I'm in for a Treat

Well, I just finished my first full day in Prague and it's 1:13AM. I woke up this morning around 4AM, with my body telling me to get up because I've been sleeping all "day" (in US time at least). When I finally fell back asleep, I had a few hours before my alarm clock went off. I took a shower and ate a little bit of babufka (coconut/chocolate breakfast cake/pastry) and Jenny (Jana) and I went off to catch the train to Prague. The train to Prague's city center is only 15 minutes from station to station, so it's not much different than a Metro North ticket to Grand Central from Fordham. Jenny had work to do all day, so I started off the day by walking to the Old Town Square. I was pleasantly surprised that at 10:30 in the morning, the summer sun was already warming the streets, but for that early, it was already way too hot. When I finally arrived I was greeted by Prague's famous Our Lady before Tyn Church, which still stands after six centuries (it was built in 1365 with it's towering spires completed in 1620. For more history: click here). Of course, they're doing reconstruction on the entire face of the main entrance. Through the scaffolding, there was one English sign that said "Please use side entrance". I walked to the side and the sign said "No Entry"...well, typical luck. I guess I'll have to see the inside later.

I moved on to other sights in the square and spent about 20 minutes looking inside another nearby church. This was St. Nicholas Church, a Baroque church built in 1735. It was great to look inside and it was a shelter from the heat, but it was smaller than I expected so I just took pictures and left. I then made my way down to the famous Prague Astronomical Clock. This medieval clock can tell time quite a number of ways. Built in 1490, the clock still functions today, although it is rather complicated and best explained if you're looking at the picture below:

It shows zodiac time (represented by the smaller black/middle circle), which has all the zodiac symbols. You'll notice that the summer month zodiacs take up more space than the winter zodiacs due to the longer days of the summer months. The large outer black circle is numbed 1-24, which symbolizes the ancient Czech calendar. It is the inside Roman Numerals that represent the current hours and minutes (which are indicated by the black indicators--pointing to the XI numeral above). The background is painted various colors to indicate the viewers perception of the sky. The blue indicates that it is daylight, the orange indicates sunset or sunrise, and the black indicates night time. The gilded sun has several meaningful movements. First, it moves with the position of the actual sun, with the outward pointing lines indicating the equator, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, etc. Also, the gilded sun moves with the sunlight and sits in the black area during the night time. There are a lot more features to the clock which I can't quite remember, but I'm sure you get the point: it's really cool.

After this I made my way around and found a place to rest and eat. I had a traditional Czech lunch of meat dumplings with cabbage and onions. The cabbage was more like sauerkraut, but the onions and dumplings were delicious. I couldn't even finish my plate it was so much food. After lunch, I made my way down to Wenceslas Square and the National Museum. I didn't want to go into the museum because I was meeting Martin at 3:30pm to buy my metro pass, so instead I found a seat and people watched.

I am so glad to be back in Europe!! I'm thinking I need to get myself a pair of capris, because those are the in thing to be wearing apparently. I thought of my sister today as I saw three pregnant ladies walking around. Each one was looking like she was ready to have a baby (which makes me think today may be the day), but the one that surprised me the most was the lady smoking a cigarette... Yup, she was smoking. I realized i missed the random street toilets that you have to pay to use, but I also realized that this time in Europe is a lot harder when you can't speak the language. I got approached by someone asking a question in Czech and all I could do was shrug and nod my head...

After people watching, I met up with Martin to buy my ticket. Here's the short version. I was supposed to get an unlimited monthly for the train only, but instead I got a 5-day unlimited subway/bus/train for the same price ($25). This may not sound bad, but what also happened was the ticket I bought was only unlimited within the city of Prague. I live in Roztoky. One stop outside of Prague. This meant I had two options. I could use the 5-day pass (which only gets me to the last stop in Prague) and buy an additional unlimited pass from the last Prague station to my station (Roztoky u Praha)--that would be an additional $4. OR I could buy an unlimited monthly for 550 CZK, and try and sell my unlimited 5-day pass. Well, there was no way the ticket officer was going to refund my money and I know (from NYC experience) that there's no way I'm going to sell a 5-day unlimited to a stranger...so I'm going to have to use the 5-day, buy the additional unlimited for the last train stop, and then buy another monthly pass when the 5-days are up. The good news is, however, is that my program is paying for all of the leader's unlimited monthly passes (so I get $25 back), the bad news is is that I bought a week-long pass for no reason. Martin nor I don't know where the confusion came from, but regardless, I'll be forced to buy a monthly next week rather than let my 5-day pass go to waste.

When I got home this evening (I met Jenny at the train), my legs were so tired from walking countless miles, I didn't want to do anything. Jenny and I made dinner "a la Jenny" as she called it, by throwing together random ingredients found in the cabinet. Some sausage sauteed in onion and garlic, with elbow macaroni and soy sauce for flavoring (and a spice that could've been rosemary or thyme--I have no clue). It was served with a side of mystery vegetable (which is round like an onion but tastes almost like a cucumber?) and some radishes (which I did not eat). To tell you how good it was, Jenny and I each had our first plate...and then I continued to finish the entire serving that was left in the pot. I felt like a typical American, eating everything in sight like a glutton, but it was delicious and I was hungry!

We finished the night by discussing my role as agenda manager for MBM. I have SO MUCH WORK TO DO! We went over our schedule for this week and tomorrow I begin. At noon, we're meeting at Jenny's university (University of Economics in Prague) to discuss and plan a "Presentation Skills Workshop" we will be conducting next week with high school students. This is unrelated to our program My Better Myself, but we are going to try and recruit some students to join our summer program (it's not full yet). Then immediately after that, Jenny and I are going to start working on a detailed day-by-day breakdown of the camps in July. After that, we are going to meet AIESEC Praha for a night of socializing (of course my favorite thing to do). Over the weekend, I'm preparing a schedule for what the other group leaders are going to do when training ends (June 22-28), which I have dubbed (Camp Prep Week). During CP Week the other leaders and myself are going to have to finalize the projects the students will work on during the camps as well as choose who will lead what programs and who will manage what sessions. Work work work work work...that's all I'm saying...it's now 2:18 AM, I need to go to bed, but I'm just going to say...I forgot for a day that I was here to work and not to just be a tourist. I'm in for a real treat--but really, it's going to be great!