A quick recap of what I've been doing:
-Finished Czech Intensive, my professor was benevolent and awarded me an A-, something I definitely didn't deserve considering I was half-dead every class, but she liked me, what can I say, I'm a charming young man.
-Started classes (sort of). My Kafka to Kundera literature class was cancelled first week, so I had to read The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera) and The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka) for class today, which to my lack of luck, we didn't even discuss. At least I fnished both books, definitely recommend the former for anyone willing to get their mind tied into a knot. Last week, I started Literature of Central European Coffee Houses, which seems alright so far. My professor is a bit uneasy, but she's really intelligent and is making us read really good stuff. We read so far, "The World of Security" and "Eros Matitunus" by Stefan Zweig, the first essay was really depressing and strangely relevant. I have to go to a museum sometime this week to see an exhibition of a famous Czech architect, oh, what hard work I have sometimes...
My "mitteleuropa" class about Central European history is good too. My professor basically just lectured, with a heavy Franco-German accent, about the history of Poland, Hungary, and Czech Bohemia in about 2 hours, I have to give her credit. I know more about Central-Eastern Euro history now than I did in all of high school.
I also booked a trip to Amsterdam the weekend of April 17-21 (ahem), it's purely coincidental I'm going that weekend, it just so happens that the flight was cheap...
So I made a list of places I plan to travel to:
-Cracow, Poland
-Berlin, Germany
-Bratislava, Slovakia (no, they don't gouge out your eyes or torture you in the hostels...)
-Vienna, Austria (ha, I didn't realize it's called Wien in German/Czech, so I kept glossing over it to try to find "Vienna)
-Munich/Dresden, Germany
-Budapest, Hungary
-Brno, Český Krumlov, Czech Republic ( I think I prefer to just say Czech or Czech Republic, since calling it "the" Czech Republic sort of demotes the nation to a common noun, instead of calling it an actual place with history, not to mention Czech language doesn't utilize the word "the" often anyway...)
some target destinations are:
-Sofia, Bulgaria
-Belgrade, Serbia
-Sarajevo, Bosnia
-Besançon, France (to visit Colleen hopefully!)
-Croatia
-Greece
-Oslo/Bergen, Norway (actually I REALLY want to go here, but it's expensive to travel to/live, oh to see the Norwegian fjords...)
Anyway, so I don't really have many plans yet, but I really need to get booking soon. I think I'm also going to try couchsurfing.com to see if I could stay with people for free, which is both economical and spontaneous.
I also decided to post some pictures.
The pictures are some repeats, we had a few days of rare sunshine, which by the way makes the city look beautiful as opposed to the daily routine of clouds and rain.
The first picture is a view from my window when it snowed one morning. The pictures include the Charles Bridge, Josefov (The Jewish Quarter, or at least what remains of some of the oldest synagogues in the area), several streets and alley ways I thought looked interesting, a view of Hradčanská, where the Prague Castle is (thats the name of the metro stop to get off at the castle), in Malá Strana, near where I live. The area with people waiting is Malostranská, an important stop for trams and the metro. I think it's actually featured in a few Czech movies, and of course, the ubiquitous trams of Prague, the insides of which I'll snatch some photos of later (I dont want to look creepy taking pictures of the tram during rush hour when it's packed with exhausted commuters, tired students, and cranky old people). I ride the tram to that stop virtually every day, so I thought it would be relevant. The flag sculpture is (I'm assuming by looking at the dates) either a World War II memorial or a dedication to the First Czechoslovak Republic (which makes less sense since the First Republic began earlier following the end of the First World War).
