WOOT WOOOOOT

I have arrived in Prague. Talk about culture shock. My backpack wound up weighing a lot so lugging that around sucked as I attempted to find my dorm which looks likes a mix between Cabrini Green and Mayflower, it was most likely built during the Soviet era and it definitely has that feel, but I think it will suffice! I have a roommate who I am guessing will be Asian, he has yet to come back to the room, he is in for quite the surprise.

My RA is an old frail Czech lady who speaks no English. She seems nice and helpful though, I can see me and her becoming best friends. She told me I have to go to the registration office that is apparently across the street tomorrow at 8am. I have no idea where this building is or what I am supposed to do when I get there. I guess I’ll find out.

I knocked on the door of the kids across the hall from me. They seem like angsty Czech dudes who most likely enjoy industrial music, possible friendship number one???

I don’t know how long I have been awake or really even what day it is, I can barely keep my eyes open and because of this administrative stuff I have to do at 8am I cannot bring myself to go downtown Prague.

4 hours later…

I have made friends!

At first the talking from the hall was distracting me from my Univ Iowa Writers Workshop grad Flannery O’Conner reading but as the English became louder and more cordial I figured I should venture out and introduce myself. One boy from Syracuse (no he doesn’t know Kelly Bertog) a Georgian (the country) and 2 girls from Hong Kong along with 2 Albanians and a really awesome dude from Ghana. Me and the other American have a date in the morning to register for basically everything. The Georgian also told me about a billiards bar some 50 or 100m down the road (metric system FTW)!

It’s definitely weird being here. Although I haven’t even been to the main part of Prague it’s still baffling. I’m sitting in my room (roommate still has yet to arrive) with the door semi-open listening to some good ole Broken Social Scene, and students keep passing throwing weird looks through the cracked door. . It reminds me of sophmore year at Iowa where Rhett and I would be the only ones with our doors open on our wing in Currier.

Not a lot of smiling faces from the other residents of lovely Kolej Hvĕzda. I don’t blame them since it is finals week of the winter semester, but finals week always left me looking for an excuse to pop into someone’s room and shoot the shit for a bit.

From the sound of it, Charles University is pretty tough. I expected as much and somewhat hoped for it but it would be nice to just breeze around for 5 months.

I’ve learned that you can basically do whatever you want in the “dorms”, except for smoke inside. Hope my roommate likes to party but judging by how neatly his desk is organized, I doubt he gets rowdy on the reg.

I am now at an idnian restaurant in the big mall in Prague. I have gotten my school ID card, a cell phone and some water. But to avoid being anti social I will post this and then fraternize with ladies.

PEACE