Welcome to Praha

I'm about one week into my Euro semester abroad in Prague.  I arrived on Saturday, after a little pit stop in Amsterdam.  Amsterdam was definitely a good time- totally lives up to everything that it's cracked up to be.  Met up with Meesh and Jess at the Flying Pig Downtown hostel.  Amsterdam is very cool- full of canals and bicycles and fun people all looking to have a good time.  Hit up the Van Gogh museum, an awesome pancake house, the red light district and sampled quite a few coffeehouses...two days was all I really needed though and on Saturday I flew over to Prague!

Prague is so gorgeous- I can't believe I get to live here for 4 whole months!  I've never seen such incredible architecture- Prague is cool because it is a mix of all kinds- Gothic, Rennaisance, Baroque, Ne0-Classical....everything!  I live in a dorm that is walking distance from the Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle.  I have a single in a suite with 5 other girls.  4 of us are from Northeastern and then one girl is from NY and the other from Finland.  There are 26 of us in ECES and then about 90 kids from AIFS.  AIFS kids got a better deal--they get organized trips around Europe, a tram pass, a debit card for meals, etc...but ECES kids are cooler and we are sticking together!  The boys live in a big suite of  11, and then there are 2 suites of 4 girls each.  We all get along really well and they are a lot of fun to hang out with.  

So far we have just been exploring Prague and trying to get used to the different culture.  Prague is very very different from home and not knowing how to speak Czech is definitely a barrier.  We start our Czech Intensive course on Monday though so hopefully we will pick up some more of the language during that.  

Yesterday I went on a day trip to Telc.  Telc is in Southern Moravia, so we got to see a little bit of the Czech Republic outside of Prague.  The best way to describe Telc is like a storybook land.  It looked like Epcot- except Epcot is clearly fake and this town really was founded in the 14th century.  We toured this incredible castle and walked along the square of Renaissance houses.  Ate a nice traditional lunch outside and then went back to Prague- beautiful place.

Today I went to Terezin.  Jan Wiener led the tour--we are so lucky to have him with us.  He is this incredible man who endured so much during WWII.  He escaped from the Nazis but spent over 14 years in various prisoner camps.  His story is incredible and he added very personal insight into the tour.  (After the war he returned to Czech and met Suzanna, his wife, and our dorm mother--they spend summers in Massachusetts and the school year here at Charles University running our program--He is 88 and she is in her 60s-they are such amazing people)  I had never been to a concentration camp before and it was extremely emotional.  Not the most upbeat day, but Im glad that I chose to attend this trip rather than the Pilsner brewery tour which was the other option.  We toured the museum, saw a hidden synogogue, the national cemetary, and then the camp itself.  The most haunting part was walking through the dark .5 mile long tunnel that led the Jews to the extermination areas.  We walked the same walk where thousands of people spent their last living moments...

So that's pretty much what I have been up to thus far.  It's crazy to walk around these streets and know that I can call it home for the next 4 months.  Very much looking forwarding to travelling (most likely going to Budapest next week!) and learning about the history and architecture of this incredible city.  The weather has been perfect so far so we are soaking up the sun before it gets cold.