly place a few blocks down. Hooray for smoke free clothing! Later we went to dinner at Sudicku, a small rusticky place around the block. They had delicious cheesy garlic soup, and tasty dark beer called Kozel Cerny. I also had a caprese salad but was too full to finish.

Today was another run, (it’s starting to get nicer out, I can’t resist) some last minute shopping (cute new blue raincoat for drizzly England), and packing finalization. Mostly I’m just trying to distract myself from flipping out, I’m so excited! Especially for Spain. I really miss the Hispanic culture and mentality I experienced in Peru. Prague is a wonderful, beautiful city but the people and lifestyles are very different here and the lingering communism aura can be a little depressing. I’m looking forward to sunny spring when nothing will be able to dampen my mood... But for right now, all I see is the sweet sunshine of Spanish beaches and handmade markets… ahhhhh. Back in a week.

Lauren

Floating Through Prague

So Sunday ended up being my vege day. I did some knitting (Gennie taught me how to knit in the round so I’m making a leg warmer) watched some Friends on my laptop and went to studio for dinner. Later I did ab-solutions with a few girls at the hostel and eventually went to bed. Monday I had a nice slushy run in the morning and studio in the afternoon. I made sausage risotto for dinner which was pretty well received, I think, and I also made a cheesecake for Tuesday. Later on a group of us went to the Shitting Cat for a few drinks - always good fun.

Today Beekeeping was canceled so I had a free day. Gennie Jeremy and I decided to spend the day walking around Mala Strana (Little Quarter.) Everything there was really cute and colorful and the day turned out to be pretty nice considering we woke up to windy, wet snow and more slush. We also saw the Fred and Ginger Building (nick-named for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) or “Dancing House” while we were out, which is way cool to look at but is really just a boring office building inside.
In other news today is Mardi Gras, or “Carnival” here, so many of us are planning to head out on the town tonight for some cultural enlightenment. I’m working on a headdress right now. It has pink flowers :) Also, the Cheesecake turned out pretty good; people made yummy noises.

Some Notes about Prague:
1. Everyone has a dog, they take them with them everywhere, and the majority of them are smaller than a football.
2. The air here is comprised of about 90% cigarette smoke and 10% cloudiness. You cannot escape it, not even in sleep.
3. The metro system kicks ass, but only till 12 am. The tram system takes over from here and requires at least one sober mind to navigate.
4. Lots of snow and slush but no where to play in it :(
5. The air is coldest in the middle of the day
6. “No” (short for Ano) means yes -verrrry confusing and misleading
7. Lots and lots of pretty (but expensive) glass stuff in all the stores.
7. Still no cookies to be found :(

Lauren

The Week of Endless Snow

Another week in Prague, another batch of strange stories.

Tuesday - Another riveting bee lesson. Our professor showed us a video of himself shirtless as a young man engulfed from head to shoulders in a swarm of bees. “it is very warm inside there” he said with an elated grin. We also tried honey/butter sandwiches which are apparently very popular among Czech children.

Wednesday - we were assaulted (verbally and physically) by Nina’s “seamstress” in our efforts to record our body measurements. After which we received no instruction on what to do with the measurements or ourselves so most of us just cruised the internet. History was more of the same power-point hullabaloo.

Thursday - Field trip with Nina to the fabric store in East Jabib. I bought supplies to make pajama shorts for the sweltering hostel and Capri pants for Spain. Finally something real to do in studio! We were then assigned our Midsummer’s night dream characters to make a costume for, but given no due date or specifics for the project. . . .Me: “Nina when will this be due?” Nina: “Okay yah, you think about it for this week and maybe yah next week too then you pin it together and yah we‘ll do it.”….. In fashion illustration we drew our hands in different positions then took a field trip to a body exhibit in old town square.
Later that night I successfully led a group of us to Lucerna- an 80’s music bar/club that I found online and looked awesome. Unfortunately when we arrived the man at the told us “finish finish” and wouldn’t let us in, so we hoped around to a few different places after that but generally we discovered that Thirsty Thursday is just not a big custom in Prague. Oh well.

Friday - slept a lot. Went to studio for dinner, came home.
Friday night - sigh, I once again headed up a successful journey across town with an unsuccessful end. This time to U Fleku - Pragues oldest Brewery/bar. It has been around since the 1450’s and apparently so have its hours.. It closes at 11 and we arrived around 11:05. But we managed to salvage the evening by doing a bit of bar-hopping….a very small bit, we didn’t make it past the 2nd bar. But for good reasons. 1. It was cheap 2. They had a jukebox thing with American music on it (CCR!!) 3. They didn’t kick us out for dancing in the only 2 square feet of floor space there. 4. We met some very loud and friendly Czech friends named Jakub and Jakub’s friend with long hair. and 5. Our new friends bought us shots. (okay that one was actually a bad reason.) Also Terry taught me the Czech motto that one should be “loyal to one man, one woman, and one beer,” which is apparently why bar hopping is frowned upon. Fun night with an easy tram ride home.
Saturday- we woke up for the hostel breakfast at 9:30 and quickly went back to sleep. We re-awoke around 11:30 and went to Bohemia Bagel for lunch with the rest of the group. Gennie, Eleanor, Blakeley, Laura-nelle and I then went to the tower on top of the astrological clock in old town square to take pictures of the city. The view was soo Beautiful. We got some really great pictures and met some really cute British guys. After that we trekked out in the snow and slush and frigid winds to Vysehrad, which is a quaint and quiet little town a few metro stops over. It has a really pretty church/castle that we weren’t able to go inside because it wasn’t Sunday and this amazing graveyard. It was huge and snowy and nestled in lush green trees with little birds chirping-very mystical enchanted garden type feel. But anyway it has all these famous Czech peoples graves, and they all are very ornate and royal looking. A very cool place to see. We popped in a café there for some overpriced coffee then trekked home.

Saturday night - our trekking group went to my favorite place around the corner for dinner, where I once again had the French onion soup, and followed it this time with a dessert of fried strawberries and ice cream. yummmmmmmmm. My addiction to that place grows stronger with every visit. After a long day in the snow and a belly full of hot tasty things I was content to just stay in and vege in my room for a night, but the rest of the girls had made plans to go to Lucerna (the sweet 80’s place that rejected us on Thursday) so I postponed my vegging until later and went out. Possibly one of my best decisions yet on this trip. We had a glorious night of 80’s dancing in front of a large video screen playing the original music videos. There was also a large stage in front of the screen to dance on . . .and being like any other stage ever built this one naturally had a few stairs to allow people to well, access it. (duh) Well, after drinking only one beer (one!) and in a fit of elation at hearing the first chords of Madonna’s “Like a prayer” I grabbed Eleanor and made a bee line for the stage. She climbed the two (yes only two) stairs ahead of me, but apparently I could not be bothered with the second one, so my brain ignored it and continued zoombie-ing towards the bouncy beats of Madonna. My left shin had different ideas though, and alerted me to the stair’s presence…twice. My right foot was in on the reminder too. Bruised but not distracted I regained control of my limbs, and enjoyed fabulous 80’s videos and dancing till 3 in the morning. I awoke later that morning to achy bruises, wondering who had been kicking my shins and stepping on my feet all night. (only one beer I swear!)

Lauren

Skiing, sweets, and swollen toes

I am really starting to like this three day weekend, every weekend deal. Friday a group of about 13 of us went skiing at a mountain called Skiareal Herlikovice (Snow hill) about an hour and a half away. We got a bus ride there + lift ticket for about $30 then rentals for $15. Not a bad deal. It was a small mountain but the trails were nice and powdery and not deathly steep. They were also un-groomed which was nice but also tricky when little bumps would take you by surprise. I found a little excursion of a trail on the left side of the mountain which had about 2 feet of untouched powder sitting on top a quaint little barn on the side and a peaceful view of the distant towns. Ahhhh, so lovely. The mountain didn’t really have a lodge anywhere, but it had several little outdoor pit-stops along the mountain for food. Menu choices: kielbasa, goulash, fried cheese, french fries, beer, and mulled wine. I decided to be classy and go with wine and cheese (the classiness of this choice may be negated by the fact that they were mulled and fried, but then again I’m in a country where no one thinks twice about their liver or arteries- so I say its fair game) I took a long nap on the ride home then settled in at the hostel for some serous thawing and sleeping.

Saturday was a tourist day. Several girls and I started our morning early with a few museum visits. We hit the museum of communism, which was probably the first museum I’ve ever been to where I read every single one of the long info plaques- very interesting (and also a little confusing due to the translations) stuff. After that we went to the sex machines museum which was eye opening, interesting, funny, and disturbing all in one visit. Anna and I did a little touristy browsing after that then headed back to the hostel. Later that evening some girls and I got dressed up for v-day and went out to dinner. We went to a place around the corner which was empty but ironically out of just about everything we tried to order and also very slow. But we eventually drank ate and paid for a very tasty meal then skedaddled to meet the rest of the group in old town square. Here we waited for a while, took a picture with a stranger dressed as a gorilla and hovered together for warmth. When everyone else showed up we searched for a bar/club with reasonable prices and eventually settled on Chappeau Rouge. This was a crowded bar filled with a rowdy group of Americans (besides us) that had a dance floor downstairs. We spent most of our time down there and while I had a very fabulous time dancing, I hadn’t planned on doing so and thus had not wore the proper foot attire (in other words my trusty, holey ballet flats were home safe in my closet and I was bouncing around and attempting to “get low” in 2 inch high, pointy-toed heels) half a bottle of champagne at dinner followed by two beers at the bar managed to keep me pretty oblivious to the pain at the time (and continue bouncing like an idiot) but the cold cobblestoned walk home was an excruciating one. I vaguely recall walking shoe-less in my stockings for the second half of it and referring to the dirty cobblestones as “wonderful cold pillows” ….enough said.

Sunday I arose late to sunless skies and swollen toes….but I had to be happy that they were indeed still attached. I did some laundry in the shower sink which was actually very relaxing and home-ish then went about strewing it from my window to dry. Gennie loaned me her laundry line and clothespins while I loaned her my computer with Zoombinis game, and I rigged a very, um. . . elegant display for the neighbors. (see photo) We went to the studio after that to recreate our pasta dinner from the night before. Then I came back to the hostel and watched other people do homework that I’ve yet to experience.

Today I woke up to a snow covered city and still swollen toes. I went to studio in the afternoon, where Nina told us “ okay, now you have snow, so now you have everything.” ….??? but anyways, we finally began our first project: designing a costume for A Midsummer’s Night Dream. By began, of course I mean that Nina and Lad brought it up then had us sit through two very strange foreign movie interpretations of the play, throughout which Lad attempted to narrate what was happening as Nina interrupted and they bickered about which characters loved which characters and why, and then Lad told Nina “don’t get so emotionally involved.” haha, at least we have some entertainment. After the movies, we started making mini costumes for our little wooden figures. After class I skyped with mom and grandma, then Gennie and I went on fabric store hunt. We found the one she was looking for, which was cute and had cool stuff but also had gaggingly high prices so we decided to hold off for a while. In our travels though we also came across a cute and colorful hippy-esque consignment shop called Toalettey (interesting name choice yes). They had lots of bold flowery things that were more fun to gawk at than try on, but I found a cute gray sweatshirt/dress type thing that was mild but hip so I bought it, and plan on flaunting it shamelessly :)

Also we did a secret valentine thing at studio, and Anna got me as her valentine so she gave me a little fuzzy duck purse with chocolate eggs inside and some wine-o gummies. As a side note Anna is my best wine drinking pal and i obviously am very fond of ducks and chocolate so this gift was shear joy and perfection :)

Lauren

Cookie Monster

So I made the Stromboli on Sunday night and everything went off without a hitch.-besides the shockingly high price of cheddar. Hooray! So figuring I would ride the momentum of my shopping/baking success I quickly made plans to bake chocolate chip cookies this week.

Apparently I over estimated my momentum, along with the cookie passion of the Czech Republic. I guess I hadn’t noticed that cookies weren’t a common item in shops or bakeries - somehow my cookie radar missed this? Or perhaps it just broke instantly upon landing in this cookie barren desert…. Anyways it took me about an hour of searching futilely through the congested aisles of Tesco (Czech‘s most American grocery store) for vanilla extract, brown sugar, chocolate chips and baking soda for me to comes to terms with the fact that maybe home baked cookies just aren’t a big thing here. Disappointed, but not discouraged I improvised my recipe with vanilla sugar, loose brown sugar, crushed chocolate bars and baking powder. And with a sigh of relief I left Tesco. But as if that fiasco just wasn’t quite enough to really challenge me, I discovered on my return to the institute that our kitchen contained absolutely no measuring devices. Ugh.
This may have deterred a lesser cookie fanatic , but fortunately for me the world holds no stronger motivation for me than a batch of fresh baked cookies and a t-shirt decorated with ingredients. I scrounged up a small teaspoon and a coffee mug roughly the size of a 1 cup measurement and continued my war with fate. The dough came out a little bit more liquidy that usual but tasted up to par, so into the tiny oven it went. And sure enough after 8-10 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius I had 12 lovely little brown lumps of sweet melty chocolatey goodness. Ahhhh sweeet victory. My studio friends agreed.

In other news our group had a bowling trip on Monday. It was fun, but it was also bowling… so not exhilerating. I had bees and beekeeping for the first time on Tuesday. Our professor doesn’t speak English super well but he knows a lot so it was informative. For the second half of class we mostly just watched a discovery channel/pbs video on the entire sociology of honey bees. Frankly, one of the most fascinating and interesting videos I’ve ever seen while also one of the most repulsive. Those cameras get sickeningly close to the action. And I will think twice before I doodle a cute friendly bumble bee on my math homework again.

On Tuesday night we all went to a jazz club which was a cool hole in the ground type of place. The music was really awesome ….and so were the drinks. Anna and I shared a bottle of wine which was nice, until the grad students all decided to take shots of absinthe with Art. (Art by the way is the 50ish year old dean of the landscape architecture program. Who was with us, and consistently drinking with us- the absinthe was his suggestion- for 2 weeks but flying home to Raleigh the next morning at some ungodly hour. We haven’t heard anything bad so we assume he made it home okay) anyways I wasn’t suicidal enough to try absinthe, but witnessing the whole thing inspired everybody to take a shot of something. My poison was absolut pears -which like the rest of ‘em- sounds and smells wayyyy better than it tastes. Wednesday morning was a groggy one for all of us.

Wednesday was usual classes and a few of us made pizza for dinner. Later we had a mini movie night and watched monsters inc on my laptop in the hostel. I passed out about half way through. Ah sweet sleeep. Today is normal classes again, we made valentine dresses for our little dress forms in studio. There are plans for sushi tonight (should be interesting at least) and skiing tomorrow.

Lauren

Back in Town

So I’ve been back in Prague for almost a week now , and I have to say its nice to be free of Parisian prices. 4 days of 4 Euro beers is just too much for too long. We got back late Monday night, and Tuesday was a free day for me, so I just did some grocery shopping, attempted to skype mom without a microphone (unsuccessful) and went to dinner with Anna, Jeremy and Rima at Putna - a Mexican restaurant where I had an awesome and cheap mixed vegetable “salad” (oddly many of the salads here seem to lack lettuce).

Wednesday was the first day of classes. I had fashion/costume design studio 9-11:40 where our professors (Nina and Ladislav) left us to construct 3-D “anythings” out of paper for 2 ½ hours. I made a mobile with hanging flowers, which was evaluated as “vary naiiice” by Ladislav and “yah yah it looks like maybe a some vary nice jewelry” by Nina. Success? I’ll let you be the judge. We had Fashion history after that, which, in a nutshell, consisted of Nina flipping through very information-dense power point slides at an alarmingly fast rate, Ladislav talking about them (Yah Yah this was very important style yah) and us trying frantically to copy down as much info as we could before the slide changed /slash figuring out what we would be expected to remember from the lesson, then eventually giving up, watching the flashing, fading, and disorienting layering of images on the screen, and wondering just who the hell taught Nina how to use Power point.

Thursday consisted of another 3-d paper class in studio ( I made a paper dress and hat for my little wooden figure.) I had a little break then I sat in on the Czech language class and actually learned a great deal of helpful information . The teacher is very fun and upbeat, so the class was good and I think I will continue going for a while. After that was Fashion illustration (with Nina and Lad again!) where we drew draping fabric for almost 3 hours - Eleanor and I strayed from draping for a little while to draw some figures. Lad thought this was “vary naiice,” Nina gave us more drapery to draw. After this very long day several of us went to get Eurodogs for dinner ( 20 Koruna ($1) hot dog in a tube of bread, with not enough mustard, in my opinion - looks kinda like a corn dog) then we went to café café for some delicious cakes. Later on almost our entire group went out to Radost FX- a Dance club one metro stop away. Lots of fun, drinking and dancing. On the downside of the fun, my favorite black ballerina flats now have small holes forming in the backs, but on the plus side, this suggests that my dance moves/skills may have reached a new level.

Friday was a sleep till noon type of day, followed by a group trip to Bohemia Bagel for brunch (an American style bagel/breakfast place)I went to the motor café for internet, ran with Blakeley, then dined around the corner at Obycejny Suet with Rima and Blakeley - most definitely the best French onion soup I have ever had in my life and only 30 Koruna!!



Saturday I shopped with Gennie, Anna and Blakely in Wenceslas square. We hit New Yorker, (where I bought fabulous yellow boots! ) H&M, Zara, and Mango. Then anna and I went grocery shopping and to Café Louvre for their renown hot chocolate (might as well have been a melted chocolate bar! yum.) Then I successfully skyped mom and dad, got more French onion soup with Rima and went out to Club Cross with several girls. I decided this was both the coolest place I’ve ever seen (crazy clock like insides with killer light stuff) and simultaneously the sketchiest. Getting home was also an effort, but we are slowly figuring out the tram system - me being the slowest of course.

Today is Laundry day. I’m at a Laundromat several blocks away and Its very expensive here so I think in the future I will wash more of my stuff in the sinks at the Hostel. I’m hoping to make Stromboli later tonight at the institute, but as of now my search for pizza dough and normal deli ham continues.

Lauren