That's right. I am done with my internship in Prague on March 10th, then it's off to Athens, Greece on March 11th. How I long for the 60-70 degree weather my widget tells me they are having there. Maybe I can even NOT wear three layers for once! Joy!
But really, I have loved Prague. Ever since I started at the Miami Ad School in Fall of 2004, I knew I wanted to make it to Prague at some point. The city is beautiful, and they serve fried cheese on the street corners. The beer is seriously cheaper than the water, and it's delicious at that.
The people are hot and cold. We went into a souvenir shop in the touristy part of town and the sales people would NOT smile at us. It creates a rather uncomfortable environment. Especially when you smile at them and are returned with a Stone Cold Stare. If you're ready for some friendly interaction around here give he a HELL YEAH!! (ok sorry, wrestling reference there).
I was able to try some different foods and actually didn't hate all of them. They are really big on meat and gravy here, which is not all bad. Unless you are craving some salad. It took me till end of week seven to finally find some lettuce for sale in a grocery store. Speaking of grocery stores, they have a funny little system here. You bag the fruit and veggies you want, then you have to go to a scale and punch in a number and get a ticket printed out to stick on the bag. Kinda fun actually. When Anne and Anna came to visit me they each got to do it. :)
We made some friends along the way. Lucy the Czech girl I met on New Years. Beast - the nice German guy we met from MySpace (actual name Sevan), Karoline the nice Canadian/Czech girl studying medicine with the low down on student friendly (read - cheap) places to go, and Danielle and her boyfriend Cliff - fellow expats from Cali who moved here for his job.
Now I am into the *crunch of all *crunch times. So excuse me if I don't have another post before I leave for Greece. But you can bet your buns that I will have pictures to show you from that. Oh, I almost forgot. We are supposed to be going to the Czech mountains this weekend as a part of an agency weekend. Should involve karaoke, giant balls, and snow. I'll keep you posted.
bet your buns
cheers
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
My Blue Heaven
This past weekend here in Praha the sun actually came out and I was able to see BLUE SKIES!! That's right folks, blue skies are here again! At least for the weekend anyways. (they have since disappeared and now I am told it is gonna snow today). So I went out like the photo happy gal that I am and snapped some pictures of Prague in the sunlight.
The sun brought out all the tourists too! I must have taken a dozen pictures for people. I guess they see my huge Nikon around my neck and assume I am safe to trust with their cameras. This is on Charles Bridge.
The Old Town Bridge Tower at one end of the Charles Bridge.
Some cool statues on and around the Charles Bridge.
This pic is for Stef - a VERY cute old man and his one-man-band-stand. Complete with Curious George monkey (for Anne).
A cute little town fair type thingy right at the other end of Charles Bridge.
They had a bunch of little booths set up where they were selling everything from hand made iron figures to stuffed sheep (stuffed animals that is, not actual sheep - that would be gross), to baked goods...
And candy!!
Some views of the Vltava River
Then I went to the Lennon Wall. During the 1980's this became a place of pilgrimage for the city's hippies, who dedicated it to their idol and scrawled messages of love, peace, and rock 'n' roll across it. The secret police painted over the graffiti only to have John's smiling face reappear a few days later. This continued till 1989 when the wall was returned to the Knights of Malta who were about to whitewash the graffiti when an unlikely Beatles fan (the French Ambassador) came to the rescue.
Now off to Wenceslas Square!
The National Museum
A nice contrast of colors - the yellow building with the blue sky!!
So there you have it, Praha in the sunlight. It's back in the gloom for us now but I can only hope that the sun will come out... tomorrow.
The sun brought out all the tourists too! I must have taken a dozen pictures for people. I guess they see my huge Nikon around my neck and assume I am safe to trust with their cameras. This is on Charles Bridge.
The Old Town Bridge Tower at one end of the Charles Bridge.
Some cool statues on and around the Charles Bridge.
This pic is for Stef - a VERY cute old man and his one-man-band-stand. Complete with Curious George monkey (for Anne).
A cute little town fair type thingy right at the other end of Charles Bridge.
They had a bunch of little booths set up where they were selling everything from hand made iron figures to stuffed sheep (stuffed animals that is, not actual sheep - that would be gross), to baked goods...
And candy!!
Some views of the Vltava River
Then I went to the Lennon Wall. During the 1980's this became a place of pilgrimage for the city's hippies, who dedicated it to their idol and scrawled messages of love, peace, and rock 'n' roll across it. The secret police painted over the graffiti only to have John's smiling face reappear a few days later. This continued till 1989 when the wall was returned to the Knights of Malta who were about to whitewash the graffiti when an unlikely Beatles fan (the French Ambassador) came to the rescue.
Now off to Wenceslas Square!
The National Museum
A nice contrast of colors - the yellow building with the blue sky!!
So there you have it, Praha in the sunlight. It's back in the gloom for us now but I can only hope that the sun will come out... tomorrow.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Playtime in Prague
The weekend of February 3-6 Anne and Anna came to visit me here in Prague from Amsterdam. It did snow on Saturday when they were here, but that didn't stop us from going out on the town and taking PLENTY of pictures. Here are just some of the highlights of Pretty Prague.
Here is a puppet from one of the many marionette booths at an outdoor market.
I love lamp.
Cool night shot of one of the streets leading into Old Town Square.
Towers you can see from Old Town Square.
Interesting graffiti art.
This building was awesome. It's whole front was painted with cool designs.
The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square. Every hour it goes off and the skeleton rings his bell and little faces appear on the top and rotate around. Kind of like an eerie "It's a Small World".
Sunday we went to Prague Castle. It's a long walk up a steep road, and even harder after only 5 hours of sleep and a walkway covered in ice.
Inside the castle walls. This is the main church.
Other building inside the castle walls.
Church again.
This is the "Golden Lane" inside Prague Castle. It is a cute little row of houses that are now shops. Franz Kafka lived in one of the houses here.
Look how small the doors are! (or are we just incredibly tall?)
There is also a toy museum inside the castle walls, and this time they had a special Barbie show going on.
But once you walk up the stairs and get to the museum they tell you it costs 60 Kc, and we didn't feel like paying that so I just took a couple shots in the stairwell of the 'teaser' toys and we were on our way.
After a much needed warm up session in a cafe (mmmmm soup) it was night and we got some pretty nice shots of the castle grounds.
The big open square inside Prague Castle. That's Anna standing there..
The castle is up on a hill so you get great views of the city.
Then we walked over to Charles Bridge.
Shadows are cool!
Some cool posters up around Prague.
Ok, we saw this car on Friday night when we were looking for the M1 Secret Lounge (it's not so secret, we found it). Someone must have gotten mad at this Mercedes driver for some reason, so they wrote in the snow and drew, well, just have a look...
And I will end with a couple pictures from our night at the Biggest Club in Europe. Five floors of fun!
Coming soon - my weekend getaway to Amsterdam!! :)
Here is a puppet from one of the many marionette booths at an outdoor market.
I love lamp.
Cool night shot of one of the streets leading into Old Town Square.
Towers you can see from Old Town Square.
Interesting graffiti art.
This building was awesome. It's whole front was painted with cool designs.
The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square. Every hour it goes off and the skeleton rings his bell and little faces appear on the top and rotate around. Kind of like an eerie "It's a Small World".
Sunday we went to Prague Castle. It's a long walk up a steep road, and even harder after only 5 hours of sleep and a walkway covered in ice.
Inside the castle walls. This is the main church.
Other building inside the castle walls.
Church again.
This is the "Golden Lane" inside Prague Castle. It is a cute little row of houses that are now shops. Franz Kafka lived in one of the houses here.
Look how small the doors are! (or are we just incredibly tall?)
There is also a toy museum inside the castle walls, and this time they had a special Barbie show going on.
But once you walk up the stairs and get to the museum they tell you it costs 60 Kc, and we didn't feel like paying that so I just took a couple shots in the stairwell of the 'teaser' toys and we were on our way.
After a much needed warm up session in a cafe (mmmmm soup) it was night and we got some pretty nice shots of the castle grounds.
The big open square inside Prague Castle. That's Anna standing there..
The castle is up on a hill so you get great views of the city.
Then we walked over to Charles Bridge.
Shadows are cool!
Some cool posters up around Prague.
Ok, we saw this car on Friday night when we were looking for the M1 Secret Lounge (it's not so secret, we found it). Someone must have gotten mad at this Mercedes driver for some reason, so they wrote in the snow and drew, well, just have a look...
And I will end with a couple pictures from our night at the Biggest Club in Europe. Five floors of fun!
Coming soon - my weekend getaway to Amsterdam!! :)
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Throw me a Bone.
This past weekend we went to a church about 70 miles outside the city of Prague. It is called Kutna Hora, or as I like to call it The Bone Church. Why call it that you ask? I will show you... all in good time my dears, all in good time. First we had to wake up ass early on a Saturday, which I was not a fan of. Eric met some people on expats that were from CA but are now living in Prague (hey, that's just like us!). They said they had a car and were going to this church and asked if we would like to come along. Sure, a 70 mile car ride with people we never met in a country where we don't speak the language to go visit a place called The Bone Church - FAB idea! We're in.
The car ride was long, and being as it was early I fell asleep for most of it. But that's ok because this is pretty much all there was to see, give or take a few mini forests.
We then pull into the small town where the church is located, and it looks normal enough.
We spot the church. Your pretty average looking gothic church. From the outside anyway.
With your normal looking graveyard surrounding it.
With a pretty low key looking front door.
So we enter and pay our $1.25 entry fee and turn to walk down into the church, when we are greeted with this view
Where the fuck am I? Is there an Indiana Jones IV in the making that I don't know about?? Seriously creepy. These are REAL HUMAN BONES here people.
Even the lighting fixtures are bones! Check out the main chandelier,
And this candelabra
Even this Coat of Arms is made of bones.
Detail of the C of A - a bird pecking out the dude's eye? All made from human bones none the less.
Close up pics of the decoration:
They had four of these Mass Graves, one in each corner of the church. Damn - that's a lot of bones...
I feel that a little piece of myself was taken from... myself - see what I mean?
So there you have it. That's what a plague that kills way too many people will make people do, decorate the insides of churches with their remains.
The car ride was long, and being as it was early I fell asleep for most of it. But that's ok because this is pretty much all there was to see, give or take a few mini forests.
We then pull into the small town where the church is located, and it looks normal enough.
We spot the church. Your pretty average looking gothic church. From the outside anyway.
With your normal looking graveyard surrounding it.
With a pretty low key looking front door.
So we enter and pay our $1.25 entry fee and turn to walk down into the church, when we are greeted with this view
Where the fuck am I? Is there an Indiana Jones IV in the making that I don't know about?? Seriously creepy. These are REAL HUMAN BONES here people.
Even the lighting fixtures are bones! Check out the main chandelier,
And this candelabra
Even this Coat of Arms is made of bones.
Detail of the C of A - a bird pecking out the dude's eye? All made from human bones none the less.
Close up pics of the decoration:
They had four of these Mass Graves, one in each corner of the church. Damn - that's a lot of bones...
I feel that a little piece of myself was taken from... myself - see what I mean?
So there you have it. That's what a plague that kills way too many people will make people do, decorate the insides of churches with their remains.
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