aaaaand we're caught up...

So, let's see what all I can remember from the past...four weeks.

I went on a trip to the wine country in Moravia with a bunch of my coworkers, which was pretty epic.  It was a 2 or 3 hour drive from prague into southeastern Czech Republic.  I may be recounting this out of order, because I'm now remembering that this was the week before St. Martin's day (Nov 12th?ish?).  St. Martin's day is the first day of the year that that vintage of wine is available to buy and drink, so we ended up jumping the gun on the wine trip a bit.  As it happened, they had some of this year's vintage for us to taste, but it wasn't official because it was a week early... or something.  The people who ran the vineyard only spoke Czech, so all that I know was delivered in fragmented translations.  Either way, the wine was delicious, and we had far more than should be acceptable at a wine tasting weekend.

All of us in the wine cellar

A few days after the wine weekend, I went back to the State Theater with another friend of mine, and this time we saw Swan Lake.  It was fantastic!! And afterwards I was inspired to watch Black Swan, which was also fantastic, but in a very different way... Anyhow, for this excursion we knew what to expect, and we both had fun dressing up and having a classy evening :D Probably the classiest part was when we stopped at a food cart on the way home and got fried cheese sandwiches.  They're pretty big here, and they're about as heart-stoppingly delicious as you could imagine.

Later that week, I went to a night club nearby where they were having all of these different Czech rappers do live sets.  It was pretty awesome.  My Czech friends were rather impressed that I enjoyed it, because everything was in Czech and I had no idea what was going on... But then I explained that I have no idea whats going on in rap when its in english, sooo.... I made do.  lol. I could tell it rhymed, and the music was good :) Also, that night my guardian angel visited me in the guise of a friend I made while waiting in line for the bathroom.  Somehow my purse and I parted ways during the evening, and hours later, when I'd given up all hope, my bathroom line buddy found me on the dance floor with my purse in her hand!  that took the evening from good to fantabulous pretty quick :D

Later (or earlier... I'm not exactly sure, but I know I havn't written about it yet...) A friend of ours came to our apartment and made a traditional Czech meal for St. Martin's day.  It is when the wine from this year is first released, so it is a Czech tradition to make a big, heavy meal to go along with the delicious wine. My friend made a goose, potato dumplings, sauerkraut, red cabbage, and this amazing soup with meat dumplings in it.  It was epppicccc, and only a week before Thanksgiving!!

For the day of thanksgiving a friend of mine invited me to the Prague Marine house to join in on some traditional American festivities.  Unbeknownst to me, it was quite the intimate affair, and it was much more difficult to blend in than I had hoped.  Despite showing up knowing noone but my friend (the only other non-marine or non-marine family member) everyone was super nice and the awkwardness was fleeting :) Not to mention, the food was incredibleee and they had live football, so I was happy :D

The weekend after Thanksgiving I went to the tree lighting ceremony in the main Prague Christmas market with a bunch of friends.  It was an absolute mob scene, but it was pretty cool to see the tree all lit up.  The Christmas markets in Prague are absolutely fabulous.  There are a bunch (five? maybe more?) around town, and there are mini-versions in basically every open space in the city.  They all have Christmas trees, decorations, stalls selling the usual assortment of trinkets, and most importantly FOOD!!! There are a number of delicious sweets and pastries that are traditional Christmas market fare, then there is usually more substantial food as well.  It is all delicious, but the best part about the markets by far is the svarak, or hot wine.  Nothing is better when it is freezing and gray out than to get a piping hot cup of mulled wine.  And it really doesnt hurt that there are stalls selling it at the exit from my metro station :D

Then, a group of us went to a hockey game.  Hockey is pretty big in the Czech Republic, and the game we saw was between two of the main teams, Sparta (from Prague) and Slavia (from Brno).  It was my second game ever, and it was so much fun!! It ended up going into overtime, and Sparta won in the end!! Super epic.  Then later that evening I won two games of foosball.... against a czech guy!!! Also super epic.

Last weekend I had a Christmas get together at my apartment with a bunch of coworkers and friends.  I was a bit worried after a shaky start when my power went out after I turned the oven on, but I got the power back on and it all ended up well :)

I am now in my last week of teaching before Christmas break!! I'm going back home for a week, and I'm super excited to get some sunshine and sushi before heading back to Prague!! I still havn't seen snow here yet, but who knows? Maybe it will be waiting for me when I return...

So, knowing my blogging diligence, this may be the last post of this year.  If so, apologies, and I'll try to make my New Years recap worth the wait :D
Till next time!

Back in Prague

So, those last two recap posts got me to early November, and I know I've done a lot in that time..... lets see what I remember.

First off, I went to an Opera with some friends.  We saw Rusalka, an opera by Dvorcak, which is basically the little mermaid in operatic form.  So yes, it was epic.  I really enjoyed it, and the venue was so beautiful!! We went to the Prague State Opera and it was absolutely breathtaking.

Believe it or not, we had an amazing evening in this beautiful opera house and watched a spectacular 2 hour opera... for $8!!!! It was fantastic!!! However, being the Americans we are, none of us really dressed for the part..... Nothing I wore was ripped, and I wasn't in a Skynyrd t-shirt, but we were all wearing jeans and boots amongst women in ball gowns and stilettoes.  oh well, cant win em all.  Me and my friend drank a few flutes of champagne on the way in to up our class-factor ;)

Later that week I went to Petrin park with a friend of mine to see the leaves while they were all red and gold. It is a beautiful park, and I hadn't been there yet, so it was quite nice.  They have a cable car that will take you up the hill to the top of the park which was pretty fun :)  There is also a mini imitation eiffel tower at the top of the hill which is supposed to have fantastic views of the city, but we didnt make it that far.

A view of Petrin

The rose garden, fake Eiffel tower, and some other pretty building

After our park outing, we went to the Cafe Louvre, which has been an institution in Prague since the early 1900s.  Its super fancy pantsy, and apparently Kafka and Einstein used to frequent the place in their respective days.  Pretty cool.  They're fameous for their hot chocolate, which was delicious but sooooo rich.  It is pretty much the consistency of pudding.  It was great, but I couldn't finish mine.

More to update soon, I still ahve about 3 weeks to recap, but I have to run if im going to make it to my next class on time...

Kutna Hora

I went to Kutna Hora with my coworkers for a training session.  Kutna Hora is a small Czech town that is largely known for its Ossuary, but ill get to that.

First off, was the training.  It sounds like a chore, but with this group of teachers and bosses it ended up being pretty fun!  We teach English to children, so a large part of the training usually consists of role playing and playing different games and inevitably going out to drink massive amounts afterwards.  One of such evenings was when I lost my camera, I took it out to get a picture of everyone together and left it on the table in the restaurant.  Tragedy abounded.  Then we all went to the one night club in this tiny town, and had a ridiculous evening where my boss totally did not grace everyone on the dancefloor with a champagne shower (it was her birthday) and proceeded to totally not break her arm falling down the steps of the DJ booth.  hilarity.  But I did have to give a presentation first thing the next morning after sleeping for about an hour.... which was filmed.... which is somewhere on the big bad internets now.... Im kindof happy it hasnt been brought to my attention yet.....

Aaanyhow, I promised details on the Kutna Hora ossuary.  Welllll it is still unclear to me exactly why, but there is a Gothic church on the outskirts of Kutna Hora that looks rather unimpressive on the outside, and it is entirely decorated with human bones on the inside.  I just googled it, apparently there are the bones of over 40,000 people decorating the place.  The story goes that a 13th century abbot brought soil from Golgotha back to this church.  Because it is holy soil, all these people wanted to be buried there.  The cemetary had to be expanded, and there still wasn't enough room.... so they started making chandeliers out of skulls.  Pretty linear reasoning...

The Chandelier

Coat of Arms

They even had a bone baptismal font, which I find most morbid of all, but I couldn't find a picture online...

So yes, it was pretty morbid, quite strange, and entirely fascinating.  I'm not sure if there are others, but I'd go so far to say its one of a kind.

Aaaaanyhow, after the bone church, we drove out to BUDAPEST for a long weekend!!!!

Budapest was absolutely amazing, it is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen.  We were lucky enough to be able to stay in an amazing hotel inside the old castle walls of the Buda side of the river.  The hotel was actually on a UNESCO heratige site, as was the surrounding walled-in area.  It was all soooo beautiful, and I'm kicking myself for losing that camera because words really can't do justice.

So much of the city just looked like something out of a fairy tale.  This complex was nextdoor to my hotel.

And this was the view across the river.  It was absolutely fantastic to see Budapest, and I was so happy to be able to see it with my family :)  Again, some amazing meals were had.  One restaurant we went to had people playing "traditional gypsy music".  There were three men, two with violins and one with an upright bass who were serenading the restaurant patrons.  It was so amazing and picturesque, and like something out of a movie.  And then they played the theme from the Godfather, which was straight up awesome.

After that, we drove back to Prague and they flew back home.

Recap, part 1

Forgive me blog-follower, for I have sinned.  Its been almost two months since my last post, lets see if I can remember the highlights.....

First off, I had family visit towards the end of October!! It was fantastic getting to see them and show them around my new city!!  We went around town and did all of the touristy sight-seeing things I hadn't gotten around to yet.  It was fantastic!! We spent a day going from the Stromovska monestary/brewery to Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral.  We wandered through Mala Strana and ended up walking across Charles bridge at dusk. We all agreed that was perhaps the most amazing vista in Prague, on this amazing historic bridge, with the castle and cathedral all lit up on a hill behind you, and the Old Tower Bridge lit up before you with Tyn and various rooftops framing the scene.  This would be an awesome place to post my panoramic picture of said vista, but sadly I lost my camera about a week later.  But don't worry, I'll get to that...

This picture gives you an idea, but it pales in comparison to the real thing.

Here's a view of the inside of St. Vitus Cathedral, it is absolutely amazing.

The touristy Prague things were fun, but the best part of having my family in town (besides getting to see them of course) was most certainly the plethora of AMAZING meals we had!  I have neither the refined palate nor desire to take pictures of my meals (nor camera for that matter) to have a food blog, but if I did, an epic post would go right about here.

Moving along, we saw an amazing classical music concert at a chapel right next to Charles Bridge that is home to the second oldest organ... ever? I dont remember, there was something notable about it.  I do remember that it had been played by Mozart and Dvorcak back in their respective days.  The concert we saw was a reproduction of Dvorcak's Ave Maria among other pieces, it was fantastic!!

And more fantastic still, when we left the concert, we were in Old Town (tourist central) and in dire need of beverages.  To avoid the crazy prices in the city center ($4 for a beer?!?!?!!! in Prague?!?!!) I led us down a small alleyway where a Guinness sign was calling our name.  We went inside, only to find that we had stumbled upon a bar I had been dyinggg to go to since I arrived!!! Backstory: when I decided I was moving to Prague, I started researching popular bars and clubs (what else).  One in particular caught my eye, a Cuban-Irish pub called O'Che's.  What is a Cuban-Irish pub? What does it entail?  I had no idea, but I was determined to find out.  I tried convincing my friends to go a few times, but we got lost on the way once, and I got vetoed once due to its vicinity to the center.  Aaaanyhow, we randomly ended up there without even trying!  It was fun, your usual pub I suppose, with lots of pictures of Che Guevara around, and a frescoed pseudo-altar to Che behind one of the tables.

So, thats about all I remember from the last week in October in Prague, the next week I was off to.....