My friend, Yael, and I have used this time to explore Prague. For the first couple weeks, we went to museums in the area close to our classes. The first one was the Mucha Museum, which shows the work of Alphonse Mucha, who was from the Czech Republic. I'd never heard of him, but I guess he's pretty famous. The museum was really cool, especially his pencil sketches and I loved some of his prints. I think this one is the most famous.
The other museum we went to was the National Museum, which is the beautiful building at the end of Wenceslas Square. The view from that end of the square is amazing, and the snow made it even better. The interior of the building is even nicer than the exterior. They had a museum on the history of the Czechoslovak Republic, and the most interesting part was that they had the suit Franz Ferdinand was wearing when he was shot
. The neck is stained with blood. I'm not really sure why I keep seeing things related to him, or why there's so much about him in this country, but I know that he would always vacation in the Czech Republic. The bullet that killed him is at his resort castle somewhere in the Czech Republic. The museum also had an exhibit on the history of Czech hockey, which unfortunately we had to rush through to get back for class.I also really enjoyed the amusing English around the museum. For some reason, instead of saying "tens of thousands," they said "dozens of thousands." One of my professors also said this. A blurb about something in the Czechoslovakia exhibit also said "bear" instead of "beer," but that's also a pretty common mistake on menus. My favorite was in the anthropology section, where they labeled one section, "Freshwater Sharks and Remarkable Fishes."
Last week we wandered south of Wenceslas Square, because we almost never do. We found Karlovo Namesti (Charles Square), which was a really nice and long park, which I'm sure I'll spend more time at when it warms up. We eventually ran into Charles University, the elite university of the Czech Republic, which was founded in 1348 (Take that, Harvard). We found a greenhouse that was part of the university, and paid a small fee to walk around. It was so strange to be in a tropical environment in the middle of Prague, but it was a lot of fun. They had some pretty awesome cacti.
Today I went to the YMCA, which is definitely an Eastern European Y. Most things in the city are either old and beautiful or new and modern. But this place just looks like something you would find in the old Soviet Union. The exercise bikes are probably left over from some East German training facitility. I think I broke part of the one I used today by leaning on it too much. They have a grand total of one treadmill, but since there's never more than 5 people there at a time, it's always free, which is nice. The spiral staircase down to the cardio room shakes a lot as you walk on it. But the best part about the Y is that the price for a two-hour workout, a locker, and a towel is $2.75. And that I cannot complain about.
And for a little update on future plans. On Friday my program is taking us to Parliament, which should be interesting. I hope they're not all freaking out because Western Europe just denied them a bailout, and Obama is saying he might not want a missile defense system against Russia. But they probably will be. Then on Sunday my program is taking us to Kutna Hora, a town about an hour away with a church that has dozens of thousands of human skeletons (I think from the Black Plague, but I'll let you know). I'm looking forward to it. And then next weekend I'm taking the train to Vienna with a couple friends, and my program goes to Poland for 9 days in 2 weeks. Busy busy!
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