This is my first blog entry from Praha!
My flight left around 6:30 PM from JFK, British Airways. It was a really nice flight, but it was strange since we only had a couple hours of sleep and then the sun rose when we got to Heathrow. I've never been on an international flight, so it was a cool experience. They served a lot of alcohol, which I thought was just a myth but apparently now. The dinner was alright, but everything else was good. The flight to Prague was only 2 hours which surprised me, I thought both flights would be longer. Sparta Praha, one of the national Czech soccer teams was on the flight as well. Heathrow is a really nice airport, very clean and technologically enhanced. Ruzyne, the Prague airport, was a little older and dirtier, but it's all good.
It snowed lightly since I arrived, but it's cleared up. The weather is strange because it will be really cold during the day and feel comparatively warmer at night, maybe thats the beer.
I'm still trying to get used to the metric system.
Once we got closer to the city, driving up the winding, narrow streets it became more European. My dorm unfortunately is sort of an eyesore, its kind of bare and Communist-esque architecture. The Kolej, the dorm I live in, you're allowed to smoke on the first floor so the building, like many other buildings I've been in so far, reak of stale cigarettes.
I got into a suite with 10 other guys, some from Syracuse, Long Island, and even 2 guys from Vancouver.
There are people from all over here actually, like Boston, Miami, Omaha, Wyoming, Ohio, California.
My first day in Prague a few of us went to a pub to try out some Czech beer, Pilsner of course. I was excited to be honest since I've never really been anyhwere like Prague before, it sort of felt like going through Disney World or something, almost too real to be real, it seemed fake. The food is amazing here. I'm not much of a carnivore, and the the meals are really heavy. One night I ordered borsc and gulasc, thinking I needed and "appetizer" but really the borsc was enough. It's a soup dish with beats, beef and some other stuff I really forgot to be honest haha with sour cream in the middle. Gulasc is beef medallions with this really heavy gravy, bread dumplings which are amazing, and they put whipped cream. It's sort of like a stew, but not really, since you eat with with a fork and knife. Beer is extremely cheap of course about 10Kc for Staropramen, a very good beer, which is equivalent to $0.50. Now you can see why Europe has a lot of alcoholics.
There is beer almost everywhere. I dont see why Pilsner needs to advertise itself.
Our orientation for all the international programs was held the other day in a baroque cathedral, suitable considering about 70% of the country are atheists. What a difference from American universities. New Paltz puts up posters everywhere about drinking statistics and how bad drugs are for you, yet the vice-Dean was explicitly condoning drinking in his lecture. He actually said "you're in the wrong place if you dont drink." I haven't started classes yet, which I'm excited for. I dropped one class so I'll only be taking 4 now including my Czech intestive class, so I only have class 3 days a week, not complaining.
Transportation is cool here, but its lengthy and time consuming. I'm still getting used to it obviously, but the way it works is that there are trams above ground, the metro underground, and busses. All three intersect at some point throughout the city. The trams are old and creaky, but they get you places. They also try to run you over if you're crossing the street, like all other Czech drivers, they're terrible.
The metro on the other hand, is like NYC subway, but cleaner and nicer. The trains are slightly larger and the terminals just look cool. Mustek, one of the connecting terminals, is similar to Penn Station, but it has bakeries, clothing stores, and even things like body shops and grocery stores.
We had to go on mandatory trips, I chose to go to Plzn and Terezin. Plzn is where they brew Pilsner Urquell, so we visited a synagogue there first, one of the largest in the world. which was really exciting and cool. The architecture was neo-baroque and it was cooler for myself to be able to see a historical synagogue instead of a historical cathedral, which arguably matches them in architectural prestige. It was kind of sad though, they said the Jewish community in Plzn was down from about 2000 pre-Holocaust and Communist rule to only around 100 people today. They said Plzn was the only town liberated by Americans during WWII, so theres a monument thanking the US for liberation, and they have an annual liberation parade where people dress up as American soldiers haha.
Afterwards we toured the historical brewery where this woman showed us how they used to brew beer back in the day. We went to the modern brewery after that, which was awesome. They had one of the few beer vending machines in Czech Republic, which scans your passport to verify your age. We toured the cellars and went on a beer tasting, unpasteurized, unfiltered Pilsner. Delicious. I wasn't much of a beer drinker at home, but I haven't been without a beer since I've been here.
That's all I'm going to update for now. Theres a lot more I could talk about, but I could go on forever, when I see things that would be interesting to write about, I'll definitely add it. Right now, its overwhelming to try to put all these new things in a few paragraphs, but soon I'll figure out a way to do it.
Adam
