People here seem stoic. They rarely smile. You can tell who is a foreigner on the metro by who is laughing or talking with friends. Both my Czech language teacher and my History teacher mentioned that Czechs typically have a rather pessimistic view on life. When things are going well, they are waiting for the other foot to drop. This may be because of their history with empires and occupations. I think it's fascinating but it is very strange to be in the middle of.
On Saturday, January 28th, USAC planned a trip for us to the small Czech village of Svaty Jan Pod Skalou which means St. John Under the Rock. It was about a 40 minute train ride to a deserted looking town. From the train station we hiked four miles to a corner of the village with a church honoring a saint who lived in a cave during the 9th century. There is a small door from inside the church which leads to the cave where you can go in and see where he supposedly made his home. Next to the church is a small mountain with a cross on the top and because it seems that in Europe it's customary to climb to the the tops of things, we climbed it in 10 degree weather. The view was worth the hike and the cold. We sat at the top for a while then headed back down and four miles back to the train station.
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| Church of St. John the Baptist with Mountain we climbed in background |
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| Svaty Jan Pod Skalou |
Last week consisted mostly of Czech language class and more orienting myself around the city and of course more fried cheese sandwiches. The 15 of us who were still stuck in the hotel finally moved into our apartments last Sunday as well, so it's been nice to have a place to unpack and call home. There are 6 of us living in a roomy 3 bedroom apartment. It's homy and I'm getting used to it.
This weekend, 20 of us went on another USAC planned trip to Moravia for wine tasting. The Western 2/3 of the Czech Republic make up Bohemia, where beer is the drink of choice, and the Eastern 1/3 is a region called Moravia, which is where Czech wine is made. We stopped in a couple small towns on the way. In Mikulov, we hiked up another hill called the Way of the Cross trail. It had statues representing the stations of the cross spread out along the way and a beautiful church at the top. At another stop, we spent about an hour on a frozen lake in some gardens. I've never seen such a large body of water completely frozen so I had fun but I was the coldest I've ever been in my life. After that we finally reached our destination and spent the rest of the night tasting wines. A family owned winery had unlimited food and wine for us until 2 am and then we walked to our hostel nearby.
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| Overlooking Mikulov |
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| Church at the top of the Way of the Cross trail |
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| Frozen lake we walked across |
Sunday we attempted to find a local bar broadcasting the Super Bowl (which didn't start until 12:30 AM here) but after 20 or 30 minutes of searching for a certain one, we were too cold to continue looking and resorted to a Hooters that happened to be around the corner. I was fairly disappointed to be eating at a Hooters in Prague, but I had good wings and good company so I made the best of it. Plus Madonna rocked it and we got fried cheese afterwards so it's all fine. Today was the start of our real class schedule and I couldn't be happier.
Tomorrow I am seeing Swan Lake at the opera house. And this weekend we are taking a trip to a glassblowing factory where we'll get to make our own vase. And the weekend after that is Warsaw!
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