Spring Break Part 1: Prague

Wow its been a while since I have posted...sorry about that. In the interest of time and practicality I will just give a quick review of life since my last post, followed by what you really want to here about- my spring break trip.

The weekend after Valencia (last weekend in March) Shaun Abrams, Ben Blumenthal and I went to Belgium where we relaxed, had incredible chocolate, incredible beer, incredible waffles, and incredible food. The weather was sub-par- chilly and rainy- which put a damper on things. We stayed in Brussels for the weekend, but headed to Brugge for a day trip on Saturday where we toured a local brewery. It was exactly the type of trip that I was looking for.

A couple other things:
"April showers bring May flowers" is not just a U.S. thing; it has rained here as much in the last week as the rest of the semester put together, though today was beautfiul.
School work this week has been crazy. I think they don't give you any assignments all semester so they can just wait until the last two weeks to pile everything on. Between this week and next week I have 4 tests, 3 essays, and 4 presentations!!! For this reason, and because of the sheer length, I think I am going to break up my spring break blog into a couple entries.


Now to SPRING BREAK, La Semana Santa, or as it should be known as: "My Epic Adventure"...

The trip really began Thursday evening, April 2nd, when Lee and Kathy knocked on my door. They came to spend the night in Barcelona before continuing on the rest of the adventure. We went out for some Mexican cuisine and then headed to bed relatively early knowing the rest we would need for the week to come.

Friday morning I woke up, left Lee and Kathy a note with a couple apples (they were on a later flight than I), met Ben and headed to the airport. When we got to the airport Barkan and their other roommate, Maurio, were checking in to the flight. After they checked in Ben and I left our enormous backing backpacks stuffed to the brim with them in the hallway while we walked up with our smaller draw-string matching Adidas gym bags (coincidence-I swear) to check in. "Any bags to check?" No. Somehow we both made it through security and onto the plane with bags that were probably twice as heavy and almost twice as large as should be permitted-and this was on a cheapo airline that is usually a stickler for that sort of thing.

As I was scurrying through security I heard my name called from behind. "Who from my program is also on this flight?" I thought to myself as I turned around. I was shocked to see Katie Schaddel, one of Dena's friends that I met in Sevilla, run up behind. She had connected from Sevilla through Barcelona and was, in fact, on my flight to Prague. Didn't take long to bump into someone I absolutely did not expect to see-which has definitely become a theme throughout my European travels. It turns out Nicole Barrett, who was coming on the trip with us but I thought was on a different flight to Prague, was also on our flight.

We landed in Prague, Czech Republic, got off of the plane and walked out of the baggage-claim area and exactly what I wanted occurred: Standing in the airport waiting for us was a man holding a large sign saying "Feiger" on it. My trip was made in the first 5 minutes. The strenous, tedious work of organizing all of the travel and accomodation reservations had already begun to pay off. We got into the van and headed to the hotel.

Now, I usually try and keep an arrogance in check-especially in public, but it may come out a little with some of these hotels and travel arrangements. Our place to stay could not have worked out any better. I had found an 'apartment & residence' looking to rent out rooms as hotel rooms. Obviously I had tried to pick a place near the center, but never having been to Prague before and knowing little about it I sort of had to guess. This place was located in the dead center of the city- just between the Old Town Square and the New Town Plaza. We had two rooms, both beautiful. The larger was on the top floor of the place and included two terraces, the larger of which provided the most scenic view of the city I could have ever imagined-especially when it lit up at night.

After settling in I decided to wander around and acquant myself with the first non-Western city in Europe that I had ever visited. My first impressions did not surprise me at all. I had heard many friends speak of the cities beauty and eloquence and they were correct. It is incredibly clean and possess' a great mix of old buildings and new buildings. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the plaza's looking at the incredible clock towers, as well. It was exactly what I pictured a modern Eastern European city to look like, with red roofs, cobble-stone paths, large plazas, and elaborate churches and clock towers.

As the sun began to set we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. There we met up with Lee, and Kathy, as well as the rest of the girls from Granada: Alex, Annie, Lisa, and Lisa Weitzman. We got ready and called Ben's friend from Deerfield studying in Prague who took us to a typical Czech dinner. The goulosh, duck, meat, and dumplings were incredible. Even more incredible, though, was the price, especially compared to dinner out in Barcelona. After dinner we headed back to our room where we contemplated going out for a long time. The view from the terrace was just impossible to leave, however, so we spent the evening taking in the cool night Prague air.

Saturday was tour day. A couple of us got up in the morning and headed straight to Old Town Square for breakfast. The square was bustling with stands, shops, and people probably even more so than normal as a result of Semana Santa. We then headed across the famous old bridge towards the large castle. Walking around the castle we bumped into-guess who- Katie and her boyfriend touring around. They joined us for the rest of the day as our group of 11 grew to 13. In addition to the cathedral and exterior walls, the castle included a vineyard and an elaborate set of gardens-both closed due to President Barack Obama the Messiah coming to Prague that evening to make a speech the next day.

After wondering around the castle we walked back along the bustling bridge, through another large plaza towards the famous Lennon wall. I was actually surprised how tucked away and secluded the wall was. It was as if it came out of nowhere-as if a bunch of people randomly decided to start painting graffiti on some random wall and then it just grew. It was cool to see the images in person that I have seen so many times before, though.

It was starting to get late in the day and lunch was definitely in order. The appeal of Old Town Square would not fade so we decided to head there. As I sat and enjoyed lunch in the crowded plaza I watched the astronomical clock strike the top of the hour. At this point little figures popped out from various doors surrounding the incredible clock as others on the wall began to dance and sing. It was quite a sight. Upon the conclusion of lunch I sought out what my nose had been calling to everytime I had wondered through this square. They were circular pretzel-like fresh doughy things and they were truly remarkable. I sampled a few of the other fresh Prague-desserts in the square before we headed off to the Jewish quarter.

I was mildly surprised at the enormity and preservation of the Jewish quarter. Obviously the Jews had a large influence and large population in Eastern Europe, but I did not know of the history of Prague, specifically, and assumed that most of this history would have been destroyed. This was not the case. In addition to Synagogues and kosher restaurants there was a centuries old cemetery in the area. We continued through this area and on to a large field. Apparently this area was located next to one of the main Universities in Prague. Most of the group took this opportunity to relax and take a nap in the grass. I, however, saw a couple of Europeans throwing around an American football and could not pass up the opportunity to join. It turns out they were two students from Prague that attended this university and they, well, threw an American football like you would expect people from the Czech Republic to throw a football. A few minutes after Barkan and I joined them one of them asked me if we were on a team in the U.S. I laughed.

Around 5:30 it was time to head back and get ready for dinner and the evening ahead. We went to another typical Czech restaurant near our hotel and I ordered duck- amazing. While the meal was cheap yet again they apparently do not like overuse of napkins in Prague. We had been given about 10 individual small napkins for the entire table so one member of the group, seeing a stack at a nearby counter, went up and grabbed a bunch. We were then told we were going to be charged for each individual napkin we used, to which we replied by laughing and then regathering most of the napkins-dirty or clean- repiled them up, and handed them back to the waitress. We ended up not getting charged. And I thought it was rediculous that they charge for bread that they just give you in Spain, jeeze.

That night we met up with a couple of Ben's other friends from Deerfield-one of which was having her 21st birthday. They were meeting up with other people, as well, and our group of 13 quickly ballooned to between 30 and 40 for the night. Wandering around the streets we found a bar with a back room closed off. We convinced them to open it for us and they did. After a little while the bar tender in the back room returned to the front. Some people tried to order more drinks but the service was, well, European. People decided to start helping themselves to the tap. The bar quickly found out about this, of course, and somehow I, along with Ben, ended up being the ones representing all 40 people to talk to the bar tender and resolve the situation. It ended with us leaving. We then bar hopped for a little bit before the girls decided that they were tired and headed home. They were going to wake up at 6am the next morning to go try and see Obama speak. Meanwhile, Ben, Barkan, Lee, Maurio and myself decided to investigate the 5-story club.

When we got there the line to get in was very long and they were charging 110 Korunys to enter (about 5 euros). Not wanting to wait in line forever I was a proponent of skipping it. Maurio, however, was determined to get us in without waiting in line. He, Lee and Barkan went to talk to the bouncer up front while Ben and I stood in line waiting for them. Shortly after they came back unsuccessful and we continued to debate what to do. As we were debating Maurio, who I thought had come back with Barkan and Lee, came running over waving us to come with him. Apparently he had paid the bouncer 500 Korunys to get all 5 of us in-he had somehow negotiated a discount, or so he thought. When we went in there was a second man inside standing at a turnstyle taking money. We explained to him that we had just paid the bouncer and he said that made no sense-that he could not let us in until we each gave him 110 Korunys. As we were again debating what to do and thinking that we had just been tricked out of 500 Korunys Barkan runs back in with a 500 Koruny note in his hand screaming excitedly-somehow he had got the money back. We each paid our 5 euro equivalent and went in. We had successfully skipped the line for free. Just as we entered a large man in a nice suit with a clipboard-presumably a manager- came up to us. He asked why we had given the doorman money and we explained that he told us we could pay him and go right in. He acknowledged our claim and stormed out to talk to the door man. We spent the next couple of hours wandering around this giant place and experiencing what Eurotrash Discoteching is like.

The next morning the girls woke up early to go see Obama; I decided sleep was more important. I woke up around 10:00, organized my things, and discussed check-out with the lady at the front desk. I then walked around Old Town Square one more time and grabbed a fresh chicken skewer for brunch before going back to the hotel to head out. When I arrived there was a man waiting for me-the owner of the bus company I had arranged to take us door-to-door from Prague to Munich (yes, cheaper than a train). The girls arrived soon after that, and we checked out of the hotel, boarded our mini-coach bus and were on our way to Munchen, Alemania!

Concluding thoughts:
The weather in Prague was absolutely incredible and played a large part in my adoration of this city. That, combined with the physical beauty, was truly remarkable. The red-roofed old, pretty buildings lining the cobblestone streets provided a homey feel yet still possessed an authentic mystique. That said, I did not really care for the people, at least in professional contacts: restaurants, shops, etc. First, they seemed unintelligent; not in the book smart sense. It just seemed as if no one ever knew what was going on- they had no business smarts and no social awareness. Second, they were very cold. I couldn't tell if it was because we were clearly American tourists that didn't speak a word of the language or if it was just a cultural thing. That said, Prague has been one of my favorite cities in Europe. I had heard this from friends that studied abroad last year and friends that had travelled there before me this year and, as a result, I had high expectations. It lived up to the hype.

(Pictures for Prague and the rest of Spring Break are posted on facebook. If you don't have a facebook account and want to see them let me know so I can e-mail you access to the albums.)