March 31 - April 1

So the first week of class has been great. Here’s the overview:

Monday - We gave ourselves enough time to find the building and our classroom which was good since we got a little lost/disoriented on the first day. But it was refreshing to be up and about by 9am and check out the city as it begins to get busy with people. We were introduced to our instructors, Vera and Michael, and went over some logistics of the class. Vera had arranged a group lunch at a restaurant later in the afternoon, so after getting our books we went on a walking tour of the city lead by Michael. It was nice to be lead around the city because I was able to enjoy the sights instead of focusing on my location. We walked around while Michael pointed things out, and about halfway through we stopped at a tall clock tower in Old Town Square where we could climb all the way to the top and look out over the city. The view was beautiful! I posted pictures on my facebook and I’ll post a couple here. After wandering in the city for awhile, we headed to the restaurant. It was a vegetarian bistro with an interesting atmosphere. The food they served was delicious! Plus it was nice to eat as a big group.
After lunch we wandered on our own and figured out how to get home. I bought a cell phone to keep in contact with the group and for safety reasons, and bought my tram and metro pass. In the evening, Amanda and I watched Bolt which was absolutely hilarious.

Tuesday - Tuesday was our first real day of instruction. Vera’s history class was very interesting and I felt really engaged through her lecture. She covered mostly recent Czech history and was quick to answer our questions about the dynamics of Czech culture and their histories. Michael’s political science class covered much more recent history and we talked a lot about Obama’s visit to Prague and what that meant in the context of the dynamic between the Czech Republic and the rest of Europe. But after class on Tuesday a bunch of people in the group decided to meet up later on for a drink. After my nap and quick dinner, we got ready and headed out. Since we were running late we missed the meeting place by about 15 minutes. Without a map we walked around and I used my phone to text anyone we could contact. Eventually we decided to head into Old Town Square since that was the place that we figured the pub would be. Luckily we were right! and we were heading in the right direction! It wasn’t long by the time we got to Old Town Square. We were accosted by a group of Italian boys who didn’t speak much English, but one of the boys from our program came over and lead us to the pub. It was nice to hang out with most of the whole group (some people didn’t get the memo), especially since we didn’t have a chance to socialize before the program. We decided to leave the pub, and since it was still a little early and a bunch of us still had a lot of energy, we hit up a club. The place really cool. It was underground and had stone walls. The music was mostly American pop, but it was still fun to go out with some of the people in my program.