Living in Czech: My House is Not Your House

Waking up this morning, I guess I was a little thankful that we didn't go out last night. I woke up feeling well rested and ready to go. I went to the Our Lady of Victory Church, home of the Infant Jesus of Prague. Many churches have statues of the Infant Jesus of Prague, so it was really nice to go to mass at this well known church. We went to the 12 PM English mass, which was said by an Indian priest. It was kind of hard to hear with the echos of his voice bouncing off the walls and ceiling of the beautiful church. Ana, Tete, and Zhou Lin came late because they got lost, but it was good to all share in the mass together. It was Zhou Lin's first time in a Catholic service, so she thought it was very nice. It was cool to share this experience with someone who doesn't know anything about the Catholic church.

After mass, Veronika, one of the AIESECers from Prague, took us around the neighborhood to show us a few things. We first stopped by this awesome park. There were people laying out in the sun, having picnics, enjoying the beautiful weather. Everyone else thought it was weird to see people enjoying the weather so much in public, but I thought it reminded me of summer in NYC and Sheep's Meadow in Central Park. From the park we made our way to Lennon's Wall. A graffiti painted and tagged wall dedicated to The Beatles and John Lennon. It was awesome. By far, the coolest thing I've seen in Prague. It's modern, urban, and hip-hop. Also, on the way to the wall there was a "Lover's Wall" with locks and stuff attached to the fence on the bridge that crosses the stream underneath. It was really cool and if the world isn't small enough, I saw, amongst the hearts and names and messages of love, a small "Colorado 2010" signature. Weirdly enough, I know my friend's younger sister had just recently been to Prague and been to Lennon's Wall, so I'll be sure to ask if she wrote that.

After Lennon Wall we were starving. We headed over to a restaurant a little after 2 and sat down to eat. I've heard Czech service is pretty terrible, but today was completely unbelievable. I've never had to wait an hour to get my food. The waitress quickly got our drinks when we sat down, but after ordering our food, she just walked by us time after time after time with no acknowledgment that we had been waiting so long. It was only after 45 minutes that we begin to show our frustration and she told us a few more minutes. When we finally got our food, we were all so hungry, we spent the next 20 minutes in silence eating everything in sight. It was decent food, but the service was so terrible I don't think any of us would return or recommend that place to anyone. I almost felt like telling the people entering to "Leave now, unless you want to get your food tomorrow morning!"

When we finished lunch, we headed to Petrin Hill, to get some spectacular views of the city from a tower on top of the hill. The tower looks like a mini-Eiffel Tower from Paris and is quite picturesque. On the way, we passed by a few modern art sculptures, one of giant naked babies with smashed in faces (metal sculptures) and the other called "The Hunger Wall," which represents the many people who starved to death during the Soviet control of Czech (something like that, I'm not really sure). We took the tram to the top of the hill, and ended up just taking a leisurely stroll through the park on the way down. We caught some great views of the city--better than the postcards. I decided to head home after the hill because I wanted to take the bike up the Vlatava from Roztoky and explore the Czech countryside, so I left the girls and headed back to the train station.

When I got home, I discovered the bike was gone, which was weird because we were the only people home, so I was sad I couldn't go for a ride along the river. Turns out, Jenny's roommate is back in the house. It was a really awkward night when we were all working in the living room, and he comes down asking to watch the football game on TV. Of course, we said yes and continued on with our work. He then asked where Jenny was, and I told him that she was home for the weekend. He questioned how we got into the house and if we had keys, and I told him we've just been using the ones by the door that Jenny had given to us. Then things got really awkward when he said that Jenny never told him or any of the other roommates that four people would be living in the house. He tried to express his frustration by saying that he has to pay to live in the house and it's not really fair that we have been living here for free, etc etc, and  I tried to explain to him that Jenny had told all of us it was OK to live here... but I figured I might was well leave this between them and not get too involved. This is not my problem and I'm not going to deal with it. I felt bad for the guy because you better believe that I'd be pissed off if I had four strangers (from all different parts of the world) living in my house because my roommate said they could--we're using the bathroom, the kitchen, and for above anything else, I'm sleeping on the floor and Lessya is sleeping on the couch!! We've completely taken over the first level and it was totally not fair for the other people. But at the same time, he had spent the past 10 days at home, and there's nothing we can do about it now. It isn't our fault so, to make things better for the rest of the night we tried to keep quiet and clean our messes (although we had just cleaned the day before after Global Village --thank God because he would have had a fit if he had seen the kitchen yesterday).

Anyway, we all spent the rest of the night finishing our projects and night activities for the camp. Tomorrow Martin and Jenny have to buy all the materials and I've got a meeting at 10 am with the University of Northern Virginia (who has decided to be a partner again). We'll discuss briefly their expectations for one of the projects and then I'll do my souvenir shopping and any last minute sightseeing. Tomorrow is Ana's 21st birthday so we're all excited to spend the night out in celebration! I know I can't wait to finally have a night of fun!