blog. (by vanessa)

Brighton. On December 19th we said goodbye to Prague and went to stay with Dave’s cousins in Brighton, England (about 1 hour south of London). Brighton was a really neat city, a very young town with a lot going on. We ate a lot of asian food because you can’t really trust it in Prague. Also, we had a few home cooked meals which was quite a treat. Oh, and the fish & chips were amazing.

Brighton Shopping

Brighton Pier

Dave & Cousins on the Beach

London. On Monday we took a train into London and spent the whole day walking around. Cars driving on the opposite side of the road made crossing the street a rather difficult task. Luckily there were some helpful signs:

Helpful Street Signs

Westminster Abbey

Parliament

Dave & The London Eye

London Skyline

Cool Streets

Cool Buildings

London was a very interesting mix of old and new architecture, but I think it worked and didn’t seem out of place.

Modern

Tower Bridge

Double-Decker Bus

Red Phone Booth

Driving on the wrong side of the street!

Big Ben at Night

Overall I thought London was a pretty neat city. Obviously, I wish I had more time to explore it, but I am glad I was able to visit at all.

Before leaving Prague, NYU held a formal goodbye ball, here are a couple pictures:

With our favorite professor

Friends from my Dorm

The journey home was really long. We left Brighton at 6am (Brighton time) then flew 1.5 hrs to Dublin, then 9 hrs to Chicago where we enjoyed lovely Aer Lingus cuisine:

Yum.

and then we arrived in Chicago to a snow storm. I ended up being in stuck in Chicago for 6 hours and Dave had to stay overnight.

Chicago Snow

Now I am back home in Palos Verdes and celebrating my 22nd birthday. I am sad that my adventures in Europe are over, but somewhat relieved to be stationery for a bit. Also, it is nice to not be living in an apartment with 10 girls anymore. I am looking forward to going back to NY and living in the West Village for my final semester of college (Yikes!).

Český Krumlov. This past weekend, NYU took a group of us to the beatuifully preserved Renaissance town called Český Krumlov. It is located about 3 hours south of Prague and it is often referred to as “the pearl of Central Europe”. The small town is surrounded by a big bend in the Vltava River (which is the same river that runs through Prague). Český Krumlov is so well preserved because it was basically forgotten after the medieval and Renaissance periods in Bohemia and thus experienced no damages due to wars.

This is the town of Český Krumlov: (Click on the Image to See Full Size)

No Czech town would be complete without a Castle (“Hrad” in Czech):

NYU put us up in the Traveller’s Hostel there, but somehow we ended up with the Apartment Suite complete with kitchen, 2 bathrooms, loft area, fireplace and 2 couches. Pretty fancy for a hostel room. As my mom would say, I am incredibly lucky. (click to see larger)

Myself, suitemate Amanda and Czech RA Lenka below the Castle Complex:

Playing around in the Castle Gardens (Did I mention that Fall is absolutely gorgeous here in Central Europe?):

Bozkovske Caves. Two weeks ago we went on an NYU day trip which included a tour of the Bozkovske caves of Northern Bohemia and a 3 hour hike through the woods. Sadly, the caves were a pretty big let down. They had paved paths and installed lighting which took away from the whole caving experience. The stalagmite (stalactite? i can never remember which one it is) formations were still very cool.

Pretty, pretty fall leaves (click to see larger)

We passed some pretty neat old farm houses on our hike:

Our NYU group (click to see larger):

Next Thursday we are off on our big trip: Fall Break! My ten days will be spent between Milan, Madrid and finishing it off with Halloween in Amsterdam. We have all of our hostels booked and  I will get to see a few familiar faces along the way: Meghan in Madrid and Christian in Amsterdam. Although, before I embark I have 4 midterms and 2 papers to get through. Yuck!

I will leave you with this great picture Dave took of (left to right) me, my roommate Becky, suitemate Amanda and friend Krista who lives upstairs (click to see larger):

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!)

Job Update. Wednesday I finally decided to get one of the VP’s involved in my transition decision because I was sick and tired of just standing by. I needed a final answer so I could either make room in my suitcase for an extra laptop or not. And surprise, surprise… in order for me to work from the Czech Republic, I would need to apply for a work visa. And to top that off, in order to get a work visa I would have to cancel my student visa (the one i spent 5 months applying for). It really came down to a simple decision in the end… there was no way I was willing to put myself through the visa application process again. So, I will not be continuing on for Mattel abroad. They still want me to come back in January once I return to New York, but web design isn’t really what I want to do in life.  

Dave. Can you believe it has been a whole year since we so casually decided to start referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend? You can thank Dave’s mom for that. If there was any good that came out of her horrible accident, it was Dave & I solidifying our relationship. So, here’s to another exciting year of life and I think the best is yet to come! CHEERS!

Halloween 2007