half o day 3

Yesterday was an awesome day.

My roommate got up at 7:30 and made a bunch of noise while getting ready. He eventually left and I fell back asleep for a few hours. Mark and I hit up the internet building in attempt to get it set up for our rooms, his now works mine still doesn’t they said it should by Friday.

We had decided to take a guided tour of Prague through the ERASMUS program at Charles University, so after taking the tram to Prague 1 we met up with a bunch of other foreign students and went to Hradcny (Prague Castle). I could go into detail about all the other students, most of who were extremely friendly save for one Hungarian guy and a German girl.

Prague Castle is indescribable. It was rather dreary day which, took away from the Castle’s magical character and a lot of us were so excited to meet new people I only took a few moments every now and then to really just stand and observe in awe.

Mark, Eliza and I had been discussing Uggs in fashion earlier that day, both of them despised the boots but I stood strong with my fascination with girls in Uggs. Sure enough at Hradcny we saw a group of girls in North Faces and Uggs. It was oddly comforting how quickly I could tell they were American and I wondered if any of the Europeans could determine that as well. I approached them and asked a guy in a North Face windbreaker is he was American. He cheerfully affirmed my suspicion and shot his hand out accompanied with a “You too? Put ‘er there partner” (he wasn’t Texan). The girls wound up being from Wheaton and Glen Ellyn one of whom lives right by D-Lawson. Who would have guessed it? One even goes to Iowa. Being somewhat embarrassed by my American cohorts I quickly left the conversation at that and wished them a nice stay (they were visiting from Italy).

Fast forward a few hours to Mark Eliza and I running around Prague trying to find the place to get our student public transportation passes. We eventually found the building after an hour of searching the same 3sq block area. This pass used up the last of my money from home, so I decided to use an ATM I saw in the building. THEN THE FUCKING MACHINE ATE MY CARD! I have no idea why or what went wrong but it took my card. It gave me a receipt which might as well have read “Fuck off tourist”. I called the number on the receipt and was quickly helped. They are going to retrieve my card and I will pick it up on Friday. Mark gladly offered to float me for the next week or so. We then hurried to the café we went to the day before hoping I could get on the web and call US Bank and e-mail mom etc. Their internet didn’t work, so we sat and drank our absolutely fantastic hot chocolates, I mean really really fantastic and then headed home hoping the internet is working. Of course mine didn’t, so after using Marks and making a 80Kc phone call to US Bank I cancelled my old card and ordered a new one. Should be here in a week and a half or so. UGH.

In desperate need of a pick me up since I had began to feel sicker and sicker all day, we decided to go to the ERASMUS welcome party at Klub Lavka. I don’t think any bar could have a prettier location. The bar is situated on the Vlatava river just before Charles Bridge and looks out towards Hradcny, I don’t have any pictures but just take my word for it. I caught mark looking out an open window towards Charles Bridge and the castle and although cliché, we both acknowledge how very lucky we were to be there.

The club itself was what I expected. Think the music of Vito’s in what should be a 5 star restaurant building, a building most likely older than the US constitution. The beer was great and less than 2 dollars a liter. There was much mingling with students from earlier and also with random people. I took it upon myself to talk to everyone who looked hip and friendly, hip because I at least knew I could talk music with them, and friendly because I don’t want to get killed. (Yo you ever seen that movie Hostel?). I spent most of the night trying to track down this adorable Scottish girl from the tour who had the same scarf as me, I had neve felt like more of a poser.

To be continued….