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A Semester Overseas
I am finally back in Wien! Today was my first day of classes and they were really interesting. It doesn't feel like school because my classes are so much fun. And I met the teacher that I will be working for during my teaching internship class today- my first day working at the school will be this friday! I am teaching three different classes- 10 to 15 year olds. The teacher who I'm working for is really nice and I'm excited to meet the kids!
So last week was my break before classes start. I went on a three city tour of Prague, Krakow, and Budapest. The first city was Prague!
We arrived Friday, September 15th at 1pm and checked into the Hotel Golf which was a nice hotel. Then we had to take out money from the ATM since the Czech Republic has not switched over to Euros yet. They still use Czech Crowns. The exchange rate was about 22 Czech Crowns to the Euro. Then we took a quick walking tour past the Prague castle (Prazsky hrad) and through Lesser town. It felt strange right away not knowing the language at all and for the first time since I've been in Europe, I experienced some culture shock. It was the first country I've ever been to where I couldn't read the alphabet!
Sept. 16th, 2006: All our meals were provided throughout the day. We had breakfast at the hotel which were similar to the breakfasts in Austria. They usually consist of meat, cheese, bread with jelly, and coffee. Then we took a tour of the Prague castle and went into the famous St. Vitus Cathedral which is probably one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen! I took a lot of pictures of the stained glass windows! At St. Vitus, we were able to climb the 287 steps to the top of its tower to see one of the best views of the city. The climb up the stairway was scary though because it was very narrow and it's easy to get claustrophobic and dizzy climbing up all those stairs.
At 12pm we were able to watch the changing of the guards of the castle which was cool. Then we went to lunch at a local restaurant where I ate boar meat. After lunch we walked across the Charles Bridge and saw the famous astronomical clock. I ate dinner early because a few of us heard that Rusalka- an opera by Dvorak which is the story that the Little Mermaid was based on- was playing at the opera house at 7pm and we wanted to get tickets. Luckily we were able to see it- it is never performed live in the US because it is hard to find singers who can sing in Czech.
Sat. 17th, 2006: Today was a national holiday in Prague- the people weren't allowed to use their cars in order to increase the use of public transportation.
In the morning we visited the Jewish Quarter- I saw the famous Jewish cemetary and the old new synagogue- the oldest working synagogue in Europe. Then I went into the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn to see the tomb of Tyco Brahe. At 11:59pm we watched the astronomical clock turn to 12pm- which is a big tourist attraction. As we were watching we noticed that the clock wouldn't stop turning and our guide told us that it broke! The guide then said that the clock only breaks once every hundred years so we witnessed a historical event!
In the evening we took a 2 and a half hour boat ride down the Moldau river. We passed by fireworks and we had the best seat in the house!
I finally uploaded all my pictures from Prague so "Czech them Out!" Prague was a very nice city but there were so many tourists there. We also walked about 15 miles a day around the city during our tours so we were extremely tired and grateful to rest on the long bus ride to our next city- Krakow, Poland!
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