Goulash, Aida, and The City

I don't think I've been talking enough about things happening in Prague, so I'm going to try to make up for that.

Food!! I was warned before I came that Czech food is not that great. When compared to the food in Italy, this is definitely true. But I still like it. I wasn't sure if I was eligible to really discuss it before I ordered goulash and bread dumplings last night, because this is THE traditional Czech meal. It comes with a few pieces of beef covered in a delicious stew, and there are moist/damp bread slices on the side which is what they call dumplings here. Goulash and dumplings, as well as pork and potatoes, are pretty much all people talk about when they talk about Czech cuisine. Except the pork, it's all pretty great.

I try to get a mix of traditional Czech food and other food like pizza that I'm more used to eating. Last week I finally tried a Thai place really close to my apartment/classes that people had been raving about, and it was incredible. I went again a few days later, and I think most people on my program have been at least 3-4 times so far. My favorite place though is a cafeteria style restaurant in Old Town, where you tell them what kind of meat and what kind of starch you want and they give it to you. You slide over and pick up a beer for about a t dollar, and take your seat. If you're coming to visit me at some point, this is one place we will definitely go.

Opera!! I went to my first opera last night - Aida. It was a really cool experience. It was a little bit of a struggle to stay awake early on, but I defeated my sleepiness and saw all 3 hours. The best part was the building itself, which is (I keep finding myself saying this about places in Europe) one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. At intermission my friend and I treated ourselves to glasses of champagne to you know, be classy. Well I don't think we looked that classy when as we were ordering, the warning bell rang and we were standing there downing our champagne in about 30 seconds before hustling back up to our seats. Oh well. Here are a couple pictures from the evening:

When I was talking to one of the Czech girls who is part of my program, she asked where I was from. I told her, around San Francisco. She just looked at me and said, "heepee!" Then, I was standing in line waiting for gyros today and the guy next to me starting talking to me in a language I didn't understand (I thought it was mumbled Czech), so I said "Anglicky?" (English?). He said, "Where are you from?" And I said "America." The guy behind the counter making my sandwich seemed shocked... but I thought everyone was supposed to be able to tell I was an American. Then the guy asking me says, "I thought you were Scottish!" So I think the language he had been speaking in was English... Scottish English. Then he asked where in the US I was from, and I said, around San Francisco. And he said "I only know one thing about San Francisco." I expected him to talk about the Golden Gate Bridge, or Alcatraz, or gays, or "heepees." But he said, "Levi's." So now I think I'm going to tell every Czech I meet that I'm from San Francisco, rather than just saying American, to try to really figure out The City's international reputation.

Dresden: Where Beer Tastes Like Apple Juice and Pretzels Taste Like Pretzels

I think this was my first international day trip since going to Egypt for dinner from Israel when I was 8. I went to Dresden with my friend Maryse who is visiting from Paris as well as a couple Wash U friends from the program. We had a beautiful train ride, especially around the Czech-German border, where we followed the Elbe through mountains for about 45 minutes.

Our only plans were to visit a historic vault and go to a museum in the Zwinger, which is a massive complex that I believe used to be a castle. So that left a lot of time for wandering/eating.

Seeing all of the glass, modern buildings was a shock coming from Prague, and it felt pretty American. But we found our way to a round church that everyone seemed to be going in. It was this church I'd read about that was destroyed in the bombing of Dresden in 1945 and left as rubble until recently, when it was reconstructed in honor of the city's 800th anniversary (2006). The interior was incredible, there ere wavy balconies and a beautiful ceiling. But we left quickly because we thought a concert was about to start and we were starving.

For lunch we went to the cheapest expensive restaurant we could find, which was completely empty. Andrew ordered a pretzel for all of us, and I realized I'd never actually had a real pretzel, only the tiny hard ones that come in bags. I don't really know why I never tried one, but I think it was because the big salt scared me when I was little. Biting into it, I couldn't believe that it was soft bread that... tasted like a pretzel. So strange. And we randomly ordered Radler beer, because I didn't want Pilsner which was the other option. The Radler tasted like apple juice. It was delicious. And the actual food was really good, too.

After lunch we went to the Zwinger, which I'm sure is much more beautiful when it was grass and the fountains are running, but it was still nice. We went to the main art museum, where they have an absurd amount of art, including Raphael's Sistine Madonna (the one with the two cute cherubs at the bottom looking up). There were also some famous Titians and Giorgiones, but my favorite was the trio of paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael, who painted The Jewish Cemetery. I finally got to use my art history knowledge, and I can't wait to visit more art museums around Europe.

Our next stop was the Green Vault of August the Strong. It was a treasure chamber. They had 9 rooms of ridiculous jewels and ivory and bronze. I stole this picture from online.

Perhaps the craziest think about the vault was that while waiting to go in, I ran into a friend from my Jewish leadership group in high school. I think it was the most surprising run-in I've ever experienced.

As for future plans, I'm going to my first opera on Wednesday, the World Ski Jumping Championships on Saturday, and Terezin on Sunday. For our free weekend in March, I think I'll be taking a train to Vienna. And my post-program adventure will begin in Athens in mid-may. I'm pretty excited.

Italian Top Cinque

5. Water
One of the few things St. Louis and Prague have in common is that they are landlocked cities with major rivers passing through. As a California kid, sometimes I just need to see some real water. So walking around Venice yesterday was really nice.

4. Costumes
Carnivale!! This is a huge deal in Venice, and while we weren't there for the main weekend (thank god, the crowds would have been extremely overwhelming) we did see the beginnings. People were walking around in costume, especially in St. Mark's Square. Those who went all out would pose for pictures for minutes at a time before moving on. Here's one of my favorite couples:

3. Weather
Sun!! It's gloomy just about every day in Prague, which I think I've mentioned before. So 2+ days of uninterrupted sunlight was amazing. It made everything so much happier, and pictures came out a lot better. It was especially nice from the roof of the Duomo (more to come on that later):

2. Food
This and art were the main reasons Italy was my top country to visit in Europe. The night we arrived in Milan, we lucked out and found one restaurant about to close (just before midnight). If we had been in the Czech Republic, they would have shaken their heads at us, but in Italy, they invited us in and offered to store our luggage. I got penne arrabiata, which is what I usually get at the Cheesecake Factory. I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to taste a difference, but it was the BEST pasta I've ever had. We also had some terrific gelato in both cities, espeically in Venice.

The funniest thing we found on the menu was repeated listing of "rocket." We saw rocket salad, and rocket listed as a side for a chicken dish. The Italian word is "rucola," which has two translations in English: 1. Rocket and 2. Arugula. Italians have got to improve their menu translations.

1. The Roof of the Duomo in Milan
This is one of my favorite places in the world. My jaw dropped when I saw the cathedral on Wikipedia last week, and it made me about five times more excited to go to Milan, but I still had no idea how amazing it was going to be. My roommate, Erik, and I walked up really narrow stairs to the roof, and had a ridiculous view. We stayed up there for probably about an hour, walking around almost the entire thing. We were both surprised that they allow people to walk around up there. Now I mentioned a while ago that it was funny walking down a Prague street and hearing Alanis Morrisette. Imagine walking around the roof of one of the world's largest cathedral and hearing construction workers blasting Hillary Duff. I really can only express this place in pictures, so here are a couple more, one of my apt in front and the other of the roof.

The Wondrous World of Cesky Krumlov

I'm mostly writing this post for the pictures. Cesky Krumlov, a town about three hours south of Prague, close to Austria, is probably the most beautiful place I've ever been. My program went down there yesterday morning and came back this evening. During our 1 hour+ long lecture about the town (which was about 45 minutes too long) I did learn a few interesting things. It's special because it was never invaded or damaged by war, and because it is very well preserved. All but two of the buildings in the center of the city were built before 1800, although they were in pretty bad shape until the fall of Communism and were brought back to life by the late 90s.

The weather was horrible for most of the day yesterday, so it wasn't a great day to take pictures. But we went on a tour of the castle which, when occupied until the early 1800s, was the life of the city. My favorite thing about the castle's occupants is that two of the families that lived there during its centuries of activity were the Rosenbergs and Schwartzbergs, but neither of them were Jewish. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle, but the rooms were beautiful. But at one point, we were walking in a passage from one part of the castle to another, and I looked to my left, and this is what I saw.

The weather finally cleared up at night, and the sky was an unbelievable blue. I wish we'd been able to walk around more while the sun was setting, instead of listening to the neverending lecture, but oh well. We went to a brewery for dinner and a gypsy band played for us for several hours. Half liters of beer were $1.15, and I managed to get my first free drink of water in Europe. Paying for water here is probably my least favorite thing about this continent.

The town is a huge tourist attraction, but since it's winter and we were there on a Sunday-Monday, there were not many people. My program probably made up half of the tourists there on Sunday, and we were definitely the only ones walking around on Sunday night. It was really incredible to have such a beautiful place to ourselves.

This morning, the sun finally came out. We hadn't seen it in almost two weeks. We had about 4 hours to wander around the city. We started out by going to a puppet museum in a "fairytale house" which was entertaining for about 5 minutes. I wandered around with a small group and found a wonderful place for lunch on the edge of the city, with delicious hot chocolate. It took a few sips to get this shot, but it worked out.

We continued wandering, went to a chocolate shop, and stood on a sunny bridge for a while before heading to the bus. This reflection shot is the last picture I managed to take before my batteries died (I went through 4 during the trip).

Now I'm back in Prague and there are only 3 days til Italy!

Cesí! Cesí! Cesí!

I'd never been to a sporting event outside the US. A bunch of kids from my program went to see the Czech national hockey team take on Finland last night at the major arena here in Prague. We heard about the game from our Czech teacher, who told us that Jaromir Jagr was returning from Russia to play for the Czechs, but sadly he had the flu and wimped out.

Getting into the arena is much more of an ordeal than in the US. They did not have many doors, the lines were really long, and they had metal detectors. But it was fun to stand crunched between Czech hockey fans and begin to get into the atmosphere of the game. The arena itself was really nice, I guess it's only a few years old.

I think my favorite part about the game was that both of the intermission games involved beer. In the first, two teams competed, rolling kegs around the ice (pictured). I didn't really understand the second, but I think people were running around the ice on normal shoes (so sliding a lot) picking up beer and drinking them. But interestingly enough, very few fans were drinking. I'd expected it to be like a football game in the US, but the fans were much more quiet. Even in a hockey arena, I felt like a loud American.

Another of my favorite parts was the food. Naturally, I worried about the price, but it was actually the same prices as anywhere else in the city. I paid US $6.00 for chicken nuggets, french fries, and a beer. I really liked how they group chicken nuggets and beer... I guess it's the Czech Happy Meal.

The crowd sound was pretty interesting throughout the game. Whenever Finland scored, the arena was completely silent. And the general quietness was often interrupted by "Cesí! Cesí! Cesí!" (Which I'm guessing means "Czechs! Czechs! Czechs!") and we proudly joined in. Sadly, the Fins came back from a 3-2 deficit at the end of the second period and won 5-3. But when the game ended, the crowd erupted in applause, which shocked me. I guess sportsmanship is pretty important here.

Here's Skolská 30 (my roomies) at the game!

Our program is going on an overnight trip to Cesky Krumlov on Sunday and Monday, which I've heard is a beautiful town a few hours south of us in the Czech Republic.

Czech & Czechs

1. Ctvrtek means Thursday, this language is crazy. They do not like vowels here. They try to cram as many consonants together as possible, and even when it's not possible, they do it anyway. Another one is zmrzlina. That means ice cream.

2. People in metro stations are silent and keep to themselves, unless they are making out. I kept hearing before I came that Americans always give themselves away by being loud. I didn't realize how much of this was due to how quiet Europeans are (or at least Czechs). Just talking in normal voices on the metro often draws angry stares. Rather than talk, Czechs seem to just make out. Escalators are the most common place for this, but it really happens everywhere in the stations.

3. Czechs are not the nicest people, and sometimes they're just mean. I mentioned before how when I tried to order things off the menu without one part of the dish (such as cream), I had waitresses laugh at me, give me funny looks, or just be rude for the rest of the meal. This attitude is not limited to restaurants. I went to the train station last week to try to get tickets to a town a few hours east of here. The first man I talked to, at the info desk, got really mad at me when I asked him to repeat himself, and slammed his desk. Then he pointed me to another window. I asked the woman there if she spoke English, and she said yes. So I asked her about buying tickets to this place, and she told me I had to go upstairs to find someone who spoke English. Finally, at the third window, someone was able to help me.

But the worst experience was a couple nights ago at our local grocery store. I wanted to get pastrami from the deli. I walked up to the deli and the woman immediately offered to help me, but I just kept looking at the meat because I wasn't sure which was the pastrami ( I probably should have at least said hi). Then I tried to call my roommate to ask her to look up the word for beef, and right when I dialed, the woman returned to ask what I want, but I was on the phone, so I put up my index finger to indicate I would be ready in a moment... and she lifted her arms emphatically in exasperation and said something to the wall and left. So then I figured out which was pastrami and came back to the deli, but she was in the back room. When she started to walk out, she saw me, shook her head, and went right back into the back room. So my friend had to get pastrami on my behalf.

I thought most people in the center of Prague spoke English, but this is not the case at all. Most seem to not speak any, and it's pretty easy to find people who speak a little bit, but I've only met a couple people who are fluent. Thus, language has been more of a barrier than I had anticipated. It's a part of the study abroad experience that I didn't expect to have, but it's definitely happening. It makes me more eager to learn Czech... but that class is a story for another post.