When in Rome…

I’m actually in Prague, but I don’t think “When in Prague” is a proverb. So Rome it is.

Ok… elephant in the room: why is this not a video?

Sadly, creating a video blog (commonly known as “vlog”) might have been too presumptuous. Filming, editing, and uploading a new vlog every week, unfortunately, just isn’t going to happen. The most recent (and dare I say, only so far) took me about 7 hours to film, about 20 hours to edit, and about 100 hours to upload, coming to a grand total of 127 hours (slight exaggeration). As much as I would love to fill each and every one of your computers with vivacious and obscenely impressive clips that update you on every single detail of my life here in Prague, the time necessary to devote to such a task is just time that I do not (or more importantly, will not) have. Mind you, the first “post” was about 20 seconds long, and though it did not really take 127 hours to create, it did require a substantial amount of time and focus to piece together, and mainly sparked only one common response from various friends and family members. “It’s too short!”

A written blog it is. Maybe I’ll be able to insert an informative or anecdotal video here and there (meaning almost never), but I hate false promises. So enough about that for now. (Hint: don’t expect anything, and then maybe one day your mind will be blown. Just maybe.)

Every day, I am emailed a “word of the day” from Merriam Webster’s online dictionary. I thought it would be fun to somehow include the given word in my posts, and you, the reader, can try to guess which word it is. Kinda like a needle in the haystack. Today’s word is: euphoria. There, I used it. That was easy.

Hey, remember all those pictures you’ve been asking for? No? Yes?

Ok I can’t actually hear you; I'm across the world. Anyway, we’ll start off with said photos. Below you will find exhibit P (P for Photo… or Prague… or … Planet Perusing Phun… sorry, I digress).

Click on an image to make it larger. Trust me. Do it.

The end!

To those of you who enjoyed the short slide show, it’s time for a little recap (don’t worry if I didn’t entirely annihilate your photo appetite, I plan on including at least one picture per post). And to those of who did not enjoy, and have altogether stopped reading, I apologize for wasting your time. “Go play in a microwave, Susie. We’re busy.”

Re: recap: I have already been here for over a week, and have to somehow transmit everything that has happened to me so far into one post. So here we go.

Flight from DC was smooth. Had a whole two seats to myself, including an aisle. So that was definitely something to write home about (or, write in my blog about).

I took two carry-ons, which isn’t exactly allowed, but luckily I snuck them by and they didn’t have to be czeched!!!

Sorry, had to do it.

Flight was long and the only movie available was Eat, Pray, Love.

No, Thank, You. I slept.

Pit stop in Frankfurt. Nothing made sense; I guess it was ALL GERMAN TO ME LOLOLOLOL.

After getting my passport stamped, I headed to the gate that would take me to Prague (sounds like a magical gate, right? Unless we’re talking about an airport gate, which I am). For some reason, I had to exit the airport and re-enter again to access the necessary gate. This meant going through security again. It should come as no surprise to you, the reader, that I was carrying my video camera with me as a “personal item.” Said camera had to go through the security belt, and was re-scanned a few times before being whisked off and sent to a private room, accompanied by yours truly. I was a little scared, as it was just me, an American student traveler, and way, way too many security guards packed into a small room with some heavy security machinery. I was pretty sure they thought my camera was a bomb and had to run some tests to make sure I was clean. Can I say bomb now? Bomb.

Most of you should have guessed that yes, I was clean, and sent to my gate with no further questioning. Those of you who did not guess this… well, you clearly do not know me very well and should stop reading. I’m not sure why you even started.

At my gate, I met up with Viviana (friend from AU, also studying film in Prague) and we were instantly greeted by other study abroad-ers, who somehow knew that we were in the same program (I would say the multiple carry-on bags packed with extra clothes and the look of “I’m ready for an adventure” gave us away).

Flight from Frankfurt to Prague was short, and we were given a snack of a pretzel filled with butter. I didn’t try it; sorry to disappoint. I, too, wonder how it tasted, so we’re in the same boat there. We were also given a choice of soft drink. I ordered coke, although it seemed that the right thing to do was order tomato juice, as almost everyone else did. Ugh, tomato juice. You find me someone who drinks tomato juice back in the US and I’ll… uh… I’ll meet them. Moving on.

Buttered pretzel and too many surrounding glasses of tomato juice did it- I was finally in Prague! I walked off the plane to a snowy atmosphere (not a bad first impression). At this point, the accompanying group of travel abroad-ers had escalated to a rough 7 or 8 kids (can’t remember exactly how many; didn’t make a point of counting at the time). We waited for our bags, knowing that once we got them we would probably have no clue what to do next.

Getting all of your bags first before anyone else gets even one of theirs feels like winning the lottery. Especially after an international flight. It’s nice to know that you might be the only one changing your underwear tonight. Even if it means you might have to share with those who don’t have any.

So... luckily for me, everyone else got their bags, too.

We wandered around for a bit before meeting up with about 20 other similar age people, including a few others I knew from AU (Eddie, Julie… if you’re reading this, you’re welcome for the shout out). At that point, I knew that all 30 kids couldn’t be wrong. We were definitely in the right place.

We were greeted by our Resident Director (I think that’s her title) and packed on a bus with our luggage in the empty seats, as the trunk was about the size of a large breadbox (think half loaf. Maybe even one slice. It was small).

My apartment was the last stop to which the bus went, meaning I got a nice tour of the city before arriving. Pictures definitely do this place justice. If you can imagine what it looks like from the photos you have seen, you are probably exactly right. It is nothing less than beautiful, with buildings over 1,000 years old that continue to impress me even as I walk around the city more than a week after arriving.

I was lucky to get placed in the apartment that is located basically smack in the center of Prague, with anything you could want in walking distance. This includes the university buildings, whereas some students have to take a metro, tram, bus, or any combination of the three just to get to class. All I have to do is walk for 5 minutes. After some light unpacking and a “meet ‘n greet” pizza dinner provided by CET (the program), I was off to bed.

The next day was orientation, which mainly consisted of getting to know people in the program, getting to know a few fun facts about Prague, and getting the opportunity to watch some films produced in previous semesters. Some of them were in Czech, with subtitles in English. Some of them were in English with no subtitles. Some of them just made no sense.

That was Friday. We were given a break until Sunday morning, at which time we were to meet at CET headquarters at 11 a.m. for a “special activity.” Some more acquainting myself with the city, some program bonding, and some final unpacking brings us to Sunday morning.

We were put into groups and given a list of items to find or take pictures of in the city. Yes, the entire city. We were told to meet that evening at 7. at an address that none of us could understand for a welcome dinner.

Finding items on the list was hard and finding the final restaurant was close to impossible, but pat yourselves on the back CET, you accomplished the main point of this exercise. My group and I were given 8 hours to get to know each other better, and had a great time doing so. I’ve heard friends come from having shared experiences. Seems to be right so far.

We didn’t win the scavenger hunt. But we did win friendships! Sorry, that was really lame.

This was my first day without an official nap. So dinner was followed by a long, deep sleep. Carl Hiaasen said it very well in his book Skinny Dip, although it is perhaps a little too dramatic for this scenario. “Then came a huddled warmth, the smell of dry linen, and a sleep nearly as deep as death.” The context definitely makes more sense in the book. But I like the phrase.

Monday morning, we started our intensive Czech language course. They weren’t kidding about the “intensive” part. We didn’t stop learning. And learning. And learning.

I can now say / write some pretty basic stuff, such as who I am and things about me (my hobbies and where I am from, etc), numbers up to 50, and restaurant terms. They stressed the restaurant part, because I suppose they figured that’s where film students would use most of the language. They’re probably right.

Class was either at 9 am or at 2 pm, giving us a few nights to relax or go out for a few drinks with some fellow class / program mates.

I had some time to explore the city, and I also had some time to explore the 5-floor department store. It was fun. The basement level (so I guess it’s actually a 6-floor building) is a grocery store, and oddly enough, I couldn’t find peanut butter. I asked for it, and even though fluent in English, the person I talked to had never even heard of it! After a long search, however, I was able to find one (and actually, only one) jar of creamy peanut butter. Perseverance works, folks.

Friday night, we had a party in our apartment, but didn’t have to worry about the noise because everyone who lives in our building is in our program. Quite literally. Forgot to mention that earlier. This makes it easy to hang out with people. Instead of asking for directions or for an address, you just tell them your flat number. And then you see them in about two seconds.

The party even had its own DJ! His name is Chris, he’s in the program, and he brought all of his DJ-ing stuff with him just for an opportunity like this. Very cool.

The Czech language course lasted up until yesterday, with the final test later today. Time to study.

I hope you, the reader, feel a little more up to date with what I have been doing. If you have questions about any of the above, don’t hesitate to ask. But please, please don’t just say, “How’s Prague?” That would mean you didn’t care enough to remember anything I just said. And that would really hurt. This took a while to write.

Ok, I’m only half kidding. Ask whatever you like.

You could say, "David, in your next blog post, would you write about x, y, z?" That would help me out immensely; you would win, and everyone else would win. Win-win-win.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to write about a post a week, so expect something around there. But once again, I hate giving false promises (hence the “hopefully”). I’ve noticed that friends studying abroad are very ambitious at first, and then their blog seems to diminish by mid semester, before cutting off entirely altogether way too early. So, I honestly have no idea what to expect. Maybe this will be my last post. Who knows!

Ok, probably not. I’ll write again next week. With better puns? Not sure. We’ll see how much Prague-ress I make by then.

Hee hee.

Until next week…