Divoká Šárka

Let me put my feelings into a couple of simple words. Oh shit! Oh my sweet motherf***ing... What the hell is going on??? As I leave this hanging and remain completely unable to function like a normal person, I will tell you about what I did today.

I went with a friend to a piece of nature called Divoká Šárka. I saw it earlier while passing it by in a bus, and it just caught my attention. It's a place with hills, green fields and beautiful, steep cliffs. We walked, hiked, climbed and slid through all of them having a great time, and exercise, outside!

On the hill. The height differences were just huge, you can see people on the path below, and they seem so tiny!

Cliff.

Later!

It was a weekend

Last weekend I did a lot of stuff. Met new people, went out, enjoyed the spring... Me likeeh! :)

Friday. We went to a jazz bar called Jazz Dock, which is standing on the river Vltava. The place was a bit fancy with entrance fee of 250 CZK for the concert, but if you are less than 25 years old, you get in for 150. Good deal for me. At first I was doubting whether to go there or not, but I'm so glad I did!

The bar.

With my flatmate Vinny.

Erica, Jalal and Ben.

We went to listen to a jazz quintet that combined folk and jazz. As my friend told us, according to the internet they are 'Moravia's best jazz quintet'. They had a cool, dark sound and interesting touch of folk to it when the woman was playing cimbal.

The band.

The pianist was crazy. Not just did he play very intensely, but he was smoking at the same time and shouting to the band and to the audience.

Our unanimous favorite was the bass player. He was a very good and a versatile player with great solos, but he was just so cool with his bald head and big belly and face without expressions looking like: "yeah, this is what I do..." :)

Saturday. Yoga. Then we had a meet-up with expats again. This time there were quite many of us, like 9 or something. It was awesome to get to know them! And it was great to spend the beautiful day outside!

Expats from many countries. Canada, Belgium, Ireland, Brazil, Romania, America...

We walked through the castle again, and realized that Prince Charles was there. We would have wanted to see him, but didn't... There were only police, secret service and a load of black cars.We continued to a park called Letná.

View to the city. Dog.

It was that park where they built a massive 17,000 ton statue of Stalin back in the communist days. However, it was destroyed in front of cheering crowds, and this day in that spot there stands a giant metronome. No one really knows the meaning of the metronome. Someone said that it shows the height of the once-existed statue, and someone said that it reflects that the Czech people is in the move all the time. It's just one of the most random things you can encounter in a city.

Shoes on a wire.

The bottom of the metronome and people chilling out.

People enjoying the spring sun and the view.

Bottom of the metronome.

In the evening I went to an all-American house party with the legendary beer keg. I had so much fun there! Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of pictures there, I was concentrating on playing beer pong. Well, what else to write a bout it... ;) It was basically chatting, beer pong, cheering, flip cup, laughing, late night/early morning party at a club... I had a good time :)

Sunday - not doing anything. Except for getting my flatmate, who sprained his ankle in soccer, home from the hospital. We also had dinner which I cooked. Pasta bolognese :)

Nigel, Zuzana and the poor cripple.

Monday. Back to work. Another week to go to the next weekend ;)

Lunch with my colleagues, Irene and Misa.

Today is a beautiful day!

Today was a great day! Nothing extraordinarily great happened - except the fact that spring filled the streets with a lovely warm breeze and the sun made people smile - but today I felt happy.

I am finally getting adjusted to my new environment. Everything is not strange and unfamiliar anymore. I'm feeling more confident all the time. I live here! Hehhee :D

I don't know how to put this all into words. In practice nothing much has changed, only how I see things and how I feel about myself in new situations. I feel good now.

I feel happy! :)

Today at work I was listening to dance music with my headphones and I just couldn't sit still in my chair! :) Tomorrow is Friday... awesome.

Nighty night and hope tomorrow will be at least as great! :)

Bikram yoga... HOT!

My lovely flatmate Zuzana took me to bikram yoga yesterday. It's yoga, created by Indian yoga guru Bikram Choudhury. The 90 minute class with 26 postures increases your strength, flexibility and balance, and also energizes you, revitalizes your mind and relieves stress. But what makes it "special" is that it is practiced in a room heated to 42 degrees Celsius. That is a very hot summer day or a mild sauna.

And once you start doing the exercises there, it gets HOT. You can imagine, people were sweating there. Like, really, sweating. And it was funny to see people doing yoga in their bathing suites. And it was weird to see some men doing yoga in speedos...

But, to be honest with you, I liked it. It felt like you were really doing something, you could feel your muscles being worked out and stretched, your mind and determination being tested. You could feel your body opening up after sitting down and staring at a stupid computer screen the whole day. And so what if your sweating, so is everyone else.

I'm gonna go there again, because the way you feel after the class, it is just great.

Other than the good feeling, I also want to work out and be more "even". It's like some parts of my body are very strong, and some are just ridiculously weak. One leg is more flexible this way, the other one another way... And my left leg doesn't bend this one way almost at all. And I hadn't even noticed it before! - Ummm, just so you know, I don't know it either why I'm writing this last paragraph. I'm just sooo bored... At work. BUSTED!

Well, have a great day! :)

Sightseeing and clubbing

Hey everyone! Last weekend I met up with some expats living in Prague and we went sightseeing together. We went to Petřín hill, just across the river Vltava from the old town and city center. Well, on the map it's "just across the river", but in reality it took a bit to walk up there.

It's still a bit cold. The spring is probably just around the corner, but I can't wait! There is actually a general frustration about the weather among the people living here. Everyone would like the season to change, but we're still getting a little snow like every other day.

The view from Petřín to the city.

Foreigners working in Prague: Ingrid, David and Eva.

We walked quite a bit and we also went to the Prague Castle. It's a place where the Kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperors and presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have had their offices. The castle is one of the biggest in the world and honestly it looks like a bunch of buildings together. As Wikipedia says, the castle buildings represent virtually every architectural style of the last millennium.

Inside the castle area there is St. Vitus Cathedral, the biggest and most important cathedral in The Czech Republic. It is also a place where the Bohemian Crown Jewels, said to be some of the most valuable, are kept. I heard, that they are behind a door with seven locks. Those seven locks are locked with seven keys, and the keys are given to seven people - the President of the state, and the highest political and the Church authorities. In order to open the door, all those seven people with the seven keys have to come to open the seven locks.

St. Vitus Cathedral.

Window.

Outside.

In the evening I went to a quite different setting. I met up with my friends and we went to a club called Cross Club. The place was very interesting. The whole interior (and also the yard actually) was made out of scrap metal and all kinds of junk. For example the sofas were old bus seats and the lamps were made out of all kinds of pipes, old motors even of old sewing machines.

Lamp.

Another "lamp".

They had a snack bar where you could get hot dogs, burgers and french fries, in the club. I mean, how cool is that?? You're always hungry after dancing the night away, and having a snack bar in the club is just amazing. But not for your diet necessarily... But anyway, I had a cheeseburger, which was good (well, everything tastes good at that hour). But now when I think back at the "steak" in the burger, I'm like completely grossed out, because I have absolutely no idea what it was made of. I probably don't even want to know... but still I'm thinking about it... Yah!

Bye Nea, Hello Greete

We had a house party at our flat called "Bye Nea, Hello Greete party", because Nea moved out and I moved in. It was a lot of fun and a lot of people. At some point there might have been even up to 50 people there. The flat all together is pretty huge, but for some reason all the people were packed to the balcony, kitchen and the entrance hall, and then there were couple of people in the living room. But I guess it's always like that in parties, there's something about the kitchen! :)

Smiles.

More smiles.

English teachers practicing for Korea.

Chatting.

Posing.

Posing!

Late night discussions in the kitchen...

As I said, it was great fun to meet new people and have this good old house party that went on til the morning. :)

My room

Wanna see my room? I just cleaned it and made it cozy, so it's a good time to show it. :)

Here it is. Bed, closet, and a ladder as a decoration. My desk is "behind" this pic.

I went to Ikea and got the basic stuff: the cheapest lamp and a bamboo. And the vase for the bamboo is a whiskey bottle I found on top of the kitchen cupboard. I hope my bamboo doesn't get drunk and start harassing me when I sleep...

The closet door.

The apartment has wooden floors and very high ceilings. Loving it!

Settling in

...to Prague!

I have a room in the center, a nice job, I'm surrounded by great people, but I have to admit that I'm having some growing pains.

What I'm doing now is something I've never done before. Even though I have my co-workers, flatmates and friends, I'm alone in the sense that no one is going to take my hand and walk me through.. anything. I'm not an exchange student following the crowd to classes and parties, I'm an actual "grown up" person who came to a foreign country, alone, to live and to work.

I'm definitely not unhappy, just the opposite, but at times I've felt a bit uncomfortable. But I'm very motivated to get through this. Because right now I'm going through a learning process on many levels. How to get by in everyday life, how to behave in this new culture, how to communicate, how do the people here see things, what do the people here think about me, who am I, really?

When you're in your normal surroundings, with the people you know, doing the things you usually do, you feel comfortable (and that is a good thing, of course), but you have stopped learning. When you do something new, and it doesn't quite work out at the beginning, and you're feeling uncomfortable because of it, it means that you're learning. But if you keep trying, bad feelings will turn into good ones, and you will become better in it.

That is why I'm motivated. I believe that I will become stronger, more socially skilled and perhaps even mature after this.

Just to lighten the end of this post I wanna tell you that I'm absolutely enchanted by the bright moon above the old town. When I'm walking down the narrow streets of the old town at night, I almost feel like I'm in a different time. All I need is a dress, a wig and powder! :)