MacKenzie Takes Prague!: Week Jedna

The Czech language course started this week, which means sitting in a classroom for 4 hours a day but my teacher, Lenka, is great and keeps teaching us the essentials. I know how to greet and ask for ice cream, beer and some other basics but it’s still intimidating and I’m sure I look like a lost child every time someone starts speaking Czech to me at the grocery store but hopefully that will pass soon. BEST FRIENDS: if you recall the app on my phone that we would practice saying our names backwards with, THAT is exactly what Czech sounds like just to give you an idea how funky this language is. Throughout the week, we’ve been trying to do some exploring on our own like go to parts of Old Town and Charles Bridge but it was super hot that day and a lot of tourists so I’m sure we’ll be back to those parts another time. Many young Czechs turned to John Lennon as an inspiration during the communist era so the "Lennon Wall" pictured above has been filled with John Lennon inspired graffiti and pieces of Beatles lyrics.

Enjoying some Strawberry Cider after the really hot walk to Charles Bridge with Erica!
Pivovarsky Pub under K17.

A sculpture by David Černý on Husova Street. It's probably
Sigmund Freud or Lenin - David Černý always mystifies people,
so when you meet him, he may say it was even someone else!

Thursday we went on the "Farewell booze cruise" since it would be too cold to say our goodbyes on the river in the middle of December. Instead, we're on a boat week one when we still don't even know everyones names. We first went on a walk around Old Town and passed through the National University Library Klementinum, saw the 17th Century student statue, and walked along the river Vltava from the Charles Bridge downstream.

We still don’t have internet but it better kick in soon. We went on a hike, which was described as "not very demanding" but it was about 4 hours of walking up/down hill. We didn’t know what to expect, especially since our internet has been down and we can’t even check the emails that are sent to us. We went to the countryside about 20 miles southeast of Prague and it was beautiful! We also went into a cool church and cave but the lack of information given to us on this trip was a bit disappointing so my apologies. At one point some friends and I had stayed back, “Team Tortoise” as Arica had nicknamed us, and got separated by the rest of the group by taking the wrong turn at the fork in the road but we eventually got to the top of the mountain for an amazing view of the village. I’ve met some really great people so week one has definitely been a success!