SOOOOOOOO

again sorry about the lack of posting.

Final papers and projects and all that jazz are due this week, besides the fact that we're all cramming in time with each others and the adventures in the city :)

So CESKY KRUMLOV HIGHLIGHTS

we left early friday morning (6/11)

took a bus the way there

stopped by the Hluboka Castle, which was the Schwarzenbergs

Then stopped by the Budweiser Budvar Brewery (it can be found in the USA as Czechvar)

We made it to Cesky by early evening and settled in to the Krumlov House, which was absolutely precious.

We sat around, recooping for a while, while Jon and Cameron entertained us with their musical talents.

We went dinner at a medieval restaurant, which was really interesting and delicious.

The World Cup had just started so we headed to the Gorilla Bar to catch the Uruguay v. France game.

After hanging out by the river for a while and Molly's Cappy juice floating away, we called it a night.

We woke up pretty early the next morning to check out the rafting situation.

They told us to be ready in an hour, so we ate breakfast and hit the river. We rafted down the Vltava, which was pretty magical, considering we floated past castles.

We rafted for almost 7 hours, which was full of weird people talking to us, getting attack with water by old people, and the boys spinning in circles. We crashed for a little bit after getting back and then split up for din din.

Molly, Will, and I went to this vegetarian restaurant, which was top notch. We had a ballin' conversation about music for a good while before we headed to the local sports bar to catch up on the World Cup action.

After watching the England vs USA match, we headed to the castle to czech it out. It was a gorgeous night and we had a blast just wandering around the quaint town of Cesky Krumlov. We toured an awesome Baroque Theater on Sunday morning, got Italian for lunch (big surprise), and headed back to Praha.

Relatively normal school week...

Included more World Cup watching

We went to this thing called Svetluska, which is a coffee shop in complete darkness. It's supposed to demonstrate how it would feel to be blind. It's a little exhibition going on and it was awesome!

PRAGUE PURSUIT!!!

This past Wednesday I helped Sara and Molly with a scavenger hunt for their education class. We didnt win, but it was a blast. We wandered ALL around the city and saw SOOOOO much!

Favorite part was the gelato man at Angelato's :) We had to ask him for a secret envelope and he made us beg for it and then rewarded us with massive amounts of gelato.

FORREST GOT HERE ON THURSDAY!!! He surprised me at the pension! I didnt know when he would be available and he just showed up after my class! It was awesome!

FRIDAY=BERLINNNNNN!!!!!

Berlin was a blast! We left Friday at 8:30 and took our 5 hr train ride! I got a lot of work done, which was super exciting! We got a tour of Humboldt University from Dr. Patterson, who did his sabbatical there. Their library was ENORMOUS and beautiful! [and free to every "Berliner"]

We watched bits of the Deutschland game, which was awesome since we were there, even though they lost. On our way back to the S- Bahn from the university, we joined some people swing dancing by the river, which was an absolute blast and believe it or not, Koki was a baller dancer.

Before we called it a night, we saw the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby. Bee and I hung out with Jay, Justin, and Koki before hittin the sack.

We woke up relatively early and had an AMAZINGGGGG breakfast of scrambled eggs, coffee, and MYSLI and yogurt!!

We took a BIKE TOUR around the city!!!

It was a blast! I was so impressed that no one died, even though there were some close calls. We stopped at the Beer Garden for lunch and got to catch up on our World Cup addiction. We saw a lot of must see spots like Check Point Charlie, the Reichstag, the Jewish memorial, Bellevue, the rubble of the SS headquarters, and the spot where Hitler's underground bunker was.

It was kind of surreal. When learning about something as horrific as the Holocaust, it's somewhat difficult to imagine, first of all. But then it was weird being in the very spot where these things happened. Berlin is so modern (since a lot of it was destroyed in WWII) and it's so hard to picture everything happening there.

My favorite part of the tour though was biking through the Tiergarten. It was straight out of a movie. It's a gorgeous part of the city, a park that is green everywhere. It's a awesome change for the cement and steel of the city.

Jay, Amanda, Shelly, Molly and I grabbed some awesome buy 1 get 1 free (which we didnt know at the time, but it was happy hour) sushi for dinner!

Then we all went out for Danielle's 20th birthday!

Sunday, we went back to the Jewish memorial. The museum at this memorial was one of the most well done exhibits I have ever experienced.

Sometimes it's difficult to connect to the stories of these people, but there were excerpts of letters that were heartbreaking and so real.

I learned so much!

After the museum, we headed to the portion of the wall that still remains. It's awesome to see what people had written and what still exists. My favorite thing I saw on the wall was:" Dear Astrid, maybe someday we will be together." This kind of just made the wall more of a way to learn about the people who were there.

We also looked at the ruins of the SS headquarters.

Before heading back to the train, we picked up some Subway, which was on point.

Monday:Toured Communism Museum with Dr. G's class

Today: 2nd to last classes with Helga and Bob, ate too much gelato, went shopping with Forrest and Molly, watched World Cup in Old Town Square, cooked another successful family dinner...

WOW. so that was a lot :) and i left out a ton :/

the traveling adventure starts sunday

i'm sad to leave prague, but stoked for the adventure of a lifetime!!

Sorry we haven't posted in a while :(

Things have picked up a lot since it's nearing the end of the "semester"

Time has FLOWN by!!

We are still absolutely loving every minute

The next update will hopefully include Cesky Krumlov and Prague Pursuit

So Bee and I headed to the doctor's office bright and early this morning to get my lungs checked out.

I had to get them x-rayed (my first x-ray that wasn't my teeth). After complications with not understanding where I needed to wait and lack of English, I got my x-ray and headed back to my doctor. He said everything looked fine and gave me an inhaler and some decongestant. They give out drugs left and right at this doctor.

I'm feeling SO much better today and the inhaler has done wonders!

I had class all day and got some grades back, which I was pleased with. This made me feel a lot better because it since we have such a short period of time and few assignments, one bad grade could be not so good.

Bob's class was a BLAST as always and we talked about what we learned from this past weekend and looked at all the pictures! We also had a gelato break in the middle of class! Today was Cameron's birthday, so of course we had to celebrate with birthday gelato (Tiramisu gelato, of course). And Ro-Ro talked about economics and the kid knows his stuff, and it was really interesting how it applied to World Population.

After class, Bee, Molly, and I ventured to Tesco and H&M, as usual. I went to bed soon after at 6 because I can actually sleep now!! Bee and the roomies made another delicious family dinner.

Tomorrow, Bee and I have to be up SUPER early and we're heading to Terezin, which I think will be a really interesting experience.

Old McDonald had a Farm and he Didn't Have Any Animals

Soooooo…this weekend I went on my trip to the Organic Farm, while Brittany and the roomies and Koki explored Prague!

FROM BRITTANY ANNE:

This weekend!

We started off this weekend bright and early Friday morning with a trip to the Bee Institute! About 15 students including me, weez, the roomsters, Kiley, Bradley, ro-ro, and all of our other friends rode a bus to a little town in the middle of nowhere outside of Prague. We then descended what seemed like a mountain through the forest and eventually ended up at several little buildings, which we were informed was the Bee Institute. IT WAS AWESOME. We got to see and learn all about European Honeybees all while bees buzzed around us wondering why in the world these crazy kids were peeking into their hive. Finally we got to eat the honey straight out off of the honeycomb… most delicious thing I have ever tasted!!! The beekeeper let us put a honeycomb into a centrifuge and we got to eat bread with the fresh and amazing honey. We also got to see the artificial insemination of a queen bee. That was….. interesting? :/ Anyways, after that we discovered baby kittens, and while it is well known that I do not like cats… the kittens were precious and there may or may not be pictures of me playing with them because they were just absolutely adorable! J That was just the beginning of another fantastic Pragian weekend. After that weez and I split ways and have two different stories to tell this week, here goes!

After we got back, we grabbed a bite to eat and then hopped on the metro to go to the bus for the weekend on the Organic Farm!! We got to the bus stop successfully and then we saw the line for our bus. The other bus didn’t come for two more hours, so Dana worked her magic and got us on! But the majority of us didn’t have seats. A lot of us stood and sat in the aisle for the hour long bus ride. It was interesting to say the least :)

Then we hopped off the bus and walked for an hour to get to the farm. This wasn’t that bad minus that the road the bus stopped on was SUPER busy and kind of scary at some points. We successfully walked there with all our baggage and were pretty tired by the time we got there. Then we arrived at Vladimir’s farm!

Anael had gone earlier in the day and started dinner for us. Before dinner, we all picked out rooms or hallways to sleep in the barn, which was really a nice refurbished barn with a loft. We ate delish soup and bread for dinner and then watched a movie on ways to reduce waste and what it’s doing to the Earth. It was really interesting and brought up a lot of points that made me think about how wasteful I can be every day. We tested out the dry toilets or outhouses that we had for the weekend. They actually weren’t that bad; it was a little funny getting used to them though.

We headed to bed rather quickly, after Bradley, Brad, Holly, McCrae, Ro-Ro, and I played two truths and a lie. After no one guessed Ro-ro’s, we headed to sleep. We had started a fire in the barn earlier in the night, but didn’t think far ahead enough…we FROZEEEE. It got really cold at night, so we didn’t sleep too well.

We woke up at 7 to get started on our day of work. Kiley and I helped Anael with breakfast and then the work started. Vladimir has big dreams for his farm, so he had a lot for us to do, which was nice. Bradley and I shoveled dirt from this one area that covered bricks into a wheelbarrow and then brought it to Kiley’s group to spread in the garden. We took a break for lunch, which was one of the most satisfying meals ever. We were all already worn out from working in the sun all morning and that made the food taste that much better.

Then we had exploring time! We took a 3 hour hike around the area. There were awesome sandstone boulders everywhere.

We got to the top and there was a 360 view of where we were.

We could see little towns everywhere and could even see Germany! We also saw tons of blueberries bushes…too bad they’re not in season yet. Dr.Bob also showed us some awesome legumes on the walk. He found alfalfa blooming too. He is the most precious man ever, seriously.

Ro-Ro and Bradley! BFFs!!!!

Then we had a campfire! Thanks to our boy scout (Mark) and those who were never really boy scouts (Kyun & Cameron), we had a huge fire and roasted sausage and peppers. We also had this delicious dip that Anael made and more soup and bread.

We went to bed pretty early again because we had to wake up at 6:30 on Sunday. We had another day of work, where Brad, Holly, Kiley, and I moved shingles and then cleaned out a room in Vlad’s house. Sometime in the future, he wants this room to be a dance hall! Holly and Brad moved more shingles, while Kiley and I swept.

We had another fantastic lunch and then had sharing time. After an hour walk back, we hopped on the bus to take it back to Prague!

Brittany will post about her weekend here when she gets a chance:

I was warmly received by my long lost roomies, who I missed dearly. We ALL went to Sorrento’s for dinner (DUH), which was delicioso as usual (DUH)

Today, I did laundry for the first time! It was quite the adventure and I’m so glad to have clean clothes. We headed to the Institute for a meeting and to study. I FINALLY met Forrest’s parents and I can’t wait until he gets here on the 17^th!

I also went to the doctor today. I’ve been sick for a while and thought I was getting better, but then got worst blah blah blah…so I went. McCrae had an appointment anyways, so I just tagged along. I was seen really quickly. It was funny because the doctor was dressed in straight up normal clothes, but then just threw on a lab coat when we walked in. He did the normal blood pressure stuff and listened to my heart with his stethoscope. Basically, he didn’t like how my lungs sounded and I have to go back. He gave me some drugs to help with the cough, but we’ll see. By the way, the insurance plan the school gave us is phenomenal! We don’t have to pay a dime! (minus what we already paid for it)

I just ate some dinner of [bread and cheese] and some[ nutella and banana]- not all together :)

Off to finish reading The Trial!

pictures to come too!

Just got in from another fun night out with some great friends.

HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY PRAGUE INSTITUTE AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANA BARTELT!

We had a celebration at the institute today, which was catered and lovely.

So the real purpose of this post: This weekend will be B and my first real time apart.

Tomorrow we are both going to the Bee Institute, which is just a little ways outside of the city. We get to see the Institute and have a discussion with one of the top bee experts in Europe and eat honey of course :)

Then we come back to Prague and then I leave for the weekend to go to an organic farm to work! The Prague Institute has a wwoofing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) contract right outside the city.

It'll be an adventure for sure! I'm super pumped.

B will be exploring Praha more this weekend like going to the zoo and other craziness!

Well until Sunday... :)

Week Two and Vienna!!

So…It’s been a while

Things started picking up some, making it more difficult to write all the time

So I would probably normally go into more detail, but this will just be highlights :)

Sooooo following May 23 til now :)

So one whole week.

Sunday night- The Czech Republic won the hockey championship in the final game against Russia. A big group of us went to Old Town Square where there were thousands of people. It was UNREAL! Beeknox and I have figured out that we are ridiculously good at finding people we know and other Americans in crowds. We did both :) We cheered and “sang” the Czech national anthem and then headed home. On the way to the metro everybody was chanting Cesky! Cesky! Then when we got to the Metro stop called Mustek everyone chanted MUSTEK MUSTEK! It was HILARIOUS

On the way down the escalator we cause half of our friends going the other way…into the craziness.

We smashed ourselves onto the metro and headed back to JZP.

Smashed between Ro Ro and Brent

Then it was back to the normal school week. Beeknox had class Monday and Wednesday and I had them Tuesday and Thursday.

Monday night we went to the OPERA! It was 4 hours long…and really weird. It got better as it went along, but it wasn’t my favorite thing. The National Theater was beautiful and the people were extremely talented, but it was longggggggggggggggg.

I got a sore throat on Tuesday night, which developed into full on congestion grossness by Wednesday. Wednesday was RO-Ro’s birthday, but since I was under the weather, we couldn’t celebrate with him. Sorry, Ro-Ro.

I started to feel better by Thursday when we went out for the night with lots of friends :) We took the tram the wrong way again, but know it for sure now…

We left at 5:15 Friday morning for Vienna! We arrived in Vienna around 10ish after getting everything arranged with metro passes and the like. We made a trip to Cafe Griensteidl for soup and apple strudel (which they’re famous for). We explored more around that part of town and then decided to go to our respective hostels. Our hostel had really bad reviews online, but they recently switched managements so it was actually really good!

We picked the perfect weekend to go because Stadt Fest was going on. There was tons of live music (including German rap music) and people EVERYWHERE! It was soooooo fun!!

We made a list of all the difference between Prague and Vienna:

Which I’ll add once we find it

We also got some Wiener Schnitzel and Sacher Torte. We ate tons of gelato (mainly because I had a sore throat ;) ;) but really just because we wanted it all the time)

Wiener Schnitzel!

We hit up Schobrunn Palace and Habsburg Palace and ate gelato while listening to live music there

Schonbrunn!

We had an interesting roomie the first night in the hostel that snored worse than anyone EVER, but our other roomie was super sweet. We safely made it back to Praha by 10 that night.

We loved Wien, but Praha has our hearts.

OH AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADS!!!!!!!

BeeKnox and my dad have the same birthday! Hope your days are absolutely wonderful and we miss y’all a lot!!!!