blog. (by vanessa)

Well folks, for the first time since I have been here, I am leaving this lovely city and heading to Venice for the weekend. Expect a lengthy update upon my return. Ciao!

Prague Castle

Two weeks in. After 14 days of living in the Czech Republic, there are some things that I love and some things that have proven to be quite frustrating. For one, the Česky (Czech people) have been anything but welcoming. NYU warned us that they would be a bit more reserved than we are used to back home (example: no one speaks on the metro here), but it turns out that “reserved” was quite the understatement. The citizens of Prague have turned out to be flat out rude. I have been shoved out of the way when waiting for a tram, hissed at when I occupy one of the seats on the tram, and completely ignored when waiting in line to check out at the grocery store… to name a few instances. Now I understand that all of Europe looks down on us loud, annoying Americans, but I have never experienced anything like this before.

Here is a photo of the main transportation system here in Prague, they are above ground trams and they run all over the city.

The trams we use to get around everyday.

Classes started on Monday. It was actually quite comforting to get into a routine again. It made Prague start to feel more like home rather than a four month vacation. Classes I am taking here: Economic Principles, Czech Advertising & Society, Intro to Marketing, and Czech Art & Architecture.  The last one is the class I am most excited about: 50% of class time is spent actually touring the city. Hopefully by the time that everyone comes to visit in November, I will know ALL there is to know about this beautiful city. NYU held a really nice welcome dinner for us on Monday night. They served us a really great dinner and they had an open bar with all the Pilsner Urquel and Wine you could drink. Here is the first and only picture so far of Dave and me in Prague (I guess that’s what we get for being the photographers of the group) we are standing on NYU’s balcony that looks out onto Old Town Square (the heart of Prague).

Dave & Me at NYU Welcome Dinner

Here is my main group of friends here in Prague and one of our RA’s, Lenka (All of the resident assistants for our program are actually Czech students who go to school at the Charles University here in Prague)

My main group of friends

Food. Figuring out what to eat is maybe the most difficult thing to do here in Prague. This is definitely not a good city for a vegetarian– the Czechs are all about their meats and they are delicious. A typical meal you might find for about 50 Kc (~$3 USD) is Klobása which consists of a tasty sausage, some mustard and two slices of mediocre bread:

Klobasa Meal

But the other day we stumbled into a restaurant in Staré Město (Old Town) with a cheap Daily Special Menu. The only problem is that it was entirely in Czech. I decided to just go for it and I ordered Veprove Platek… lucky for me it turned out to be a slice of Pork and it was delicious and only 75Kc (~$5 USD)

Veprove Platek

Tourists. Dave and I did a walking tour from Old Town down along the Vltava river to Vyšehrad (the first castle and establishment in Prague) Here are some photos:

Prague Castle and the Vltava River

Dave and the Dancing Building

Street Market in Old Town

Really Neat Statue

Tourist

I added a bunch of stuff to my Calendar. Dave and I are hopping over to Venice for the weekend in two weeks! We actually got a decently priced hotel in Santa Croce on the Grand Canal. Anyways, I hope all is well back in the states! Ciao!

Ahoy from the wonderful city of Praha! It has been a hectic first few days here. Dave and I arrived early Saturday morning and we were met at the airport by NYU staff. Of course, the airline lost my luggage as I expected they would. I had a really fast connection at JFK and I JUST made my plane, so I am guessing that that is where I got separated from my luggage. The delivered it to me the next day, so it didn’t turn out to be a big ordeal. In other slightly disappointing news, dave and I are both still very sick. It hinders the desire to want to go out and explore our new city. I still feel like I am just here on vacation- it hasn’t really sunk in that this is going to be home for the next 4 months.

Housing. I am sort of disappointed about my housing situation. The apartments that I ended up in are pretty far from the city center (Equivalent to living in Brooklyn with respect to NYU). We are in a more residential area called Nusle and it takes a good 40 minutes to get to class by way of a foot and tram combination. The building is pretty nice. I share a suite with 9 other girls and 2 bathrooms. Everyone is really great and since our building is so far from everything, we are really getting to know each other and are spending a lot of time together.

Impressions thus far. The city of Prague is beautiful and the NYU academic buildings are located right on Old Town Square which is the most recognized area of the city. As I was warned, the food here is sub-par. Every restaurant seems to serve mediocre Italian cuisine (pizza & pasta). We finally found our first Czech restaurant today and it was pretty decent… goulash and huge sausages with interesting tasting mustard. The Czech language is very interesting. It sounds like a combination between German and Russian. We have had 3 intensive language courses so far and the hardest thing to say is the number four- it is spelled “ctyri” and pronounced “shtrshe”.

Pictures. I have yet to take my real camera out, so all I have are some preliminary point-and-shoot pictures for you.

View from an NYU Classroom

Old Town Square

The Astrological Clock

9 of my 10 Suitemates

That’s all I have for now! Na shledanou (Goodbye!)