My First Weekend
Tonight, I am writing to you from a multilevel underground gaming and blacklight center that happens to offer cheap internet in its deepest, darkest corner. For the last twenty minutes, the music in the computer room has been American pop songs translated into Czech and re-recorded by Czech artists. I can't say I've ever heard anything quite like it.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
I woke up late- maybe 10:30- and spent an hour scouring my neighborhood for a decent (filling) breakfast. After discovering the ten or so Chinese restaurants within a three block radius of my apartment but not any good cafes, I ventured a little further and settled for a small pastry shop, where I tried to make do with apple strudel (the national dessert) and orange juice. Then my roommates and I went grocery shopping, as our kitchen was fairly well equipped but completely devoid of food.
After shopping, I met the girls from the other apartment in the old city and we wandered the tourist areas. We caught the famous clock at the hour, which has figurines of all the apostles that move on a track past two windows that can be seen from the Old Town Square. It's not very exciting, but it's very historic and everybody comes to see it when they visit Prague.
We then went to the Czech equivalent of Target, which is called Tesco. We bought food for dinner and a few more supplies that we had forgotten when we were there the day before. From there, we went back to the other apartment, where one girl's visiting friend went to work cooking dinner for all nine girls in our program. We hung out for several hours and generally had a good time.
Later, a few of us decided we wanted to try out a club. We chose one that had been recommended by a friend, called Radost F/X, and the four of us proceeded to get lost. Armed with a poor set of directions and the name of the club, we wandered in circles until finally somenoe explained that it was of course in the direction from which we had started- and also only a block away from the other apartment. (The program has two apartments, and what isn't mine is the "other.")
Shira, Jeanette, Sam, and I found ourselves in a club that appeared to have been shipped over from America with us. The music was all hip hop and most of the patrons were either American or visiting Europeans from other countries. We met a friendly group of Swiss guys who we chatted with for a while, and later my friends met some nice men from London.
We didn't leave the club until after 3 am. The fun part about this is that Shira and I couldn't get back to our apartment the way we'd come. The Metro (subway) closes at midnight, and the trams that normally run every ten or fifteen minutes change at night to fewer routes and completely different numbers. Without a map, we figured out the general direction we needed to follow (dictated by the position of the Vlatva River, which we had to cross) and hopped on the first tram that came.
We didn't recognize any of the stops on the tram route and I decided to get off at the only one that was in an area I recognized, though I still had no idea how to understand the night trams. We walked a ways, discovering as we did that we should have stayed on the tram. Eventually, we found a stop next to the river and found at it the right tram to take- just after that tram had come. Since it was already 4 am and we had half an hour to wait for the next tram, we called a cab and had a quick and safe (and not terribly overpriced) ride home.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
I woke up late- maybe 10:30- and spent an hour scouring my neighborhood for a decent (filling) breakfast. After discovering the ten or so Chinese restaurants within a three block radius of my apartment but not any good cafes, I ventured a little further and settled for a small pastry shop, where I tried to make do with apple strudel (the national dessert) and orange juice. Then my roommates and I went grocery shopping, as our kitchen was fairly well equipped but completely devoid of food.
After shopping, I met the girls from the other apartment in the old city and we wandered the tourist areas. We caught the famous clock at the hour, which has figurines of all the apostles that move on a track past two windows that can be seen from the Old Town Square. It's not very exciting, but it's very historic and everybody comes to see it when they visit Prague.
We then went to the Czech equivalent of Target, which is called Tesco. We bought food for dinner and a few more supplies that we had forgotten when we were there the day before. From there, we went back to the other apartment, where one girl's visiting friend went to work cooking dinner for all nine girls in our program. We hung out for several hours and generally had a good time.
Later, a few of us decided we wanted to try out a club. We chose one that had been recommended by a friend, called Radost F/X, and the four of us proceeded to get lost. Armed with a poor set of directions and the name of the club, we wandered in circles until finally somenoe explained that it was of course in the direction from which we had started- and also only a block away from the other apartment. (The program has two apartments, and what isn't mine is the "other.")
Shira, Jeanette, Sam, and I found ourselves in a club that appeared to have been shipped over from America with us. The music was all hip hop and most of the patrons were either American or visiting Europeans from other countries. We met a friendly group of Swiss guys who we chatted with for a while, and later my friends met some nice men from London.
We didn't leave the club until after 3 am. The fun part about this is that Shira and I couldn't get back to our apartment the way we'd come. The Metro (subway) closes at midnight, and the trams that normally run every ten or fifteen minutes change at night to fewer routes and completely different numbers. Without a map, we figured out the general direction we needed to follow (dictated by the position of the Vlatva River, which we had to cross) and hopped on the first tram that came.
We didn't recognize any of the stops on the tram route and I decided to get off at the only one that was in an area I recognized, though I still had no idea how to understand the night trams. We walked a ways, discovering as we did that we should have stayed on the tram. Eventually, we found a stop next to the river and found at it the right tram to take- just after that tram had come. Since it was already 4 am and we had half an hour to wait for the next tram, we called a cab and had a quick and safe (and not terribly overpriced) ride home.
posted by Unknown at 10:15 PM
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